Antoine de Saint Exupéry
It's been said long ago.
“La perfection est atteinte, non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer.”
Posts by Chavdar Ivanov
57 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Oct 2007
Feature bloat: Psychology boffins find people tend to add elements to solve a problem rather than take things away
Windows 10 Insiders sent on quest deep into Registry to fetch goblet of Reserved Storage
Friday 11th January 2019 10:13 GMT
Re: Reserved Storage
Well, I own a very standard HP Envy 17 laptop, still good for anything I throw at it, about 2.5 years old. It has a 500GB M.2 SSD as its main disk plus *two* empy slots for 2.5" disks ( I have installed a second 750GB HDD, which holds copies of NetBSD-current, OpenSUSE TumbleWeed and RedHat enterprise server, all can boot on bare metal ). I can also swap the DVD for a tray containing one more disk, so, should I want it, I could have *four* disks... Windows 10 on the main disk is running mainly VirtualBox or VMWare Player with some 20-25 other systems...
As one Microsoft Windows product hauls itself out of the grave, others tumble in
Grad sends warning to manager: Be nice to our kit and it'll be nice to you
Microsoft devises new way of making you feel old: Windows NT is 25
MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF CARS: SpaceX parks a Tesla in orbit (just don't mention the barge)
Linux kernel community tries to castrate GPL copyright troll
Inside OpenSSL's battle to change its license: Coders' rights, tech giants, patents and more
Open-source storage that doesn't suck? Our man tries to break TrueNAS
Microsoft's kinder, gentler collaboration war: Evernote, you're first
Monday 22nd August 2016 18:53 GMT
Re: @Alienrat and ASAC
If you can setup an ftp server in your own house, then surely you will be able to setup an Apache or nginx server with owncloud over https, even with a self-signed certificate (after all you will be the one to use it, if you want to give access to files to other people, then they should be trusting you). It will need a little more than an ftp server, but even an RPI should be able to do the job if it is configured accordingly.
Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell for Linux, Macs. Repeat, Microsoft has open-sourced PowerShell
Go catch Pokemon in this, nerds: Our space neighborhood of 1.2m galaxies mapped in 3D
Dell buys out EMC in mega-super-duper $67 billion deal
Raspberry Pi gains new FreeBSD distribution
Wednesday 19th August 2015 10:25 GMT
NetBSD...
It has been available for ages on NetBSD as well. Take your poison from http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/201508190340Z/evbarm-earmv6hf/binary/gzimg/rpi.img.gz - this is the today's -current build. It is actually very easy to setup an environment to follow -current and build these images.
Revealed: The AMAZING technology behind Apple's $1299 Retina MacBooks – a lot of glue
Chewier than a slice of Pi: MIPS Creator CI20 development board
Speaking in Tech: Android 5.0 Lollipop is a TRAIN WRECK
Nexus 7 fandroids tell of salty taste after sucking on Google's Lollipop
Friday 21st November 2014 09:57 GMT
No problem with my Nexus 7/2013
I had the developper preview sideloaded with no problems generally; on the day of the release I sideloaded the real version and again everything has been as smooth as is to be expected. I do tend to limit the number of programs running, though.
The WiFi draining bug of the developper preview has now gone, mine is now good for 2 to 3 days on a single charge (befeore I had to place it in airplane mode to be sure to have power for the evening use).
Nexus 9: Google and HTC deliver Android 5.0 'Lollipop' at iPad prices
Chuh. Heavy, dude: HP ZBook 17 mobile workstation
Tuesday 27th May 2014 00:08 GMT
Re: Rubbish
I am writing this on an HP EliteBook 8570w. The battery easily lasts for 4.5-5 hours. The fans work only when needed. The powerbrick is not the biggest I've seen, although it is not small. It is as heavy as one would expect from an excellent built machine. I've installed in mine very fast 120GB SSD, which at the moment holds Windows 8.1 update (boots from cold for about 10 seconds to desktop - I login with the fingerprint scanner); it also has 24GB mSATA card. I've also replaced the DVD/RW device with an SSD tray and a WD Black 750GB disk, which holds most of the data, also separate installations of NetBSD-current and Solaris 11.2.
There you are. I used to have a ThinkPad T61p which I thought to be the best laptop I've had; it sadly died on me due to the well known NVidia substrate problem; now this 8570w replaced it.
BTW I also have an HP ZBook 15 at work in my occasional disposal - it is less bulky than the 8570w (and I suppose the ZBook 17 - haven't seen one yet), also a decent machine, although I'd agree that the exterior is not very exciting compared to the 8570w.
Google: 'EVERYTHING at Google runs in a container'
Sunday 25th May 2014 12:44 GMT
Re: about to deploy a few containers
1. You don't *have* to use SCVMM to manage Hyper-V - but then you knew this already... All you need is W8.1 Professional workstation with the management role enabled. You need AD infrastructure only if you are after HA via failover clustering.
