Category Archives: Hacks

Kernel – 5.19-rc1 Released. OK With Patched VMware, and a Hack for NVIDIA..

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Kernel 5.19-rc1 is out, and details are here:  https://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2206.0/04428.html There is a patchset for VMware 16.2.3, at https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/tree/tmp/workstation-16.2.3-k5.19 .   I have tested this with 5.19-rc1, and VMware compiles and loads/runs OK. The latest NVIDIA driver (515.48.07) compile fails, but a hack is to edit NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-515.48.07/kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-dma-resv-helper.h and NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-515.48.07/kernel/nvidia-drm/nvidia-drm-prime-fence.c and change nv_dma_resv_add_excl_fence to dma_resv_add_excl_fence After this, the driver compiles … Continue reading →

Kernel – 5.19 Pre-testing – Breaks NVIDIA and VMware.. Updated…

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Kernel 5.19-rc1 should be released in a weeks time, but many changes have already been submitted..    I created a 5.19-rc0 (git) version from changes up to May 29th, and the following are the test results – Update: Changes also tested OK with June 3rd git version of 5.19-rc..(note that any changes were made using logic, rather than … Continue reading →

VMware – Convoluted Guest Freeze Fix…

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I had been struggling for some considerable time with guest (Win10) performance issues with VMware – including application (Photoshop CS6) ‘freezing’ for a time, and overall very sluggish responses.. I had found several articles that suggested cause/effect/fix for this, but none really worked.. I made changes to control khugepaged: …………………….. [root@rglinux820 ~]$ echo never | tee /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag … Continue reading →

Kernel – 5.16 Pre-RC Tests.. OK, so far..

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Just compiled/installed the November 10 git version of 5.16-pre, and the latest NVIDIA driver 495.44 compiles/loads OK. There is already a pre-release patchset for Kernel 5.16 and VMware 16.2.1, at https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/tree/tmp/workstation-16.2.1-k5.16 With these, preliminary tests with NVIDIA and VMware have been successful.. ]# uname -a Linux rg400g4 5.16.0-rc0 #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Nov 10 16:53:28 PST 2021 … Continue reading →

Kernel – 5.14-rc1 – OK with Patched VMware, Breaks NVIDIA..

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Kernel 5.14-rc1 has been released, and brief details are here:   http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2107.1/02943.html The latest VMware 16.1.2 patch includes a fix for 5.14-rc, and compiles and runs OK (tested with 5.14-rc1).   Find it at:  https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/tree/workstation-16.1.2 NVIDIA 470.42.01 compile failed: …………. /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.42.01/kernel/common/inc/nv-time.h: In function ‘nv_sleep_ms’: /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-470.42.01/kernel/common/inc/nv-time.h:217:18: error: ‘struct task_struct’ has no member named ‘state’; did you mean ‘__state’? 217 | … Continue reading →

ARM64 – Pi 4 USB Problems – And a Messy Fix..

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After some delay, I finally had a ‘good’ cooling solution for my 8GB Pi4, and resumed testing.. The last Kernel version I had running on it was 5.9-rc4, and everything seemed to be working OK (including 8GB of memory recognised). I then updated to 5.11.18, and found that none of the USB ports worked: # dmesg |grep … Continue reading →

NVIDIA – New Driver 460.32.03 – Patch Mod for 5.11..

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NVIDIA have released their latest driver – 460.32.03, and details are here: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/linux-solaris-and-freebsd-driver-460-32-03-long-lived-branch-release/165423 The patch for 460.27.04 is easy to modify to work with this version – just remove the first section (patch to ~/kernel/common/inc/nv-linux.h) as this is no longer necessary. Tested with Kernel 5.11-rc2.. ……….. ld -r -o /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-460.32.03/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nv-modeset-interface.o /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-460.32.03/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nvidia-modeset-linux.o /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-460.32.03/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nv-kthread-q.o MODPOST /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-460.32.03/kernel/Module.symvers CC [M] /home/rgadsdon/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-460.32.03/kernel/nvidia-drm.mod.o … Continue reading →

ARM – Vim3-Pro – with EFI and Fedora 33..

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Recently acquired one of the Khadas VIM3-Pro arm64 SoCs, and was impressed with the level of documentation available.. Unfortunately – as is so often the case – this was all relentlessly Ubuntu-focussed, with a semi-proprietary kernel based on the 4.X kernel tree.. At least the U-Boot version was fairly recent, and appeared to support EFI etc.. The … Continue reading →

Kernel – 5.9-rc6 – Rare Compile Fail!

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Kernel 5.9-rc6 has been released, and brief details are here:  http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2009.2/05870.html In a very rare occurrence, the kernel compile actually fails: …………………………….. CALL scripts/checksyscalls.sh CALL scripts/atomic/check-atomics.sh DESCEND objtool CHK include/generated/compile.h CC drivers/dax/super.o drivers/dax/super.c:325:6: error: redefinition of ‘dax_supported’ 325 | bool dax_supported(struct dax_device *dax_dev, struct block_device *bdev, | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~ In file included from drivers/dax/super.c:16: ./include/linux/dax.h:162:20: note: previous definition … Continue reading →

Fedora – Fun with ZRAM..

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Fedora 33 will be using ZRAM as standard for swap, rather than a partition or swapfile on disk.    I had no problem with this on a new F33 install (Odroid H2Plus) but after upgrading an existing Fedora 32 system it refused to initialise, and ‘/dev/zram0‘ did not exist.    Research revealed that the documentation for much of this … Continue reading →