Messages

31

Applications and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 34 Beta is out

« on: April 01, 2021, 10:50:09 am »

Would you mind taking a video of the installer's partition screen that you are seeing?

Hi tle,

I've managed to install it. Afterwards I've installed Plasma KDE and KVM. Kernel is 5.11.10-300.fc34.ppc64le

I've downloaded Debian 10 and sucessfully created a VM. Note that I use the BMC HDMI output (Blackbird) and not a video card, which I suspect is your case.

In general, I've experienced some instabilities.

If I keep updating it, should it automatically get to the stable version (GA) anounced for April the 20th, the official launch of F34?

Will I be able to update my current F33 to F34? Besides the resolution issue that requires setting Xorg to get to 1920x1080 (my setup), there are other things I customized plus applications I've installed. In short, if I have to reinstall everything I'll consider switching to another OS because Fedora life cycle is really short. If I can just upgrade, like I did from F32 to F33, I'll keep it.

Another question maybe you know how: after installing F34 my grub boot order defaulted to F34. I've googled it and edited /etc/default/grub and set GRUB DEFAULT to 8 (this is the 9th entry pointing to the latest kernel with F33) instead of "saved" (was there before) but it did not work, F34 remained the default boot.

Best/Thanks

32

Applications and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 34 Beta is out

« on: April 01, 2021, 08:35:56 am »

I guess it is valid though I reckon you should test it on the host to see if KVM QEMU works or not. For me, it does not work, the VM refuses to start SLOF and QEMU returns with an ambiguous error “cannot connect to monitor”.

I've tried to install using an USB stick but there is no option to use the free space I have in a disk and create a boot partition there for F34. I can only use an entire disk to install.

Am I missing something? I've already installed some OS in this "free" area I have.

Thanks

33

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: Whonix on PPC64el

« on: March 31, 2021, 06:28:39 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

Can you post the exact output of the apt command that fails?  This sounds similar to an issue that I reported upstream to Whonix, which was subsequently fixed.

Hey Jeremy, this is the output I got:

claudio@debian10:~$ sudo apt-get install non-qubes-whonix-gateway-xfce
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree     
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 non-qubes-whonix-gateway-xfce : Depends: non-qubes-vm-enhancements-cli but it is not going to be installed
                                 Depends: non-qubes-vm-enhancements-gui but it is not going to be installed
                                 Depends: non-qubes-whonix-gateway-cli but it is not going to be installed
                                 Depends: kicksecure-desktop-environment-essential-xfce but it is not going to be installed
                                 Depends: kicksecure-desktop-applications-xfce but it is not going to be installed
                                 Depends: whonix-shared-default-applications-gui but it is not going to be installed
                                 Depends: whonix-gateway-default-applications-gui but it is not going to be installed
N: Ignoring file 'patrick.asc' in directory '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/' as it has an invalid filename extension
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

The VM where I've issued this command was created with debian-10.9.0-ppc64el-xfce-CD-1.iso.

Any ideas?

34

Applications and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 34 Beta is out

« on: March 25, 2021, 10:54:52 am »

I guess it is valid though I reckon you should test it on the host to see if KVM QEMU works or not. For me, it does not work, the VM refuses to start SLOF and QEMU returns with an ambiguous error “cannot connect to monitor”.

Ok, I have some 60GB not in use that I can install it and give it a try.

35

Applications and Porting / Re: [NEWS] Fedora 34 Beta is out

« on: March 24, 2021, 10:39:08 pm »

Is it a valid test to run it as a VM?

36

Blackbird / Re: RAM slot B1 not showing

« on: February 07, 2021, 01:25:03 pm »

guys this problem just happened to me too.  I had 16GB with 2 banks of 8 each, lately I got a 16GB one and wanted to use it additionally but as soon as I put it in slot 1b, it stopped seeing me that slot and now it only detects slot A1, not seeing the slot anymore  B1 ... do you think I also have to execute that command by entering the Blackbird BMC?

It happened to me again last week and I ran that command again and it worked. I do not what caused the memory bank to be guarded and I hope it won't happen soon again.

37

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: kernel config: page size 4k vs 64k

« on: February 04, 2021, 01:58:48 pm »

Both CPUs are 4-core.
At the end it's all about optimisations.

Improving performance of Phoronix benchmarks on POWER9
Easier Power ISA vectorizing for fun and profit with GCC x86 intrinsics

This then answers my question, 4K and 64K page sizes resulted in roughly the same performance.

The discussion about Fedora desktop for PPC64el being 4K is related to compatibility aspects and not performance.

Thanks for the clarification.

38

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: kernel config: page size 4k vs 64k

« on: February 04, 2021, 01:43:21 pm »

Maybe Power9 is a better fit for HPC or TB HANA in memory DBs but not as a Desktop alternative, not taking into account the difficulty to find software for the architecture.

That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?  Those Intel cores (and similar AMD ones) come with a mandatory signed binary blob on a secondary CPU that has full access to all your data.  In the worst case, you could simply be computing faster for an adversary by selecting the Intel solution.

