After Silje had been scouting the river by walking/cycling the whole way from E6 to the lake, she could confirm that it was good to go, and if I dared to paddle it, I would probably have one of the best runs of this year summer road trip…
And guess what, she was right!
More pictures and full report from this year summer road trip will come at a later point,
so stay tuned!
There ain’t nothing like a propper road trip to kick of the season.
But it was dry start, but ended up with flood!
To sum up everything in one sentence; 3250 km, 5 places, 12 rivers, 1 demonstration and I guess enough beer!
Not in the mood to tell you all about it, but the trip went from Oslo -> Voss -> Jølster -> Sør-Trøndelag -> Østerdalen -> Voss -> Oslo. With no water the first couple of days, but with too much water later on. We probably did quite a few rivers at a higher flow then it is usally run on. Big Water Kayaking has just been redefined! Here are some pictures from the trip.
Back in Voss for the demonstration, we had two wicked runs. The first one went to Urlandselvi. I did the river with Per many many years ago, and was really keen on having a go at it again… First day: to much, no kayaking. Second day, a bit low, but high enough for a good run. Bit shallow between the big rapids, but Mathias and myself had a great time running the double drop!
The Branseth!
Before heading back to Oslo. We also did one of the classics in Voss.
Not sure on the water level, we arrived just to find out that it was pretty high!
The last couple of weeks, I’ve been playing around with OpenSolaris. It got proper support for ZFS and I really like zones, but that’s where it ended. You can’t even do a minimal base install, by default you install X and Gnome. In witch server environment do you need X? (Yeah, I’ve tried out Automated Installs, and playing around with jeOS as well, but to much hassle)
So here we go, Back to good old FreeBSD!
Now it was time to check out ZFS as a root file system. After doing the normal research around web, I found the proper way to do it! Martin Matuška @ http://mfsbsd.vx.sk/ knew how do make the process super simple.
Here is my quick X steps for getting a ZFS mirror pool as root file system.
#1 – Download image from http://mfsbsd.vx.sk
#2 – Burn and boot the image
#3 – Login as root and run these two commands, and your good to go.
This of course takes it for granted that your cdrom is @ /dev/acd0 and your two HDD are ad0 and ad1. After you reboot, you can login as root and customize the hell out of your system. (The bonus is that you now have super small footprint to begin with)
Well, the segmentation fault when running any network releated commands, was due to a issue in getaddrinfo.c in the uClibc library. When I applied a patch found on the maillist at busybox.net it worked.
It sounds really simple, but there was a lot of trying and failing before I got it right. It short steps, this is what I did.
Step1 - Download source from Phidget.com and do an initial
#>make && make clean
Step2 - Applied the patch for getaddrinfo.c
Step3 – Added usb_modeswitch as a package from busybox
Step4 – Main configuration
#>make menuconfig
– Target options –> Phidget SBC Support –> Choose a release type (full)
– Package Selection for the target
(*) usb_modeswitch
(*) pppd
Step5 – Linux kernel configuration
#>make linux26-menuconfig
(m) Usb Serial Convert support – #Change from compiled into kernel to module
(*) Generic Serial
(m) Usb Driver GSM and CDMA modems
(*) PPP
Step6 - Create the final build
#>make
Flash the SBC, and you will have support for your 3G modem. You also need to change your usb_modeswitch.conf to include the switch for E1752. I also recommend to make a udev rule for an automatically switch.
Now you should have support for you Huawei E1753 Modem, now it was time to setup opp pppd. I found a really good thread on a Norwegian forum, witch had some detail information regarding pppd and chat scripts. With some modifications this worked as a charm on my setup.
The end result:
# uname -a
Linux Pilot 2.6.32.3 #3 PREEMPT Fri Jan 22 08:09:47 CET 2010 armv4tl unknown
# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 12d1:1001 #This is the Huawei E1753 3G Modem
# pppd call netcom
# ping dev.n0ll.com
PING dev.n0ll.com (93.124.192.66): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 93.124.192.66: seq=0 ttl=50 time=391.774 ms
64 bytes from 93.124.192.66: seq=1 ttl=50 time=390.239 ms
64 bytes from 93.124.192.66: seq=2 ttl=50 time=385.180 ms
64 bytes from 93.124.192.66: seq=3 ttl=50 time=380.198 ms
64 bytes from 93.124.192.66: seq=4 ttl=50 time=395.199 ms
^C
— dev.n0ll.com ping statistics —
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 380.198/388.518/395.199 ms
Still some small scripting to have an automatic process connecting to the internet. Like default routing, resolve and dial only when I want to send my data (probably going to use cron for that). But the base system seams to work now, just need to add the sensors and start collecting data!
After receiving my new gadget, a Phidget SBC unit. I’ve been having a go at it.
The main goal is to have a remotely place SBC unit, with sensor measuring water levels, sending data back to central server over 3G network and powered by battery.
Since I haven’t received my sensor unit, I’ve been trying to get the 3G USB modem part up and running. Using a Huawei E1753 as a USB modem, it has not been a walk in the park. The first step was to learn how a embedded system works. Then how Buildroot, busybox and uClibc is configure and modified. Flashing the SBC unit after each change, made this process really time consuming, but it looks like the 3G modem is now recognized by the SBC.
user.info kernel: option 1-1.2:1.0: GSM modem (1-port) converter detected
user.info kernel: usb 1-1.2: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Next step is now, either port WvDial to buildroot, or get around ppp/chat configuration. Not sure witch one is fastest. But I’ll get there eventually. A Project page will appear on the site shortly.
*** update
ppp/chat was the way to go… I actually managed to get connected, but somethings is wrong. All network application segments fails when used after the ppp connectin is up and running. Disconnecting the ppp, all applications works again (eg ping/ftp/ssh)..