From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix, from userid 65534) id 56FE01EF7C6; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 12:52:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu (mta1.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.23]) by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id AB2461EF7B7 for ; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 12:52:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D5A349CC11; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 11:52:35 -0500 (CDT) Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mta1.math.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 3UMxpOLaYaSa; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 11:52:35 -0500 (CDT) Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2DA864991B2; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 11:52:35 -0500 (CDT) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on mta1.math.wisc.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-101.0 required=6.5 tests=ALL_TRUSTED, USER_IN_WHITELIST autolearn=disabled version=3.3.2 Received: from mailhost.math.wisc.edu (erdos.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.25]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 11:52:35 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [144.92.166.19] (vv507j.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.19]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mailhost.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2AAD04206EB; Thu, 9 Oct 2014 11:52:35 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <5436BD4A.1090208@math.wisc.edu> Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 11:52:26 -0500 From: "John G. Heim" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/24.8.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tyler@tysdomain.com, "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." Subject: Re: a little sysadmin story References: <86a956i23h.fsf@vibrator.pk5001z> <20141009125200.GI1044@opera.rednote.net> <86ppe1gyed.fsf@vibrator.pk5001z> <5436B2E4.5060306@math.wisc.edu> <5436B66A.4060600@tysdomain.com> In-Reply-To: <5436B66A.4060600@tysdomain.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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 16:52:40 -0000 I once spent an afternoon poking around in the serial console code trying to see how it wrote to the serial port. I never did figure it out though. Even so, it seems to me that what speakup does is pretty similar to the serial console. On 10/09/14 11:23, Littlefield, Tyler wrote: > Re: writing directly to the serial port, Is there another layer that the > kernel provides that we could go through to avoid that issue entirely? > How do other devices work, or is there not any other such modules in the > kernel that do use the serial port like speakup does for synths? > On 10/9/2014 12:08 PM, 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 > >