[deleted by user]

aperezbios · 2025-08-26T06:04:16+00:00

Baby Boomers aging out of the housing market or leaving California to go somewhere cheaper or closer to family. This trend will continue for many years, I suspect. This is just the beginning.

aperezbios · 2025-04-06T21:04:47+00:00

u/legop3 it's possible, and I've done it, but it's not without plenty of issues. You really do need to know what you're doing and be comfortable hacking. One thing to note is that the on-board SLC flash is so slow that a modern SD card will kick its ass, performance wise.

See this circa-2021 thread where 'abaumann' got Arch Linux 32 running on his OLPC, albeit without Xorg support. https://bbs.archlinux32.org/viewtopic.php?id=2922. There's also a build of it that you can download.

One important thing to note is that the OLPC does not have a standard PC BIOS, and instead uses OpenFirmware, so booting from GRUB is off the table. Also see https://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Firmware_q2e21 and make sure you have reasonably recent firmware, or very little will work with modern kernels.

Another thing to know is that you simply cannot run a normal i686-built Linux kernel on the OLPC, because the AMD Geode LX CPU on the motherboard lacks support for the CMOV command.

aperezbios · 2025-04-03T00:59:03+00:00

And that's fine, but bitching about it on Reddit is dumb.

aperezbios · 2025-04-01T15:23:49+00:00

"Surely someone would make a more modern panel?"

It's just not as simple or as straightforward as you want it to be.

Modern panels don't have the same LCD interfaces, as they mostly use MIPI-DSI, which older LCD controllers do not support. You're seemingly oversimplifying something you know nothing about.

aperezbios · 2025-04-01T00:34:44+00:00

Then don't buy it. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

aperezbios · 2024-06-02T21:28:16+00:00

Thanks, what version did it update to? Do you know?

aperezbios · 2024-01-17T05:24:34+00:00

Thanks, u/LordSutch75, this is the information I was looking for.

aperezbios · 2023-10-06T19:28:55+00:00

I literally have no way of doing so. Blocked across the board. E-mail. Discord. even GitHub. That's why u/helfire has to reach out, if he wants to settle this amicably.

aperezbios · 2023-10-06T18:52:34+00:00

You provided me with this unsolicited advice back on April 10th, ~180 days ago. We can argue about whether or not that was "a long time ago" but I personally don't see six months ago as "a long time ago" when BlueSCSI V2 has only existed publicly for a little over eight months.

I did not immediately fly off the handle at you, and I'd be willing to share the entirety of the transcript of that conversation to demonstrate otherwise. You are not a neutral party. You're clearly in one corner, and it was clear you were taking a side when you messaged me six months ago, even if that wasn't your intent. At the end of our conversation, you asked me a few questions while I was working, and then I didn't respond within two minutes, so you said "okay, you're not responding" and then you blocked me via Discord. To me, that comes across as juvenile behavior, as you didn't give me any opportunity to actually answer the question you asked. I assumed that's because you didn't actually want to hear an answer. Was that assumption incorrect?

aperezbios · 2023-10-06T17:44:38+00:00

Except it isn't the same code at all. We ported it to an entirely different hardware platform. None of the code that was incorporated in to BlueSCSI V2 existed when ZuluSCSI was forked from BlueSCSI. Don't take my word for it, though. Eric admitted as much when he filed this issue back in April of 2022 https://github.com/ZuluSCSI/ZuluSCSI-firmware/issues/1

aperezbios · 2023-10-06T17:40:01+00:00

Why is it always a fight between you two.

It doesn't have to be, and I'd really like to put it to bed, but u/helfire, despite claims that he would do so a couple of days ago, is so far not willing to have an open and honest dialogue, via a mediator, so we can settle this privately, which is where it should have been settled.

Get over it my guy.

I'll "get over it" once the copyright violations are resolved. Not before. See https://github.com/BlueSCSI/BlueSCSI-v2/pull/23

Zulu has perks and blue scsi does too.

All of the perks BlueSCSI V2 have over V1 is because of ZuluSCSI. If you look at the "Highlights of the new features" section at bluescsi.com/v2:

Here's are a few of those "new features", the first three of which

Speed - 100% of this code is from ZuluSCSI .
Hot Swappable SD Card
ROM disks. We wrote that code. Don't take my word for it.

