Marc's Public Blog - Linux Hacking


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This page has a few of my blog entries about linux, but my main linux page is here
Picture of Linus

Here is a list of older linux event reports I made before my blog was started, then the rest are below
1996/11/18-21:Linux Pavillion Comdex Fall 1996 (photos only). I've been going since then to help at the linux pavillion.
1997/11/18-21: Linux Pavillion Comdex Fall 1997 (photos only)
1998/05/28-30: Linuxexpo 1998 (photos only)
1998/11/16-20: Linux Pavillion Comdex Fall 1998 (full report)
1998/11/11: Silicon Valley Tea Party (report with pictures)
1999/02/15: Windows Refund Day (report with pictures)
1999/03/20: SVLUG KTEH night (photos only)
1999/03/01-04: LinuxWorld Expo Winter 99 (complete report with many pictures)
1999/03/31: Mozilla Party one year anniversary (photos only)
1999/05/18-22: Linuxexpo 1999 (complete report with many pictures)
1999/06/07: June 99 Balug meeting with Linus
1999/08/09-12: LinuxWorld Expo Summer 99 (complete report with many pictures)
1999/11/15-19: Linux Business Show at Comdex Fall 1999 (full report with pictures)
2000/08/14-17: LinuxWorld Expo Summer 2000 (complete report with many pictures)
2001/01/17-20: Linux.conf.au/LCA 2001 (complete report with pictures)
2001/07/25-28: OLS 2001 (photos only)
2001/08/25: Linux 10th Anniversary (report with pictures)
2001/09/27-30: LinuxWorld Expo Summer 2001 report with pictures)
2001/11/05-10: ALS 2001 (photos only)
2002/06/26-29: OLS 2002 (photos only)
2003/01/20-25: LCA 2003 (photos only)
2003/07/23-26: OLS 2003 (photos only)
2004/01/12-17: LCA 2004 (photos only)
2004/07/21-24: OLS 2004 (photos only)
2005/04/18-23: LCA 2005 (photos only)
2006/01/24-28: LCA 2006 (photos only)
2007/01/17-21: LCA 2007 (photos only)

Here is a list of all the talks I've given:

And below are my blog posts:

Table of Content for linux:

More pages: July 2002 February 2004 March 2004 November 2004 April 2005 August 2005 January 2006 July 2006 August 2007 November 2007 January 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 May 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 March 2010 April 2010 June 2010 August 2010 October 2010 January 2011 July 2011 August 2011 December 2011 January 2012 March 2012 May 2012 August 2012 December 2012 January 2013 March 2013 May 2013 September 2013 November 2013 January 2014 March 2014 April 2014 May 2014 October 2014 January 2015 March 2015 May 2015 January 2016 February 2016 June 2016 July 2016 August 2016 October 2016 January 2017 September 2017 January 2018 March 2018 December 2018 January 2019 January 2020 May 2020 January 2021 September 2021 March 2023 April 2023 December 2023 June 2024



2019/01/21 Donkey Car with Tensorflow Video Analysis at Open Hardware Miniconf at Linux.Conf.au 2019
π 2019-01-21 01:01 in Arduino, Linux
This year, the Open Hardware Miniconf team designed a donkeycar for us at LCA 2019 Christchurch. It's a car that navigates by itself using its onboard camera connected to a Raspberry Pi using training video data gathered and analysed offline by tensorflow. That sure was an ambitious project!

I arrived the day before to help finish up the kits for the next morning:



the cars were eager to perform :)
the cars were eager to perform :)

Andy and Jon who ended up working all night to make sure the kits would work the next morning
Andy and Jon who ended up working all night to make sure the kits would work the next morning


The next morning, we showed up to build the kit:




rPi with custom last minute hat for the donkey car
rPi with custom last minute hat for the donkey car

done!
done!

Jon gave a talk about the car design
Jon gave a talk about the car design

Nice way to support 5V neopixels on 3.3V microcontrollers
Nice way to support 5V neopixels on 3.3V microcontrollers

We then had a few talks:



Including mine on the history of linux.conf.au hardware miniconf


After the miniconf, we had a few tries at getting our own cars to self drive after training:


I decked out my car with neopixels, because bling! :)
I decked out my car with neopixels, because bling! :)


2019/01/21 Linux.Conf.au 2019 in Christchurch
π 2019-01-21 01:01 in Linux
This year, LCA was back in New Zealand in the city of Christchurch.


nice car parked outside
nice car parked outside



The first day, I went to the Open Hardware Miniconf to build a monkey car with video analysis fed to tensorflow

LCA had lots of attendees as usual, enough ot overfill the main keynote room. The usual suspects/friends were there as usual:







Ah yes, the shirt and glasses, that's because of my talk Using Open Hardware from my shirt to OS testing for Google's Fuchsia

Lots of talks, thankfully they were recorded as there were 2-3x as many talks as I was able to see:



really nice keynote showing how to hack insulin dispensers to deliver the right amount at the right time
really nice keynote showing how to hack insulin dispensers to deliver the right amount at the right time



Commodore 65 slide presentation program
Commodore 65 slide presentation program

fpga based cell phone running alongside a commodore 65 fpga, awesome
fpga based cell phone running alongside a commodore 65 fpga, awesome







Rusty's keynote for the win :)
Rusty's keynote for the win :)



the first LCA in 1999
the first LCA in 1999

Rusty gave a few talks since then :)
Rusty gave a few talks since then :)


very interesting talk on how painful it was to take over grsecurity maintenance
very interesting talk on how painful it was to take over grsecurity maintenance

Random pictures:

love this little laptop I found
love this little laptop I found

As usual, nice parties in the evenings: speaker dinner, professional DNS, Penguin Dinner, and nice adhoc BBQ on friday:











