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Filling A USB Stick
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Oct '22

06 Oct '22

Does anybody else fill USB sticks full of data? I have a backup regime currently based on 32GiB sticks, and I find it can take up to around 8 hours to fill one with files. (USB 3 sticks might have been a bit quicker, maybe half that time). So I tried an alternative approach: use dd to copy the stick to an image file, do a loopback mount of that image file, do the backup copy to the mounted image, dismount it, then use dd to copy it back to the actual stick. Time taken: typically less than 10 minutes to copy the stick to an image file, and up to an hour to copy the image file back to a USB 3 stick, or around 3 and a half hours for a USB 2 stick. The backup to the image file itself took an hour at most. Overall, still a substantial saving in time using the image-file approach. Doing a restore from the sticks is fast enough that I do this directly from them, without bothering with intermediate image files. Also I notice quite a variation in the actual capacities of the sticks. They are all nominally 32GiB = 2 ** 35 bytes, but the sizes of the usable partitions range from 89.5% of this to 91.4% -- well short of what it says on the tin. Even if you say it’s supposed to be 32GB = 32 * 10 ** 9 bytes, capacities range from 96.1% to 98.1% of the nominal value.

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Basic Rust Support Merged For Upcoming Linux 6.1
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '22

06 Oct '22

'"This Monday, the first set of patches to enable Rust support and tooling was merged for Linux 6.1," writes Slashdot reader sabian2008, sharing an update from longtime kernel developer Kees Cook: The tree has a recent base, but has fundamentally been in linux-next for a year and a half. It's been updated based on feedback from the Kernel Maintainer's Summit, and to gain recent Reviewed-by: tags. Miguel is the primary maintainer, with me helping where needed/wanted. Our plan is for the tree to switch to the standard non-rebasing practice once this initial infrastructure series lands. The contents are the absolute minimum to get Rust code building in the kernel, with many more interfaces[2] (and drivers -- NVMe[3], 9p[4], M1 GPU[5]) on the way. The initial support of Rust-for-Linux comes in roughly 4 areas: - Kernel internals (kallsyms expansion for Rust symbols, %pA format) - Kbuild infrastructure (Rust build rules and support scripts) - Rust crates and bindings for initial minimum viable build - Rust kernel documentation and samples ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/10/04/2259259 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Intel Laptop Users Should Avoid Linux 5.19.12 To Avoid Potentially Damaging The Display
by Peter Reutemann 06 Oct '22

06 Oct '22

'Intel laptop users running Linux are being advised to avoid running the latest Linux 5.19.12 stable kernel point release as it can potentially damage the display. From a report: Intel Linux laptop users on Linux 5.19.12 have begun reporting "white flashing" display issues with one user describing it as "[the] laptop display starts to blink like lights in a 90's rave party." Intel Linux kernel engineer Ville Syrjal posted this week on the kernel mailing list: "After looking at some logs we do end up with potentially bogus panel power sequencing delays, which may harm the LCD panel."' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/22/10/05/141248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Intel CTO Wants Developers To Build Once, Run On Any GPU
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '22

05 Oct '22

'Greg Lavender, CTO of Intel, spoke to VentureBeat about the company's efforts to help developers build applications that can run on any operating system. From the report: "Today in the accelerated computing and GPU world, you can use CUDA and then you can only run on an Nvidia GPU, or you can go use AMD's CUDA equivalent running on an AMD GPU,â Lavender told VentureBeat. "You can't use CUDA to program an Intel GPU, so what do you use?" That's where Intel is contributing heavily to the open-source SYCL specification (SYCL is pronounced like "sickle") that aims to do for GPU and accelerated computing what Java did decades ago for application development. Intel's investment in SYCL is not entirely selfless and isn't just about supporting an open-source effort; it's also about helping to steer more development toward its recently released consumer and data center GPUs. SYCL is an approach for data parallel programming in the C++ language and, according to Lavender, it looks a lot like CUDA. To date, SYCL development has been managed by the Khronos Group, which is a multi-stakeholder organization that is helping to build out standards for parallel computing, virtual reality and 3D graphics. On June 1, Intel acquired Scottish development firm Codeplay Software, which is one of the leading contributors to the SYCL specification. "We should have an open programming language with extensions to C++ that are being standardized, that can run on Intel, AMD and Nvidia GPUs without changing your code," Lavender said. Lavender is also a realist and he knows that there is a lot of code already written specifically for CUDA. That's why Intel developers built an open-source tool called SYCLomatic, which aims to migrate CUDA code into SYCL. Lavender claimed that SYCLomatic today has coverage for approximately 95% of all the functionality that is present in CUDA. He noted that the 5% SYCLomatic doesn't cover are capabilities that are specific to Nvidia hardware. With SYCL, Lavender said that there are code libraries that developers can use that are device independent. The way that works is code is written by a developer once, and then SYCL can compile the code to work with whatever architecture is needed, be it for an Nvidia, AMD or Intel GPU. Looking forward, Lavender said that he's hopeful that SYCL can become a Linux Foundation project, to further enable participation and growth of the open-source effort. [...] "We should have write once, run everywhere for accelerated computing, and then let the market decide which GPU they want to use, and level the playing field," Lavender said. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/10/04/2225214 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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VideoLAN threatens to sue India gov’t as ISPs keep blocking VLC website
by Peter Reutemann 05 Oct '22

05 Oct '22

'VideoLAN is threatening to sue India's government, saying it has received no explanation for why the VLC website has been blocked by Indian ISPs for the past six months. "In March 2022, to our shock and dismay, the URL 'https://www.videolan.org/' appeared to have been blocked for viewing in India without any prior notice to me or any other person in the organization," VideoLAN president and lead VLC developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote in a September 30 letter to India's Department of Telecommunications. "Despite reportage and uproar on social media, no reasons for blocking the URL were provided to us, or to the Indian public." The letter said attempts to reach the URL in India resulted in the message, "Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India." VideoLAN is a French nonprofit organization that developed the free, open source VLC Media Player. In an email, Kempf told Ars that "VideoLAN is an organization that does not do politics (we only take position on anti-DRM and pro-open source subjects). So this topic is a bit of a shock to us." VideoLAN's letter told Indian government officials that the blocking "is particularly shocking to us, since the Government of India itself endorses the use of VLC as a part of its Digital India initiative, where it has expressed its intention to use open-source softwares for government applications. In fact, the Government of India also appears to use VLC Media Player's icon and logo on its website promoting open source softwares." The letter to India's government said, "VLC is currently being used by 80 million Indians, and has consistently seen an average of 25 million downloads per year in India since its release. For millions of Indians VLC is the primary choice for running all kinds of media formats for free."' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/videolan-gets-no-answers-on-why… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Ubuntu 22.10 (Kinetic Kudu) Beta Released with GNOME 43, Linux Kernel 5.19
by Peter Reutemann 04 Oct '22

04 Oct '22

'Featuring the latest GNOME 43 desktop environment, Ubuntu 22.10 beta comes with PipeWire as the default sound system, which is accompanied by WirePlumber as its session and policy manager, GCC 12 as the default system compiler, support for the WebP image format out of the box, as well as updated components and apps. But the most interesting part of this release is the fact that Ubuntu Unity is now available as an official flavor, featuring the good old Unity7 desktop environment on top of an Ubuntu 22.10 base. Canonical decided to accept Ubuntu Unity as an official flavor starting with the Kinetic Kudu release in late October.' -- source: https://9to5linux.com/ubuntu-22-10-kinetic-kudu-beta-released-with-gnome-43… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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North Island GP Network Compromised
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Oct '22

04 Oct '22

Pinnacle Midlands Health Network, which services medical practices in Taranaki, Rotorua, Taupō-Tūrangi, Thames-Coromandel and Waikato, had its systems broken into last Wednesday, though the incident is only coming to light today <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/patient-details-compromised-in-cyber-attack-o…>. It doesn’t appear like they hold medical information about patients (beyond NHI numbers), only personal contact details.

