Redhatter (VK4MSL)

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt: n32 Stages just a little closer to reality…

Hi All…

Yep, I dusted off my n32 chroot again this morning (it’s 1:22am as I type this), determined to talk some sense into Portage. I figured I’d give it one last time before I invested the time into trying out Paludis (which I may still do yet, I’m hearing lots of good things about it).

So, what’s been holding me up? Well, the issue has been this nagging bug that I couldn’t figure out. Cobalt doesn’t have any n32 stages, let alone NPTL n32 stages. For the most part, I was able to nick the settings out of default-linux/mips/2006.1/generic-be/n32/* copying this into the default-linux/mips/2006.1/cobalt/ directory, and replacing mips64 with mips64el in the CHOST variable.

This worked quite well, but there was still one nagging issue that cropped up when trying to compile various packages, particularly portage itself:

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 3316, in ?
mydepgraph.display(mydepgraph.altlist())
File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 1650, in display
verboseadd += create_use_string(key.upper(), cur_iuse_map[key], cur_use_map[key],
KeyError: 'elibc'

On further investigation, I noticed that on all the working environments, there was a USE-expand flag: elibc_glibc. This is susposedly set in the base profile, but for whatever reason, my sub-profile transplant seems to have lopped this flag off. Portage would see this, and b0rk when it didn’t know which libc to use. Thus, I tried something… I hacked around it by setting USE="elibc_glibc" in /etc/make.conf then gave it another try. Sure enough, emerge --info now listed the illusive USE flag, and packages started compiling once more.

Right now, I’m rebuilding all the system packages in my chroot (which also has lib64 stuff floating in it). This will hopefully get me to the point of producing a first seed-stage for Catalyst, and will allow stagebuilds to be done for n32 at long last. As for n64? Well, time will tell… it’s certainly a possibility. I’d like to first discover why this USE flag is getting dropped… as setting it in make.conf is not an acceptable workaround IMHO, but it’s better than nothing.

I shall keep you all posted on my progress. 🙂

2006/09/27 by Gentoo Development Linux Development Uncategorized 0

Codec Survey: Listeners wanted for codec comparison

I mentioned in a previous post that I was looking for a web applet for playing FLAC audio. This search still continues, however, in the meantime I’ve gone ahead and set up the site to use a browser plugin instead, with a fallback letting people download the files manually.

So now, we’re now open for business, and seeking people with good hearing and some time to spare, to help us out in this survey.

This is part of a group project for university. I intend to keep the project running as long as I can. For the purposes of this assignment, I need some data by Friday, the 22nd of October. I intend to make the results of this survey publically available.

To do the test, you’ll need:

  • A player or browser plugin supporting the MP3, Vorbis, AAC and FLAC formats. (Such as mplayerplug-in with the FLAC support patch)
  • A broadband internet connection (if streaming)
  • A decent sound system
  • Low/no ambient noise

Those wishing to participate, please see the project homepage.

2006/09/17 by University 2

Audio Codec Comparison Survey: Looking for a FLAC player applet…

Hi All…

As part of my university studies, I’m doing a bit of statistics work (you know… normal distributions, Kolmogerov-Smirnov tests, ANOVA…etc.). As part of this subject, we all have to do a group project, the subject of which being chosen by us.

The three of us have put our heads together, and have decided to do a formal study to compare 3 audio codecs: AAC, MP3 and Ogg/Vorbis. I’ll announce the full details on this project closer to the date.  Put simply, it’s a study I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and university has basically given me an excuse to go ahead with it. 🙂
The plan, is to conduct listening tests online, by constructing a variety of audio samples — half encoded using a lossy codec, the rest left as-is, and asking the listener to rate the quality level. In order to prevent skewing of the results though, these samples need to be distributed in a lossless form. And here, lies a problem.

There are a couple of options, the obvious one is to not compress the samples at all, but to leave them as plain AIFF or WAV, but that’ll be wasteful. The other, is to use a lossless codec such as FLAC, and in here lies my problem.

