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mrpippy

3,383 karma · joined February 7, 2012

Apple platforms -- embedded -- Linux/UNIX -- retrocomputing

https://bslabs.net

https://twitter.com/realmrpippy

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mrpippy··on MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch
The big UI changes for touch were years ago, with Big Sur
mrpippy··on About the compromised eMudhra intermediate CAs
It is in-scope for a security update, and they say one will be coming. They just couldn’t modify cert.pem without a security update like they did for their own SSL APIs. Hopefully a security update will be coming soon.
mrpippy··on New iMac with M6
Specifically the iMac has a 24" 4.5K panel (4480x2520), and supports P3 color. And if the glass front is a problem, nano-texture glass is available for an extra $200 (although only on the higher-end config).
mrpippy··on Fun Extending the C Preprocessor
> slow compilation, hard to debug code, opaque and fragile code, and incredible complexity

Most people describe C++ in those terms.

mrpippy··on Python 3.15
No, this is not true. macOS 10.15 included Python 2.7 as part of the OS, and it was removed in macOS 12.2 IIRC.

Python 3.9 is still included in Xcode and the Command Line Tools, but not the OS itself. It’s only for running scripts (and for supporting LLDB I think), applications cannot link against it like they could with the old OS-bundled 2.7.

Python 3.9 is getting conspicuously old though, I was a bit surprised Apple didn’t update it in Xcode 27.

mrpippy··on MXC - a sandboxed code execution system
The docs are pretty clear that it’s experimental, and it’s not even exported from a DLL. It’ll be hilarious if some application depends on it and they have to keep it though
mrpippy··on Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome
When Apple adopts jxl-rs? Any source for them doing that? I can’t think of any Rust code that Apple is shipping.
mrpippy··on OpenSSH 10.6
Are sandbox profiles (or how to use them) officially documented anywhere (as non-deprecated)?

They just got burned by the documented usage of sandbox_init() going away (which didn’t even get a mention in the release notes), I can understand why they’d be unexcited about moving to a different deprecated/undocumented API.

mrpippy··on OpenSSH 10.6
Code signing and entitlements are integrated into the binary.

(Restricted entitlements require a provisioning profile which requires a bundle, but restricted entitlements are pretty rare)

mrpippy··on California closed the Montana license plate loophole
Every time you pay your registration in CA (either online or through the mail) they ask if you want to register PNO or not. Also, it’s not free (like $20) to register PNO, so doing it automatically would still result in an unpaid bill.
mrpippy··on OpenSSH 10.6
I look forward to seeing if Apple makes any changes in the fork they ship with the OS: https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/OpenSSH.

"Updated sandbox for privilege-separated pre-authorization sshd process" is listed as a modification to the open-source project, but I suspect this is out-of-date.

mrpippy··on NASA asked several former SR-71A staffers to help secret restart
The article says this one was on a pylon (with a spare engine on display on the ground below). Being owned by NASA is important, also being on a military base (the home of USAF test flight!) where it could be removed and easily wheeled into a large-enough hangar without anyone noticing for 5+ months.

Getting any of those planes outside of their museums would be logistically difficult, and of course it would immediately be noticed. And even if you can rent a hangar big enough, and secure it, then you're stuck at BFI/IAD/Wright-Patterson trying to do this impossible task.

mrpippy··on Banks and Credit Unions to Team Up Against Apple Pay Fees
Or (common in the US) handing your card to a restaurant waiter who walks off with it to do the charge
mrpippy··on A brief history of Windows scroll bar shortcuts
It works, but gives you zero help with dark mode or HiDPI (both are possible, it's just entirely on the developer)
mrpippy··on Linux support is coming to Snapdragon X2 series
This. The X1 Elite laptops came out 2+ years ago, but you still need to use a special Ubuntu remix to get everything* working, and support is very dependent on which laptop you bought. You could say it’s not Qualcomm’s job to make audio or the camera work on every Lenovo/Dell/HP, but someone needs to do it…

*: I’m sure there’s some features that still aren’t working right.

