Sun, 4 Feb 2024

4:44 PM - Updating a PS3 to a SSD

I've been working on migrating my PS3 to a WD red 500GB ssd from the original 80GB toshiba hard drive.  The hardware part is easy.  For the software, you have to download the PS3 update from Sony's playstation website and then put it on a USB flash drive on PS3/UPDATE/ with the file named as downloaded.  It will pick it up and load.  Then you do an initial setup and then start the restore process.  (assumes you have a backup from old drive ahead of time)

It takes like an hour to backup and another hour to restore

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Thu, 11 Jan 2024

6:05 PM - Setting up mandoc man.cgi on MidnightBSD

Mandoc (mdocml) includes a man.cgi(8) script to display man pages.  Here's a quick and dirty explanation on how to set it up.

  • mport install mdocml 

  • Files will be installed in /usr/local/www/mdocml/

  • Configure apache

  • Configure man directory

create a directory /man on your file system. This is the default path. 

in it, create a file called manpath.conf

it should have a RELATIVE path for one or more directories (per line) that you want to index. 

so /man/midnightbsd-3.1

copy the man1, man2, and so on folders from /usr/share/man for your release. 

extract all of then with gunzip

run makewhatis -a . from the /man/midnightbsd-3.1 folder.  This will create your mandoc.db file. 

Apache config

<VirtualHost *:80>
        Protocols h2c http/1.1
        H2Direct on
        DocumentRoot /usr/local/www/mdocml/htdocs/
        ServerName man.midnightbsd.org
        ErrorLog /var/log/man.midnightbsd.org-error_log
        CustomLog /var/log/man.midnightbsd.org-access_log combinedio
        RedirectMatch ^/$ /cgi-bin/man.cgi
        <Directory /usr/local/www/mdocml/>
        DirectoryIndex man.cgi index.html
        Require all granted
       
        ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/usr/local/www/mdocml/cgi-bin/"
        <Location "/cgi-bin/man.cgi">
        Options +ExecCGI
        SetHandler cgi-script
       

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Sat, 6 Jan 2024

7:13 PM - vm-bhyve quick start for MidnightBSD

1\. mport install vm-bhyve
2\. vm init
6\. cp /usr/local/share/examples/vm-bhyve/* /mountpoint/for/vm/.templates/
7\. vm switch create public
8\. vm switch add public em0
9\. vm iso https://midnightbsd.org/ftp/MidnightBSD/releases/amd64/ISO-IMAGES/3.1.3/MidnightBSD-3.1.3--amd64-disc1.iso
10\. vm create myguest
11\. vm install [-f] myguest MidnightBSD-3.1.3--amd64-disc1.iso
12\. vm console myguest

Here's an example template for midnightbsd. 

loader="bhyveload"
cpu=3
memory=4096M
network0_type="virtio-net"
network0_switch="public"
disk0_type="virtio-blk"
disk0_name="disk0.img"
disk0_size="90"

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7:09 PM - HPE DL20 Gen9 Configuration issues with Linux

I had a lot of issues getting HPE DL20 gen9 server working with Linux today.  It won't even boot with ubuntu server 23.10 or the LTS release. It would hang with constant resets on the SSA. 

Disabling SSA and going to AHCI mode in the bios allowed me to boot debian 12 after a lot of trial and error.

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6:53 PM - Using HPE ILM v4

If you need to use HPE ILM v4 on a server, there is usually a sticker on the server with the default hostname and username/password combination.  You can then hit that with a web browser to the standard port and login.

In the bios, you can also add users and set permissions for it.

