Andrew Bradford bradfa

Errors cause graphics output to lock up but mouse still moves, keyboard is dead, libvirt guests are OK, SSH access is OK. Can't shutdown cleanly over SSH, keyboard input doesn't work. Requires hard power-off via power button hold.

syslog looks like:

Dec 19 08:10:48 kaim-eeyore kernel: [88492.249393] radeon 0000:03:00.0: ring 0 stalled for more than 10248msec
Dec 19 08:10:48 kaim-eeyore kernel: [88492.249395] radeon 0000:03:00.0: ring 3 stalled for more than 10248msec
Dec 19 08:10:48 kaim-eeyore kernel: [88492.249398] radeon 0000:03:00.0: GPU lockup (current fence id 0x000000000007de00 last fence id 0x000000000007df67 on ring 3)
Dec 19 08:10:48 kaim-eeyore kernel: [88492.249402] radeon 0000:03:00.0: GPU lockup (current fence id 0x0000000000035dda last fence id 0x0000000000035e12 on ring 0)

Lots of good info with examples: https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/netem

Can induce a reduction in throughput for a network interface like:

sudo tc qdisc add dev br0 root tbf rate 5mbit burst 8096 latency 100ms

Set the "rate" to your desired outbound throughput for the interface. The "burst" and "latency" numbers coordinate some underlying configurations which aren't critical to really understand so long as they're big enough.

Installing Debian Stretch mips64el Using QEMU

We're going to emulate the mips64el "malta" machine and install Debian Stretch using QEMU on a amd64 Debian Buster host.

Likely you need your user to be in the "libvirt" group and have installed these packages (or a subset of such):

sudo apt install qemu-system-mips virt-manager libguestfs-tools

"Hardware" Notes

Need OVMF UEFI firmware for 64 bit machines installed. Be sure guest is using UEFI firmware! You can't change this after you create a machine in virt-manager!
Be sure using i440FX chipset.
Enable a qemu-ga channel for guest. Make a VirtIO serial controller.
Make sure your hard disk is using VirtIO, not IDE.
Be sure you have the VirtIO floppy image for Windows 7 install, you'll need to load drivers so installer can see the VirtIO disk.
Bridging to main Ethernet interface works fine, depsite the warnings. Use the VirtIO ethernet type.
The VirtIO 0.1.141 drivers work well for me in Win 7 Pro 64 bit.
To avoid the NVIDIA "Code 43" error, see the Arch Linux wiki about modifying the hypervisor name. Or somehow find older NVIDIA drivers prior to version 337 that work with your card.
Remove the "sound" device, sound pass through sucks. Just pass through a USB sound card/device but this isn't needed at install time.

The list of debian/ubuntu prereq packages is incomplete, you at least need to add:

python3-pip
curl
time
cmake
g++-mingw-w64

You also need both i386 and amd64 arches setup in dpkg so the proper packages for both arches are pulled in by apt, such as for wine and mingw.

I have previously set goals for myself for 2017. I've not done very well in achieving all of them, but here's a run-down anyways:

Goal 1 was to begin the process of becoming a Debian Developer. I've failed completely at this, I don't believe that I've contributed at all in any way to Debian in 2017.

Goal 2 was to contribute to a website to track my smaller accomplishments. I've actually done a pretty good job of this as I have fairly regularly updated my accomplishments site.

Goal 3 was to continue to run my NTP server(s). Except for a few month stint, I've been running at least 1 NTP server in India in the NTP global pool. My server stats for those who care.

msp430-elf

The following are instructions for building a GCC cross-compiler for the MSP430. They are based in part on Peter Bigot's post to mspgcc-users and the gist this was forked from.

Setup

export PREFIX=/usr/local/msp430

	# Exclude poky default build dir
	git/poky/build
	# Exclude our sstate, downloads, and build output dirs
	mr-oe-*/sstate-cache
	mr-oe-*/downloads
	mr-oe-/-oe-build/tmp-*
	git/poky-wrap/titan
	git/poky-wrap/downloads
	git/poky-wrap/sstate-cache
	# Exclude virt-manager and downloads dirs

	keymappings:
	# Insert your preferred key mappings here.
	map d removeTab

	custom search engines:
	amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/?field-keywords=%s Amazon
	debian: https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=%s Debian
	google: https://www.google.com/search?q=%s Google
	wikipedia: https://www.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s Wikipedia

	This is from TI's MSP430 "GCC Sources" source distribution:

	# This directory contains the sources for gcc, newlib, binutils, and gdb used
	# to build the "msp430-gcc" binary toolchain packages distributed by TI.
	#
	# The following example script demonstrates how these sources can be used to
	# build a toolchain from these sources. It has been developed on a CentOS 7
	# machine, and may need to be adapted for use on other platforms, such as
	# Microsoft Windows.
	#