Blogospheric Refraction

Well… it has been a while… No, I haven’t gone AWOL, just been busy with other things for the past few months.

I’m now in the process of updating my MIPS boxes so that I can resume testing packages. I now have a stable kernel on my O2 (I nicked Debian’s kernel image… to install you just run ar x on the .deb, then unpack the data.tar.gz created into your /) and can seriously look at the userland.

First priority will be developer-related tools that I know well and can test quickly… Subversion is one that I’ll probably tackle, since the version we currently have keyworded is masked. Ditto for git. I’m sure I’ll find other things to get started on, but those two will make doing everyhing else easier.

I’ve also started on some new profiles. People can have a look at http://git.longlandclan.yi.org/?p=gentoo-mips-profiles.git or clone the repository at git://git.longlandclan.yi.org/gentoo-mips-profiles.git to give them a try. When I’ve given them a good thrashing and am satisfied, I’ll look at merging them into the tree, but for now, this is my staging area.

Hopefully with a stable base system upcoming, and new profiles, then I’ll look at new stages, and get this show back on the road.

Well, I really didn’t think I’d be writing a post like this.

This is following on from, and indirectly in reply to, an operator who decided to call in on the Australia-Wide Night-Owl and Insomnia net which is held every Friday night at 3595kHz.

Now, this net is pretty laid back… all are welcome. There are however, some things that just are not done on radio. Just as much as they are not done here on the internet. One of them, is to air dirty laundry on air.

Without going into detail… we had an operator call in from Victoria (a VK3V.. call, standard licensee) who then proceeded to make allegations about the off-air activities of another operator (VK2.., advanced licensee), in particular, the allegations involved claims of abusive phone calls and threats. The VK2 station responded pointing out some other misdemeanors allegedly purpotrated by the VK3 station, before (thankfully) moving on with the net. Thank heavens both had the decency to leave it there rather than tie up net time arguing.

Now, undoubtedly, the vast majority (me included) are not privy to all the information. They may be completely false, or there may be some truth to them. That isn’t for me to decide and does not concirn me. What I object to, is the usage of the amateur bands, as the platform for this kind of debate. It does not help any of the participants, or bystanders at all… and perhaps what both sides should realise here, is that by airing this material on-air, they are opening themselves up for a potential defamation case.

It is no different to me for instance, making similar allegations on this site… I could be sued for defamation. This is one of the reasons why I did not reveal the callsigns, or even the names of the guilty culprits. In the past, I recorded the net and provided it as a podcast (and had I done this, the recording would have been up for the world to hear)… but sadly the computer that I used for this is not operational at the moment. In any case, those who were listening, know to whom I refer.

I would ask that all people, who make use of radiocommunications services, whether it be amateur, citizen’s band, marine, airband or any other service out there… please bear this in mind. Your personal squabbles have no place on the air, as I for one (and likely countless others) am not interested in hearing them.

Well… I’ve been busy getting the boxes into shape ready for new stagebuilds and a heap of other activities.

I have Firefox 3.5 going on mipsel… albeit a little shakey. I’ve got 99% of KDE 4.3 going also, again, a few glitches. I have turned my attention for the time being to the SGI machines here, since the kernels on all of them are out of date… and the userland is in a bit of a mess. Particularly on the Indy… which hasn’t been touched in a couple of years (e2fsck complained the disk wasn’t checked in over 1000 days).

The Indy (R4600SC) needs a new kernel, as its current one is too unstable to do anything useful. I remember kernel 2.6 being a royal bitch on this machine, hopefully things have improved. The IP28 is up and running… old kernel and userland, but it’s not quite as bad as the Indy… at least it’s stable. The O2 is similarly suffering an old kernel, but at least parts of its userland are in reasonable shape.

The two Fulongs are also getting an overhaul which is badly needed. The Yeeloong too, is undergoing further work to get things running.

Tonight, I managed to figure out battery monitoring within KDE 4.3… the trick was to unmask the apm USE-flag and re-merge hal with this feature enabled. Now the system displays the battery status as it should… if only I could get NetworkManager working properly, then everything would be sweet there.

