I installed GNU/linux on a laptop, for the first time since 2012. And the install was mostly trouble free. I spent a little time on getting the PXE boot working and getting the wireless NIC working, but other than that everything I’ve tried has been working smoothly (display, sound, keyboard, touchpad and suspend/resume).
Continue reading Installing debian 11 “bullseye” using PXE boot on an Acer Aspire 5 A515-45 laptop
This blog post describes how I discovered a linux feature called “OOM Killer” that can have strange effects if it interrupts a program at a place where it really shouldn’t be interrupted.
Continue reading How I learned about linux’ “OOM Killer”
I use aptly to deliver my unofficial debian packages both to myself and others that might be interested.
However I’ve found that using aptly to do package development is a bad idea, because you can’t (by design, probably) overwrite packages in an aptly archive. You can only create new versions.
For some installation tests it’s OK to use “dpkg –install”. But if your package needs to pull in depdencies, or if you wish to test a package upgrade, you need to use APT.
This article explains how to create a fake debian repository for use in package development. Continue reading Faking a debian repository for package development
Until the RFP (Request For Packaging) bug for karaf in the debian bug tracker is resolved, here is an APT archive with a karaf package for debian (architecture “all”). The package is created using native debian packaging tools, and built from a source tarball and the APT archive itself is created, using aptly.
Continue reading Installing apache karaf on debian
Note! This is an improvement over the packaging in Installing apache karaf on debian stretch, this package is packaged using native debian packaging tools instead of fpm, and is built from the karaf source tarball instead of the karaf binary tarball.
Apache karaf is an OSGi container and application server that is provisioned from maven, and has an ssh server. Basically it is possible to start an empty karaf, ssh in and give some commands to install an application using maven.
There still isn’t a native .deb package on maven (see the RFP (Request For Packaging) bug for karaf in the debian bug tracker), but this package can be installed from my own maven repository.
The packacing projecct can be found on github: https://github.com/steinarb/karaf-debian
Continue reading Packaging karaf with native debian packaging tools
This article describes how to set up a debian archive with aptly on a debian 9 “stretch” computer, served by an nginx web server.
Continue reading Setting up a debian package archive with aptly
Edit: It is now possible to install karaf on debian without building it yourself, the package installed is not the one described here, but the new and improved package built from source with native debian packaging tools, that can be found here https://github.com/steinarb/karaf-debian
Continue reading Installing apache karaf on debian stretch
If you have a setup with a single server with multiple services (web, IMAP etc.), and one CNAME per service (www.somedomain.com, imap.somedomain.com), and you would like to get the services signed in a manner that doesn’t give warnings or errors in browsers (especially browsers in phones and tablets with iOS and Android), then this article may be of interest.
Self-signed certificates is a nuisance and the cacert.org initiative has been losing support. Let’s encrypt offers the possibility of having free (as in both cost and feedom) SSL certificates that don’t give warnings in web browsers. The only problem the threshold of taking the time to figure out how to use it.
Continue reading Sign nginx website and dovecot imap server on debian with let’s encrypt
One thing I have been missing since Gnome 2 was suceeded by the (IMO) horrible Gnome 3, is a tool tray notification icon for pending debian updates.
When someone continued Gnome 2 as MATE and MATE became available on debian, there was no notification tooltray icon to be found.
But now there is such a tooltray icon: pk-update-icon and since debian with MATE again is my primary desktop this I was something I was happy to discover.
Continue reading Get update notifications in the MATE desktop on debian jessie
Except for work computers with GNU/linux, the last of which was retired in 2008, my GNU/linux computers have been outdated hand-me-downs. And when the P4 I got back in 2010 went belly up, I figured it was time for trying a modern machine.
Note: I wasn’t going for a top-of-the-line gaming computer with high performance everything. Just a modern state of the art computer.
I wasn’t satisfied with the combination of price and specs on the desktop computers sold by the consumer electronic retailers, so I asked an old colleague who likes building his own computers (thanks Alexey!) to help me come up with an order for components that would work when I put it together. This is what I ordered:
Steinar Bangs blogg 