* Posts by karlkarl

1359 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2015

Asahi's Fedora remix dazzles and baffles on Apple Silicon

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: Why?

> I guess all those apps I have installed, not from the App Store, must have been compiled on my machine then...

> They're all signed (an ad hoc signature is fine). This is not necessarily a bad thing, but some people are concerned that over the long run Apple will seek to "iOS-ize" macOS and have only known signatories, certified by Apple.

Its worse than that. Those apps, not from the App Store have been signed by a certificate that the authors have had to beg Apple for (and pay for the privilege). This is the same as Microsoft's Windows RT developer license.

As I mentioned, try compiling a binary on your machine and try running it on your second machine. I bet you can't run it without also begging Apple (and paying) for the privilege. Basically the developers who write software you enjoy using are being forced through stupid hoops by Apple.

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: Why?

MacOS has online DRM (you can't get through the installer without activating). Since Big Sur I believe.

MacOS has code signing issues since the M1. A binary compiled on your machine won't run on your second machine. There is (for now) a workaround but this will get stricter over time: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/9082

The userland is not entirely BSD; you have some GNU stuff in there (particularly Vim and gmake). It also has lost the ability to do Jails (or even a decent chroot) along the way.

To save the hardware from the inevitable landfill, I feel being able to install Linux does help. Installing a proper BSD (i.e FreeBSD) will be nice too.

Microsoft prepares Visual Studio 2013 for retirement

karlkarl Silver badge

I can't recall, is 2013 the last one with proper deterministic install media via DVD before it went, "just grab a bunch of random crap off the servers and call it an install"?

These days even the VS offline backups just feel like a random cludge of files with no real versioning.

Microsoft nixed Mixed Reality: This Windows VR didn't even make it to the ER

karlkarl Silver badge

> This Windows VR didn't even make it to the ER

Where I work, they kept sodding trying to bring it into the ER. I kept rejecting it for all our projects because the hardware was expensive, unreliable to source and criminally locked down. It was basically Windows RT with a different form-factor.

Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for adding more to landfill sites across the world.

What comes after open source? Bruce Perens is working on it

karlkarl Silver badge

Heh, quite a good hack.

I know one version of SFU/Interix/SUA used OpenBSD as the base, but I didn't know any that were binary compatible with a certain Unix. I don't suppose you recall?

There was that BSD on Windows I recently heard about: https://virtuallyfun.com/2023/12/08/bsd-on-windows-things-i-wish-i-knew-existed/

I *think* QuarterDeck's DESQview/X provided a Motif implementation on a "commercial OS" too but perhaps that was licensed.

karlkarl Silver badge

> Theoretically, I am free to run that code on that Windows installation, am I not?

Microsoft gives out a lot of free licenses to their OS, but the OS itself is not free. Sorry, I should have clarified. By free, it means Open Source. The full statement is here:

"The rights granted under this license are limited solely to distribution and sublicensing of the Contribution(s) on, with, or for operating systems which are themselves Open Source programs. Contact The Open Group for a license allowing distribution and sublicensing of the Original Program on, with, or for operating systems which are not Open Source programs"

License:

http://www.opengroup.org/openmotif/license/

karlkarl Silver badge

I do agree. However wouldn't the mentioned OpenMotif license prevent this misuse?

RHEL is a paid for operating system. Not only the support but also the binaries. If most open-source software embraced this license, RH would not be able to use it unless it delivers the OS (in its entirety, repo, source and all) for free.

For reference, the OpenMotif license also excluded Cygwin from providing packages. Whilst Cygwin is free, the platform that it ran on was not.

karlkarl Silver badge

I quite liked the "Open Motif" license (before it went GPL) which stated, quite simply:

"This software must not be compiled or run on a paid-for operating system".

But I agree, open-source software is pretty darn powerful. I do feel that we can afford to weaponise the license a little more than the GPL does currently. The AGPL gets a little closer.

Doom is 30, and so is Windows NT. How far we haven't come

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: Telemetry

It came with DRM.

People should have said "no" back when it was introduced in Windows XP.

Too late now.

Apple's easiest to replace battery is in... an iMac

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: "twice as repairable"

Hah, indeed. The reparability doubles, year on year!

0 * 2 * 2 * 2

= 0

... but to Apple's defense. At least the machines are getting thinner and thinner so they take up less space in the landfill :)

Shame about those wildfires. We'll just let the fossil fuel giants off the hook, then?

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: When will Big Oil face the heat?

> Oil companies don't use fossil fuels - people do.

No we don't, our boilers do. Lets pass the blame further and shout at the (warm, toasty) metal box!

The 15-inch MacBook Air just nails it

karlkarl Silver badge

At least...

At least it won't take up much room in the landfill.

Memory-safe languages so hot right now, agrees Lazarus Group as it slings DLang malware

karlkarl Silver badge

DLang is more important in this area in that it can directly consume C APIs (which is fairly important for malware accessing various operating system subsystems, almost exclusively exposed as C APIs).

Rust via bindgen to generate a fairly rough 80% of bindings and then fetching the rest of the bloat from NPM-style crates.io is less than ideal for anyone's software development pipeline, including malware authors.

C and C++ are still the malware language of choice though. It mirrors much of the industry at a systems-level to be fair.

Datacenters feeling the heat to turn hot air into cool solutions

karlkarl Silver badge

> the most unusual scheme remains that of a datacenter in Hokkaido in Japan, which is using snow to cool its IT infrastructure then taking the resultant warm meltwater to cultivate eels for sale at market.

In the video, it just looks like a bitcoin mining operation.

So is that really a Data Centre? Possibly there isn't much actual "Data" involved.

Dump C++ and in Rust you should trust, Five Eyes agencies urge

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: Bull

Have you read through the commits?

They peck at the code because no-one understands it anymore since the Rotor SSCLI days.

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: Bull

> Feel free to point out the 'rot' in C# 12

Is a 1.8 MB C++ source file containing the .NET Core VM garbage collector alone enough for you?

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dotnet/runtime/main/src/coreclr/gc/gc.cpp

Can you spot any memory errors in that? You have 24 hours. Go! (During my thesis I found 2. They are there... So much of that code is ancient rot).

Anything built on-top of this is basically on a foundation of sand. That is pretty much any .NET language.

(Note: Careful; opening that monster of a file outside of raw mode might freeze your browser).

karlkarl Silver badge

> CISA suggests that developers look to C#, Go, Java, Python, Rust, and Swift for memory safe code.

Your code will only be memory safe because you will have implemented nothing and instead spent all your time writing / maintaining generated bindings rather than writing code that does actual stuff...

Besides, these guys have clearly never looked at the code behind the .NET or Java VMs... That memory safe code is floating ontop of a cesspit of rot.

Rather than talking about Rust, perhaps CISA should actually have a play at implementing something with it. They basically are falling into the same category as all the other 14 year-old Rust developers on reddit.

Apple and some Linux distros are open to Bluetooth attack

karlkarl Silver badge

Firstly, I agree wholeheartedly with OpenBSD ripping bluetooth out. It is a pretty disgusting stack. It barely works consistently on any platform I have dabbled with.***

However, Bluetooth can't entirely be blamed for this; it is like blaming USB in general for the risk of plugging in and autorunning a dodgy .exe in the Windows XP days. Bluetooth is just a transport layer that carries the data, it is the dodgy HID drivers at the other end that have the flaw. The problem is that so many drivers that make up the Bluetooth ecosystem are so terribly written and curiously, I am not so sure why.

*** For things like Bluetooth headphones, you can actually get adapters that use bluetooth transparently. This might be a good compromise for some.

I.e https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluetooth-MaedHawk-Microphone-Streaming-Headphones-Metal-Grey/dp/B086VZQG55

Microsoft touts Visual Studio Code as a Java juggernaut

karlkarl Silver badge

The stats would suggest that:

"Since VSCode has appeared, Java has taken a massive downfall in popularity. So from this we can infer that VSCode is bad for Java..."

I know they are unrelated properties but I think Microsoft being able to swing a good narrative is impressive in terms of their marketing prowess.

Steam client drops support on macOS, but adds it on Linux

karlkarl Silver badge

> That won't help, 32 bit games won't be usable either, unless the developer releases 64 bit binaries

What? Of course they will. My old 32-bit compatible mac will still run 32-bit software fine... Why wouldn't it? If I ever by a computer, I don't send it to landfill when the next chip comes out... Is that a rare use-case these days? haha.

But by the 32-bit Steam DRM platform no longer being able to activate against Valve's servers, it *will* break it in an artificial (and in my opinion, criminal) manner.

This is all theoretical of course. I would never engage with a DRM product.

(unless someone suggests never being able to reformat my machine again or replace the hard drive once the games are activated? Of course that is a daft suggestion).

karlkarl Silver badge

>> The only similar event(s) I can recall were on GNU/Linux before I had even heard of it: the switch from libc5 back to glibc, and on a smaller extent (with the same borkage capability), the switch from a.out to ELF

You will see it a little with the introduction of Wayland. There will be a few few software titles (not necessarily games) that will fall through the cracks. Xwayland as an Xephyr replacement will help with some but as things progress more, you will see breakage. The problem is that games ultimately *aren't* important. There will be no real drive to maintain them.

