Jalan-jalan d KL

Demi kerana ketiadaan kelas, aku berlalu ke KL, berjumpa dengan Aki dan Lut di sana. Beberapa agenda telah ditetapkan secara tidak rasmi beberapa hari sebelum itu. Bukan saja-saja jalan. Ada matlamat.

Matlamat aku - melawat seberapa banyak kedai buku yang boleh dilawat dan membeli seberapa banyak buku yang boleh dibeli. Keinginan itu selalunya melebihi daripada apa yang termampu. Itu lumrah seorang manusia. Aku beli buku 'Linux Kernel Development' panduan Robert Love, seorang senior kernel engineer di Novell. Juga sebuah buku yang dah lama keluar dan dah ramai orang baca - 1515, karya Faisal Tehrani. Tak sempat melawat banyak kedai buku, hanya MPH Midvalley, Borders B Times Square dan Kinokuniya KLCC. Lain kali, aku ingin habiskan sehari di sebuah kedai. 3 kedai, 3 hari.

Ikut Lut mencuba bass amp. Buat-buat tahu, walaupun tak tahu apa. Ikut Aki mengutip kepingan kertas senarai harga dan membeli-belah di Low Yat (sambil mencuci mata melihat deretan model baru komputer buku yang bertambah canggih).

Singgah di Anjung Rahmat untuk melelapkan mata buat semalam. Kondisi bilik - alhamdulillah, untuk rm60 semalam, bahagi 3, seorang rm20. Tambah bantal sebijik rm10, bahagi 3, seorang Rm3.33. Jumlah keseluruhan, RM23.33 seorang.

Ruang solat utama masjid asy-syakirin klcc berbau rotiboy kami yg diletakkan di bawah tangga. Tak tahu samada mengganggu kosentrasi imam mengepalai solat zohor lewat tengah hari itu. Harap-harap tidak.

"Ooo...bauu ni la rupanyaa" kata abang-abang itu kepada Aki sesudah solat. Dan Aki tersengih-sengih berlalu keluar. Dan kami makan di perkarangan masjid. 3 budak di perantauan. Aki balik SP pukul 430 ptg. Lutfi balik SP semalam jugak. Aku yang tak balik-balik lagi. Hati. Meronta-ronta. Allah sahaja yang tahu!

p/s-Aki dapat mengintai resepi rotiboy. Dia nak bukak perniagaan roti sendiri. Lut cadangkan nama Rotiku.

Kernel - preemptive

mercied>I need help, further explaination on what is preemptive?

amb> mercied, as I understand, it allows kernel mode threads to be suspended when there is a higher priority task
amb> in other words preemption isn't limited to userspace

wli> 1-line summary: an attempt to honor timeslice expiry and priority preemption while in kernelspace

mercied> its the other word for process interrupt? am I right?

DrNick> Think of it this way: when running in userspace, the code can be preempted at any time the kernel feels like doing so
DrNick> However, when that userspace tasks makes a kernel call, normally the only way it can be scheduled away is if it voluntarily does so

DrNick> via explicit calls to schedule or wait primitives or copy_to/from_user
DrNick> CONFIG_PREEMPT makes it so that sometimes code running in kernelspace can be preempted non-voluntarily

mercied> :D thx!

DrNick> "sometimes" because preemption is disabled while code holds spinlocks and at other times, too

Time Travel

Time travelling has always been my *unofficial interest. Thinking of the days when we were obsessed by Doraemon and his Mesin Cahaya Masa, Dr Emmet Brown with his flying, flux capacitor equipped DeLorean- (Back To The Future).

Back then, truly we hope that time travelling device, somehow could and will be invented. Imagine you can go back in time 300 millions years ago and watch gigantic creatures ever walk on earth. That is the intuition of 10 years old kid – us.

While chatting, surfing around the net, wondering about nothing, I came across this article which talks about paradoxical situations that could bump into time travellers. Well if it ever happens, do you think that we can prevent our own existance? Then how about the real us that go through time. Will we dissapear?

Based on Quantum theory itself which lead to the possibility of going back in time, scientist try to figure it out and the answer is – …probably no. Urmm ok, the answer is no. You can read it here.

p/s This one, goes to my friend - Lutfi, who is really into time travelling.

Is Linux for Losers? part 2

Lok Technologies, a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of networking gear, started out using Linux in its equipment but switched to OpenBSD four years ago after company founder Simon Lok, who holds a doctorate in computer science, took a close look at the Linux source code.

"You know what I found? Right in the kernel, in the heart of the operating system, I found a developer's comment that said, 'Does this belong here?' "Lok says. "What kind of confidence does that inspire? Right then I knew it was time to switch."

Here is my conversation with a friend. And below is the attached code of BSD. Note line 126.

hussein: did he look at the BSD source code?
hussein: does he know that he can find exactly the same things in there?
hussein: http://fxr.watson.org/fxr/source//amd64/include/pmap.h#L126 <-- take a look at this
hussein: BSD source code
hussein: * XXX doesn't really belong here I guess...
hussein: very interesting comment
hussein: just like the one in Linux, hmmmmm?
hussein: really

/*
116 * The *PDI values control the layout of virtual memory
117 */
118 #define PML4PML4I (NPML4EPG/2) /* Index of recursive pml4 mapping */
119
120 #define KPML4I (NPML4EPG-1) /* Top 512GB for KVM */
121 #define DMPML4I (KPML4I-1) /* Next 512GB down for direct map */
122
123 #define KPDPI (NPDPEPG-2) /* kernbase at -2GB */
124
125 /*
126 * XXX doesn't really belong here I guess...
127 */
128 #define ISA_HOLE_START 0xa0000
129 #define ISA_HOLE_LENGTH (0x100000-ISA_HOLE_START)
130
131 #ifndef LOCORE

Is Linux for Losers? part 1

A tiring weekend indeed. We've gathered a full load of workforce and start working like never before. Freezer, kitchen, small cupboard, washing machine...almost everything has been clean up. Rise and shine like...err not so new...but you can see the differences. Hahaha...poyo poyo...what is poyo?

Ok now, enough for the productivity wise report. Lets get moving and archived what is happening in Open Source world.

Is Linux for Losers??
"Theo de Raadt is a pioneer of the open source software movement and a huge proponent of free software. But he is no fan of the open source Linux operating system.

"It's terrible," De Raadt says. "Everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.'

De Raadt makes a rival open source operating system called OpenBSD. Unlike Linux, which is a clone of Unix, OpenBSD is based on an actual Unix variant called Berkeley Software Distribution.

"I think our code quality is higher, just because that's really a big focus for us," De Raadt says. "Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run." As for Linus Torvalds, who created Linux and oversees development, De Raadt says, "I don't know what his focus is at all anymore, but it isn't quality."


Source -: click here

Shades Apart - Stranger by the day.

Snow is falling from the sky - in the middle of July
Sun was shining in my eyes again last night
Alarm goes off without a sound - the silence is so loud
Something isn't right

Footsteps echo down the hall - no one's there at all
Dial your number but your voice says "I'm not home"
Everything is inside out - I don't know what it's about

It keeps getting stranger by the day
Stranger by the day
It keeps getting stranger by the day
Stranger by the day

Going for a walk outside - to see what I can find
No reflections in the windows I pass by
It feels hotter in the shade - water runs up from the drain
Something's going on

Conversations with a mime - stared at by the blind
Imagination must be working overtime
The world is upside down - everything is turned around

It keeps getting stranger by the day
Stranger by the day
It keeps getting stranger by the day
Stranger by the day, yeah

By the time I reach your door - I can't take anymore
I just happened to be in your neighborhood
I'm the one who gets surprised - I don't believe my eyes
Your alibi's no good

Whatever happened to the world
Whatever happened to the girl I thought I knew
It just can't be true - I guess I'm losing you

Stranger by the day
Stranger by the day
It keeps getting stranger by the day
Stranger by the day

Blood Drive...

For the first time ever, I went to a blood drive. Hopefully it’ll be useful for someone. Who knows there'll be a time when I'm going to need a blood someday, or perhaps my love one...

Alhamdulillah, proudly I am to be in O type wagon. O type blood is a universal donor, where everyone regardless what type of blood they are ( A B O), can accept yours. But on the downside, you can only accept O type when in need. Sounds great doesn’t it?

p/s – Pandai hospital tu. Esok rasa nak pegi derma lagi. Ada sorang nurse cun. ;-)

Melaka....aku cabar kau!!!!!

The break has come to an end. I’ll leave all the elation in my hometown, all the anticipation with every brainwave and fortitude till the day when I am back.

I’ve met some of my friends during the trimester shatter. Is, Aki, Naim, Afiq, Fikri, Lut, Tofik, Bobo, Apat…to name a few. All of which had given me an astonishing moment. We talked about life, we chat about cars, we yak on politics, we shoot the breeze on sports and we laughed. Leaving your worries for the assignments, string of test and quizzes, it is not something that appears very often.

My big family, uncles and aunts, cousins, brothers and sisters, mom and dad, my grandma – comprehend it or not, grasp it you do or do not, are the treasure in your life, in you, for you. And so, I’ll leave it all behind fleetingly. Though they are not in my sight, away from my heart they do not.

Last but not least – the vistas are going to be the wallpaper in my mind.