Any idea on who is the original author of the song?

A few months ago I wrote a small paper entitled Voice to the People that is the result of some tests I did with the Asterisk PBX system. It does not aim to prove anything about the Asterisk system, and it was more of a get to know the system tipe of thing.

The Global Interpreter Lock is python’s way of solving the issues of multiple threads running on multiple cpu’s thrashing common data.
What happens is that only one thread runs at any time.
In the last week I’ve been implementing some search algorithms that would greatly benefit from multiple threads on multiple cpu’s. Some of you might say:

If you are using Unix or Cygwin you can use os.fork()

Yes I can, but I’m not even going to delve into the issues around Threads VS Fork in terms of the time it will take to spawn a thread or spawn another process.

In the work I was doing I would use threads to do very small (as in time) tasks, but spawning many threads in a small amount of time. Seems I’ll have to re-think the approach…..

Old computers never die….. They just get so darn slow that we pause staring at the screen and feel our beard grow while they end the task at hand.

Some friends used to complain that Gentoo would take for ever to build something. Considering I installed a Gentoo machine every year and left it overnight building the system I thought they were wrong. But now I’m not so shure. I’m building alot of packages, and rebuilding alot for my internship project, and I’m using old old machines. And they are so slow!!!!
I must say that my “build mule” is a AMD Duron(tm) processor clocked at 800Mhz …. Good think I follow solar’s advices and use binpackages ….. To build glibc five times a day would be no fun….. no fun at all.

Today wildfire 3.2.0 got released and you can read the official announce here. But is my opinion that this is a premature release. If not lets see, in december 17 to manage SSL certificates under wildfire is considered a problem. They even comment on the fact that Jabber Software Foundation (JSF) has become a Intermediate Certification Authority and that this will increase the number of servers and users using SSL in the Jabber network. And what happens in the 3.2.0 RC2 release: SSL is partially broken when using JSF certificates. The fix seems to be….. to remove the certificates and use self signed ones.

Proper use of SSL/TLS with good certificates needs to be standard in the XMPP Federation network. This is why this step in releasing the final version of wildfire was a premature one.

Overclocked is the latest collection of short stories by Cory Doctorow. As always you can buy the book, or download it for free.

The style that Cory prints in his books is there. But it is getting better and better. Right now I’ve read When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth which is strange story about what people do in face of despair and about our need to organize and communicate. Right now I’m about half way of After the Siege and I must stay that I it is so good that I had to stop sometimes and remember to breath. Today we see just commercial wars and political pressures over Patents and Royalties. One day, that is probably not far away, we will see people fighting and dieing in trenches.

I used to thing that Ubuntu instalation was fast and mostly easy…. But this guy installed Vista in just two minutes… That is ….. something:

Efika System info Only stuff under /efika are actually hosted on the efika (mod_proxy is so nice).

There is now a PORTAGE_BINHOST for the EFIKA, just add:
PORTAGE_BINHOST=http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/ppc-efika/
to your /etc/make.conf and start using it. This repository will contain the system and some extra packages built with:
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=603e -pipe"
CHOST="powerpc-unknown-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

Remember that in order to use these packages you have to do emerge -g or emerge -G.

Do you want a stage 4 for your Efika? Then go to my Efika page and grab it. Please do not open bugs about it. Either mail me or try to find me on IRC.

Thanks to tnt_ for the driver.
To use this driver you need to already have the sources patched with the Efika extras (see the gentoo-wiki for info how how to get these), then you need to get tnt_’s patch and apply it. The sound driver is in Device Drivers —>Sound —>Advanced Linux Sound Architecture —>ALSA PPC devices —> Freescale MPC52xx AC97 interface support

Now rebuild and reboot. At the OF interface type these 3 commands:

cd /builtin/sound
" mpc5200b-psc-ac97" encode-string " compatible" property
2 encode-int 2 encode-int encode+ 0 encode-int encode+ " interrupts" property

and then boot the kernel. After that modprobe snd_mpc52xx_ac97 . Type dmesg. Do you see lots of messages? Good, as that means it is working. Use alsamixer to unmut the Master and PCM channels and try to play something using mpg321 or similar.

Now the bad news :
The driver needs work:

1. Those 3 commands must be run on every reboot. Either that or use nvedit but I still have not tried that.
2. If other processes use the interrupts for to long you will suffer under runs

If you can help drop by the #gentoo-efika IRC channel at FreeNode as there is always someone there.

