All good things come to an end, I guess.

I have an Epson printer (AcuLaser C1100) and an Epson scanner (Perfection V10), both of which I bought about 20 years ago. The hardware still works perfectly fine.

Until recently, Epson still provided Linux drivers for them. That is pretty cool! I noticed today that they have relaunched their driver website – and now I can’t find any Linux drivers for that hardware anymore. Just doesn’t list it (it does list some drivers for Windows 7, for example).

I mean, okay, we’re talking about 20 years here. That is a very long time, much more than I expected. But if it still works, why not keep using it?

Some years ago, I started archiving these drivers locally, because I anticipated that they might vanish at some point. So I can still use my hardware for now (even if I had to reinstall my PC for some reason). It might get hacky at some point in the future, though.

This once more underlines the importance of FOSS drivers for your hardware. I sadly didn’t pay attention to that 20 years ago.

Okay, they are also offering 2.8x25mm copper nails. Which I actually do have a single one here. :-)

My hardware collection also includes a few brass-like looking screws that I could repurpose into rivets. But I reckon I have to upgrade my burner first. I’m not a metal worker by any means, so I could be totally wrong, but I imagine that some heat is necessary to loosen the work-hardening effect when beating on them. I will do some experiments on Saturday and report back.

@alexonit@twtxt.alessandrocutolo.it I just checked my local hardware store next town and 4mm brass rod is the closest I find.

Fine-Tuning Local Models with Docker Offload and Unsloth
I’ve been experimenting with local models for a while now, and the progress in making them accessible has been exciting. Initial experiences are often fantastic, many models, like Gemma 3 270M, are lightweight enough to run on common hardware. This potential for broad deployment is a major draw. However, as I’ve tried to build meaningful,… ⌘ Read more

SigCore UC Industrial Control Module Prepares for Crowd Supply Launch
Crowd Supply recently featured the SigCore UC, an upcoming universal industrial I/O controller that combines rugged hardware with open-source software for engineers, researchers, and educators seeking a flexible control and data acquisition platform. Unlike typical development boards or expansion modules, SigCore UC arrives as a complete, ready-to-deploy solution. It is capable of handling real-world volt … ⌘ Read more

Installing Linux on a PC-98 machine
What if you have a PC-98 machine, and you want to run Linux on it, as you do? I mean, CP/M, OS/2, or Windows (2000 and older) might not cut it for you, after all. Well, it turns out that yes, you can run Linux on PC-98 hardware, and thanks to a bunch of work by Nina Kalinina – yes, the same person from a few days ago – there’s now more information gathered in a single place to get you started. Plamo Linux is one of the few Linux distributions to support PC-98 … ⌘ Read more

ESP32 Bus Pirate Turns Low-Cost Boards into Multi-Protocol Debugging Tools
An open-source project called ESP32 Bus Pirate has been released, inspired by the classic Bus Pirate and adapted for modern ESP32-S3 hardware. Developed by Geo-tp, the firmware transforms low-cost ESP32 boards into versatile debugging devices that can probe, sniff, and interact with a wide range of digital and radio protocols. The firmware supports protocols such […] ⌘ Read more

@movq@www.uninformativ.de That’s transparency hardware support!

Beyond Containers: llama.cpp Now Pulls GGUF Models Directly from Docker Hub
The world of local AI is moving at an incredible pace, and at the heart of this revolution is llama.cpp—the powerhouse C++ inference engine that brings Large Language Models (LLMs) to everyday hardware (and it’s also the inference engine that powers Docker Model Runner). Developers love llama.cpp for its performance and simplicity. And we at… ⌘ Read more

This is why I love tech from that era.

Write bytes to a parallel port and stuff happens. If it’s just ASCII bytes, then it will print ASCII text. Even the simplest programs can use a printer this way.

With a little bit of ESC/P, you can print images and other fancy stuff. That’s what I did this morning – never worked with ESC/P before, now I can print images. It’s not that hard.

Hayes-compatible modems are similar: Write some AT commands to the serial port and the modem does things. This isn’t even arcane knowledge, it’s explained in the printed manual.

Maybe I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses here, but I think with all this old stuff, you get useful results very quickly and the manuals are usually actually helpful. It’s so much easier to get started and to use this hardware to the full extent. Much less complexity than what we have today, not a ton of libraries and dependencies and SDKs and cloud services and what not.

