Hello everybody out there using minix –
I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get ready. I’d like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).
I’ve currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I’ll get something practical within a few months, and I’d like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll implement them
Linus
PS. Yes – it’s free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that’s all I have :-(.

Linux certainly isn’t just for hobbyists anymore.

The post Linux Turns 33! first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

The charging kit provides a single USB-A port, and a single USB-C port that supports normal USB-C charging, as well as USB-C PD (Power Delivery), allowing it to charge nearly any modern device, including mobile phones, tablets, and laptops. One could even power a Raspberry Pi or similar single-board computer.

What’s In the Box?

The DeWalt Charging Kit ships with a battery adapter, wall wart, USB-C cable, and even a belt hook. These items all come in traditional DeWalt colors, all the way down to the braided USB-C cable. The wall charger chargers up to 65W, and allows users to recharge DeWalt batteries, which saves a considerable amount of space when compared to DeWalt’s traditional chargers.

The braided USB-C cable feels particularly durable, and the included belt clip allows you to use the charger while mobile, which well… is conventient since I’m not sure I own a pocket that any DeWalt battery would fit in.

DCB094K’s Specifications

The charging kit is compatible with nearly any 20V DeWalt battery, and will probably work with aftermarket batteries as well. The USB-A port is rated at 12W (2.4A @ 5V), and and the USB-C PD port is rated at 3A @ 5-15V and 5A @ 20V. The battery port input and output are rated at 6A @ 20V.

The USB-C PD port supports Power Delivery 3.0, Qualcomm QC3.0/2.0, Samsung AFC, and BC 1.2. Meanwhile, the USB-A port supports BC 1.2, Apple FastCharge, and Samsung FastCharge (AFC).

The included USB-C cable is rated for up to 100W, and the charging kit will support charging from 100W AC chargers.

Charging DeWalt Batteries with the DCB094K, and Charging Devices with DeWalt Batteries

DeWalt’s DCB094K Charging Kit provides clear and concise LED indicators with unique light patterns convey charging status and operational state. A battery capacity gauge is missing, so it’s advisable to use battery packs with built-in indicators. All DeWalt 20V Max batteries, except for the 1.3Ah and 1.5Ah models, feature built-in charge indicators.

Charging Stage 1: A flashing red light signifies that the connected DeWalt 20V Max battery is currently charging.

Charging Stage 2: A solid red light on the left and a flashing red light on the right indicate that the connected Dewalt 20V Max battery has reached at least 80% charge.

When both LEDs are solid red, the connected battery is fully charged. Charging a 5Ah battery with the included AC charger took roughly 90 minutes, and upgrading to a 100W AC charger dropped the time down to about an hour.

With the same DeWalt 5Ah battery loaded in and fully charged, I was able to charge my Steam Deck roughly twice over with the included USB-C cable. Similarly, a recharged battery also charged my Pixel 8 Pro twice and still had a little juice left over.

It’s certainly enough to power the 8.8″ Ultrawide Display from MScreen.

Find it on Amazon

DEWALT Battery Charger and USB Wall Charging Kit (DCB094K)

$81.49 at Amazon

DEWALT Portable Charger, Power Bank, 10,000 mAh Battery Pack with USB-C Port for iPhone 16/16 Plus/16 Pro/16 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Series, iPhone 14/13, Samsung Galaxy

$49.48 at Amazon

Anker Prime Power Bank, 9,600mAh Battery Pack with 65W Output, Built-in AC Plug, Supports PD 3.0 and PPS, 30W Fast Recharging, Sleek Portable Charger for MacBook Pro, iPhone 15 Series, Galaxy, iPad

$89.99 at Amazon

Final Thoughts

Most DeWalt power tool owners, like myself, tend to own more than a single DeWalt battery, and also own several batteries that are no longer useful in powering said power tools. In either case, these batteries tend to sit idle or (incorrectly) on a charger for long periods of time. The DCB094K Charging Kit opens a new use for DeWalt batteries by allowing users to power or charge their mobile devices, portable speakers, and more — even single-board computers.

DeWalt includes a belt clip with the charging kit, making it easy to use the batteries while staying mobile. I’m not sure how I’d feel with a 15Ah battery dangling from my belt, but at least they make it possible.

While the included AC charger only provides 65W charging, the DCB094K is capable of 100W charging using other chargers. The DeWalt-branded USB-C cable is rated for the full 100W the charging kit is capable of, but it is limited to being a meter in length. A longer cable would have been a welcome addition, but at least the included one feels quite durable.

Charging DeWalt batteries with the DCB094K is also a slight improvement over DeWalt’s traditional battery chargers in that the setup uses less surface space and provides additional methods of charging the batteries than from an AC outlet. The DCB094K can charge DeWalt batteries from other USB-C PD devices, but the fastest method is going to be upgrading to a 100W AC charger.

Overall, it’s easy to recommend this to DeWalt power tool owners. For anyone else, it’s a tough purchase unless they’re planning on purchasing a DeWalt tool in the future or were able to pick up a DeWalt battery on the cheap during a sale

The post Charge Devices with the DeWalt DCB094K USB-C Charger first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

Many of these free games run great on Linux, and are particularly enjoyable on the Linux-powered Steam Deck!

