Top all-time · #2616
Marcin Juszkiewicz
Personal blog · marcin.juszkiewicz.com.plhardwaresystems
Marcin Juszkiewicz's personal blog at marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl covers hardware and systems. Since 2011, 29 different Hacker News readers have linked it 49 times, most often “What is wrong with all those AArch64 desktops?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link his posts on Arm and AArch64 hardware, Linux boot and bootloaders, and laptop and Chromebook speakers that overheat or burn out, usually to back up their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Random mumblings of FOSS developer about porting issues, getting things running on 64-bit Arm systems, containers, tools, conferences etc.
Most-linked posts?
- /2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-your-chromebook/3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2016-11-29
- What is wrong with all those AArch64 desktops?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-01-10
- Arm desktop: emulation2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-07-26
- AArch64 Boards and Perception2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-02-22
- Why my device is not supported by distributions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-03-15
- 64-bit ARM System on Chip features table2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-07
- Bought myself an Ampere Altra system2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-06-29
- The end of the AArch64 desktop experiment2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-06-30
What Hacker News says?
One of the first chromebooks would melt and burn if you fired up alsamixer and tried toggling a few of the toggles. I encountered this myself fiddling with the audio settings and ended up with magic smoke and melting plastic before I quickly powered it off. https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-spea... https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.linux.advocacy/c/QslNrtx... (note it doesn't actually require…
Comment linking /2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-your-chromebook/
on “Intel Laptop Users Should Avoid Linux 5.19.12 to Avoid Damaging the Display”Submitted 64-bit ARM desktop hardware? as a story · 243 points
HN discussionOld Samsung ARM Chromebooks used to have a similar problem where some ALSA settings would overload and destroy the built-in speakers. Mine actually started smoking and melting after I installed Debian. https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-spea... I don't want to compare a $300 browser-in-a-box with a $2000 laptop, but issues like this aren't unheard of.
Comment linking /2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-your-chromebook/
on “Windows on New Macbook Pro Permanently Damages Speaker Due to Poor Drivers”Submitted Bought myself an Ampere Altra system as a story · 206 points
HN discussionRead https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2025/06/20/the-hunt-for-a-... please. Tool vs Toy.
Comment linking /2025/06/20/the-hunt-for-a-development-machine/
on “Bought myself an Ampere Altra system”Submitted Arm desktop: emulation as a story · 98 points
HN discussion"claims" is very good summary In my previous post https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2025/06/20/the-hunt-for-a-... I wrote: > There were “Arm V9” systems before it, so it was not “World’s First”. There were several blobs needed to run it, so it was not “Open Source”.
Comment linking /2025/06/20/the-hunt-for-a-development-machine/
on “Bought myself an Ampere Altra system”Submitted Twenty years of my work with Arm architecture as a story · 94 points
HN discussionI guess this post proves you still can't :) Not that much changed since this: https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2019/10/23/what-is-wrong-w...
Comment linking /2019/10/23/what-is-wrong-with-all-those-aarch64-desktops/
on “Bought myself an Ampere Altra system”Submitted What is wrong with all those AArch64 desktops? as a story · 90 points
HN discussionSee also: The most expensive chip in the ARM world by Marcin Juszkiewicz [0]. It's written by a core AArch64 developer on the lack of a full-function boot ROM on most ARM single-board computers, forcing developers and users to fight with vendor-specific bootloaders. > So SBC… Which means playing with U-Boot. In the past it meant random fork of it. [...] you have bootloader(s) built. The next step is taking microsd c…
Comment linking /2020/01/29/the-most-expensive-chip-in-the-arm-world/
on “How the ARM32 Linux kernel decompresses”Submitted AArch64 Boards and Perception as a story · 67 points
HN discussionI'm glad there is finally some standardization. The previous "Standards in Arm space" articles[1] are good illustration why this was needed. The LBBR spec seems nice, the article does mention that its for some hyperscale datacenter stuff but to me it seems like it could work well for sbcs too, but I don't know if I'm missing something. [1] https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2020/10/12/standards-in-ar...
Comment linking /2020/10/12/standards-in-arm-space-part-i/
on “AArch64 Boards and Perception”Submitted 64-bit ARM System on Chip features table as a story · 44 points
HN discussionNote that parts like this are more easily replaced using a hot air station than a soldering iron. Looks like the audio amp fed by the MOSFET is a Realtek ALC1304, which I can't find any data on, but searching for the pin names finds that it could be a clone/compatible to the TI TPA3131D2/TPA3132D2. This part has a power limiter, but if the Realtek one is configured the same way, then as implemented in the laptop, it…
Comment linking /2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-your-chromebook/
on “How to repair the parts that explode in Lenovo Yoga laptops (2019)”Submitted RISC-V Is Sloooow as a story · 41 points
HN discussionReminds me of the self-destructing speakers on the old Samsung Chromebook. Set wrong mixer settings and they silently burn up. In my case they melted through the case before I realized what was wrong. https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-spea...
Comment linking /2012/12/10/how-to-fry-speakers-in-your-chromebook/
on “Lenovo Yoga computers have parts that explode”Submitted Arm Desktop: x86 Emulation as a story · 8 points
HN discussion> The idea that Linux is "half baked" non non-amd64 platforms is just... it's just stunning. Evidence to support this idea, from a Red Hat developer in the area of ARM support: His 2015 attempt: https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2015/09/21/aarch64-desktop... It failed. Arm on the desktop on Linux was not usable. A decade later, he tried again. His 2025 attempt starts here: https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2025/07/0…
Comment linking /2025/07/07/arm-desktop-2025-attempt-part-one/
on “Gravity Linux – Linux for Apple Silicon M4 and Above”Submitted Bought myself an Ampere Altra system as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSomehow related: "The end of my AArch64 [Ampere Altra Q80-30] desktop experiment", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48728599 / https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2026/06/26/the-end-of-the-...
Comment linking /2026/06/26/the-end-of-the-aarch64-desktop-experiment/
on “Nvidia DGX Spark as a daily driver”Submitted What is wrong with all those AArch64 desktops? (2019) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionCan we please edit the title to clarify that it's only x86_64? The 32-bit version has been "coming soon" for many years now (very relatable!), but this page still pollutes my search results when looking for 32-bit syscall tables (although thankfully the ChromiumOS docs page has recently supplanted it, linked elsewhere in this thread) To be clear I'm not mad at the author, it's a useful resource and I'm thankful for…
Comment linking /download/tables/syscalls.html
on “Searchable Linux Syscall Table for x86 and x86_64”Submitted Future of ARM BSA/PC-BSA/SBSA Checklist Page as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAArch64 SoC features: https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/download/tables/arm-socs.h... https://github.com/hrw/arm-socs-table
Comment linking /download/tables/arm-socs.html
on “Disambiguating Arm, Arm ARM, ARMv9, ARM9, ARM64, AArch64, A64, A78, ...”Submitted Standards Are Boring as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted So your ARM hardware is ServerReady? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why my device is not supported by distributions as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Used Chromebook for few days as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted My First 8K Intro as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
