Days webbings

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Ahh, home sweet home.

Well, not exactly but close enough ^_^

Was late getting to work but got off on time, luckily there was a little less to do today then normal. Got ‘ambushed’ by a Spider above the door, no sign of where the little bugger escaped to but I should probably thank’em.

Hit the shower and a quick shave without the usual delays. When your usually third in line for the bathroom and spend nights workin’, and time off work busy. It pays to take advantage of every opportunity for a bath lol.

I spent yesterday taking a day to myself (a rarity sometimes). I was building a prototype in Python with Qt3 bindings then after dinner. I spent the night writing the finished version in C++ with the Qt4 libraries I have installed. I haven’t really used C++ much in at least 2 and a half years or so but it wasn’t a problem. Qt is arguably the easiest GUI toolkit I’ve ever seen but I’m only used to the Python bindings to Qt3. So the issue with using the concepts from the prototype to build the project in C++, the biggest problem I had was the slight differences between Qt’s bindings to C++ and Python.

Although I wouldn’t want to have to do anything useful in assembly language, I think in a way that I can use just about any computer language given enough time. I do rather find working in Python, Perl, and PHP much more comfortable though.

The programs pretty simple, the whole point of it is just to handle a Bourne Shell script based init system to populating my workspace with applications.

I’ve also considered breaking it down & posting it just for an example in Qt programming.

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Been very tired lately… Either workin’ a lot or idle as can be for not being able to get work done, pisses me off :

No one was hungry after this afternoons huge lunch, so there was no official supper. I ended up with a can of cream of mushroom and leftovers lol. Contrary to popular believe around here at times, I actually do know how to make condensed soup ^_^.

With the amount of flibin’ salt in those things, I think it would be worth while to do it by hand and skip the can :|, just more costly!

Two things I really need.. Doubt either of them are likely in the immediate future but work also has to get done…

Does Python or PyQt3 have a pox on C++?

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This is illogical as I’ve seen Python get.

Terry@dixie$ cd code/C++/src/qsm                                           0:11
Terry@dixie$ python                                                        0:11
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Apr 17 2008, 16:34:02) 
[GCC 3.4.6 [FreeBSD] 20060305] on freebsd6
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from qt import *
>>> QDialog
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'QDialog' is not defined
>>> 
Terry@dixie$ cd $HOME                                                      0:11
Terry@dixie$ python                                                        0:11
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Apr 17 2008, 16:34:02) 
[GCC 3.4.6 [FreeBSD] 20060305] on freebsd6
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from qt import *
>>> QDialog
<class 'qt.QDialog'>
>>>

Maybe there is a reason for this and I’ve just got to much of a headache from today to notice it, but WTF man? lol. It’s almost as if Python has a pox on running a script in that directory :

I wanted to test an idea for a dialog quickly, so I started a new python script. Only to have NameError’s whenever trying to reference a member of the qt module. So i copied over one of the py-qt3 example programs that came pre-installed and tried that, same barfing results.

Then I tried interactively with python, no go — changed directories to home and tried both, and they fucking work !!!!

I don’t know whether I should laugh out loud or start hex editing maliciously lol.

Another commit to NPM

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Well this was a fun one, for the first night in quite awhile I’ve spent some code-time on one of my own projects instead of [SAS] related business.

After someone on daemonforums pointed me at a few make targets (depends-list, showconfig). I put it on my to do list to refactor NPM to make use of such things.

As it turns out, depends-list is not documented and doesn’t seem to work on every port. The included makefile that implements showconfig however, does list a lot of make targets that I can count on (more then the ports manual page), including suitable *-depends-list targets.

NPM’s way of handling port build options in the trunk, I’ve never been very happy with… Because although it works, the whole thing hinges on a method of pulling out the OPTIONS variable from a specified ports Makefile. The code to do it, should we say gives me a queezy feeling when I think about it.

I also had planned on writing a small module to handle calculating a programs dependencies through the ports INDEX file but never finished it. I had gotten as far as processing the index and scratching my head over a couple of the rarely used segments of the file. The various m/.*-depends-.*/ targets solve that problem already, so we’re in cake land 😉

It’s much easier to just read the information through a pipe and process it into something manageable. I’m to exhausted atm to keep working on things in a sound frame of mind… Else I would probably be awake for another 3 or 4 hours, passing out around 0700~0800.

Some stuff I would like to do on the next round of commits,

process data received from the pipes while reading them, not after reading it all (not that this is likely to be a noticeable improvement in response time for big jobs)

figure out exceptions to be raised

get it finished

get it tested

get the program using it

test that

pass out again.

Wireless networking options

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I’m contemplating *trying* to move my desktop PC to my room… Which means access to the ‘net will only by available via wireless. The computer doens’t have a wirfi card, just ethernet so that means shopping is involved.

