Because I manually installed Gnome, sudo, and disabled the root password after installing Debian, I was unable to use Gnome's administration applications. When I ran anything under the Administration menu, I would get a prompt: "Enter the administrative password".

The solution was to change the gconf key /apps/gksu/sudo-mode to true. I changed this in my own gconf DB, not the system DB, but either place should work.

According to Debian bug 57070, sudo-mode will be set automatically if Gnome is installed when the Debian installer is run.

Update

The user-setup-apply script in the user-setup package is responsible for setting up gksu. (See bug 481689.) Here are equivalent commands that can be run after the system is already installed.

sudo update-alternatives --set libgksu-gconf-defaults /usr/share/libgksu/debian/gconf-defaults.libgksu-sudo
sudo update-gconf-defaults

I have been able to get console redirection and virtual media working with Epiphany 2.29.6 and Iceweasel (Firefox) 3.5.6 after upgrading the DRAC 5 to the 1.51 firmware. I installed default-jre and icedtea6-plugin to get a Java JRE and used the Java plug-in to test. (default-jre installed the OpenJDK JRE.) I haven't tested the Firefox plug-in. I can now get rid of the copy of Firefox 2.0 that I kept around for working with the DRAC 5s.

Console redirection via a Java plug-in was added in 1.40, and Firefox 3.0 support was added in 1.45.

The DRAC 5's SSH host key changed after installing the 1.51 firmware.

Version 0.11.0 of qemu-kvm is now available in Debian unstable.

I upgraded the bios in my Thinkpad X60s from 2.17 to 2.18. It was complicated because the IBM BIOS upgrade disc only has drivers for the drive in the docking station, which I do not have.

When I tried booting the upgrade CD in a Lite-On DVD drive, the upgrade failed with the following error.

Device driver not found: 'TPCD001'.
No valid CDROM device drivers selected
Bad command or file name
Invalid drive specification

I found instructions for upgrading the BIOS on ThinkWiki. I used "Approach 1."

Because I suspended to disk, I didn't even need to restart my Linux session to perform the BIOS upgrade.

After I upgraded a Xen server, a Windows Server 2003 guest lost it's network connection. Apparently, the virtual NIC hardware had changed, so a new, unconfigured network device was installed.

(The virtual hardware had changed enough that Windows required reactivation. However, I couldn't do the online activation, because the new network adapter wasn't configured. I was locked out of the system. I had to call Microsoft's activation hotline and read nine six-digit numbers to a computer on the other end to activate Windows again.)

When I tried to configure the new NIC with the system's static IP, I got a warning since the old NIC was still using it. However, the old NIC wasn't in the Network Connections list or the Device Manager's Network adapters list.

I was finally able to delete the old NIC using the fix in KB269155.

How to download, verify, and install the backports.org GPG key.

These instructions are adapted from the DebianEdu backports.org instructions.

1. Download backports GPG key

The key ID is on the backports website. We will save it to a temporary keyring.

$ gpg --no-default-keyring \
      --keyring /tmp/backports.gpg \
      --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net \
      --recv-keys 16BA136C
gpg: keyring `/tmp/backports.gpg' created
gpg: requesting key 16BA136C from hkp server subkeys.pgp.net
gpg: key 16BA136C: public key "Backports.org Archive Key <ftp-master@backports.org>" imported
gpg: public key of ultimately trusted key EF6CC3C1 not found
gpg: public key of ultimately trusted key 78733EF8 not found
gpg: 3 marginal(s) needed, 1 complete(s) needed, PGP trust model
gpg: depth: 0  valid:   2  signed:   0  trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 2u
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1

2. Check the backports key's signatures

Check the signatures using the Debian developers keyring (part of the debian-keyring package).

$ gpg --no-default-keyring \
      --keyring /tmp/backports.gpg \
      --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/debian-keyring.gpg \
      --check-sigs 16BA136C
pub   1024D/16BA136C 2005-08-21
uid                  Backports.org Archive Key <ftp-master@backports.org>
sig!         7E7B8AC9 2005-11-20  Joerg Jaspert <joerg@debian.org>
sig!3        16BA136C 2005-08-21  Backports.org Archive Key <ftp-master@backports.org>
sig!3        16BA136C 2005-08-21  Backports.org Archive Key <ftp-master@backports.org>
sub   2048g/5B82CECE 2005-08-21
sig!         16BA136C 2005-08-21  Backports.org Archive Key <ftp-master@backports.org>

3 signatures not checked due to missing keys

You can see three self-signatures, and one valid signature by a Debian developer.

3. Add the backports key to apt's keyring

$ gpg --no-default-keyring \
      --keyring /tmp/backports.gpg \
      --export 16BA136C | 
      sudo apt-key add -
OK

lenny-backports is now active. wesnoth is the first package to be uploaded.

I have updated Debian Live SC to Debian 5.0 (lenny) from Debian 4.0 (etch).

I am now using live-helper's autoconfig with Debian Live SC.

commit 347c832f1bd3c1d54315ab597e7a8e8b6cfc9fd7
Author: Svend Sorensen
Date:   Wed Feb 18 12:25:17 2009 -0800

    Use autoconfig to build config files

 config/binary    |  154 ------------------------------------------------------
 config/bootstrap |   53 -------------------
 config/chroot    |   61 ---------------------
 config/common    |  123 -------------------------------------------
 config/source    |    9 ---
 scripts/config   |    7 +++
 6 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 400 deletions(-)

7 insertions(+), 400 deletions(-). Nice.

There is a good example of a live-helper config using autoconfig here.

Washington House Bill 1491 would change the law regarding passing pedestrians and bicycles. Currently, drivers are required to "pass to the left at a safe distance." The new bill would specify a minimum distance of three feet when passing. The bill also makes an exception for driving to the left of the center of the roadway when passing a pedestrian or bicycle.