com.sun.security.auth.module.Krb5LoginModule required client=TRUE useTicketCache=TRUEit still refuses to find a principal.
default_etypes=des3-cbc-sha1
Have you ever had a time where something you've known for a while or read several times hits you in a whole new way? Typically it is when you realize another facet of a truth. Notice I didn't say a new interpretation of truth, but a new facet (this difference deserves a post just by itself).
Anyway, I just had this experience. It just happened for me with the Z pointer for accessing flash memory. In this case, I think I realized that I wasn't thinking about it at all before.
Program memory on these chips is organized in 16 bit words. The manuals simply state that:
The 15 most significant bits selects the word address in Program memory.
Because of this, the word address is multiplied by two before it is put in the
Z-register. The least significant bit of the Z Address Register selects
either Low byte (0) or High byte(1) of the Program memory word
No big deal right? This instruction just stuffs the result in register 0. The registers are 8 bits, so you only get half at a time.
Here is where I realized that I was a moron.... Typically, you just load up two 8 bit registers with your address split across both. Dutifully, you multiply it by two before hand, load the result, read it, increment the pointer by one and load the result again to get the second half. I always thought that the addresses were somehow indexed at 16 bits, and that lower bit was somehow magical. The point is that yes, if you use 15 bits, you effectively do index by 16, but the addresses really work on chunks of 8 bits. For some reason they take a really round about way to say that the addresses work on 8 bit intervals, but the architecture is built to work on 16 bits at a time from program memory (typically 8 bits for the opcode, and 8 bits for the operand).
My dad's friend just died, and not too many people noticed. My only theory as to why is because they didn't appreciate what he was, or were too caught up in pointless things to notice. He was a self taught electronic engineer, who also taught himself medicine. He always knew more than the doctors we went to. I remember him correctly diagnosing a nerve tumor before the doctors had any idea what the problem was. I remember him also telling us what he would do for my dying Grandpa days before the doctors came up with the same ideas. I know that he regularly treated himself, because he couldn't stand doctors (he was mistreated by doctors as a child). He also studied ancient literature, not to be a snob, but because he enjoyed it. The loss of him isn't the loss of the last smart people, but he was one of the last old time smart people.
As a child, I knew several of my dad's friends who were similar. Most of them are dead now. I haven't really met anybody that replaces them. As I think about it, it makes me sad, because people don't remember the way things were. There is a huge disconnect from previous generation, mostly because of a breakdown of family. People my age were raised by their peers, so not too many have a clue about what exists outside of themselves and their generation.
I thank God for giving me the privilege of growing up in a real family where I was able to experience and respect people older than myself. What I've been able to experience is seeing how the generations before me were smart in a different way. It was their attitude about what they did. It is precisely that attitude that made me want to follow in their footsteps, but which I have been unable to find among my generation.
This man was a person who grew up playing with machines and electronics when much of it was new and exciting. I can almost picture him sitting in his room assembling a radio transmitter to communicate with someone in the next state. This doesn't seem like a big deal. Today it certainly isn't the same. Back then it was a bit more exciting and new. That isn't what makes it different though. The part that makes it different is the way in which people like him did these things.
The old generation did these things because they were fun and they enjoyed them. Here is how I think that changed. These people grew up to be the ones doing the interesting and astonishing things. People in the following generations saw them and how society lifted them up for their intelligence, and decided that they wanted to be "one of those people everyone thinks is smart". So these people grew up to do the same types of things, but no longer because it was fun, but because they had something to prove. It became a competition. No longer was it simply about enjoying the work of your hands and mind.
This man who just died did the things he did because it was what he grew up doing and enjoyed. He had friends who grew up doing the same things, and they remained friends for their whole life. People in my generation do the same things in a frenzy in hopes that someone will praise them. They aren't friends to anybody, because they can only think about themselves. All their time is spent being around lots of people, and trying to be better than most of them.
When I get in a group of older engineers, there is a calm and relaxing feeling in the atmosphere. This isn't the most descriptive way to explain what it is like to be around them, but it does highlight the immediate difference I notice compared to people of the same intelligence of my generation. I can just sit, listen to them talk, and gain a feeling of excitement in hearing the minds that dreamed up many of the things we have today. There's a certain stability and friendliness in their personalities and thinking that is absent today.
So even though the world will not end because of his death (it won't end for the loss of any of us, which is a shock to some), I figured I would make mention of him and his type, if simply so I can pay him a little respect that I feel was missing.
I nearly forgot to mention that I am maintaining the pam-abl code now. I needed this for work, and started making changes, so I figured I would maintain it.
Basically pam-abl is a PAM module that automatically blocks people who fail to log in correctly more than a few times. Currently, it just makes it impossible to log in even with the right password. The changes I'm making allow you to do more things like change the firewall, and update a global database (LDAP) for the sake of other servers on the network.
When these changes are done at work, and make sense, I'll unleash/release them to the public.
Here's the linkI was recently asked to take a look at customizing a WD HD media player. I can't stand TV (I don't even own one), and I don't watch that many movies, but this little thing is cool nonetheless. It's tiny, and it runs linux. To make changes to it, you can make some blind changes to the firmware, and hope you did it right, or you can hook up a serial cable to the connector on the inside.
You'll need a level converter to convert from RS232 to TTL. I didn't have one on hand, but found a handy kit at nkcelectronics. You could bread board it easily enough, or buy a premade cable. It just depends on what you have around and how much hassle you want.
For those of you who are used to running minicom at 9600 baud for other things, you'll only see gobbly gook. You need to set up minicom for 115200 8N1.
I hooked up a serial cable to the connector inside the device, and started poking around. I thought I'd post a few facts about what's on the inside.
system type : Sigma Designs TangoX processor : 0 cpu model : MIPS 4KEc V6.9 Initial BogoMIPS : 292.86 wait instruction : yes microsecond timers : yes tlb_entries : 32 extra interrupt vector : yes hardware watchpoint : yes ASEs implemented : mips16 VCED exceptions : not available VCEI exceptions : not available System bus frequency : 198000000 Hz CPU frequency : 297000000 Hz DSP frequency : 297000000 Hz
Unfortunately, the proprietary chip they use is what does most of the "stuff" that this box is useful for. All of the programs that communicate with it are also closed source. There isn't a good way to say, play a movie from the command line. It would be really nice to have a way to simply control playback.
Also, another bugger about this thing, is that they stuff the repeat settings into flash. That means if you are trying to work around the lack of interface by jacking right into the IR port with eirid, every time you hit the repeat button, it will be one off from where it was last time. Watch on the console after you hit the repeat button! A second or two later, you'll see it saving the new "config" to memory. It doesn't actually use this repeat setting on the next playback, it's just there to annoy you!
For instance, let's say you programatically press the repeat button once. This bring you to repeat-1 (repeat this movie). Now you shut off the power, turn it back on and try to do the same thing again. What will you get? You'll get the next repeat option up, which is repeat all. If you pull that movie out, put in a new one and try to hit repeat again, you'll shut off repeat all together!
What would make sense here is if that saved setting actually did anything. That way you could just check the last setting, and leave it if already set. It doesn't make a difference though, and your movie will not repeat even if the last repeat setting is stuffed in memory. I needed to manually change the video playback mode in the config file (somewhere in /tmp if I remember correctly). When you change the file in any way, it is automatically saved to memory. So what I did was reset it to no repeat in the file, and then programatically send the commands to repeat through the IR interface.
More info on the player can be found here.