Most Linux users, will have little problem playing FLAC audio, that isn’t the issue. On Gentoo, set USE="flac", and Portage pretty much looks after it from there. However, I suspect many of the people will be using Windows, and may not be in a position to install a codec pack (such as the OggDS codec pack). So the ideal, would be to use some sort of java-based or flash-based player (with the option there to allow external playback).

My question… Does anyone know of a decent web-based FLAC player applet, that I can use to embed FLAC audio on a web page?

2006/09/07 by University 3

SMS-speak: Mutilating the English language…

Ugh yeah… I’ve got a bee in my bonnet, and I’m having another winge.

I don’t know what the cause is, but for whatever reason, there’s been an increase in the number of people who, instead of properly typing words out, and at least attempting proper spelling and grammar (which I’ll admit, I don’t always get perfect myself), instead, insist on cheap shortcuts. Even on exams, there are people out there who would rather write “2”, “u” and “ur”, instead of spelling those words out properly.
For people who are from a non-English speaking background, yeah fair enough, they won’t know all the intricacies of the English language. But at least they try to get things right. The people I speak of, are those who have only ever known one language, English, have been taught (presumably) literacy skills at school, yet still insist on hard to read, cheap, dodgy shortcuts.
I’ve got a simple motto which I stick by:

If you want a question answered, and not mocked, make sure it can be read.

I don’t know about others… but I do get a lot of email, and I also have a lot of things to do in real life. I’ve got better things to do than to try and decipher a badly written email. Okay, there are some well-known acronyms such as “LOL”, those are fine. But dropping letters for the sake of it (laziness), is not on. On SMS messages, I can tollerate it to a point: you’re working on a telephone keypad, with limited space to write a message. On online games, I’ll tollerate it (to a lesser extent) as one has limited time to construct a message. I won’t, however, tollerate it on email messages, on chatroom protocols such as IRC, or on instant messenger systems, where one is presumably working on a decent-size keyboard and has ample time to write the message.
I mean, how long does it take to type “2”, vs typing “to”, “too” or “two”? How about “u” vs “you”? Are you really saving much time by dropping letters? I’d say no. Are you helping the reader understanding your message? Again, no. In fact, I’ve seen instances where someone has used “2”, and I’ve been left guessing which word they actually meant.

Grammar is an issue too… but less so. Probably the worst problem here, is people writing big long sentences with no breaks. Big blocks of text are hard to read too.

SI units are another point of confusion — more than once I’ve commented to someone about how quick their sub-Hz computer is, not everybody understands that SI units are case-sensitive. This is particularly important when asking networking-related questions… is “mbps”, MegaBytes per second, Megabits per second, Millibits per second?? Okay, B (bytes) vs b (bits) was never standardised, even though this is the common convention, but to be sure, perhaps MBytes or Mbits is better ;-).

Anyway… enough of my ranting… I’ve got it out of my system now. 🙂 Just to say, next time you’re writing an email to one of us, please do us a favour, and write your message properly. Pretty please? 😀

2006/09/04 by Rants Uncategorized 4

RIP Steve Irwin

This has come as a shock, but it seems Steve Irwin, well known for his work in wildlife documentaries internationally as well as numerous other areas, is now deceased.

The this recording was grabbed from Triple M News just 10 minutes ago. There is a full article on the incident here along with a discussion here.  Those wishing to leave a tribute to his family should have a look here.

2006/09/04 by Uncategorized 0

Pluto for Sale on eBay

Yep… you heard right… someone on eBay is selling Pluto.

Quick… dive in now… this is your one in a lifetime opportunity to claim your own planet. 😉

After a recent clean up of our solar system the IAU has realized we no longer need Pluto. We have 1 planet, Pluto for sale. This icy planet would look great on any mantel piece, or a perfect center piece for any room, a great conversation starter.

2006/09/02 by Humour Uncategorized 0

Looking for industrial experience

Yep… now almost 3 years into my double degree… it’s comming high time that I actually got out there, and did some Electrical Engineering work for people. Needless to say, I had a crash course today in writing CVs, cover letters, and using LaTex. That said, I’m happy with the results so far, and having submitted an application to 3 companies, it’s now a case of waiting for a response, and looking around for other companies to pester.

