Topics

61

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Fedora 38 Beta - time to test for regression

« on: March 16, 2023, 08:45:11 pm »

Source: https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-38-beta/

The final version would be out in late April 2023. Now is the time to get it installed and tested.

62

Applications and Porting / [Games] Tetris Grand Master 2 Plus (native port)

« on: February 12, 2023, 07:02:12 am »

The folks at The Absolute Reference (aka taref) has managed to reverse engineer the famous arcade Tetris game.

The port is based on top of SDL2. The assets (as of now) are still from the `tgm2p.zip` MAME rom. The author said he would
port the engine to support OpenGL and then will add hires assets for true 4K gaming experience.

63

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Linux 6.2 brings new qspinlock to bolster large system scalability

« on: December 19, 2022, 10:10:42 pm »

Up to now IBM Power processors on Linux have relied on the generic queued spinlock "qspinlock" implementation within the kernel but that has been found to cause latency and starvation issues on large IBM POWER10 servers

Souce: https://www.phoronix.com/news/IBM-Power-Linux-6.2


I don't have enough knowledge to tell if it would benefit the POWER9

64

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Linux 6.1 is officially released

« on: December 11, 2022, 08:27:34 pm »

Source: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wj_HcgFZNyZHTLJ7qC2613zphKDtLh6ndciwopZRfH0aQ@mail.gmail.com/T/#u

I have not gone through all the changes to pick out those that are related to powerpc. But one thing I know is that this release has supported the RDNA2-based GPU like the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT

65

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Rocky Linux 9.1 is out!

« on: November 27, 2022, 04:10:18 pm »

Source: https://rockylinux.org/news/rocky-linux-9-1-ga-release/

Notable Changes

* Keylime, a remote boot attestation and runtime integrity management solution using Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) is now available.
* New module stream versions include node.js 18, php:8.1, maven:3.8, and ruby:3.1.
* New compiler toolset versions include GCC 12, LLVM 14.0.6, Rust 1.62, and Go 1.18.

Cloud Images

* Container images are now available for all x86-64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x.
* Vagrant images are now available for x86-64 and aarch64
* Official Rocky Linux images are now available on Oracle Cloud Platform.
* LVM variants of the generic, EC2, and Azure images are now available.

66

Applications and Porting / [NEWS] dotNet SDK officially supported PPC64LE

« on: November 26, 2022, 07:09:51 pm »

Source: https://community.ibm.com/community/user/powerdeveloper/blogs/janani-janakiraman/2022/11/07/net7-support-linux-on-power

I guess this can be a good news for enterprise customers who seek to leverage OpenPOWER
platform. You might not a big fan of dotNet but it is no doubt a major player in the industry.

67

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] RHEL 9.1 is out!

« on: November 20, 2022, 09:09:16 pm »

Press release: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221116005632/en/Red-Hat-Introduces-Latest-Versions-of-Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux

68

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Alma Linux 9.1 is out!

« on: November 17, 2022, 04:55:38 am »

Consider the successor of CentOS, Alma Linux today announced the version 9.1 just shortly after the release of RHEL 9.1

Download URL: https://almalinux.org/blog/almalinux-91-now-available/

Added a new remote machine attestation tool:

    Keylime

Updated packages:

    SELinux user-space packages to version 3.4

Added SHA-256 support in the semodule tool

libsepol-utils package has new policy utilities

The system configuration and the clevis-luks-systemd subpackage changes enable the Clevis encryption client to unlock also LUKS-encrypted volumes that mount late in the boot process without using the systemctl enable clevis-luks-askpass.path command during the deployment process.

Added NetworkManager support for migrating connection profiles from the deprecated ifcfg format to keyfile format.

NetworkManager indicates that WEP support is not available in AlmaLinux 9.

The MultiPath TCP (MPTCP) code in the kernel has been updated and upstream Linux 5.19.

Added a new package:

    XMLStarlet

Updated command-line tools:

    opencryptoki to version 3.18.0
    powerpc-utils to version 1.3.10
    libvpd to version 2.2.9
    lsvpd to version 1.7.14
    ppc64-diag to version 2.7.8

Updated infrastructure services tools:

    chrony to version 4.2
    unbound to version 1.16.2
    frr to version 8.2.2

Added new module streams:

    PHP 8.1
    Ruby 3.1
    Node.js 18

Updated module stream:

    Apache HTTP Server to version 2.4.53.