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6:51 PM - HPE dl20 gen9 debian 12 software

If you need to install HPE management software in linux for the agent or ssa configuration, do the following

create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

deb http://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/repo/mcp/debian/ bookworm/12.80 non-free non-free-firmware

for keys:

curl -fsSL https://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/hpPublicKey2048.pub | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hpPublicKey2048.gpg
curl -fsSL https://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/hpePublicKey2048_key1.pub | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hpePublicKey2048_key1.gpg
curl -fsSL https://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/hpPublicKey2048_key1.pub | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hpPublicKey2048_key1.gpg

For agent:

apt install amsd

For ILM (LOM)
apt install hponcfg

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Tue, 24 Oct 2023

12:10 AM - Tuning for search engine traffic

When you have a small site, the worst-case scenario is a spider indexing you that doesn't honor robots.txt.  Yandex is particularly bad about this.  Trying to tune for a large indexing operation becomes the bottleneck. 

It's effectively the load test.

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Fri, 15 Sep 2023

4:17 PM - The problem with benchmarks

I frequently see folks arguing about CPUs to buy.  Many want everyone to buy a 5600x or 12600k or some other variant that's last gen and cheap.  The idea is that gamers don't need anything more so these should be the only choices for 99% of the world.  

The problem with that is gaming and even more specifically, people who would build their own PC also are a very niche group also.  If you think the most common workload should dictate all benchmarks, we'd only benchmark Microsoft Office apps and web browsers. That's what most people use a computer for right?  

Don't be that guy who thinks his own use case is the only one that matters.  

I care about compiler and lzma performance more than anything else when selecting a CPU.  Other people need to make youtube videos, play games, work on AI/ML workloads, CAD, or other tasks.  It's not universal. That's what is great about PCs and not so great about modern Macs.

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Tue, 20 Jun 2023

12:05 AM - The system from hell

I bought a 11700 CPU to upgrade an existing 10th gen system.  Big mistake.  Many motherboards for 10th gen do not support 11th gen CPUs.  I didn't check and fried the motherboard and RAM.  Bought new motherboard and RAM.  2 months later, the integrated graphics fails.  This could be the motherboard ports or the iGPU in the CPU.  I could test another CPU in the motherboard to see which but I don't trust it to risk the good CPU lol.  

I should have done a 13th gen build instead.  Didn't know I needed to buy new MB/RAM.

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12:02 AM - Sonarqube

I've used Sonarqube for many years in various roles.  I've used the cloud version.  I've used the on-prem version.  I used to administer it at U-M on FreeBSD systems. 

There are a few issues that are getting increasingly annoying about it.  It's always had some bugs with respect to guessing the merge state on master.  However, it seems to have gotten worse in newer versions.  It can be way off in terms of coverage or duplicate detection. 

Then there are some of their newer "major" issues, like using guava's ImmutableMap.  There is NO REPLACEMENT in Java for this data type as is.  You can almost fake part of it with a combination of LinkedHashMap plus the immutable wrapper but it's still not there.   If you want to guarantee data will be in insertion order and also have access to of() style creation, there is nothing like it in base java.  So dinging people as though there's a compatible Java feature is insane, especially at major level.  It's info at best since it's something to check but likely not an issue!  Map.of doesn't work because it doesn't guarantee insertion order.  

Finally, there is should be a more reasonable UPPER limit on code coverage with the tool.  My employer's configuration requires 95% coverage for new PRs at this point.  That shouldn't even be a thing!  95% is crazy town.  You start writing bad code to avoid sonar dings.  Many teammates won't do null checks or write in a way that avoids null now.   This tool hurts quality when you push devs to that level of frustration.  

I think code coverage should be around 80-85% in Java. Anything more and you're just doing obnoxious things.

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Mon, 5 Jun 2023

3:33 PM - $3499 Vision Pro

Vision Pro: The pico, newton, iPod socks, and g4 cube are looking really good right now!

Tim nailed his legacy on this one.

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Sun, 28 May 2023

2:55 PM - Intel Arc A750 on Linux

I just got a new Intel Arc A750 for my Ubuntu box.? It's an upgrade from a rx570.? The card is much bigger and requires two power connectors vs the old card.? In the process, I had to upgrade ubuntu to 23.04 to use it.? That didn't go well.

