How to fix WLAN issues with Debian Linux and the Acer Aspire 5

I've recently bought the Acer Aspire 5 A515-52G-53PU and experienced issues with the Wifi. This blog entry is for anyone with the same issues.

After some days I've experienced that my system ignored touch input with a frequency of 1 second. sudo dmesg -c exposed this:

[  374.733298] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Microcode SW error detected. Restarting 0x0.
[  374.733372] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Start IWL Error Log Dump:
[  374.733374] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Status: 0x00000100, count: 6
[  374.733375] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Loaded firmware version: 38.755cfdd8.0
[  374.733377] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000071 | ADVANCED_SYSASSERT         
[  374.733378] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0080A210 | trm_hw_status0
[  374.733380] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | trm_hw_status1
[  374.733381] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00454EAA | branchlink2
[  374.733382] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0045E8C2 | interruptlink1
[  374.733383] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0045E8C2 | interruptlink2
[  374.733384] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | data1
[  374.733385] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00001000 | data2
[  374.733386] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xF0000008 | data3
[  374.733387] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xFFF4F839 | beacon time
[  374.733388] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x104CA603 | tsf low
[  374.733389] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x000001E9 | tsf hi
[  374.733390] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | time gp1
[  374.733391] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x003CEEE8 | time gp2
[  374.733393] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000001 | uCode revision type
[  374.733394] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000026 | uCode version major
[  374.733395] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x755CFDD8 | uCode version minor
[  374.733396] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000312 | hw version
[  374.733397] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x18C89008 | board version
[  374.733398] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0061019C | hcmd
[  374.733399] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x24022000 | isr0
[  374.733400] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x01800000 | isr1
[  374.733401] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x08001802 | isr2
[  374.733402] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00417CC0 | isr3
[  374.733403] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | isr4
[  374.733404] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0061019C | last cmd Id
[  374.733405] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | wait_event
[  374.733406] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000080 | l2p_control
[  374.733407] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00010034 | l2p_duration
[  374.733408] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0000003F | l2p_mhvalid
[  374.733410] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x000000CE | l2p_addr_match
[  374.733411] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0000000D | lmpm_pmg_sel
[  374.733412] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x08081115 | timestamp
[  374.733413] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0034D800 | flow_handler
[  374.733447] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Start IWL Error Log Dump:
[  374.733448] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Status: 0x00000100, count: 7
[  374.733449] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00101208 | ADVANCED_SYSASSERT
[  374.733450] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | umac branchlink1
[  374.733452] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xC0087C88 | umac branchlink2
[  374.733453] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xC008462C | umac interruptlink1
[  374.733454] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | umac interruptlink2
[  374.733455] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000001 | umac data1
[  374.733456] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x000003FF | umac data2
[  374.733457] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xDEADBEEF | umac data3
[  374.733458] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000026 | umac major
[  374.733459] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x755CFDD8 | umac minor
[  374.733460] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xC08875AC | frame pointer
[  374.733461] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0xC08875AC | stack pointer
[  374.733462] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x0061019C | last host cmd
[  374.733463] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: 0x00000000 | isr status reg
[  374.733466] ieee80211 phy2: Hardware restart was requested
[  375.183415] iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: BIOS contains WGDS but no WRDS

First I tried updating the firmware driver for iwlwifi from the sid repository as I thought this would help. But sadly it didn't...

According to this post I should try out some module options and this is what helped me:

$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf
options iwlwifi 11n_disable=1

According to inxi my card is this:

Network:   Device-1: Intel Cannon Point-LP CNVi [Wireless-AC] driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 5000 bus ID: 00:14.3
           chip ID: 8086:9df0
           IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter>

Maybe this also means that 802.11n does not work anymore but this is ok for me as I don't use WLAN for bulk data transfer.

Fritz!Box Interne Anrufe mit Pulswahlverfahren

Durch Zufall habe ich herausgefunden, dass es mit der Fritz!Box und einem Wählscheibentelefon doch möglich interne Anrufe ohne das Abschaltung der "spontanten Amtsholung" zu deaktivieren.
Nimmt man den Hörer ab und hört den Ton des Amts und drückt dann kurz(!) auf den Auflegemechanismus sollte man danach nicht mehr das Amt hören, sondern stattdessen 3 Piep-Töne gefolgt von einer Pause.
Dies ist das Signal der Fritz!Box, dass interne Anrufe ohne ** nun möglich sind.
Möchte man wieder das Amt anrufen hält man den Auflegemechanismus einfach länger gedrückt.