The second Efika is here. It is already running and building stuff inside a very nice card box

We at Gentoo already have a wiki page with info, and the Freenode irc channel #gentoo-efika is always alive with 20+ persons. Even if you do not use Gentoo this is a nice place to stop.

As soon as I find my camera I’ll take some pictures.

It seems that I have received a dead Efika. But the “gang” at genesis are really nice and have offered to send me another one as well as returning the money I’ve paid to the Portuguese customs.

It is always refreshing to work with company’s with excellent support.

In any case when the next one arrives I already have the serial < -> usb adapter, the null modem cable, the video card and the usb keyboard just waiting for the little baby .

Ok. So i started hacking the efika today, after paying the Portuguese customs 82€ for a gift!

But the board now sits on top the nice card board where it came with a nice PSU already attached, some switches for the power/reset and a power led that I ripped from an old system ( I’m using the HDD led for the power because the power led on the efika is two pins and the one on the box where the leds where taken was 3 pins with the middle one empty ).

When turned on the PSU fan starts spinning and the led turns on. If I turn I press the power button for a few seconds it will turn off.

So what do I need for further testing (this is a mental note to self):

1. USB Keyboard
2. Serial Console Cable
3. USB to Serial Converter for the PC
4. PCI or AGP (Low Profile) Video Card
5. 2.5″ Hard Drive (anything with more than a few Gbytes should do the trick.)

I’ll keep reporting on the progress. As soon as I have a running Gentoo you’ll be the first to know

I received a call from a FedEx representative in Portugal about a package from Genesis . It seems the Portuguese customs will release it tomorrow. So the Efika will be here really really soon.

I already searched some info and it seems simple to boot Linux there. All I’m missing right now is a 2.5″ hard drive, a USB keyboard and a serial console cable….

From what I have read about a Debian installation on the Efika the simplest Gentoo install will be to put a drive in a USB craddle and unpack a Gentoo PPC stage3 there. After that copy the pre-compiled kernel and modules to the disk and put it in the efika. After that it should be possible to power it and use the OpenFirmware to boot the kernel.

If all goes ok I’ll setup a page with more info.

Today I was a bit tired of the Ruby codding I was doing (a Mobile IP network simulator for a class project) and considering that I had to start the GUI part and needed to read the QTRuby tutorial AND I have never used/played with QT I resolved to update Wildfire to the 3.1.1 version and close a pending bug.

I also found out that Wildfire comes with built in transports for some old services. I already had PyMSN-t installed so in my server I just activated the others.

If you are interested in jabber in Gentoo you can always use my server, or contact me at xmpp:humpback@jabber.felisberto.net

A couple of days ago I received two digium TDM-400P cards each with two fxo ports and 2 fxs. I tried one and got some really strange messages in dmesg. Detailled info can be found in my post to the asterisk-users list: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2006-November/172459.html as well as the pastbin link in the message.

I tried the cards in another machine and the problems subsisted. So it is either driver related or it is two cards with the same hardware problem. If the latter is correct that means that Digium really needs to improve it’s QA. I hope it is just me doing something wrong.

My Bug is back from the shop where it went throo a big revolution. Lots of rust removed, plus a fully redecorated interior.

The image links to a full size picture.

And what does this have to do with Gentoo? Well some bugs get fixed and fixed and become even better Bugs .Just for the record it is not me on the whell. I let others sit there….. but no driving

http://jobble.org/map/humpback@jabber.felisberto.net

Get component A.
Get component B.
Mix together using jSuperMixer or BlenderNet.
Try to find why it does not work using bad logs.

And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression

This is how to solve problems That is what they tell you. Please believe it…. please understand that it is the way to do it.

If you spend 95% of the time hitting the technology and 5% working on the solution they something is really wrong with the tools you are using.

require 'monitor'
class Helper < Monitor

attr_reader :threadCounter
def initialize
@threadCounter = 0
super
end

def getInfo(book)
start=false
while (!start)
synchronize do
if @threadCounter <= 5
@threadCounter+=1
start = true
end
end
if !start
sleep(rand(0)*50.0)
end
end
doSomethinElse()
synchronize do
@threadCounter-=1
end

end


I know that active waiting is bad(tm) thing, but I'm starting in the lang and I did it. I solved the problem and did not fight with the tool. Actually I was always feeling that the tool was helping me.

I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world