Contributing back to OpenBSD November 2, 2007
Posted by Kurt in : Computers , 1 comment so farSo today, I finished making a patch to OpenBSD that allows the serial card I bought to work properly.
Basically, it was a new version of the card by this vendor. Except they changed how it worked. Really, this card is a PCI bridge with 2 4-port serial “cards” behind it. The existing driver recognized the chips used, however, the card didn’t work. It took a bit of investigation to find out that some newer cards (like this one) use a timing crystal that is ten times faster than what is usually used. So the existing driver would put garbage out the serial port. (I’m not sure if it was basically running at 96000 baud instead of 9600, or more confused). Easy way to deal with that, it’s just that the driver didn’t know this revision needed that tweak, because it just saw it as generic versions of this card.
Into the world of PCI I went. I ended up needing to get the PCI vendor and subsystem numbers using lspci. Which isn’t in a base OpenBSD install by default. And it’s not on the 4.2 install media I bought (only the most useful subset makes it onto the CD). And since this was before 4.2’s official release, no package available for download. Then I had some fun with getting it to compile, since apparently the expat library moved into the base x packages instead of being a port, but the ports tree didn’t realize this. So I got that resolved. I get my numbers.
Not I dive into the kernel source code of OpenBSD. I found that I needed to change the pcidevs and pucdata.c files. But how? It took a bit of bashing my head against the code, and some mistakes that caused the machine in question to just freeze, but I got it going.
So today, after that, I created diffs for those files and submitted them to the appropriate OpenBSD mailing list. Just got back to my desk a few minutes ago, and there was a response to the list from one of the main developers saying it was a bit garbled, and he had to apply it manually, but that my contribution has been committed.
So I’m feeling all proud because I have submitted code to my favorite software project and had it accepted. It’s really not like it’s a big contribution, but I actually took the effort to learn and do it myself.
Interacting with the Hard of Hearing September 21, 2007
Posted by Kurt in : Uncategorized , 2commentsFor those who don’t know it, RIT is also home of NTID, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. So there is a large deaf population on campus, and for that matter, in Rochester. Additionally, NTID has kind of an “outpost” right down the hall from me (And my faculty). A few offices and a lab.
Anyway, that’s kind of the background. I’ve often felt a bit nervous and/or uncomforatble around them. Not because I have a problem with them, or fear them. Why? Mainly because I feel like I’m the ignorant guy dealing with people from another country. No, I’m not implying they aren’t American (although I’m sure some of their students aren’t, RIT has a large international student population). Almost all of them speak my language to some degree or another (American English), but I’m the one who doesn’t know *their* primary language. American Sign Language.
I’ve just not got around to picking it up yet. When I do make the time, there are probably not too many better places than here at RIT. I just haven’t found those round tuits yet. 
So really, I just feel a little weird because I feel somewhat like I’ve been too lazy to pick up their language. Really, I shouldn’t. I actually broke down a couple months ago and asked someone who works in NTID about a courtesy issue that had always bothered me. See, when there is a big conversation between a bunch of people using ASL, they stand in a circle so everyone can see everyone’s hands and chat. I always used to feel that when I went through them, like to head to the front of the building, that I was like some guy butting into your conversation briefly to shout at the top of my lungs as I went by. Because I would break their line of sight briefly. When I finally asked someone about it, I was told they don’t see it that way at all. It’s actually more inconsiderate to get their attention just to go by. (Which I had figured out I shouldn’t do). It’s just part of using ASL to communicate. I mean, no stopping to do jumping jacks in the middle of them
I found out a couple days ago my current “lackey”, in addition to all the other things he does, teaches sign language at the NTID “No Voice Zone” events. I was rather impressed. He teaches folks how to sign, without anyone speaking. It really seems like a good idea. Just like other immersive language classes.
Another thing that occured to me then, is the difference in cognitive load for people who sign and speak at the same time. I suppose someone who was talking and writing or talking and typing at the same time might be similar… but ASL is not American English. It’s a different language, different concepts (from my understanding). So you will see many people speaking and signing at the same time, and they are speaking two distinct languages simultaneously. Even the aforementioned people typing and/or writing at the same time generally are using the same language in two mediums. And when else does someone speak two languages simultaneously. We’re not equipped :) Unless you can point someone to me who speaks, say, French and Spanish simultaneously
Kurt gets his Geek-Fu back July 30, 2007
Posted by Kurt in : Uncategorized , 1 comment so farNot entirely sure what it is lately, whether it is the better diet, phase of the moon, or what, but I’ve gotten my Geek-Fu back. I’ve learned a bunch about MySQL in the past few days, created a bunch of indexes to make these blogs work faster. And I used OptiPNG a bunch to crunch down the image sizes.
I’ll be setting up my E3000 soon. It’s been neglected too long. It didn’t help that the CPU/Memory board I got had 2 anemic 167Mhz Ultrasparcs with a total of 128M of memory. I have a new CPU/memory board on its way with 2 400Mhz CPUs, and I’ve got a total of 4G memory coming. With the assorted SCSI disks I have, it should make a pretty kick-ass server. It will probably get some flavor of Solaris on it, since others can run, but I won’t get the full experience without Solaris (Dynamic Reconfiguration, full SMP, etc.).
Compulsively optimizing July 27, 2007
Posted by Kurt in : Uncategorized , add a commentSo, while I’ve done little (read: none) posting so far on this blog, I have been messing with it a bit. Pamela did all the work installing it, a feat of which I’m very proud. I did a bunch of MySQL tuning to make the site perform better.
Then I played with YSlow (Yahoo’s new firefox extension for analyzing website performance) and did some stuff like added expiration tags, gzip encoding, etc.
And then I’ve started looking at making the graphics files with the themes smaller. It’s amazing how many graphics included with various things are often 2-3 times the size they need to be.