Mount Indie ’s Post

An insightful historical reflection on what it means for an OS regarded as UNIX. It gives a quick glance at what others are doing in tree branches you're not yourself perched on. The graphics bit is a bit sparse and confusing. My take on the MIT X -> Everybody's Wayland is a little different. Earlier you had to have gone past frame buffered graphics at CMU, their Symbolics machines that made AI gen-O (lisp alikes) a rave; The Sun Microsystems (SMI) tech merge with Rand GUI prototype (better known with Apple MacIntosh and Windows 3.1.1 but less so SMIs NEWS. My branch in that tree is OpenBSD that's not mentioned but who were nearly the first in the Wayland charge not because of slick graphics support :( OBSD graphics?? Naaah!! :) but more on UNIX #correctness, whatever that may mean to various readers.

Smashed the stack....💥💥 "A crash course in x86 architecture to enable us in malware reverse engineering." - x86 Architecture Overview link --> https://lnkd.in/gPFE93VY I learned about, 1) The Von Neumann CPU architecture 2) Different components of a CPU 3) Different types of CPU registers 4) Memory and its different sections 5) Stack layout of a program in memory #tryhackme #completedsuccessful #reverseengineering #malware #malwareanalysis #malwaredetection #windows #security #linux

"#RaspberryPi Pico [#microcontroller] ... booting up Windows 1.0 with the help of a custom 8088 CPU emulator" https://lnkd.in/gyMfWWKa

Let me know if you want to chat about SRC!

Advanced Linux Detection and Forensics

#CyberAlerts Researchers have discovered a critical vulnerability in the Linux kernel's dmam_free_coherent() function, identified as CVE-2024-43856. This flaw stems from a race condition caused by improper operation sequencing when managing DMA (Direct Memory Access) allocations. The issue allows attackers to exploit the race condition to bypass CPU controls and write arbitrary data into system memory. The vulnerability could lead to system instability, data corruption, and crashes. Read More: https://lnkd.in/dc3mTiBp #Linux #Kernel #Vulnerability

📣 Calling all Linux Specialists! 📣 Almost every software engineer has used Linux before, but only a handful know how its Boot Process works. The diagram below illustrates the steps! ⤵️ When we power on the system, the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) firmware is loaded from non-volatile memory and executes POST (Power On Self Test). BIOS/UEFI detects connected devices, including the CPU, RAM, and storage. Choose a booting device for the OS, such as the hard drive, network server, or CD ROM. BIOS/UEFI runs the boot loader (GRUB), providing a menu to choose the OS or kernel functions. Once the kernel is ready, we transition to user space. The kernel initializes systemd as the first user-space process, managing processes, services, probing remaining hardware, mounting filesystems, and launching a desktop environment. Systemd activates the default target unit during system boot. Other auxiliary units are executed as well. The system executes a set of startup scripts and configures the environment. Users are presented with a login window, indicating that the system is ready. Source: Alex Xu, Co-Founder of ByteByteGo #Linux #SystemDesign #Coding #Coders #IT #Tech #InterviewTips

After a few months of debugging, patching, and more debugging, I've finally got a MacBook Pro 14.4 (Mid 2015) (A1398) running FreeBSD-13.3 with zero issues. After seeing every post online giving up on attempting to get FreeBSD working on this system, I thought I should give it a go. Various patches for FreeBSD, Linux, asmctl, and wifibox are necessary, but once that's done, everything works perfectly. This includes functioning: Speakers and microphone, Screen and keyboard backlight, Hardware acceleration, Wifi, Bluetooth, Suspend and resume, Thunderbolt, Gesture-based trackpad, Fan control, SD card reader. All F1-F12 buttons work as expected with the exception of F3 and F4 (Exposé/Mission Control). The battery life is even better on the system than when it runs MacOS, too. A full guide with patches and bug discussion can be found here: https://lnkd.in/gyuupVfU The webcam does not work yet, but I have an idea for that. --- In other news, I've also been writing about (among other things): Comparing different versions of AWK with WebAssembly: https://lnkd.in/gN2CRU7w Fuzzing scripting languages' interpreters' native functions using AFL++ to find memory corruption and more: https://lnkd.in/gdHpPpMD Encrypted NTP using NTS and chrony on FreeBSD: https://lnkd.in/gDT8PWCc Encrypted DNS over TLS on FreeBSD with Unbound, and Blocking Unencrypted DNS Traffic: https://lnkd.in/gJkCXNEQ On using private browsing mode for half a year: https://lnkd.in/gYbt6yCw #freebsd #linux #macbook #macos

Linux Network

Here is a demonstration of why booting linux on a RISC-V core is unimpressive. https://lnkd.in/eA_HXd2A