Morse Micro and Gateworks Launch Wi-Fi HaLow Solution for Industrial Connectivity
Morse Micro and Gateworks Corporation have partnered to bring Wi-Fi HaLow (IEEE 802.11ah) to industrial environments. In collaboration with Silex Technology, they offer a hardware and software ecosystem for long-range, low-power, and secure wireless networking across manufacturing, energy, and transportation sectors. Wi-Fi HaLow operates in the sub-GHz frequency band, offering a co … ⌘ Read more

Olimex Showcases Open Source €20 Smart Home Server Project
Olimex has recently highlighted a new open-source hardware and software project aimed at creating a €20 smart home server. The initiative was introduced during a lightning talk at TuxCon 2025, a community-driven open-source conference held earlier this month in Bulgaria. The project aims to deliver a compact, easy-to-use smart home server that prioritizes local control, […] ⌘ Read more

Armbian 25.5 Adds New Board Support, Application Modules, and Receives Community Recognition
The Armbian team has released version 25.5, bringing expanded hardware compatibility, improved system tools, and a growing library of post-install application modules. The update also coincides with Armbian being recognized by NetBox Labs with a 2025 NetBox Hero Award for its role in open infrastructure innovation. New in Armbian v25.5 The latest release include … ⌘ Read more

A new PowerPC board with support for Amiga OS 4 and MorphOS is on its way
The Amiga, a once-dominant force in the personal computer world, continues to hold a special place in the hearts of many. But with limited next-gen hardware available and dwindling AmigaOS4 support, the future of this beloved platform seemed uncertain. That is, until four Dutch passionate individuals, Dave, Harald, Paul, and Marco, decided to take matters into their own hands. Driven b … ⌘ Read more

SiFive and Red Hat Collaborate to Bring RHEL 10 to RISC-V Development
SiFive has announced a new collaboration with Red Hat to deliver a developer preview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 for the RISC-V architecture. The initial support is available on the SiFive HiFive Premier P550 development platform, giving developers a path to build and test enterprise and cloud workloads on RISC-V hardware. The HiFive Premier […] ⌘ Read more

Easily Using SSH with FIDO2/U2F Hardware Security Keys
Comments ⌘ Read more

The world could run on older hardware if software optimization was a priority
Article URL: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1922100771392520710

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43971464

Points: 501

# Comments: 459 ⌘ Read more

Armbian Updates Add OMV Support, Boot Improvements, and Rockchip Optimizations
The Armbian development team has rolled out a series of notable updates this week, introducing enhancements across software usability, bootloader standardization, and hardware compatibility. One of the most significant additions is the integration of OpenMediaVault into the Armbian software installer. OpenMediaVault is now available via the armbian-config interface, offering users an easy … ⌘ Read more

Coin-Sized RA4M1-Zero Board Features 32-Bit RA4M1 MCU
The RA4M1-Zero is a compact development board based on Renesas’ 32-bit RA4M1 MCU. Running at 48 MHz with a built-in FPU, it features firmware encryption, secure boot, and a castellated design for easy integration into custom hardware. The board uses the R7FA4M1AB3CFM microcontroller from the RA4M1 family. It includes 256 KB of flash memory, 32 […] ⌘ Read more

MeshWalkie Combines ESP32, GNSS, and LoRa in UV-K6 Radio Enclosure
OpenEmbed is developing the MeshWalkie, a handheld wireless device built around the ESP32-S3, SX1262 LoRa module, and L76K GNSS, using the enclosure of a Quansheng UV-K6 radio. The device is described as an open-source platform for LoRa, Wi-Fi, and GPS-based applications, including support for Meshtastic.   The MeshWalkie integrates several hardware components to support low-power […] ⌘ Read more

Reverse-engineering Fujitsu M7MU RELC hardware compression
This is a follow-up to the Samsung NX mini (M7MU) firmware reverse-engineering series. This part is about the proprietary LZSS compression used for the code sections in the firmware of Samsung NX mini, NX3000/NX3300 and Galaxy K Zoom. The post is documenting the step-by-step discovery process, in order to show how an unknown compression algorithm can be analyzed. The discovery process was supported by Igor Skochins … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft changes pre-production driver signing, ends the device metadata service
As the headline suggests, we’re going to be talking about some very dry Windows stuff that only affects a relatively small number of people, but for those people this is a big deal they need to address. If you’re working on pre-production drivers that need to be signed, this is important to you. The Windows Hardware Program supports partners signing drivers for use in pr … ⌘ Read more

