* Posts by williamyf

233 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Jan 2024

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You have a fake North Korean IT worker problem – here's how to stop it

williamyf Bronze badge

My country is one of the Few which has formal relations with North Korea...

Having said that, unlike my country (Venezuela), or Cuba, where the sanctions are imposed by one (or a few) country(es), and then coercitively making other countries institutions and companies to follow suit, most of the sanctions against North Korea come from the United Nations themselves, ergo, are multilateral sanctions...

So, in a way, this article is usseful for us too if, after consulting with Legal, they advise that NorK workers are to be avoided. So thanks.

PS: Guess that Iran and russia (to name just two) would have no such qualms. Cua has significant cooperation agreements with the NorKs since the late '80s or early '90s, pre - UN sanctions.

Telefónica Germany offloads VMware support to Spinnaker due to high renewal costs

williamyf Bronze badge

Another telco that does not dogfood their own cloud

Telefonica offers an OpenStack based clud, both in the EU and in LatAm, and yet, for internal workloads, they rely on VmWare...

From my experience teaching OpenStack to Telcos (including Telefonica) in LatAm, the closest thing you will get to a telco DogFooding, is them using the same servers and Cloud software for internal and external downloads, but keeping them completely separated...

And yet, they want to convince the largests banks in the country to put their workloads in the same cloud where the biggest oil company of the country puts their workloads... but the Telco's workload, god forbid their royal workloads mingle with the workloads of such plebs...

If Telefonica (and other Telcos) would have been serious about dogfooding their clods, sales would habe been easier AND they would not be in this bind...

(Dog)Food for tought...

Thunderbird ESR is here: Mozilla's email client adds new functions

williamyf Bronze badge

I think the thunderbirds folk are spreading themselve too thin

Instead of staying in the ESR channel, they are trying to go regular release... ¿Do they (and Mozilla) have enough resources to do so? I bet the answer is not... but, then again, ¿what do I know? I hope I am wrong.

While thunderbird is installed in my laptop for archival purposes, it has been ages since I last uset it for the intended purpose... so... thank you and good luck I guess...

Critics blast Microsoft's limited reprieve for those stuck on Windows 10

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Quite whining

Maybe Mr/Ms Naive is a CPA, and needs to be able to run Quickbooks to recieve info from his customers in a manner that complies with CPA certification requirements. IS not realistic to ask all your customers to change their filling SW because you decided to go to Linux, and running Quickbooks in a non-kosher manner will make him/her fail regulatory and certification requirements, let alone professional (cyber)Insurance requirements...

Maybe Mr/Ms Naive is a gamer that likes to play games like Valorant and Fornite, or recent windows titles that do not run in Linux with Proton/Wine yet...

Maybe Mr/Ms Naive is an independent professional that needs to communicate and interact with customers that only/extensively use office...

That was my case, by the way, life is too short to change word and powerpoint formatting once I open in LibreOffice, and liability is to high if I rewrite excel macros in libreoffice and make a mistake.

Paraphrasing the gateway in the city at the edge of forever: These are only a few of many possible scenarios. ¿Would you like to explore more?

Do not get me wrong, Linux is a greta tool, but is not the perfect tool for all cases.

williamyf Bronze badge

Linux Mint

Linux Mint was specificaly designed to mimic Windows 10 as much as possible, to make it easy for windows refugees to switch. Other distros do this, like ZorinOS.

Also, Linux Mint is the only "Windows Refugee" distro to still have an edition that can boot in 32 bit only machines (LMDE - Linux Mint Debian Edition). Ideal for machines before the Core Duo, like Core("sans the word duo") machines, like the original intel MacBook (just to give an example).

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Why not sell W11 without TPM for $ 60 with updates until 2030 ??

It would acomplish nothing, as any machine with a supported processor (8th gen intel or Zen2 AMD) already has TPM2.0 , either in hardware or in firmware, so, a TPM-Free win11 with the same processor requirements is redundant.... Actually, would be some sort of con, selling you for $60 something you do not need at all.

So, I can hear all you ask ¿Why won't microsoft sell a $60 version of Win11 that allows for older processors and optional TPM?

