Posts by dharmOS

Red Hat offers RHEL support 'forever' for those who need to lock into legacy tech

IBM forever

Of any company willing to put its name behind this venture, I bet IBM is the most likely to keep its word.

I have seen loads of medical equipment with embedded versions of MS Windows still providing their imaging output etc running Windows XP, 7 (or their Server or embedded variants). The kit is worth millions and hard to justify replacing just because MS have stopped their 10 (or so) life cycle for a certain OS.

If manufacturers could support “RHEL forever” as the embedded OS controlling their medical (or other such as CNC) equipment, then this would be something worth seeking out when differentiating from various manufacturers’ bids. Given a choice for a long supported OS and a shoe-horned in MS OS with no patches, I would award higher point to the former.

Arm64 on the desktop? It’s spendy and it’s sluggish

Re: "Lack of..."

Sadly lack of native Linux ARM64 Spotify client means no lossless audio (16- or 24-bit 44.1kHz FLAC). The web player version is 256Kb/s AAC.

Whilst buying music on Vinyl, CD or HDTracks/7Digital is admirable, I only buy music that I am going to listen to more than a few times. Spotify helps as a sampler before purhcasing the hi-def FLAC. I have tried all sorts of shennigans to get the X64 Spotify.deb to run on RPi5 using Box64. It doesn't work. I am sure he used FEX and could not get it to work.

In the meantime, there is a native Win11 ARM64 Spotify app that plays back lossless audio, as well as of course the MacOS app for Apple Silicon, so Spotify could resolve this if they wanted to.

Raspberry Pi wants Windows admins to Connect – or it might pull the plug

Hangover from X11 and RealVNC control

Previously the RPi OS used X11 and had (still has) an arm-hf and arm64 compile of RealVNC Server and Viewer for Linux. I used the experience gained here to then add some Windows and Mac machines to have RealVNC as "one remote software ring to rule them all".

Since the move to Wayland on RPi OS, the organisation had to come up with RPi Connect, which uses a web browser client and UDP desktop streaming. My Windows and Mac remain in RealVNC whilst RPis have their own way of remote access.

I suppose Windows access to RPi Connect as a Server would allow me to have one platform to remote access (most of my) machines again.

I tried Nomachine and RustDesk and could never figure them out the security that I was happy to use for remote access.

Linux 7.1 will have an optional new NTFS driver

Re: Ownership

Because the exFAT driver for Android came from Samsung.

IBM wants Arm software on its mainframes to better support AI

Re: Rosetta type emulation?

Yes, but how does the z17 with its Telum 2 inference hardware run ARM64 instructions. Via emulation? Does it support NEON and SVE instructions? Which ARM64 ISA, 8.0, 8.4. 9.0, 9.2 etc?

Rosetta type emulation?

What do all these buzzwords actually mean?

Does the z7 CPU now run a cross arch emulator (like a Rosetta or indeed Transitive type emulator which IBM owns) running AArch64 op codes on the z17 or Power CPU?

If so, not all that exciting, anymore than running KVM or UTM.

How CP/M-86's delay handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom

Re: CP/M·86

My Amstrad 1640 (8086 with 640K RAM) came with MS DOS 3.2 and GEM. The Amstrad 1512 had DR DOS instead (is this what you mean for a Digital Research OS?), although MS DOS was available as an option.

CP/M-86 was definitely not avialbale, as my father would not have bought a non-IBM compatible PC.

Latest Servo release hints at a real Rust alternative to Chromium

Re: Arm-native browsers on Arm Windows

>> There are few choices for true Arm-native browsers on Arm Windows. No Chrome and none of the Chrome spinoffs.

Edge (based on Chromium), Chrome itself and Firefox all have native ARM64 binaries for Win11 ARM.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/29/native_chrome_windows_arm/

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/04/firefox_136/

Do you mean something else?

India hails 'first' home-grown chip as a milestone despite very modest specs

180nm lithography will not bit flip when a cosmic ray particle hits the chip. So very much designed around space exploration outside our protective atmosphere / Van Allen belts.

