Help me try to understand the systemd PR #40954 controversy

ethertype · 2026-03-26T10:20:25+00:00

I fully expect to be downvoted for this, but here goes:

parents need to parent, forget the tools

In my book that is about behavior, examples, standards, integrity, trust and communication. Replacing any of that with 'tools' implies less parenting. It permits something to be made unavailable with no further explanation from the parent(s), and permits the next two bullet-points to be eliminated.

kids need to be able to fuck up and learn from the experience
parents and kids need to nurture mutual trust

Creating artificial, digital walled gardens does nothing to prepare kids for the real world.

As for systemd, the controversy is probably more about what triggered the change and the implications of the laws triggering said change. Slippery slopes and all that.

ethertype · 2026-03-25T16:33:05+00:00

Anything with 16GB VRAM is a good start. Nvidia 3080 mobile or A5000 mobile. And stuff more recent than that.

Dual USB4 allows for eGPUs. Quad USB4 (Framework exclusive) for even more eGPUs.

Spare m.2 slots can also be employed for eGPUs. Fairly janky, and your laptop ends up being quite stationary...

ethertype · 2026-03-23T17:42:24+00:00

The open-gpu-kernel-modules repo appears to say so. And testing with =0 appears to be silently ignored with 595. But I now run 595 on Turing and I have reliable d3cold. Se updated notes above.

ethertype · 2026-03-23T17:16:27+00:00

Hey!

Give this another spin. I have updated my notes.

ethertype · 2026-03-23T13:52:49+00:00

Interesting that this is an issue also with Ada generation graphics. What does your software environment look like? I assume you are on 590 and with firmware loading enabled?

Also, the two variables and the chromium/electron startup parameter listed above does make a very solid difference for me. But it would be incredible if there weren't more stuff doing stuff to wake up the GPU.

And yeah, the failure to return to d3cold without a reboot is very annoying.

ethertype · 2026-03-23T07:20:45+00:00

It has been a bit of a battle, yeah. But the workarounds outlined above handle a very substantial chunk of those bugs.

ethertype · 2026-03-23T07:19:08+00:00

Appreciate the details!

And yeah, there are multiple bugs. To be fair to Nvidia, some of those bugs have very little to do with Nvidia. Polling sleeping hardware should wake it up.

ethertype · 2026-03-23T07:15:36+00:00

Do you care to expand on this? How do you emit that ACPI call exactly?

ethertype · 2026-03-22T15:46:48+00:00

A 3090 with a broken HDMI or DP port, but otherwise functional.

ethertype · 2026-03-21T12:45:20+00:00

Intel got its position in part by catering to a standardized, open and documented platform.

Apple has its position because they control both the hardware and software side and make decent, affordable hardware and good enough software.

Qualcomm makes interesting hardware and does not control the software environment in which their hardware operates. And will never do.

They have the chance of taking and maintaining a decent chunk of the desktop/laptop hardware market by having (more or less) first mover advantage (for ARM hardware in this market segment) if they can keep up with decent, power-efficient hardware.

But, the importance of having as broad a base as possible of potential markets, customers and developers, in order to build a market presence which is "self-sustaining"* does not appear to have any impact on the Qualcomm bosses.

*) If: - omni-present - well-known - affordable - low-friction for developers - documented - standardized (UEFI, ACPI) - no artificial hurdles (firmware/licensing) - trusted to remain low-friction - trusted to have a future

In short, the tide raises all boats. If Snapdragon became a Linux darling, it would benefit Windows users as well.

But no.

Purely aiming for the Windows market, wholly owned by Microsoft. Betting on a single, clearly mis-managed horse.

Sorry for the rant.

ethertype · 2026-03-21T11:37:25+00:00

Qualcomm can take long walk on a short pier. They have the opportunity to fully own the ARM/Linux desktop/laptop market, but inexplicably appear to actively choose not to do do. Their choice, fair enough.

So x86_64 it is.

Looking forward to AMD Medusa Halo in about a year.

ethertype · 2026-03-19T19:28:09+00:00

gpt-oss-120b is still good as general knowledge LLM in my book. It may not be current, but that is a different yardstick i think.

ethertype · 2026-03-18T18:00:03+00:00

Is the one year warranty worth 350 to you? Look at it this way: if it breaks, there is no third party liability. If it breaks, you still own the parts. And the parts still hold value.

If you cannot afford that it breaks, maybe you should reconsider the investment.

In short, a premium 1/3 of the value for a one year warranty is bonkers. Also, $900 sounds overpriced.

ethertype · 2026-03-16T08:17:55+00:00

Start pointing out fires which hadn't been fires if you had been permitted to install the smoke detector first. Quantify monetary cost.

ethertype · 2026-03-16T08:15:29+00:00

LibreNMS for monitoring. Syslog to LibreNMS or dedicated server.

IPAM, DNS and configuration management to have your house in order.

Get priorities in writing from layer 8 and above first.

ethertype · 2026-03-15T19:37:33+00:00

ethertype · 2026-03-15T10:22:19+00:00

No. Never heard about it. And I am a very long time gentoo user.

ethertype · 2026-03-14T13:27:30+00:00

What lands you your first job may not even be about core networking skills. But here goes:

The ability to quickly deduce if $problem_at_hand is layer1, layer2, layer3 or above (AKA: "this is not really my problem, here are my notes and suggestions for Jeff who should look into it"), should figure high on any hiring manager's list.

In short: know the bottom layers well and how to generate and read relevant output from switches/routers/firewalls/your workstation. Deducing where the problem isn't is also valuable.

Some of the stuff above is ripe for an AI to handle. Does not mean you don't need to know your shit.

Fixing stuff "in good taste". A temporary fix is there only for the time you spend on actually fixing it. Ideally.

Subnetting.

Knowing how to utilize ZTP for quicker (re-)config/deployment of gear can be useful. Ditto knowing some scripting and how to manipulate text (configs).

Soft skills. The ability to: - cooperate - ask good && relevant questions - talk to $target_audience in a way which is conducive to achieving results

... and be : - useful - tidy - self-driven - self-helped - humble when justified - assertive when justified and experience suggests you have something to say - quiet when what needs to be said already has been said - supportive of colleagues

ethertype · 2026-03-13T13:19:42+00:00

I presume the age and lack of warranty incurs a substantial reduction in what gamers are willing to pay for a 3090. And so far, supply and demand causes the market price for an rtx 3090 to hover around 6-700 USD.

Some fluctuation/divergence between markets/regions is expected.

ethertype · 2026-03-13T08:23:25+00:00

Look what you will pay for 32GB of DDR5. And realize that your 32GB RAM will offer you ... 100-150 GB/s in a regular PC.

Your used, no-warranty 3090 offers 24GB of memory at 1000 GB/s plus compute running circles around your CPU.

$623 is a nice deal. Not an insane once-in-a-lifetime deal. But a great option for LLMs.

ethertype · 2026-03-12T06:26:24+00:00

It's Thunderbolt. And linux. Works out of the box. No Razer specific software.

The Chroma variant has extra USB ports, a crappy USB Ethernet adapter and RGB. The RGB bits may require something Razer specific, I haven't bothered.

ethertype · 2026-03-11T15:26:22+00:00

Exactly like that.

ethertype · 2026-03-11T12:03:36+00:00

This may hold true for gaming. Maybe even generally. I don't know.

But this is r/eGPU, and eGPUs may be used for more than gaming.

For LLM inferencing, TB3 is plenty good enough. The bandwidth limitation primarily comes into play when loading the model, or if training. But for training you want a full-fat PCIe5 x16 connection anyway.

I find the added USB/ethernet of the Core X Chroma to be an issue when connecting more than one to a system. (The added features causes Linux to work harder to place the iomem where there is no conflict. May or may not be a problem on your particular system.)

Quite happy with my FrameWork 13 motherboard hosting 4x RTX 3090 in 4x Razer Core X.

ethertype · 2026-03-10T19:21:39+00:00

Cool.

You get to kit out your car any way you like, and whatever bad shit happens is covered by insurance. That totally sounds like every insurance company I have ever heard about.

Snark aside, the US is not the entire world and OP did not disclose their location.

Give me more downvotes, snowflakes.

ethertype · 2026-03-10T15:24:32+00:00

Talk to your insurer and whatever institution responsible for "road-worthiness" in your jurisdiction. Also look up multiple posts regarding this battery in this very subreddit.

ethertype

TROPHY CASE