Kernel panic

When I moved to another room in the office, my laptop started getting this kernel panic. So far, this means that I can't use the wireless network. I can work around this by either blacklisting the iwl4965 module or by turning the wireless card off with the hardware rfkill switch.

Maybe related: this laptop gets "ACPI: EC: non-query interrupt received, switching to interrupt mode" during boot.

I will report this panic to both the debian bug tracker and the linux-wireless list, let's see how they resolve it.

Wrong macro

Here is how you shouldn't test for old compilers:

#if _MSC_VER < 1400
/* some workaround */
#endif

Reason: the workaround will also be applied to non-Microsoft compilers, e.g., gcc. Here is a more correct version:

#if defined(_MSC_VER) && _MSC_VER < 1400
/* some workaround */
#endif

Recording SIP conversations

My chief prefers to use SIP (voice conversations) instead of Jabber (text messaging). The problem is that he sometimes overloads me with a lot of information, and later I forget 90%. This is not a problem with Jabber, as there are logs. However, I don't know any SIP client that supports recording of conversations out of the box.

Here is my solution. You need alsa-lib 1.0.17 or later (i.e., if you are using Debian Lenny, due to the freeze, you'll have to fetch libasound2 and libasound2-dev from experimental). Create the subdirectory named "voice" in your home directory. Add these lines to $HOME/.asoundrc:

pcm.voice {
        type asym
        playback.pcm {
                type file
                file "/home/user/voice/p"
                slave.pcm "default"
                format "wav"
                truncate 0
        }
        capture.pcm {
                type file
                file "/home/user/voice/c"
                slave.pcm "default"
                format "wav"
                truncate 0
        }
}

Then, configure your SIP client (I use twinkle) as follows. ALSA device for rings: "default", ALSA speaker: "voice", ALSA microphone: "voice", Play back ring tone when the network doesn't: disable. As the result, ALSA library will write the following files into the voice directory: p, c, p.0001, c.0001, p.0002, c.0002, and so on (the number is incremented for each new call). All these files are in wav format, "p" files correspond to the remote side, and "c" files contain what you spoke into the microphone. It appears that it is impossible to record both parties of the conversation into one file using only built-in features that come with ALSA.

To play back the conversation, do:

aplay p.0002 & aplay c.0002

This will cause two aplay processes to be started in parallel, with their outputs mixed. Or, you can make one mixed wav file with sox:

sox -m c.0002 p.0002 -f wav talk0002.wav

gcc-4.3 troubles

After obtaining access to the CVS server at Yandex, I tried to build some internal utilities for daily use (e.g., for examining database contents) on my work laptop. The first attempt failed, because Debian Lenny comes with gcc-4.3.1, and the official build machines (that I was in fact supposed to use instead of the laptop) still use gcc-4.2.x.

First, some of the "known good" snapshots of external projects that are used by the to-be-built utilities have gcc-4.3 related issues. Fortunately, Debian's bug and package database was very helpful, and I was able to extract the needed patches.

Second, gcc-4.3 added some new warnings, and the build system is set up to use -Werror by default. While some of the new warnings are helpful, others are not. Try, e.g., compiling this simple function with g++ -Wconversion -c test.cpp:

typedef unsigned char uint8_t;
void grow(uint8_t & u)
{
        u *= 7;
}

Result:

test.cpp: In function 'void grow(uint8_t&)':
test.cpp:4: warning: conversion to 'unsigned char' from 'int' may alter its value

I.e., almost every in-place mathematical operation with shorts and chars results in warnings! With -Werror, this means errors in many files. Obviously, this isn't worth fixing, so I removed -Wconversion from the compiler flags in my checkout. Similar bugs are already recorded in GCC bugzilla.

Third, even after fixing fixable warnings and removing -Wconversion, I hit an internal compiler error. Since I found no similar reports (the error manifested itself on proprietary code, after all), I reduced the testcase and submitted it to GCC bugzilla.

After that, I gave up. I posted my changes to the internal code review list (just so that they don't get lost), switched the compiler to gcc-4.2 (it is available in Debian side-by-side with 4.3), and compiled what I needed without further problems.

BTW, Debian still uses gcc-4.1.2 for compiling their kernels. It would be interesting to know why.

New job!

Since September 15, 2008, I work at Yandex, as a developer in the Image search department. I am busy with bash scripts, C++ and even XML. My work computer is a Fujitsu Siemens S laptop, and I installed Debian Lenny there. One strange thing about this job is that I have never seen my chief: he is in Moscow, and all conversations with him are via Jabber and SIP.

The office in Yekaterinburg is clean, there are nice flowers in front of the building, and my colleagues seem to enjoy working there. Our windows (on the fifth floor) remain lit even at 10 PM.