Head over Steam to check these out.

The post Steam’s Making It Easier Than Ever to Find Free Games first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

This change is intended to offer the latest features and hardware support, though it may also introduce challenges with stability and dependent components. There will be less testing done with the kernel than there has been traditionally, but users will benefit from broader hardware support and other features offered by newer kernels.

The policy will apply to all future Ubuntu releases, with special guidelines for handling “Late” releases. Ubuntu’s 24.10 release, Oracle Oriole, will be the first release to benefit from this change. It is expected to ship with Linux Kernel 6.11.

For more details, visit the Ubuntu Community Hub.

The post Future Ubuntu Releases Will Ship with the Latest and Greatest Linux Kernel first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

Monitors continue to get bigger and bigger, with the biggest stretching all the way up to 55” and 57” in various form factors. Personally, I feel constrained working on a single monitor and believe I’ve adapted well to working with two or more monitors for the past two decades. Sometimes, however, I still wonder how additional screens may further improve my productivity. After reviewing MScreen’s Kickstarter campaign, I was certainly enamored by what they were building.

The Kickstarter campaign’s primary product was a 14” display featuring a 32:9 display ratio with a 1920×550 resolution, and the MScreen Mini isn’t really mentioned until about halfway through their campaign description. Both displays feature IPS screens, aluminum enclosures, USB-power, and mini-HDMI for display.  The 14” display is VESA mount compatible, while the 8.8” mini has T-tracks for mounting purposes.

The Kickstarter campaign was quite successful, pulling in nearly 1,500 backers and over $300,000 in funding.  Unfortunately due to continued COVID outbreaks in China and other undisclosed reasons, the company failed to meet their original delivery timeline of October 2022 and it wasn’t until several months into 2023 that units began to ship to backers. While the Mini 8.8” models were eventually delivered to backers, MScreen was unable to secure enough of the 14” IPS panels to meet backer demand.

Rather than abandon the 14” product, MScreen was able to obtain 12” panels and ship these to backers.  While not the product they backed, at least they received a product for their monetary support. When backing any Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, always remember there is zero guarantee that a Kickstarter campaign will be successful, and you are not entitled to a refund.

Features & Specifications

It is important to note that the manufacturer did swap out the micro-USB port with a USB-C port after feedback from backers.

Packaging and Appearance

The MScreen Mini arrived in a very basic brown cardboard box, with printed black text. Despite this relatively generic packaging, the display was very well protected inside with packing foam. The foam provided more than ample protection for the display, and the display itself was wrapped in a soft-plastic wrapper. 

Under the display was another layer of packaging foam, this time containing the cables and accessories for the unit. It looked like this piece of foam may have been re-used from another product, as the cables were simply placed in the largest area. It looks like this piece of foam was meant to ship with some kind of USB or display dongle.

The screen itself comes with a peel-off protector. The top and sides of the display are smooth, lacking any connectors or buttons. On the rear, there are two rails for mounting the display, and the USB-C and mini-HDMI are in a recessed cubby, allowing for the cables to be hidden instead of sticking out of the side.

Usage

The MScreen Mini requires two cables to operate. While the original project promised power via micro USB, the company upgraded this to USB-C due to the comments on the campaign. The comments were actually calling on them to enable video and power over USB-C, so this wasn’t so much an upgrade as just a port change. Video will always be delivered through a separate mini HDMI port.

The display is detected on Windows and Linux without any problems. The dimensions of the screen limit what the screen can be used for, especially considering it doesn’t follow any standard form factor. Full-screen video will leave black bars on both sizes, and it is far too small for any kind of serious gaming. Using the screen to monitor the system it’s connected to may be the best usage case for the display.

Conclusion

As an 8.8” ultra-wide display, the MScreen Mini belongs in a very specific niche of displays. Unfortunately it lacks a standard mounting system (such as VESA), and is quite thick for what it is. For a display that is essentially any oversized phone screen, it would have been nice to have a more streamlined enclosure.  This unit feels like a display and control board that could be purchased off Aliexpress which was put in the simplest enclosure possible. 

I feel it’s too small to assist with any kind of productivity, and would be best suited for showing system health, or some other kind of widget like a “Currently Playing” widget. It would be phenomenal for the original Winamp music player, or Xmms or gkrellm2 on Linux.

That being said, the screen is small enough that it could be placed inside a PC case and configured to place a movie, pattern, or show system health statistics.  Despite these shortcomings, it is quite bright and everything on it looks crisp. 

I do wonder if the original 14” MScreen display, had it shipped, would have been a better product and lived up to the promise from the crowdfunding campaign of improved multitasking. While I am happy the product was funded and the company was able to deliver on some of their promises, this 8.8” MScreen Mini feels more like a novelty than an assistive product.

