25 years ago today, Google was founded.
On the same day, I wiped Windows 98 off my computer, believing that Debian Linux (which I had been using for a while but still kept Windows on another partition) could do everything I had been doing with Windows until then.
Since that day, many installations of Linux, *BSD, MacOS have graced my computers, but Windows has remained, on a few occasions, only an occasional (unwelcome) guest.
In the spirit of a typical support group phrase, I can joyfully say:
'Hello, I'm Stefano, and I haven't been using Windows as my primary operating system for 25 years.'
I have an unhealthy addiction to relatively obscure computers that I probably wouldn't actually use very much. Here is the latest one that the little voice in my head is telling me I need to buy so I can get my fix: the HiFive Pro P550 running the RISC-V ISA:
MicroATX form factor
4-core 2.2 GHz
16GB DDR5
Gigabit ethernet
PCIe expansion slot
NVMe
And it should be able to run Guix OS. The thing is, I don't really hack on operating systems or compilers very often, so I would only be using it as an ordinary end-user with the limited software available for it, which I can do right now, and with more available software, using any old x86_64 computer.
So logically, I don't actually need an awesome high-powered RISC-V development board for anything. But that doesn't stop me from seriously considering buying one.
I was diving into the #Linux rabbit hole and wanted to try a distro out. It felt overwhelming and a bit confusing for me. I’m still trying though. #operatingsystems#tech
Guix maintainers Janneke Nieuwenhuizen @janneke and Ludovic Courtès @civodul have announced just today that their "seed" C compiler "Mes" is now in production in Guix OS. Mes can, after several boostraping stages eventually compile GCC which in turn compiles Linux, Guile, and Guix. The bootstrap program (as I understand it) is written in Guile Scheme, and compiles to a 357 byte binary. Now when you do guix pull you will see that the entirety of the core operating system (some 22,000 expressions) all depend on that single 357-byte bootstrap program. The idea is to eliminate the footprint of trusted binaries that build the software for the OS and compiler toolchain -- the famous "Trusting Trust" problem outlined by Ken Thompson which he presented while receiving his Turing Award. Thanks to their hard work, we now have an operating system for which every stage of the build can be verified by a human. https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2023/the-full-source-bootstrap-building-from-source-all-the-way-down/
Nix OS people do not need to feel left out, a new issue on the Nix OS GitHub page has announced that they will begin a similar project. https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/227914
This is so good on this R400. It's so good I'm considering running it on my Yoga 2 13 now. And I am so happy there is a telegram app in the HaikuDepot. Makes moving files around so much easier than messing with networking. I'm lazy lol #Haiku#HaikuOS#OperatingSystems
LATEST VIDEO: Windows Users Sentenced To Life In The Cloud
(watch early on public blog [no paywall, no sign in fully public post for all] - w/appear on channels publicly later, after I complete thumbnail graphics)
OpenBSD and FreeBSD are two operating systems that have unique features and differences. OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system that emphasizes cryptography, whereas FreeBSD is more geared towards performance and scalability. Both are free and open-source, but each has a distinct user base and target market.
Fifty years of the PC operating system… a historic look at the contributions of pioneer Gary Kildall and his CP/M operating system to the #PersonalComputer revolution. I go back to this period, and am so there for any tributes to Kildall who IMO deserves a lot of credit for his vision and early contributions. Plus, he was just an awesome guy. #RetroComputing#ComputerHistory#OperatingSystems#OS#CPM#GaryKildall
Breaking IT news: #Microsoft just open-sourced MS-DOS 4.0. Versions 1.25 and 2.0 had already been open-source (MIT License) since 2018. If you’ve ever used DOS in the 1990s, you most likely were using v5.0 or v6.x. Those later versions likely won’t be released as open-source due to third-party restrictions.