11 new blinky things added to Openrazer! Firewire gets a new kernel maintainer, building a Pi Pico AM transmitter, and what is a NVIDIA DPU?
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:33 Kernel 6.3 updates
08:59 What is a NVIDIA DPU?
11:11 Firewire support on Linux ends in 2029
18:21 11 new blinky things added to Openrazer
28:16 Pi Pico AM transmitter
Colour key: Venn Jill
Linux Kernel 6.3
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-kernel-6-3-is-released-with-some-major-new-features/
- Linus Torvalds just released Linux Kernel 6.3, and it has some major new features!
- The new kernel comes with more support for Rust, including user-mode Linux support for Rust code.
- And Miguel Ojeda, the Linux kernel developer who led the efforts to bring Rust to Linux, said they are “getting closer to a point where the first Rust modules can be upstreamed.”
- Also, as is usual, there is support for upcoming Intel and AMD CPUs and GPUs, which also helps improve the speed of older processors and devices.
- Mostly likely the Z1.
- And for us Steam Deck users, the new kernel provides a native Steam Deck controller interface in HID. or Human Interface Devices.
- It also includes compatibility for the Logitech G923 Xbox edition racing wheel and improvements to the 8BitDo Pro 2 wired game controllers.
- There is also support for more Wi-Fi adapters and chipsets.
- Including, one of the devices I am really happy for support in the Linux Kernel, is the Realtek RTL8188EU Wi-Fi adapter.
- I have several of these adapters on computers, of which I have spent quite some time getting to work on Linux by manually installing the drivers.
- Now they are plug and play!
- Also, there is Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 wireless chipset support; and Ethernet support for NVIDIA BlueField 3 DPU.
- 6.3 adds support for the Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 Firewire interface with the TCD3070 ASIC. This second gen model has been iffy in the past.
- But why are we getting updates for firewire audio interfaces in 2023?
Firewire until 2029
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20230427034934.GA556709@workstation/
- Tak is the new maintainer of the FireWire subsystem.
- You’ve heard me mention that name before since he is the one behind the ALSA firewire stack.
- He will now maintain the FireWire core functions and 1394 OHCI drivers, as well as sound drivers.
- He’s not interested in working HDDs or camcorders.
- This work will continue until 2029.
- With Linux being open-source that does not mean FireWire support is going away.
- What happens then? Good question.
- Firewire audio interfaces are plentiful and PCIe add in cards are cheap and well supported.
- The industry figured out digital recording by 2005 and you can use those interfaces to record albums in 2023.
- I still have a lot of Macs and computers with FireWire ports.
- And older video cameras that use FireWire.
- And many external FireWire hard drives that I used to use for my animation business in the 90’s.
- It would be sad if support gets deprecated from the Linux Kernel.
Openrazer 3.6.0
https://github.com/openrazer/openrazer/releases/tag/v3.6.0
- Support for 11 new devices.
- The awesome open source project Openrazer, which was created to get Razer peripherals on Linux fully working, has had a big update and more hardware support!
- And the Openrazer driver and daemon doesn’t just enable unicorn vomit on the Razer gaming keyboards and mice, but also lets you adjust functions such as brightness, DPI and polling rate.
- Including:
- The popular Razer Blade 14 laptop from 2022
- Razer Chroma laptop stand
- Razer Basilisk V3 Pro and Razer DeathAdder V2 Lite mice
- Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro TKL Keyboard, both wired and wireless
- I have been using the Openrazer software since it came out for my Razer BlackWidow Chroma gaming keyboard and love it!
- If you have blinky nonsense from multiple vendors take a look at OpenRGB.
- These updates should be added in due time.
Slice of Pi
AM Pie
https://github.com/tudbut/picoAM
- If you’re of a certain age, running a pirate radio station was probably on your todo list as a kid.
- Now you can play the home version with a Pi Pico and a bit of wire.
- All you have to do is flash the ino using the Arduino IDE, grab a capacitor and a resistor and 1557kHz AM will be on the AIR.
- There are about eleventy warnings and disclaimers to keep the antenna short because scaling this would be dead simple.
- You want something that broadcasts in the room, not the neighborhood.
- If you start stepping on people’s frequency they will report it and roll some vans to find the problem.
- It will overclock the Pico so don’t run it 24/7.
- This is an awesome project, but make sure again your antenna is short or you might have the FCC knocking on your door telling you to stop transmitting and/or pay thousands of dollars.
- I have learned this from experience working at a local college AM radio station here in Los Angeles, where the AM radio band is oversaturated.
- It is very hard to control the radiation, or the distance traveled, of AM radio because the way the signal travels high in the atmosphere and bounces back to earth.
- That is why you can get a “skip” from an AM radio station from your home town even while travelling in another country!
