Fedora deprecates legacy BIOS, Raspberry Pi OS drops “pi”, reverse-engineering the Sound Blaster X7, and converting snaps to flatpaks with unsnap.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
07:41 Unsnap
10:31 Fedora deprecates legacy BIOS
17:06 Kernel 5.18 new features
22:58 Reverse-engineering the Sound Blaster X7
31:11 Raspberry Pi OS drops “pi”
UnSnap
https://github.com/popey/unsnap
- Gets a bit more interesting when you note the author.
- Quickly and easily migrate from using snap for applications to flatpak.
- Wouldn’t mind something that converted Snaps to non-container bits.
- Thank you Popey, this is awesome!
- And remember everyone, this is experimental.
RIP BIOS
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DeprecateLegacyBIOS
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/LegacyXorgDriverRemoval
- Vintage 2007 PCs will have to run something else.
- We’re talking Athlon 64 X2 & Core 2 Duo systems.
- UEFI will become a hardware requirement for new Fedora installations on platforms that support it (x86_64).
- This is a first step toward eventually removing legacy BIOS support entirely.
- Fedora is a bleeding edge’ish distro so I don’t see a problem nuking support for old hardware.
- Fedora has been focusing on more modern hardware, and already requires a 2GHz dual core CPU at minimum, and these machines were made after 2006.
- Also, another huge change in Fedora 37, Fedora will be removing the Legacy Xorg Driver as well, and will be Wayland only.
Linux Kernel 5.18 RC1
https://www.debugpoint.com/2022/04/linux-kernel-5-18-rc1/
- Linux Kernel 5.18 Release Candidate 1 has been released with new features from AMD and Intel, and new SoC support.
- This is awesome, Linux Kernel 5.18 will have support for Tesla’s Full-scale Driving SoC in the mainline kernel, whose work is done mainly by Samsung and others.
- Intel’s Alder Lake N SoCs lands in this Kernel version which will provide graphics support for the upcoming low-power and lower-end devices, such as Chromebooks.
- The NVIDIA Tegra Video Decode Driver (Tegra-VDE) now has support.
- AMD includes code for future and upcoming GPUs.
- And AMDGPU FreeSync Video Mode is enabled by default.
- Also, the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is now supported by the mainline Linux kernel.
Sound hacks
https://sayr.us/reverse/soundblaster-reverse/
- Example 3172 of what happens when you don’t release Linux drivers.
- I’m a big fan of the “no idea how to do this” approach.
- Never turn down an opportunity to learn something new.
- The X7 could only be controlled under Linux via Android.
- Used Bluetooth HCI snoop log to capture Bluetooth traffic sent by his mobile.
- Parsed it with Wireshark.
- Used Jadx and APKTool to decompile the X7 app.
- Right now it supports toggling mute on the X7, toggling between headset and speakers and volume control.
- Installs with pip and runs the command line.
- Oh nice, I actually have the Sound Blaster X7 on my Ebay watchlist but never bought it because it didn’t work on Linux.
- I use an external DAC on my computer to listen to music and play games over a 5.1 sound system.
- The Sound Blaster X7 is a high-power, high-efficiency Class-D digital amplifier that delivers up to 100W power, and has received numerous awards, including several CES 2015 Innovation Awards.
Slice of Pi
RasPi Update (RTheren)
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-bullseye-update-april-2022/
- There is a big update to the Raspberry Pi OS Bullseye, that is focused on greater security.
- For instance, in this latest release, the default “pi” user is being removed.
- And instead you will create a user the first time you boot a newly-flashed Raspberry Pi OS image like you do with other Linux distros.
- The Raspberry Pi setup wizard which runs on the first boot and lets you configure international settings, connect to wireless LAN, install any software updates, and change the default password, is no longer optional.
- This is how a user account is created, and until you create a user account, you cannot log in to the desktop.
- For people who run their Raspberry Pi headless and therefore cannot work through the wizard, the Raspberry Pi Imager tool allows you to preconfigure an image with a user account.
- Some countries are now introducing legislation to forbid any Internet-connected device from having default login credentials.
- Now users will create the default user pi when installing the OS.
- Why? Some software is expecting pi.
- Working through the wizard is no longer optional.
- If you are using the Raspberry Pi OS Lite image, which doesn’t have the wizard, you will still need to create a new user account.
- You will therefore be prompted to create an account by text prompts at the command line.
- Team headless can do it through the Ras Pi imager.
- Can pair bluetooth OOTB.
- You can enable Wayland but thar be dragoons.