Find it on Amazon

ASRock Intel ARC A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC GDDR6 96-bit DisplayPort HDMI 0dB Silent Cooling 2250 MHz 7680 x 4320 PCI Express4.0 Graphics Card 500W

$ at Amazon

Maxfree L1 12.1" Portable Touch Screen Monitor with Dual Loudspeakers, 10-Points Touch IPS 60Hz FHD for Windows/Mac Laptop, PC, Switch, Android Phone, Xbox, PS4/5

$ at Amazon

Keychron K5 Pro Wireless QMK/VIA Custom Mechanical Keyboard, 100% Full Size Layout 108 Key Programmable, Ultra-Slim RGB Backlit Low Profile Gateron Brown Switch Bluetooth/Wired for Mac Windows Linux

$114.99 at Amazon

The post MScreen Mini, An 8.8 Inch Ultrawide Display first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

Kickstarter saw a number of portable displays in different sizes in 2022. While not every project on Kickstarter succeeds, this one did… albeit several months behind schedule.  This 12.3” display from domyfan not only comes in a unique form factor, but also provides stereo speakers and touch functionality.

Packaging and Contents

The DomyFan L1 came nicely packaged in a black box with golden embossed text and graphics. The outer box feels sturdy and well-constructed.  The box opens by lifting the front flap, which is secured by two magnets.  Upon lifting the top open, the monitor is presented in its full size, with only a protective film on the screen. The sizes of the package are hard, but protective foam.

Lifting the monitor from its space reveals a cavity containing the L1’s user guide and a handful of cables: HDMI, USB-A to USB-C, and USB-C. The cables are all braided, which is a nice touch since most products simply include the typical black rubber cables – if they even provide them.

Specifications and Features

I backed the L1 on Kickstarter. I was drawn in by the promise of a wide IPS screen, USB-C connectivity, and VESA mount compatibility. The IPS screen brings the promise of vibrant colors and good viewing angles, while the USB-C connectivity will allow the screen to connect to multiple devices, such as Nintendo Switch, laptop, or even desktop computer.  While the L1 does ship with a stand on the back for portability, I’m more excited about the ways it can be mounted with its VESA mount.

In addition to the USB-C connectivity, the monitor also has a mini-HDMI port.  External power via USB may be required depending on the output USB-C port of the connected device, or will always be required when using the mini-HDMI input.

DomyFan claims the unit supports up to 172 degree viewing angles, 300 nits of maximum brightness, and 100% sRGB color gamut.

Appearance

After removing the L1 from its packaging, I was a little shocked at just how big this unit was.  The speakers significantly increase the size of this display. While not unwieldy, the speakers increase the thickness of the body significantly when compared to other portable monitors. The speaker grills almost – almost – give it a retro look, as if it were made in the 80s or 90s.

On the top right of the unit is the power toggle combined with a volume toggle, along with a little LED to show when the unit is powered on.

On the back of the device, a stand is mounted in the center of the L1.  It can be used to set the tablet up in portrait or landscape mode. Directly behind the bracket are VESA-compliant mounting with options for 100*100mm, 75*75mm, and 50*50mm. Finally, to the right of the stand are the device inputs: two USB-C 3.1 ports, two USB-A ports, and a single mini-HDMI port.

Usage

The DomyFan L1 works out of the box with both Windows (10 and 11), as well as Linux (tested on Ubuntu 22.04 – 23.10).  The screen, speakers, and touchscreen input are all detected automatically.

Initially I believe that touchscreen support wasn’t working on Linux, but found that the touchscreen input was affecting the default screen (in this case, my laptop’s built-in screen) rather than the L1’s display. This behavior can be corrected with the xinput command, with some information out of xrandr.  First, get a list of devices from xinput:

xinput
⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ TPPS/2 Elan TrackPoint                    id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ BJYP-L1 Device BJYP-L1-V1.09              id=13   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ BJYP-L1 Device BJYP-L1-V1.09              id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ ThinkPad Extra Buttons                    id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Note the ID’s for any of the BJYP-L1 devices, then find the L1 in xrandr:

xrandr
HDMI-1 connected 1920x860+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 278mm x 124mm
   1920x860      59.99*+
   1280x720      60.00    59.94

Then use xinput to confine the L1 input(s) to the external display:

xinput map-to-output 13 HDMI-1

xinput map-to-output 14 HDMI-1

Now the touchscreen input will be limited to the external display.  Once Wayland replaces X, this will all change.  Wayland may handle this out of the box without any issues, however.

Conclusion

First and foremost, this is not a portable monitor you take to the coffee shop as a second screen. The speakers create too much of a gap between the monitors, which seriously hurts productivity. Placing the screen in portrait mode may improve the situation, but the 860 pixel width of the screen limits what the screen can be used for.  Maybe a dedicated chat or social feed screen would be the best use in a mobile setting.

That said, the speakers of the L1 provide a better audio experience than probably any other portable monitor on the market. This comes at the price of having a bulkier unit than most, along with the other downsides I spelled out previously.

The VESA mounting capability is extremely nice to have, meaning the unit could easily be mounted to the wall as a sma
ll display, or even on a monitor arm on a desk. Ideally I’d like to find some kind of gas-piston arm that would allow me to freely reposition the screen, but that’s a product for another day.

The most limiting feature of the L1 is the 60hz refresh rate. For a portable monitor being marketed to be used with the Nintendo Switch, mobile phones, and other game consoles, the 60hz refresh rate simply isn’t sufficient. 120hz or greater would have created a much more vibrant product. The screen itself does look great for a portable unit, and it is plenty bright for indoor use.

Overall, the DomyFan L1 is a nifty extra display.  It will do great as a portable display for game consoles or media playback from a mobile device, however I think its use as an external display for office work is a bit limited.