Also Hut ab für die Ingenieure bei AVM. Nicht nur, dass das Pulswahlverfahren noch unterstützt wird. Nein, selbst an so etwas wurde gedacht.
Wahrscheinlich sitzt da auch noch ein Liebhaber von alten Telefonen. Anders kann ich mir das nicht vorstellen :-)

Fritz!Box Internal Call with Pulse Dial

After some experimenting I've found out that it seems that the Fritz!Box has a non standard way of doing internal calls using pulse dial.
After picking up the phone and hearing the signal that your phone is ready for dialing you just have to do a manual click on the switch-hook a very short time.
Now the result should be 3 beeps, then a pause and then 3 beeps again.
The Fritz!Box uses this to give the indication that internal dialing is ready.
Now the dial without **.

Fritz!Box 6490 Cable Pulse Dialing / Pulswahlverfahren

I wasn't able to find lots of information about the support of pulse dialing on the Fritz!Box 6490 Cable and just have experimented a little.
I currently use FRITZ!OS: 07.01 and I can confirm that an old telephone with rotary dial is working just fine.

Now on german....

Ich wollte mir gerne ein altes Post-Telefon mit Wählscheibe zulegen. In der Anleitung der Fritz!Box verliert AVM leider kein Wort darüber, ob das Pulswahlverfahren unterstützt wird. Ich konnte jedoch gerade experimentell ermitteln, dass es tatsächlich noch funktioniert.
Interne Anrufe sind allerdings problematisch, da diese normalerweise mit ** beginnen.
Man kann jedoch in der Fritz!Box die "Spontane Amtsholung" deaktivieren. Nach abheben des Hörers ist man im internen Modus und kann interne Nummern ohne ** wählen, während für externe Nummern stets eine 0 vorgewählt werden muss.
Ist die Frage was man möchte.... Mir ist leider keine Methode bekannt, wie man Stern und Raute-Taste per Pulswahl überträgt.

Tiny Little Slug - Amiga Game in Development

My current project is an Amiga game of Metroidvania style.
It's called "Tiny Little Slug" and it's about a leopard slug which wants to eat a strawberry. Sounds insane? Well of course!

The whole game is developed in C++ (at least the current build is) and will have minimum system requirements of 512 kB of Chip mem and OCS chipset.
So every Amiga 500 should be capable of running this game.
Here is some footage:

 

My major inspiration is the game Snailiad by auriplane.
But the concept of my game will be different as no weapons are available and the main character is not capable of jumping. The gameplay will be focused on getting around the enemies as opposed to killing them.

The current release 0.0.3 can be downloaded here.
The game is far from finished. Consider it as an early demo.
You can read the changelog here.

SlamySTM32Floppy now open source

Today I've decided to make SlamySTM32Floppy open source.
Click on the link to reach the github project.

Please keep in mind that this is now quite old and wasn't maintained for 2 years.
Some comments might be in german.

How to configure Cinelerra for YouTube Upload

Thanks to this guy here I've finally figured out how to configure my Cinelerra setup to actually render YouTube friendly.

Whenever you upload a video to YouTube and the server is not happy about your codec settings it mentions that you should use these settings for better quality of your upload. I assume that using the correct settings prohibits reencoding the video on the servers. For years now I didn't care but on my last uploads I got encoding problems and video artifacts and now wanted to have the correct configuration in my setup.

The ffmpeg configuration suggested from mikoim is this one:

ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset slow -profile:v high -crf 18 -coder 1 -pix_fmt yuv420p -movflags +faststart -g 30 -bf 2 -c:a aac -b:a 384k -profile:a aac_low output

The current release of Cinelerra removed the possibility to enter a custom ffmpeg command line in favor of a rather confusing graphical interface which is easy to learn but difficult to master.

1. Select FFMPEG as file format
2. Select mp4 as output
3. Activate Audio and open Audio Dialog
4. Select h264.mp4 as profile which means AAC by default.
5. Enter this in the Options field:
   
   profile=aac_low
   
6. Enter 384000 into bitrate and -1 to quality.
7. Close Audio Dialog.
8. Activate Video and open Video Dialog
9. Select faststart_h264.mp4 as profile.
10. Set Bitrate to 0, Quality to -1 and Pixels to yuv420p
11. Enter this in the Options field:
    
    bf=2
    coder=1
    crf=18
    profile=high
    preset=slow
    x264opts cabac=1:keyint=25
    
12. Close Video Dialog
13. Render! Yeah!

In case you want it more graphic here you go.
My Cinelerra is set to german but it should look exactly the same.

Render Settings

Audio Dialog

Video Dialog