I have a couple of tracker bugs relating to this work… bug 282264 is a tracking bug for KDE 4.x related tasks, and bug 282265 pertains to the changes needed for in-tree Lemote system support.

I intend to do a bit of work on both as I run between Brisbane and Laidley using the Yeeloong as a test platform, so hopefully we will have something for public release soon. In addition, I’ll be doing stagebuilds for the Gentoo/MIPS port generally, once my systems are back online.

Well… after much building by one of the older Lemote systems, I finally have a Gentoo desktop with KDE 4.3.0 on the Lemote Yeeloong.

I’m still working on the rest of the KDE suite… and will have to track down the necessary bits and pieces for battery monitoring and other goodies… but it seems everything is working. It also is slightly more responsive on Gentoo than Debian (which I still have in a chroot).

This post is being written in Konqueror 4.3.0 on the said installation… it passes the Acid 2 test, but has a few stability glitches here and there… so far both the Acid 3 test, and Google Groups crashes it. I’ll sort this out later.

In short, this does mean I’ll be coaxing my O2 into making the same journey and making the necessary tree modifications in order to allow KDE 4.3 on Gentoo/MIPS.

Well… three bits of news to share… I can’t be stuffed doing three separate posts however, so I’ll stuff all three into the one, it puts less load on the servers involved.

X.org working on Yeeloong

I managed to get X going on the Yeeloong within Gentoo… I’m currently battling problems with Python 2.6 not building, but at least X runs.  I hope to get the necessary patches into my overlay shortly.

• latest xorg-server ebuild works… you just need to add the loongson patch for version 1.6.0.  This is already in my overlay, just needs updating.
• xf86-video-siliconmotion needs a patch to detect the video RAM.  This is due to the driver relying on some magic BIOS trickery which naturally doesn’t work on a BIOS-less RISC machine like the Yeeloong.
• xorg.conf needs the LCD panel resolution specified … that is: Options “PanelSize” “1024×600″ in the options for the siliconmotion driver.

VK4MSL contactable via IRLP

I recently put my homebrew 2m vertical back up … this time, using the mounting brackets from my old 2.4GHz vertical, and mounting the thing up as high on the antenna mast as I can push it. The choke balun on the antenna is level with the TV antenna yagi, so most of the radiated power is well above the TV antenna.

With this, I am now not only kinda able to work previously impossible repeaters such as VK4RBS (Bayside/Alex Hills), but also VK4RSS at Ocean View. What’s so good about VK4RSS? Well, I’m tripping it with 500mW of power (therefore good access when using 5W)… and it happens to be accessible via IRLP as node 6215.

I can also be sporadically reached on EchoLink node 37 37 40.

Graduated at last

I did say there were three items in this bulletin. I finally received my academic transcript, confirming that I have formally completed my studies at QUT, graduating with the following qualifications…

• Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics)
• Bachelor of Information Technology (Software Engineering)

This is timely, right at the bottom of the employment market… but I can’t help that.  Now begins the task of finding work in the Brisbane area.  I’m still running to/from Laidley doing some work out there… which may turn into paid employment (I hope so anyway… costs me almost $8 a day with a student discount in transport… That’ll double to about $15 when that card expires).

If anyone’s looking for someone to assist, particularly in the telecommunications field (I have a soft spot for radio and embedded systems)… feel free to get in touch directly.

Well… I’ve been quiet, but slowly, I’m preparing what will become a port of Gentoo/MIPS to the Lemote Yeeloong.

I have it booting off a USB HDD for now, sans X11, but I’m working on that.  The kernel at present needs some patches not yet present in the Linux/MIPS kernel tree.  To build a kernel, you also need GCC 4.4.0 (which supports -march=loongson2f) and binutils (2.19.51.0.2 or later) with this patch.  I’m looking into what is necessary in order to get these patches into our tree.  Patched ebuilds for both are in my overlay.

Once that is done… next attention will be to Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and Mozilla Thunderbird, both of which have been lagging on MIPS since I took my hiatus.  I’m still running to/from Laidley, but with the travel time… this would seem an excellent moment for package testing once I get Gentoo installed on this machine.

