Uwe Hermann | A slightly paranoid Debian developer

This is more or less a reminder for me, most of you will probably already know how to do it...

1. Install QEMU:
   apt-get install qemu
2. Create a (resizable) image which will hold Windows XP. The installer chokes if the image is smaller than 1.2 GB or so, but that's not too much of a problem; the "qcow" image format will only take up as much space as is really needed, so the image will be very small in the beginning (not 1.2 GB big!).
   qemu-img create -f qcow /path/to/xp.cow 1300M
3. Insert the install CD, and install Windows in the QEMU image:
   qemu -hda /path/to/xp.cow -boot d -cdrom /dev/cdrom -m 384 -localtime

4. Wait.
5. After the install has finished, shut down the QEMU/Windows; from now on you can boot it (without having to insert the CD anymore) with:
   qemu -hda /path/to/xp.cow -boot c -m 384 -localtime -k de -usb

Type "qemu -h" for more options.

No. Time. To. Blog. But these few lines I wanted to post nevertheless: there's some neat new packages in Debian since today: Nexuiz (nice ego shooter), rcov (code coverage for Ruby), and Democracy Player (RSS video downloader/viewer for videoblogs, packaged by yours truly, as promised).

That's all.

• I have started looking into SELinux on Debian recently. SELinux provides mandatory access control for Linux, which gives you great control over which process may do what with which files, other processes, network connections etc. I've still got a lot to learn and read (more posts will probably follow), but if you're inclined to try it yourself here are a few tips:
  • First, read the SELinux and especially the SELinuxSetup pages in the Debian wiki. Also checkout the SELinuxStatus page.
  • There are currently a few bugs I noticed, which cause some trouble: bug #369852 prevents a correct install of the selinux-policy-default package, but the work-around mentioned in the bug report works fine. I reported bug #372543 yesterday, but there's an easy work-around for that, too.
  • I had to change "SELINUX=enforcing" to "SELINUX=permissive" in /etc/selinux/config (at least for now), otherwise my system won't boot up anymore because of SELinux denied permissions (I think). I'm pretty sure this is either a bug or me doing something wrong, but I haven't figured out yet what that is.
• Robert Nunnally (a.k.a Gurdonark) has created a photo collage video (YouTube, requires Flash) for Marco Raaphorst's "Blowing Snow" song. He used some of the Creative Commons licensed photos from my photoblog for the video.
• Wow! Today the number of people subscribed to my music podcast (via RSS) exceeded 200 for the first time! Thanks everyone for listening!
• GNU/Hurd 1.0.0 has been released. Finally! And they've built it on top of an interesting "middleware"...

Note: This article is part of my OS Install Experiences series.

Next OS — the recently released Debian-derived distribution Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake).

Install

1. First, I downloaded a Ubuntu 6.06 CD image, burned it on a CD, and booted from that.
2. The first installer screen allows you to choose between a normal install, "safe graphics mode", "check CD for defects", "memory test", and "boot from first hard disk". If you hit enter and wait a few minutes, you're dropped right into a fully working GNOME session (think Live-CD). No user-iteraction is required at all...
3. If you like you can use the system for normal tasks already (web browsing, whatever). If you want to install Ubuntu, you click the "Install" icon on the desktop...
4. After choosing the language, timezone (by clicking on your country on a nice graphical world map!), and keyboard layout, the installation begins.
5. You must enter your user password (no root password, in Ubuntu you have to use sudo for everything which requires root permissions), user account name, and (ugh!) you must enter a full name (same annoying behaviour as with PC-BSD).
6. The partitioning tool is graphical and quite easy to use. It takes ages to scan the disk(s) and partitions though (yes, I have quite a lot of them, but still)...
7. That's mostly it, the installation of the packages starts now, and after it's finished, a window pops up asking you whether you want to reboot or continue using the Live CD for a little longer.
8. What's noticeable is that I was not asked where or how I want to install a bootloader, Ubuntu simply scans the disks, tries to detect the OSes and writes itself into the MBR. Which sucks quite a bit, especially for more complicated setups like I'm using here. For example, it didn't detect the PC-BSD installation, so I can no longer boot that for now (need to fix GRUB manually).
9. That's it, after a reboot you're dropped into GNOME and the installation is done. Pretty impressive how easy such Linux installations have gotten recently...

Security

Continue reading here...

A recent debian-curiosa thread made my day:

# Subject: looking for someone?
# From: "Mitch"
Hi there locvely,
aThis kind aof opportucnity comes ones in a life. I don't want
to miss it. Do you? I am coming to your place in few days
and I thoughc may be we can meet each other. If cyou don't mind
I can send you my pcicturea. I am a girl.
You can bcorrespond with me using my email cpael@popmailme.com

# From: 'Mash
Sorry I prefer a women who isn't so keen on placing random letters
in her words. Apparently they are rubbish in bed.
I mean what the hell is a "pcicturea," something from the
Anne-summers Jurassic collection?

'Mash

# From: Shawn McMahon
I prefer women who aren't named "Mitch".