Given the lack of those blobs is one of POWER's main reasons to be used on desktop, a more appropriate comparison for the specific purpose of determining POWER's usability as a desktop computer would be against other silicon that is also blob-free -- older Intel parts (Core Duo timeframe), or blob-free ARM devices (e.g. Rockchip).

If you want the fastest possible desktop with no regard for security, owner control, or privacy, then the simple fact is the latest AMD devices running Windows are your best bet.  For many of us, and especially here at Raptor, that represents such a large risk that we'd rather go back to pen and paper...

...much like the Justice Department just did here in the US, actually, after the SolarWinds proprietary / signed malware problems.

Hi, I was not discussing privacy concerns. Actually I'm quite happy with my Blackbird and the community here, which is very supportive of new and less tech savvy users like myself. Also, it performs quite well for my needs from a desktop. I agree with MauryG5 and ClassicHasClass that it's pointless to compare performance.

I appreciate very much the work you guys do at Raptor developing open hardware and wish you continued sucess.

Sincerely

39

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: kernel config: page size 4k vs 64k

« on: February 04, 2021, 10:42:19 am »

The graph is wrong
But the Phoronix test suite can't do anything about that. You have to divide the lower result by 4 (228)

So, it's 250 secs with 4 cores vs 228 secs with 16 cores. It seems that the additional cores did not help improve performance and actually Intel cores and threads handle this specific load/test better than Power9.

The question remains: how good is Blackbird as a desktop performance wise vs Intel? I posted another topic about Thunderbird running faster on this same Dell 5580 (i5 8th gen) than on Blackbird, that means, real world desktop user experience.

Maybe Power9 is a better fit for HPC or TB HANA in memory DBs but not as a Desktop alternative, not taking into account the difficulty to find software for the architecture.

40

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: kernel config: page size 4k vs 64k

« on: February 04, 2021, 09:35:26 am »

These results you could compare:
https://openbenchmarking.org/result/2102047-HA-2101296AS71

Only difference: Kernel pagesize and installed RAM.

Interesting: this other test done with a 4K page size and 16 cores achieved a much worse performance.. see the attached image comparing a performance per core.

So, maybe the issue here is that Intel i5 outperforms Power9 per core, regardless of page size and 64K page gives actually more performance per core for this specific test.

What comes to my mind is how bad is Power9 as a desktop..

41

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: kernel config: page size 4k vs 64k

« on: February 04, 2021, 02:14:39 am »

Hi pocock, please see answers below.

For POWER9 I'm running on Fedora binary I've downloaded and therefore on a 64K kernel (default for ppc64el), while on the Dell notebook on a 4K kernel (default for x86).

How many memory channels on each system? On the Dell notebook two x 8GB and on the Blackbird 2 x 16GB.

Do you watch the load on the CPU cores, for example, using top (press 1) or the GNOME System Monitor? Yes, when I run the test I see on the monitor load being distributed across the various CPU threads, on both the notebook and Blackbird.

So, the fact that the test results show that the Dell i5 outperforms the Blackbird maybe because of the different page sizes?

See attached the complete test results.

42

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: kernel config: page size 4k vs 64k

« on: February 03, 2021, 01:37:23 pm »

Hi guys, any idea of how 4K vs 64K page size can affect phoronix gzip compression test results?

My Dell 5590 with Intel i5 8th gen with 16GB running Fedora 33 finished the test in 46 sec while my Blackbird 4 cores and 32GB also running Fedora 33 did it in 67 secs. I did not expect the i5 to outperform the 4 cores Power9.

43

Applications and Porting / Re: Wayland support/port for PPC64el

« on: January 04, 2021, 06:39:44 am »

You could choose Wayland on the login screen. If you have auto-login, logout, choose Wayland, login.

As MauryG5 wrote, if I login KDE Wayland I get a black screen and have to restart the machine the hard way (push button).

It seems Wayland is not supported with Fedora 33 / Kernel kernel-5.9.16-200.fc33. I do not have a graphical card (use the standard HDMI that comes out of the OpenBMC), so no driver issue I suppose.

44

Applications and Porting / Re: Wayland support/port for PPC64el

« on: December 30, 2020, 09:38:20 pm »

Why would Wayland make a difference? Who told you that?

Wayland has been the default for GNOME since F25, though I use Xorg.

Anyway, I've installed GNOME but the session is x11. Is there a way to force GNOME to use Wayland?

As MPC7500 wrote, there is a KDE Wayland option but if I login with that option I get a black screen and have to forcefully restart the machine.

45

Applications and Porting / Re: Wayland support/port for PPC64el

« on: December 30, 2020, 09:34:56 pm »

I found this about KDE and Plasma on Fedora:

… Currently KDE still uses X11 and although there is a plasma-wayland session available, it is not considered stable or bugfree at this time ...

But will be default on Fedora 34

Yep, I read about that.