Topics

1

Applications and Porting / OpenVPN Client for ppc64el

« on: July 09, 2021, 09:07:41 am »

Hi All,

I've been looking for the OpenVPN client for our platform but could not find any build that I can download and install (I have no idea of how to build myself).

I found this link (https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/dsommers/openvpn-release/) and tried to follow the instruction and add this repo (dsommers/openvpn-release) but got this error message: "Error: This repository does not have any builds yet so you cannot enable it now."

Anyone knows if there is a build of openvon client?

Thanks

2

Blackbird / Raptor Support does not reply

« on: April 12, 2021, 10:56:41 am »

Hi folks,

Anyone knows what's going on with Raptor's support? I opened a support ticket a month ago (March the 13th) and still got no answer. I've been trying to talk to someone over the phone (+1215126900240) and all I get is an answering machine.

Anyone know if Is there another number we can talk to Raptor's support?

Thanks

3

Blackbird / Price of Blackbird went up $1,144 from April 2020

« on: April 11, 2021, 01:20:21 pm »

Hey guys, I've just seen the price for the (backordered) brand new Blackbird and found out that it went up $1,144 since I bought it back in April 2020.

I'm wandering if this is the same unit I bought or maybe there are some changes. As far as I could check, its the same power9 CPU, 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD. Am I missing something?

4

Applications and Porting / Wayland support/port for PPC64el

« on: December 30, 2020, 06:21:11 am »

Hi All,

I've installed Fedora 32 (server and later added KDE/Plasma desktop) on my Blackbird and upgraded to F33 when it was released.

I cannot connect to Zoom (on any browser like Chromium or Firefox) and just found that the issue is that I do not have support for Wayland installed on my system.

Anyone here uses Wayland on Raptor P9 machines?

I do not have a graphics card/GPU. I run video directly through the embedded HDMI port that is integrated with the BMC.

Thanks in advance.

5

Operating Systems and Porting / Whonix on PPC64el

« on: December 24, 2020, 10:21:47 am »

Hi All,

I've followed the instructions found on this link https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Whonix

I've created KVM VMs using Debian 10.7 ISO images but when trying to install non-qubes-whonix-gateway-xfce or non-qubes-whonix-gateway-cli I could not solve dependency issues.

Has anyone succeeded creating these VMs?

I have them working on a x86 machine with the same Fedora33 I use on my Blackbird.

Thanks

6

Operating Systems and Porting / Error when opening a Sandbox in Selinux/Fedora

« on: November 22, 2020, 01:46:14 pm »

Hi Guys,

I have installed policycoreutils-sandbox and I'm trying to open firefox in a sandbox run this command: sandbox -X -t sandbox_net_t -t sandbox_web_t -w 1920x1080 firefox

The error message:
(sandbox:8075): Gtk-WARNING **: 21:34:28.459: Theme parsing error: gtk.css:2:33: Failed to import: Error opening file /home/claudio/.config/gtk-3.0/window_decorations.css: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/firefox: line 186: getenforce: command not found
/usr/bin/firefox: line 186: [: !=: unary operator expected
Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
Error: cannot open display: :1

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

7

Operating Systems and Porting / How to test a new kernel

« on: November 12, 2020, 10:43:58 am »

Hi,

I've upgraded from Fedora 32 to Fedora 33 and I want to test kernel-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le.

Issuing command "sudo dnf upgrade --advisory=FEDORA-2020-6bac1c305f" (see https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2020-6bac1c305f) I can see files initramfs-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le.img in /boot directory.

When checking file /boot/grub2/grub.cfg there is no kernel-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le option available. I've tried running grub2-mkconfig but /boot/grub2/grub.cfg remained unchanged.

I've then downloaed kernel-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le.rpm from https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=1637394 and run "rpm -ivh kernel-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le.rpm" and the response includes "package kernel-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le is already installed". Still /boot/grub2/grub.cfg does not contain kernel-5.8.18-300.fc33.ppc64le.

What am I missing here?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

8

Applications and Porting / Thunderbird runs much better on Dell 5590 than on Blackbird

« on: November 11, 2020, 12:51:25 pm »

Hi,

Thunderbird on my Blackbird often freezes for a few seconds during which I have to wait patiently, while on my Dell Latitude 5590 notebook it runs much smoother. Here are the two setups:

Blackbird SW: Thunderbird 78.0.4 64 bits runs directly on the host (Fedora33 - kernel-5.8.18-300)
Blackbird HW: Power9 v2 4 cores, 32GB and two SSD M.2 disk (128 and 256GB)

Dell SW: Thunderbird 78.3.1 64 bits runs on a VM (2 vCPUs and 400-4000MB RAM); host running Qubes OS R4.0 (updated to the last minor version), Linux 4.19.152-1 with Xen 4.8.5-25-fc25
Dell HW: Intel i5 8th gen, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD M.2 (pretty average specs)

My suspitions:

1. The Thunderbird port to ppc64el is not optimized for the architecture, relative to the x86 version. Do not take me wrong, no complains. I'm thankful to whoever ported it.
2. My /home logical volume on the Blackbird (where Thunderbird stores my mail boxes) is split between the two physical disk, which in turn are each connected to a different PCI slot.
3. I have this feeling that after upgrading Blackbird from F32 to F33 it got worse.

