Msqur Update v0.53b

I’ve rolled out the update 0.53b to msqur.com. This includes: INI Parsing (i.e. better MSQ support) Bug fixes and better error handling So now it is a bit more usable. The INI Parsing turns out to be a bit more complex than I anticipated, but I rolled out a decent intermediate update in the meantime. Before completing the INI parsing (or anything else for that matter), I’ve decided to overhaul the entire codebase.

Msqur Update

Well, the holidays are long over and I haven’t updated msqur.com in a while. I’m adding some configuration management to it, so nothing visible will happen for a while. What’s planned, however, is .ini file parsing so that .msq files can be parsed according to the INI file version they use. That is, I will parse the INI file for the schema to a .msq file instead of hardcoding it. This way showing a .

Harbor Freight Trailer Build

So I’ve got this autocross bug, despite being a terrible driver. After about 5 seconds of thought, I came to the conclusion that I must get an autocross trailer in order to improve my skills.

So, after a bit of research it looked like item #90153 was the thing to get. The key is it has 12" wheels, whereas the cheaper one (#42708) has 8" ones. The larger the wheel the less RPM the wheel bearings see, which is good. The increased payload capacity and trailer height were just bonuses. Since I plan on hauling some wheels and tires and some tools, I don’t see coming near the 1000+ lb. payload capacity. And if you wanted to carry more, all you’d really need is some better tires, since that’s the actual limiting factor. However, I don’t recommend carrying anything near the payload capacity.

Note that this is one of the few big-ticket items you can use the 20% coupon on, so if you want to save $46 or so off the price, use one! I got it and built it:

I also picked up a trailer jack, LED lighting kit, 1-7/8" ball, and ratcheting straps from HF. From elsewhere I got a backup alarm, more LED lights, battery tray, some wire and a voltage gauge.

I then painted the frame and wheels to match my 280Z:

msqur.com – MSQ file sharing site

Well, I’ve only been working on it a little so far, but I suppose it’s good enough to post about at this point. The site is msqur.com, and it’s for Megasquirt ECU users to share their tunes (from the TunerStudio MS software). You can upload (multiple) .msq files, assign some engine information to them at upload, and share them with other people for troubleshooting or tuning help. The goal is to make something easier than attaching a file to a forum post that others have to download and fire up the full tuning software suite to just view it.

Raspberry Pi Robot – Assembly Part 1

So you’ve got a bunch of parts, assembly is pretty easy. I’m going to skip over most of the chassis assembly since it came with instructions, but I have a couple pointers and I’ll go over how I attached the encoders. Then I’ll talk about soldering the motor controller and wiring the encoders up, and which pins to pick from the GPIO of the Pi. So this is what the chassis looks like fully assembled:

Installing Arch Linux with an encrypted root

I’ve got a ThinkPad T410. I got it off craigslist in what was a somewhat shady transaction. Regardless, it came with a 300GB spinner. Not interested in finding out how much life was left on it I got a solid state replacement from NewEgg for “Cyber Monday”. A 240GB Intel one for $110, that’s less than 50 cents per GB!

The spinner has a single unencrypted partition with Arch Linux running on it. I wanted to run Arch on an encrypted partition. The main reason: If it’s ever stolen I don’t want to have to worry about any of the data on it. Bonus reason: Geek/spy points.

So, while there are excellent guides for installing Arch, and setting up encryption, and optimizing an SSD, there don’t seem to be any combining the three. In reality it’s not that much more difficult, and if you are motivated to setup encryption on Linux in the first place you probably know what you’re doing. Still, I was disheartened a bit at the lack of information so I decided to note how I went about it in general.

Raspberry Pi – Cross-compiling

Now that you have the hardware built and tested (although that’s not necessary), you can either use the code I’ve written-which is specific to the hardware and environment I have, or compile your own version. If you want to compile your own there are two options:

  1. Compile on the Pi itself
  2. Compile on an ARM virtual machine
  3. Cross-compile on a faster machine

The trade off? Compiling on the Pi is slow (very slow). The virtual machine is a marked improvement for compiling speed, but is complicated to setup. Cross-compiling is about the same difficulty as setting up a virtual machine but a bit faster and less “bulky”. So it depends. The virtual machine is nice if you have a lot of libraries you want to use, since you’ll have to compile all of them to be available for linking. If any of them have poor autoconfig support, it might be a pain to fix if you weren’t already on the target machine. But, since I just needed one or two popular libraries, I decided to setup cross-compiling from my host (x86_64) machine.

The last time I setup cross-compiling it was on Gentoo, and it wasn’t pleasant. However, after a little bit of research it looks like the crosstool-ng project is pretty popular and useful. I only had to patch one tiny thing.

Here’s the overall process:

  1. Install crosstool-ng
  2. Configure a cross toolchain with it
  3. Try and build the toolchain
  4. Use the toolchain to build your Pi code

Interesting Spam

Akismet is really good at preventing spam, but I’ve noticed that spammers don’t even seem to be trying sometimes. This is what’s in my spam queue: {I have|I’ve} been {surfing|browsing} online more than {three|3|2|4} hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. {It’s|It is} pretty worth enough for me. {In my opinion|Personally|In my view}, if all {webmasters|site owners|website owners|web owners} and bloggers made good content as you did, the {internet|net|web} will be {much more|a lot more} useful than ever

Carduino 2.0 – Intel Galileo Setup

Out of the box the Galileo is setup to run sketches uploaded from volatile memory, which is really lame. I didn’t spend much time with it using the stock SPI kernel. So, an SD card is pretty much required to do any serious development with this board. This is not a bad thing (although you aren’t running in real-time anymore), since having a full OS to use has lots of advantages. Plus, this way I can automate the build process in a way I’m more familiar with.