Reverse-engineering Fujitsu M7MU RELC hardware compression
Comments ⌘ Read more

IBM unveils the LinuxONE Emperor 5
Following the recent release of the IBM z17 mainframe, IBM today unveiled the LinuxONE Emperor 5, which packs much of the same hardware as the z17, but focused on Linux use. Today we’re announcing IBM LinuxONE 5, performant Linux computing platform for data, applications and your trusted AI, powered by the IBM Telum II processor with built-in AI acceleration. This launch comes at a pivotal time, as technology leaders focus on three critical imperatives: enabling … ⌘ Read more

foss-north 2025
I attended foss-north, a free / open source conference covering both
software and hardware from the technical perspective, at Chalmers
Conference Center in Gothenburg on April 14 & 15. A great conference.
Lots of interesting talks:

https://foss-north.se/2025/speakers-and-talks.html

My own presentation was “Forking QEMU to emulate and secure the
Tillitis TKey”. Recording is here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCsP5ti4-9o] … ⌘ Read more

LILYGO T-Echo Lite Offers Integrated LoRa, GNSS, and E-Paper Display in Compact Form
The LILYGO T-Echo Lite is a compact wireless development board designed for embedded applications that require long-range communication, positioning, and low-power display capabilities. Built around the Nordic nRF52840 microcontroller, the platform supports a wide range of wireless protocols and is available in several hardware configurations. The main processing component is t … ⌘ Read more

RVPC Adds BASIC Interpreter to €1 Open Source RISC-V Computer
The RVPC, a fully open source hardware and software retro-style computer project built around the CH32V003 microcontroller, now supports a BASIC interpreter. This update further expands the capabilities of the €1 RISC-V-based system, which already features VGA output and PS/2 keyboard input, despite its extremely limited resources. Originally conceived as a DIY challenge, the RVPC […] ⌘ Read more

RetrOS-32: a 32bit hobby operating system with graphics, multitasking, and more
RetrOS-32 is a 32bit operating system written from scratch, with graphics, multitasking and networking capabilities. The kernel is written in C and assembly, while the userspace applications are written in C++, using Make for compilation, all licensed under the MIT license. It runs on Qemu, of course, but a variety of real hardware is also supported, which is pretty cool and r … ⌘ Read more

Beetle RP2350 is a $4.90 Mini Development Board for Embedded Projects
The Beetle RP2350 is a coin-sized development board designed for space-constrained embedded projects. Despite its compact 25 × 20.5 mm footprint, it offers a wide range of hardware features and low power consumption, enabling its use in portable devices such as retro computers, game consoles, lighting controllers, and electronic badges. This board is built around […] ⌘ Read more

TacOS: an x86_64 UNIX-like OS from scratch
TacOS is a UNIX-like kernel which is able to run DOOM, among various other smaller userspace programs. It has things like a VFS, scheduler, TempFS, devices, context switching, virtual memory management, physical page frame allocation, and a port of Doom. It runs both on real hardware (tested on my laptop) and in the Qemu emulator. ↫ TacOS GitHub page TacOS – great name – is written in C, and explicitly a hobby and toy project. The code’s licensed … ⌘ Read more

Bunnings strikes deal addressing concerns of ‘terrified’ plant growers
Bunnings plant suppliers will now have written agreements under a new statement of principles designed to protect growers, following complaints about the hardware giant during last year’s supermarket inquiry. ⌘ Read more

Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE open source software report
Linux on IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE use the s390x hardware architecture to run various Linux distributions, including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and Ubuntu. Tens of thousands of software packages are tested and distributed through these projects, and various community distributions. ↫ Elizabeth K. Joseph at the IBM community website Various Linux distributions are available for the … ⌘ Read more

@kate@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I think it’s totally fine. I mean self-hosting costs money too. Power, Hardware, Time/effort, etc.

(#fpzwe5a) @kate@kate I think it’s totally fine. I mean self-hosting costs money too. Power, Hardware, Time/effort, etc.
@kate @yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I think it’s totally fine. I mean self-hosting costs money too. Power, Hardware, Time/effort, etc. ⌘ Read more

DietPi April 2025 Update (Version 9.12)
The April 18th update of DietPi v9.12 introduces new software options including the fish shell and Amiberry v7/Amiberry-Lite, while also expanding compatibility and resolving various issues. This release focuses on improving usability, editor flexibility, and hardware support across platforms.   DietPi: DietPi is a lightweight, Debian-based operating system optimized for single-board computers and embedded systems. […] ⌘ Read more

Minichord Synthesizer Offers Open-Source Platform for Chord-Based Music Creation
The Minichord is a compact, chord-focused musical instrument developed by Benjamin Poilve through a co-creation effort with Seeed Studio. Designed for musicians of all skill levels, it combines a tactile chord selection system with a responsive touch interface and MIDI output capabilities. With fully open-source firmware and hardware design, the device encourages community-driven mod … ⌘ Read more

** 📸 Photo **

Image

Pixel moose ⌘ Read more

On Tariffs & Computer Production
I put on my “Guy Who Was an Executive at Computer Hardware Companies” hat to talk about China, Tariffs, Computer production, and Framework Computer making a political statement. ⌘ Read more

