Author Archives: vbatts

a point-and-clicky (ruby) addition, dobbage!

Posted on by
1

Some time ago, the brainstorm of a simple GUI package viewer for my Slackware desktop would be handy. While completely unnecessary, I thought it would be neat.
So what did I do? Created a project on github.com for an application that did not exist yet, and commenced to reading the source of others with similarly simple application frameworks.

While having the project created out on github was a reminder, it was not much for encouragement, so the idea lay dormant for a while. With a free moment this past weekend, I solidified several ideas and actually sought to make headway on this task. But I will say, that having the project on github for so long, has increased the rank on Google’s search results for “dobbage” so that is a plus :)

While I am crafty with many tools/languages, my weapon of choice remains ruby. For my development time, I can get an idea prototyped very quick. At which point I can decided whether it is worth it to use another language (for performance, etc.). All that to say, dobbage is written in Ruby.

Initially, I had thought that ruby-gtk2 would be the windowing toolkit to use, but then Qt and QtRuby are included in the stock Slackware installation.
I must say, there is not an abundance of applications to find, that are written in QtRuby, the bindings to access the Qt libraries is very nice and extensive. This is my first “GUI” application, so it’s all new to me. The Qt API documentation is written for C++, but once you get the hang of translating their C++ explanation to a Ruby implementation, then it’s all gravy! :)

Dobbage only has one dependency, that is not included in a stock Slackware install, and that is my slack-utils ruby library, which can be built as an installable Slackware package, or available as a rubygem. slack-utils does provide several command line tools, but more importantly, it includes a library for a Slackware Linux harness.

Right now, dobbage only shows information for packages currently installed, and for “removed” packages. Removed packages include previous iterations of upgraded packages. There is a little fancy-ness in the status bar too. Other ideas include the ability:

  • sorting the Removed packages by date removed, instead of alphabetical
  • to open an installable Slackware package (a *.t?z archive), and get a tab with information about that package.
  • to have a tab for fetching information from a Slackware repository /mirror
  • good ideas from others :)

In any event, the code is available at github.com/vbatts/dobbage and here are a few screen shots.



Take care,
vb

Share

Candle in the Darkness

Posted on by
Reply

A simple candle-flame meditation:

Light a candle in a darkened room.

Move about two feet away from it and sit down, facing the candle flame.

Get comfortable.

Then begin breathing in and out quietly through your nostrils.

Let your body relax. Let your breath relax.

Just concentrate on the candle flame.

Watch it for several minutes.

Don’t think about anything in particular. Let your thoughts go; let them settle.

Watch the flame. Let your mind go into it.

Suddenly blow out the candle and close your eyes.

See the image that forms on the inside of your eyelids.

Meditate on that light.




Nice clip brought in the book Awakening to the Sacred – Lama Surya Das

Share

fix pm-suspend in >= 2.6.35 linux kernel

Posted on by
Reply

For those with a newer laptop, in my case a Lenovo, the NEC USBv3 port is cool, unused and so far, a pain in the ease of my mobile life.

The hardware info (from lspci -nnvv) is:

0f:00.0 USB Controller [0c03]: NEC Corporation Device [1033:0194] (rev 03) (prog-if 30)
 Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:219c]
 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 18
 Region 0: Memory at f2200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
 Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1-,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold+)
 Status: D0 NoSoftRst+ PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
 Capabilities: [70] MSI: Enable- Count=1/8 Maskable- 64bit+
 Address: 0000000000000000  Data: 0000
 Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Count=8 Masked-
 Vector table: BAR=0 offset=00001000
 PBA: BAR=0 offset=00001080
 Capabilities: [a0] Express (v2) Endpoint, MSI 00
 DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s unlimited, L1 unlimited
 ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE+ FLReset-
 DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
 RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop+
 MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
 DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr+ TransPend-
 LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <4us, L1 unlimited
 ClockPM+ Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot-
 LnkCtl: ASPM L1 Enabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk+
 ExtSynch- ClockPM+ AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt-
 LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt-
 DevCap2: Completion Timeout: Not Supported, TimeoutDis+
 DevCtl2: Completion Timeout: 50us to 50ms, TimeoutDis-
 LnkCtl2: Target Link Speed: 5GT/s, EnterCompliance- SpeedDis-, Selectable De-emphasis: -6dB
 Transmit Margin: Normal Operating Range, EnterModifiedCompliance- ComplianceSOS-
 Compliance De-emphasis: -6dB
 LnkSta2: Current De-emphasis Level: -3.5dB
 Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
 UESta:  DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
 UEMsk:  DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
 UESvrt: DLP+ SDES+ TLP- FCP+ CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF+ MalfTLP+ ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol-
 CESta:  RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr-
 CEMsk:  RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr+
 AERCap: First Error Pointer: 00, GenCap- CGenEn- ChkCap- ChkEn-
 Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff
 Capabilities: [150] #18
 Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
 Kernel modules: xhci-hcd



Up until the 2.6.35 kernel, this had been using the kernel driver “xhci”, but in >= 2.6.35, it has been renamed “xhci_hcd”.

