Tribulaciones.org » debian

Upgrading my laptop to ext4

jsogo — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:08:56 +0000

Warning: Don’t upgrade root partition (/) or the partition in which /boot is placed unless you know what you are doing. More on this later.
Warning2: Make backups of your data.

Last Friday I went on upgrading to ext4 my laptop. I decided to go first with /home partition, as / has also /boot and can give some problems if not handled with care. Upgrading it is quite easy, and fast, as the old data is not upgraded, only new files will be added using new features.

First, I installed latest linux-image package to start using kernel version 2.6.28, which includes production ready ext4 support. After rebooting, I logged in as root so I could umount /home. The steps to upgrade are as follows:
# uname -a Linux gimli 2.6.28-1-686 #1 SMP Mon Feb 23 03:13:24 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux # umount /home # tune2fs -O extents,uninit_bg,dir_index /dev/home_partition # fsck -pfD /dev/home_partition # mount /home
You MUST run fsck. If not, ext4 won’t mount your filesystem, so don’t forgive this step if you’re upgrading your / partition. You will see some checksums errors appear. Don’t be afraid, that’s expected, and that’s why -p is added to fsck command, you it is not asking which action to perform in every error.

Upgrading partition containing /boot
For upgrading your / partition you have to take into account what grub and klibc version you have installed. The former is need so grub can read your kernel image from filesystem, and the second is needed due a bug that made initramfs detect ext4 filesystems as ext3, and passing incorrect option to mount, which failed. Versions in Debian known to work are libklibc >=1.5.15-1 and grub2 (packaged as grub-pc). Make sure you have these versions installed before trying to go to ext4.
Also, as you have to upgrade having your partition unmounted, you will have to get a console before root partition is mounted. You can do that by passing ~~mount=break~~ break=mount to your boot options in grub.

ENJOY!

Debian on Android phone

jsogo — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:11:47 +0000

A Debian installer and boot loader for Android based phones has been released. It uses Debian ARM packages from standard repositories, so it makes available t you the full plethora of Debian packages. Also, as a bonus, you can still your phone as it was, an Android based device, with all its functionality.

Update: This entry was pending of an update since I read Joey Hess’ entry investigating into the supposed installer.
It seems that the .zip file is a complete disaster: it is a Debian chroot and 100MB of it are cached .deb files in /var and the init process is no more no less than a script that echoes some lines making you think that something is being booted and a last command (the only that actually makes something) is a mere chroot $mnt /bin/bash.
What does this mean? That you can run Debian in your Android phone by simply creating a chroot from your nearest Debian repository, and that’s all. No need of any supposed installer, just run debootstrap on the phone.

Postfix+TLS+SASL in Debian HowTo recovered

jsogo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:39:25 +0000

Once of the most visited pages in my site was the Postfix+SASL+TLS for Debian Sid and Sarge Howto, who I wrote 3 years ago. As I hosted it in my old home server, when it broke it went offline, and though there are still some copies around the net, there are a lot of referals still directing traffic to tribulaciones.org.

Now I have recovered it and it is now available again. I will write an .htaccess file to redirect people to the new place and, with some more time, I will review it to see if there are some changes needed for Lenny.

Enjoy!

UPDATED 14/01/2009: I have added promised .htaccess file, so every link to old URL (http://www.tribulaciones.org/docs/postfix-sasl-tls-howto.html) will work again.

Blackerry in Debian

jsogo — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 08:45:19 +0000

I have uploaded barry package to Debian some hours ago. It is still waiting for NEW processing, so if you want it you will have to download sources from Debian git repo, and compile the package yourself. It has just been accepted into the archive.

Barry is a GPL program that will allow you to charge your Blackberry through the USB port, to make backup copies of your device databases, manage contacts and use your BB as a modem.

So if you have a BlackBerry device, you can also enjoy it in Debian.

Update 26/10/2008: Barry has just been accepted into the archive, so you can get it in every Sid repository mirror. Thanks!

Compiz

jsogo — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:26:43 +0000

Today my 5 years old laptop gave me some filesystem problem after running apt-get update, which resulted in some corrupted packages, among them libc6, with the result of my system becoming non-functional. So I needed a recovery CD to be able to mount read-only root partition.

I had around an Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron LTS, so I used it to run its included LiveCD and recover from there. At the same time I was curious about it, as I hadn’t had chance to test it before. One of the things that surprised me most was that Compiz was enabled by default. After a second thinking that this was going to be a problem, making the system unusable (remember, a 5 years old laptop, and I had checked myself compiz some time ago with a catastrophic result), I started to meve windoes, jump from one virtual desktop to other, and minimiza and maximize windows without a problem. The work that had been made amazed me!

So, some fsck and apt-get commands after, I managed to reboot on my Debian system, and I installed compiz. The result: my system goes faster using compiz, with a bunch of effects enabled than running plain metacity window manager. I have a also installed some compiz fusion plugins, and they are running without a glitch and with an incredible speed. Obviously, I have not chosen full quality, but it is enough to show effects in an efficient way.

I have improved my user experience and system speed at the same time… Once again Linux shows that it can get the best of old hardware. Good work, guys!