Michal Čihař - Archive for April 24, 2007

Kernel 2.6.21 hits Gammu

Since Linux kernel 2.6.21 entered higher release candidates, more people started to report that Gammu has problem on that with connecting over USB cable. First I thought it is some misconfiguration of kernel, but when several same reports appeared, I decided to take a look at it.

As great side effect of this, I found out that I can use snapshots of Debian kernel, where current version (2.6.21-rc7) is available as Debian package. This saved me lot of time, thanks guys!

After installing and booting new kernel, I quickly found out that the problem is not SIGSEGV as many people reported, but SIGIO. After quick look at code, it was obvious that setting file to asynchronous I/O causes this.

Well this is how asynchronous I/O is supposed to work and kernel people implemented it now for (some?) serial drivers. I have no idea why there was attempt to use it in Gammu. The code is not at all ready for this and makes no use of asynchronous I/O. So the fix was quite easy - just to remove this flag from file.

Fix now sits in SVN, impatient users who run kernel 2.6.21 can get SVN snapshot :-). Testing release will follow during next week.

Gammu test version 1.10.4

I just released new version of Gammu, you can download it from download server. The only reason for this release is fixed Windows binary distribution, other changes are:

  • Fix decoding of new style address records in Nokia phones. Thanks to Martin Strigl, see also bug #286.
  • Reorganised documentation a bit.
  • Use correct format strings for IrDA debug messages.
  • Identify Alcatel One Touch 55x.
  • Improve detection of OBEX support.
  • Fixed Windows build.