Find it on Amazon

ASRock Intel ARC A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC GDDR6 96-bit DisplayPort HDMI 0dB Silent Cooling 2250 MHz 7680 x 4320 PCI Express4.0 Graphics Card 500W

$ at Amazon

Maxfree L1 12.1" Portable Touch Screen Monitor with Dual Loudspeakers, 10-Points Touch IPS 60Hz FHD for Windows/Mac Laptop, PC, Switch, Android Phone, Xbox, PS4/5

$ at Amazon

Keychron K5 Pro Wireless QMK/VIA Custom Mechanical Keyboard, 100% Full Size Layout 108 Key Programmable, Ultra-Slim RGB Backlit Low Profile Gateron Brown Switch Bluetooth/Wired for Mac Windows Linux

$114.99 at Amazon

The post DomyFan L1 12.3” Portable Monitor and Touchscreen first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

Introduction

My company recently downsized office space due to the pandemic, and we no longer had a closet to store a server rack and servers in. We also found that having a server rack in an open floor plan office wasn’t conducive for hosting client meetings due to both the heat and sound from the servers. Given these issues, I was given the task of relocating our network equipment to a more hidden location and replacing our servers with a quieter solution. Relocating our network equipment was easy – a wall-mounted rack was placed in a corner of the office behind a support pillar, making our Ubiquiti equipment somewhat “out of sight” (did you see our article on setting up a Multi-factor Authentication VPN on Unifi?).

Our server infrastructure consisted of two Dell R720 servers running VMware ESXi, with an old Dell Compellent disk shelf attached to one of them, and a custom-built NAS running TrueNAS in a Supermicro chassis. The R720s ran VMs for tasks such as DHCP, DNS, MySQL and MSSQL servers, and plenty of docker containers for our microservices and testing / deployments.  Our NAS has essentially been collecting dust since we began storing most of our files on Google Drive, but we did have all of the backups from the VMs being stored on it – so massive amounts of storage weren’t really a need anymore. All of this infrastructure was well over a decade old. Replacing it meant building a solution with newer equipment that will last us another 5-10 years, and could be easily expanded if needed.

And so I had my goals:

1. Quiet

2. Easily stored in the office without a rack

3. Capable of running multiple VMs

4. Modern components

5. Expandable

Selecting an Enclosure

From the get-go, I knew I wanted a tower server. It would fit in the corner of the office under our new wall-mounted network rack. I also knew I wanted a dual-CPU setup, so the case would need to be able to fit an EATX motherboard.  Lastly, I wanted something that I could add additional storage to down the line, so having as many 3.5” and 5.25” bays as possible was also a requirement. Given that I’ve been building computers for well over two decades, I had some pretty good ideas of the style of case I wanted.  

After a few searches on NewEgg and Amazon, I was quick to learn that the type of cases I wanted aren’t made anymore. With the downfall of optical media, finding a case with more than one or two 5.25” bays is a challenge. eBay could have been an option, but I wanted to ensure we got all the parts and accessories that ship with a new case.

I ended up settling on the Phanteks Enthoo Pro, which has four 5.25” bays (albeit one is taken up by front panel connections), six 3.5” bays, and two 2.5” bays. Additionally, the case can fit a total of seven 140mm fans, providing plenty of airflow. The side panel is tempered glass, but it won’t end up being visible given the way the server will be situated in the corner of our office.

Phanteks (PH-ES614PTG_BK) Enthoo Pro ATX Chassis, Tempered Glass, Intergrated RGB Lighting, Black

$133.99 at Amazon

“Cheap” Epyc CPUs, Motherboard, and RAM from eBay

eBay has been flooded with first- and second-generation Epyc CPUs and motherboards from China.  At the time of writing, I was able to find a listing for a Supermicro D11HSI motherboard, dual Epyc 7302 CPUs, and 128GB of RAM for around $700. The Epyc 7302 is a second-geneartion Epyc CPU with 16 cores and 32 threads, and the Supermicro D11HSI provides plenty of PCI-E expansion and IPMI remote management in an EATX form factor.

As always, some research is necessary when buying products from eBay. Specific to the Epyc CPUs, it is important to verify the CPUs are unlocked – otherwise they may only work with specific motherboards. 

Enterprise NVMe Storage

A pair of Samsung EVO 870 SATA drives would be used for booting VMware ESXi in a mirrored configuration. For virtual machine storage, I wanted a minimum of 7.5TB of fast storage.

SAS, SATA, M.2, U.2, U.3, E1.s – so many options for storage. For performance concerns, SATA and m.2 drives weren’t even a consideration in this build. U.3 and E1.s drives turned out to be difficult to find on the consumer market, and the backplanes for these are still quite pricey – and rare.  M.2 drives are plentiful and reasonably priced in the current market, but their performance and longevity were still a concern for me.

After finding a four-drive U.2 backplane, the ToughArmor MB699VP-B, from our friends at IcyDock, I decided on U.2 drives. SAS drives probably would have been a cheaper option, but U.2 offers higher speeds. I was able to find 3.84TB Intel U.2 drives at ServerPartySupply.com for a little over $200 each.

