Tag: computing
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FreeBSD
After playing with a BSD for an afternoon, I’ve made a few realizations. To be frank, I feel sorry for BSD. It used to be the king of routers. Now, Linux does that too. Even for the super-popular Raspberry Pi 4 platform there are outstanding usability bugs that haven’t been fixed for three years. Digging…
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Cubby Linux: My New Distro Idea
I’ve read through the LFS: Linux From Scratch and the add-on BLFS and ALFS books that pile on popular advanced concepts, although there’s no hope to cover everything. It is for this reason that new Linux distributions are created all the time. Here, I elaborate my thoughts to help motivate myself for building my own…
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Linux Kernel 6.6 Hardening
After building a number of Linux kernels for use in embedded systems emphasizing a layered security approach, I have decided that I’d like to share my knowledge and recommendations on a hardened build configuration with the world. My intent is to draw attention to importat build options that you should consider for use in your…
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The Sad State of Consumer IPv6
IPv6 on home routers is in a sorry, sorry state. I got the itch to learn IPv6 networking and started with testing several high-end home routers to see which units might best meet my educational and experimental needs. I figured that once I identified a solid fit, my new (potentially used, but new-to-me) device would…
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From SBC to Mini PC
Hardware matters, but software matters so much more. Easy as Pi For years software support, documentation, and the surrounding community of hobbyists made the Raspberry Pi outstandingly popular to the point of techno-culture phenomenon. The Raspberry Pi 5 was released earlier this year, but supply issues continue such that a casual purchase today won’t be…
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Pixel Watch 2
I set some money on fire and went for a Pixel 8 Pro promotion. For a bonus $150 trade-in value on my last generation Pixel 7 Pro, it worked out that I was spending $450 to get an incremental upgrade to the next phone plus a Pixel Watch 2, normally $350. The upgrade also provided…
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Scientific Computing with QEMU on Raspberry Pi
Here’s the deal. Let’s say you’ve heard of BOINC–a tool for donating CPU time to distributed computing projects, typically for the advancement of the sciences. Big names in distributed computing applications like Rosetta, MilkyWay, Climate Prediction, and World Community Grid hunger for your CPU cycles in exchange for the promise of advancing our understanding of…
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Website Stability Woes
This site has been offline for almost a day, and I hadn’t noticed! Luckily, I came here to draft a post about my recent experience with a PHP bug, and I noticed that the page was loading to a white screen. Experience teaches me that the web server Caddy likes to return empty responses when…
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Dimensions of Performance
Here, I present a list and description of the performance dimensions that actually matter so far in my software engineering career. No flex, no marketing, no metrology. My hope is to separate the different kinds of performance that could matter to help you identify the right performance tradeoffs for your application.