Stumbled on HURD
Stuck in a chicken-n-egg problem on hurd front. I needed to access network through my ethernet port from Hurd. The pfinet translator won’t work easily. After googling, and searching through the archives I picked up the notion that the driver for my ethernet card is not present in gnumach. (I know in microkernel implementation drivers are not part of kernel, but I found the driver code under gnumach/linux/drivers…. directory. The Space.c file does not seem to have Broadcom driver code) My ethernet controller card is “Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5702X Gigabit Ethernet”. I downloaded the linux driver source code from Broadcom’s site. In Space.c a *_probe() function is called. Each hardware vendor defined his own _probe() function and using some macros that particular function is called. So I had a plan to integrate Broadcom’s probe function with the gnumach source code, recompile the thing and try.
But this effort has stuck in an chicken-n-egg problem as mentioned earlier. For compiling the kernel, I need gcc, make, etc. I installed make some time back, it was simple .deb file. It was hard to find .deb package for hurd-i386 for gcc. Folks on mailing lists advised me to use apt-get to install gcc. It later on occured to me that apt-get internally gets the installation packages from the internet… which in the first place I am trying to access. :(
So I tried to solve this, by means of cross compiling exercises. Yesterday I tried to compile gcc 2.95 on linux for i686-pc-gnu platform, and it is giving its own set of errors.
Alongside I have been reading about the L4 kernel and Hurd efforts of porting to L4. I am getting interested in installing L4Ka::Pistachio microkernel. So I might suspend efforts on Hurd front and might follow a new lead.
Besides in past few days, I have found some good linux stuff, that I didn’t know already.
#cat /proc/pci
should give you wealth of information about the hardware devices attached to your pci bus, like the IRQ info and rest of PCI info.
Learnt about this linux command strace, with which you can track the system calls and signals associated with a live running process.
It was a news to me that, there is a subdirectory under /proc
for every process, named after its process id. This subdirectory contains useful info about that process. Among other things it holds an fd subdirectory, which will list all the file descriptors opened by that process.
Good stuff for debugging your system….
I am particularly impressed by the work done by Jochen Liedtke, the father of L4. Sad to know that he passed away in 2001. His paper ‘On microkernel design’ is a classic one. I am planning to follow whatever job he has done on microkernels.
Archive
2018
Why gamers like pixelated games
2017
Collecting Vs Hoarding Netflix
Game Design tip for Programmers - Less Automation
Review Ghost In The Shell - The blinds scene
Why Electron is the best development platform?
2016
2015
Before fixing performance issues
2014
2013
Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice
2012
Coffeescript: To switch or not to switch
The single most reason that keeps me using Vim
When your git branch diverges from your remote
Something like Olivia - John Mayer
Online courses - New technology, Old rules
Why Patriotism doesn't make sense
Why sea steading is important to pursue?
Rolling back latest git commit
iTunes Download stopped (err =9006)
Good essay on user centric software design
Why we need to explore Seasteading?
2011
How to write interactive CLI utility in node.js
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
How to print stack trace anywhere in Javascript
It's not fair to compare Android with Internet Explorer
How to debug WebWorker threads?
Why can't I criticize Government if I don't vote? I sure can.
Why the hi-tech minds are writing Social apps?
Ever growing todo list is a good sign for creative projects
Lesser women in tech... So what?
HTML5 offline cache - use swapCache carefully
How Wikipedia and Flattr can together change the World
2010
Functional programming in Javascipt using Underscore.js
Youtube ETA - Chrome extension
Why secure airports when it's planes that fly?
Mac book red light audio jack problem on Linux
How to save HTML5 canvas image to Google App Engine
Why don't they publish eBooks for free but with embedded ads?
Reality distortion field around
ReaderScope 2.0.6 - Find Comments
Why "Open" is not the first concern of user?
Mutt, Gmail, gdata, notify-send: A Perfect Email solution
Are you the Matt Damon of your game?
ReaderScope 1.8.{2,3} - new authentication and global share
Portable apps for iPhone, Android, Pre, n900 - Can Processing.js help?
ReaderScope 1.8.1 - rethinking features
Android fragmentation : How big a deal is it?
ReaderScope v1.7 - Widget, new Icons and .... Ads
on Git: tips for SVN users and Git in Dropbox cloud
How to do an online IDE for Android app development
Make Android speak your Twits with "TwitSpeak"
2009
ReaderScope 1.5 - quicker, better, prettier
Preview android.R.drawable.* images
Is definition of "Evil" changing?
ReaderScope 1.4 (with a Theme Pack)
The AND-OR problem of laptop and mobile phone
ReaderScope v1.3.3 - offline podcasts
ReaderScope v1.3.2 - Social Channels
ReaderScope v1.3 - Beyond Google Reader
Frets on Fire for Maemo - Update
ReaderScope 1.2.7 - Podcasts, Expanded View
Sprint HTC Hero problems with ReaderScope
ReaderScope 1.2.1 - Auto Login
ReaderScope 1.1.3 - SDCard storage
ReaderScope 1.1.1 quick-n-easy features
ReaderScope 1.1 - Social Beacons
ReaderScope 1.0.2 - making deep cache simple
ReaderScope beta4 - offline fun
ReaderScope beta3 - Tweet the news
Intercepting Up/Down keys from bash script
Makeshift XML beautifier in python
HTC Magic (Indian version) - expectations and facts
Android development with Vim + Eclim
FoF - PyOpenGL = miniFoF (possibly for n810)
Twitter client with inkface-pygame v0.2.2
Frets on Fire on Maemo 5 (Fremantle)
Static IP configuration on Fedora 10
Smooth scrolling with Inkface+pygame
Inkface v0.2 update and automated GUI testing
Testing Android (Koolu Beta 3) on Openmoko Freerunner
Clutter animation paths with Inkscape+Inkface (v0.1.3)
Debian repository on Google App Engine
Inkface v0.1.2, Twitter-inkface client
2008
Debugging python reference counts
(k)ubuntu 8.10 - not ready for my home yet
Migrating to Google App Engine
Android opened - first looks inside
Inkface - SVG based GUI design
Today's slashdot and open source
OpenMoko, Android and a great hacking post
2007
XML RPC server inside apache mod_python
Nice review article on virtualization technologies
Once again... a quote from 'Troy'
Sea surfing under the Golden Gate
2006
How do I backup to Amazon S3 storage service
Gas prices... seems like big scam
If Harry Potter were a computer hacker ...
2005
repeat (ps | grep) = filtered top
Halo fixed on ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
Warning: const is a keyword in ANSI C
2004