Compare it with the 200MHz PowerPC CPU (200 MHz 32-bit BAE RAD750) inside one of the NASA Mars explorers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_embedded_computer_systems_on_board_the_Mars_rovers

Microsoft revives DOS-era Edit in a modern shell

Re: a bit of a bloater

64-bit native code is also larger than 16-bit code that was the DOS version. 8086 opcodes were very dense prior to the 64-bit ISA re-write.

Preferred MS Edit to Nano

I always preferred Microsoft Edit to any other text mode (?TUI) editor, even more than Nano or Pico (let's not go to Edlin or Vim etc). I tried to remember the key controls to OS/2 TEDIT, but it was a pain and too different (and I only ever used it because OS/2 failed to boot).

I can now SSH into Windows or Linux machines and use the MS Edit to edit config files to heart's content. Thanks MS to compiling for aarch64 and x86_64 Win and Linux binaries from the outset!

UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans

Re: Protection comes with business

>> Leaves on horseback...

I would say: Trust leaves on a Tesla, at 0-60 in 5s

Good luck to the US. The market for US weapon systems (and thus the market size that allows the cost per item to fall) is about to fall.

Linux kernel to drop 486 and early 586 support

Re: Surprising number of 486 CPUs on ebay

There is a 486SX soft core that runs on an Altera FPGA, ao486 (https://misterfpga.org/viewforum.php?f=13) but even that seems to miss out the FPU of the 486DX

808 lines of BBC BASIC and a dream: Arm architecture turns 40

Re: Signature

Thank you for your work on the BBC 6502 and the later ports to the Z80. I still play around with BBC Basic on a Raspberry Pi and an Agon Light 2.

EU gives staff 'burner phones, laptops' for US visits

Burner phone specs

Anyone know what are the burner phones issued? Presumably an Android device as iPhones are too expensive to throw away after one use.

Might have to buy one myself for holidays and EU approval probably means it is good enough.

VMware revives its free ESXi hypervisor in an utterly obscure way

Re: No Deal, Broadcom

That's the point to make to Broadcom. Why would anyone bother learning how to manage your software now (in their free time). There are free options to learn and to spend time on. Your talent pool is now infintely smaller, no fresh talent joining his knowledge pool and as they leave/retire, will get smaller.

Why users still couldn't care less about Windows 11

Re: Over the years

Notepad++ is available as a Snap with integrated Wine install environment. I have it running on an Ubuntu installs.

https://snapcraft.io/notepad-plus-plus

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Re: Question re backups

Is there a good way of backing up all the custom conf files one is forced to amend to have a Linux working system? I have customised /etc/samba/smb.conf; /etc/fstab; grub, nut-config files.../pipewire etc and lose track. However, with a re-install, it is a mtter of rewriting all of these. Any good way to keep track of which ones have been customised and backing up between say Ubuntu upgrades.

Microsoft admits January's Windows Update broke USB Digital to Audio Convertor

Re: How about...

The USB 1.0 audio spec is well defined, manages up to 24-but depth and 96KHz sampling, and important in Win 10, did not require an audio driver, so was plug and play. It is also the spec that works out of the box with consoles (Nintendo Switch etc).

For some reason, Win 10 did or used to require manufacturer-specific audio drivers for the USB 2.0 audio, so was at the mercy of what was supplied. There is a generic Microsoft supplied USB 2.0 driver that does higher (24-bit, 192 KHz) but works with Win11 upwards (from memory, I used an Astell & Kern DAC with another Win ARM machine that could not use an X64 driver from the A&K website).

I am perfectly happy with 24/96 audio and the DAC is set to this, hence my media server is based in Win 10 but the machine will not boot as of this weekend.

So hasta la Vista to MS and time to switch a bit earlier to Linux than I had planned.

Re: Just another reason NOT to upgrade to Win11 then...

I agree. I have changed one of my Win10 machines that is not capable of upgrading to Win11 (Lynnfield/Nehalem-gen CPU) to Ubuntu 2404 and I use an external DAC. Even installed the optional Ubuntu Audio Studio package.

