Posts by karlkarl 1574 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2015
I presented my safety solution (C++/sys) at C++Online 2026 recently (https://cpponline.uk/session/2026/cpp-sys/)
Through this, there was lots of discussion about contracts. It is exciting but I am not too sure about their applicability just yet. The extra work required to benefit from them feels a little fussy and verbose. This might restrict their use when what we need is essentially full coverage within a codebase.
But it does give us the hooks required to automate some of it.
> no activation or anything.
Sadly not. Though it might make a good article to raise awareness of this hidden DRM on Apple's operating systems.
Check out the example here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5OOFcnxUKY
Essentially since Ventura, specifically for aarch64 "Apple Silicon" chips, you now need to connect to Apples servers during first boot. They give various reasons for this, but ultimately it is to generate a DRM key.
You can try it yourself easily by doing a complete wipe of your mac (i.e using dd) and then install macOS and get to the desktop. Try doing it *completely offline*, unplug your ethernet, don't connect to wifi and observe that the process will not be completed.
Indeed and the VM and runtime is far too complex for any individual or small business to maintain themselves. You lose all resilience basically.
As an example, this is the coreclr garbage collector alone (for only x86* and arm*):
https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/main/src/coreclr/gc/gc.cpp
54046 lines of code. That alone is larger than many C compilers and standard libraries put together.
When you boot up with serial connected, in your i.e putty terminal you will see u-boot, then you will see the OpenBSD boot prompt.
If you don't do anything, it will continue and your session will continue to use the serial device (ideal for embedded/SoC stuff). However if you want the framebuffer console, then on supported devices you can type into the boot prompt.
> set tty fb0
This will then use the "glass" terminal (i.e your plugged in HDMI monitor.
This can be set persistent via /etc/boot.conf where you can then use the serial for other stuff (i.e GPS).
It is a really clean process once you go through it a few times.
The machine looks really nice but the Ubuntu image is riced and gross, full of bizarre bloat but at the same time, lacking the docs/manpages. If its anything like the Jetson Nano, it just needs to be completely wiped and a clean (glibc based Linux) image prepared using the raw BSP (Board Support Packages).
Due to some weirdness with the bootloader, kernel modules and user-land tools, this will take time (took me about a week to get the Nano productive). And at the end, you have something clean, functional but completely non-standard from what Nvidia's support probably expects.
> I was unable to obtain a physical copy; however a DRM free download from Apple Music set me back a fairly standard 9 quid.
I think the point is that for those who do obtain physical copies, which for most things is not difficult; they own it for life.
But the 9 quid purchase you made was effectively an unspecified time limited demo. A rental from the great "Blockbusters" in the sky.
> Windows 365 Reserve offers 10-day cloud PCs when your machine goes kaput – but you'll still need another device to access them
Will you need another device? Just wipe the faulty Windows install with a (probably pirated) LTSC build or Linux/BSD and then use that to connect.
Its the software that is defective; the hardware is fine :)
If I recall the official Microsoft media creation tool doesn't allow you to just specify an .iso file to use. You have to connect to Microsoft's servers each time you want to image a usb flash disk which is silly.
So unless they have even read the user-feedback and this has changed, option #2 (Rufus) is the more appropriate choice for deterministic media creation.
> Obviously M$ wants to get children sucked into the M$ money sucking gravy train as early as possible as once they're used to M$ they are likely to stay with it not knowing any different.
Its a good strategy. Apple did this with students in early 2000's and it pulled their products through into the industry with them (before Apple subsequently lost a little bit of focus).
Its sad because exploring different software as a kid *is* a good learning experience. Running on a lobotomised machine much be so uninspiring.
You can basically hold the enter button down to install it, no? Seems pretty easy to me.
As for installing, the real power comes from its simplicity, i.e via serial on RPI, NanoPi, Beaglebone, SunFire V210 and many others, the installer is vastly easier than the alternatives. The installers provided by alternatives often *can't* do it so that they instead have to provide "pre-made" images instead.
I feel that what we look for in terms of "user-friendlyness" might be vastly different to one another.
> This vulture, though, is not a gamer and finds emulation a little unsatisfying.
I kind of agree. Though the virtualization via VirtualBox is overkill for DOS (and especially writing).
As a middle ground, to scratch my retro itch, I ported / hacked on the original DOSBox to use libdrm(7) and wscons(4) directly on OpenBSD, so I can skip booting up Xenocara/Xorg or some compositor. It feels a lot more native and fun now.
I am still struggling to implement a widescreen 3.1 display driver for my hacked DOSBox. It is simpl(ish) in principle and I feel I am close but it is always taking a backseat from all my other projects because it is not very satisfying to write that kind of code in my spare time.
Ultimate was a home version.
It was targeted at "enthusiasts who want every feature in Windows".
https://news.microsoft.com/2009/02/03/windows-7-lineup-offers-clear-choice-for-consumers-and-businesses/
And another source here:
https://news.microsoft.com/2006/02/26/microsoft-unveils-windows-vista-product-lineup/
"The Windows Vista product lineup consists of six versions, two for businesses, three for consumers, and one for emerging markets: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Vista Starter"
You can downvote me if you are feeling strangely sensitive about it, but it doesn't really change anything ;)
Fidelity wise, absolutely. But I like the indexed colors. It feels weirdly "homely".
And its not like modern software is even going to run on NT 4.x (in some ways I want to run the old software anyway because it is fast, light and simple).
i.e Office 97 and Adobe PDF printer driver has never really been improved upon for the last decade for word processing.
> what Microsoft did with Windows Phone thereafter was most definitely a misstep. A lack of an upgrade path for devices, combined with changing development frameworks, left users cold.
It was also the developer DRM. You couldn't upload code without a special license from Microsoft. Later, similar was done by Windows RT. It kills passion for early adopters and developers knowing their own code will stop working in the near future.
Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Services is still my favourite to emulate. With rdesktop you can get any resolution you need. NT 4 on a 3440×1440 monitor looks great. So much screen real-estate (the whole purpose for getting a large monitor).
GoboLinux is very interesting. Spraying files all over my filesystem when I want to install stuff with lots of dependencies is not a good idea IMO. It is a shame this kind of thing hasn't hit off. The way macOS *used* to do things was simple and elegant without installers doing creepy stuff.
For OpenBSD I developed pkg_bundle:
https://codeberg.org/kpedersen/pkg_bundle
It basically grabs package, dependencies, applies some hacks and makes it completely self-contained and relocatable (I usually dump this stuff in /opt).
It also has a benefit on shared UNIX systems, because you can install stuff without root access.
Heh, I rarely follow this kind of stuff to be fair. This DESQview/X article was just particularly strong.
Right. And emulating is also not so smooth either. I notice that QEMM386 has issues with Qemu when using specific DPMI hosts (it misses the occasional key press).
This affects Vim (unless using the little known PMODE/DJ[1]) and most DESQview products which I believe use DJGPP, so GO32 from that era which has a bug in the keyboard handler.
I do have some patches to the assembly to fix the faulty keyboard handler but it is quite a niche problem admittedly.
PMODE/DJ really is cool though. You can basically embed the DPMI host into any executable so it no longer needs an external one to be present. i.e:
exe2coff origvim.exe vim.bin
copy /b pmodstub.exe+vim.bin vim.exe
[1] https://www.delorie.com/djgpp/dl/ofc/current/v2misc/pmode13b.zip
Nice. When I feel like a "reset", I go and write some small fun software for DOS. It reminds me how computers really can be quite simple.
FreeDOS and OpenWatcom is actually great for this.
As for GUI environments, a much more substantial one is DESQview/X. I wonder if that works on FreeDOS?
https://lunduke.substack.com/p/desqviewx-the-forgotten-mid-1990s
>> We're removing the bypassnro.cmd script from the build to enhance security and user experience of Windows 11. This change ensures that all users exit setup with internet connectivity and a Microsoft Account.
Stick to LTSC. Microsoft won't remove this or it will fail the "offline from inception" requirement most businesses have for imaging. It would be commercial suicide.
Nah, asymmetric public / private keys are the better solution.
Reaching for your stupid mobile just to log in is tedious and masks the real problem... You keep having to "log in".
Imagine you instead simply upload your public key to sites as you create an account. Never need to log in again. Web browsers could make this even more simple by acting as an agent for your private key.
> gently persuaded
? Why do you need to persuade it? Just ask it.
the whole point of GPT algorithms is to churn out information that its database knows. It has scanned a bunch of code, including malware, so why would that be treated any differently?
- Do you need to gently persuade your calculator to also emit the answer to a sum?
- Do you need to gently persuade your government to be crooked?
No, they are machines, that is what they already do as part of their existence.
> The only reason people don't is because it's bad security practice to do so
I disagree. It is very common practice to not have arbitrary timeouts for TLS certificates. Just look at most SSH installs. Arguably these are also much higher profile targets too.
It would be like saying that every server in the world is applying bad security practice by not having certificates timing out every so often for SSH.
> do stuff that everyone needs rather than trying to pick a club to belong to.
This part I really do agree with. Whether England sides with NASA or ESA, our contributions are going to be tiny and insubstantial. We have spent the last few decades focusing purely on re-selling crap mobile phones and houses to ourselves for a quick buck rather than progressing in any bit of science.
So if we can pick a niche, really focus on that and then offer that to *both* NASA, ESA (and heck CNSA and ROSCOSMOS once we are all friends again); then we might actually have some impact.
If we do pick a "club", ESA or NASA makes little difference, will end up just acting as a "good little worker" and lose much autonomy preventing us from finding our niche.
(Yes, I do still think leaving the EU was risky but that ship has sailed).
