Home:

• Upgraded ShaftNet to Fedora 32. Fixed most of the fallout.
• Improved home networking:
  • Traced and labeled all of the RG6 coax drops in the house
  • Installed a new splitter and cleaned up the wires where they all terminate.
  • MoCA adapters installed in the media center and master bedroom.
  • Attached nearly all 2.4GHz-only devices to the MoCA bridges.
• Cleaned the gutters again, and swept up nearly 100 cubic feet of leaves.
• Dishwasher died mid-cycle; turned out to be an internal fuse. Replaced it, the loose handle, and re-leveled the whole thing.

Vehicular Stuff:

• Installed the replacement dome light on the Kubota. I really need to pick up an inline fuse.

Rockbox:

• Added the necessary librares to enable interfacing with the bluetooth subsystem on HibyOS-based targets.
• Update configure script to prompt for USB serial support when in advanced mode.
• Cleaned out some long-deprecated language strings.
• Bugfixes for USB action prompt on some targets.
• Improved ALSA PCM driver to reduce (and better mitigate) buffer underruns.
• Minor xDuoo X3 manual fixes.
• Fixed HTML manual generation with modern Tex Live packages.
• Infrastructure improvements:
  • Buildserver now uses 10-character commit IDs internally.
  • Improved metadata generation for the upcoming Rockbox Utility release.
  • Rearranged where daily builds, voices, and manual files are placed.
  • Nightly build scripts now generate a font package.

Photo Organizer:

• Minor changes for better PHP 7.4 compatibility; Now requires at least PHP 5.4!

Printing:

• Bugfixes affecting the Sony UP-DR200 (and probably other older UP-series models).

Home:

• Cleaned out the gutters (again), and swept up three more loads of leaves.
• Hauled off another 10 bags of leaves (total of 30 so far)

Vehicular Stuff:

• Wired up a waterproof LED dome light on the Kubota, and had to remove it the next day as it turned out to be defective.
• Discovered the Subaru was low on both oil and coolant. Sigh...
• Picked up and installed a new wheel splash shield for the Prius; the old one was shredded by a hidden stump.

Rockbox-specific:

• Further cleanup of the PCM API.
• Explicitly clear all pending button events when entering Yes/No popup.
• Configurable action upon on USB insertion, including prompting the user.
• Some plaform-level fixes for the iBasso DX50/DX90.
• Fixed a pile of minor bugs with the www site scripts.
• Upgraded gerrit instance to v2.16.23, fixing a longstanding site config problem along the way.
• Wrote up a privacy policy, and added a link to the site templates.
• Made some quality-of-life improvements in the admin mode on the themesite.
• Cleaned out obsoleted/superseded themes, shrinking the DB size by nearly 2/3rds and about 100MB of disk space.
• Reviewed some patches.

Home:

• Replaced kitchen faucet and installed a drinking water filter. This was a real PITA due to limited access and seized bolts. I ended up using a dremel to cut off the supply lines, and an angle grinder to take off the faucet from the top. Unfortunatlely, I managed to gouge the sink in the process. It was already pretty beat up so it's not the end of the world.
• More yard work! Literally hammered the leaf sweeper back into working condition, cleaned out the gutters yet again, swept up several more loads of leaves, and hauled off the first 20 bags of this new season before Eta's effects began to hit us.

Vehicular Stuff:

• Replaced the Kubota's taillights with standard 6" oval LED fixtures, for much improved nighttime visibility. Daytime too, as the old bulbs were pretty dinky.

Rockbox-specific:

• Got rid of last python2 scripts involved in www site.
• Addeed a heuristic to determine if ATA devices are actually solid-state.
• Updated a 7-year-old patch for iPods to restore factory hard drive timings, but made it apply only when solid-state drives were in use.
• Nuked a few more remnants of the old Archos players.
• Fixed a scrollwheel regression on the Eros Q and clones.
• A little progress on the Patch / Bug backlog.

Printing-related:

• Sony UP-D898MD is now supported!
• Many bugfixes to Sony UP-DR80MD and UP-CR20L.
• Synced Gutenprint up with current backend code.
• Some minor user support.

I got my hands on a UP-D898MD on Thursday, and after some head-scratching bugfixing, I'm pleased to say it now works reasonably well under Linux, incluidng custom print sizes and status reporting.

It's worth noting that other the other members of the '898 family (the non-MD versions, as well as the UP-X898 and UP-D898DC) might have their own quirks, but only time will tell.

There are still some missing features I haven't yet figured out -- For example, how to control the copy count and things like brightness/contrast from the host side.

