Perhaps the most interesting part of the open RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA) is the vector extension (RISC-V "V"). In contrast to the average single-instruction multipe-data (SIMD) instruction set, RISC-V vector instructions are vector length agnostic (VLA). Thus, a RISC-V "V" CPU is flexible in choosing a vector register size …
Recently, I launched MANPATH.be - a site for convenient man page browsing. It provides access to the man pages of different distributions, including Fedora, CentOS and OpenSolaris. The about page concisely describes some of the sites features, e.g. human readable links like f30/3/memcpy, permalinks and various kinds …
Some time ago, I was contacted to fix a computer running Ubuntu. Basically, after many flawless LTS distribution upgrade the last one failed and made the graphical boot hang hard. Thus, the fix was to backup the home directory, re-install a fresh Ubuntu and restore the home. Color me surprised …
Getting along without touch typing is possible. But learning touch typing is usually a big productivity boost, reduces stress and may prevent typical keyboard induced health risks. This article describes some learning approaches and optimization opportunities.
The first thing to learn is to place the fingers in a …
Lately, Google mail servers are getting more extravagant in what mail they accept. Setting up a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) DNS record is a relatively low effort way to get mail though users of the Google mail service. (Those users aren't necessarily identifiable by the Gmail domain as it's also …
This article features a watch list of work related movies. A list for getting some peace of mind in the evening after working overtime.
Each movie has some relation to a pathological work related setting. Not always on the surface, but more on a deeper layer of interpretation.
Some of …
Going through an old hardware stash, I've noticed a harddisk that was part of a Solaris test system of mine I disassembled 10 years ago. The disk contains an interesting artifact I implemented at that time: a proof-of-concept for capturing user entered passwords with DTrace.
This article illustrates how the virtual memory (VM) subsystem of the Linux kernel is able to cache files that are located on an NFS server.
In this small experiment we just need two Linux machines on a local network, where one …
Debian recently released a warning advisory regarding a hardware bug in the hyperthreading implementation on certain Skylake/Kaby Lake Intel CPUs. It can be mitigated by a microcode firmware update - at least on some models. This article is about checking a non-Debian system for this issue and verifying if the …
A stock Android device is locked down, by default. Rooting
is the process of getting access to the root user (think: installing
su). This article lists several advantages of a rooted device.