The U.2 drive interface may look similar to a SAS interface, however it is slightly different (seriously, don’t try hooking one up with a SAS cable), and the controller would need to support U.2 drives as well.  Thankfully, Icy Dock provides plenty of documentation on compatible controllers and cables for their drive cages. Additionally, the server would be running VMware ESXi 6.7 when completed, so a RAID controller would also be necessary rather than a HBA since VMware doesn’t support software RAID or ZFS.

Tri-mode controllers can be configured to support a combination of SATA, SAS, and NVMe drives. I selected the Broadcom 9460-16i, which can support a maximum of four x4 NVMe drives, perfect for the Icy Dock drive cage. This would be used to run the Intel U.2 drives in a RAID5 configuration.

The last piece of the puzzle was finding the correct cables that would connect from the RAID controller to the drive cage. Icy Dock recommended the Broadcom 05-50061-00 cable, which was incredibly hard to find.  Even after finding a retailer with it in stock, the cables didn’t work.  The difference between these and standard SFF-8643 cables is that a U.2 enabler is needed, which directs the PCI-Express signals. Big thanks to Taylor and SerialCables.com for coming through with a working set of cables.

ICY DOCK 4 Bay 2.5 NVMe U.2/U.3 SSD PCIe 4.0 Rugged Mobile Rack Enclosure for 5.25" Bay (4 x Mini-SAS HD) | ToughArmor MB699VP-B

$310.71 at Amazon

Dell Intel P4510 4TB PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe U.2 2.5-inch Enterprise SSD - SSDPE2KX040T8TP

$ at Amazon

Dell Broadcom 9460-16i 042PDX SAS/SATA/NVMe Tri-Mode PCIe RAID Controller 42PDX

$383.00 at Amazon

Power Supply

Aside from buying a power supply from a reliable brand, this was not a huge concern for the build. The Supermicro HS11DSI motherboard does require two 8-pin CPU connectors, so this was the only important factor to consider. The server won’t be running a GPU anytime soon, so a 850W unit from Corsair checked all the boxes, with room for expansion down the road.

CORSAIR RM850x Fully Modular ATX Power Supply - 80 PLUS Gold - Low-Noise Fan - Zero RPM - Black

$154.23 at Amazon

Cooling

When it comes to quiet cooling, Noctua is one of the top names on the market. A handful of their A14 and A12 fans would provide case airflow, and NH-U9 supports the SP3 socket. Despite the tempered glass window on the Enthoo, the is
a lack of RGB lighting in this build.

Noctua NF-A14 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (140mm, Brown)

$24.95 at Amazon

Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan, 4-Pin (120mm, Brown)

$34.95 at Amazon

Noctua NH-U9 TR4-SP3, Premium CPU Cooler for AMD sTRX4/TR4/SP3 (92mm, Brown)

$99.95 at Amazon

Backup Storage

While a dedicated NAS may be purchased down the road, it wasn’t part of this budget.  Initially, I had planned to install a handful of spinning drives in the Enthoo, but eventually decided not to.  While these would provide ample storage and could be passed through to a TrueNAS VM or similar, they wouldn’t be easy to access if there was a hardware failure on the server. Due to this consideration, I opted for a 4-bay RAID enclosure from QNAP with USB-C connectivity – the TR-004.

Integrated RAID on the enclosure removes any OS requirements, and the USB-C connectivity ensures both fast transfer speeds and the ability to connect it to other systems in the event of hardware failure in the server.

QNAP TR-004-44W-US 4 Bay DAS (USB Type-C) with 12TB Storage Capacity, Preconfigured RAID 5 WD Red Plus HDD Bundle

$ at Amazon

Final Considerations

The Supermicro H11DSI only provides gigabit ethernet interfaces, so to provide 10GB connectivity I added an Intel X520 card with dual SFP+ interfaces. This will connect to our office’s network through the SFP+ ports on our Ubiquti switch.

The Phanteks Enthoo has a USB-C port on the front of the case, and the QNAP TR-004 would achieve its fastest speeds over a USB-C interface. The Supermicro H11DSI doesn’t provide USB-C connectivity, so an add-on card is needed. I found a PCI-Express card that provides both external USB-C 3.2 ports, as well as an internal USB 3.2 header for the case. This card would be passed through directly to our Windows Server 2016 VM, making it easy to share the TR-004’s storage on our network.

PCI-E to USB 3.2 Expansion Card ,3.2 gen2 10Gpbs (3X USB C, 1x USB A, 1x USB Type E A Key) , USB C PCI Express Card, A-Key 20 Pin Header for Type C Front Panel Mount Adapter

$42.49 at Amazon

Putting It All Together

Assembly was completed without a hitch.  The Supermicro H11DSI provided plenty of fan headers to power all the Noctua case fans, and the Phanteks Enthoo Pro made cable management a breeze.  

The only issue that popped up was after assembly. The 9460-16i RAID controller was not seeing the Intel U.2 drives.  I double-checked the specialized cables and reset the controller’s settings, however no matter what I tried, the drives were not detected.

After several days of research on the internet, the only possible solution I could find was the cables I was sent were wrong. Unfortunately the vendor insisted they were the correct cables and would neither issue a refund nor send new cables. I was back to trying to source the cables again.