2. My guess about your SCVMM obsession is that you haven't bothered or for some reason is incapable of upgrading to SCVMM2012R2 - try it, is it actually usable. And yes, all earlier versions were a horrible mess.
MacBook Air 13-inch: If you squint hard enough, you'll see a lesser-spotted Apple Price Cut
Nvidia, VMware join to pipe high-quality 3D graphics from the cloud
Thursday 27th March 2014 09:35 GMT
Re: More cloud frauds going on...
I still confirm that I have tested the abovementioned combo and it is completely usable for serious CAD/CAM work. Rendering works as expected, the vGPU driver has direct connection to the VM without the play of the virtualizing platform, in this case XenServer, the latency requirement is met by the typical Internet connections. The program reports using real NVidia driver, so no software modifications are necessary. On my laptop at home with Virgin Media 20Mb/1Mb connection it works almost as if it is on the local machine. The frame rate is of course reduced - by Citrix Receiver itself - to about 30 fps - but for CAD/CAM work this is not so important. The screen updates typically would be lossy, so they are perceived as smooth enough; you can switch to lossless, in which case the reported frame rate stays the same, but you simply see less frames displayed, so it would be jerky. All in all, there are plenty of use cases for this, but do not expect to be playing your Chrysis 2 this way any time soon at 60FPS on a 2540x1600 monitor. It's kinda funny to show ones big CAD package running just fine on a Nexus 7 tablet...
Wednesday 26th March 2014 22:42 GMT
Re: More cloud frauds going on...
It would have been nice if you've tried it first before posting comments. The fact is that this is available now, but with XenServer 6.2SP1 and XenDesktop 7.1 instead of VMWare. The latency is noticeable, but the setup is completely usable for high-end CAD/CAM packages.
Julie Larson-Green: Yes, MICROSOFT is going to KILL WINDOWS
Tuesday 26th November 2013 17:28 GMT
Re: Why Windows is doomed.
I was going to say something similar; instead, I posted two videos - shutting down my laptop and booting it from cold to usable desktop - http://youtu.be/WCBt-LZLpno and suspend/resume of the same laptop - http://youtu.be/RBoQMUgrrJc . Whatever one says, this is not slow. Videos taken with my Blackberry (9900), held by hand.
Manual override: Raspberry Pi beginners' books
Thursday 18th April 2013 15:46 GMT
Re: Heh
I wouldn't know about MIDI controller, but NetBSD itself runs quite well on mine - there was just one crash due to some bad blocks on the SD card (which in itself is somewhat slowish under NetBSD, I do the compilations over NFS).
Lately -current builds well under evbarm, rpi.img live image is what I am running (just follow the wiki in resizing the partitions).
To be honest I still haven't decided what to do with mine, I've got plenty of other hardware to tinker with NetBSD, but why not on the RPI as well...
Thursday 18th April 2013 14:37 GMT
Re: Heh
I also ran RiscOS for a while on it, but didn't know what to do with it (never used it before, felt a bit awkward).
Right now my RasPI runs:
root@rpi / # uname -a
NetBSD rpi 6.99.19 NetBSD 6.99.19 (RPI) #4: Sat Apr 6 13:27:49 BST 2013 sysbuild@....:/home/sysbuild/Sysbuild/evbarm/obj/home/sysbuild/src/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/RPI evbarm
which I cross-compiled myself; presently it is slaving over pkgsrc compilations:
root@rpi / # pkg_info | wc -l
115
(doing some Common Lisp ATM...).
All the hardware seems to be recognized; X works fine, using WindowMaker as a window manager.
Review: HP ElitePad 900 Atom tablet
Monday 8th April 2013 14:34 GMT 
Micro-SD card
worked fine on the pre-production one I've had since early December. The only problem I've had with this so far was that the HDMI port on the expansion jacket did not work (It showed as a second monitor, but never gave any signal; on the other hand, the one on the docking station worked fine).
I also briefly tried to boot non-Windows 8 OS (NetBSD in my case), but couldn't.
I agree with the overall conclusion that the HP side of the bargain has been executed very well. BTW the one I had came even with a serial port adapter - find me *one* other tablet with this... I can even use it to test DNC links to machine tools.
Another interesting accessory is the Productivity jacket, should be available "Spring 2013", whatever that means, see here for example: http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-elitepad-900-hands-on-this-windows-8-tablet-means-business/elitepad-900-keyboard-case .
Whoops! Tiny bug in NetBSD 6.0 code ruins SSH crypto keys
Saturday 30th March 2013 15:56 GMT 
Further development... the fix that wasn't.