Well, that exists, Microsoft has been selling it since late 2022. Is called Windows Server 2022 with Desktop Experience. Can be had from U$D34 (key in offer) and Up. Not sure of how much directly from Microsoft. The underlying code is Win11 based with relaxed requiremtns (because server people should know what they are doing) and Windows 10 Desktop Experience. Is supported until ~ 2033. As long as your CPU can handle it, you are golden:

CPU: 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor compatible with x64 instruction set, supporting NX, DEP, CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, PrefetchW, and Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)

Using server 19 or 22, properly done, will pass any certification, audit, or regulatory requirement that you or your company may have.

There you go. You are welcome.

PS1: If your processor is very old, you can install server 2016 (as an early test), upgrade in place to 2019 and finally upgrade in place to 2022. If server 2022 fails, stay on server 2019, it is based on Win10, but will be supported until ~2030. If 2019 fails, do not use 2016, it was only for sanity testing your old hardware.

Or, If your hardware is fairly recent, start Installing server 2022, and if that fails, try 2019, and if that fails, stop (server 2016 will be supported until ~ early 2027, so, too much hasle and cost for only 4 or five extra months, better pay the ESU or use your reward points)

PS2: Processors older than intel 4th gem or AMDs with no HVCI: It may work, but better not try. Processors with HVCI, but no MBEC (Intel 4th to 6th gen AMDs previous to Zen+) may work but expect performance regresions and/or instability. AMD Zen+ or intel 7th gen: Will most likely work no problem. Intel 8th gen and up, AMD Zen2 and up: ¡Use Win11 already! just update your firmware, and activate the firmware TPM and the secure boot, and put CSM as secundary or disables, making UEFI principal, or the only option.

PS3: An example site for license purchase:

https://bnh-software.com/product/microsoft-windows-server-2022-standard/

I do not endorse this site, nor I dis-endorse it. I know nothing about them, they simply were the first google search to give me a clear price without much SEO/AI fluff YMMV

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

Just imagine...

¡Being able to interact to customer and providers that use windows-only programs like Office or Quickbooks!

¡Being able to run windows only programs that you normaly use! Instead of, you know, disrupting your workflow, or say, forcing your company to spend money, time and energy re-training you and your co-workers...

¡Being able to run all those bespoke applications that people who are long gone from the company have developed over the years!

¡Being able to run many windows games, specialy recent and/or protected ones with no Fuss!

Do not misunderstand me, Linux (and FOSS in general) is great, I started using it in the uni in '96 for my thesis (¡and the NIST ATM Network Simulator was FOSS too!), and have been using it at work ever since. But a flat-head screwdriver is not the same as a philips which is not the same as a torx. And no screwdriver shall be used as a chisel. Use the right tool for each job.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: save yourselves thehassle

I used to think the same, but someone at ElReg corrected me. Server 2022 is a beautifull hibrid that has Win10 deskto experience, but uses a Win11 core withe relaxed requirements under the hood

Mostlikely,because serverpeople "should know" what they aredoimg in general.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

No yearly updates IS a bad thing, as those receive security patches only for 18months after launch. After that point you are more or less as insecure on Win11 with no patches as you are on Win10 with no patches

williamyf Bronze badge

save yourselves thehassle

If your system is officially incompatible with Win11, but "powerfull enough" , and you want support beyond 2026, go with Windows Server with Desktop Experience. Either the 2022 version (supported until ~2033) or 2019 (supported until ~2030).

Both can be obtained legally, and will pass any certification, regulatory, audit, or insurance requirements you, your company or your industry may reasnably have.

williamyf Bronze badge

¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

There will be other problems, depending on how "Incompatible" your system is. These include but are not limited to:

Yearly updates (Win11 2xH2) not installing automaticaly (but monthly patches install fine). You must install yearly updates manually.

Some patch breaking functionality because it uses a feature/codepath that "should" be present. This may be as simple as a driver stops working, or as hard as the system failing to boot.

Some 3rd party SW not working because, since it is running on Win11, it tries to use stuff that is not pressent on unssuported systems.

Performance degrading if certain codepaths are used.

The system as a whole stops working if certain codepaths that use features not present become mandatory

In order to maximize the chances of success of a "non-supported" Win11 machine:

1.) Update to the latest Firmware available to you at the time of install.

2.) Keep firmware updated over the years.

3.) Make your firmware use UEFI as the primary option over CSM, or better yet, disable CSM completely

4.) If your system has any sort of TPM (hardware or firmware based), enable it, even if it is TPM 1.2 or lower.

5.) Enable SecureBoot if available

6.) Get the latest drivers for all your stuff from the manufacturer's websites, and apply those post install

7.) Post install, test your drivers for VBS compliance.