It primarily runs Windows XP for gaming and has space reserved for testing GNU/Linux distros and BSD systems. Being a BSD-aware and manual reading shopper, I always crack open my operating systems manuals and look at what cards are supported by the drivers when I go looking for a product.

Since the only principal markets available to me off the web are Best Buy and Office Depot, those are where I looked online first.

The cards:

NETGEAR – 802.11g PCI Card Model: WG311

Pro’s:
Supported by ath drivers.

Same brand and chipset as my PCMCIA card (WG511T)

Con’s:

Old (or cheap) product, only supports WEP (which I don’t use)

Newer revisions may not be totally compatible with existing drivers (I suspect).

Belkin – Wireless-G USB 2.0 Network Adapter, Model: F5D7050

Pro’s:

Version 3 is supported by the rum driver and v2000 by the ral driver.

Con’s:

Reviews suggest bad gaming performance due to burst based transmissions

The rum driver is new to FreeBSD 7.0-Release (ported from OpenBSD)

GOD only knows what revision/version you might find at the store…

Hawking Technology – Wireless-G USB 2.0 Network Adapter,
Model: HWUG1 at best buy and at OfficeDepot

Pro’s:
Supported by the rum

Removable aerial and possibly good signal strength if you don’t have problems with it.

Con’s:

The rum driver is new to FreeBSD 7.0-Release (ported from OpenBSD)

May be hard to find (lesser known brand, at least from what I’ve seen of consumer (non enterprise) products).

Just look at Hawking Technologies website… (ugh)

Linksys Wireless-G 802.11g PCI Adapter, Model WMP54G at Office Depot and Best Buy

Pro’s:

Supported by the ral driver.

It’s cheap

It’s available while it is still on the market

It’s the same brand as my router (which is _not_ a plus in my book…)

Con’s:

More stores are carrying similar but newer models for Wireless-N and variants of the both (802.11g and 802.11g/n) proprietary speed boosting technology, which of course is unsupported.

It’s the same brand as my router (which I don’t care much for!)

MISC:

Driver support on OpenBSD and FreeBSD at release levels…

ath == OpenBSD 3.7, FreeBSD 5.2, NetBSD 2.0 (more recent modules don’t use a binary blob, at least the OpenBSD drivers that is (-;)

ral == OpenBSD 3.7, FreeBSD 6.0 and may require PCI 2.2 compatible mother boards.

rum == OpenBSD 4.0, FreeBSD 7.0

ural == OpenBSD 3.7, FreeBSD 6.0 and may have issues with communicating transmission speed (OBSD manual is more specific).

All of this is posted for my own reference and anyone else who may find use for it.

Converting FreeBSD into PC-BSD

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Abstract

This post describes an example of how one can manually convert a FreeBSD installation into a PC-BSD one using the install disk. There are more elegant ways of doing it, such as pulling things from PC-BSDs SVN and compiling only PC-BSD specific components.

Disclaimers and warnings

This was done purely for ‘fun’ to see if the programs would work reasonably well. Which is why FreeBSD 7.0-Release was used as a base and PC-BSD 1.5.0 as the overlay (which is based on an old build of FreeBSD 6.3). I do not recommend, endorse, or even suggest actually doing something like this beyond exploratory or playful thoughts at heart !!!

If anyone actually tries this, your on your own.

If someone actually tries this they should probably use a PC-BSD 1.5.1 disk build, the files are newer.

Installing the PC-BSD v1.5.0-v1.5.1 update will install FreeBSD 6.3 files and may break your system — note that I didn’t enable the updater for my user account during this process.

Now that you are warned…

My test partition is reserved fro testing various alpha/beta/rc releases of operating systems I wish to test. So I wiped it clean and set out to install a basic working FreeBSD system.

I Installed FreeBSD 7.0-Release via CD-ROM, using the express option, auto
partitioning to save time, X-Developer dist set, and configured the system
lightly (set root pw, network services etc).

You want the X.org and related drivers from the disk, so they match your release level — you also want source code for later to build a custom kernel (optional)

Booted the system and logged in as root, one vtty for work and one for logging my notes in vim over ssh.

Then began converting the system to a FreeBSD-PC-BSD hybrid. Since the FreeBSD auto mode for partitioning the slice only gave me a 512mb / and 512mb /tmp, I created a /usr/work directory to use.

