From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix, from userid 65534) id 1B12C1EF7BC; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 12:21:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mail0131.smtp25.com (mail0131.smtp25.com [75.126.84.131]) by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 73CBC1EF6DE for ; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 12:21:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ccs.covici.com (d-out-001.smtp25.com [67.228.158.174] (may be forged)) by d-out-001.smtp25.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id s99GLBC0004075 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=FAIL) for ; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 12:21:11 -0400 Received: from ccs.covici.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ccs.covici.com (8.14.9/8.14.8) with ESMTP id s99GLAJf027452 for ; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 12:21:10 -0400 To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." Subject: Re: a little sysadmin story In-reply-to: <5436B2E4.5060306@math.wisc.edu> References: <86a956i23h.fsf@vibrator.pk5001z> <20141009125200.GI1044@opera.rednote.net> <86ppe1gyed.fsf@vibrator.pk5001z> <5436B2E4.5060306@math.wisc.edu> Comments: In-reply-to "John G. Heim" message dated "Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:08:04 -0500." X-Mailer: MH-E 8.2; nmh 1.3; GNU Emacs 23.4.1 Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:21:10 -0400 Message-ID: <27451.1412871670@ccs.covici.com> From: covici@ccs.covici.com X-SpamH-OriginatingIP: 70.109.53.110 X-SpamH-Filter: d-out-001.smtp25.com-s99GLBC0004075 X-Bogosity: Ham, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.000000, version=1.2.4 X-BeenThere: speakup@linux-speakup.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 16:21:18 -0000 I can make speakup crash the kernel every time, by doing speakup-r from a blank line. John G. Heim wrote: > Hmmm... I don't know. I have to say that I remain unconvinced. I've > never seen speakup cause a kernel panic. On the other hand, I have > witnessed the false cause effect. Something happens that causes a > kernel panic and since speakup is part of the kernel, it naturally has > problems. You were on a development server, right? Isn't it more > likely that one of the developers crashed the server amd that, in > turn, caused problems for speakup? I run some development servers here > at the UW math department and it happens all the time. Somebody causes > an OOM (out of memory) event and, yes, that crashes speakup. > > I once asked on the kernel developers list for comments on what's > wrong with the speakup code. There is that one biggie, of course, > speakup writes directly to the serial port. But all the other > criticisms were things like not following naming conventions, poor > indentation, etc. Maybe the people who mattered didn't bother to > answer my question. But there wasn't anything in there that would tend > to indicate that speakup is prone to causing kernel panics. Now, any > software package can have a bug. But I have no reason to believe that > speakup is particularly unstable. Quite the contrary in fact. > > And even if there is a bug in speakup that can cause a kernel panic, > that's an argument for finding the bug and fixing it. Not for > abandoning it entirely. > > > > On 10/09/14 08:34, Deedra Waters wrote: > > Janina, > > > > speakup was the cause because when bossman came down to hook up a > > monitor and look, the panick messages had something to do with speakup. > > > > As for backing up their work, they were trying to fix their fuck-up to > > begin with. The initial problem wasn't with speakup. However when i was > > helping them debug it, speakup made the kernel panick and crash. > > > > Debian i dont think likes people with root access on their box to begin > > with, but i think they kind of didn't like speakup in their kernel to > > begin with. > > > > I suspect on the other hand that if speakup was a user-space app, it > > wouldn't have mattered to them so much. If a userspace program crashes > > it doesn't take down the whole box. When speakup does though, it takes > > down the whole box. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is: How do you spend it? John Covici covici@ccs.covici.com