As far as the Arc GPU, it's working pretty well.? There was one issue with the upgrade.? Ubuntu's UI was completely unstable until I enabled rebar support in the BIOS.? Then it worked fine.?

Unlike AMD GPUs, the Arc card can still run enemy territory and et:legacy without random crashes and video artifacts on some maps.? AMD can't be bothered to fix their broken drivers for over a year now.? My other GPU is a much newer AMD card and it's still broken.??

The arc card has been able to run cs:go, timberborn, et so far.? I need to test more with it.? Performance isn't mind blowing by any means, but it's stable.? I wasn't expecting that.? Considering the hurdle, Intel has done a good job with this GPU to date.

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Sat, 22 Apr 2023

2:47 PM - The upgrade from hell

This 10700 -> 11700 upgrade has turned into the bigest shitshow.? First, problem was on me.? The z490 motherboard I had didn't support the 11700.? Some can run 11th gen, but this one could not.? It killed the motherboard.? Wouldn't work with 10th gen or 11th gen chip.??

Ordered an asus tuf b560m plus motherboard. It works with the 11th gen or 10th gen CPUs with the caveat that one nvme m.2 slot is not supported on 10th gen.? VMWare will not boot on 11th gen reliably.? It has all sorts of random crashes.? It also requires turning off some bios options to even get that far (see previous post)?

Now I'm planning to remove all the drives, and put in two new drives and install FreeBSD 13.2 and setup bhyve instead. I'm over vmware esxi.? On supported hardware, it can be OK but after reading the bugs they fixed between 8.0 and 8.0.1 aka 8.0U1, it's not worth it.??

I have an old HP desktop with a 10700 in it.? I'm going to try to get some of the vmware drives working in that system to recover some of the VM data.? Then I'll do fresh installs in bhyve on the freebsd host, and copy the relevant stuff from the HP over.? Not sure if this is going to work but it seems like a better plan than trying to fight vmware any further.?

Had I upgraded to an AMD system, this would have worked. (at least through x570/b550 + ryzen 5000)? Now that I had to buy a CPU and motherboard, a side grade to AMD would have been a good call.? I didn't know that at the time.

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11:29 AM - VMWare 8.0U1 buggy AF

Attempted to update to VMWare 8.0U1.? There are a lot of bug fixes for race conditions and a few CVEs patched since 8.0.? It won't install.? Every time it boots, a new failure happens.? One time it couldn't extract something. Another time it failed to detect the NIC.? I tried burning the image again after confirming the md5 hash.? Same thing.

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Fri, 21 Apr 2023

9:45 PM - VMWare esxi 8 and Intel 11th gen CPUs

I had an issue where VMWare esxi wouldn't boot on my new motherboard + cpu.? Come to find out, it's incompatible with two BIOS settings.? Disable Turbo Boost 3.0 tech and Intel Speed Shift Technology.

VMWare incorrectly checks a register and assumes it will always have the same value.? This causes a crash.? It appears they added this check in 7.0U3.? Any version after that including 8.0 esxi will fail to boot.

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Fri, 23 Sep 2022

6:48 PM - GPS on Ubuntu

Purchased a USB gps device to play around with on Ubuntu 22.04.  Device is https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00NWEEWW8?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1

The device is recognized as /dev/ttyACM0.  You can cat it to see it's working. 

Setup for ntpd

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gpsd gpsd-clients  ntp 

sudo vi /etc/defaults/gpsd
DEVICES="/dev/ttyACM0"
GPSD_OPTIONS="-n"

n flag is required for NTP to work. 

sudo vi /etc/ntp.conf

gps

server 127.127.28.0 minpoll 4 maxpoll 4 prefer
fudge 127.127.28.0 time1 0.000 refid GPS stratum 15

Test lock with:
cgps -s

ntpq -p
...and you'll see a line in the resulting text that looks something like this:
*SHM(0) .GPS. 15 l 14 16 377 0.000 3.505 3.556
If "poll" and "reach" are zero it's not working.

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