Not able to figure out whether it is outputting 16bit, 24bit, or 32 bit and 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96kHz. Installed all the Pipewire stuff, then Pavucontrol etc. Figured out the frequency output but not the bit rate. Searching the web is a mess of instructions for ALSA, PulseAudio and PireWire. Whereas in Windows this is dead easy as it offers the different bit depths and sample rates in a drop down list.

Sure I probably need to go through some conf file but audio is at least easier in Windows with a GUI.

How Windows got to version 3 – an illustrated history

Re: Thanks for the scurvy advice

I meant Royal Hospital Haslar (not Hasler)

Thanks for the scurvy advice

Hi Liam

Thanks for the article and the reference to scurvy. I worked at Hasler Hospital where James Lind had been a doctor some 200+ years before me. The amnesia of the military to advances made in war and lost in peace time was coined as the "Walker Dip" by the late Surgeon General, Surgeon Vice Admiral Alasdair Walker. This regression in military medicine that occurs between conflicts is repaid in the lives of service personnel at the start of the next campaign.

Should anyone wish to read the article, it is linked below.

https://jrnms.bmj.com/content/104/3/173.full

How to leave the submarine cable cutters all at sea – go Swedish

U-235, shorely?

Hi Rupert,

Liked the article and arguments proposed. The Swedes have demonstrated an independent spirit of defence and innovation e.g. the Saab JAS-39 Gripen fighter, instead of jumping on the Eurofighter platform.

However, a minor correction. I think you mean weapons-grade Uranium-235. U-238 is the inert stuff used as filler for anti-tanks rounds to cut through tank armour, or converted to Plutonium-238 in a breeder reactor.

Qualcomm's Windows on Arm push would be great – if only it ran all your software

Re: Microsoft remains its own worst enemy

Oops.

The register also posted about this ISO

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/14/windows_11_arm_iso/

Re: Microsoft remains its own worst enemy

Speaking of MS support, downloads for Win ARM64 ISOs are now (as of today) available from the MS site.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/microsoft-makes-it-easier-to-do-a-clean-windows-install-on-arm-based-pcs/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11arm64

Disagree about the lack of MS support

I actually use a Windows ARM64 PC as a main desktop, running Win 11 Pro for ARM, and Office 365. Looking at Task Manage/Details/Architecture, all my applications are ARM64. The only exceptions are the OfficeClickToRun.exe which is x64, and Citrix which insist on having a x86(-32) of their application. I would disagree with Gavin that MS have not provided adequate support. They have and Windows 11 updates arrive at the same time on ARM64 as they do on x64. Office 365 is native ARM64, as is Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio 2022, MS Teams and PowerToys etc.

MS also supplies most of the common drivers in ARM64 when a device is plugged in, and I have had no problems. Granted I have not tried to plug in something esoteric like a Laser Printer from 2003 or a HP scanner from that era, but for common stuff like docking stations., DisplayLink for extra screens, USB DACs for high quality audio, screencams for video conferencing, keyboards, mice, USB drives etc, everything works.

Spotify, WhatsApp, Foobar2000, OpenVPN, Wireguard, PIA VPN, MS Edge, Firefox and Google Chrome, Affinity apps, Zoom all have native Win ARM64 apps. Relatively few things I need run in emulation (Citrix is one, EndNote is the other).

Microsoft finally releases a direct-download Windows 11 on Arm ISO

Re: Arm SystemReady

Apple is a founding member of ARM, so unlikely to sue them (well, unless you eat your own children),

Western Digital releases firmware fix for SSDs blighted by Windows 11 24H2 BSODs

WD Dashboard is hopeless software

I have both the NVMe SSD SN 770M and 770 in 2 TB in two separate AMD APU machines running Win 11. One runs the WD Dashboard software required to update the firmware, the other crashes the software on loading. There is no reason why and the internet reports how crap the software is.

In the end I had to try black magic (perusing Linux Arch websites on how to download and apply the firmware sans Windows) to download the firmware and then run the Dashboard in Windows safe mode to update.

More is the issue at how crap WD is at writing essential software for updating their hardware on the most common OS out there.