Small but mighty, 9Front's 'Humanbiologics' is here for the truly curious

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: As I wrote about something else a month or so ago ...

These days I honestly find "good" and "for everybody" to be mutually exclusive properties. Many projects have to walk a very gray wall, full of compromise.

I personally have found 9front to be very welcoming, particularly through my (admittedly brief) chats about git9 with Ori Bernstein (ori@) a while back.

X fails to remove hate speech over Israel-Gaza conflict

karlkarl Silver badge

Twitter (temporarily known as X) is basically a chatroom...

Who gives a shite what people write in chatrooms?

Censoring a chatroom is like removing pieces of corn from a random dog turd on the street. It has no impact.

Microsoft likens MFA to 1960s seatbelts, buckles admins in yet keeps eject button

karlkarl Silver badge

Is it because no-one can be bothered to log in anymore? Even legit users?

This has become the case here.

Apple exec defends 8GB $1,599 MacBook Pro, claims it's like 16GB in a PC

karlkarl Silver badge

Why is an Apple exec spending any of their precious time defending their products?

the twits were going to buy it anyway.

Arm grabs a slice of Raspberry Pi to sweeten relationship with IoT devs

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: No! No! No! No! No!

In some ways this is what the whole article is about.

Arm obviously doesn't want to extinguish it, but they likely want to i.e ensure the Pi project doesn't explore RISC-V. Ultimately this is *already* starting to impose restrictions on the community that aren't in the communities (or the Pi project's) best interest.

Companies are creepy machines; you can obviously guarantee they don't act in the best interests of smaller companies or communities.

Sorry Pat, but it's looking like Arm PCs are inevitable

karlkarl Silver badge

Once the ARM ecosystem *finally* evolves past custom DTBs and BSPs, then it might tackle the desktop market.

However it has been over a couple of decades now...

CEO Satya Nadella thinks Microsoft hung up on Windows Phone too soon

karlkarl Silver badge

If they didn't lock it down and artificially cripple it like they did with Windows RT, it would have probably been quite a contender.

The .NET development platform had a lot of momentum with a fairly loyal consumer-base.

Window Maker Live: When less is more, but more is also ... more?

karlkarl Silver badge

> and perhaps most important of all - steady maintenance without some moron deciding every year or so to completely change how everything works!

The twits are trying their hardest to break this from the display manager layer these days.

Windows 11: The number you have dialed has been disconnected

karlkarl Silver badge

We *do* need a Windows 12.

- One that fixes all the broken crap introduced after Windows 2000!

- One that re-removes all the telemetry and spyware introduced mid Windows XP!

- One that re-adds an effective GUI which was lost when Windows Vista was introduced.

Those still limiting themselves to Windows, need these corrections more than they think. It is painful to watch a Windows users struggle along these days.

Take Windows 11... please. Leaks confirm low numbers for Microsoft's latest OS

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: WTF would you install win 11

Indeed. I look at my non-tech colleagues and family members struggling with Windows 11 and feel so sorry for them.

Its actually tragic to see people who have worked hard with computers most of their life being left dealing with this defective crap. Its an absolute moral failing. One that I feel transcends the whims of companies like Microsoft and should actually be protected against at a government level.

Even something as mundane as my father using Microsoft Money 97 for his finances has been taken away from him and there is literally no replacement that isn't a foul cesspit of monetization and spyware.

This isn't sustainable.

Meta Quest 3 is a virtual reality of repair insanity

karlkarl Silver badge

A VR goggle:

- A small 15x5cm LCD (HDMI/DisplayPort)

- A couple of suitable lenses to optimize DPI

- Gyroscope sensors (USB)

- Drivers (libusb, OpenHMD)

Why has a multitude of small independent companies not managed to do churn these out yet? VR is such a failure there is literally no interest outside of Facebook or HTC's marketing.

I wonder if the large companies all moved to AR/Android headsets because was is too embarrassing for them to mass produce and churn out such simple hardware.

I wonder if the same will happen when VR flares up again in another decade.

GNOME developer proposes removing the X11 session

karlkarl Silver badge

I hope it does.

Then UNIX communities can stop treadmilling on newer, increasingly broken versions and start to add some polish like we *should* have done with Gnome 2.

Microsoft says VBScript will be ripped from Windows in future release

karlkarl Silver badge

- VB6/VBA

- VB.NET

- VBScript

All very different languages and weirdly the https://isvbscriptdead.com/ website seems to merge them together.