Enter SerialCables.com. While certainly not the cheapest listing I could find, they provided an excellent experience. After placing my order, Taylor reached out to me asking if their lead time on the cables was acceptable.  I explained my situation to Taylor, Taylor brought in a sales engineer and even provided a schematic for the cable so I could verify it was what I needed. There was a few weeks of lead time, but sure enough the cables came.

After configuring the RAID controller for NVMe drives and switching to the new cables, the Intel U.2 drives were finally detected. Now I was able to install ESXi and finish configuring the server. 

Conclusion

At a hair under $3,500, this server went together almost without any issues.  With its 32 cores, 128GB of RAM, and speedy U.2 NVMe storage, this server far outshines the Dell R720 servers it is replacing.  Thanks to the Noctua cooling, the server runs near silent – it can barely be heard even with a fair load running. For the price and performance, I don't believe I'd be be able to find a similar off-the-shelf server anyhwere close to $3,500.

After three months of operation, we haven’t experienced any stability issues. There are still several PCI-Express slots and drive cages available in the case, so we can continue to expand the server as required – however the next addition will probably be a dedicated NAS for a better backup solution.  I’ve included a full build list below for those interested:

The post Building a Dual-Epyc Tower Server for a Homelab or Office first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

• Prompting users to save unsaved changes before shutting down or restarting in the Plasma Wayland session
• "Bounce Keys" now fully work in the Plasma Wayland session, with only one Wayland Showstopper remaining
• Compatibility of widgets from Plasma 5 to Plasma 6
• Other improvements include the porting of the Samba sharing configuration wizard to Qt6. Numerous bug fixes have also been implemented

I'm hopeful this will the smoothest migration for major versions of the KDE Framework, and particularly looking towards a positive Wayland experience.  While I've a KDE user since the 2.x days, I remember the early days of 4.x and 5.x being plagued by issues (resulting in projects such as the Trinity Desktop Environment, a KDE 3.x fork).

Contributions and support are welcome, with a fundraiser in progress and various ways to get involved in the KDE project.

The post KDE Plasma 6 Feature Freeze Approaching! first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

Packaging & Aesthetics

ASRock’s packaging doesn’t leave much room for imagination: an image of the card, almost to scale, is plastered on the front of the box, along with some of Intel’s branding: Intel Arc 3, XeSS AI Upscaling, and DirectX XII Ultimate support.

The rear of the packaging lists some of the card’s features, such as its compact design, silent cooling, and quality electronic components. The bottom speaks about some of the technologies Intel built into these cards, such as XeSS AI Enhanced Upscaling.

For a modern GPU, the Challenger ITX A380 is certainly compact. A massive, finned heatsink sits on top of the GPU, and an over-sized shroud and fan on top of that heatsink. On the rear, the card offers up three DisplayPort ports, and a single HDMI port – all of their respective 2.0 specifications.

The shroud that covers the heatsink and card is absurdly oversized. Maybe this assists with the promise of 0dB silent cooling, but for a card aiming to fit in some mini-ITX cases, this size of the shroud seems very unnecessary. The card does require a single 8-pin PCI Express power connector, which is something not typically seen in entry-level, compact GPUs.

No cover plates of fancy RGB lights here: the back of the PCB is relatively plain.

Features & Specifications

The Intel Arc A380 features 8 Xe cores, 2 Render Slices, 8 Ray Tracing Units, and 128 Xe Vector engines.  These cores and engines makes up the core of Intel’s Arc “Alchmeist” line, with the counts of these increasing as the model number increases. The card is rated at 75W TBP.

While the stock A380 GPU is clocked at 2000MHz, ASRock has overclocked this model to 2200MHz. The 6GB of onboard GDDR6 memory clocks in at 15.5 Gbps and has 186 GB/s of bandwidth. The card was designed to run on a PCI-Express 4.0 x8 interface, however an x16 slot is required. While the card can be used on PCI-Express 3.0 and lower, it’s important to note that resizable BAR is highly recommended when using any of the Intel Arc GPUs, otherwise performance will suffer greatly.

On the video side of things, the A380 supports H.264 Hardware Encode/Decode, H.265 (HEVC) Hardware Encode/Decode, AV1 Encode/Decode, as well as VP9 Bitstream & Decoding. The Arc A380 is one of the first entry-level GPUs to support hardware AV1 encoding and decoding, which is incredibly exciting for the open, royalty-free format. At the time of writing, ffmpeg 6.0 has hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding for the Intel Arc GPUs, however this version is not yet available as a package for the current Ubuntu LTS (22.04), but can be found in the current release, 23.10.

Installation

With such a small and compact design, installation was a breeze. There’s no need to worry about the card hitting any cables coming from the motherboard, or removing harddrive cages to make room for a card’s extended length. With its massive shroud and fan, the A380 does take up two PCI slots.

Quite frankly, the size of this card was a bit of a relief as I can actually fit my hand in to use the PCI-Express release lever.

On the software side of things, most Linux distributions aren’t ready to support the Intel Arc “Alchemist” GPUs out-of-the-box. Intel released pre-packaged “drivers” in the form of a PPA for Ubuntu
22.04, however these didn’t work for me on a vanilla installation of 22.04 – it resulted in corrupted colors and effects. Similarly, I couldn’t even get the Ubuntu 22.10 installer to load the GUI installer.

