All things Unix, Linux, Uncategorized

Sleuthing the Wiley Thermals

Yesterday, we were hit with a thermal shutdown on the big laptop.  Installing psensor and the coretemp module helped get a handle on the issue, which centered on the Nvidia GeForce 540M GPU.  Hardware drivers have always been an issue for Linux, since the Open Source software model conflicts with the need for peripheral vendors to keep the internals of their hardware secret, which they do so by not releasing the source code for the software that links the hardware with the operating system.  That’s fine for a closed, proprietary system like Microsoft Windows, the primary market.  As Linux users, not in the business of redistributing systems, we would be happy with an add-on driver that works.  But, since Linux is a small portion of the market, there is little incentive for hardware vendors to write Linux-specific driver software.  And, the software that is available is not always optimized for the Linux kernel, with the result that it either is buggy or skimps on reliability features.

Nvidia has, in the past year, incurred the ire of Linux founder Linus Torvalds for just these issues.  The Ubuntu Linux distribution that we run on our systems comes with a more or less generic Nvidia driver.  While users can download an updated driver from Nvidia, installation is a bit daunting, requiring the system to be reconfigured for text-mode login in order to rebuild the X11 graphics links.  Those of us who have been around long enough to remember hand-tuning the X-Window system configuration files, fingers poised over the “kill” keyboard sequence, ready to shut down X11 in an instant to avoid burning the monitor if the settings were wrong, have grave misgivings about tinkering with the graphics.  Plus, the forums on the ‘Net seemed to show that users were having overheating problems no matter what combinations of driver and distribution versions were used.  Custom configurations seem to be less than desirable for production machines, so we elected to look for another solution.

A bit more searching on the ‘Net came across the fwts (FirmWare Test Suite) utility package.  Once installed, it ran, pointing out compatibility issues between the computer BIOS and the kernel/driver configuration.  One of the automatic corrective actions performed by fwts was to switch the operating mode from “performance” to “normal,” which immediately lowered the operating temperature of all the components.  The GPU still shows a temperature increase under load, but the fan hardly runs anymore, whereas earlier in the week it was running on high most of the time.

The take-away message here is, updating kernels and/or drivers can and will sometimes result in conflicts with your hardware.  Linux has come a long way toward a plug-and-play, run “out of the box.” installation, but it still pays to test and evaluate hardware configurations, just like the old days of Unix.  Actually, in the “bad old days” of a few commercial Unix systems, the range of hardware combinations was often very limited, so compatibility issues had been carefully tuned out by the system vendor.  But, those systems were expensive.  In the Open Source world of Linux, where the system is expected to run on any combination of hardware on the commodity PC market, some outliers are to be expected.  For the average desktop Linux user, converting an old Windows machine to Linux will work just fine.  But, for “power users” and server applications, some engineering and testing may be required for optimum performance.  Certainly, the psensor and fwts software will be an important part of the Linux toolkit from now on.

All things Unix, Linux, Uncategorized

Upgrade Woes: Changing the Way We’ve Always Done Things

A while back, a wave of learning curve frustration swept through Chaos Central.  One of the tenets of the computing life is that the march of time brings change at a mind-boggling rate.  Most Linux distributions have settled on a six-month update cycle, with almost daily patch-level updates in between.  The patch-level updates go mostly unnoticed to the average user, but sometimes quirks are induced.  But, the major distribution updates bring changes to the desktop decor ranging from the equivalent of new curtains and furniture slipcovers to knocking down walls and repainting.

Since we use our computers for productive work, we tend to keep the furniture and paint to basic office cubicle mode.  Since about 2007, we’ve tended toward running Ubuntu as the primary desktop systems.  Unless there is some very good reason, we also tend to use the Long-Term Support versions.  However, our last new computers (December 2011) arrived with Ubuntu 11.10, which was OK even though it defaulted to Unity, since the previous LTS was 10.04, which had some deficiencies in the WiFi area.  Being resistant to change, we quickly reverted to the Gnome desktop: the new but not necessarily improved Unity desktop seeming to be a dumbing-down of the desktop, and getting in the way of the usual cluttered, multi-tasking way of doing business (we don’t call our office Chaos Central for no reason).