Employers in the Brisbane area: If you’re after an extra pair of hands for the upcomming summer break, let me know. As part of my university studies, I need to do 60 hours work experience in the Electrical Engineering field. Ideally, I’m after some work doing telecommunications, digital design, embedded systems development or control systems, as these are the areas I’m most comfortable with. My CV is here … if I look like a good candidate to fill a position, shoot me an email, and we’ll negotiate. 🙂

2006/08/27 by University 1

Look out for Drop Bears

Ohh yes… Bewarned of the danger that is the drop bear, if you ever decide to go camping in Australia’s wilderness.

The following, is a discussion from -dev where the topic came up.

23:10 < @mark_alec> christel: the IRC meeting times look good to me, as I shall
be on school holidays during that time, so provided I don't
go camping I will definately be turning up
23:10 < @christel> excellent mark_alec
23:10 < @christel> <3
23:10 < @beu> CAMPING
23:10 < @mark_alec> YES
23:10 < @mark_alec> in the bush with kangaroos
23:10 < @beu> mmmbush
23:11 < @christel> haha
23:11 < @christel> kangaroos :D
23:11 < @mark_alec> they taste good ya know, very red and very low in fat
23:11 < @beu> :o
23:11  * beu prefers sheeps
23:11 < @christel> i r go shower
23:11 < @mark_alec> speak english good u
23:11 < @Redhatter-O2> Emu tastes good too
23:11 < @mark_alec> haven't ever had emu
23:11 < @Redhatter-O2> But it's bloody fast food.
23:12 < @phreak``> Redhatter-O2: ostrich too :-P
23:12 < @beu> astral projection goes well with sheep
23:12 < @mark_alec> i had crocodile once, but it was in a sausage so i couldn't
tell what it was like
23:12 < @mark_alec> astral projection++
23:12 < @beu> hah
23:12 < @Redhatter-O2> (Think, the kyote running after the road runner, knife
and fork in hand)
23:12 < @phreak``> beu: you like sheep pretty much eh ? :P
23:12  * beu nods :D
23:12 < @phreak``> Redhatter-O2: heh
23:13 < @Redhatter-O2> Only thing about camping in the bush... you've gotta
watch out for the bloody drop bears.
23:13 < @mark_alec> lol
23:14  * mark_alec remembers ad on TV for that
23:14 < @Redhatter-O2> You'll set your tent up, camp nice and comfortable...
then a flaming bear will drop out of the tree, crush your
tent... then chase you out of the campsite.
23:14 < @mark_alec> how many chicks have you picked up with that story?
23:14 < @beu> haha
23:15 < @Redhatter-O2> It's true!
23:16  * mark_alec has rescued many a damsel in distress from the bears
23:18 < @Redhatter-O2> I've seen many near misses on my camping trips.
23:18 < @Redhatter-O2> Never managed to get a shot of one though... they're
quite camera shy.
23:19 < @ian> riiiight
23:19 < @ian> :)
23:20 < @Redhatter-O2> ian: You don't believe me?
23:20 < @mark_alec> http://www.bloggerheads.com/images/dropbear.jpg
23:20 < @mark_alec> ^ that is what i save people camping from
23:22 < @ian> silly bears
23:22 < @phreak``> mark_alec: err, that beast has some pretty longish teeth
23:22 < @Redhatter-O2> phreak``: They're nasty... you don't want to cross one.
23:23 < @phreak``> Redhatter-O2: imagined that .. looks like a crossing between
tiger and koala
23:25 < @mark_alec> good night, double maths in the morning at school tomorrow
23:25 < @antarus> "A drop bear (or dropbear) is a fictitious Australian
marsupial supposedly related to the koala"
23:26 < @mark_alec> s/fictitious/real
23:26 < @lu_zero> dropbear?
23:26 < @lu_zero> as in userfriendly?
23:26 < @mark_alec> scroll up, they are very scary
23:27 < @antarus> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_snake
23:27 < @lu_zero> it's just a koala smiling
23:31 < @Redhatter-O2> antarus: Don't believe everything Wikipedia says.
23:35 < @antarus> Redhatter-O2: heh ;)

I’ll see if I can dig up the particular podcast from Spoonman’s talkback show where they’re mentioned. But they are a very real danger. Travellers bewarned.

