Posts by dharmOS

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.

Intel, AMD team with tech titans for x86 ISA overhaul

Re: Progress! 16 and 32-bit x86 can be emulated on a potato

I am certain that even demanding 32-bit games of yesteryear could be emulated on the WOW32 built into Windows emulated on the 64-bit processor. For everything else, there is 86Box, DOSBox-X and its ilk.

I take great delight in running Wing Commander 3 (which only ran on the fastest Pentiums of its 90s era, using 16-bit x86 code and MS DOS) on a Snapdragon ARM PC using DOSBox.

That’s cross CPU arch and no native 16-bit x86 on my WinARM PC. Runs faster than ever.

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?

Sony Semiconductor sinks Simoleans into Raspberry Pi to advance edge AI

What does this Sony co-processor do?

Will the AI be for training or inference? Is it like the Google Coral USB TPU that 2TFlops of INT8 maths for inference on already trained models, or will it do more?

https://coral.ai/products/accelerator

Oracle reportedly making job cuts at health IT arm Cerner

Sadly it is very difficult for a hospital to migrate off an electronic healthcare record (EHR) to a rival product. The main alternative is EPIC, and that would be a “frying pan to fire” alternative. I have used Cerner in the past, and still use EPIC now.

The data is locked away in a proprietary format (done somewhat deliberately) and changing product often involves running both EHRs in parallel with new data entered in the new EHR and the old one run to access previous data for a patient.

An Integration Engine can decrease some of the human user burden (for doctor, nurse etc) to have to load both products to look at a patient’s health record for old and new information. Either way, costs increase over sticking with just the one product.

Lenovo Thinkpad X13s: The stealth Arm-powered laptop

Re: Requires Office

Office for ARM64 is not sold as the standalone 2016,-19 etc but only as the M365 subscription.

Only X64 versions are available as standalone and running Office for Intel/AMD would suck on this Arm cpu.

MS Store x86 x64 ARM ARM64 ?? - how to tell

Hi Liam

In the MS Store app, if you scroll down to the "System Requirements" drop down arrow, it will tell you which ISA it is natively compiled in.

e.g. Amazon Prime Video for Windows

OS: Windows 10 or greater

Architecture: x86, x64, Arm, Arm64

Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS

Architecture: x64, Arm64

etc etc

Re: long-term Windows users are used to this and will barely notice

I use a Snapdragon 7c Win 11 PC as my main driver at work. Definitely not a machine that you would consider for all computing duties, but does work well enough if you stick to Win ARM64 software religiously.

www.apcsilmic.com/products/dot-mini-pc (about the size of a Mac Mini or NUC, no screen, keyboard, mouse etc)

To find ARM64 software, you often have to download beta versions tucked away on the developer's website rather than the MS Store (which often delivers the x86/X64 version!). I have managed to find Win ARM64 versions of Spotify, Signal Desktop, 7-Zip, DOSBox-X, Office 365 (obviously), MS OpenJDK 11, MS Keyboard and Mouse Center, MS Teams, Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio 17, Firefox, Notepad ++, OpenVPN and Wireguard, Powertoys, VLC, Winmerge and from the MS Store: Debian for WSL, and Pengwin for WSL, fedora Remix for WSL, WSL itself and WSLg, Xbox app with integrated xCloud streaming, Minecraft, Leonardo, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+. Sadly this list is probably comprehensive for ARM64 versions.

For the rest of software need, it involves using the x86 or X64 versions, which run noticeably slower (e.g. screen/GUI interactions sluggish, slow to load, slow to perform in application processing).

For the cost of ~£300, the DOT 1 Mini PC is fine, runs silently (passive heatsink case). Sadly £1300 for the ThinkPad is just a bit too pricey...

Inadequate IT partly to blame for NHS doctors losing 13.5 million working hours

Re: it...

Because the NHS Clinicians have had to curate it into an accurate data set as part of their clinical job to record medical, nursing notes for patients, i.e. we give them high quality human-curated supervised data sets without any of the reward.