NOTE:
actual PC-BSD systems require several gigs of space for / to ensure safe updates and this is noted during previous upgrade notes. My guess after reading some of the 1.4/1.5 scripts is the developers have ‘yet’ to figure out how to use mount -a for mounting the needed file systems before extracting files and reserved storage places with the default partitioning scheme

pkg_add -r lzma && rehash  # to unpack pc-bsd files
mount -t cd9690 /dev/acd0 /mnt  # mount pc-bsd disk 1
mkdir -m 0700 /usr/work
lzma d /mnt/PCBSD.tar.lzma /usr/work/PCBSD.tar
 ...
     # lzma has fast decompression speeds but
     # this is a ~451mb lzma file being
     # unpacked into a 1.9gb tar file!

tar -C / -kpf /usr/work/PCBSD.tar # extract files without overwrite 

cp /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf.local # fix rc.conf
tar -C /tmp -f /usr/work/PCBSD.tar -px './etc'
cp /tmp/etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf
cp /tmp/etc/devfs.conf /etc/devfs.conf # modified in pc-bsd

vi /etc/ttys    # start x on boot up
 ...    # note the ttyvNum is arbitrary
 #ttyv8 "/usr/local/bin/xdm -nodaemon"  xterm   off secure
 ttyv8   "/PCBSD/bin/pdm"                xterm   on secure
 ...
X -configure && mv /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

#
# create users and groups that come with PC-BSD 1.5.0 but not FreeBSD
# 7.0-Release. Numerical values for -u userid and -g groupid are taken from
# viewing a unified diff of the group files.
#
pw groupadd -n haldaemon -g 560
pw groupadd -n cups -g 193
pw groupadd -n cyrus -g 60
pw useradd -n haldaemon -u 560 -g 560 -L daemon -d /nonexistent 
  -s /usr/sbin/nologin
pw useradd -n cups -u 193 -g 193 -L daemon -d /nonexistent -s /usr/sbin/nologin
pw useradd -n cyrus -u 60 -g 60 -L daemon -d /nonexistent -s /usr/sbin/nologin

#
# add my own user with the bash shell as a test (because it. Note that I typically set
# user/group id numbers by year of birth.
#
pw groupadd -n Terry -g 1988
pw useradd -n Terry -u 1988 -L default -m -s bash -g Terry 
  -G wheel,operator
passwd Terry
 ...

#
# now build a custom kernel merging GENERIC with /PCBSD/conf/PCBSD.i386
# I find Micro GNU Emacs (mg) to be both light and effective for this task.
# -- normally I would use vimdiff
#
pkg_add -r mg && rehash    # if using mg !
cat > ~/.mg
auto-fill-mode
set-fill-column 78
global-set-key "^x^f" find-file
global-set-key "^h" delete-backward-char
set-default-mode blink
^D      # end of ~/.mg

diff -u /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC /PCBSD/conf/PCBSD.i386 > /tmp/kern.diff
cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
mg KAI
 ...    # kernel config attached at EOF
     # used GENERIC and /tmp/kern.diff to
     # write the file if needed.

cd /usr/src    # compile & install kernel
make -j12 buildkernel KERNCONF=KAI
 ...    # roughly 10 minutes later..
make -j12 installkernel KERNCONF=KAI
 ...    
umount /mnt && cdcontrol -f /dev/acd0 eject
reboot     # let's rock it and roll on to KDE

On reboot, I was greeted with KDM, PC-BSDs login theme, and a clean startup of KDE (no error message popups). I was able to install and use the Firefox PBI from PBIDir without problems. But as one can see in the screen shots, there are sound system related core dumps

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

I was also interested to see that there is now a ‘snd_emu10kx’ driver added in FreeBSD 7.0-Release which supports my card. So I guess I won’t have to manually compile the ‘outdated, unmaintained, etc’ audio/emu10kx port to get working sound, the manual page seems to suggest it is the same driver more or less. I only had to add an entry to my loader.conf file to get it loaded before PC-BSD sound detection system, just like audio/emu10kx from ports it won’t work (for me) if kldload’ed later on.

I found that although everything I tested was working fine, audio and video related apps were dumping core (mplayer at start, kaffeine during playback). So I did a pkg_delete on kaffeine and kaffeine-mozilla and reinstalled from packages and soon was blasting MP3’s from a FAT32 partition 😉

MPlayer needs to be recompiled as expected, The KDE sound system will likely need that to but otherwise I’ve observed no real breakages. Not that I’ve taken the time to test every single program!

Personal Opinions

If like me, your primary reason for using PC-BSD is a quick way of grabbing KDE — you would be better off installing PC-BSD! As far as setting up a working desktop system, one can do that easy through FreeBSD. If one doesn’t want to go into configuration details for ‘extra’s like PF or X11 using PC-BSD or DesktopBSD is a better idea anyway.

If all you want is PBI, export, compile, and install the necessary files from PC-BSDs SVN repository.

Kernel Configuration: KAI

Note to SATA hard drives out there, the ATA_STATIC_ID option effects device numbering. FreeBSD GENERIC kernel configuration uses it and detects my SATA drive as ‘ad4’, PC_BSD kernel configuration has it turned off and detects my drive as ‘ad0’ — I only have one SATA II hard drive installed.

Changing the ATA_STATIC_ID kernel option means you will havve to make sure /etc/fstab is in working shape unless you want to see a mount root prompt.