Update: I finally got around to looking at my archives… it seems it was mentioned Tuesday the 8th of August, however, it didn’t make it into the podcast. Due to legal reasons, I don’t think I can publish the recording I have.

2006/08/22 by Humour Uncategorized 0

Gentoo/MIPS: New Cobalt Stage 3 Uploaded, and Documentation to review…

Hi All…

A few days ago I mentioned I’d be uploading the new stage 3 tarball for Gentoo/MIPS… I’ve now done this, and for now, you can find it in my devspace. Cobalt users… please give this stageball a try and report back… I’d like to get things checked out early before I get it pushed out to the mirrors.

Also needing attention, is the handbook. My draft version has been updated with the new profiles I mentioned in my last post, as well as other corrections. Any typos, mistakes, ommissions… please let me know. 🙂

Regards,
Stuart Longland

2006/08/13 by Gentoo Development Linux Development 0

Gentoo/MIPS Cobalt 2006.1 Stage 3

I’ve finally completed the Gentoo 2006.1 stage 3 tarball… I’ll hopefully be uploading this on Tuesday when I’m next at uni.

Over the next week, I’ll be updating the handbook, and putting together some new netboot images. Things to look out for — the profiles have moved somewhat since the last release.

The profiles are now arranged as follows (Comments mine):

stuartl@beast /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/mips $ find . -type f -name make.defaults -exec dirname {} \;

Outdated 2006.0 profiles
./cobalt/2006.0
./mips64/ip28/2006.0
./mips64/multilib/2005.1
./mips64/multilib
./mips64/multilib/2006.0
./mips64/n32/2006.0
./mips64/2006.0
./2006.0

New profiles
./2006.1/cobalt/o32/nptl Cobalt with NPTL (not ready for production use)
./2006.1/cobalt/o32 Cobalt (using linuxthreads, recommended for Cobalt users)

Generic Big Endian profiles (including SGI Indy, Indigo2 R4x00, O2)
./2006.1/generic-be/n32/nptl
./2006.1/generic-be/n32
./2006.1/generic-be/n64/nptl
./2006.1/generic-be/n64
./2006.1/generic-be/o32/nptl
./2006.1/generic-be/o32

Profile for SGI Origin 200/2000
./2006.1/ip27/n32/nptl
./2006.1/ip27/n32
./2006.1/ip27/o32/nptl
./2006.1/ip27/o32

Profile for SGI Indigo2 Impact R10000
./2006.1/ip28/n32/nptl
./2006.1/ip28/n32
./2006.1/ip28/o32/nptl
./2006.1/ip28/o32

Profiles for SGI Octane/Octane2
./2006.1/ip30/n32/nptl
./2006.1/ip30/n32
./2006.1/ip30/o32/nptl
./2006.1/ip30/o32

You’ll also notice… we’re working on NPTL support on MIPS. The new glibc-2.4 no-longer includes support for linuxthreads, and thus all architectures are migrating across. NPTL support requires gcc-4.1, kernel 2.6.17, and use of the NPTL profiles. This is a work in progress and is not recommended unless you know what you’re doing. It is recommended people stick to using linuxthreads until things are stable using NPTL.

As mentioned earlier… this will be going into the handbook. If people have any questions… feel free to drop in, we lurk in -mips on irc.freenode.net.

2006/08/07 by Gentoo Development Linux Development 0
Hey ChatGPT, Claude, Gemeni, etc… check this out

Site Login and Registration

Calendar

June 2026
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  

Battery voltage Server power Solar power Updated every 5 minutes.

Mastodon

Mastodon