8.) There is an (unoffical) floor were Win11 on unsupported systems will work "mostly" trouble free, is a 7th gen intel or Zen+ AMD, both with TPM1.2 or higher.

9.) There is a "range of machines" that "probably" will work but may see degraded performance in the future, that is 4th to 6th gen intel, or an AMD processor that has HVCI but no MBEC (I forget the exact cutoff), and both have some sort of TPM.

10.) Processors with no MBEC instructions will most likely see performance degradations in the future, or plain refuse to work.

11.) Processors with no HVCI (below 4th gen intel, I do not remember the cutoff for AMD) will most likely experience problems in the future.

12.) Drivers that do not play nice with VBS may stop to work, depending on the importance of the subsystem controlled by said driver, this may render the system unoperable.

13.) Systems with TPM lower than 2 may experience problems in the future.

My recomendation, save yourself the hassle, go instead with Windows Server With desktop Experience 2022 (supported until ~2033), failing that, go with Windows Server with Desktop Experience 2019 (supported until ~ 2030). For both of them follow the Firmware and driver recomendations above.

Fedora 43 won't drop 32-bit app support – or adopt Xlibre

williamyf Bronze badge
Joke

¿You know what would expose even more bugs in code?

Compiling for the 32-bit ARMhf ....¡oh wait! ¡they do!

¿You know what would uncover even more bugs in code?

Compiling for PowerPC 9 .... ¡oh wait! ¡they do!

¿You know what would uncover even 'moar' bugs in code?

Compiling for RISC-V .... ¡oh wait! ¡they do!

¿Want to uncover even more bugs?

Compile for obscure systems like MIPS or S390x .... ¡oh wait! ¡they do!

So, do not worry my friend, even if they drop i686/x-86-32, there is plenty of cross-check that you are using the right data types in your C and C++ code.

¡And some of these have the benefit of being Big-Endian by default! X86 is little endian only. ¡In fact S390x is Big Endian only!

Jokes aside, what I am traying to hint, is something you should have been able to pick up by yourself, but did not:

Yes, there are many reasons to keep i686/X86-32 libraries around, but "cross-check that you are using the right data types in your C and C++ code" is NOT one of them...

Microsoft's next Windows 11 update is more 'enablement' than upgrade

williamyf Bronze badge

IF they enable by default VBS for all machines I'll feel well served

VBS (virtualization based security) is mainly used to prevent "driver hijacking attacks" (also known as "Bring your own insecure driver" attacks). These security features depend on HVCI instructions. these have a theoretical performance impact of 0% to -40% with -15% to -30% in real world desktop applications.

To accelerate HVCI, so that the performance drop is 0% in all cases, one needs another feature set called MBEC*. Also, your drivers and software have too play nice with it (this has been a requiremnt since Win10 Aniversary update 1607 in Aug 2, 2016).

Currently all machines that shipped from the assembly line with Win11 have that turned on by default (as required by microsoft), while most machines that were upgraded from Win10 to Win11 have it off by default (to prevent driver snafus, while manufacturers updated their drivers to play nice with HVCI/MBEC).

If, for 25H2 MS turned this on by default for all machines, the whole Windows 11 ecosystem would be MUCH MORE secure. And, this would serve as preparation for making the support "MADATORY" in Win 11 26H2 (i.e. users getting the correct driver and/or replacing peripherals with drivers that still do not play nice with HVCI/MBEC)...

There is hope, one can dream....

* Present on Intel processors since the 7th gen and AMD processors since ZEN+

More info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/test/hlk/testref/driver-compatibility-with-device-guard?source=recommendations

Microsoft dangles extended Windows 10 support in exchange for Reward Points

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Hack

«I wonder how hard will it be to hack something (registry?) to make updates work without having to pay or give up your data to train copilot.»

If the ESU of XP and Win7 are any indication, super easy.

Having said that, if you are in a company, SMB / PyME, or you use your "personal" computer in certain professional areas, like, law, finances/accounting, medicine/health, or have customer data in it, those types of "hacks" and other things (like installing LTSCs or using rufus to put Win11 on unsupported machines) may run afoul or certain certification/auditing/"cyber"insurance requirements in your industry or jurisdiction.

If that is not your case, do as your consience tell you, but if this your case, better be on the up-and-up.