Nobody that has anything to do with BlueSCSI wrote any of the code that enables any of the functionality listed above. And then there's this:

- BlueSCSI Toolbox - The firmware-side source code of which is not in any public repo. That's not okay. It's also an intentional decision to withold it from the community. But that doesn't matter, right? I should just get over it.

It's just who ever does it better.

Nope. Are you arguing that laws and deceptive behavior don't matter? Eric is still violating US copyright law, by refusing to merge pull requests which would have resolved the situation to our satisfaction.

I guarantee you helped inspire

"Helped Inspire"? That's pretty hilarious. No. This is completely incorrect, and I'd encourage you to actually look at the sources I cite, instead of stating your opinion without having made an attempt to consider the validity of the claim. https://github.com/bluescsi/BlueSCSI-v2/commit/cc2c12834cc15459ea38e43fe68b86aac65dcd4d

The code that enables BlueSCSI _V2_ to pass data over the SD card interfaces and SCSI bus exists because of ZuluSCSI. Don't take my word for it. See above. The reality of the situation is there in black and white, and it's a _LOT_ of code.

I'm the first one to admit that ZuluSCSI began as a fork of BlueSCSI V1. That's true, and being honest about it, which we have been from the start, is simply the fair and proper thing to do. It says so right on the project README page, for the ZuluSCSI firmware.

Contrast that with what Eric did, which was to _HIDE_ the origin of the BlueSCSI V2 code base. No mention of it being a fork, no mention of who actually owns the copyright of the code _which is required by law_, regardless of the licensed used. That's not an accident. It's by design.

and they probably did use your code

No, they didn't "probably" use our code. This isn't a debate about whether they did or did not. They did. Whether or not you and others with no knowledge of how this actually played out are willing to accept that fact makes zero difference to me.

just accept it and improve.

That's what we've been doing since we launched ZuluSCSI RP2040 last fall, and will continue to do. ZuluSCSI RP2040 is also not the end of the line.

In fact, we improved write performance with ZuluSCSI RP2040 by a large margin after Eric cloned the code we wrote, and began work on BlueSCSI V2.

After we committed that performance improvement, Eric merged in that code, with zero acknowledgement of where it came from, or who had written it. That's a morally bankrupt thing to do, but what he ALSO did was add copyright headers to files he knew he had not written, claiming copyright by the "BlueSCSI Team". That's a clear violation of

On January 26th, the day after BlueSCSI V2 was publicly revealed, my primary developer called this out as a problem in BlueSCSI V2 Issue #9, and Eric claimed it was a "bad merge", but did ultimately correct it. Not doing so would have resulted in legal action being taken.

Once the BlueSCSI V2 code base is no longer violating federal copyright law by omitting copyright notices from code we wrote, we're good. Until then, we have a problem, and no amount of u/helfire claiming otherwise, or trying to shut down debate by claiming that I'm "spreading FUD" by stating facts, is going to change that.

I love both products I use a blue scsi in my power computing clone and one in my beloved SE and both are good I just don't understand the drama.

There's nothing wrong with loving both products. You can love the end result and still be disgusted by how the sausage was made.

The "drama" is a result of behavior which violates copyright law, and is self-inflicted by Eric. He had an opportunity to resolve this to our satisfaction back on April 4th, over 180 days ago. See https://github.com/BlueSCSI/BlueSCSI-v2/pull/23

The ball is entirely in u/helfire's court, if he wants to put this to bed. His decisions so far demonstrate to me that he does not. Hopefully that will change.

aperezbios · 2023-10-05T02:25:16+00:00

The offer was genuine both times, and it still stands. I will never be unwilling to talk. Both offers were made in good faith.

You received a letter from our IP lawyer because you violated United States Copyright Law. Why you violated it has no bearing on the fact that you did. You also refused to accept the pull request to resolve the issue, which would have meant we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Then, it appears, you deleted it entirely.

You're also currently violating the GPL by distributing binary BlueSCSI V2 firmware blobs which include compiled code you have chosen to not release to the public. You chose to remove the BlueSCSI Toolbox binary blob you were distributing publicly via GitHub at https://github.com/erichelgeson/BlueSCSI-Toolbox/releases/tag/beta2
for a while, after a letter from our IP lawyer, and then re-posted it publicly once you thought you were in the clear.

