I've just buy a new printer/scanner, and as the documentation found on the web on how to setup the printer falsely instruct me to download some third-party driver, I will explain here how to set it up:

• for the printing part, plug the printer, ask cups to look for new printer, and add it to cups. It just work.

• for the scanner, it doesn't work as easily. After having installed xsane, go to /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp.conf, and add:

   # Samsung SCX-3400
   usb 0x04e8 0x344f
    

  somewhere in the file.

  then copy /lib/udev/rules.d/60-libsane.rules to /etc/udev/rules.d/60-libsane.rules, and add:

   # Samsung SCX-3400
   ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTRS{idProduct}=="344f", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"
    

  You don't need to download samsung unified Linux driver for it to work.

By the way, Dear lazy web, I was wondering. In gimp, when I ask it to create a new image using Xsane, the menu give me the choice between the "Device Dialog" or my webcam. Is there any way to have my scanner there?

Someone recently give me a link to a web picasa photo album. I wanted to download all the photo in good resolution, but the only official way to download it is by using the picasa proprietary software.

Not only I'm not thrilled to install yet another unfree software, but Google refuse me to download it because "Picasa is not currently available for your operating system". Another solution exist, but need some research:

• You need a Grease monkey userscript that add links in the overview to download the image
• Then the DownThemAll extension will download all those link...

Some time, its great to be able to beat limitation of unfree software thanks to free software.

I've a weird bug on Debian unstable.

Some time, in some apps, text is unreadable. Look at this for example:

This will go away by itself, some time right away, some time after a forced redraw. What is weird is that all apps are not concerned: affected application are:

• gnome-terminal
• iceweasel
• the awesome wm

immune application are:

• Emacs (thanks to the church of Emacs)
• Calibre and its ebook-reader
• xterm? (I didn't test it for so long as other apps, but it seem to not be affected)
• gedit (I once believe that the problem was somewhat gnome related, but if gedit is unaffected, this is not anymore gnome related, that said I didn't test it a lot too)

I don't even know where to report my bug...

As said in a recent comment, I use logwatch to look at the logs on my server. Every night logwatch send me a mail with a report of what has happen.

One thing lacking was logs analysis for ikiwiki: ikiwiki don't produce log per-se. Access are logged and reported because they are done by the http server, but modification are only seen in the git repository, and comment waiting moderation are only in the ikiwiki directory.

So I needed a way for logwatch to report specific ikiwiki activity.

• First we need to have a file logging activity in the ikiwiki's git repository. So in cron.daily, before logwatch is run, I put:

  git --git-dir $IKIWIKI_MAIN_DIR/.git log --after="6 month ago" --format="%cd (%h) %an: %s" --date=iso > /var/log/ikiwiki.log
  

  of course a better way to do it would be to create a git hook that generate the logs when modification are done, and not once everyday just before the logs are generated.

• Then we need to tell logwatch to look at this file, so in /etc/logwatch/conf/logfiles/ikiwiki.conf I put

  ########################################################
  # Define log file group for ikiwiki
  ########################################################
  
  
  # What actual file? Defaults to LogPath if not absolute path....
  
  
  LogFile = ikiwiki.log
  
  
  *ApplyEuroDate
  

  The ApplyEuroDate make ikiwiki read the date in iso format, so it will only report commit done today. I've found no way to tell logwatch to look at the output of a program instead of looking at a file.

• We then must tell logwatch that it must generate the report for a new service, so in /etc/logwatch/conf/services/ikiwiki.conf

  ########################################################
  # Configuration file for ikiwiki filter
  ########################################################
  
  
  Title = "Ikiwiki"
  
  
  # Which logfile group...
  
  
  LogFile = ikiwiki
  

• Finally, we have to taught to generate the report, in /etc/logwatch/scripts/services/ikiwiki

  #!/bin/bash
  
  
  # First look at pending comment
  
  
  find $IKIWIKI_MAIN_DIR/ -name "*_pending" -exec echo "Pending comment:" \; -quit
  ( 
      cd $IKIWIKI_MAIN_DIR/
      find . -name "*_pending" -exec echo "    {}" \;
  )
  
  
  # we then look at new commit
  
  
  fst=true
  while read d t tz j; do
      if [ $fst == true ]; then
          echo "New commit:"
          fst=false
      fi
      echo -n "  "
      echo $j
  done
  

Every day I receive email from my server resuming what have been logged for the day. From time to time (but really rarely) there is no attempt at break in on my web server. The eternal question is :

• Is it that this day, no vile cracker, no young script kiddie, no spammer have found my blog server
• Is it that one of them succeed, and afterward clean any trace of breaking attempt.