#
# Custom FreeBSD 7.0 kernel based on PC-BSD 1.5 Kernel config for FreeBSD 6.3
#

cpu  I686_CPU
ident  KAI



#options  SCHED_$BSD  # 4BSD scheduler
options  SCHED_ULE  # ULE scheduler ;-)
options  PREEMPTION  # ENABLE KERNEL THREAD PREEMPTION
options  INET   # INTERNETWORKING
options  INET6   # IPV6 COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOLS
options  SCTP   # STREAM CONTROL TRANSMISSION PROTOCOL
options  FFS   # BERKELEY FAST FILESYSTEM
options  SOFTUPDATES  # ENABLE FFS SOFT UPDATES SUPPORT
options  UFS_ACL   # SUPPORT FOR ACCESS CONTROL LISTS
options  UFS_DIRHASH  # IMPROVE PERFORMANCE ON BIG DIRECTORIES
options  UFS_GJOURNAL  # ENABLE GJOURNAL-BASED UFS JOURNALING
options  MD_ROOT   # MD IS A POTENTIAL ROOT device
options  NFSCLIENT  # NETWORK FILESYSTEM CLIENT
options  NFSSERVER  # NETWORK FILESYSTEM SERVER
options  NFS_ROOT  # NFS USABLE AS /, REQUIRES NFSCLIENT
options  MSDOSFS   # MSDOS FILESYSTEM
options  CD9660   # ISO 9660 FILESYSTEM
options  PROCFS   # PROCESS FILESYSTEM (REQUIRES PSEUDOFS)
options  PSEUDOFS  # PSEUDO-FILESYSTEM FRAMEWORK
options  GEOM_PART_GPT  # GUID PARTITION TABLES.
options  GEOM_LABEL  # PROVIDES LABELIZATION
options  COMPAT_43TTY  # BSD 4.3 TTY COMPAT [KEEP THIS!]
options  COMPAT_FREEBSD4  # COMPATIBLE WITH FREEBSD4
options  COMPAT_FREEBSD5  # COMPATIBLE WITH FREEBSD5
options  COMPAT_FREEBSD6  # COMPATIBLE WITH FREEBSD6
options  SCSI_DELAY=5000  # DELAY (IN MS) BEFORE PROBING SCSI
options  KTRACE   # KTRACE(1) SUPPORT
options  SYSVSHM   # SYSV-STYLE SHARED MEMORY
options  SYSVMSG   # SYSV-STYLE MESSAGE QUEUES
options  SYSVSEM   # SYSV-STYLE SEMAPHORES
options  _KPOSIX_PRIORITY_SCHEDULING # POSIX P1003_1B REAL-TIME EXTENSIONS
options  KBD_INSTALL_CDEV # INSTALL A CDEV ENTRY IN /DEV
options  ADAPTIVE_GIANT  # GIANT MUTEX IS ADAPTIVE.
options  STOP_NMI  # STOP CPUS USING NMI INSTEAD OF IPI
options  AUDIT   # SECURITY EVENT AUDITING

# TO MAKE AN SMP KERNEL, THE NEXT TWO LINES ARE NEEDED
options  SMP   # SYMMETRIC MULTIPROCESSOR KERNEL
device  apic   # I/O APIC

# CPU FREQUENCY CONTROL
device  cpufreq

# BUS SUPPORT.
device  eisa
device  pci


# FLOPPY DRIVES
device  fdc

# ATA AND ATAPI deviceS
device  ata
device  atadisk  # ATA DISK DRIVES
device  ataraid  # ATA RAID DRIVES
device  atapicd  # ATAPI CDROM DRIVES
device  atapifd  # ATAPI FLOPPY DRIVES
device  atapist  # ATAPI TAPE DRIVES
options  ATA_STATIC_ID # STATIC device NUMBERING
device   atapicam # Atapi CAM support

# SCSI CONTROLLERS
device  ahb  # EISA AHA1742 FAMILY
device  ahc  # AHA2940 AND ONBOARD AIC7XXX deviceS
options  AHC_REG_PRETTY_PRINT # PRINT REGISTER BITFIELDS IN DEBUG
     # OUTPUT.  ADDS ~128K TO DRIVER.
device  ahd  # AHA39320/29320 AND ONBOARD AIC79XX deviceS
options  AHD_REG_PRETTY_PRINT # PRINT REGISTER BITFIELDS IN DEBUG
     # OUTPUT.  ADDS ~215K TO DRIVER.
device  amd  # AMD 53C974 (TEKRAM DC-390(T))
device  isp  # QLOGIC FAMILY
#device  ispfw  # FIRMWARE FOR QLOGIC HBAS- NORMALLY A MODULE
device  mpt  # LSI-LOGIC MPT-FUSION
#device  ncr  # NCR/SYMBIOS LOGIC
device  sym  # NCR/SYMBIOS LOGIC (NEWER CHIPSETS + THOSE OF `NCR')
device  trm  # TEKRAM DC395U/UW/F DC315U ADAPTERS

device  adv  # ADVANSYS SCSI ADAPTERS
device  adw  # ADVANSYS WIDE SCSI ADAPTERS
device  aha  # ADAPTEC 154X SCSI ADAPTERS
device  aic  # ADAPTEC 15[012]X SCSI ADAPTERS, AIC-6[23]60.
device  bt  # BUSLOGIC/MYLEX MULTIMASTER SCSI ADAPTERS

device  ncv  # NCR 53C500
device  nsp  # WORKBIT NINJA SCSI-3
device  stg  # TMC 18C30/18C50

