On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 3:42 AM, Miod Vallat <m...@online.fr> wrote:
>> However, I would like to ask a question about its firmware. May these
>> laptops run a generic PMON2000 firmware or do they need a customized
>> one? It would be nice being able to track the latest releases of the
>> firmware developed by Opsycon instead of trusting the one provided by
>> Lemote will be maintained for years on this laptop model (i.e., it
>> would be nice being able to run the 3.x releases).
>
> You do not want to tinker with the firmware. The stock PMON2000 does not
> support these machines, so you'll need to start with the pmon code
> provided by Lemote, and saying that it is in a dire need of cleaning is
> an understatement.
>
> But I will share this excerpt from pmon/cmds/menulist2f.c:
>
> #if 0
> static char* asc_pic[] =
> {" .--, .--, ",
> "( ( \\.---./ ) ) ",
> " '.__/o o\\__.' ",
> " {= ^ =} ",
> " > - < ",
> " / \\ ",
> " // \\\\ ",
> " //| . |\\\\ ",
> " \"'\\ /'\"_.-~^`'-. ",
> " \\ _ /--' ` ",
> " ___)( )(___ ",
> " (((__) (__))) "};
>
>
> static int asc_pic_line = 12;
> #else
> static char* asc_pic[] =
> {"",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> "",
> ""};
>
>
> static int asc_pic_line = 12;
> #
> #endif
>
>
> or blatant bugs like this, in the same file:
>
> static int show_main(int flag, const char* path)
> {
> int i, j;
> unsigned int cnt;
> int dly ;
> int retid;
>
> [...]
>
> i = 1;
> ioctl(STDIN, FIONBIO, &j);
> ioctl(STDIN, FIOASYNC, &j);
>
> with j never having been initialized, of course.
>
> But wait, four lines later you've got a static buffer overflow:
>
> str_line[(sizeof(str_line))] = '\0';
>
> not to mention unbalanced indentation, whole sections commented by //
> while other will be in #if 0 ... #endif blocks (with the # starting at
> column 40 so you don't notice them at first glance), and so on.
>
> Did I mention this code ways crying loud to be cleaned up? I was wrong.
> It is crying loud to be rewritten.
>
> I won't volunteer for that work myself.
>
> Miod
>
>
Oh god - my eyes are bleeding after reading those excerpts. That's
sad, especially since (according to Wikipedia) the Loongsoon has
on-chip circuitry to help resist buffer overflow attacks - seems a wee
bit counter-productive.
Unfortunately, 350 euros = about AU$557 at the time of this post,
which is dearer than some x86 netbooks. If we had a local supplier
(which there wouldn't be since it's not running Windoze and there's
not that much of a market for FOSS here) those could very well be
quite price-competitive with the Windoze-based netbooks. Then again,
as an apparent rule the price automatically doubles as soon as it hits
our shores. Of course there's import duties, GST (thanks Howard),
labour hire, storage, et al, but one can't help but feel like they're
being ripped off.
--
Aaron Mason - Programmer, open source addict
I've taken my software vows - for beta or for worse