China stops worrying about lack of GPUs and learns to love the supercomputer

Use of ARM SVE or RISC-V equivalent for ML training and inference without GPUs - forget the cost

I always wondered if the SVE from ARMv8.2, v9 (used in the Fujitsu A64FX / Fugaku supercomputer) could be used for ML Training, or its RISC-V equivalent. By all accounts, ARM China has full blueprints for any ARM v9 CPU.

If it can support the lower precision FP and INT formats, then the question becomes how much the sponsor is willing to fund the machine (and pays for its upkeep, running costs etc). If it is a National Security issue and the country is China, USA etc, then the answer is an "unlimited amount"!

Raspberry Pi OS airs out some fresh options for the summer

Really liked the x86 release

I used to use the Pi Debian (x86-32bit) release for an old Dell Mini 9 PC (Atom N270, single core, 1GB RAM) and it worked fine (when the default installed XP shuffled off to its grave).

I would love to use a 64bit version for my now aged Nehalem Core i7 when Win 10 is no longer supported by Microsoft as it cannot be upgraded to Win 11 (not should it be). Discovered Bottles to run Wine and it runs some essential Windows software (e.g. GOG Galaxy, Amazon Music HD applications), so running Windows as an OS becomes even less important.

Student's flimsy bin bags blamed for latest NHS data breach

University students don't get offered the IT system that the doctors employed by the NHS Trust get to use. Typically, because the Trust will pay the costs for the Computer on Wheels (COWs) workstation for staff or PC tablets as they are productive for the NHS, but students do not meet that criteria. Many hospital electronic health records (EHRs) in the UK are based around EPIC or Cerner (/Oracle) Millenium and are Windows-based, with all the UI and keyboard/mouse issues that causes.

It was a student that caused the information breach.

Re: Inexcusable

I have a feeling that the entire of Newcastle University’s medical school should do some shredding training. Like 1000 pages a day through a cross cut shredder that can only take max 10 pages at a time.

Seriously, this information breach is inexcusable in today’s day and age. I am a physician and have given handovers to junior doctors for on calls, but rules were that the paper sheet did not leave the hospital and were shredded as soon as out of date on the ward shredder. Would love to say that the EHR would mean a no paper copy would be possible, but our EHR has some uptime issues so paper is the fall-back plan.

The ICO is going to have sanctions on both the hospital and the University.

SpiNNcloud Systems unveils Arm-based 'neuromorphic supercomputer'

Re: promo video

Okay they have fixed the audio now. Snipey comment taken back.

promo video

It is a shame that the promo video has no audio. Or did the AI they used to check the content hallucinate and let that one through? :o)

I can fix this PC, boss, but I’ll need to play games for hours to do it

Works fine in 2024 on DOSBoX-X

Yes, it is the game with Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell and Thomas Wilson (Biff from Back to the Future Trilogy).

I recently purchased the game from GOG.com and tortured my WinARM box using ARM64 compiled DOSBox-X. It runs like a dream, never crashes and no MemMaker needed in DOSBOX-X, with plenty of free RAM below the 640KB barrier, and presumably 8-16MB available above.

I had only a 386DX40 when it was released, so no hope of playing it then. It is almost too easy now... :o)

The chip that changed my world – and yours

eZ80?

I am checking that what has been lost to new production/ purchase is the 40-pin DIL Z80 (I used one in my A-level Electronics course work)?

I bought an Agon Light 2 recently and the eZ80 seems to be all round a better chip and binary compatible.

How a single buck bought bragging rights in the battle to port Windows 95 to NT

Why only a 486 DX/2-50?

>> The two sat before the CRT attached to Plummer's 486DX2-50 development machine and fired up the code. It took a while – log messages scrolled past on a VT220 terminal connected to the serial port – but the debug build did its thing.

I was more amazed that all their Dev team had were relatively humble 486s after 1995. What did they compile code on: Pentium 60MHz with the FDIV bug in?

What a surprise! Apple found a way to deliver browser engine and app store choice

These:

https://www.w3.org/TR/appmanifest/

and these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app

If the "cost" of pestering is an open browser is one that runs PWAs (Blink or Gecko rendering engines on iOS) , rather than being purposefully slow to implement standards (iOS Safari/Webkit) in order to defend an App Store that brings in $29 billion, I feel that is worth it.