Along the way, I landed bugfixes that affect other "Sony UPD Neo" printers (such as the UP-DR80MD and UP-CR20L).

To take advantage of this support, you'll need to grab Gutenprint out of git (or a snapshot/release dated after 2020-11-07).

Oh, the aptly-chosen test print is from Episode 91 of Sanesparza's "How To: Comics"

Update 2020-11-08: Fixed copy count

I missed the awesome light by about 45 seconds, but it still looks nice enough.

Incidently, this is the first recrational photo I've taken since New Year's.

Wow, four months of these weekly updates!

Home:

• Replaced the fuel line and filter on the leaf blower. Now starts and runs a lot better, but can't sustain full throttle. It's a net improvement, but I will have to put that diagnosis off until next weekend.
• Cleaned out the gutters and vainly attempted to keep up with the falling leaves. Also gathered up various fallen tree bits.
• Added another shelf to the server rack, relocated all of my test equipment onto it, and tidied up more of the wiring.
• Further reorganized my home office; moved some work stuff from my desk to the top of the rack, and shifted around storage a bit. Still need to improve the new cabling flow to be more cat-friendly.
• Upgraded the beastly server and my workstation to Fedora 33.

Vehicular Stuff:

• Oil change on the Prius. Made a huge mess, and had to degrease the driveway afterwards
• Re-mounted the Subaru's rear view mirror the day after it fell off. Again.
• Cleaned the Kubota's windshield for the first time.
• Fixed the Kubota's left tail light. Manufacturing defect, apparently!
• Affixed reflective strips to the read and sides of the Kubota and flatbed trailer.

Rockbox-specific:

• Fixed multiple potential crash bugs exposed by -fdelete-null-pointer-checks.
• Backported a pile of bugfixes to the WMA Pro codec.
• Globally disabled -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks.
• Triaged a few more bug tickets and gerrit changesets.
• Forward-ported and applied multiple old fixes out of Gerrit.
• Consolidated more code common to HibyOS players.
• Removed pcm_play_pause() and associated APIs.
• Some initial bluetooth platform integration work
• Purchased some Allwinner V3/S3 dev boards

Home:

• Finally migrated the home server to a dual E6-2650v2 beast
• Upgraded three systems to Fedora 33
• Disassembled the ice maker in the fridge, thawed out the motor and gave the whole assembly a good cleaning.
• Cleaned up more of the garage, giving away or tossing out stuff.
• Two more loads of leaves swept up, a new pile is growing!
• Made a top cover/shelf for my server rack out of an old sheet of 1/4" plywood.

Vehicular Stuff:

• Changed the truck's oil

Rockbox-specific:

• X20 muting bugfix
• X3 track skip hang bugfix (likely affected other targets too)
• Rocker audio hang after screen fade-in "fixed" (kernel bug)
• Triaged and closed several bug tickets.
• Added UISim target for Eros Q / K series
• More FiiO M3K bugfixing
• Convert FFT plugin to use PLuginAction input
• Fixed volume display in statusbar not respecting decimal point
• Upgraded gerrit instance
• Heavily reworked hosted ALSA driver:
  • Get rid of non-async (tick task) mode due to complete brokenness
  • Allow device to be switched at runtime
  • Rework driver init vs device init
  • Much better error & underrun handling
  • Smaller audio buffers to avoid glitching
  • Don't start audio with silence (no longer needed)
  • Add recording capability (untested)
• Partial rework of status bar
  • Now tied to SYSFONT size rather than fixed 8px
  • X3ii/X20/Eros targets now display numeric values properly, including volume, battery, and clock!
• Fixed a regression in the iriver_flash plugin caused by new toolchain

Printing-related:

• Partial Matte modes for DNP DS620/DS820/QW410

Home:

• Finally finished bagging up last season's leaves; a total of 98 bags.
• Blew out the gutters and swept up another two bags of fresh leaves.
• Unloaded some old furniture on craigslist

Rockbox-specific:

• Bumped arm and m68k targets to use the same GCC 4.9.4 toolchain used by all other targets. Cleaned up the mess that ensued. mostly in various bootloader builds. (This was more than six months in the making; now we need to make sure there are no regressions..)
• Disabled audio de-emphasis filter on the xDuoo X3.
• Miscellaneous bugfixes for the M3K; platform is still a complete mess.
• Fixed occasional shutdown crash on the Rocker.
• Fixed the lcd backlight speed on the X3ii and Eros Q/K series.
• Added RockboxUtility support for ErosQ/K and clones, and published OF image patches.
• Hosted platforms saw some significant improvements:
  • Multidrive operation finally works properly
  • Samsung YP-R0/R1 and Sony NWZ targets now properly hide the host filesystem and support hot-swappable SD cards in the same manner as all other targets.
• Hiby-based hosted targets also saw improvements:
  • Consolidated and bugfixed the USB code
  • Consolidated the common portions of the configuration files
  • Generated updated bootloaders for X3ii/X20/Rocker
  • Can properly hot-swap the sd card
  • Truly seamless integration of hot-swappable external USB storage
• Research bluetooth stack options for native targets

