Due to the fact that I keep NixOS on most of my servers, I sometimes have to install it or reinstall it, and in general, this process takes some time and effort. Unfortunately, unlike more popular distributions like Ubuntu or Debian, which are pretty easy to install - NixOS can be difficult to install as it doesn’t come as one of the supported ones on servers, cloud providers and physical machines. On some of them, you can’t even put your own .iso file, and that means that you need to install NixOS on top of already functioning Ubuntu or Debian.
Recently, I’ve tested out ElevenLabs and Sesame that generate dialogue — and do it pretty well.
Now, there are new developments worth sharing:
First of all, on GitHub, an adaptation of the Apple MLX framework that I’ve been following for quite some timehas appeared under the name MLX-Audio.
This framework simplifies running AI models on Apple chips (like M1, M2, M3, etc.).
If you, like me, frequently use various AI models for different tasks, you are familiar with the problem of a model lacking the required modality.
For example, Claude is excellent at coding, but cannot process audio directly.
Or, the desire to load a video in “thinking mode” might be hindered as it does not support this (only text), which can be extremely frustrating and disrupt the workflow, necessitating to search for alternatives or even perform data conversion manually.
My Adventures in Kernel Module Compilation using NixOS, debian
The article that got me into this
The actual story about how I tried to compile my kernel module.
I came across this article on MuppetLabs.com where Brian Raiter describes how he tries to reduce the binary size.
Well, I read a little, in the first few sections paragraphs he gives an example on how to build your own simple kernel module, and I actually wanted to try making a kernel module for quite a long time.
Developing a Kernel module is quite different to the regular development that you might do in C, and I’m not that proficient in C anyway.
However, I decided to give it a try on my Mac. Usually, I run Linux through OrbStack, and that time, I also tried to do it that way.
The goal of this website is to collect all my thoughts, projects, ambitions, memories and posts that are appropriate for the Interwebs to see in one place.
This is my, Denis aka delneg, personal website.
Most important skill I have is the ability to learn fast and adapt to changing environment, that includes all kinds of IT-related shenanigans, but also people-related things, too.
Generally speaking, I’m an IT person, however I’m curious about other stuff too.
It includes, but is not limited to:
In addition to a recent breakthrough — the French have overtaken the Chinese in the race for the longest-lasting nuclear fusion reaction (CEA announcement), setting a new record of 22 minutes (YouTube video) — I stumbled upon another fascinating article that deserves attention.
It turns out that it’s possible to generate electricity using the Earth’s magnetic field.
Here’s the paper on arXiv that describes it in detail.
What’s the Idea?
The authors of the paper — from Princeton University (which also funded the research), Caltech, and Spectral Sensor Solutions LLC — had previously proposed a theory that electricity could be extracted from the Earth’s magnetic field under certain conditions.
If you, like me, frequently use various AI models for different tasks, you are familiar with the problem of a model lacking the required modality.