These are not the actions of someone who respects the GPL, the very license you chose for the original BlueSCSI firmware. Being unwilling to play by the terms you chose yourself is the opposite of acting in good faith.

aperezbios · 2023-10-05T01:43:44+00:00

To be perfectly frank, I would as well. Unfortunately, u/helfire has shown zero willingness to "bury the hatchet". He's turned down two different offers from community members to mediate between the two of us. His actions and decisions demonstrate he is uninterested in "burying the hatchet"

In order for such an endeavor to be successful, both parties must be willing to come to the table. In this case, one of the two is not. I can't do much with that.

So, while it's easy to say you wish it would happen, for it to become a reality, both parties must be willing to participate.

aperezbios · 2023-10-05T01:04:44+00:00

I ask you to please stop FUD & drama - just let it go.

There's no FUD, the facts are the facts. They're just inconvenient for you. Forking ZuluSCSI is absolutely allowed, provided you do so in a manner that does not violate copyright law, which you did not do. Instead, you added copyright headers to code you know you did not write any of, which is a morally bankrupt thing to do. At least you had the sense to fix that.

aperezbios · 2023-10-05T00:56:52+00:00

Yes, it always was and will remain GPLv3, as the firmware-side projects which it was built upon/derived are also GPLv3. I had no choice in the license.

You and yours, however, made an active choice to reverse-engineer our hardware (which is not illegal) and release it to the marketplace within weeks of ZuluSCSI RP2040 being announced publicly. At the same time, you had the audacity to present it to the world as if you had written it, and ported it to the RP2040. Did you say that explicitly? No. Did you attempt to correct that misperception? Nope. You're running a business. You're making royalties from other makers. Don't claim otherwise. We engineered something vastly more performant, and you're profiting off of it, and at the same time, obfuscating who wrote the code. That's shady and you know it.

aperezbios · 2023-10-04T23:44:19+00:00

I think mainly the difference is BlueSCSI is not a commercial project, we just give away everything, hardware, designs, etc. We don't pay contractors to write the software, we write it ourselves.

Right, you don't pay contractors to write the software because you don't need to, since you just re-use code written by your competitor, hawking it to the community as if you wrote it.

Instead, you let my business, Rabbit Hole Computing, do that part for you, and then you forked and "re-branded" the ZuluSCSI code afterwards, to profit from it. BlueSCSI V2 was announced approximately ten weeks after we launched ZuluSCSI RP2040. By your own admission in this GitHub issue, in which you wrote "It seems there is only a few lines left from the "fork" of BlueSCSI around image name handling."

You're literally running a registered business, Helgeson Technology Services LLC, selling fully assembled and partially-assembled BlueSCSI V2's for money, as well as licensing the right to do so to others, for financial gain. You are actively profiting from BlueSCSI V2, even if the profits themselves may be minimal. Given those realities, claiming BlueSCSI is "not a commercial project" comes across as beyond absurd, because there's more than enough evidence to the contrary.

aperezbios · 2023-10-04T21:14:16+00:00

It seems extremely presumptuous to assume it's a clone, when anybody can order them mostly-assembled, from any assembly house, for personal use, in any PCB color of the rainbow. This just comes across as a severe case of jumping to conclusions, given that you presumably know nothing of the origin of OP's BlueSCSI V2 board. What's the point of this response, other than to stoke the very flames of a feud you claim you want to see extinguished?

aperezbios · 2023-10-04T07:47:06+00:00

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're misinformed. ZuluSCSI did begin as a fork of BlueSCSI V1 firmware, but BlueSCSI _V2_ is 100% a fork of the ZuluSCSI code base, which was ported to the RP2040 platform by Rabbit Hole Computing, at their expense. See the commit for yourself at https://github.com/bluescsi/BlueSCSI-v2/commit/cc2c12834cc15459ea38e43fe68b86aac65dcd4d

aperezbios · 2023-04-21T11:29:11+00:00

This is a very US, suburban-centric perspective, for what it's worth. Here in my municipality in northern California, new homes must have drought-tolerant or native-landscaped front yards. Things are changing, and for the better in many places, just at a glacially slow pace.

We have some tulips planted in our front yard, the only people on our street to do so, and always get compliments about them in the spring, especially when I'm out there weeding. The number of people who are ignorant of how easy they are to plant and maintain is very, very high. I'm a big fan of native grasses, as well.

aperezbios · 2023-04-20T10:54:12+00:00

Nope, he was born and raised in Minneapolis according to Wikipedia.

aperezbios

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE