The moral of the story here is that if you can afford to help with open source software, we could really use it!

I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about project management, learning how to reproduce issues, debug them, working towards a resolution and not just being able to do these, bit actually doing them in practice.

It takes time and effort. It means being part of a community. And the reward is that the world is a better place. It's not the riches tech bros promise.

Reason #25630 that I don't get things done faster: The MXE scripts to build .deb packages are broken and after dozens of hours trying to resolve it, I haven't been able to figure it out.

I opened a ticket about it a couple weeks ago, but no replies.

https://github.com/mxe/mxe/issues/3264

This is blocking my ability to fix the CI jobs that build the Windows releases of the Signet client, which is holding up a release.

In this case, I don't think anyone who knows about these scripts is still around.

Reason #25629 why I don't get things done faster. I spend time trying to get my patches upstreamed so more people can benefit from my work.

But just like my multi-year effort to get a patchlevel change in pam-u2f (from the original author and an official release, not a patch I wrote), it seems I'm being ghosted again.

Last time around, I reached out to the maintainer via email, the former maintainer, another person in auth, the maintainer via IRC, tried to get a mentor in IRC... all failed.

Reason #25628 why I don't get things done faster. I had to set aside my tasks to patch reprepro so it could handle control.tar.xz files which is what are created by all of Debian's modern tools to create .deb files.

I submitted a merge request 2 weeks ago, but it hasn't been commented on, let alone reviewed or accepted.

But I've got the .deb for it on my apt repo and you can see the change and compile my version here if you want it. https://salsa.debian.org/debian/reprepro/-/merge_requests/14

@beaiouns Yup, striving to be on most of the decentralized social media systems.

It's be nice to reach the people on exclusively on Facebook, X, and the others, but I just can't bring myself to create an account on any of those platforms. 🤷‍♂️

On the flip side, I feel like those who have at least one non-corporate social media account are more likely to be interested, so maybe kinda works out.

And physical access is within our threat model!

Contrast that to the way hardware security work when made by Intel, AMD or ARM:
https://infosec.exchange/@dangoodin/115459944536890363

Today I helped a user compile the #signet client for an #ARM based version of #MacOS.

It required changing a couple library paths, and I've already upstreamed those changes to the latest copy of the repo.

This was something I've been wanted to test for a long time now, but I don't have the hardware and it's hard to get the time of someone who does. But we did it. Together.

Hardware secured encryption is #cipherpunk meets #cyberpunk ✊

If you made it to the end, do me a favor and tell some friends about #Signet and ask them to spread the word. It's not for everyone, but I want those people who will appreciate it to be able to find it.

❤️

Finally, I'm making it sustainable. I've had my device for years and replaced the USB-A connector after half a decade of daily use. I still use that same device daily. I still support 32-bit computers. It's not my place to tell you that you have to upgrade your computer. This culture of making everything cheap & disposable doesn't jive with me. Things should be built to last!

3/4

And at the same time, I'm never losing focus on making it easy to use. Not everyone who needs excellent security is going to be a tech person, and this caliber of security shouldn't be religated to only people who are "good with computers".

2/4

I've been quietly building units that I am going to make available to Europe. It's exciting. I also still need to get a BTCPay server up and running so I can one again have my own self-hosted store.

I may not be fast or well funded, but I am absolutely determined.

I want to make sure that people with the highest security standards have the tools they want. No cloud. No corporations. The user is in control.

1/4

If you like my #hardware #bugfix https://mstdn.business/@signet/115177712005282453

You might be interested in my plan to expand this hacked up board to test my fix USB-C to USB-C cable problem. Should be within the next week or so. I just have to find a couple 5.1k Ω resistor ±10%.

I think I can quasi-test it with a single resistor, and I absolutely plan on trying that first, as I think I can do that without touching those dreaded USB-C pads and potentially undoing my hard work (& test that the 2 fixes don't conflict).

Well, that was... educational. Not only does v1.4 require plugging in the USB-C cable the right way, but it also only works with USB-A to USB-C cables (not C-to-C).

Everything related to the USB-A connector is fine, and previous revisions didn't have a USB-C connector at all, so this version is still an improvement, but not as much of an improvement as I was aiming for.

I've read a lot about USB-C cables and USB 3.1 and I think the next rev will fix both problems. Version 1.41, here we come.

@skua 🤔 Yeah, that'd probably help and for my own personal device I'd try that + let people know about the potential to DIY.

I'm not going to sell people hardware with that patch though. Too much risk of it breaking loose and disappointing people at best and shorting something out at worst.

My goal here was to verify this fix will work so I can be confident that my next batch of PCBs will be able to plug in the USB-C cable upside down if they want.

This is what #patching a #bug in #hardware looks like.

First attempt: I made things worse
Second attempt: it's as if I did nothing
Third attempt: fixed!

If you don't know how big a US dime is, the punchline here is that these wires are very small, tedious to work with and will probably come loose at the slightest provocation. #USBC

And a shout out to those who know exactly what happened here without any explanation required. I goofed. Next rev will be better. #OpenHardware #electronics #diy

The reason this helps the Signet project is because it means being able to develop the code without having to wait for hours to compile the cross compiler and cross compile the libraries. Instead, we have a fast, reproducible way to get the the libraries that are either grossly outdated in the official repo, or don't have any package at all in that repo.

#SelfSufficency #OpenSource #dev

I am also going to be adding documentation on how people can compile the .deb packages themselves. The ones in my repo will be signed by me, but trusting me should not be a requirement.

Last night I found a lua script in the MXE repo that allows me to create .deb packages. This is something I asked for a couple months ago and never got any reply.

This is a huge deal, not just for me, but for everyone who uses the MXE cross compiler to make Windows executables from Linux because the official repos have not been updated in a decade and they won't compile some modern software.

Soon, I will have an update version of gcc in my apt repo for everyone.

The part of the question about how long it will last which is left unanswered is how long will it last after one simple repair?

Any #Makerspace or #Hackerspace can help you make this #repair, even if you don't have any experience with #electronics. The USB connector costs less than a dollar and the space might even have some lying around they'd be willing go give it to you for free

This is how gadgets should be. Not disposable, but long lasting AND repairable

#environmentalism #sustainability

I finally have a partial answer to the question "how long will a #Signet last?"

Previously, we have never seen one wear out, but after 7.5 years, most of which was daily use, my 2017 Signet started having intermittent problems with the USB connector. I had to jiggle it to get it to work.

7+ years is better than you'll get from any commercial company, but here's the real kicker...

I replaced the USB connector and it works reliably again!

#repair #RightToRepair #FOSS #OpenHardware #sustainible