What even is Oxide Computer? It makes no sense - it was publicized with all sorts of anti-blob, freedom, and posts about management engines and a sort of alternative to RaptorCS/IBM (which now has blobs again)... Yet most of that stuff is now buried/removed and Oxide Computer is just a hardware platform with unnecessary lock-in. For the bunker of the rich to be able to run their own mini-cloud? Sure. For anything else it seems like a bad design.
Nothing has changed with regards to our anti-blob and pro-open source stances. I am not sure what you're referring to here.
> with unnecessary lock-in.
What lock-in are you referring to here? The way that things run on the rack is via virtual machines, you can run virtual machines on many providers. We even have a terraform provider so that you can use familiar tools instead of the API directly, if you believe that is lock-in (and that stuff is all also fully open source).
I don't expect anyone to see my comments unless they're really looking since I've been shadow banned for many years now - so I appreciate your reply.
To be clearer regarding my questions:
- What happened to Project X (supposedly coreboot++ for latest AMD CPUs)? It seems dead, despite being more reported on than Oxide's attempts in working with AMD (to achieve the same outcomes, presumably - what's the difference?). Loads of well meaning people have approached this with virtue, innocence and skills; perhaps another approach is needed that fully respects the dynamic between the user, the chip manufacturers and the governments and banks they're in debt to.
- Does Oxide attempt to sandbox, completely remove or 'verify as benign' aspects like the PSP? For example, if someone could verify that the PSP cannot possibly be affected over the network, then peace of mind could be more affordable regarding things like supply chain attacks and bad actors with AMD/Intel/Apple management engine secrets.
Not referring to software lock-in, just hardware. And it isn't very nefarious like other hardware lock-in (serialization, see Rossmann Group). Just hardware on the rack-level: replacing oxide gear & upgrading oxide gear (not sure about repair, that could be easy). And if the offering were of a less blobby architecture, then many of us would be happy to pay a bit more for the hardware as a system. However, if the hardware platform is FOSS, then it won't be unnecessarily difficult to mix and match and integrate the Oxide gear with other DC-class gear.
So, your comment was not dead when I saw it. This reply was, but apparently now has been vouched for.
> What happened to Project X (supposedly coreboot++ for latest AMD CPUs)?
I don't recall what you're referring to specifically, maybe this was a thing before I started at Oxide. I do know that we deliberately decided to not go with coreboot. I believe the equivalent component would be phbl[1]. It boots illumos directly. Bryan gave a talk about how we boot[1][2] with more reasoning and context.
> Does Oxide attempt to sandbox, completely remove or 'verify as benign' aspects like the PSP?
The general attitude is still "remove or work around every binary blob possible," but the PSP is unfortunately not able to be worked around.
> However, if the hardware platform is FOSS
We fully intend to do this, by the way. Just haven't yet. It'll come.
To see more on "Project X", see the Phoronix article on it. At the very least, it would be resourceful if the Oxide devs had a chat with the Project X devs who have since given up - learnings can be had and time can be saved. And yes, coreboot itself is now untennable, but is also kind of a slang for the a category of deblobbed software.
This seems to make no mention of Oxide at all. Perhaps you're connecting two different unrelated organizations together as Oxide appears to have never had any relation to it. I think you're just perhaps confused about what the situation is.
For what it's worth, you don't seem to be shadowbanned as far as I can tell. Your original post seems to be dead due to downvotes, but this one seems to be in a totally normal non-dead non-shadowbanned state.
It's a mainframe. You use it like you use mainframes, but probably easier, as they're adopting more modern functionality. You won't be aware you're using it, just like you aren't aware when you use a zSystem.
The term 'reproducible' in 'reproducible build' (https://reproducible-builds.org/) conveys "bit-for-bit identical output". -- The benefit of that is security; others can compile the same sources and check that they get the same binaries.
But more generally, 'reproduce' just means 'create the same thing again'.
Nix uses "reproducible" in a more general sense: you provide the same inputs, and you'll get a program which behaves the same way, regardless of whether you compiled from source or downloaded binaries from a cache.
IMO, I think "reproducible build" is enough to unambiguously refer to the former. But, if you can think of a nicer word for "you get the same behavior from the same inputs" than "reproducible", it would be worth suggesting.
No, not weird, it is called having good taste. For OLED that means DC dimming not PWM dimming - big difference. And with all of the Ryzen Thinkpads there is no excuse for not having ECC when all of the Ryzen mobile CPUs they're using already support it. I don't get the touchscreen thing, but you can always use one of those artist pads via USB and not affect your screen and be decoupled from the rest of your system (USB peripheral).
What laptop would you recommend that use DC dimming with OLED? Also, does this compromise color accuracy? (I was under the impression that PWM was used with OLED partly because OLED's color accuracy diminishes at lower brightness levels, but I'm not sure where I read that.)
Someone should make a global map with a web app that you can place a search engine protected email address on + GPS location - to contact in case of desire to grab a coffee over locale-focused startup & tech convos. Boom.
User opens app, makes a possible meetup that s/he is into , it then shows up on the map as just the title of the Group, along with maybe an interest count of initially 0.
If others click on it enough, the original users gets notified that this 'has momentum' and whether or not they want to schedule an actual get together. If they do, all other people are notified of the event.
like meetup.com, but the emphasis is on the location.
There are hobbyists that have been able to run Ryzens at very low power without much performance impact. If you raise this with any manufacturers, then they ignore it. Most people are on autopilot
They do have lots of sensors that can be used... We have bad defaults and a not-very-skillful usage of said hardware. On workstations there are lots of options. In datacenters, there could be some dedicated hardware for it somewhere - and an skillful usage of said entropy being imported into each rack unit.