Home:

• Another 10 bags of soggy leaves bagged and hauled off (Total: 90)
• Cut up more fallen tree bits.
• Flushed the water heater. Lots of fine silt!
• Took off the doors to the home office closet, added more shelving, and continued organizing things.

Rockbox-specific:

Lots of rockbox work this week!

• Purged a little more Archos stuff
• Exclude audio drivers from bootloader builds
• Get rid of hacks meant for targets that lack certain keys
• Land the 'VTX' codec, and enable it on all current FP-capable targets
• X3ii/X20 get larger default system font
• Landed the reworked M3K port from xVortex.
  • Decent amount of [re]integration rework
  • Don't yet have ability to generate a patched FW image so it's not actually usable yet
  • Plenty of work still ahead
• New port to the EROS Q / EROS K players and their clones
  • Including patching stock firmware images!
  • Still needs rbutil integration
• Many improvements to the "Hiby Linux" platform & bootloader/launcher
  • Much better key mappings
  • On USB attachment, launch last firmware unless ADB is running
  • Allow remounting the SD card
  • Platform-level support for hotplug SD cards and external USB storage (!)
  • Still banging on it before I regenerate patches for rbutil to use
• Greatly improved auto-mute in the hosted alsa PCM driver. X3ii is nearly sane!
• Clean up "pivot root" path redirection on most hosted targets.
• Add ROLO support for hosted targets.

Fall has arrived, bringing a bout of very Seattle-esque weather. But I kept the blahs away by getting a lot done!

Home:

• Hauled away another 10 bags of leaves from the pile (total: 80), and swept up another load. Rain prevented any additional work.
• Cleaned the gutters and the driveway
• Installed another shelf in a wardrobe
• Completely emptied out a large tub of old computer stuff, organizing the worthwhile bits and throwing out the rest. All that remains is to tidy up one final cable snarl.
• Purchased a "New Model M" keyboard from Unicomp to replace the 25-year-old M that was murdered by a glass of Orange juice just before the COVID lockdown started. The Cherry keyboard I was using in the mean time was decent, but.. the M remains the best keyboard I've ever used. Meanwhile, the 27-year-old M that I've used for every job of my career remains locked away in the inaccessible $dayjob lab.

Vehicular Stuff:

• Found a large nail in the tire of the RTV while doing yard work, but it didn't actually puncture the knobby off-road tires.

Rockbox-specific:

Lots of rockbox work this week!

• LUA plugins can now use buttons on iPod external remotes.
• Fixed audioscrobbler file location on hosted targetsl
• Continued slicing and reworking the M3K code dump:
  • xDuoo X3ii & X20 gained filter rolloff supportl
  • Alsa PCM driver can now sanely switch sample rates.
  • Support for 176/192KHz playback. (16-bit only still)
  • On hosted targets, turn of LCD when backlight is off.
  • Further cleanup work on the VTX decoder.
  • M3K Port almost ready for merging!
• Hosted target improvements:
  • Improved LCD and general UI responsiveness.
  • Handle PCM underrun errors when starting a new playback stream.
  • Support muting analog output when PCM is not active (Rocker only for now, X3ii/X20 still have issues)
  • Backlight fading sped up.
• xDuoo X3ii & X20 audio jacks can be hotplugged at any time now.
• xDuoo X3ii & X20 keymap and lock switch emulations improved.
• AGPTek Rocker WPS keymap fixes.
• Improvements for 176/192KHz audio:
  • Heavily reworked support macros.
  • Larger mixer/DMA buffers.
  • Enabled 176/196KHz all most targets that have HW support and have sufficient free space for expanded buffers.
  • Many bugs will likely be exposed by this addition.
• Triaged and closed several bug tickets.
• Set up another build host on an old, slow box.
• Used Rockbox funds to purchase a new M3K and used Hifiwalker H2 for R&D purposes.
• Research into various Chinese music players for potential Rockbox porting targets.
• A lot of thinking and discussions about ensusring Rockbox's long-term sustainability.

Printing-related:

• Figured out the changes in the recent DNP QW410 firmware (additional paper sizes)
• const-ified a static data structure