I was finally able to get the card running smoothly on Kubuntu 22.04 after installing Kernel 6.0, the latest Mesa drivers, and a handful of other utilities.  Desktop performance and audio were still glitchy, but at least the card was working on the current Long-term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu. With the release of Ubuntu 23.04, out-of-the-box support was finally here for the Intel Arc GPUs, and nearly all of the features of the card were now available.

Gaming Benchmarks

Frankly, the Intel Arc A380 isn’t going to perform well with today’s modern titles. Playing many of the games available through Steam, or open source games such as Xonotic, however, are a sweet spot for the sub-$200 GPU. At the time of writing, some Vulkan features still missing for the entire Arc line on Linux, limiting the games that can be tested.

First, let’s look at the system we’ll be testing the Arc A380 with:

The following benchmarks were completed using the Phoronix Test Suite.

Xonotic

Xonontic, arguably the best open source FPS game, is more than playable on the Arc A380.  Every other card we tested with did score around 2-3 times higher, but that’s the difference you’ll have between low-end and mid-range cards.

Portal 2

Valve’s first person shooter meets puzzler is also incredibly playable.

Unigine

The Arc A380 performs admirably in these two benchmarks from Unigine.

Left 4 Dead 2

The results start to show the lack of optimization or support for the entire Intel Arc line.  This should be expected considering the game was released in 2009 and is no longer a “modern” game.  Future driver updates may improve these scores, but I would not expect any patches to the game itself for the Intel Arc GPUs.

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The ASRock ITX Challenger Intel Arc A380 makes for a compelling workstation video card, whether for running multiple monitors, or performing video encoding and decoding. The built-in AV1 encoder should be a great asset for content creators, and overall form factor of this card would make it great for a compact or low-powered media server with transcoding capabilities.  Given this card’s form factor and power consumption, this card would also make an excellent choice for media transcoding in a Plex or Jellyfin server.

The card’s 3D and gaming performance certainly leaves something to be desired as it barely keeps up with entry level cards from six years ago.  While it certainly shouldn’t be considering a gaming card, there are many games available in Steam’s library that should be playable with this card, and small performance improvements may come as the drivers continue to mature.

Given my issues with Intel’s pre-packaged drivers for Ubuntu 22.04, it has to be said that Mesa 23.x and the Linux Kernel 6.2 are the minimum requirements for stable performance when using any of the Intel Arc GPUs.  Ubuntu’s next long-term support release should be released next year, and should make these cards much more attractive for users who tend to stick to LTS releases. I’m hopeful the sales of these cards meet Intel’s expectations so they continue to develop and improve the platform. Based on these initial benchmarks and tests, it would be a true shame to lose a third GPU brand so soon. A second or third generation of Intel’s platform could have models competitive with that of nVidia and AMD’s flagship GPUs.

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ACER | Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 Overclocking Graphics Card | 16GB GDDR6 256-bit 18 Gbps | PCIe 4.0 | Dual Fan | Customize RGB Lighting Color & Effect | TPD 250W | 1xHDMI 2.1 & 3xDisplayPort 2.0

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The post ASRock Challenger ITX Intel Arc A380 Graphics Card first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.

Ubuntu 23.04 is the second major Linux distribution to ship with Kernel 6.2, following behind Arch 2023.03.01. Mesa 23.0 also ships with this latest iteration of Ubuntu, and in conjunction with the 6.2 kernel this provides most of the necessary components needed to support the Intel Arc GPUs.

Installation & Initial Boot

The Ubuntu installer was able to support the Intel Arc A380, A750, and A770, as the screen was able to automatically adjust to the monitor’s native 1440p resolution, and even HDMI auto was working. There were no graphical issues during installation, and this set the tone for the remainder of our testing.

Following a successful installation, Ubuntu booted without a hitch and once again, the monitor automatically adjusted to the monitor’s native resolution and audio over HDMI was working. While promising, further testing was still necessary to ensure the full capabilities of the GPUs were working properly.

3D Acceleration and A/V Capabilities

Ubuntu 23.04 has shipped with Mesa 23.0.2, a version newer than what we even tested with Ubuntu 22.10 from a 3rd party PPA. Here’s the OpenGL info:

OpenGL vendor string: IntelOpenGL renderer string: Mesa Intel(R) Arc(tm) A380 Graphics (DG2)OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 23.0.2OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profileOpenGL core profile extensions:OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.0.2OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60OpenGL context flags: (none)OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profileOpenGL extensions:OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 23.0.2OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20OpenGL ES profile extensions:

Similarly, Vulkan is supported as well:

Vulkan Instance Version: 1.3.239Instance Extensions: count = 21===============================VK_EXT_acquire_drm_display       : extension revision 1VK_EXT_acquire_xlib_display      : extension revision 1VK_EXT_debug_report          : extension revision 10VK_EXT_debug_utils           : extension revision 2VK_EXT_direct_mode_display       : extension revision 1VK_EXT_display_surface_counter     : extension revision 1VK_EXT_swapchain_colorspace      : extension revision 4VK_KHR_device_group_creation      : extension revision 1VK_KHR_display             : extension revision 23VK_KHR_external_fence_capabilities   : extension revision 1VK_KHR_external_memory_capabilities  : extension revision 1VK_KHR_external_semaphore_capabilities : extension revision 1VK_KHR_get_display_properties2     : extension revision 1VK_KHR_get_physical_device_properties2 : extension revision 2VK_KHR_get_surface_capabilities2    : extension revision 1VK_KHR_portability_enumeration     : extension revision 1VK_KHR_surface             : extension revision 25VK_KHR_surface_protected_capabilities : extension revision 1VK_KHR_wayland_surface         : extension revision 6VK_KHR_xcb_surface           : extension revision 6VK_KHR_xlib_surface          : extension revision 6

No errors or issues are reported by vainfo, the out-of-box drivers work for the cards:

libva info: VA-API version 1.17.0libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.solibva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_17libva info: va_openDriver() returns 0vainfo: VA-API version: 1.17 (libva 2.12.0)vainfo: Driver version: Intel iHD driver for Intel(R) Gen Graphics - 23.1.2 ()

And support is shown for all the major video codecs, including MPEG2, H. 264, VP9, H. 265, and even AV1 (a feature heavily advertised for the Arc cards). Of course, software must also support these features – e.g., ffmpeg, OBS, etc. At the time of writing, Ubuntu 23.04 ships with ffmpeg 5.1.2, which is missing the Intel QSV AV1 codecs for hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding.

Hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding will be huge for content creators and streamers, as it utilizes much less bandwidth than many other current video codecs – for example, being able to stream in 4K while using similar bandwidth that non-AV1 1080p streaming may use. Ubuntu 23.10 might bring ffmpeg 6.x to the game, or there may be a 3rd-party PPA that pops up in the interim.

Benchmark Foreword

The Arc A750 and A770 have already been shown to be competitive with the GeForce RTX 3060 on Windows, and at the time of writing, the A750 is one of the best budget GPUs for its current price-to-performance ratio. While we’d normally anticipate similar results in Linux, full support for the Arc line of GPUs is still in the early stages.

As Vulkan is being heavily utilized by modern titles, as well as Steam to provide high-performance emulation for DirectX games, support is a must to provide a stable gaming experience. Unfortunately the Arc graphics are still tied to some of the original Intel i915 drivers, and due to this an important Vulkan feature is missing: sparse residency. Vulkan sparse residency manages certain memory buffers, and is often used for texturing purposes in games. Without this support, well, the graphics aren’t exactly “stable” when the game manages to run.  

Following a ticket in Mesa’s git repository, it should only be a matter of months before this support is officially rolled out in the new Intel Xe driver. Early adopters will, of course, need to upgrade their system’s Linux kernel and Mesa outside of regular releases, but hopefully the new driver hits mainline in time for Fall distro releases, such as Ubuntu 23.10.

Despite the lack of Vulkan sparse residency support, there are plenty of stable, playable games for Linux that the A750 and A770 will support.

Below is our test system:

I’ve intentionally left the Intel Arc A380 absent from our gaming benchmarks, as it simply doesn’t compete as a gaming card.

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MSI B550M PRO ProSeries Motherboard (Support 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen, AM4, DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI/DP, Micro-ATX) (Renewed)

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Gaming Results

While the best Open Source shooter isn’t necessarily as graphic-intensive as the latest iteration of Call of Duty, it is action-packed, and Intel’s Arc GPUs are highly competitive when it comes to performance.

Moving on to a closed-source game, Intel’s Arc GPUs remain competitive with the mid-range offerings from nVidia and AMD.

Even in these resource-intensive benchmarks, the Intel A770 and A750 prove they’re capable of modern gaming demands.

With the option to run Left 4 Dead 2 with a Vulkan renderer, the Intel Arc GPUs show their Linux drivers haven’t yet been fully optimized for Vulkan support yet. This should change by the end of 2023 when the new Xe drivers are mainlined.

Conclusion

At the time of writing, the Arc A750 and A770 have only been on the market for seven months, and are already competitive with similar offerings from AMD and nVidia – with the A770 even outperforming its direct competitors such as the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 XT. While the Arc A380 is certainly no gaming GPU, it has been providing a stable desktop experience on my workstation for nearly a month, and has given me less issues than any nVidia card I’ve used for my workstation in the past.

The Intel Arc GPUs were released with mixed fanfare. Personally, I was excited for a third competitor in the GPU space, and knew there would be compatibility issues to be worked out with both Linux and Windows systems. Intel has supported Linux development for years, and their integrated GPU drivers for Linux have provided some of the most stable performance and compatibility when compared to the drivers from AMD and nVidia. This gives me hope that Intel’s Arc GPUs could be the absolute best option for stability and performance on Linux systems in the next 12-24 months as the drivers continue to be developed.

Have the past few months changed your opinion of the Intel Arc GPUs?

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ACER | Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 Overclocking Graphics Card | 16GB GDDR6 256-bit 18 Gbps | PCIe 4.0 | Dual Fan | Customize RGB Lighting Color & Effect | TPD 250W | 1xHDMI 2.1 & 3xDisplayPort 2.0

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The post Intel Arc GPUs Working Out-of-the-Box on Ubuntu 23.04 first appeared on BIOSLEVEL.