Zephyr RTOS 4.1 Released with Performance Boosts, IAR and Rust Support, and Broader Board Compatibility
Zephyr Project has released version 4.1 of its RTOS, bringing notable improvements in kernel performance, toolchain support, and hardware compatibility. While not an LTS release, it introduces key updates aimed at enhancing developer experience and system efficiency. One of the main focuses of this release is performance. Extensive work wen … ⌘ Read more

IBM unveils z17 mainframe, z/OS 3.2
IBM today announced the IBM z17, the next generation of the company’s iconic mainframe, fully engineered with AI capabilities across hardware, software, and systems operations. Powered by the new IBM Telum II processor, IBM z17 expands the system’s capabilities beyond transactional AI capabilities to enable new workloads. ↫ IBM z17 press release Alongside this brand new behemoth of a computer, IBM also announced z/OS 3.2, the next version of its mainframe opera … ⌘ Read more

I don’t need an X11 compositor for fancy graphics effects or whatever. I have true hardware support for that.

My TFT just slightly burns in and then it looks like dmenu has a semi-transparent background.

Yeah.

@david@collantes.us Ah, yes, the hardware might not. As I just said in the other thread: No problem, you can keep the same installation. I did so many times on my PC/laptop at work.

Run LLMs Locally with Docker: A Quickstart Guide to Model Runner
AI is quickly becoming a core part of modern applications, but running large language models (LLMs) locally can still be a pain. Between picking the right model, navigating hardware quirks, and optimizing for performance, it’s easy to get stuck before you even start building. At the same time, more and more developers want the flexibility […] ⌘ Read more

NXP’s FRDM i.MX 91 Board Provides Low-Power Solution for Linux-Based IoT Systems
Following the release of the FRDM i.MX 93 board, NXP has launched the FRDM i.MX 91 development board, a compact platform based on the i.MX 91 applications processor. It is intended for early-stage development and evaluation of industrial and IoT systems that require basic Linux support, integrated connectivity, and hardware-level security. The board features a […] ⌘ Read more

New Smartwatches Support PebbleOS with Long Battery Life and E-Paper Displays
Two new smartwatches running open-source PebbleOS have been introduced: Core 2 Duo and Core Time 2. These watches maintain compatibility with thousands of existing Pebble apps while incorporating modern hardware updates. Core 2 Duo is an updated version of the Pebble 2, featuring a 1.26-inch black-and-white e-paper display and a polycarbonate frame in White or […] ⌘ Read more

Comet GL-RM1 Enables Remote Control with 2K Video Resolution
Comet (GL-RM1) is a hardware-based remote KVM solution for remote computer access and control. Its open-source design enables hardware-level interaction, making it useful for remote work, IT maintenance, and server management. It allows full control over offline computers, including BIOS access, troubleshooting, and boot failure recovery. The device features a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, 1GB DDR3 […] ⌘ Read more

WinRing0: why Windows is flagging your PC monitoring and fan control apps as a threat
When I checked where Windows Defender had actually detected the threat, it was in the Fan Control app I use to intelligently cool my PC. Windows Defender had broken it, and that’s why my fans were running amok. For others, the threat was detected in Razer Synapse, SteelSeries Engine, OpenRGB, Libre Hardware Monitor, CapFrameX, MSI Afterburner, OmenMon, FanCtrl, Z … ⌘ Read more

Chimera Linux drops RISC-V support because capable RISC-V hardware doesn’t exist
We’ve talked about Chimera Linux a few times now on OSNews, so I won’t be repeating what makes it unique once more. The project announced today that it will be shuttering its RISC-V architecture support, and considering RISC-V has been supported by Chimera Linux pretty much since the beginning, this is a big step. The reason is as sad as it is predictable: there’s simply n … ⌘ Read more

LILYGO Upgrades T-Watch S3 with GPS and a 940mAh Battery
LILYGO has introduced the T-Watch S3 Plus, an upgraded version of its ESP32-based smartwatch. While maintaining the open-source flexibility of its predecessor, this new model adds GPS positioning, a larger 940mAh battery, and refined hardware features. It supports Arduino-IDE and VS Code making it an adaptable platform for developers and hobbyists. The T-Watch S3 Plus […] ⌘ Read more

Show HN: Bayleaf – Building a low-profile wireless split keyboard
Hey HN,

I built a wireless, split, ultra-low profile keyboard from scratch called Bayleaf. As a beginner I learned all things electronics, PCB-building, designing for manufacturing, and many other hardware-related skills to put this together.

This case study dives into the build process and of course the final result, hope you enjoy!

Comments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43255529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325552 … ⌘ Read more