The first serial driver I wrote for speakup was like that, I copied stuff from the serial console, but it had to be changed to conform to the kernel specs, so you didn't have to patch the actual kernel. John G. Heim <jheim@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > 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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > >> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is: How do you spend it? John Covici covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
