A truely universal remote control for my EPIA system

Although it has been a bit quiet here lately, this does not mean that I have not made progress. As the first in a upcoming series of reports, let me talk a bit about the problem of finding a remote control for my EPIA system. You might wonder why I need a remote control, considering… Continue reading A truely universal remote control for my EPIA system

The shortcomings of the Linux LEDs API

In a recent post I mentioned that the Linux kernel has a dedicated API for LEDs. This API is composed of the drivers/leds/ directory and the additional <linux/leds.h> include file, Documentation exists in form of the Documentation/leds-class.txt file. To quote: “The underlying design philosophy is simplicity. LEDs are simple devices and the aim is to… Continue reading The shortcomings of the Linux LEDs API

OpenWrt Remote debugging

While analyzing hostapd and trying to find out where to hook in after WPA pairwise key exchange has completed, the need arose to get a gdb running on the target platform (the EPIA MII), so I could break in the function and obtain a backtrace.

What’s the EPIA MII supposed to do?

Due to its connectivity options (Ethernet onboard, WLAN addable via PCI card, CardBus slot or USB for UMTS adapter, possibly even a CompactFlash adapter) the EPIA MII suggests itself, of course, as a router device and that’s what it was originally intended for. However, now in the first place it’ll have a slightly different assignment.

My EPIA MII-based system

I recently mentioned my EPIA MII-based system. The EPIA MII is a highly integrated mainboard from Via’s Embedded division that comes in the itsy-tiny Mini-ITX form factor. I originally bought it way back together with a Casetronic Travla C158 case to be the base for an OpenWrt-based UMTS router. However I never got around it… Continue reading My EPIA MII-based system