And just like this, it was conference close:




next year will be the Gold Coast
next year will be the Gold Coast

thank you, come again :)
thank you, come again :)

2019/01/24 Linux.conf.au 2019: Using Open Hardware from my shirt to OS testing for Google's Fuchsia
π 2019-01-24 01:01 in Arduino, Electronics, Linux
I've been going to linux.conf.au for 18 years now (since 2001), and presented a fair amount of linux talks related there, but the big change for me was the open hardware miniconf that started in 2010. Thanks to its projects every year, I got to learn a lot about microcontrollers and some about electronics.
This talk was my first non linux talk which detailled everything I learned from those miniconfs and projects I worked that stemmed from them. I presented it at LCA 2019 Christchurch.

you can find the talk pdf here: http://marc.merlins.org/linux/talks/Using_Open_Hardware/Using_Open_Hardware.pdf (you'll want this one to get all the clickable links in the slides)
you can view the talk slides in html here or below:

Talk video below:

I arrived the sunday before the conference and helped out the open hardware organizers with a bit of last minute setup. I also got to do some last minute testing and tuning of my panels:

hacked up ESP32 with level converters on breadboard to run 3x 64x32 SmartMatrix panels with SmartMatrix::GFX
hacked up ESP32 with level converters on breadboard to run 3x 64x32 SmartMatrix panels with SmartMatrix::GFX

64x64 P3.8 SmartMatrix::GFX panel vs 3x 64x32 SmartMatrix::GFX P4 flexible panels vs 4x 16x16 FastLED::NeoMatrix P10 panels
64x64 P3.8 SmartMatrix::GFX panel vs 3x 64x32 SmartMatrix::GFX P4 flexible panels vs 4x 16x16 FastLED::NeoMatrix P10 panels

After finishing the code tuning and demos just in time, gave a 20mn miniconf talk on the history of linux.conf.au hardware miniconf. I went through how much I learned from those confs and what I was able to achieve as a result. I sure got to learn a lot about microcontroller and driver programming:




I wasn't able to bring my burning man 4096 neopixel matrix, it doesn't even fit in my car, but the irony is that my small 64x64 rgbpanel has the same resolution and fits easily in my backpack
I wasn't able to bring my burning man 4096 neopixel matrix, it doesn't even fit in my car, but the irony is that my small 64x64 rgbpanel has the same resolution and fits easily in my backpack

The 64x64 compact display is showing the hand X-ray here
The 64x64 compact display is showing the hand X-ray here

A few days later, I gave the longer version of my talk at the main conference. By then it had grown to over 160 slides in a 45mn slot, or 16 seconds per slide. Ooops...

  • The full talk went into details on what I learned in the hardware hacking field, a lot of it was simply electricity, U=RI, wires, pre-made components (small inline volt/amp meters, DC-DC converters, and so forth).
  • I also gave a is a quick summary of my hacking an arduino board to turn it into a sleep analysis machine, a longer talk I gave elsewhere in 2012.
  • There is a section on what I learned from Tridge and RC planes with ardupilot
  • I had to mention microcontroller hacking and driver writing for IoTuz on ESP32 given how much I learned from it
  • And IoTuz got me to write a primitive Neopixel driver for ESP32, a very slippery slope that led me to many LED projects
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2015-01-06_Driver-for-direct-driving-single-to-3-color-LED-Matrices-with-software-PWM.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2017-04-03_Arduino-328P-Uno-Teensy3_1-ESP8266-ESP32-IR-and-Neopixels.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2017-04-24_Adafruit-GFX-on-NeoMatrix-and-RGB-Matrix-Panel-Demo.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2017-06-02_LED-Pants-and-Shirt-Programmed-With-Arduino-on-ESP8266.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2018-04-23_FastLED_NeoMatrix-library_-how-to-do-Matrices-with-FastLED-and-Adafruit_GFX.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2018-05-29_EDM-Party-Shirt-powered-with-FastLED_NeoMatrix-and-Adafruit_GFX_-plus-160Wh-_10Ah-4S_-worth-of-lipos.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2018-07-13_AnimatedGIFs-for-SmartMatrix-or-NeoMatrix-_Neopixel-WS2812B_-from-SDcard-or-SPIFFS_-on-Teensy-3_x_-ESP8266_-or-ESP32.html
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino/post_2018-07-30_Building-a-64x64-Neopixel-Neomatrix-_4096-pixels_-running-NeoMatrix-FastLED-IR.html
  • https://github.com/marcmerlin/SmartMatrix_GFX
  • and for good measure the talk ends with how I was able to apply some of that knowledge to design simple solutions for hardware testing racks for Google's Fuchsia on arm platforms.


  • Hopefully the talk and/or slides are useful to you. Links:

  • http://marc.merlins.org/linux/talks/Using_Open_Hardware/Using_Open_Hardware.pdf
  • http://marc.merlins.org/linux/talks/Using_Open_Hardware
  • http://marc.merlins.org/perso/arduino
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqeBXCCabo0

  • More pages: July 2002 February 2004 March 2004 November 2004 April 2005 August 2005 January 2006 July 2006 August 2007 November 2007 January 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 May 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 March 2010 April 2010 June 2010 August 2010 October 2010 January 2011 July 2011 August 2011 December 2011 January 2012 March 2012 May 2012 August 2012 December 2012 January 2013 March 2013 May 2013 September 2013 November 2013 January 2014 March 2014 April 2014 May 2014 October 2014 January 2015 March 2015 May 2015 January 2016 February 2016 June 2016 July 2016 August 2016 October 2016 January 2017 September 2017 January 2018 March 2018 December 2018 January 2019 January 2020 May 2020 January 2021 September 2021 March 2023 April 2023 December 2023 June 2024

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