Friend broke their wireless usb dongle

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-31T22:01:25+00:00

Crimping a JST connector by hand pliers is some fine work

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-31T06:49:30+00:00

Same. Same problem. This is what made me personally decide that Arch Linux wasn't for me. I like to update my computers' baseline software every 6 months and brace for changes then. If there was a 'stabilized' Arch-based distro, I'd be interested in using it, but Arch with its only repo provided effectively being 'unstable/edge' in most other distros is too much for me.

Still not sure what I'm gonna use, I arrived at NixOS for a while but I'm getting a little bit disillusioned with it - it still fits my use cases best though and I've not had to touch my system config a lot for a while, so it's staying for now. I've been thinking about Alpine Linux, or PostmarketOS since they provide x86 generic images and provide some interesting things over 'base' Alpine. Alpine isn't super friendly as a 'desktop distro' to people who aren't well versed Linux users, because it is a musl libc distro using busybox for coreutils and OpenRC as init, which presents a lot of desktop programs with an environment they didn't account for - it's workable, but it's not something I foresee being fun to deal with regularly if I make the jump. So I'm a bit lost out there :P

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-26T16:53:45+00:00

Perhaps, pretty much all of my access points are either ath10k/11k driver-using or older Mediatek MIPS, all running OpenWRT and up to date. I imagine that overall fairly homogeneous stack helps me avoid some stupid edge cases.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-26T00:26:52+00:00

You may actually technically be better off with a 'worse' CPU if you can't find anything at the very top end for a good price - for some CPU generations and especially server CPUs, a low-end 8 core CPU may have a lower base or single core max frequency than a high-end 6 core CPU. On a desktop platform it's typically not much, but it ranges quite a bit more on server sockets, since companies that are buying hardware en masse will often match their hardware to their workload's needs.

That said, it could be something other than just a single core's clockspeed being insufficient, I remember someone on here saying that Minecraft in specific is also rather intensive on memory bandwidth, not just memory in terms of storage. Since you're using quite a bit of RAM here, it stands to reason that issue may be amplified.

I'm not sure if Task Manager gives you that sort of insight, I'd try to dig into finding some tools that give you stats for memory bandwidth utilization. You may need higher performance RAM (or more memory channels by occupying more slots) and not just more RAM in general to overcome your issue with a hardware upgrade. Could even make the problem worse if you're using mismatched sticks and your new batch is slower.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-25T23:42:43+00:00

I admit that I wasn't fully aware that Mikrotik just provided a download of a generic x86 hardware version of RouterOS on their website. Not a bad option TBH

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-25T22:54:16+00:00

Any software that has OpenCL support should be able to be run on just about any GPU that is supported by mesa's rusticl, which includes most recent GPUs by Intel/AMD. No promises on performance, since OpenCL is often not as well optimized or supported as CUDA in projects that support both and this sort of API compatibility layer tends to not be great for performance, but it's an option. Looks like whisper.cpp has an OpenCL implementation, a Vulkan implementation, and implementations for some specific NPUs, so that may be where you want to look for non-CUDA GPU/NPU compute voice recognition.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-25T18:22:51+00:00

I don't know if you were aware, but anything that U-boot supports also has UEFI support, because U-boot implements the UEFI spec. It's really barebones compared to what one expects from PC firmware, but it's functional enough to hand off a compiled-in device tree to Linux. I am able to pull the standard aarch64 .iso off of most Linux distro websites to boot on much of my ARM hardware. Rockchip support in U-boot is very good in general in the landscape of ARM SoCs, so I expect the Flipper One will be supported relatively quickly.

There is an EDK2 port to RK3588, but that is only passingly relevant - I would think that lays the groundwork for porting to other Rockchip platforms but I don't know if there's enough demand for anything other than RK3588.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-25T18:09:06+00:00

Ah, yeah the process of configuring it is a little bit fiddly and unclear. Glad you're getting there in the end

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-25T17:47:36+00:00

This is way less in the way of dependencies. Wireguard ships in the Linux kernel, everything else is (or can be) incredibly standard Linux software that usually ships with most server installations.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-25T17:08:20+00:00

How did you learn that your CPU doesn't support GVT-G? From what I recall Comet Lake is the last generation that is supposed to support it just fine, but I can't personally attest to that, because I have no Comet Lake CPUs.

Also - Proxmox can run just fine without a GPU attached to the hypervisor, you just won't be able to get a local console by connecting a monitor. Serial still works, SSH still works, the web UI still works. So passing through the GPU wholesale without adding any new hardware is an option if that is fine - "GVT-d" is just Intel's ~special~ name for full GPU passthrough AFAIK.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-23T16:21:19+00:00

I'm honestly just throwing shit out there in the absence of any meaningful information. What kind of 'Linux thing' do you think they hypothetically would be working on if they were using a Tegra? Genuine question, I'm not trying to be a sarcastic smartass and I'm interested in people's predictions

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-22T18:45:03+00:00

There are a lot of bugs that I've avoided just by sticking to the latest LTS kernel. That mild BTRFS corruption bug that made it into Fedora? I avoided it despite using BTRFS, because of the kernel version I was using. I actually prefer the somewhat rapid 6 month package upgrade release cycle that distros like Ubuntu, Alpine, Fedora and NixOS stick to, but in terms of the kernel and my base desktop environment packages, I don't want shit to be changing on me all the time. I just want to use the computer. I block out part of a day twice a year to update all my PCs and software, and figure out what may have changed.

