Prusa3D has recently released an online course for their popular 3D printer, the Original Prusa MK4. This course is aimed at 3D printing beginners who have chosen the MK4 as their first printer, as well as experienced users who want to refresh their knowledge.

The MK4 online course follows the same pattern as its older relatives, starting with unpacking the printer, running the setup wizard, and printing the first sample model. The course also explains the printer mechanics and provides information on connecting the printer to the internet via Prusa Connect. Additionally, the course covers the basic controls and menus of the PrusaSlicer app, introduces the Printables.com model database, and provides an overview of 3D modeling using Tinkercad and Fusion 360.

The course is presented in a unique hybrid text-based form, which combines the advantages of both text and video formats. The content is color-coded, split into small chunks, and includes plenty of pictures and short videos. Quizzes are also included to test the learner’s knowledge. Upon completion of the course, learners can generate and download a certificate.

The MK4 online course is available for free with the purchase of the assembled variant of the MK4 or for members of the Prusa Education program. Existing customers who have already bought the assembled MK4 will automatically receive the course. To access the course, users can log in to their Prusa Account and click on the “My Courses” option. For kit variant owners, the course can be purchased for a nominal price of $5 or with Prusameter bonus points.

In addition to the MK4 course, Prusa3D has also made major updates to their existing courses, bringing them up to date with the latest version of PrusaSlicer and Printables.com features. The courses are currently available in English, with translations expected to be completed by the end of October.

Prusa3D has also made improvements to their e-shop, allowing users to mix virtual and physical products in the same shopping cart. They have also added recommendations for minor products that can be purchased together with a printer. Furthermore, it will be possible to buy multiple copies of the same course at once, making the process more convenient.

In the future, Prusa3D plans to release a series of 3D print postprocessing courses and is considering a dedicated course for their Original Prusa XL printer.

AMD has announced the release of the Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series, bringing significant updates to their Threadripper processors. The new series offers up to 96 Zen 4 cores, requiring RDIMM memory for Threadripper platforms moving forward. This update caters to both high-end desktop (HEDT) enthusiasts and professionals.

Compared to the previous Threadripper PRO 5000 series processors, the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 WX-Series is a substantial upgrade. While the previous series topped out at 64 cores and 128 threads, the new series allows for up to 96 cores and 192 threads, matching the core counts found in AMD’s EPYC Genoa processors. The Zen 4 Threadripper processors can clock up to 5.3GHz, offer up to 384MB of cache, and include features like AVX-512 and 128 PCIe 5.0 lanes.

The Threadripper PRO 7000 WX-Series parts can reach up to 350 Watts. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series processors are in a league of their own at the top-end. Intel currently does not have any Core i9 Extreme Edition processors, and their much-delayed Intel Xeon W-3400 series only goes up to 56 cores. Even if one were to consider the Xeon Scalable “Sapphire Rapids,” there is still a core count limitation. The Threadripper 7000 series processors are expected to provide an interesting battle against the Xeon Scalable processors, especially the Xeon Max.

The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series is divided into separate platforms for PRO and HEDT. The Threadripper PRO platform, with the WRX90 chipset, offers PRO manageability features, 8-channel memory support, 148 PCIe lanes, and support for Threadripper PRO processors. In the HEDT space, there is the TRX50 chipset, which lacks PRO management features, supports only four-channel memory, has 92 PCIe lanes, and is compatible with both PRO and HEDT Threadripper processors.

The Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series (non-PRO) includes processors with up to 64 cores. The Threadripper 7980X, with a 350 Watt TDP and a maximum turbo boost of 5.1GHz, leads the non-PRO line-up. Other options include the 24-core Threadripper 7960 and the 32-core Threadripper 7970X.

Source: Phoronix.

SiFive has introduced two new IP blocks, the Intelligence X390 NPU and the Performance P870 RISC-V core, which are designed for SoCs targeting Generative AI and ML applications.

The Performance P870, previously covered by CNX Software, is a high-performance core that supports the RVA23 RISC-V profile specification, Vector 1.0, and Vector Crypto. It features a six-wide, out-of-order 64-bit core and can be configured with up to a 32-core cluster. The P870 offers over 12 SpecINT2k6/GHz and a 50% peak single-thread performance improvement compared to the previous generation SiFive Performance P670. It also includes SiFive features such as 2x 128b VLEN RVV, vector crypto and hypervisor extensions, IOMMU and AIA, non-inclusive L3 cache, and RISC-V WorldGuard security. The P870 is fully compatible with Google’s platform requirements for Android on RISC-V and supports Linux.

The SiFive Intelligence X390 NPU is built on the U7-Series core with a 64-bit RISC-V ISA and an 8-stage dual-issue in-order pipeline. It supports the RISC-V Vector extension and features a 1024-bit VLEN, 512-bit DLEN, single/dual vector ALU, and the Vector Coprocessor Interface eXtension (VCIX) for direct connectivity of external hardware accelerators. The X390 NPU offers a 4x improvement in vector computation compared to the Intelligence X280 NPU, thanks to its single-core configuration, doubled vector length, and dual vector ALUs.

SiFive envisions the P870 and X390 being paired in powerful RISC-V SoCs with up to 32 cores and 8 AI accelerator cores (along with optional custom accelerators) to enable generative AI in data centers. The company promises a full AI solution with optimized libraries, as well as OpenXLA and NN models. Additionally, the Performance P870 is suitable for DPU, storage, networking, 5G applications, and automotive SoCs. In the automotive market, the P870-A RISC-V core can be integrated with the Intelligence X280 AI accelerator and SiFive S7-A cores for ASIL B/D compliance, supporting applications such as standalone ADAS, central compute, and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI).

