Whirliwig’s Weblog

The following is ripped directly from here: http://web.mit.edu/jjl/www/mm10/

It worked as described.

Transmeta LongRun

The Crusoe can adjust its own clock speed to save power when processor load gets low. There are 2 modes for this: performance and economy. Using the economy mode will save battery life, but it takes longer to speed the processor up when under load. I will soon be testing just how much this helps, though it really depends on how you use it.

In the kernel config, enable /dev/cpu/*/cpuid and /dev/cpu/*/msr support. If /dev/cpu does not exist, you will need to do:

mkdir -m 0755 -p /dev/cpu/0

and then create the msr and cpuid devices. Do that with the following:

mknod /dev/cpu/0/msr -m 0444 c 202 0

mknod /dev/cpu/0/cpuid -m 0600 c 203 0

You will need to install the longrun package (in Gentoo, just emerge longrun). Type longrun -p to show the status. To switch to economy mode, type longrun -f economy. For performance mode, use longrun -f performance. You can also set performance windows (i.e. if you want the Crusoe to never run at 100% speed so you can save battery power, type longrun -s 0 50 to set the window to 0 (low) to 50 (high)). By default the window is 0-100. Here is a table showing what the performance levels are (you can get this info from longrun -l):

# % MHz Volts usage

0 300 0.800 0.114

19 433 0.875 0.196

33 533 0.950 0.285

52 667 1.050 0.435

71 800 1.150 0.626

85 900 1.250 0.832

100 1000 1.300 1.000

If you install anything that mentions ‘kernel patch’, running

update-initramfs -u all

means you won’t suffer seven years of bad luck.

Use gconftool-2:

gconftool-2 –set /apps/gnome-power-manager/general/debug –type=bool true

HAL abstracts hardware => Front-end = hardware-independent, function-based, Back-end = hardware-dependent, hardware-specific calls

HAL has a database which shows what it ‘knows’ about the hardware it abstracts, including all kinds of useful ACPI info.

Use ‘lshal’ to see (yep, ‘ls’ on ‘HAL’)

I’m pretty much in the dark about how GRUB does what it does.

I know:

/etc/default/grub is used to generate an initial GRUB /boot/grub/menu.lst, when /usr/sbin/update-grub is called

the installed menu.lst can then be edited to add lines in the defaults section (all of which is commented, but GRUB will still use these lines)

This is the only way to add more ‘altoptions’ lines, for example.

No matter how many altoptions lines you have in /etc/default/grub, only the last one is included in the resulting menu.lst

If you then edit menu.lst to add more lines, and re-run update-grub, the new alternative boot configs for each available kernel become available.

It’s almost like GRUB ignores /etc/default/grub after initial use, unless it changes…bit like make where /etc/default/grub is a dependency for menu.lst, as is menu.lst.

Anyway, here’s my /etc/grub/default:

# Kernel Options

kopt=”ro vga=773″

kopt_2_6_24=”ro vga=773 resume=swap:/dev/mapper/diddlysharp-swap_1″

## default grub root device

groot=(hd0,0)

## update-grub creates alternative automagic boot options

alternative=true

## update-grub won’t lock alternative automagic boot options

lockalternative=false

## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the

## alternatives

defoptions=quiet

## update-grub won’t lock old automagic boot options

lockold=false

## altoption boot targets option

altoptions=”(root-terminal) single”

altoptions=”(minimal) showopt single init=/bin/bash”

## All kernels should be put into the menu.lst

howmany=all

## update-grub should create memtest86 boot option

memtest86=true

## update-grub shouldn’t adjust the value of the default booted system

updatedefaultentry=false

The ‘System Events’ application is the key into system-wide GUI scripting. I’m going to make a GTD system that does context-sensitive clipping.

Need to implement double-dispatch:

If you can see this, then Whirliwig has posted his first post from DiddlySharp, his teeny-tiny Sharp MM10 running Debian. The program he used is called something poetic, but only half-heartedly, as it just appears as ‘Blog Entry Poster’ in the Applications Menu.

Hoorah!

Note to developers: please consider calling it ‘gBlogPost’: small enough to fit in a menu line, concise enough to please those who rail against the everything-has-to-have-a-stupid-name-usually-involving-an-animal-or-homely-noun brigade.

Or maybe ElephantSoup would be a better name.

Hoorah!