Ever since I spent some considerable time promoting HP’s IA64 Linux systems, way back in the early-2000’s, I have always wanted one for myself, and I recently managed to acquire an RX2600 1U server for a very reasonable price, and beef it up with some inexpensive parts from eBay.. The spec – at the moment – is … Continue reading →
VMware Workstation Pro 14.0.0 has been released – a bit earlier than expected – and it has a (potentially) nasty surprise for those with ‘older’ CPUs.. Release notes are here: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Workstation-Pro/14.0.0/rn/workstation-14-release-notes.html I installed this on my test system without any problems, and was able to confirm that it compiles and loads/runs OK with Kernels 4.13.x, and that … Continue reading →
I had been getting a warning on boot with recent kernels on my Intel Atom-based UP system, and found a workaround.. The error flagged is – apparently – harmless, and is due to systemd not being able to recognise some mmc disk partitions at that stage of the boot process.. …… [ 5.124250] systemd-gpt-auto-generator[416]: Failed to dissect: … Continue reading →
The original ‘SeaBios’ BIOS on my Acer c720p was a little clunky, so I decided to make the plunge and update it to a ‘proper’ Linux-friendly BIOS.. There is a known/good one available, but it is UEFI-only, so will involve changing the filesystem/partition layout on an existing system.. Disk /dev/sda: 119.2 GiB, 128035676160 bytes, 250069680 sectors … Continue reading →
After more research, I decided to get one of the Intel ‘Apollo Lake’-based SOC systems, and the one I chose was from Kodlix.. It is functionally identical with another from Beelink, and in fact the Kodlix website shows images of the Beelink version of the device.. I just preferred the Kodlix version, as the case was a … Continue reading →
After some research, I decided to use an Intel-powered ex-Chromebook for my portable Linux project.. I settled on an Acer Chromebook c720p, as this could be ‘converted’ to run Linux natively, rather than in emulation via Crouton.. There are several articles on this, but I found useful info (and a chassis/mobo diagram) here: https://ankitrasto.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/clean-installing-linux-on-the-acer-c720pc720-chromebook-a-complete-guide/ If you are … Continue reading →
After a bit of a hiatus, I updated the UP Board to Kernel 4.11-rc8, and HDMI sound is now supported.. In the kernel config, under ‘ALSA for SoC audio support‘, select ‘X86 sound devices‘, and ‘HDMI audio without HDaudio on Intel Atom platforms‘ After (re)boot to 4.11-rc8: [rgadsdon@rgup ~]$ ll /dev/snd total 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root … Continue reading →
Kernel 4.11 ‘final’ has been delayed for a week, and -rc8 has been released.. 4.11-patched VMware 12.5.5 is OK, but there is still only a ‘Bad’ (illegal licence modification) patch for the latest NVIDIA driver.. (see https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/1002820/linux/-patch-381-09-kernel-4-11-rc5/ ) But, if you have an older card, there is a valid patch for driver 340.102 – which does not … Continue reading →
I recently obtained one of the newly-released (- to the ‘public’..) Pine64 ARM64 systems… My first reaction, was that it is a bit on the large side.. The board is over twice the size of the Odroid C2.. As usual, the ‘standard’ U-Boot was a heavily-customised old version, that only mounted Android-format Kernel ‘blob’s, but a hacked … Continue reading →
My ‘system disk’ (/dev/sda) started to show bad sectors, recently, and so I decided to replace it. The disk was around 8 years old, and had been in almost-continuous use.. I have not had to do this for some considerable time, and I think the last time was in the late-90s, and using LILO! (No convoluted grub2 … Continue reading →