What does this have to do with anything?  The ease of my suspending to disk. This USBv3 driver is not yet playing well with the freezing/thawing process, and will give a cryptic error in /var/log/pm-suspend.log, pointing you to line 295 of /usr/lib${LIBSUFFIX}/pm-utils/pm-functions. When it gets to the point of executing `echo -n "mem" > /sys/power/state`, it returns a permission denied. Even though the contents of /sys/power/state show something like “mem disk”.

So for pm-utils, if you

  • go to /etc/pm/config.d/
  • create a file called “unload_modules“, with contents of
  • SUSPEND_MODULES="xhci xhci_hcd"
  • it’s a space delimited value, so add others if you are having issues.

TA DA. now i can resume the comfort of a quick suspend and resume!

Take care,

vb Continue reading →

Share

Getting started with compiling Wii apps in Linux

Posted on by
Reply

First off, setting up a development environment, and then the ability to run the games on the Wii are very different. Since my Wii was on the latest official system upgrade (v4.3), there were not many options for getting a custom game boot loader on it. Thankfully, I went with the Indiana Pwns and it was super easy and straight forward. Now I have the Homebrew Loader installed by way of using the BootMii installer, and I am free to load my own compiled projects as well.

To get the development kit up and operational it involved a bit of guess work, but thankful I can still use my GNU C utilities.

From the “devkitPPC” directory, you’ll need the appropriate download for you host type. For me, it was devkitPPC_r21-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2

http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/

It extracts to ”devkitPPC/”. You can put this where every you’d like, but I kept everything as my limited privilege user, and created a directory $HOME/bin/opt/, and put the directory there. Next you’ll need to set a couple of ENV variables that most projects look for in their Makefile’s. In my $HOME/.bashrc I added

export DEVKITPPC=$HOME/bin/opt/devkitPPC/
export DEVKITPRO=$DEVKITPPC
export MANPATH=$MANPATH:$DEVKITPPC/man
export PATH=$PATH:$DEVKITPPC/bin

The manpath is for me :)

From the portlibs folder you’ll need everything with “ppc” in the name. The Wii’s proccesor is an IBM PowerPC chipset

http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/portlibs

Once you have all of these downloaded, a simple for loop will do well.

mkdir ${DEVKITPPC}/portlibs

for file in *ppc.tar.bz2 ; do tar -C ${DEVKITPPC}/portlibs/ -xjf $file ; done

Next, download libogc-src-*.tar.bz2 from http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/libogc/, and lets get it compiled and installed (also, it depends on the ENV variables and the libraries above). The make install below will put it in $DEVKITPPC.

mkdir libogc ; tar -C libogc -xjf libogrc-src-*.tar.bz2 ; cd libogc

make clean && make && make install

Lastly, getting libfat present and respectable. http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/libfat/ get the libfat-ogc-*.tar.bz2 tar ball

tar -C ${DEVKITPPC}/portlibs/ -xjf libfat-ogc-*.tar.bz2

cp ${DEVKITPPC}/portlibs/lib/wii/libfat.a ${DEVKITPPC}/portlibs/lib/libfat.a

At this point there is enough present to begin hacking or least compiling as a tester. To validate we have a good compiling ENV, lets try out libwiigui . It is a great framework to learn/use/get started with, but for now if we use it to a validation test. At the time of writing this, the latest was libwiigui-1.05.zip. So:

mkdir libwiigui ; cd libwiigui ; unzip ../libwiigui-1.05.zip

make clean && make

You should be left with two  new files (libwiigui-demo.elf and libwiigui-demo.dol).

On the SD card that I keep my HomeBrew applications on, I make a directory sd://apps/libwiigui/ and copy these two files into that directory, and rename them boot.elf and boot.dol respectively.

Now when I put the SD card in the Wii and launch the HomeBrew loader, I have a blank button (because I didn’t take the time to add icons and descriptions), and when clicked and loaded, there it the basic libwiigui framework app!

YAHTZEE!!

Take care,

vb

p.s. here are a couple of additional information links.

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Libwiigui/tutorial

http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Developer_tips

Share