SiFive also suggests that the P870 and X390 may find their way into consumer applications like edge AI security cameras, mobile devices, wearables, and smart TVs, although no specific details were provided.

For more information, please visit the product page and press release.

Source: CNX Software – Embedded Systems News.

Netdata has released version v1.43.0, which is the most robust and reliable version of Netdata yet. This release includes several improvements and new features that enhance the performance and functionality of Netdata.

One of the major improvements in this release is the enhancement of the systemd-journal logs. Netdata has rewritten the systemd-journal plugin to improve its performance and visualization capabilities. This allows for better visualization of critical systems and security information. Additionally, Netdata is standardizing the way logs are handled as part of the platform, which enables support for more log management engines like Loki and Elasticsearch.

Another notable improvement is the changes made to the way metrics are collected and exposed in the Netdata Agent UI. This allows for easier slicing and dicing of data and better compatibility with OpenTelemetry specifications. The apps.plugin now exposes charts in the Applications section of the dashboard using the NIDL framework, while systemd units charts have been updated to have an instance for each systemd unit. Disk charts also have additional labels to help identify disks from the charts.

The Netdata Health engine has also undergone changes to improve integration with the new dashboard. These changes include better multi-node alerting on parents and the ability to evaluate and configure alerts directly from the UI.

In terms of performance, Netdata now has lower resource utilization, including lower memory usage and disk footprint. The self-vacuuming of SQLite databases has also been implemented. Notably, Netdata now requires only 1 pointer for each use of a label name-value combination, significantly improving memory requirements in setups like busy Kubernetes clusters.

Other improvements include the ability to run a 32-bit Netdata on a 64-bit IoT operating system, the availability of Netdata Cloud to be installed on-premises, and enhancements to VMware vSphere monitoring.

Looking ahead, Netdata is working on several areas for future releases. These include the development of a Logs Explorer for Loki and Elasticsearch, allowing for exploration, querying, and visualization of logs from these sources. Netdata is also working on making all integrations configurable via the dashboard and allowing alerts to be configured directly from the UI. Additionally, Netdata is preparing to release a mobile app for receiving push notifications and exploring alert statuses. The scalability of Netdata in larger environments is also a focus for future improvements.

As part of the release, there are also deprecation notices for certain components and changes that will be implemented in future releases. These changes aim to improve the functionality and usability of Netdata.

Overall, the release of Netdata version v1.43.0 brings significant improvements and new features that enhance the performance, functionality, and usability of Netdata for server monitoring and management.

Loki, an open source log aggregation system inspired by Prometheus, has announced the release of version v2.9.2. This highly-available, multi-tenant system is designed to be cost-effective and easy to operate.

One notable change in this release is the patching of two security vulnerabilities: CVE-2023-39325 and CVE-2023-44487. This was done by upgrading go to v1.21.3, golang.org/x/net to v0.17.0, and grpc-go to v1.56.3. For a comprehensive list of changes, users can refer to the CHANGELOG.

Loki offers two installation options: Docker container and binary.

For those who prefer the Docker container option, the images are available at https://hub.docker.com/r/grafana/loki and https://hub.docker.com/r/grafana/promtail. To install, simply run the following commands:

$ docker pull grafana/loki:2.9.2
$ docker pull grafana/promtail:2.9.2

Alternatively, Loki provides pre-compiled binary executables for various operating systems and architectures. To install the binary version, follow these steps:

$ curl -O -L "https://github.com/grafana/loki/releases/download/v2.9.2/loki-linux-amd64.zip"
$ unzip loki-linux-amd64.zip
$ chmod a+x loki-linux-amd64

TrueNAS, a leading provider of storage systems, uses OpenZFS as the foundation for its data management layer. As the deployment vehicle for the majority of OpenZFS storage systems used today, TrueNAS is excited about the continuous improvement of OpenZFS.

The 11th annual OpenZFS Developer Summit for 2023 kicked off on October 16th in San Francisco. Among the many exciting projects being developed, two projects stand out with significant contributions and investments from iXsystems.

One of the primary issues with traditional deduplication (dedup) with ZFS has been the need to keep the dedup tables in memory at all times, which led to performance penalties and usability issues. However, with the introduction of Fast Dedup, the metadata size is now constrained to fit in either RAM or flash, eliminating the performance penalty. The metadata structure for Fast Dedup has been completely re-engineered to allow efficient updates and the ability to evict non-deduplicated blocks. These improvements, combined with properly configured storage, will result in a significant improvement in dedup performance for larger systems. Allan Jude, a major sponsor of the Fast Dedup project, will be presenting the details at the summit.

RAIDZ expansion is another exciting project that is entering its final quality assurance cycle. This feature allows a small pool with as few as two drives to be gradually expanded with one drive at a time, preserving existing data with its original parity. The administrative process for small systems has also been simplified. Don Brady and Matt Ahrens will be presenting the latest updates on RAIDZ expansion at the summit. This project has taken a few years but is now in its final stretch and will be included in OpenZFS 2.3.

The current release, OpenZFS 2.2, has been integrated into TrueNAS SCALE 23.10 (Cobia). The release candidate version of Cobia, which includes dRAID, has been successfully provided to the community with over 3,000 testers. The formal release of TrueNAS SCALE 23.10 is planned in the coming weeks. In early 2024, TrueNAS CORE 13.1 will be released with OpenZFS 2.2, and TrueNAS Enterprise appliances will also use OpenZFS 2.2 in their respective software versions.

OpenZFS 2.3 (or potentially 3.0) is expected to take most of the next 12 months to mature and reach release quality and status. The RAIDZ expansion and Fast Dedup features will be integrated with TrueNAS at that time. Early availability of Nightlies and BETA software is expected in mid-2024 for TrueNAS SCALE.

Source: TrueNAS.