I wanted to use my Empeg to record a radio segment tonight (yes it may be illegal but it is only for my own use and i'll most likely buy their album anyway). So with minute to spare I hooked up my Mk1 to the computer, attached a bulldog clip and paper clip chain to the arial socket and flicked it across to the radio.

Nothing

No radio source. I checked the menu, it wasn't there!

I have the latest upgrade, 1.01 and i'm sure it's the one for the Mk1. Can anyone confirm that the radio has been de-activated on the Mk1 for home use?

Murray 06000047
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Funny you should mention it, I was about to post something similar.

It's been months since I tried to turn on my Mk1's radio. When I tried it last night, it wasn't there, even from the main menu. I was in the car at the time, so in my case, it isn't even a home/car question.

There's only one issue, which is that I'm running a nonstandard kernel compiled by Brian Mihulka. He said that when he compiled it, he wasn't sure if he'd made the appropriate changes between the Mk2 and the Mk1 compilation. I was going to ask Brian if he'd simply forgot to activate the tuner in his Mk1 compilation.

Is there a chance that you might be in the same boat, or are we talking about two different issues here?

Or did we actually totally lose the tuner in 1.01 and none of us Mk1 owners noticed? (In which case, you can lay the blame squarely on me since I alpha-tested a bunch of 1.01 pre-releases and never even tried the tuner during that period.)

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Tony Fabris

Nope, radio's fine. I've been using it all the time, and I'm on 1.01.

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Nope, radio's fine. I've been using it all the time, and I'm on 1.01.

Ah, okay, then it's Brian's fault that I couldn't hear "Prairie Home Companion" on the way home from the grocery store last night. Brian? Are you listening?

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Tony Fabris

I just got here for the day and claim no responsibility for that. I would be willing to compile up a new kernel with whatever options you want. I may email Mike and ask for his config file for both the Mk1 and Mk2.

Ok, I just found where to activate the radio from in the kernel config. I'll compile one up and send it off to you.

Brian

-See my empeg here-

Edited by bmihulka on 30/10/00 08:50 PM.

Ok, I just found where to activate the radio from in the kernel config. I'll compile one up and send it off to you.

Got it, thanks.

Guess what? You're not gonna believe this.

The new one you just sent induces the garbage-screen-on-soft-reboot bug. The other one you sent me last week does not induce the bug.

So what's the difference between the two compiles? Mike and Hugo would probably really like to know what causes the problem.

One difference that I already see is that the new on didn't have the IR hack you mentioned. I don't know what the IR hack is or what it does.

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Tony Fabris

I haven't modifies the kernel or anything tho. It's the standard 1.01 download version.

any ideas?

Murray 06000047
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I haven't modifies the kernel or anything tho. It's the standard 1.01 download version. any ideas?

Your original assumption was probably correct: The radio might be deliberately disabled when the unit is on AC power. Either that or you installed a Mark2 image onto your Mark1 player. I can't run out to the car right now to check it for you, though.

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Tony Fabris

I'm not sure if it is the IR hack or not, but I don't think it would be, especially since Frank was getting the garbage screen while using the hack. If you want I could send you some different kernels that change only the differences between my earlier config file and the one I got from Mike. And to rule it out I will compile one with the IR hack and the same config file as the one I just sent you. Let me know if you want to be the test subject.

Brian

-See my empeg here-

If you want I could send you some different kernels that change only the differences between my earlier config file and the one I got from Mike.

Bring 'em on!

Zip them all up together and give them descriptive long filenames with the extension ".zimage". I'll test them all out and let you know how it all goes.

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Tony Fabris

(CC: Brian's personal E-mail address)

Okay, got the bundle of kernels. Results of my initial testing:

- The one you sent me last week (no radio, Frank's and Richard's changes, your config): Does not induce the bug.

- The one you sent me earlier today (radio re-enabled, Mike's config):Induces the garbage screen bug

From the bundle of three kernels you just sent me:

- "Mikes_config_with_Franks_IR_Hack.zImage":Induces the garbage screen bug

- "Net_and_sysctl.zImage":Does not induce the bug.

- "sysctl_enabled.zImage":Does not induce the bug.

Note that I have not done multiple run-throughs on the bundle of three you just sent me. So if there's some sort of intermittent thing going on, then we don't know for sure. However, past experience seems to indicate that it's not an intermittent thing.

If you think you've narrowed it down to one particular thing, or if you need more tests, please send me more kernels and I'll test whatever you want.

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Tony Fabris

And just for good measure:

The "Sysctl Enabled" one is working fine with Rjlov's voladj, Rjlov's IOctl with the startup chooser, and the radio works both in the car and in the house. And it doesn't induce the garbage screen bug (after several retries) So I'm gonna use that one for a while.

Although I just induced what I think to be another bug unrelated to all of this: If you soft-reboot the player when it's on FM tuner after a flash upgrade, it'll restart in sleep mode (display off, standby light pulsing), but the tuner is active and sending audio out the home outputs.

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Tony Fabris

I think that by enabling the Sysctl support in the kernel with Richards voladj has something to do with the garbage bug. I couldn't tell you why, but that is the one difference from the config file Mike sent me, in that kernel that seems to work.

Brian

-See my empeg here-

Not having looked at the kernel source code, I wouldn't know what that means.

Do you think there any way to cause the but to appear/disappear in the vanilla (no mods) 1.01 sources? I'm interested because, as I understand it, the Empeg folks have occasionally encountered it themselves and didn't know what caused it. If we could narrow it down to something really exact, we could give that information to them and then they could make sure it never happens again in the official sources.

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Tony Fabris

Like I said before, I'm no kernel hacker or great C programmer, so I'm not sure what exactly causes it. I'm going to send you two more kernels that have no 3rd party patches and that will determine if it is the compilers or the config options along with patches that are causing the bug. I've listed the help entry from the kernel config for the sysctl option which may shed some light on the situation. I can see why empeg left it out, because in a stock kernel with no changing hardware or software one would not need the extra bloat.

CONFIG_SYSCTL:

The sysctl interface provides a means of dynamically changing certain kernel parameters and variables on the fly without requiring a recompile of the kernel or reboot of the system. The primary interface consists of a system call, but if the /proc filesystem is enabled, a tree of modifiable sysctl entries will be generated beneath the /proc/sys directory. They are explained in the files in Documentation/sysctl/. Note that enabling this option will enlarge the kernel by at least 8 KB.

As it is generally a good thing, you should say Y here unless building a kernel for install/rescue disks or your system is very limited in memory.


Brian

-See my empeg here-

erm...

ah yes...

looks like i put in the wrong image.

still there probably should be a check on this, i think there is in 1.1, no?

-i'll go but my head in a bucket of acid-

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Murray 06000047

Peter has done this, future versions (1.1+) will only apply to the correct units :)

Hugo