J'utilise les logiciels depuis longtemps (1996...) et je fait du logiciel libre depuis un peu moins longtemps. Mais il m'arrive encore d'utiliser des logiciels privateur, surtout dans des appareils électroniques pour les quelles il est parfois difficile d'avoir le choix.

Mon dernier achat de ce genre est une lectrice (un ebook si on veut faire plus hype) et si je ne suis pas déçut par la partie matériel (l'encre électronique, c'est bien) je suis très déçu par la qualité du logiciel: l'interface est tout sauf pratique.

• L'écran d'accueil contient une liste des livres en cours de lecture (c'est bien) qui a plein de défaut:
  • on ne peut pas enlever un livre de cette liste (je le finirai pas celui là...)
  • elle est ridiculement petite (5 livres ça à l'aire bien, sauf qu'on ne peut pas enlever les livres de cette liste... donc si tu lis 5 petites nouvelles, tu ne retrouve plus le romans que tu lisais)
  • certain livres ne veulent pas resté dans cette liste,
• la navigation dans la bibliothèque est basé uniquement sur la façon dont les livres sont stockés dans la mémoire. Il manque une fonction de recherche, ou la possibilité de naviguer parmi les auteurs, ou parmi les éditeurs...
• cette bibliothèque insiste pour afficher une miniature de la couverture, qui n'aide pas toujours. Cette appareils est conçu pour afficher du texte, pourquoi ne pas le faire ?

Même si cette appareil se base sur un noyau Linux, rien n'est prévu pour pouvoir modifier cette interface. Rien. Je suis obligé d'attendre que quelqu'un chez cybook soit d'accord avec moi, et décide de faire le nécessaire.

Pendant ce temps, j'ai voulue que calibre soit capable de téléchargé la version abonné de Libération. C'est fait, car je l'ai fait, et les développeurs de calibre on inclut ma recipe (recette) dans leur logiciel

Thanks to Bruce Schneier security blog, I come across an interesting article about liability and software. The problem is well known

• if you impose liability on any software producer, then it's a dead sentence for free software
• but the current situation enable software dealer to sell faulty software with I can't audit, with liability for them if their software fail on a large scale.

Of course for better security, the solution could be to not use proprietary software, still a law as proposed on ACM could be useful to protect madam Michu.

Debugging reportbug.

I've been hit by #610348 for some time now. I didn't comment on the bug report because I failed to find useful information to add there.

I've tried several things:

• using strace, one can find that reportbug freeze waiting for a returning futex.
• using ltrace, the freeze happen while calling sem_wait. It also happen sooner: the gui is not opened yet.
• using gdb I can sees that the sem_wait call have been made from PyThread_acquire_lock, but this seem only logical.

All this together give me no useful information. Further testing show that:

• the freeze don't always happen at the same time, and using python2.5 seem to make it happen latter.
• Trying to run it in another environment (say gnome) or with another user do not solve this for me.
• The problem don't exist in a brand new chroot, prooving it's a configuration problem. But which one?
• using meld I've tried to find significant difference between the two /etc, but found nothing that explain the problem.

I have no idea on what to do next to find where is the problem...

Pour les journée portes ouvertes du lycée, j'ai trouvé un site qui permet d'encryper et de décrypter les messages. Il semble avoir un bug pour le décryptage: il utiliserai la même fonction que pour décrypter que pour crypter... Il faut dont mettre le code à l'envers pour décrypter.

N'empêche que c'est une chouette applet java.