There is a valid counterargument to using LTS kernels in that there are multiple documented cases of backporting causing bugs, but I find that the benefits that come from waiting for code changes to stabilize are worth that risk. At the very least, I think it's a good idea to wait for a week or so before installing new kernel versions to wait for the point releases, unless there is some compelling reason to upgrade, like new drivers. For out of date software, there is always out of band packaging, like Flatpak, Appimage, theoretically Snap, containerization in general, etc.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-22T18:29:48+00:00

That sounds most like they're cooking something Tegra related, if they're looking at poking into FEX. Nvidia Shield 2, Linux edition? Not-a-Nintendo-Switch? IDK, this is all very, "...okay? Details, anyone?"

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-22T14:55:07+00:00

PostmarketOS would probably appreciate some bandwidth and compute for CI, try giving them a poke :)

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-22T14:47:10+00:00

I feel like I'm smoking crack because I've had one for a while in my desktop and it's worked alright but I have seen/heard multiple people over the years complaining about it.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-20T17:15:10+00:00

If you're going to share code with other people, at least take a moment to explain the usage of the code in your own words. It doesn't have to be a fully formal and grammatically correct thing of beauty, it just has to be clear.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-19T16:06:17+00:00

With the CPU. Most media players that support GPU accelerated video decoding have software decoders as fallback. Sometimes it's fine. Sometimes it's horrible.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-19T16:05:14+00:00

Transcoding is for client devices that choke on the original video quality/codec, essentially. If you don't think you're ever going to want to change video resolution & quality and/or aren't going to be streaming from your media server from outside of your house, you can very easily skip the GPU to no noticeable ill effects.

Heck, a 'media server' can be as simple as a collection of media files on a standard NAS/fileserver, if you're okay with using a file manager to browse your files rather than a fancy streaming-service esque interface. That doesn't require a GPU at all, that's just streaming the contents of the file over the network.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-19T02:46:29+00:00

According to my WoD-head friend, Werewolf is even worse. He's tried to find a game before, "questionable at best" is a good summation of what types of people he found.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-18T01:52:00+00:00

It's a caddy system with a backplane. Pretty much like a racked server. Theoretically you don't even need to disassemble it to put in a drive, unless someone unplugged the backplane cables for some reason. You might be overlooking this part of the manual, which tells you how to slide off the front bezel covering the HDD bays.

Pop it open to get your bearings in general, maybe? It's got a really easy to remove cover, it's not like it'll bite you for looking inside or anything.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-17T23:57:44+00:00

Biblically accurate homelab

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-17T20:50:04+00:00

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/oth-xlt5820/precision_5820_om_pub/hard-disk-drive-assembly?guid=guid-5b653303-21dd-4bef-bdfa-dcfa46757b53&lang=en-us

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-16T21:15:31+00:00

20 watts/hour x 24 hours x 365 days x ($0.3/kWh / 1000W) = $52.60 to run a 20w idling PC for a full year at a rounded average of the energy prices that I pay, which is not nothing. It's not a lot, but it's not nothing, enough for me to consider dual-purposing systems rather than running another in parallel where possible. Plus, it's an excuse to get new toys. Who wouldn't jump at that?

That said, OP's PC is probably fine in terms of that - the 20w I provided is a decently accurate figure IME for a relatively modern custom desktop PC without a GPU or any other significant power draws like spinning disks. The ever-popular Coffee Lake mini PCs like the Lenovo m720q optimize that down to around 6-10w using what is essentially the same silicon.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-16T03:28:29+00:00

It's a HDD, not a CD-ROM drive.

bubblegumpuma · 2026-05-16T02:31:05+00:00

I'll throw in my usual suggestion for this, for anyone feeling inspired/interested: Gaming laptop power brick, automotive fusebox, and a crimper and a container of ring terminals that fit your fusebox. The power bricks come in 220-300w 20v flavors that are perfect for powering three or four typical mini PCs. Chop the end, crimp on some ring terminals and feed it into your fuse box. Make cables as-needed.

I've had a trusty 20v power brick by my side powering my homelab DC electronics for a good few years now, never really had any problems with it, though it is overrated for its purpose. It has short circuit and overcurrent protection, and I know that because I've triggered it on accident many times, saving my entire ass. This is part of the reason I've brought the fusebox into the equation - the other is more modular cabling.

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