# SCSI PERIPHERALS
device  scbus  # SCSI BUS (REQUIRED FOR SCSI)
device  ch  # SCSI MEDIA CHANGERS
device  da  # DIRECT ACCESS (DISKS)
device  sa  # SEQUENTIAL ACCESS (TAPE ETC)
device  cd  # CD
device  pass  # PASSTHROUGH device (DIRECT SCSI ACCESS)
device  ses  # SCSI ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES (AND SAF-TE)

# RAID CONTROLLERS INTERFACED TO THE SCSI SUBSYSTEM
device  amr  # AMI MEGARAID
device  arcmsr  # ARECA SATA II RAID
device  asr  # DPT SMARTRAID V, VI AND ADAPTEC SCSI RAID
device  ciss  # COMPAQ SMART RAID 5*
device  dpt  # DPT SMARTCACHE III, IV - SEE NOTES FOR options
device  hptmv  # HIGHPOINT ROCKETRAID 182X
device  hptrr  # HIGHPOINT ROCKETRAID 17XX, 22XX, 23XX, 25XX
device  iir  # INTEL INTEGRATED RAID
device  ips  # IBM (ADAPTEC) SERVERAID
device  mly  # MYLEX ACCELERAID/EXTREMERAID
device  twa  # 3WARE 9000 SERIES PATA/SATA RAID

# RAID CONTROLLERS
device  aac  # ADAPTEC FSA RAID
device  aacp  # SCSI PASSTHROUGH FOR AAC (REQUIRES CAM)
device  ida  # COMPAQ SMART RAID
device  mfi  # LSI MEGARAID SAS
device  mlx  # MYLEX DAC960 FAMILY
device  pst  # PROMISE SUPERTRAK SX6000
device  twe  # 3WARE ATA RAID

# ATKBDC0 CONTROLS BOTH THE KEYBOARD AND THE PS/2 MOUSE
device  atkbdc  # AT KEYBOARD CONTROLLER
device  atkbd  # AT KEYBOARD
device  psm  # PS/2 MOUSE


device  vga  # VGA VIDEO CARD DRIVER

device  splash  # SPLASH SCREEN AND SCREEN SAVER SUPPORT

# SYSCONS IS THE DEFAULT CONSOLE DRIVER, RESEMBLING AN SCO CONSOLE
device  sc

device  agp  # SUPPORT SEVERAL AGP CHIPSETS

# POWER MANAGEMENT SUPPORT (SEE NOTES FOR MORE options)
#device  apm
# ADD SUSPEND/RESUME SUPPORT FOR THE I8254.
device  pmtimer

# PCCARD (PCMCIA) SUPPORT
# PCMCIA AND CARDBUS BRIDGE SUPPORT
device  cbb  # CARDBUS (YENTA) BRIDGE
device  pccard  # PC CARD (16-BIT) BUS
device  cardbus  # CARDBUS (32-BIT) BUS

# SERIAL (COM) PORTS
device  sio  # 8250, 16[45]50 BASED SERIAL PORTS
device  uart  # GENERIC UART DRIVER

# PARALLEL PORT
device  ppc
device  ppbus  # PARALLEL PORT BUS (REQUIRED)
device  lpt  # PRINTER
device  plip  # TCP/IP OVER PARALLEL
device  ppi  # PARALLEL PORT INTERFACE device
#device  vpo  # REQUIRES SCBUS AND DA

# IF YOU'VE GOT A "DUMB" SERIAL OR PARALLEL PCI CARD THAT IS
# SUPPORTED BY THE PUC(4) GLUE DRIVER, UNCOMMENT THE FOLLOWING
# LINE TO ENABLE IT (CONNECTS TO SIO, UART AND/OR PPC DRIVERS):
#device  puc

# PCI ETHERNET NICS.
device  de  # DEC/INTEL DC21X4X (``TULIP'')
device  em  # INTEL PRO/1000 ADAPTER GIGABIT ETHERNET CARD
device  ixgb  # INTEL PRO/10GBE ETHERNET CARD
device  le  # AMD AM7900 LANCE AND AM79C9XX PCNET
device  txp  # 3COM 3CR990 (``TYPHOON'')
device  vx  # 3COM 3C590, 3C595 (``VORTEX'')

# PCI ETHERNET NICS THAT USE THE COMMON MII BUS CONTROLLER CODE.
# NOTE: BE SURE TO KEEP THE 'device MIIBUS' LINE IN ORDER TO USE THESE NICS!
device  miibus  # MII BUS SUPPORT
device  bce  # BROADCOM BCM5706/BCM5708 GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  bfe  # BROADCOM BCM440X 10/100 ETHERNET
device  bge  # BROADCOM BCM570XX GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  dc  # DEC/INTEL 21143 AND VARIOUS WORKALIKES
device  fxp  # INTEL ETHEREXPRESS PRO/100B (82557, 82558)
device  lge  # LEVEL 1 LXT1001 GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  msk  # MARVELL/SYSKONNECT YUKON II GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  nfe  # NVIDIA NFORCE MCP ON-BOARD ETHERNET
device  nge  # NATSEMI DP83820 GIGABIT ETHERNET
#device  nve  # NVIDIA NFORCE MCP ON-BOARD ETHERNET NETWORKING
device  pcn  # AMD AM79C97X PCI 10/100 (PRECEDENCE OVER 'LE')
device  re  # REALTEK 8139C+/8169/8169S/8110S
device  rl  # REALTEK 8129/8139
device  sf  # ADAPTEC AIC-6915 (``STARFIRE'')
device  sis  # SILICON INTEGRATED SYSTEMS SIS 900/SIS 7016
device  sk  # SYSKONNECT SK-984X & SK-982X GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  ste  # SUNDANCE ST201 (D-LINK DFE-550TX)
device  stge  # SUNDANCE/TAMARACK TC9021 GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  ti  # ALTEON NETWORKS TIGON I/II GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  tl  # TEXAS INSTRUMENTS THUNDERLAN
device  tx  # SMC ETHERPOWER II (83C170 ``EPIC'')
device  vge  # VIA VT612X GIGABIT ETHERNET
device  vr  # VIA RHINE, RHINE II
device  wb  # WINBOND W89C840F
device  xl  # 3COM 3C90X (``BOOMERANG'', ``CYCLONE'')

# ISA ETHERNET NICS.  PCCARD NICS INCLUDED.
device  cs  # CRYSTAL SEMICONDUCTOR CS89X0 NIC
# 'device ED' REQUIRES 'device MIIBUS'
device  ed  # NE[12]000, SMC ULTRA, 3C503, DS8390 CARDS
device  ex  # INTEL ETHEREXPRESS PRO/10 AND PRO/10+
device  ep  # ETHERLINK III BASED CARDS
device  fe  # FUJITSU MB8696X BASED CARDS
device  ie  # ETHEREXPRESS 8/16, 3C507, STARLAN 10 ETC.
device  sn  # SMC'S 9000 SERIES OF ETHERNET CHIPS
device  xe  # XIRCOM PCCARD ETHERNET

# WIRELESS NIC CARDS
device  wlan  # 802.11 SUPPORT
device  wlan_wep # 802.11 WEP SUPPORT
device  wlan_ccmp # 802.11 CCMP SUPPORT
device  wlan_tkip # 802.11 TKIP SUPPORT
device  wlan_amrr # AMRR TRANSMIT RATE CONTROL ALGORITHM
device  wlan_scan_ap # 802.11 AP MODE SCANNING
device  wlan_scan_sta # 802.11 STA MODE SCANNING
device  an  # AIRONET 4500/4800 802.11 WIRELESS NICS.
device  ath  # ATHEROS PCI/CARDBUS NIC'S
device  ath_hal  # ATHEROS HAL (HARDWARE ACCESS LAYER)
device  ath_rate_sample # SAMPLERATE TX RATE CONTROL FOR ATH
device  awi  # BAYSTACK 660 AND OTHERS
device  ral  # RALINK TECHNOLOGY RT2500 WIRELESS NICS.
device  wi  # WAVELAN/INTERSIL/SYMBOL 802.11 WIRELESS NICS.
#device  wl  # OLDER NON 802.11 WAVELAN WIRELESS NIC.

# PSEUDO deviceS.
device  loop  # NETWORK LOOPBACK
device  random  # ENTROPY device
device  ether  # ETHERNET SUPPORT
device  sl  # KERNEL SLIP
device  ppp  # KERNEL PPP
device  tun  # PACKET TUNNEL.
device  pty  # PSEUDO-TTYS (TELNET ETC)
device  md  # MEMORY "DISKS"
device  gif  # IPV6 AND IPV4 TUNNELING
device  faith  # IPV6-TO-IPV4 RELAYING (TRANSLATION)
device  firmware # FIRMWARE ASSIST MODULE

# THE `BPF' device ENABLES THE BERKELEY PACKET FILTER.
# BE AWARE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF ENABLING THIS!
# NOTE THAT 'BPF' IS REQUIRED FOR DHCP.
device  bpf  # BERKELEY PACKET FILTER

