A Linux kernel Oops has caused me a bit of grief in recent times. Normally, when I start gtkam I’m seeing messages like "Too much work for IRQ 10" in /var/log/messages. The system however continues to run.

Unfortunately, once xawdecode or xawtv (applications for watching TV) are running and I start gtkam, then the system completely freezes and I need to push the reset button.

If I look at the output of cat /proc/interrupts, there is indeed pretty much stuff, which routes through IRQ10.

10:     265304          XT-PIC  ehci_hcd, VIA8233, bttv0, Bt87x audio

I’m wondering, if there is some option in the BIOS, which could improve the situation or I might need to plug the TV card into a different PCI slot.

Nach langer Zeit wurden wir mal wieder mit einem Wespennest beglückt. Meiner Frau war schon seit einiger Zeit der Flugverkehr von Wespen aufgefallen, der an einer Öffnung auftrat, die hinter die Stülpverschalung des Hauses führt. Nach dem langen Regenwetter der letzten Tage, war dann heute der Zeitpunkt gekommen, die Stülpverschalung zu öffnen. Und in der Tat habe ich dann direkt das Wespennest hinter einem der abgenommenen Bretter gefunden. Zum Glück war es zu diesem Zeitpunkt nur ein kleines Nest. Ich habe es dann mit einem an einen langen Stiel befestigten Spachtel entfernt und auf den Rasen praktiziert.

Für den Rest des Nachmittags war dann die Öffnung offen. Ich habe erst am Abend die Bretter der Stülpverschalung wieder angebracht, aber da waren schon wieder einige Wespen mit dem Wiederaufbau beschäftigt. Ich musste dann doch noch zu einem speziellen Anti-Wespenschaum greifen, mit dem ich die paar Wespen eingesprüht und später nach Wiederanbringen der Better auch die noch verbleibenden kleinen Öffnung behandelt habe. Ich will jetzt hoffen, das wir erstmal wieder eine Zeit lang Ruhe haben. Das war jetzt das dritte Wespennest seit dem Bau des Hauses in 1996.

On the server, which I’m running for the department originally had this SCSI setup (couple of discs on the two onboard channels and two tapes in an external housing on an additional Adaptec):

Output of cdrecord (unused SCSI ids deleted):

scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'FUJITSU ' 'MAJ3091MC       ' '5207' Disk
        0,1,0     1) 'FUJITSU ' 'MAH3091MC       ' '5207' Disk
        0,2,0     2) 'FUJITSU ' 'MAE3091LC       ' '5210' Disk
        0,3,0     3) 'FUJITSU ' 'MAG3091LC       ' '5210' Disk
        0,4,0     4) 'SEAGATE ' 'ST39173LC       ' '6218' Disk
        0,5,0     5) 'FUJITSU ' 'MAG3182LC       ' '3707' Disk
        0,8,0      'SDR     ' 'GEM318          ' '0   ' Processor
scsibus1:
        1,0,0   100) 'SEAGATE ' 'ST336706LC      ' '9305' Disk
        1,1,0   101) 'SEAGATE ' 'ST336706LC      ' '9305' Disk
        1,2,0   102) 'SEAGATE ' 'ST39173LC       ' '5990' Disk
        1,3,0   103) 'FUJITSU ' 'MAN3735MC       ' '5207' Disk
        1,4,0   104) 'SEAGATE ' 'ST318404LC      ' '3253' Disk
        1,8,0   108) 'SDR     ' 'GEM318          ' '0   ' Processor
scsibus2:
        2,2,0   202) 'EXABYTE ' 'EXB-85058HE-0000' '0102' Removable Tape
        2,3,0   203) 'HP      ' 'C1537A          ' 'L810' Removable Tape

Then sometime later an additional CDROM and an older Plextor 12x CD burner became available. I also put them in an external housing onto the same bus as the two tapes with the id’s 4 and 5. All of this done online, with the help of scsiadd without a single reboot. Well I wouldn’t do this, when a backup is running on the tapes. But since the bus is quiet otherwise, this can be done online. Additionally I loaded ide-scsi for the internal CDROM drive. Anyway, all new devices showed up nicely in the output of cat /proc/scsi/scsi. However the output of cdrecord -scanbus would only list the Plextor on id 4 and not the two CDROMs, which should appears after the Plextor. Once I saw the error message of the command cdrecord -reset dev=2,5,0, it dawned on me. The error message basically said, that cdrecord couldn’t open a /dev/sg* file. So looking in /dev I only found 16 /dev/sg* devices. After creating an additional three device nodes, I saw, what I wanted to see:

        2,4,0   204) 'PLEXTOR ' 'CD-R   PX-W1210S' '1.05' Removable CD-ROM
        2,5,0   205) 'TOSHIBA ' 'CD-ROM XM-6201TA' '1400' Removable CD-ROM
scsibus3:
        3,0,0   300) 'MITSUMI ' 'CD-ROM FX4830T!B' 'R02E' Removable CD-ROM

On a related note, a colleague also had problems with cdrecord on a laptop, which wouldn’t list the internal DVD/CD-RW drive under SuSE 9.1. Under Knoppix 3.4 the drive turned up nicely under kernel 2.6, but Knoppix is using the ide-scsi SCSI emulation. On another of my servers, I also wouldn’t see the internal IDE CDROM with cdrecord. Unfortunately this could have been easily fixed by RTFM. Simply use the right arguments to cdrecord and you would have seen something like this:

 Output of cdrecord -scanbus dev=ATAPI:

Cdrecord-Clone 2.01a28 (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
      Copyright (C) 1995-2004 Jörg Schilling
scsidev: 'ATAPI:'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: -1 target: -1 lun: -1
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related libscg interface code is in pre alpha.
Warning: There may be fatal problems.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.8'.
scsibus0:
        0,0,0     0) 'HL-DT-ST' 'DVD-ROM GDR8162B' '0017' Removable CD-ROM
        0,1,0     1) '_NEC    ' 'DVD+RW ND-1100A ' '1.80' Removable CD-ROM

My prefered local bookstore is still trying to get rid of some tech books and have reduced the prices for some books even more in addition to the buy two and get one for free sale. This time I bought:

• “Jython Essentials” for 4.95 Euro (earlier price 9.90 Euro, original $24.95)
• “Professional Java XML” from Wrox for 14.95 Euro (original price $59.99) for a whopping 1154 pages.
• And can you believe this, I bought a Windows book. “Windows XP Pro” for 7.95 (earlier price 14.90 Euro, original $29.95)

Thanks to a collegue, who brought binoculars with him this morning, which were protected with a special foil and due to the nice whether today, I was able so see Venus eclipse the Sun. Nothing really magnificent, but a little black dot on the surface of the Sun. But nice anyway.

I’m currently listening to Melomania on sunshine-live radio. Thanks to their online play lists, I could identify my current favorite trance track. It’s "Castaneda" with "Floorcontrol" on Paul van Dyk’s label Vandit. It’s release #36 (look under Releases).

I heard it the first time during the live broadcast of Blank & Jones DJ set from Oberhausen. It caught me immediately. Great stuff.

(Linking inside Macromedia Flash web sites is simply a mess)