Of course, in the spring of 2013, we suddenly were faced with the End-of-Life clock on Ubuntu 11.10.  The obvious choice, then, is to upgrade to the 12.04LTS, instead of the newly-release 13.04 version.  The default on reboot is the Unity desktop, though Ubuntu now does provide Gnome (Ubuntu Classic) as a choice.  Having recently acquired an Android phone, our first “smart phone,” we decided to give Unity a try–for a while.

OK, it isn’t so bad, once you get used to the idea that you can have multiple screens, and clicking on the launcher icon of a running process switches to it (unless there are multiple copies, but we also discovered how to display everything, a la OS/X).  However, we recently discovered the dark side to Unity: stability.

I had noticed that the fan seemed to be running on high on my main laptop, a quad-core machine with Nvidia GPU from Zareason, one of the few Linux-only system vendors.  Then, while watching a 30-minute video in full-screen, the machine suddenly powered down, due to overtemperature.  This has only happened before when I inadvertently blocked the air intakes.  Not so, this time.  It was blowing very hot air.

A bit of research into system temperature monitors led me to the psensor package, along with the coretemp kernel module and supporting software.  Yow!  The graph showed the primary culprit to be the Nvidia card, which spiked between 80 and 90C whenever a new graphics window was opened.  More research showed the most likely cause to be Unity.  Reverting to Gnome helped reduce the overall temperature, but the spikes are still there.  One of the issues here is conflicts between Ubuntu and the Nvidia native drivers.  We did have the Nvidia drivers installed until the 12.04 upgrade, but, since they don’t support the 3-D extensions in Unity, we left the Ubuntu drivers in place.

All of this brings to the fore the fact that, despite the attempt to make computers (all of them, including Apple, Microsoft, and Linux) look and feel like a big smart phone, the power desktop is not user-friendly.  The sealed-panel model employed by Apple and Microsoft means you have to live with what came out of the box, but Linux, with the open-source model, means that you can (and, by inference, must) tinker under the hood.  The upside is, that, with diligence and perseverance, you can fix it and decorate it to suit your own tastes and workstyle.

 

Fiber Arts, Travel, Uncategorized

Left of Center, Off the Grid

After a very busy winter and spring, in which we joined more organizations, participated in more events, and volunteered for more offices and committees, in the midst of combining an ambitious physical training plan for bicycle touring with our committee work, we crashed, putting everything, if not on hold, at least in perspective. While we haven’t yet ventured back out on the bike, we haven’t slowed down, and remain, as always, just outside the flow of “normal” life expected of old people.

A few weeks later, we went on vacation, during which we worked at gaining back some of our physical mobility, on foot rather than on the bike as we planned, but continued to work in the meantime: Judy on a weaving project, and me on a programming project, to the extent we had a computer network set up in our hotel room and the various fiber projects spread out on the extra bed intrigued the hotel staff no end. I think we still managed to visit a few local attractions, shops, and restaurants in the process.

We also, during the “season,” which runs roughly from April through October, open our home to members of Warm Showers, a bicycle touring lodging exchange. Last week, we were inundated with bicycle tourists, ten in three days, with five showing up on short notice on the first day. This week, we are at a weaving workshop—or, at least Judy is, while I attempt to catch up on technical reading and work, since there is no Internet connection at the workshop location (an old Navy prison, now part of a city park), but there is a place to set up a computer. The workshop is another “left turn off the grid,” covering techniques of turning the draft to swap warp and weft. We are in Seattle, exploring the neighborhoods between Sand Point, Wallingford, and Green Lake in search of good coffee and wholesome food, driving up and down impossibly steep hills on narrow streets lined with astounding landscaping in full spring bloom surrounding a mix of old shingled cottages and bungalows, stark “contemporary” boxes, and modern northwest cottages of cedar. Sunlight and rain sweep through in various densities, and we often sit in gridlock traffic watching bicyclists outpace us, even uphill.