Performance tools and debuggers updates:

    Valgrind 3.19
    SystemTap 4.7
    Dyninst 12.1.0
    elfutils 0.187

Updated performance monitoring tools:

    PCP 5.3.7
    Grafana 7.5.13

Compiler updates:

    GCC Toolset 12
    LLVM Toolset 14.0.6
    Rust Toolset 1.62
    Go Toolset 1.18

69

Operating Systems and Porting / [NEWS] Fedora 37 has arrived!

« on: November 15, 2022, 05:17:15 pm »

Source: https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-37/

To me it is a great release because many annoying issues such as stuttering graphic performance with mutter is gone. Plus many packages are now more up-to-date which really helps with getting amdgpu driver running for RDNA2-based GPU.

Having said that it sucks to know that Fedora no longer enable hardware decoding for Mesa, I have to manually revert the patch to compile my custom RPMs.

70

Applications and Porting / [DEV] bx library now supports building on ppc64le with gcc and clang

« on: November 14, 2022, 07:52:15 pm »

Good to know that the game library bx can be compiled successfully on ppc64le linux

* https://github.com/bkaradzic/bx/pull/290
* https://github.com/bkaradzic/bx/pull/291
* https://github.com/bkaradzic/bx/pull/292

How to compile it?

Code: [Select]

git clone https://github.com/bkaradzic/bx.git
# make sure you build bx/genie binary on your ppc64le first because the bundled genie is for x86_64
./tools/bin/linux/genie  --gcc=linux-ppc64le-gcc gmake # for GCC
# or
./tools/bin/linux/genie  --gcc=linux-ppc64le-clang gmake # for clang

make  -R -C .build/projects/gmake-linux-ppc64le-gcc/ config=debug64 # for gcc debug version
make  -R -C .build/projects/gmake-linux-ppc64le-clang/ config=debug64 # for clang debug version

make  -R -C .build/projects/gmake-linux-ppc64le-gcc/ config=release64 # for gcc debug version
make  -R -C .build/projects/gmake-linux-ppc64le-clang/ config=release64 # for clang debug version

So what does it mean? It means that we are just a tiny step closer to have minecraft compiled out of the box without any patch

71

GPU Compute / Accelerators / AMD Radeon 6600 XT working with kernel 6.1.0!

« on: November 08, 2022, 02:37:45 am »

EDIT: Kernel 6.1.0.rc3 (64K pagesize) has finally get this card working! - no need to add any amdgpu.dc or aspm option

EDIT: benchmarking results https://gist.github.com/runlevel5/7a6e3528c95dc5a7e5b4229d0913c0ad

TL;DR

• 5.19.x - NOT WORKING
• 6.0.x - NOT WORKING
• 6.1.0 - WORKING
• 6.2.0 - WORKING
• 6.4.0 - WORKING
• 6.5.0 - WORKING
• 6.8.0 - WORKING
• 6.9.0 - WORKING
• 6.10.0 - WORKING
• 6.11.0 - WORKING
• 6.12.0 - WORKING
• 6.13.0 - WORKING
• 6.14.0 - WORKING
• 6.16.0 - WORKING
• 6.18.0 - WORKING
• 6.19.0 - WORKING

The last time I touched Navi was 2 years ago. I could not get 6900 XT card running on Kernel 5.15.x.

Well time to try again with the Powercolor Fighter 6600 XT (just because its dimension fit the Blackbird)

Two issues I find:

* HDMI - no video output, I have to use DisplayPort. Not a deal breaker. In fact this issue has always been there with amdgpu for quite awhile
* After restarting the computer, there is no video output to DisplayPort. To workaround this issue, I simply shut down and turn the computer back on. The `dmesg` shows:

Code: [Select]