# USB SUPPORT
device  uhci  # UHCI PCI->USB INTERFACE
device  ohci  # OHCI PCI->USB INTERFACE
device  ehci  # EHCI PCI->USB INTERFACE (USB 2.0)
device  usb  # USB BUS (REQUIRED)
#device  udbp  # USB DOUBLE BULK PIPE deviceS
device  ugen  # GENERIC
device  uhid  # "HUMAN INTERFACE deviceS"
device  ukbd  # KEYBOARD
device  ulpt  # PRINTER
device  umass  # DISKS/MASS STORAGE - REQUIRES SCBUS AND DA
device  ums  # MOUSE
device  ural  # RALINK TECHNOLOGY RT2500USB WIRELESS NICS
device  rum  # RALINK TECHNOLOGY RT2501USB WIRELESS NICS
device  urio  # DIAMOND RIO 500 MP3 PLAYER
device  uscanner # SCANNERS
# USB ETHERNET, REQUIRES MIIBUS
device  aue  # ADMTEK USB ETHERNET
device  axe  # ASIX ELECTRONICS USB ETHERNET
device  cdce  # GENERIC USB OVER ETHERNET
device  cue  # CATC USB ETHERNET
device  kue  # KAWASAKI LSI USB ETHERNET
device  rue  # REALTEK RTL8150 USB ETHERNET

# FIREWIRE SUPPORT
device  firewire # FIREWIRE BUS CODE
device  sbp  # SCSI OVER FIREWIRE (REQUIRES SCBUS AND DA)
device  fwe  # ETHERNET OVER FIREWIRE (NON-STANDARD!)
device  fwip  # IP OVER FIREWIRE (RFC 2734,3146)
device  dcons  # DUMB CONSOLE DRIVER
device  dcons_crom # CONFIGURATION ROM FOR DCONS


#
# from PC-BSD conf
#
options  LIBICONV
options  LIBMCHAIN
options  CD9660_ICONV
options  MSDOSFS_ICONV
options  NTFS
options  NTFS_ICONV
options  UDF
options  UDF_ICONV
options  GEOM_UZIP  # read only compressed disks
# wifi
device  wlan
device  wlan_wep
device  wlan_ccmp
device  wlan_tkip
device  an
device  ath
device  ath_hal
device  ath_rate_sample
device  awi
device  ral
device  wi
device  iwi
device  ipw
device  firmware
options  DEVICE_POLLING
device  pf
device  pflog
device  pfsync
options  ALTQ
options  ALTQ_CBQ
options  ALTQ_RED
options  ALTQ_RIO
options  ALTQ_HFSC
options  ALTQ_CDNR
options  ALTQ_PRIQ
options  ALTQ_NOPCC

Family Memories

by

Hmm, a rare surprise in the mail today. My Aunt sent me some family photo’s, mostly of when my Father was younger and a couple of when I was little. My Mother also gave me a few more photo albums, ones that belonged to my Dad.

Spent some time tonight looking through them, basically covering 1946 through 1963 with a couple gaps in between. One thing that really stuck out, a picture of my Dad about 4 years old sitting on their front step with my Aunt. He had his leg crossed in just the same way that I usually have mine crossed lol. Guess it goes back further then I thought >_>

As fate would have it, I know a lot more about my Mothers side of the family then my Fathers… But his albums are also a bit neater, well annotated, I think someday it would be nice to go through them with my Aunt and see what she can remember of some of their vacations and stuff. One thing that I found out when looking through the photos; that I never knew before, my Dad was in the boy scouts when he was a kid.

I was also looking through a book from when he was doing the recruit training/etc in 1963, of course I looked through the company photographs to find him (y). Some of the pictures my Aunt sent me were of him in his summer whites, most of the ones we have are in the winter blues. I think the USN is dealing away with those now’re days, oh well :. In side the pages I also found a greyhound envelope with bus tickets from the time and a few photo’s of aircraft.

I know he hated the Navy more or less, he was supposed to be stationed in Texas close to home but wound up in Florida — someone out of state got Fort Hood, and then later shipped off to Midway when life was going a bit better. Talk about getting the short end of the stick lol. But then again, if it wasn’t for that I probably would never have been born ~20 years later ^_^

I’m a somewhat sentimental kinda guy, not exactly a big person on photo albums but it’s good to be reminded every now and then of where you come from. It’s sort of like looking at a small picture into another time, another place. Some of the older photo’s are quite faded but I guess 60 years or so will do that to a photograph. But all in all most of them were in pretty good shape, quite a pleasant stroll you could say.

One thing that was a bit odd, one of the Christmas photos showed my Dad getting a tub of “American Plastic Bricks”, they look like a cross between something simpler I used to play with as a boy when I was a few years younger and the LEGO bricks so ubiquitous with much of my generation. I also sighed at the sight of my Dad and Aunt sitting around the tree with a new record player — someone was telling me the other day that they were looking for an MP3 Player >_>.