Class sample on Judy's loom
Class sample on Judy’s loom

One of the side-effects of travel is television. We don’t have one at home, but motel rooms often lack radio sets, so we frequently spend a few moments channel surfing in bewilderment before finding an old movie or reruns of syndicated series we once watched (NCIS—the original–being the last holdout, and which seems to have its own channel). These links to an earlier era bereft of TV-land inside jokes and unreal reality are at least comprehensible. This time, we find ourselves in a room where the secondary audio program, a technology of which we were previously unaware, is permanently on, with a mismatched controller that, like our watching experience, predates this feature. So, we are treated to what seems to be an audio book of the screenplay, with actors reading the dialogue parts, which makes it unnecessary to actually fix our gaze on the unfamiliar device on the other side of the room.

Next week, if all goes well, we are spending a few days at our truly left-of-center, off-the-grid cabin on the lower slopes of the Mission Mountains in Montana. This is intended to provide more perspective on slower, unconnected living, though we do have a small solar panel to power reading lights and radio, our home phone is now a smart phone with limited Internet connectivity, and the neighbors might have Internet access we can borrow. And, there is the possibility of a day or two paid work on behalf of our Montana clients, since we will be close enough to pay a visit.

So it goes. We are supposedly in our retirement years, but have somehow managed to keep working, learn new skills, become involved in the leadership of several organizations, and become amateur innkeepers in our attempt to fill up what we anticipated would be idle time, while studiously avoiding sitcoms, reality TV, and Fox News. As usual, our “vacations” tend to be watching the scenery go by on the way to visit relatives or clients or work as usual but with different vistas out the window. Our “leisure” activities tend to be 40-60 Km bike rides at 20Km/h, preparing for longer “vacation” tours of 75-100Km per day, or the annual “birthday mile ride,” now approaching 120Km. At least the runners on our rocking chairs aren’t going to wear out soon.

 

– …be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. [Horace Mann]

Bicycling, Uncategorized

Spring Bicycling Season Starts with a Bang (and Concussion)

DCIM100GOPRO

Eager to get a start on the 2013 cycling season, we packed up our Bike Friday “Q” tandem and headed for an anniversary retreat on Lake Quinault, the southwest access to the Olympic National Park.  It was a wonderful spring day, not to cool, not too warm for a ride along the south shore and up the river into the Park.

Judy at Merriman Falls, Quinault South Shore Road.
Judy at Merriman Falls, Quinault South Shore Road.

The journey took an hour and a half, compressed into a 12-minute video of the highlights, below:

quinaultride from Larye Parkins on Vimeo.

The road does go all around the lake, but we had decided that was a bit too far for the first long ride of the season, so we turned around at the bridge across the river and retraced our path back to the ranger station, for a 35-Km ride. Later, we relaxed at the historic Lake Quinault Lodge, where we had stayed on our honeymoon, 28 years ago.
judy_lodge174929

This was on Monday. On Friday, we decided to combine business with pleasure to get in some more riding. We loaded up the bike and drove to our son’s house in Olympia, near the Olympia-Woodland bicycle trail. In the morning, we rode east, then south on the Chehalis-Western Trail.

GOPR0014_1_37

We turned around at the 10Km mark, where the rail-trail followed a dirt path along the present-day Amtrak line to detour along Rainier Road, and returned to our son’s house, using a side trail into his neighborhood.

GP010014_1_43

Collecting our materials for our afternoon meeting, we headed back to the trail and continued west into downtown Olympia, to Traditions Cafe, on 5th and Water, a 5-km downhill cruise from the trail into the heart of the city, highlights shown in this video, to contrast with the wilderness tour earlier in the week:

Cycling Downtown Olympia from Larye Parkins on Vimeo.

After the meeting, we retraced our route (picking a more bicycle-friendly route out of the city core, on Legion Ave), we made the sharp turn onto the side path shown above, when disaster struck. The thin layer of leaves at the start of the path turned out to hide a layer of wet, slippery mud, and the front wheel skidded to the left, dumping us on our right sides heavily onto the asphalt trail.

I sustained a few abrasions, lacerations, and bruises, from falling on hip, back (cell phone in rear jersey pocket), elbow, shoulder, and helmet. But, Judy fell on her right shoulder and head. It quickly became apparent that, not only did she not remember falling, but she did not know where she was or what year it was, just that her neck and shoulder hurt.

With other injuries being minor, we remounted the bike and continued on the 300 meters to our car. Judy’s confusion continued, and my elbow was bleeding profusely, so we left the bike at our son’s house and drove to the Urgent Care Clinic. Being a Friday night in the city, the backlog for a CT scan at the nearby hospital was several hours, during which time her confusion continued, with complete amnesia, unable to maintain a thread of conversation more than 20 seconds without repeating the question. All she knew for sure was that we were in a medical facility in our bike clothes, and her shoulder and neck hurt, so something bad must have happened.

We don’t know a lot about the workings of memory in people, but we have devised information storage systems that, when they fail, act a lot like a person with a concussion.  Brain science currently classifies memory as short-term (like looking up a phone number and then dialing it) and long-term (like that spectacular Bitterroot sunset in 2001), but what happens when a person sustains a head injury and suffers an episode of amnesia is more like when a computer “crashes.”  In a computer system, “short term memory” are things we put in the processor registers and never commit to disk storage at all.  In a person, and in a computer, events that happened recently that we intend to remember get put in volatile (meaning it goes away if we lose power) memory, then gets transferred to disk (long-term memory) over a period of a few seconds to minutes, sometimes hours.  At the same time, we periodically make a second copy of everything we want to keep, in case something happens to the primary disk.

When we have a brain injury, all the short-term memory gets wiped out–we don’t have any recollection of what we were doing at the moment of injury.  If severe enough, we don’t remember anything that happened for several hours before the incident, because a “backup” copy never got made, and we have to rebuild the medium-term memories from existing backups.  When a computer disk is physically damaged, we can work around the damaged area and restore the lost data from backup, but need to take the entire disk off-line while this is done.  When we first build a computer, we make a “recovery disk” that contains the computer’s identity and the network environment, like a person’s name and the names and images of close family members.  When a person has persistent amnesia lasting several hours, it is like this: we may know our name and recognize family members and know their names, but don’t remember what day it is, and, because the “disk” containing our long-term memory is being rebuilt, we can’t store any short-term memory, so the entire time it takes for the pathways to be rebuilt to access the copy of our long-term memory, we don’t remember, either, after the damage is repaired.

Judy was lucky that she apparently didn’t have any internal bleeding, because that can block recovery of memories and functions for a long time, if not permanently, but she has not retained nor can she recover the memories from a few hours before the accident until we put ice on her head about eight hours afterward to reduce swelling and allow some short term memories to be saved and older memories to be recovered.

The next test will be, after she has recovered fully (I’ve said this will be after my external bruises, corresponding to her internal bruises, have faded completely), to resume riding.  Even though she has no memory of the accident, there seems to be a deeper, physical memory not consciously accessible, and she might have some anxiety that can’t be rationalized.  Time will tell.  But, we have enjoyed traveling by bicycle so much that we should be able to overcome any such fears.  Though, when I went for a ride by myself today, I was extra-cautious about muddy areas and areas of loose gravel.  Two-wheeled vehicles are light, efficient, and highly maneuverable, but they are much more susceptible to irregular surfaces and local friction than 4-wheel vehicles.

Resting at home, with book, warm fire, and lap cat.
Resting at home, with book, warm fire, and lap cat.
Riding to Olympia with our first Warm Showers guest of the season, Andreas. (at Island Market, halfway)
Riding to Olympia with our first Warm Showers guest of the season, Andreas. (at Island Market, halfway)
Fiber Arts, Quilting

Art Quilters Show at Ruby Street Quiltworks

Gallery

The Ruby Street Art Quilt group has a show at the Quiltworks, March 17-24, the first in the 4-year history of the informal interest group. The photos below were taken at the March 17 opening reception, after the regular monthly meeting of the group. Judy has six pieces entered, and Larye has two (both of which were in the Man-Made exhibit at Island Quilters last month).  The overall show was fantastic, and well-received.  I think we may have picked up a few new members, quilters excited about the surface alteration, innovative techniques, and artistic expression exhibited by the group members.

515516517
519 521 522

Musings on Unix, Bicycling, Quilting, Weaving, Old Houses, and other diversions

%d bloggers like this: