Posts by karlkarl

Microsoft research shows chatbots seeping into everyday life

"seeping into everyday life"? Not quite. More like being forced upon us by the large tech companies marketing departments.

Window Maker Live 13.2 brings 32-bit life to Debian 13

How so? They have saved at least 80 bucks on a new 64-bit Dell.

52-year-old data tape could contain only known copy of UNIX V4

This is so very cool as a find!

OpenBSD 7.8 out now, and you're not seeing double, 9front releases 'Release'

Re: RS232 really?

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.

DGX Spark, Nvidia’s tiniest supercomputer, tackles large models at solid speeds

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.

Qualcomm solders Arduino to its edge AI ambitions, debuts Raspberry Pi rival

A second hand ThinkPad (with built in battery, screen, keyboard, etc) and a usb i2c/UART is quite a bit more competitive at that price.

This is terrible news for the open-source makers platform.

> Users will be able to use the UNO Q as a standalone computer

Yes, but it will be the same cost as a standalone computer so, its fscking pointless.

Microsoft inches toward Rusty Windows drivers, production use still a no-no

Re: Unsafe

Indeed. As such they are overlooking the fact that the C++ RAII mechanism can be used to prevent raw pointer access outside of unsafe { } blocks. Yes, run-time is also not a problem because there is zero overhead in doing this.

Junk is the new punk: Why we're falling back in love with retro tech

Re: Why ? Surely no one can't work it out ?

> 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.

.NET 10 preview out now, likely to be near feature-complete

Based on the coreclr GC; we already assume this is the case. No need to state it explicitly.

https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/blob/main/src/coreclr/gc/gc.cpp

(Careful, this source file is so obscenely large, it may crash your browser)

MS confidence in Windows 11: Pay us to host VMs for when your desktop inevitably dies

> 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 :)

Make Redmond angry by setting up Windows 11 with a local account

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.

Microsoft gives in to Chromebook bullies and drops Windows 11 SE

Re: "recommend transitioning to a device that supports another edition of Windows 11"

> 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.

FreeBSD 15 installer to offer minimal KDE desktop

Re: OpenBSD

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.

Re: OpenBSD

Agree that the installer for OpenBSD is better and the OS is so much cleaner than all others.

However, it generally runs a little slower due to many mitigations by default and runs a little warmer because the power management is not quite in place yet.

Microsoft revives DOS-era Edit in a modern shell

Re: I think there's a lot to be said...

I am regrepful to listen to your puns

RHEL 10 quietly leaks ahead of Red Hat Summit

I like your blog and it is useful to know that there are options for RHEL 10.

One thing I despise more than being stuck with Wayland is being stuck with Gnome on Wayland.

Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot

Indeed. Can reliably uninstall Microsoft Defender too on Server.

Build your own antisocial writing rig with DOS and a $2 USB key

> 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.

When Microsoft made the Windows as a Service pivot

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 ;)

Ninite to win it: How to rebuild Windows without losing your mind

In some ways, sharing the knowledge of the LTSC builds was unfortunate...

Because now that the mouth-breathing public know about it and like it, Microsoft is surely going to change things for the worse... ;)

ChatGPT burns tens of millions of Softbank dollars listening to you thanking it

For me, whenever I search for something on Google, it has some AI response at the top of the page.

Surely this is costing a *lot* of energy for something that isn't even asked for!

Still browsing like it's 1999: Fresh tools that keep vintage Macs online and weirdly alive

I've got my tuna tins and my classic macs ready!

It's fun making Studio Ghibli-style images with ChatGPT – but intellectual property is no laughing matter

Re: Ghibli

Don't worry, I turned off my computer and left work early yesterday just to make up for your extravagance.

We have now broken even.

(I run OpenBSD, so the power draw even whilst idling is sadly not insignificant haha)

PIRG's 'Electronic Waste Graveyard' lists 100+ gadgets dumped after support vanished

If it can't run entirely offline. Don't buy it.

Windows 2000 Server named peak Microsoft. Readers say it's all been downhill since Clippy

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.

Yep. Another example was the XBox Live Arcade. Nothing we made there as kids can even run now. The DRM servers are down. Just terrible choices by Microsoft.

> 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).

The most important experimental distro you've never heard of gets new project lead

Then I would need a ~/.share, ~/.lib ~/.libexec, etc.

I still prefer better encaptulation. So if you want it in home directories, I would recommend ~/.opt/mysoftware.

I would used to recommend ~/.local but loads of freedesktop shite spams that these days.

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.

FreeDOS 1.4: Still DOS, still FOSS, more modern than ever

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

Windows intros 365 Link, a black box that does nothing but connect to Microsoft's cloud

This thin client PC and related services will likely be decommissioned before Windows 10 reaches its end of (extended) life.

So it won't really solve the issue of Windows 11's incorrect hardware requirements.

RISC OS Open plots great escape from 32-bit purgatory

If they could go for 64-bit ARM *without* touching the existing UI, I would be very happy. However I suspect they will try to modernize it all and ruin the whole point of the familiar cozy environment.

Windows 11 adds auto-recovery, kills offline setup loophole

>> 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.

NCSC taps influencers to make 2FA go viral

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.

DeepSeek can be gently persuaded to spit out malware code

I think it sounds a bit like the 3 "laws of robots" that i,robot demonstrated that is grinding on me. These rules are very superficial and naughty people will obviously strip them.

It would almost be like patching the protection with NOPs ;)

> 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.

Get off that old Firefox by Friday or you'll be sorry, says Moz

Re: Forced obsolescence

> 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.

Google slips built-in terminal, Debian Linux VM into Android 15 March feature drop

Re: Termux

Better to just buy a cheap ThinkPad X61. More powerful, larger screen and better keyboard ;)

UK must give more to ESA to get benefits of space industry boom, says Brian Cox

Re: Um....

> 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).

Scientists create woolly ma-mouse by looking at mean genes from the Pleistocene

Very cute.

Once they are finished with those prototypes, my wife and I am more than happy to maintain them.

C++ creator calls for help to defend programming language from 'serious attacks'

> And I have enough C++ books on my shelves that describe the remarkable complexity of trying to write a decent smart pointer to suspect your implementation was as subtly broken as most were.

Whilst it certainly can't have been any worse than C++98's attempt via auto_ptr, broken heuristics is not such an issue, so long as it was safe. And it was.

I find it strange that so many books did not cover smart pointers in that era. Again, this contributes to C++'s bad name for "manual memory management", when really there was just an extremely large number of weaker developers, trying to use ANSI C with a C++ twist rather than embracing it properly (it didn't help that the language was complex so fairly few compilers supported correct features). Again C++'s popularity is its blessing and its curse when it comes to making a name for itself.

True, but those kinds of guys will also ruin Rust's memory safety.

> C++98 certainly depended on manual memory management

It actually didn't, we just used to roll our own smart pointers (mainly shared pointer because we didn't have correct move heuristics required for unique_ptr).

The problem was that all of our smart pointers were different per project and it was a pain to marshal between them.

The legacy of C++ is what leads people to think it is much less safe than it is. 98% safe for C++ and Rust when dealing with raw C libraries is certainly workable.

> C and C++ rely on manual memory management

C++ does not rely on manual memory management.

When Rust and C++ interface with C libraries, then they all rely on manual memory management. This is where the errors creep in; Rust just hasn't been battle tested yet.

Mozilla flamed by Firefox fans after promises to not sell their data go up in smoke

Re: The language they use is terrible

Or an alternative full stop.

Every browser capable of the mainstream web are criminal.

Framework Desktop wows iFixit – even with the soldered RAM

Non-upgradable ram... but how do you then, y'know... upgrade the ram?

Madness.

Linux royalty backs adoption of Rust for kernel code, says its rise is inevitable

> Rust is well designed, modern language, and the memory safety is a great feature.

And if the Linux kernel was 100% Rust then you can benefit from these great features.

But unfortunately the fact that it will no longer be a homogeneous codebase, undermines all of the benefits you stated.

... But this whole Rust argument has been done to death. Lets just wait and see. If this experiment works, it works, if it doesn't it doesn't. Opinions are split almost 50:50. Either way, the BSD community will be very welcoming to skilled developers who dislike Rust and are looking elsewhere.

Why did the Windows 95 setup use Windows 3.1?

Obviously but specifically the Windows 7 "era" of Windows PE is what is interesting.