Palantir have to clean it up a bit, but not as much as they would have to do otherwise.

Re: another closed system with no upgrade path

I think part of the problem is that the ancient software (Cerner in your case, EMIS for mine) was designed in an era when everyone had to use a ethernet-attached |Windows OS desktop with a horrid native exe designed to Win 95 era GUI/UX. Any NHS smartcard-based logins meant that for that one session, you had the machine to yourself and could tolerate a 5-7min from login screen to working desktop as it was a once-only occurrence.

So designed by someone who does not have a clue how health care workers actually work! Computer-on-wheels connected via Wi-Fi are an update too far for the software. Having the chance to look at the backend, the database (Oracle, MS SQL, GTM Mumps) where the data is recorded could be driven by an HTML5 web app run on a wi-fi connected tablet. But the big companies making the software (Cerner, EPIC, EMIS, TPP) do not seem interested enough to do this.

It's 2022 and there are still malware-laden PDFs in emails exploiting bugs from 2017

PDFs to blame, or Adobe Reader (for unnecessary functionality)?

Do the inbuilt PDF viewer in Chrome and Edge (or equivalents on MacOS, ChromeOS and iOS) execute JavaScript and thus be vulnerable? Or is this an "Adobe Special", avoided by not using their PDF viewer?

MIPS discloses first RISC-V chips coming in Q4 2022

Re: another closed system with no upgrade path

John Hennessy founded MIPS.

David Patterson created the Berkely RISC processor that became SPARC, (RAID) and now the RISC-V CPU.

As long-term collaborators, they have the seminal textbook on CPUs: Computer Organization and Design MIPS Edition: The Hardware/Software Interface.

Perhaps Hennessy's creation has realised that its own v2 is the RISC-V, hence dumping the v1 stuff.

UK competition watchdog closes the comment book on Microsoft's Nuance merger

Actually a medical land grab

The aim here is not to own the consumer market but to grab the clinical (and possibly legal) dictation market. These have corporations/hospitals who will fund the monthly cloud subscriptions and potentially saves the cost of medical transcription secretary (woefully underpaid in the NHS ~£20K for the work they do).

Dragon’s products for medical dictation is fantastic from experience and every big IT player is trying to grab a chunk of healthcare (e.g. Oracle and Cerner, IBM’s Watson etc). It may also to buy into the raw voice data used to train the AI to lock others out of the market.

Bullseye! Debian-based Raspberry Pi OS scores an update with 'less closed-source proprietary code'

Re: another closed system with no upgrade path

I don't use Mathematica or Minecraft Pi, but anyway of getting VNC Server to run on the 64 bit version of the Rasp Pi OS (the killer app I need for 64-bit space).

Truck, sweet truck: Volvo's Chinese owner unveils methanol/electric truck with bathroom and kitchen

Methanol as a store of energy for a fuel cell

This is because methanol CH3-OH is a very dense carrier of hydrogen, better than 700bar compressed H2 gas or even cryogenic liquid hydrogen. Slight downside of course is the carbon atom that is disposed off as CO2.

Raspberry Pi's trading arm snags £33m investment as flotation rumours sink

Re: I got worried...

That was for the ARM version of Visual Studio Code (VSCode), which is an excellent choice of IDE. Certainly wish I had learnt to program on something like this rather than IDLE etc

Google is designing its own Arm-based processors for 2023 Chromebooks – report

Don’t forget the OP1

I have an ASUS ChromeBook that uses the OP1 ARM CPU. Specific part authorised by Google for CBs for a laptop type format rather than smartphone (but based on a rebadged Rockchip RK3399). Still surprisingly capable after its purchase in 2017.

So hopefully an in-house Google custom design might/will be better than existing ARM designs from QC, Mediatek, Rockchip etc.

https://laptopmedia.com/processor/rockchip-rk3399-op1/

Malaysian Police crush crypto-mining kit to punish electricity thieves

Re: Why not...

Perhaps because the criminals that fund the purchase of the mining rigs and would just take the computers back at gun point from the school later and leave some school kids traumatised…