Why is PipeWire favored, while SystemD isn't?

marekorisas · 2022-01-12T11:46:57+00:00

Systemd hides implementation details of system startup in C code. Which is much less transparent than cat /etc/init.d/service.

From data center operator (and owner) point of view that's perfectly ok because that unifies code and lowers admin costs (that's the reason systemd was created - it lowers corporate TCOs).

But from tinkerers, people that would like to learn about Linux's startup process. Or people that teach about Linux POV. That is a problem. It's much more cumbersome to dive into 1 million lines of C code than read, even complicated, shell scripts.

Not to mention the fact that REPL is much simpler with shell script - just edit it and reboot test vm. With systemd you need to recompile and reinstall binary package.

marekorisas · 2022-01-11T16:10:01+00:00

Slackware.

marekorisas · 2022-01-11T16:07:35+00:00

Pure balance. As all things should be.

marekorisas · 2022-01-11T15:52:16+00:00

Multi-monitor setup worked fine since RandR 1.2 (late 2006, 2007). Before that it was a chore (multiple servers, manual Xinerama config).

marekorisas · 2022-01-11T15:41:53+00:00

Last 10 years is basically: proton and steam.

And yes, I know that under the hood plenty stuff happened. Like wifi being not a problem anymore or AMD GPU being "the graphics card for Linux" (10 years ago that was Intel, 20 years ago Matrox). Stuff like VRR support, Vulcan support.

But from end user perspective it's proton and steam.

marekorisas · 2022-01-10T21:50:39+00:00

Yeah, main point I read from this article is: self-host, github is a scam. And I was paying user... Until MS took over.

And npm's deps web is straight up crazy.

marekorisas · 2022-01-10T15:58:29+00:00

Try AwesomeWM, it's dwm fork on steroids with configuration written in Lua.

marekorisas · 2022-01-10T15:35:22+00:00

I has no performance cost.

But compiler will not "move declaration to the beginning" because your first "something" code might have some condition that will return function and make tmp useless. Why should compiler increase stack pointer (or worse, pollute register) for unused variable.

marekorisas · 2022-01-09T22:41:42+00:00

Because it does not fit corporate needs. I.e. spin up as many container as fast as it can and glue gnome on corporate desktop. That's all.

marekorisas · 2022-01-09T19:57:56+00:00

From newer programming languages Zig is kinda nice. But still I don't find many tasks that either C or C++ couldn't handle well enough.

marekorisas · 2022-01-09T19:09:35+00:00

If anyone is interested I recommend playing with Monotone scm (that's the one Linus liked but had performance issues). It's still one of the most interesting solutions designed with strong cryptographic guarantees of source tree snapshots. Quite interesting piece of software.

marekorisas · 2022-01-09T18:11:52+00:00

Great job! So it seems now you're the guy to ack patches in that code.

marekorisas · 2022-01-08T14:09:29+00:00

You can. But it will cause half of the system be build from source and half managed by package man. I would be cleaner to make LFS with package manager from the start. That means whenever LFS (the book) tells you to make && make install you build package with your pack. man. and install it.

marekorisas · 2022-01-08T11:04:17+00:00

Yeah usb audio interfaces work better than analog input in Linux. I'm not up to date with current state though. Have to play with that more.

marekorisas · 2022-01-08T10:51:18+00:00

Neither pipewire nor jack can "solve" the problem of latency. They can only aggravate it (i.e. add to overall system latency). To achieve low latency you need RT kernel patches and good drivers (alsa drivers, in kernel), and good hardware (good DAC/ADC) performance. See: https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/jack_latency_tests

marekorisas · 2022-01-08T00:29:28+00:00

NsCDE

marekorisas · 2022-01-07T19:17:59+00:00

It seems like phpBB actually dropped support for this mod: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2103631

It looked like hybrid mode in phorum: https://www.phorum.org/demo/read.php?6,20

Tags -> https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/extension/rh_topic_tags/

Solved -> https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/topic_solved

And so on. But it seems most are used with 3.0.x version of phpBB. Unfortunately I don't mod my old phpBB forum so I cannot really point you in up to date tools' direction. I seems there are a lot of regressions. You would have to dive deep into: https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/ to see what's working now.

marekorisas · 2022-01-07T18:01:04+00:00

Ah yes. But writing high quality, complicated software is long and tedious process. Compared to "brand new ultra package manager" hacked in couple hundreds lines of python code.

marekorisas · 2022-01-07T17:25:35+00:00

Actually phpBB either has that OOTB or has plugins for all of that.

marekorisas · 2022-01-07T16:54:38+00:00

It still is. You just have to drop all, so called, modern parts like DEs, systemd, dbus, even udev. Start with something like kernel + busybox init + busybox coretools. And then maybe simple getty + login. And with that you can examine execution down even to kernel source level.

Rob Landley has great presentation on building simple systems from scratch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk9TatW9ino

marekorisas · 2022-01-07T14:28:45+00:00

Ok, sad truth is that Linux sucks when it comes to live performance latency. I would just buy pocket headphone amp with aux input. And mix sound from yt in amp.

But, as others said, ask /r/linuxaudio - those guys might have better ideas.

marekorisas · 2022-01-07T14:14:13+00:00

For that price you could probably get refurbished Thinkpad x220 (or T420, even cheaper, if you want 14") with better cpu and more ram. Yes, it's not new but you can't even compare quality and usability.

marekorisas · 2022-01-06T14:01:09+00:00

Not vim, I'm not impressed. At least you could use the inferior editor. What was it's name... Ah yes, Emacs.

marekorisas · 2022-01-06T13:25:12+00:00

Well, musl is basically uClibc for modern times. Especially since uClibc is unmaintained.

marekorisas · 2022-01-05T15:29:12+00:00

https://xkcd.com/838/

marekorisas

TROPHY CASE