Any feed-back is appreciated.

9

Applications and Porting / Python GUI for ppc64 (Fedora 32)

« on: October 07, 2020, 09:43:36 am »

Hi folks,

I've searched for know Python GUIs on Fedora repo but could not find any.

Anybody found a Python GUI for Fedora?

Thanks

10

Applications and Porting / Zoom crashes with "Aw, Snap!" message on Chromium

« on: September 23, 2020, 08:43:26 am »

Hi All,

I've managed to use Zoom conferences on Chromium but it stopped working and display this annoying error when I try to join with audio from the computer.

On Firefox I can see what's going on in the meeting but it does not let me join with audio and displays a message my browser does not support it and suggests that I use Chrome or Firefox (weird to see this when using Firefox) instead.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

11

Blackbird / How to increase storage: another nvme/PCI or SATA

« on: September 22, 2020, 04:34:01 pm »

Hi All,

My Blackbird came with 128GB Nvme/PCI. I want to expand that with another disk and add to existing /root and /user logical volumes (Fedora32) using LVM.

Should I use the ONLY available PCI slot or sacrifice performance and add a SATA SSD? How bad would it be work with a combination of PCI and SATA?

Thanks in advance.

12

Firmware / Basic understanding of OPAL

« on: August 16, 2020, 02:16:33 am »

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to understand what OPAL does and how it works. I noticed the memory I see on "host" OS is about 0.5GB smaller than actual physical memory and I wonder OPAL works as a tier 1 "hypervisor" for what we call "host" OS (Fedora 32 in my case), which is kind of para virtualized.

Besides memory, what else OPAL provides to the OS? CPU scheduler, PCI devices, NICs, USB, and HDMI (through BMC in my case with Blackbird)?

If this is so, it can be good from a security point of view (besides providing standard interfaces for any OS) since any reboot will bring up a fresh and clean OPAL, regardless of what happened before. If so, also important to keep firmware up to date, which I have not done since I got the machine on May 2020.

Any input is appreciated.

Regards,
Claudio

13

General OpenPOWER Discussion / Raptor/PowerPC Training

« on: August 05, 2020, 09:58:24 am »

Anyone ever thought about Training for users willing to make better use of their powerful Talos/Blackbird? Does Raptor provide any?

A basic training could include aspects related to Hardware (what's inside your machine, how to add PCI devices like video cards and additional disks, how to add memory, compatibility issues, etc.). Firmware (how to update, how to setup secure boot) and Software (what OSs are available, applications, repositories, general config tips, etc.).

I would pay for content that would help me make a better use of my Blackbird.

Anyone knows what is Raptor customer profile? individuals? corporations? universities? maybe these would be target audience for Training.

I remember DOS and later on Windows 3, 3.1 and so on. MS conquered the end user and Windows became ubiquitous in the corporate environment (servers/AD, SQL, Exchange, Sharepoint, Dynamics, etc.). I do not expect Raptor products ti become so popular, after all it's a niche product. Also, IBM dominates in the data center with power servers, leveraging their presence in this market, support capabilities, sales channels, etc.. I wonder the target market for Raptor is made of enthusiasts, developers and researchers.

At least this community could benefit from Training and grow to perpetuate Raptor.

14

Operating Systems and Porting / Debian 10 vs CentOS 7 (both as VM under Fedora 32 KVM)

« on: July 24, 2020, 09:23:51 am »

Hi,

I'm running Fedora 32 on my host (32GB RAM) and I have two VMs under KVM: Debian 10 and CentOS 7, both with 4GB RAM and 4 vCPUs.

With Debian, even the cursor moves with a delay when I move the mouse and all applications seems to be slower than usual. With CentOS it's just like on the host, I cannot perceive any difference in the user experience.

Any idea why Debian port does not seem to run "natively" while CentOS runs just ok? Is it because some "better" integration between host (which is Fedora) and CentOS? Shouldn't KVM see any guest the same way?

Appreciate any feed-back.

Thanks

15

Applications and Porting / (some times) no audio on Firefox

« on: July 21, 2020, 09:09:46 am »

Hi,

I use Blackbird as a desktop. I have Fedora 32 installed and use Firefox as a browser.

I use an USB (wired) headset and some times a bluetooth (via USB dongle) headset. I hear audio from You Tube and also can speak with the mike (wired and bluetooth) using Google Meet (like Zoom).

When I try using Zoom I get the following error message: "Your browser does not support using the computer’s Audio device. To use Zoom, install the latest version of a standard browser, such as Chrome, Firefox and Chromium Edge.", although I'm using the latest Firefox version.

Same thing Microsoft Teams. It does not recognize my head sets, although I can use them on another tab with Google Meet..

Anyone faced this issue? any ideas?

I read somewhere that Chromium Browser has been ported to ppc but could not find it (dnf search browser | grep -i chromium). Is that a browser that works 100% on power?

Thanks