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Patient details compromised in cyber attack on North Island GP network
by Peter Reutemann 04 Oct '22

04 Oct '22

NZ Herald reports: 'Patient details have been compromised in a cyber attack targeting a network of GP services across the North Island. Pinnacle Midlands Health Network said in a statement that the "cyber incident" impacted some of its IT services. Offices and practices in Taranaki, Rotorua, Taupō-Tūrangi, Thames-Coromandel and Waikato were impacted. [...] Pinnacle holds personal information such as names, addresses and national health index numbers. Butcher said GP notes were not stored on their files.' -- source: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/patient-details-compromised-in-cyber-attack-o… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Still can’t buy a Raspberry Pi board? Things aren’t getting better anytime soon
by Peter Reutemann 04 Oct '22

04 Oct '22

'Shortages for lots of tech components, including things like DDR5 and GPUs, have eased quite a bit since the beginning of 2022, and prices have managed to go down as availability improves. But that reprieve hasn't come for hobbyists hoping to get a Raspberry Pi, which remains as hard to buy today as it was a year ago. The most recent update on the situation comes from Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton via YouTuber Jeff Geerling—Upton told Geerling that Pi boards are subject to the same supply constraints since the last time he wrote a post about the situation in April. Around 400,000 Pi boards are still produced per month, and some of these are being earmarked to be sent out to consumer retail sites. But Upton says that most of these are still being reserved for and sold to commercial customers who rely on Pi boards to run their businesses.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/still-cant-buy-a-raspberry-pi-board… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Linux 6.0 arrives with support for newer chips, core fixes, and oddities
by Peter Reutemann 04 Oct '22

04 Oct '22

'A stable version of Linux 6.0 is out, with 15,000 non-merge commits and a notable version number for the kernel. And while major Linux releases only happen when the prior number's dot numbers start looking too big—"there is literally no other reason"—there are a lot of notable things rolled into this release besides a marking in time. Most notable among them could be a patch that prevents a nearly two-decade slowdown for AMD chips, based on workaround code for power management in the early 2000s that hung around for far too long. Intel's Dave Hansen wrote the patch that made it into 6.0, noting in a comment on an Ars post that the issue had become an expensive drain as AMD systems gained higher CPU core counts. The average desktop user won't see huge gains, but larger systems working on intensive input/output applications should benefit. Intel's new Arc GPUs are supported in their discrete laptop form in 6.0 (though still experimental). Linux blog Phoronix notes that Intel's ARC GPUs all seem to run on open source upstream drivers, so support should show up for future Intel cards and chipsets as they arrive on the market. Linux 6.0 includes several hardware drivers of note: fourth-generation Intel Xeon server chips, the not-quite-out 13th-generation Raptor Lake and Meteor Lake chips, AMD's RDNA 3 GPUs, Threadripper CPUs, EPYC systems, and audio drivers for a number of newer AMD systems. One small, quirky addition points to larger things happening inside Linux. Lenovo's ThinkPad X13s, based on an ARM-powered Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, get some early support in 6.0. ARM support is something Linux founder Linus Torvalds is eager to see—he recently wrote release notes for kernel versions from his M2-powered MacBook Air and believes that more people using Linux on ARM devices leads to more bug reports, more patches, and more enthusiasm. Among other changes you can find in Linux 6.0, as compiled by LWN.net (in part one and part two): - ACPI and power management improvements for Sapphire Rapids CPUs - Support for SMB3 file transfer inside Samba, while SMB1 is further deprecated - More work on RISC-V, OpenRISC, and LoongArch technologies - Intel Habana Labs Gaudi2 support, allowing hardware acceleration for machine-learning libraries - A "guest vCPU stall detector" that can tell a host when a virtual client is frozen Not included in 6.0 are Rust enhancements, but those are likely coming in the next point release, 6.1. Rust, a memory-safe language sponsored by the Mozilla project, started out as something Torvalds took a wait-and-see approach toward and is now something he was hoping to see in 6.0. "Unless something odd happens, it will make it into 6.1," Torvalds told ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols in mid-September. Even just having the "core infrastructure" for Rust in 6.1 signifies a big change in Linux, which has long been dominated by C languages (however extended and modified). It must be noted that in 2022, there are patches in Linux 6.0 to help Atari's Falcon computers from the early 1990s (or their emulated descendants) better handle VGA modes, color, and other issues.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/linux-6-0-arrives-with-support-for-… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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