Here’s hoping I can return with some goodies for everyone shortly.

It has been a while, but I can safely say I have returned.  Not sure what the next step is… looking for paid employment I guess, but I have passed all subjects this semester, which should mean that I am now qualified in IT and Electrical Engineering as a graduate.

After the last exam, I could not run out of the building fast enough.  6.5 years of studies has certainly taken its toll on my mental state.  Anyway… I wound up traveling northern and central NSW with my father and his girlfriend for the last fortnight — got back home yesterday.  I am currently putting together some photos, and I’ll have a slide show ready for the next BOSQ meeting.  I’ll put a link up to the photos when they’re done processing (the aging PIII 550MHz webserver here takes a while to resize over 500 photos, most 10Mpixel in size).

Where did we go?  We camped at:

• Dalmorton (abandoned settlement on the old Grafton-Glen Innes road) — overnight
• Glen Innes — overnight
• Bingara — overnight
• Waa Gorge (pronounced “war”, part of Mt. Kaputar National Park… you’re not supposed to camp here, but it was late in the day, and the road in/out passes through private property with many gates) — overnight
• Mt. Kaputar National Park — 3 nights
• Coonabarabran — 2 nights
• Port Macquarie — 3 nights
• Dorrigo — overnight
• Grafton — overnight
• Brooms Head — overnight

In that time:

• We explored a number of walking tracks at Mt. Kaputar, Dorrigo and Brooms Head.
• Did some sight seeing at Port Macquarie and Coonabarabran.
• Checked out the sandstone caves in the Pilliga State Reserve
• Got bogged on a forestry road in state forest just north of Coffs Harbour (thanks go to the Clarence Valley State Emergency Service for pulling us out of that muddy mess)
• HanoiCalc got a bit of work done — it works now.
• I checked into three nets:
  • Ipswich & District 80m Net (3.585MHz LSB) from Waa Gorge
  • AWNOI Net (3.595MHz LSB) from Mt. Kaputar
  • Coffs Harbour & District 2m Net (146.650MHz FM) whilst waiting for the SES to arrive

We learned:

• Setting up the annex and awning on a hard-floor camper trailer for an overnight stay is a pain in the bum.
• My camp stretcher doesn’t fit in the camper itself, and only barely fits in the annex.
• Holden (or Zupps) decided to put a really low tow hitch on the back of my father’s car… meaning we had to either find rocks/blocks of wood/bricks to back the car’s back wheels on to, or dig a hole just near the jockey wheel in order to unhitch from the trailer
• Just because a road is marked on a GPS or paper based map, does not mean that it is in drivable condition, nor does it necessarily mean the road’s actual route bares any resemblence to the marked route.
• The NRMA do not assist people who are bogged, they refer you to the SES instead.  (I hope some of the fees we’re paying are helping fund the SES for their troubles!)
• My HF radio, which is normally very touchy on 10m… works fine on that band up in the higher altitudes — I suspect a temperature-related issue.

What now?  Well… as I say, I’ve got to find some employment somewhere.  I now officially become “unemployed” according to the damn lies^W^Wstatistics.  Potential employers in the Brisbane area, should contact me directly.

This also means I should have some time to dedicate towards Gentoo.  My last attempt at stage builds got sidetracked by a need to study and also hit technical issues (something in glibc’s build kept hard-locking boxes).

Also on the agenda here is a proper port of Gentoo to the Lemote Yeeloong.  The little netbook has been running well under Debian, with Gentoo sitting in a chroot environment… now that I’m no longer using the machine for daily studies, I think the time is ripe to start looking into reloading the machine.  Zhang Le did a great job incorporating Lemote’s patches into a mirror of the Linux/MIPS git tree, which I’ve been using to build my kernels… 2.6.30-rc4 has been quite stable.

I’ve also been looking at the ARRL handbook, with the view of upgrading my license to the Advanced level.  Then I’ll be paying for a 5-year license before the ACMA/WIA decide to up the fees again.