mrpippy··on Comma's hands-off driving tech under investigation after 2 fatal crashes
Completely predictable. They’ll likely dodge a lawsuit in this case (since the car that was hit was an unoccupied police car) but it will inevitably happen.
mrpippy··on Apple Copland D11E4 Booting in the Browser
Gerbils! is a demo app for QuickDraw 3D where gerbils are racing on a roller coaster track (or similar…it’s been a few decades). It existed for classic Mac OS too (I remember playing it on a 6100)
mrpippy··on The scourge of x86 emulation
> A potential concern is that when jumping between x86 emulation and ARM code, that the ARM code will pay unnecessary overhead due to all its accesses being TSO now. While this is a reasonable concern, the amount of ARM native code executing under emulation approaches 0%.

This may be true when FEX is executing as a usermode whole-process emulator on Linux, but it is not true when FEX is built for Windows(/Wine)'s ARM64EC mode. With ARM64EC a thread could be running a very small amount of emulated code while everything else is native.

I believe Microsoft Office is built as ARM64EC in order to support x86_64 plugins, in this case the entire suite itself (along with all the system DLLs) are native ARM64EC code and the only emulation would be for plugins. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has an ARM64EC build where the main game EXE is small and x86_64, but the actual game engine is in an ARM64EC DLL.

I don't know of a good solution for this though, enabling/disabling TSO needs a kernel syscall so is too slow to be doing constantly when entering/leaving emulation. With cases like KCD2 where the game itself is ARM64EC, maybe it could be faster to not use hardware TSO.

mrpippy··on Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP
That’s possible (never underestimate the bad decision-making of phone makers), but what would they have done instead? Windows Mobile 6 was the only licensable alternative, but it was a known quantity and obviously a generation behind Android and iOS.
mrpippy··on Steam Frame starts at $1059
AFAIK they still aren't shipping an actual ARM64 version of Steam, making it difficult to actually use those (unsupported) ARM builds of Proton. That article is 5 months old.
mrpippy··on Homebrew 7.0.0
Sonoma will be getting its last security update imminently (possibly tomorrow).
mrpippy··on RavynOS: Pre-alpha open-source OS based on Darwin, FreeBSD, Apple open-source
Yes, real apps use Mach messaging directly. i.e.: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:ipc...
mrpippy··on RavynOS: Pre-alpha open-source OS based on Darwin, FreeBSD, Apple open-source
The Mach APIs are available to userland applications, if you used a different kernel you’d have to implement them somehow
mrpippy··on NetBSD GSoC 2026 Improving RAIDframe
Especially since the Linux kernel dropping support usually happens years after distributions already have, so it would be quite difficult to run actual software on such hardware anyway. Whereas NetBSD is an entire OS.
mrpippy··on Xorg-server 26.1.0 rc1
Alan Coopersmith works at Oracle, on Solaris. I don't know of any effort to use Wayland on Solaris, so maintaining X really is their only option.

OTOH, RedHat seems happy to let X die.

mrpippy··on Windows XP 2002 for the Itanium: Unbridled rage
There were Itanium workstations (https://www.openpa.net/systems/hp_i2000.html, https://www.openpa.net/systems/hp_zx2000.html), but of course these quickly crashed and burned with the rest of Itanium
mrpippy··on Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)
Not to mention rendering the driver’s display (gauge cluster)
mrpippy··on Teardown: The BMW / Harman IDC23H Infotainment Unit (B423)
It’s rendering the driver’s display (i.e. the gauge cluster), the driver HUD, the central display, watching a driver-facing camera for fatigue alerting, handling Bluetooth, WiFi, navigation. Calling it an “infotainment” system is underselling a bit
mrpippy··on JEP 541: Deprecate the macOS/x64 Port for Removal
That’s correct, Rosetta for running x86_64 binaries in Linux VMs is not going away. They’re no longer branding this feature as Rosetta, so it doesn’t get lumped in with the Rosetta removal for Mac binaries (although it’s all still kinda confusing)

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Virtualization/run...

mrpippy··on CD sales growth outpaced vinyl in the first half of 2026
For some reason, the PS4 and PS5 actually cannot play audio CDs
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