[    4.444382] [drm] amdgpu kernel modesetting enabled.
[    4.444475] amdgpu: CRAT table disabled by module option
[    4.444477] amdgpu: DSDT table not found for OEM information
[    4.444478] amdgpu: IO link not available for non x86 platforms
[    4.444479] amdgpu: Virtual CRAT table created for CPU
[    4.444493] amdgpu: Topology: Add CPU node
[    4.444637] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0544 -> 0546)
[    4.444651] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (DIMGREY_CAVEFISH 0x1002:0x73FF 0x148C:0x2412 0xC1).
[    4.444666] [drm] register mmio base: 0x00000000
[    4.444668] [drm] register mmio size: 1048576
[    4.472159] [drm] add ip block number 0 <nv_common>
[    4.472163] [drm] add ip block number 1 <gmc_v10_0>
[    4.472166] [drm] add ip block number 2 <navi10_ih>
[    4.472168] [drm] add ip block number 3 <psp>
[    4.472170] [drm] add ip block number 4 <smu>
[    4.472173] [drm] add ip block number 5 <dm>
[    4.472175] [drm] add ip block number 6 <gfx_v10_0>
[    4.472177] [drm] add ip block number 7 <sdma_v5_2>
[    4.472180] [drm] add ip block number 8 <vcn_v3_0>
[    4.472182] [drm] add ip block number 9 <jpeg_v3_0>
[    4.502462] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Fetched VBIOS from ROM BAR
[    4.502479] amdgpu: ATOM BIOS: 113-D53201XT-016
[    4.567090] [drm] VCN(0) decode is enabled in VM mode
[    4.567092] [drm] VCN(0) encode is enabled in VM mode
[    4.604512] [drm] JPEG decode is enabled in VM mode
[    4.604515] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: vgaarb: deactivate vga console
[    4.604519] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Trusted Memory Zone (TMZ) feature disabled as experimental (default)
[    4.604526] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: PCIE atomic ops is not supported
[    4.604531] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: MODE1 reset
[    4.604533] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GPU mode1 reset
[    4.604604] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: SMU: valid command, bad prerequisites: index:2 param:0x00000000 message:GetSmuVersion
[    4.604607] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GPU psp mode1 reset
[    5.295020] [drm] psp mode 1 reset failed!
[    5.295022] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GPU mode1 reset failed
[    5.295094] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: asic reset on init failed
[    5.295096] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Fatal error during GPU init
[    5.295098] amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: amdgpu: finishing device.
[    5.296261] amdgpu: probe of 0000:03:00.0 failed with error -22


72

Operating Systems and Porting / [ISSUE] ata3 softreset failed and slow reboot

« on: November 03, 2022, 11:52:32 pm »

I've noticed that since version 5.15, I've seen quite a number of following error:

ata3: softreset failed (1st FIS failed)

whenever I reboot the computer. This error takes at least 10 seconds til:

ata3: reset failed, giving up

Just wondering if anyone has bumped into similar error

73

GPU Compute / Accelerators / Intel Arc A770 - failed experiment

« on: November 01, 2022, 10:40:24 pm »

My local computer shop has finally got the first batch of A770 and A750!

After two years of waiting, I finally have my hand on this dGPU.

I am going to spend a day or two to get this working on Fedora 37. AFAIK few things must be prepared:

* Latest kernel 6.1
* Mesa 22.2 or newer
* Latest GuC firmware
* Explicitly declare i915 module probe in grub menu entry

Code: [Select]

0000:03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation DG2 [Arc A770] (rev 08) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1020
Device tree node: /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/pciex@600c3c0000000/pci@0/pci@0/pci@1/vga@0
Flags: fast devsel, NUMA node 0, IOMMU group 0
Memory at 600c000000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=16M]
Memory at 6000000000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [disabled] [size=256M]
Expansion ROM at 600c001000000 [virtual] [disabled] [size=2M]
Capabilities: [40] Vendor Specific Information: Len=0c <?>
Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [ac] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+
Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [100] Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation (ARI)
Capabilities: [420] Physical Resizable BAR
Capabilities: [400] Latency Tolerance Reporting
I’ll report back to you all my results on gaming and 4K/8K AV1 decoding

74

Operating Systems and Porting / [DEV] Trying out Chimera Linux

« on: October 30, 2022, 07:31:01 pm »

Please note the distro is still being in heavy development

This Linux distro is developed by q66, yes the same person behind the Void Linux distro. It has distinctive differences to other distros:

* Adopt BSD userland utils
* Run musl C instead of glibc
* dinit instead of upstart or ..systemd
* support many archs for example riscv, ppc64le, x86_64, etc
* Adopt apk as package manager
* Use clang/LLVM instead of GCC
* GNOME as the de facto DE

The installation process is quite straight forward and primitive as this stage as it does not offer you any installer yet. The GNOME 43 is quite snappy compared to that of Fedora 37 despite of lacking some core gnome softwares (q66 will be adding them in the near future). Some features are not working correctly for example setting datetime in GNOME control center. There will be some hurdles to overcome to workaround GNOME integration with systemd. Overall I think this is a promising distro that would be supersede Void Linux in the near future.

75

General OpenPOWER Discussion / Building a E1080 Power10 Mini Server

« on: September 03, 2022, 08:00:07 pm »

While we are waiting for an affordable Power10 system, we all can dream

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxjtojgKpqE