GNU/Linux and Hardware Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 30, 2025

• Kernel Space / File Systems / Virtualization

  • Farid Zakaria ☛ Huge binaries: I thunk therefore I am

    In my previous post, we looked at the “sound barrier” of x86_64 linking: the 32-bit relative CALL instruction and how it can result in relocation overflows. Changing the code-model to -mcmodel=large fixes the issue but at the cost of “instruction bloat” and likely a performance penalty although I had failed to demonstrate it via a benchmark 🥲.

    Surely there are other interesting solutions? 🤓

• Games

  • Hackaday ☛ Playing A Game Of Linux On Your Sony Playstation 2

    Until the 2000s, game consoles existed primarily to bring a bit of the gaming arcade experience to homes, providing graphical feats that the average home computer would struggle to emulate. By the 2000s this changed, along with the idea of running desktop applications on gaming console for some reason. Hence we got Linux for the PlayStation 2, targeting its MIPS R5900 CPU and custom GPU. Unlike these days where game consoles are reskinned gaming PCs, this required some real effort, as well as a veritable stack of accessories, as demonstrated by [Action Retro] in a recent video.

  • Mat Duggan ☛ The Year of the 3D Printed Miniature (And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves)

    For those who had friends in high school—and I'm not being glib here, this is a genuine demographic distinction—40k is a game where two or more players invest roughly $1,000 to build an army of small plastic figures. You then trim excess plastic with a craft knife (cutting yourself at least twice, this is mandatory), prime them, paint them over the course of several months, and then carefully transport them to an LGS (local game shop) in foam-lined cases that cost more than some people's luggage.

• Desktop Environments (DE)/Window Managers (WM)

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • Ocean Development – 2025 Recap

      We achieved significant milestones during 2025 on the Ocean design system for Plasma. Here is a video recap of all of the things that happened.

• • Hardware

    • CNX Software ☛ LoRa, BLE, and GNSS tracker supports open-source software, solar charging, outdoor and indoor tracking

      Designed by Ruictec in China, the TD04 is a LoRa-based low-power tracker that also features BLE and dual-band GNSS. It supports both indoor and outdoor positioning, and is suitable for fleet management, asset tracking, and geofencing over public or private LoRaWAN networks with minimal maintenance. The device combines GNSS (L1/L5) for outdoor positioning with BLE-based indoor tracking. It automatically switches between the two to optimize accuracy and power usage, delivering around 1–2 m accuracy outdoors and 2–4 m indoors. It is LoRaWAN 1.0.3-compliant, supports OTAA and ABP, and operates across multiple regional bands (EU868, US915, IN865, AS923, and others).

    • CNX Software ☛ Elecrow Hey Hi (AI) starter kit turns NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano into a learning platform with 11.6-inch display, 30 electronics modules

      Elecrow Hey Hi (AI) Starter Kit for the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano turns the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano into a learning and educational kit for students, educators, and hardware enthusiasts looking for a rapid and powerful prototyping platform. The kit integrates an 11.6-inch IPS touchscreen, an 8MP servo-controlled gimbal camera, a voice interaction module, and 30 common electronics modules embedded in the kit.