What makes building digital hardware so hard?
What makes building digital hardware so hard? This question has many answers, and some of them I'll try to answer soon at FOSDEM 2016! Two years ago I presented at FOSDEM how to build a custom System-on-Chip (SoC) with OpTiMSoC. Since then, I've been involved in getting more momentum behind the free and open digital hardware movement. Time went by quickly, and since then we've created the Free and Open Source Silicon (FOSSi) Foundation, bootstrapped a community web site (more...
Continue ReadingDoes /tmp have a split personality?
Today I had my first real encounter with the new Linux world, with namespaces, cgroups and systemd. As it turns out, old wisdoms like "an absolute file path is an absolute file path" don't hold any more :-) But let's start from the beginning. I just recently updated a machine to the latest openSUSE 13.1, which uses systemd unit files for a lot of services. I use this machine to develop a web application in PHP, and for debugging I...
Continue ReadingOn Reviewing Technology
Within the whole Debian init system debate, within all the heat and personal attacks, Russ Allbery managed to publish a couple calm and insightful posts very much worth reading. One quote particularly struck me. There is no such thing as a completely impartial review of technology, and you wouldn't want someone who was completely impartial making technological decisions since it would indicate a disturbing lack of familiarity with the problem area. -- Russ Allbery
Continue ReadingFOSDEM 2014
As for some years now I'll be at FOSDEM in Brussels this weekend. But this time is special, I'll give a talk about the project I'm working on most of the time now: OpTiMSoC. Join me on Sunday, February 2nd at 10am for an introduction on how to build y0ur own Manycore System-on-Chip!
Continue ReadingS/MIME und EGVP unter openSUSE
Ich hatte letztens die Freude bei einem Anwalt eine Signaturkarte für die Verwendung zur E-Mail Signierung mittels S/MIME sowie zur Nutzung des Elektronischen Gerichts- und Verwaltungspostfaches (EGVP) unter openSUSE 13.2 x86_64 (64 bit) einzurichten. Die Signaturkarte kam von Soldan (einem Anwalts-Bürodienstleister). An sich handelt es sich dabei nur um eine weiterverkaufte PKS-ECC Smartcard von Telesec (Deutsche Telekom). Als Lesegerät kommt ein Reiner-SCT Cyberjack Pinpad mit USB-Anschluss zum Einsatz. Die erfreuliche Nachricht ist: es funktioniert. Die weniger erfreuliche Nachricht: es erfordert...
Continue Reading