I was born in ’89 and my memory goes about as far back as 1990~1991 and I don’t think I’ve really seen a record player in years. Heh, now this makes me feel old myself… When I was a lad we had Walkman and similar products with your choice of ear buds or or supra-aural headphones — now they are selling WIRELESS HEADPHONES !!! Not to mention that Compact Disks (CDs) and now more modern iPods and flash based devices are becoming common… The Compact Cassettes of my day are probably long dead and buried by now.

I wonder what my Dad would think of this new fan dangled technology, personally I think I would stick with the record player if it wasn’t for computers.

One of these days I really would like to get everything scanned, organized, and tagged on the computer. Because unlike a photograph, a file doesn’t fade out so easy. If I ever have kids, I know I would like to be able to show them about their ancestors. My ~/Pictures folder is only ~255mb so adding about a dozen photo albums can’t hurt that much, can it?

DI Planning Phase

by

Just finished my notes, I figure I can make the encrypted file available to the other NCOs to save me time reiterating it vocally. It’s mostly an outline of what ground I’ll have to be covering as a drill instructor.

My planned format is much like that my greatest teachers used for me, Rand, Wiz, and Relish.

I know my work on Tuesdays now (formally Mondays job) is almost a total washout when it comes to computer time. I kind of would like to get at least 3 or 4 days of the week going for training an hour or 2 per if possible. Time issues will tell the tail I guess. One thing I like about most of my work, I’m usually home some time in the local afternoon which generally works well.

I really prefer Zulu time but I kinda like my time zone. It balances out to an interesting inter-mix of times when syncing with other countries, I usually get to see people in several very different time zones during my online time lol.

The smaller portions of my training phase need to be taken day by day more so. I like what I have so far, a fairly ironed out wave of it but still a lot of breathing room to swing with whatever I end up. One thing I need to do is get this TeX file setup for printing so I don’t crash from all the alt+tabing lol.

I always felt [SAS]_Cpl_Spidey01 had the best ring to it in my time thus far, although I admit SSM/RSM/WO1 has enabled me to do a lot more then I otherwise would’ve been able to… but it’s the Corporals that fill many of my favorite tasks in [SAS].

Good to have my butt back on the virtual training grounds doing training!

days notes

by

Ahhh… A busy, stressful, but reasonably productive day I guess…

TG#3 problem should be el’fixo.

The RSM finally posted the reply to my volunteering to the be our new Recruits drill instructor.

Tonight I need to take some time out and finish prep work. It’s been a good while since I’ve focused on this sort of thing, having never filled the position in the past. I’m a wee bit apprehensive but looking forward to it a lot.

Back in my day, we didn’t have such an arrangement and by the time we did: I was a bit to highly placed to get a chance :. Oh well, it’s about time I guess lol. I’m lucky though, I’ve got a good recruit to work with so the biggest problem will probably be not boring him to death during training >_>.

As an NCO and SNCO on the team I have usually planned out my training sessions in advance, complete with a lesson plan. One thing I kinda liked about being an RSM/SSM is the chance to do more ‘off topic’ trainings, covering advanced stuff and things that we don’t train as frequently on.

For Drill Instructor, I want to continue to apply the level of expertise but not in quite the same way. I figure, for this since it’s more of a one to one / two to one approach… And I’m very much used to training in groups, I think I’ll try and follow the format that thought my generation the techniques of the trade.

I’m used to doing trainings in a more structured class. I usually would line it up so I could have 2 or 3 recruits around and bring in a few promising candidates when I could. Walk us through it, refine it, and where possible a lot some time for practicing it without the instructors interventions. Most times I’d be dealing with 3 to 7 people and if ever a stroke up luck, someone to back me up lol.

Me, well I was trained quite a bit differently hehe 😉

quick app

by

Well, it’s more of a chewing gum solution then a perfect fix… But I think I’ve got a small app to deal with the TG#3 problem. As soon as it is deployed it’ll kick start her whenever she goes offline.

At least, assuming that it follows a single common assumption but the game server should. At least one of the development teams that worked on SWAT4/SWAT4:TSS seem to have had some background in C++ for better or worse.

I don’t expect any problems though, it’s not like it’s a Ubi product haha. Oh man, Raven Shield is some crazy shit. I don’t know if it’s just an Unreal 2.x thing, the people Ubi get to write this stuff, or the rushed development but that’s one game I’d say has “ghosts in the machine”. It’s like, you could install the same game, into identical systems, do the same exact things to them. And then watch both system develop their own unique quirks and anomalies.

It’s like, no two installs of RvS are the same (especially servers) even through it’s the same bloody program!

The little funkieness yesterday that we had with the Rvs servers, ain’t even supposed to be possible rofl. But like most Windows crap, restart it and it’ll fix most problems until the next thing pops up :

DOS drools, NT sucks, but UNIX rules forever,