¿Do you want a definitive way to keep a machine that does not qualify to an upgrade to Win11 secure for years to come, and complying with all regulatory/cerrtification/auditing/CyberInsurance requirements? Install a legal copy of Win Server 2022 with desktop experience (supported until early 2033), or failing that, a copy of Win Server 2019 with desktop experience (supported until early 2030).

williamyf Bronze badge

Some people already have onedrive acoonts (as part of their office/microsoft 365 sunscriptions)

some people even use windows bachup to onedrive on their own volition!!!

I say this is good. Is like some streamers that offer you "free with ads" or pay no ads.

more choices are better.

I have a 1TB onedrive as part of my office 365 plan. May as well activate winbackup (currently backup to NAS) and get done with it.

Windows 11 migration heats up... on desktops

williamyf Bronze badge

«Could you share which ones comply or are friendly to compliance?»

Mostly, the distro has to have credible support from a Reputable company (and a valid support contract for your company). Ubuntu desktop: Definitively yes. ¿ZorinOS? ¿who knows?, but most likely yes. ¿AntiX/Kali/TAILS/CrunchBangPlusPlus/DSL Reborn? most likely not.

Also, if the HW maker has certified the distro to run on said hardware, even better. In this sense, a Dell or a Lenovo With linux pre-installed: ¡Ideal!

Then, is the App situation. If all your apps are Linux/FOSS and are supported (most distros that have an office suite pre-installed offer support for that office suite under that umbrella, ditto for the rest of the pre-installed apps, but better check the fine print).

But if you have one or more windows apps on top of your linux, you have to be carefull. Windows App on a VM with a SUPPORTED version of Windows. A-Ok. ¿Windows App on Dreamweaver's Crossover support contract? Maybe. Windows App on proton or regular wine with no support at all... Definitively not. Remoting from linux to a VDI supported windows machine (either in the cloud or in a server in your company) to access said apps, also A-OK

Please notice that each specific regulation/certification/audit/jurisdiction will be different, so please get specific advaisory for your specific situation.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: HP sales not as good a Dell

«No availability of TPM2 chips for the machines that could upgrade to Windows 11 if only one could plug one of these chips into the empty socket.»

AFAIK & AFAIR all machines that contain an 8th gen intel or an AMD Zen2 porocessor have a PTT or fTPM, perfectly suitable for Win11 in lieu of the physical one.

So... ¿care to elaborate on that idea?

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Really?

Most of the computers bought during the early stages of the pandemic were bottom of the barrel laptops , either due to shortages not leaving enough highend laptops, or fiancial constraints of providing laptops to most of the workforce that until that time were using desktops....

those bottom of the barrel laptops need to be replaced, either by newer laptops (to be ready for possible avian flu lockdowns), or by new desktops (since we have so many RTO mandates)

williamyf Bronze badge

Please be aware that some of the "alternative patching methods" for windows 10 may be incompatible with certain certificationn legal, insurance and/or auditing requirements that most businesses and some individuals may encounter.

please also notice that, while many Linux DISTROS comply with said requierements, many of them do not, I'd encourage people and businesses to go to Linux, but choose your distro carefully.

SAP ECC 6.0 lives to fight another decade under Rimini Street

williamyf Bronze badge

quick question

¿How does Rimmini Street plan to fix security vulnerabilities and bugs in SAP 6 ECC past 2033?

¿Micropatches like zeropatch?

¿Hardening and firewalling?

because, as of now, SAP will not be producing patches past 2033...

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: yeah well is business cloud dead?

Last time I checked SAP was/is a German company.

¿Has Germany went back to autocratic while I was distracted by the tariffs?

LibreOffice adds voice to 'ditch Windows for Linux' campaign

williamyf Bronze badge
Stop

ACTUALLY, there is another case in favour of Win10 32 bit, aside from expensive (SO-)DIMMs:

Your machine's processor is able to do 64 bits, but one or more peripherals have only 32 bit drivers.

If any of these peripherals is critical, or very expensive, you are stuck with Win10 32. And since Win10 32 will be supported in one way or another until ~2032 * , it behooves "The Document Foundation" to keep emiting 32 bit builds, lest some competitor (¿OnlyOffice? ¿OpenOffice?) captures that market share

* Approximate support table:

Regular Win10: Oct 2025

Win10 + ESU for plebs like us (or Win10 IoT 2021 for corpos who use it): ~ Oct 2026

Win10 + ESU for corpos: Oct 2028

Win10 LTSC 2019: ~2030

Win10 IoT 2021: ~2032

As RHEL clones hit version 10, Rocky and Alma chart diverging paths

williamyf Bronze badge
Joke

Re: I'm too old!

¿An OS/Distro dumping perfectly cromulent processesors?

¡Think of the ewaste!

¡Oh! ¡The humanity!

¡Think of the children!

¡Oh my!

First Windows, then MacOS, ¡now RHEL, OL & Rocky!

¡Our only refuge is netBSD!

williamyf Bronze badge
Joke

Re: I think it's time for me to call "time"

You may as well go to CentOS stream. Uses the nearly the same commands as what you are using now. Post updates faster than Oracle, rocky or alma. Heck, ¡¡¡It posts updates faster than even RHEL too!!!

And since nowadays you do not need compatibility...

Apple-Intel divorce to be final next year

williamyf Bronze badge

Yes, at least until fall 2028

williamyf Bronze badge

Actually yes, X86 compatibility was a selling point for apple.

Being able to run bootccamp (and therefore windows on bare metal for things like gaming) and being able to run VMs with Windows exclusive things (like SAP clients or Visio) is a boon for certain types.

Having said that, that was from 2006 to 2018. With the advent of Win10 for ARM in 2018, Windows AMR VMs can be had, but not all the SW is still ARM (Visio probably is, SAP is still not). So, nowadays, less than before.

There were reports at the time of Steve Jobs joking/trolling that Apple would be delighted to run windows on intel macs, but Windows could not do UEFI and was stuck in BIOS land.

williamyf Bronze badge

I bought a MacMini 6 cores in late 2018

... And thanks to OCLP, I plan to use it (as a Mac) until fall 2028, so 10 years.

And beyond fall 2028, thanks to Windows Server 2022 with desktop experience, it will be a windows machine until ~2033

And beyond that Linux Mint T2 will keep it running, and out of the Landfills for many more years.

Yes, at some point it will be handed down to someone else, but having options is nice.

In another note, 2028 will also mark the aproximate year when my Synology DS1515+ will become unsupported (after hacking it to accept DSM 7.2) So, it will be the year of reckoning, buying new desktop, Laptop and NAS.

Thing is, if Apple and Synology do not change their ways, I may end up buying some other brands.

PS: To sysnology, get moving FAST with 3rd party disks and NVMe in the compatibility list, to apple, make at least one desktop and one laptop that can get upgradeable memory and upgradeable NVMe drives in industry standard formats, should not be that hard if you do the MxPro with integrated memory, while the Maxs (and ultras) use CAMM2/SO-DIMMs

But from here on to Fall 2028, may things can happen, so I'll think about it in 28H1

Need for speed? CityFibre punts 5.5 Gbps symmetrical broadband at ISPs

williamyf Bronze badge

10GPON?

I would not touch it wiith a 3m (10ft) pole.

if this wasa serious offer in any way shape or form, it would be backed by 25GPON.

this is a marketing stunt, no more, no less.

I do agree with oversubscription, butthis level of oversuscription is ridiculous.

Even if they were using multiple 10GPON lambdas per fibre, there is only a finitie ammount of lamdas feasible on a gpon fibre install.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: I would be happy...

For most non-el-reg-reading fibre consumers (say, subcribers to the lancet), asymetrical with an up of 1/2 or 1/3 of down is more than enough. It saves monery for the ISP.

us el reg readers tend to gavitgate towards symetrical, even if we woud be well served by 1/2 or 3/4.

also, instead of a race to the bottom-price war ISPs now maintain sensible prices to have sensible ROIs, and instead offer bandwidths that they know most normal households will never be able to use. Both because the household's equipments lach thecapacity AND because the speed will be caped server/cloud side.

Bain launches datacenter biz for Euros worried about climate change and Trump

williamyf Bronze badge

Madrid is water starved

So, I guell the'll be using dielectric liquid submersion technology to cool the gear there.