So, much to do, and a mountain of bugs in Bugzilla with my name on them… Ohh joy.

Telemarketers are a pet hate of mine. I’ve made my point about them before, so I won’t repeat it.

Tonight we had a different class of telemarketing. That is… a company that you do have dealings with, contacting you to advertise another service. In this instance, it was Telstra offering us a discounted internet service. We currently have our telephone services (a landline and two mobiles) with them.

My disagreement with this sort of marketing is one of principle. We pay you to provide us a service, we do not pay you to pay telemarketers to harass us via the aforementioned service. I’ve also had SMS messages on my phone from Telstra, thankfully this is rare.

Now… they’ve unwittingly called us thinking we’re the typical non-technical household. Okay, fine, they weren’t to know that. However, one would think the telemarketers would know something about the product they’re selling. I initially answered the phone, and of course, when the woman at the other end asked for my father (who holds the account) I naturally transferred her.

A few points:

• She did not seem to understand the limitations of what was being sold… yes, Cable internet is theoretically faster than ADSL… especially 512/128kbps ADSL (which is what we have). But cable is a shared medium, ADSL isn’t.
• My father immediately asked about getting a static IP address. She had no clue what this was. Tsk tsk tsk… Internetworking 101 people.

The plan offered was only discounted (half price) for 12 months, after which, the price would double, resulting in a monthly rate only marginally less than that offered by our current ISP, who we’ve had a service with since 1996 and have been quite happy with.

Should an ISP be thinking of offering their services… first and foremost, don’t contact us with your offers… if we were looking to change, we’ll contact you. However, since Telstra have come to us, I guess that gives us the right to dictate what we expect… Our expectations:

• Static IP is a must. (At last check, Telstra only offer this on ADSL for an extra $10/month… not sure if this has changed)
• IPv6 native is highly preferred, but a tunnel is livable (currently we have one via AARNet)
• We must be able to run our own server with any arbitrary service we choose including but not limited to:
  • HTTP and HTTPS
  • DNS
  • SMTP (both directions)
  • IMAP/IMAPS
  • NTP
  • XMPP
  • SSH
  • OpenVPN tunnels
  • IRC
  • VoIP services (including Skype, EchoLink and Ekiga… not ruling out D-Star, IRLP or other systems in future either)
• We must be permitted to maintain, reconfigure and replace any and all network infrastructure components within our property boundary at our discretion… This includes choice of hardware and software!
• In the event of a problem, I expect to talk to a competent tech support person who at least understands basic networking principles such as the TCP/IP model (or the OSI model which it is frequently compared to)
• Related to the above, when contacting tech support, I expect that any findings I report are taken on board, and that appropriate troubleshooting techniques are used. I did not go to university studying IT and EE for 6.5 years for nothing!

Some of this is due to frustrations I’ve had with ISPs, particularly Telstra when troubleshooting issues on others’ behalf, and hitting this exact problem of being treated like a dummy because the other end is only reading a script. iTel haven’t given us any issue thus far… it’d be nice if they offered native IPv6, but that’s about my only nit I have with them… they’ve provided a very reliable service and haven’t gotten in our way. Whenever there has been a problem, it has been quickly identified and rectified. Thus, we have no reason to change… finance alone is not going to cut it.

Specific to Telstra… it’d be nice if they fixed the broken DNS server that fails to resolve yi.org domains. (If you have trouble viewing my site directly, but can see my post on Planet Gentoo… try changing your DNS server settings over to an alternate one such as OpenDNS, then please contact your ISP about it.)

The telemarketer tonight had to end the call prematurely while she found out from her employer whether static IP addresses were possible with the plan they were about to try and sell us. She’s apparently going to call back tomorrow evening. All I can say is watch out for low-flying aircraft.

One thing that I’ve noticed is how inefficient most calculator apps on the desktop computer are. Not just from a computational point of view, but from a user interface point of view.

It seems the vast majority of them are more of an exercise in UI element layout than in producing a practical computation application. This got me thinking about my needs, as an engineering student (soon to be full fledged graduate engineer, if everything goes to plan this month).

Python, Octave (or Matlab) and the calculator applet in KDE’s Kicker, are probably the most useful as far as practical calculators in my experience. There are probably others… these mostly use the keyboard for input and have a minimal interface. I find KDE’s kicker applet works well for quick calculations, with Python or Octave taking up the slack for more complex stuff. I’ve experimented with x48… the HP48 is indeed an awesome piece of kit… but why should an app limit itself to the confines of a real-world device?

I did some thinking about this… and coding. RPN calculators are conceptually very easy. All the values are placed on a stack, operations pop off operands from this stack, then place the result back on the stack. They’re also very easy to code, especially in a high-level language like Perl. I set to work coding up a RPN calculator.

RPN calculators in my experience take a bit of getting used to, but often are more convenient in the end, than a regular calculator. The limitation though is one can easily get themselves tied in knots with the stack… you find that you didn’t push the elements on in the right order, and so you find yourself popping it all off to have another go.

Thus, with my app, I decided to experiment with a multi-stack concept. In addition, sometimes it’s nice to copy a calculation made into a temporary space where it won’t get buried in the stack… so each stack has an associative array for the storage of variables.

RPNCalc is a first stab at this calculator concept. It has a few limitations, but works reasonably well. Its biggest limitation is complex math, or rather, the lack of it. I thought I had done well until I encountered a problem that needed it.

The code is also a monolithic mess… so I’ve began re-writing it in an effort to produce a workable project for public release. HanoiCalc is the current working title for this new calculator app. At the moment, it’s little more than two Perl modules, one which provides the stack, the other providing all the operations… but it should serve as a basis for a workable RPN calculator. It uses complex maths by default (most calculations will just use the real part, ignoring the imaginary component).

I’ve held off implementing scripting… which could be done providing more power… but that’s beyond the scope of what I want to achieve at this point. I’ve tossed the code I’ve got presently into a git repository for now… you can either browse it via gitweb or clone git://git.longlandclan.yi.org/hanoicalc.git for yourself to play with.

I plan to add a user interface over the coming week. The API is simple enough, so GUI interfaces (even ones that pretend to be real calculators) are possible.

Well… it’ll be a while before I get around to porting Gentoo to the Yeeloong in earnest, however this is the first step.  The following are some notes for those who may wish to go ahead and set up Gentoo.

Toolchain

For both the Yeeloong, and the Loongson 2F-based Fulong, you’ll need the latest gcc (4.4.0) and binutils.  I normally don’t recommend H. J. Lu’s binutils distribution, but in this instance, you need something pretty bleeding edge, this gets you bleeding edge without needing live ebuilds.

I keep patched ebuilds of binutils and kgcc64 in my overlay.  To obtain these, install git, then run git clone git://git.longlandclan.yi.org/overlay.git and add it to your overlays.  The overlay is also browsable here.

Once added, simply merge sys-devel/binutils-2.19.51.0.5 and sys-devel/kgcc64-4.4.0_alpha20090407. These work for me anyway.

Patched Kernel

Zhang Le has done an excellent job in merging the Lemote patches into the Linux/MIPS tree… clone a copy by typing git clone git://www.gentoo-cn.org/var/git/linux-loongson.git. Use make yeeloong_defconfig to make a suitable config, then compile as per the Gentoo/MIPS handbook, using the vmlinux.32 target.

Power Management

There’s one final piece missing… and that’s the ec_module power management drivers. You get those from here. If you’re compiling against a kernel later than 2.6.29, double check that the version you fetch has the patch to correct for the new struct proc_dir_entry, sans owner field. You can get this patch from here if need be… or alternatively,

git clone git://dev.lemote.com/ec_module.git
git pull git://git.longlandclan.yi.org/ec_module.git


This will pull in the aforementioned patch if it isn’t already there.

To build the module, simply change to your kernel source directory, then run make modules modules_install CROSS_COMPILE=mips64el-unknown-linux-gnu- M=/path/to/ec_module.

Once I’m through exams, I’ll probably start looking into merging this into a patchset to place in mips-sources… but for now, there’s a starting point for those who are wondering where to begin.