tpearson-raptor

9 ms·

31.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Laptop is a large problem still -- mainly due to GPUs. With desktop, we don't have to deal with the issues associated with a soldered-down non-free GPU; the mainboard works blob-free if desired but the user already expects to install
32.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
There's a stated reason for that by the oreboot project -- it's because you can't have a fully open source boot firmware on x86 systems.
33.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Your laptop is Broadwell according to the coreboot source. Sorry, that means you've got a ME. Part of one (the BUP) but a required ME nonetheless: https://www.coreboot.org/Intel_Management_Engine
34.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
I have one. How are you claiming open source firmware when your hardware requires signed, closed source binaries to even begin to boot? I refer specifically to the Intel Management Engine, which incidentally is why we gave up on x86 many y
35.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Oh? Zero blobs, so no ME or PSP? No FSP or AGESA? No EC firmware or integrated GPU firmware? Sorry, I call BS on that unless it was a long time ago, as in Core 2 Duo era.
36.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
No problem, I understand. In your shoes I may have even done the same thing. Just in case you didn't see them (they're not exactly easy to find with Google etc. for some reason), there are a number of positive reviews or comments
37.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
I understand. I also know this happened to no one else, and it was a pathological case in a support system that has since been completely overhauled. This is one reason why we started the self-serve RMA process -- to show that yes, we are
38.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Sorry to hear that. If you ever get tired of worrying about untrustworthy firmware phoning home, DRM, etc., please consider us for the replacement purchase? ;)
39.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
It also won't happen at this point, ever. Is there anything we can do to help you revisit this decision?
40.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
For what it's worth, we do have a focus on making sure the hardware works properly etc.; I've always been pushing for that and haven't had any real problems there. This particular board was a test escape. A very unique, than
41.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Yep, definitely agreed. FWIW we're not happy with the ARM baseboard controller either and are making progress toward fixing that particular concern. All I'll say on that is that the POWER ISA opening had to happen before we coul
42.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Well, to be fair I was thinking of the SiFive RISC-V board as one of the competitors, since my understanding was they did finally open the rest of their firmware a while back. However, yes, by far most of the remaining owner controlled syst
43.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
I might take that bet core for core, matched node size (i.e. 14nm), run out of tmpfs or NVMe storage, and with both systems protected against Spectre, Meltdown etc. (i.e. no cheating by ignoring the ISA specifications)... Slightly OT, but i
44.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
24 core ppc64le system, 5.4-rc2, defconfig, loadable modules on and built: real 1m55.267s Run from tmpfs, all protections from Spectre etc. on. Not too bad, really!
45.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Just to close the loop here, we've pushed up the timetable for implementation of some of the support-related improvements (several are live now) and are giving the individual market another try. Our status dashboard is showing no unan
46.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
All of the Raptor products use very high quality regulators and power filtering. The only cases of PSU-related damage or malfunction that I am aware of were as a result of a PSU operating way outside of specification (think 12V+ on a 5V ra
47.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
We've shifted our policy to allow rapid RMA of problematic units, which is more in line with other vendors. Please be assured you won't be stuck a problematic unit, especially with our well-established Talos II line. For Talos I
48.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Since we seem to have reached HN's reply nesting limit, posting here... Good to know on the paid support side. This is something we've been considering for a while, and is probably coming as part of the mitigation strategy next m
49.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
We did try that, only to find that in the majority of the cases the customer was doing something quite unexpected that allowed the fault to manifest. When that results in multiple shipments back and forth, no one is happy in the end -- the
50.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
> This reads like blame shifting, not accountability. I don't think I was clear enough here, sorry. Yes, Raptor Computing Systems is accountable for its poor support experience. Their management is trying, unsuccessfully, to manag
51.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
This was originally going to be published on the internal ticket, but since the issues were raised here I'm going to post here instead. First, I'd like to point out that Raptor already identified one of the major problems here --
52.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
This is not accurate, one person is not fronting the support load. However, you are correct in that Raptor is not intending to provide inferior product -- in fact we take any reports of issues very seriously, preferring to determine a root
53.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
You're pretty close, though in this case it's apparently the RAM controller inside the CPU itself. This failure mode is incredibly rare but it just happened to hit this one system, unfortunately.
54.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
This information is not public, however I do want to note that the products are not exactly niche. We'll have some announcements shortly that will help clarify where we intend to go with the newly created POWER desktop market segment.
55.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
It's not that small, the information above is not accurate. However, I think people that do not see what we see in the support system are greatly underestimating the volume of Email an OEM/ODM receives on a daily basis, which then
56.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Timothy Pearson from Raptor here. I'd like to first extend apologies from the apparently poor support experience from Raptor Computing Systems -- that being said, there are a few exceptional circumstances in play with this system: 1.)
57.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Yeah, POWER has basically unlimited nested virt from POWER9 on. And unlike x86 you don't get the massive slowdowns past a level or two of nested virtualization. Stadia seems to think it can push a high resolution monitor like stream o
58.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
Sure. While I would also like to see a real hard core or three released, here's my frame challenge: What if the existing RISC-V and other academic cores are already good enough for a lot of people? The instruction decoder is a relati
59.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
While the machines off it is a paid for resource that is unused. A cloud provider would lease that resource (so to speak) to someone else during that time, meaning in theory they can provide lower cost than you will ever see unless you can
60.
by tpearson-raptor 7y ago
The support is there, yes, but it's always been a grey / largely unenforced black area. As soon as the emulator cuts into chip sales in any significant way the tolerance for its use would stop. IANAL, this is simply what legal fo

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