The native and often unnecessary app creation should come to an end. We are not on 3.5" 480x320 screens like the original iPhone 1-3.

What about browser choice in the UK?

Without opening any UK post-EU, does this mean us in Old Blighty get a free browser choice or not?

I really want a non-gimped browser that handles PWAs on iOS, like it does on MacOS. The developers at MS for Windows 10 and 11 recognised a long time ago that nothing worthwhile would come out as Win UWP apps, so the PWA mode in Edge is excellent. I would like to come off the native iOS app addiction (/installation) and use PWAs as I do on Win 11. Also, hundreds of MB download and installed to use a one-time app seems pointless.

MIPS snags top SiFive brains to amp up RISC-V business

Re: World’s Most Popular CPU Architectures

The ARM v8 (64-bit) ISA is only 13 years old, according to Wikipedia and was a significant cleanup of the previous ARM v7 and previous (32-bit).

So although RISC-V is modern and elegant, ARM v8 is not as old as you think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family

Veteran editors Notepad++ and Geany hit milestone versions

Win ARM64 port

Thank you for mentioning the Notepad++ ARM64 port for Windows, for the few of us using Win11 ARM64. No complaints here about the speed in app, in spite of using the slowest CPU made by Qualcomm for Windows.

Re: EMACS or death

> CUA: Cut is SHIFT-DEL, Copy is CTRL-INS, Paste is SHIFT-INS

This is what I used in OS/2 v2 and 3. I wondered where it came from (now I know, IBM's CUA). It also worked inside the embedded Win/OS/2 3.0/3.1 in addition to the Ctrl-C,-X,-V.

iPhone 15 is too hot to handle – and not in any good way

Re: "It’s expected that Apple will address this through software updates"

Would a standard Aluminum alloy case (as Apple have used to date) meant that this would have had better thermal dissipation? Then truly a dumb decision to make something sound "flash" that is inferior to what came before.

Linux on the Arm-based Thinkpad X13S: It's getting there

Re: Still lots to do

Hi Liam

Running a sometimes sluggish Qualcomm 7c ARM64 PC (Apcsilmic Dot 1), and the Win 11 task manager does tell you which code path is running. I cannot paste screenshots inline images but on the "Details" tab, you need to select , or show the Architecture column and it will tell you x86, x64 or Arm64 or even for MS Office, Foobar 2000, ARM64 EC [as Arm64 (x64 compatible)].

IBM sets Watson chips on the AI case as price war kicks off

AIU code compatible with Telum accelerator?

Is this AIU code compatible with the Telum ISA used in the z16 Mainframe CPU? Does this mean that the same acceleration coding can run on zOS and X64 platforms?

Windows driver woes trip AMD GPU owners, blind Arm-powered cameras

Re: which OEM to blame?

Microsoft is the OEM for the Surface Pro X. Who do they blame now? The CPU supplier (Qualcomm) or the integrator (MS)?

UK emergency services take DIY approach amid 12-year wait for comms upgrade

Dodgy contracting

Maybe the delays are due to the UK government stipulating in the contract that the device had to be manufactured in the UK, using UK sourced semiconductors and the case made of adamantium, vibranium and unobtainium.

/s

Microsoft is busy rewriting core Windows code in memory-safe Rust

Re: far memory

A minor correction. 286 had 24-bit addressing with 16MB memory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80286). But thank you for the reminder.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish ended with Windows Mobile/Phone, and I think having had the trauma of that, MS have moved on with the departure of Steve Ballmer, who must have been around the OS/2, Win NT transition, and departed with the Nokia merger.

Had OS/2 2.1 and 3

Also Windows Phone 7, 8 and 10 so equally backed the wrong horse every time.

What does an ex-Pharma Bro do next? If it's Shkreli, it's an AI Dr bot

AI and formulary

Is the only drug on Dr Gupta’s prescribing formulary Daraprim? Is there a Trump-supporter variant that only does IV bleach, chloroquine etc?