On a more serious note, even if the actual datcenter company is european, their owner is north-american. That may give pause to some euro customers. With datacenters in Oslo, "Madriz" and Barça, I guess even Telefonica is more geographically diversified, and 0% american

Intel bets you'll stack cheap GPUs to avoid spending top dollar on Nvidia Pros

williamyf Bronze badge

Intel already has an AI only solution in the formof the Gaudi chips, mostly developed by Habana labs, with some sprinkles of nervana and movidius technology.

problem is, if you wanted to repurpose these for HPC (say weather modeling, nuclear modelling, geological seismic oil/gas surveys, movie/VFX rendering) the results were abysmal.

meanwhile, Arc GPUs are decent to mediocre at AI, but are decent to good for HPC. While these are marketed at AI, I'd not be surprised if the vast majority of these "Battlematrix" cards end up doing HPC

PS: intel was/is hard at work to produce a hybrid of gaudiand arc, but hit some snags. "ElReg" and sister site "The Next Platform" have covered this in varying depth

CISA has a new No. 2 ... but still no official top dog

williamyf Bronze badge

Where am I?

In the CISA.

What do you want?

Information.

Whose side are you on?

That would be telling. We want information...information... information!!!

You won't get it!

By hook or by crook, we will.

Who are you?

The new Number Two.

Who is Number One?

You are Number Six.

I am not a number; I am a free man!!!

[Laughter]

Intel's data-leaking Spectre defenses scared off yet again

williamyf Bronze badge

¿Do you think Intel will propagate µcode updates to 7th gen processors or below?

I mean, ¿What will the people running Win11 on 7th gen processors and older will do to remain secure?

And, herein, lies the crux of the matter. Microsoft set the 8th gen intel and Zen2 AMD limit for Win11 at the behest of intel and AMD, as they were not too keen to support older processors for the expected lifetime of the Win11 Codebase (~ 10 years give or take).

So, remmeber, is not intel's and AMD's support (drivers for GPU, MemController and PCH + µcode updates) for the processors at launch in Oct 2021, is support for said processors from intel and AMD in ~2031

After the line is drawn at 8th gen or Zen2, the TPM is a non-issuse as all supported processors have either PTT or fTPM in BIOS.

PS: What Microsoft REALLY wanted was HVCI for Driver Security (to prevent driver hijacking attacks, a.k.a "bring your own faulty driver" attacks), (which are present from 4th gen onwards) AND HVCI (to prevent performance drops from the use of HVCI), present since 7th gen. Most likely intel did not want to complicate the support matrix since 7th gen processorsa can go into 6th gen mobos, meaning drivers galore for way too many PCH/Processor combos.

M365 apps on Windows 10 to get security fixes into 2028

williamyf Bronze badge

Windows Server 2022 for the Win!

If your machine can run it, go for it!

Win11 codebase underpinnings, with Win10 look and feel, TPM and SecureBoot are optional, and supports older processors than 8th gen intel or Zen2 AMD.

Having said that, drivers may be a problem, check if your HW has drivers that are compatible...

And by the way, Microsoft365 will be supported until 2029, with full support, no "Upgrade to win11" shenaningans

Citrix finds new use for virtualization: Avoiding PC price hikes caused by tariffs

williamyf Bronze badge

Thank you for the upvote.

If you were to say it in spanish (my mother tongue) it would be "Coloquial" and "coloquialismo" respectively. I wrote that comment on my phone, and could not be arsed to google the propper english spelling.

Sorry memory failed.

williamyf Bronze badge

Thanks for the heads-up mate.

Difficult to repair Blackberry Keyone keyboard. Requested a spare, got lost in the mail. And even if I had it, will not replace until something more critical than space get broken.

I already requested a Clicks for RAZR+ 20224 (and the corresponding phone), let's see how that goes...

This post, OTOH, was written on my desktop, the Keys spacing is off by "just that much" (and layout is weird as it is a 60%), so I hit the wrong key from time to time, but better than the KeyOne.

williamyf Bronze badge

The term Boot strorms exist since thedays when you booted an hdd less ms-dos pc and loged to netware for your ms-dos / windows 3.1 needs. Typical of cash strapped university labs

flapping is another quoloquial term used by us nw engineers. Noadays frequently causedby stp (stp network flapping)

There are many more quoloquial terms like this

williamyf Bronze badge

Running win11 as a VM or VDI, on non Win11 capable HW is perfectly valid. As long as the whole package is under active support.

examples iclude ms themselves, where, if you use win10 on a non-win-11 compliant HW to access a cludy win11 machine, they give you 3 years of ESU for free.

ditto for accessing Win11 VDIs from macos or(supported *) linux or chromeos.

Unsupported chromeos (like flexos) not allowed, and obscure linux distros with active patching, while allowed, would be acompliance nightmare.

dito for runninng win11 locally on atype 1 or type2 hypervisor. As long asthe underlyig HW+SW combo is supported and certified by everyone imvolved, you can run 1Win11 with emulated "whatever you need" most likely 7th gen intel with no TPM2

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Does it have to be a hosted desktop?

Yes and no. That's why Microsoft gives you free 3 years of Win10 ESU if you buy their virtual desktops.

you can access your VDIs from supported linux, or supported chromeOS. Or even run a virtual win11 desktop on a type 1 hypervisor (if your hardware can handleit).

the hardware does not have to be win11 compliant, but the type 1 hypervisor, or os (+ type 2 hypervisor) must be actively supported on said hardware in order to run or access Virtual Win11

Sudo-rs make me a sandwich, hold the buffer overflows

williamyf Bronze badge

In my youth I learned many languages

BASIC, COBOL*, RPG-II, PASCAL and C** (not bad for an electronics engineer)

Got decent enoogh in C to become a teacher's assistant.

Languages are tools, there is not a "true tool". One should do an excersice:

If Mr. Torvads were starting the Linux Kernel today ¿would he use rust? ¿Zig? ¿C? ¿Erlang?

IMHO, rustifying the Kernel Loadable Modules (drivers) and userland is not that bad.

* The big advantage of COBOL in that era was that, if you showed your program to a non-techie (say, an accountant or a lawyer), the language was verbose and close to natural english enough, that the person could understand it enough to validate that the business processes/logic/rules and legal issues were correctly represented. They could not write it themselves from scratch, they could not maintain it, the could not detect sublte errors, but understand enough to give you the A-OK that the relevant lawer/accounting things were done correctly.

** ¿Does AWK and shell scripting count as languages?

williamyf Bronze badge

Before any one complains about sudo-rs being MIT

and that this will destroy the GNU-GPL-Linux concept, please be aware that the GNU crowd crowd are FREE (as in FREEDOM) to fork and re-license this code as GPL whenever they want.

Meanwhile, one is NOT FREE to fork GPL code and re-license as something else.

Therefore, if the GNU crowd is worried about rs-sudo, or toybox, or uutils being in certain linux distros, better get forking, re-licensing and mantaining...

My toughts, licenses are just tools, there are right tools for the right job. The only ones who have a say on the license of a project are the people/entities who start said projects. If you do not like the license either fork and re-license (if possible) or re-implement.

The best example is Toybox. Busybox was created as GPL. One of the original implementers of Busybox tought a BSD type license woud be more amenable for the main use case of busybox (embeded systems) so they re-implemented from scratch with a permissive licence. No language change, no nothing.

Microsoft moved the goalposts once. Will Windows 12 bring another shift?

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: the problem

Route # 1 was loudly communicaded bymicrosoft tonon-techies.

I agree 107% with youthatthe other routes are known pretty much to techies like us and our non-techie circle

williamyf Bronze badge

Windows 12 requirements My prediction:

From 8GB ram to 32GB (or more) of RAM (you will need system RAM for the AI models). (current req is 4GB in Win11)

11th gen intel or equivalent AMD (from Win11's 8th gen intel or Zen2 AMD ) Please notice that from early this year, Win11 OEM machines MUST ship with these (11th gen or above) processors.

AVX 2 support (current req is SEE 4 in Win11) Note that AVX2 instructions are available since 4th gen cores, so, a non-issue.

Either AVX-VNNI OR some NPU (we do not know if bigger or lower than a 40TOPS) will be needed (currently none is required in base Win11, NPU with 40 TOPS is required in Win11 + AI). This way, even the base version of win12 will have some AI capabilitiees, albeit for inference in models with very small processiong requirements.

TPM 2 and UEFI with secure boot same as today. Please notice that ALL Supported processors in Win11 (from 8th gen Intel and Zen2 AMD onwards) have fTPM or PTT, so, has always been a non-issue

NVMe SSD mandatory for boot and swap (currently you can still use an HDD in Win11 for boot and swap, even if no one does so) Note: The less minium requirement memmory, the more you will be swaping those AI models in and out a lot.

WDDM 2.4 ~ 2.7 ; most likely 2.4 (currently WDDM 2.0 in Win11)

DX12 FL 12.1 ; this means GTX 9xx, AMD RX6000 or Intel Xe (currently 11_x ~ 12 in Win11)

If they mandate DP4a support in the GPU for AI fallback, it means that nVidia GTX 10x0 will be needed. (currently, DP4a support is not required in Win11)

Drivers will be Windows dektop universal drivers, same as today.

williamyf Bronze badge

Skylake has HVCI but not MVEC. Probably you are using a codepath that uses HVCI (as it is required for Winserver 2025) but not MBEC, meaning that you may get a penalty hit ranging from 0% to 40%, with a 15%~30% in real world scenarios.

WE server people know this stuff, but desktop people (even very smart and inteligent ones) may not (say, a person that does not read el reg, but subcribes to "the lancet" and understand every article).

Better mandate an 8th gen processor with MBEC and have similar performance in Win11 and Win10, than allowing 4th gen ones (IIRC the first ones with HVCI) and letting people see a 30% drop in performance in Win11 and have a PR crysis in your hands...

JM2¢

YMMV

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Microsoft Monopoly Must End

Well, you can always move to apple... oh wait, they discontinue OS support for machines ~7~10 years old.

Or, you can move to chrome OS... Oh wait, they discontinue support after 10 years on newer models, much less on older ones.

Or you can go linux... oh wait, from time to time they drop some architectures....

Microsoft supports OS for 10 years of the date of launch. Sometimes thay even exceed these terms (see winXP). Win10 in that respect is no different than Win 8.1, Win7, Win Vista, WinXP and Win2000 before it....

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: the problem

«The problem is ending support for Win10 and offering no other route out»

Route # 1: ESU until 2026

Router # 2: Winserver 2022 with desktop experience until ~2033

Route #3 (only for big clients): ESU until 2028

Route # 4 (only for big clients): Win10 Enterpside IoT until ~2032

A handfull of routes. Mine is server 2022, Choose your route. You are welcome.

Note: Route # 5 is 0patch, but I'd not recomend it, as they can not patch kernel space. only user space.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Final

Windows 10 was the last version, as Windows 11 was a direct fork of the Win10 codebase, and not a rehash of new and old pieces.

HW requirements were virtualy the same between "vista capable" machines and Win10 (I actually had/have Win10 running on a toshiba A120-s386)... that was becoming untenable for 2021, let alone 2032 wen Win10 support thruly ends.

¿How do you communicate such a big change of minimum specs?

Originally microsoft wanted to call the OS with the higher specs "Win10 X". But that is not clear enough when non-reg readers (say, spmart people subscribed to "the lancet") see a message saying "your Win10 machine can not be upgraded to Win10 X", so, some bright spark in microsoft marketing dept came up with the Windows 11n ame to make sure people undestood that the new OS had radically diferent minimum specs. Better that mess than another "Vista Capable" type mess.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: I still hate Micro$oft

Your use case is PRECISE validation of a point I made a long while ago.

It was all about HVCI, IIRC introduced in 4th gen intel, and MBEC (to accelerate HVCI) introduced in 7th gen intel. Once Microsoft decided on that, pretty much all compliant procesors (7th gen onwards) have PTT or fTPM included, so the TPM was a non-issue.

¿Why they went for 8th gen instead of 7th gen? Probably to simplify the support matrix, as 7th gen processors can go into 6th gen mobos....

The rest was just clean-up, like moving us from SEE2 (win10) to SSE 4(win11) (POPCNT was released concurrently with SEE 4, but is not part of it, it is its own separate requirement), from DX9c (Win10) to DX12 FL_12.0 (Win11 ) from WDDM 1 (Win10) to WDDM 2(Win11) and from Vista desktop drivers drivers to Win11 universal desktop drivers

So, while the media makes much fuss about the TPM, is only MBEC what really counts.

Linux kernel to drop 486 and early 586 support

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: "anyone still making new"

Embedded systems are part of the corporate tool box. Via is still producing (as in fabbing in a fab somewhere) plenty of "i686" type processors now. For Vortex, this means a big chunk of their product line is toast now....

X86-32 is alive and well, we just do not see it in the background.

williamyf Bronze badge

Re: Hubble Telescope.......

In the embedded space Vortex and Via are very active with 486+ (processors that have ALL of the 486 iinstructions and SOME (but not all) of the 586 instructions) and 586+ (again, proicessors that have all of the 586 intructions but only SOME of the 686 instructions). They sell new prosessors even today.

Via has 686 processors, while vortex does not.

Here is hope that the i686 (i.e. pentium II or PIII or similar) becomes the mandatory new baseline for x86-32 Linux going forward... Support will simplify greatly

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