Apparently it turned out the fix was incorrect... Subsequent analysis is even more entertaining, see
http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/security/advisories/NetBSD-SA2013-003.txt.asc
(especially the tls@ credit - "... for causing, finding, "fixing", and fixing the bug
and helping with this advisory.").
Tuesday 26th March 2013 10:18 GMT 
So what?
I have been running NetBSD since the halcyon days of 1.5... There is hardly a better bunch of OS developers out there, usually responding within the hour on one of the lists. My impression is that anyone who uses NetBSD in production keeps an eye on the discussions, especially security advisories. Patching is trivial. I very much doubt there was even an attempt to use this, let alone to succeed. One could argue that OEMs using NetBSD as a platform would suffer more in providing the firmware updates to their systems, but I'd suggest that these still use mostly NetBSD 5 and earlier, so it is unlikely many have been affected.
This is not the first security advisory related to NetBSD, but probably the first to attract such an attention. Move over.
And yes, I run -current only, it has been extremely stable for me for a code in constant development (it fluctuates, of course, one has to be careful with the 'sysupgrade auto' bit and do it after certain testing).
Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan
Long-delayed Fedora Linux 18 arrives at last
Dead Steve Jobs' mega yacht seized by testy Philippe Starck
Microsoft Windows Server 2012: Why Bother?
Mozilla's Social add-on MERGES Facebook with Firefox
MULTICOLOURED TARANTULAS found UP TREES in Brazil
Samsung outs Ivy Bridge notebooks
Falklands, Cardiff lie beneath track of rogue Phobos-Grunt
Dennis Ritchie: The C man who booted Unix
Who'll keep taking Windows Tablets in the iPad era?
Apple frees iOS 4.3 two days before iPad 2 Arrival™
DEC: The best of systems, the worst of systems
Friday 11th February 2011 16:20 GMT
You made my day...
Memories...
The thing about the VAX is probably a sacrilege - this was the system which brought 32-bit computing to the masses, after all... I started on a 730, well built but slow; then a few 750s, 780, 785 and ended with 8800 (and some 4000 as far as I remember). And also a few MicroVAXen, had one beside my desk, real object of pride (it was actually a VAXstation).
The Rainbow wasn't *that* bad when it arrived - comparing to the other similar pieces of crap we had at the time; one could run either CP/M or PC/DOS, but what killed it for us was the weird pre-formatted floppies we had to use. Anyway, I think we had only two of these.
You've missed the Professional 350 and 380 workstations - again something to behold... The 8800 VAX I worked with had one of these as its console... still remember how to turn the VAX on - wellm the command was 'POWER ON', given at the console prompt of the Professional ... all the fans then came together...
To this list I'd add a few 11/40s, a single 11/45 and several 11/70s, which I liked a lot. Got my first UNIX on one of these, although don't remember the exact edition.
As far as the PDP-15, at one stage I was about to start doing my master thesis (in interactive computer graphics, that was 1980...) on one of these - actually an XVM - so I went through the manuals and especially the assembly, but was lucky - the machine was deemed too sensitive for a student to use (it was used to design PCBs at the time), so my experience with these is nowadays limited to playing with SIMH - still have a few virtual machines running DOS/15. The master thesis had to be done on an early HP - 2637A, called "Intelligent Terminal" - had to program a lot of linear algebra, matrix analysis and differential geometry to get the thing running - in BASIC...
SIMH is also what I run when I want to remember the VMS days (the VAX machine running under OpenSolaris on a quad-Opteron is faster than anything I've seen in metal...). As far as the LISP machine mentioned, I got the interpreter running on a SIMH PDP-1 machine - weird... computes the S-exp after you close the bracket, no returns.
Memories...
This year's classy compact cameras
Monday 20th December 2010 13:37 GMT
Samsung EX1 anyone?
With this you get exactly that - 24-72mm equivalent lens, the brightest of them all - f1.8-2.4. Still the one to beat. I haven't seen yet a bad review of this one, although all find a few truly stupid bits... what is important is close to perfect on this camera, what is not so, can be dreadful. The G12 is way too big and not as bright, the P7000 looks like a flop, being so slow in operation, the LX5 is marginally better than the daddy ( the LX3, that is). I'd try the S95, though.
Next Solaris prepped for 2011
Opera hopes to push fast engine envelope with 10.5 preview
Thursday 24th December 2009 11:27 GMT
Quick benchmark...
SunSpider 0.9 on the same machine (just the totals):
opera 10.5 pre-alpha 724.8
chrome 4.0.266.0 1106.8
firefox 3.5.6 2215.2
ie(320bit) 8.0.7600.16385 10751.6
Last time I checked Opera was substantially slower than Chrome. I guess, the guys from 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway will have their Chrismas cancelled...
IE is pathetic, as expected.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