"VBScript as in VB.NET"

I know Microsoft does this to try to avoid the fallout from officially killing software, but it is a bit embarrassing to see.

Perhaps Microsoft can open-source the vbscript interpreter?

Red Hat retires mailing list, leaving Linux loyalists to read between the lines

karlkarl Silver badge

In general I agree, BSD is fantastic. It currently feels like the Linux heyday when the hardware support was getting pretty darn good and yet everything was still clean and UNIXy.

However, the selfish git in me would prefer that we keep BSD as a well kept secret, so we don't need to deal with the overly obnoxious non-technical users ruining Linux currently.

Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025

karlkarl Silver badge

Not for me. I am consistently disappointed with the lifespan of Apple hardware.

Particularly frustrating that the outside seems like a nice solid chunk of metal that will stand the test of time, but then the insides are just a fragile gluey mess.

karlkarl Silver badge

This is fantastic news!

I tend to not be religious about brands but ThinkPads tend to be the only decent things these days.

Framework is looking promising but I do worry about buying in large bulk and future sourceability.

In rare bout of generosity, Oracle extends free support for Database 19c

karlkarl Silver badge

I swear Oracle 8i is the last version of their database server that was actually purchased and used by people...

Has anyone ever seen newer in the wild or did everyone migrate to a different DBMS entirely.

Lenovo to offer Android PCs, starting with an all-in-one that can pack a Core i9

karlkarl Silver badge

Android isn't a desktop OS; so I don't see how it being Linux based can make it the fabled "year of the desktop".

Otherwise, since Linux is in many routers kicking around the desk; this means that the Linux desktop has already happened ;)

$17k solid gold Apple Watch goes from Beyoncé's wrist to the obsolete list

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: No doubt

> This is NOT the consumers' fault.

> Consumers have NO power in this situation

Consumers shouldn't buy defective (by design) hardware. It really is that simple.

> There is no choice when ALL products are like this.

This is entirely not the case. Very few watches are Apple landfill-ware. Actually, that is quite unique to the Apple brand only.

However, I do feel there should be better education. For example in many places in Asia, it is seen as a gluttonous embarrassment to own an Apple device.

Microsoft CEO whinges about Google's default search deals

karlkarl Silver badge

Once retail laptops are sold with a range of different operating systems; I am sure Google will be more than happy to turn their main website into a "hub" page to all the different search providers...

Good luck ;)

And now for something completely different: Python 3.12

karlkarl Silver badge

Indeed.

I find it worrying how so few Python developers know about weakref, so leaks in Python libraries are rampant! If we can sidestep that with a GC, I think the Python ecosystem will actually receive a "memory boost"!

Free software pioneer Richard Stallman is battling cancer

karlkarl Silver badge

RMS has had a fantastic impact on the industry. His unwavering dedication to software freedom is the only reason that computers are accessible to us all today.

I wish him all the best!

Red Hat bins Bugzilla for RHEL issue tracking, jumps on Jira

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: No suprise.

I suspect it is due to integration with their IBM cloud.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cdfsp/7.6.1.x?topic=products-integrating-jira

This is almost certainly an IBM move rather than a RH one.

Raspberry Pi 5 revealed, and it should satisfy your need for speed

karlkarl Silver badge

4mW for £50+ is pretty crap though isn't it.

karlkarl Silver badge

Cheaper than a Pi, vastly more powerful than a Pi, these things are a fantastic secret, so please don't spread it further ;)

(Back in the Pi 1 day, the reduced power was a bonus, but th company has since lost focus and is pricing itself out of the low power market).

The only way is WebKit: Vivaldi's browser arrives on iOS

karlkarl Silver badge

Same sh*t, different shade of lipstick.

Doom developer John Carmack thinks artificial general intelligence is doable by 2030

karlkarl Silver badge

I have always been very interested in Carmack's dabblings:

- graphics

- compiler tech (QuakeC, Q3VM)

- Armadillo Aerospace

- OpenBSD

... however, I suppose where our interests differ:

- VR - Great in theory but horrifically artificially locked down and monetized for what is effectively strapping an LCD to your face.

- AI - It bores the shite out of me! Its all just glorified search algorithms and marketing hype.

karlkarl Silver badge

Re: "I see AGI Coming"

I am assuming that since Half-Life's engine is based on Quake, his licensing department must have at least seen it coming?

VR headsets to shift 30 million units a year by 2027, vastly behind wearables

karlkarl Silver badge

Even worse figures. Only a small percentage of those headsets are useful. Most are locked down landfillware.