Creating User-Friendly Installers Across Operating Systems

December 11, 2025 by Maya Posch 43 Comments

After you have written the code for some awesome application, you of course want other people to be able to use it. Although simply directing them to the source code on GitHub or similar is an option, not every project lends itself to the traditional configure && make && make install, with often dependencies being the sticking point.

Asking the user to install dependencies and set up any filesystem links is an option, but having an installer of some type tackle all this is of course significantly easier. Typically this would contain the precompiled binaries, along with any other required files which the installer can then copy to their final location before tackling any remaining tasks, like updating configuration files, tweaking a registry, setting up filesystem links and so on.

As simple as this sounds, it comes with a lot of gotchas, with Linux distributions in particular being a tough nut. Whereas on MacOS, Windows, Haiku and many other OSes you can provide a single installer file for the respective platform, for Linux things get interesting.

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PCB Design Review: TinySparrow, A Module For CAN Hacking, V2

December 9, 2025 by Arya Voronova 12 Comments

A year ago, I’ve design reviewed an MCU module for CAN hacking, called TinySparrow. Modules are plenty cool, and even more so when they’re intended for remaking car ECUs. For a while now, every car has heavily depended on a computer to control the operation of everything inside it – the engine and its infrastructure, the lights, and Sadly, ECUs are quite non-hackable, so building your own ECUs only makes sense – which is why it’s heartwarming to see modules intended to make this easier on the budding ECU designer!

Last time we saw this module, it was quite a bit simpler. We talked about fixing a number of things – the linear regulator, the unprotected CAN transceiver, and the pinout; we also made the board cheaper to produce by reducing the layer count and instead pushing the clearance/track width limits. This time, we’re seeing TinySparrow v2 , redesigned accounting for the feedback and upgraded with a new MCU – it’s quite a bit more powerful!

For a start, it’s got ESD diodes, a switching-linear regulator chain for clean but efficient power supply, and most importantly, an upgraded MCU, now with USB and one more CAN channel for a total of two! There’s a lot more GPIOs to go around, too, so the PCB now uses all four of its sides for breakout out power, programming, and GPIO pads. Only a tiny bit bigger than its v1, this module packs a fair bit of punch.

Let’s revisit the design, and try to find anything still left to improve – there’s a few noteworthy things I found.

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The Unexpected Joys Of Hacking An Old Kindle

November 24, 2025 by Tom Nardi 23 Comments

In the closing hours of JawnCon 0x2, I was making a final pass of the “Free Stuff for Nerds” table when I noticed a forlorn Kindle that had a piece of paper taped to it. The hand-written note explained that the device was in shambles — not only was its e-ink display visibly broken, but the reader was stuck in some kind of endless boot loop. I might have left it there if it wasn’t for the closing remark: “Have Fun!”

Truth is, the last thing I needed was another Kindle. My family has already managed to build up a collection of the things. But taking a broken one apart and attempting to figure out what was wrong with it did seem like it would be kind of fun, as I’d never really had the opportunity to dig into one before. So I brought it home and promptly forgot about it as Supercon was only a few weeks away and there was plenty to keep me occupied.

The following isn’t really a story about fixing a Kindle, although it might seem like it on the surface. It’s more about the experience of working on the device, and the incredible hacking potential of these unassuming gadgets. Whether you’ve got a clear goal in mind, or just want to get your hands dirty in the world of hardware hacking, you could do far worse than picking a couple of busted Kindles up for cheap on eBay.

If there’s a singular takeaway, it’s that the world’s most popular e-reader just so happens to double as a cheap and impressively capable embedded Linux development environment for anyone who’s willing to crack open the case.

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Lithium-Ion Batteries: WHY They Demand Respect

November 4, 2025 by Arya Voronova 65 Comments

This summer, we saw the WHY (What Hackers Yearn) event happen in Netherlands, of course, with a badge to match. Many badges these days embrace the QWERTY computer aesthetic, which I’m personally genuinely happy about. This one used 18650 batteries for power, in a dual parallel cell configuration… Oh snap, that’s my favourite LiIon cell in my favourite configuration, too! Surely, nothing bad could happen?

Whoops. That one almost caught me by surprise, I have to shamefully admit. I just genuinely love 18650 cells, in all glory they bring to hardware hacking, and my excitement must’ve blindsided me. They’re the closest possible entity to a “LiIon battery module”, surprisingly easy to find in most corners of this planet, cheap to acquire in large quantities, easy to interface to your projects, and packing a huge amount of power. It’s a perfect cell for many applications I and many other hackers hold dear.

Sadly, the 18650 cells were a bad choice for the WHY badge, for multiple reasons at once. If you’re considering building a 18650-based project, or even a product, let me show you what exactly made these cells a bad fit, and how you might be able to work around those limitations on your own journey. There’s plenty of technical factors, but I will tell you about the social factors, because these create the real dealbreaker here. Continue reading “Lithium-Ion Batteries: WHY They Demand Respect” →

Exploding The Mystical Craftsman Myth

October 27, 2025 by Jenny List 85 Comments

As a Hackaday writer, I see a lot of web pages, social media posts, videos, and other tips as part of my feed. The best ones I try to bring you here, assuming of course that one of my ever-vigilant colleagues hasn’t beaten me to it. Along the way I see the tropes of changing content creator fashion; those ridiculous pea-sized hand held microphones, or how all of a sudden everything has to be found in the woods. Some of them make me laugh, but there’s one I see a lot which has made me increasingly annoyed over the years. I’m talking of course about the craftsman myth.

No. The Last True Nuts And Bolts Are Not Being Made In Japan

If you don’t recognise the craftsman myth immediately, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with it even if you don’t realise it yet. It goes something like this: somewhere in Japan (or somewhere else perceived as old-timey in online audience terms like Appalachia, but it’s usually Japan), there’s a bloke in a tin shed who makes nuts and bolts.

But he’s not just any bloke in a tin shed who makes nuts and bolts, he’s a special master craftsman who makes nuts and bolts like no other. He’s about 120 years old and the last of a long line of nut and bolt makers entrusted with the secrets of nut and bolt making, father to son, since the 8th century. His tools are also mystical, passed down through the generations since they were forged by other mystical craftsmen centuries ago, and his forge is like no other, its hand-cranked bellows bring to life a fire using only the finest cedar driftwood charcoal. The charcoal is also made by a 120 year old master charcoal maker Japanese bloke whose line stretches back to the n’th century, yadda yadda. And when Takahashi-san finally shuffles off this mortal coil, that’s it for nuts and bolts, because the other nuts and bolts simply can’t compare to these special ones. Continue reading “Exploding The Mystical Craftsman Myth” →

Bare Metal STM32: The Various Real Time Clock Flavors

September 10, 2025 by Maya Posch 8 Comments

Keeping track of time is essential, even for microcontrollers, which is why a real-time clock (RTC) peripheral is a common feature in MCUs. In the case of the STM32 family there are three varieties of RTC peripherals, with the newest two creatively called ‘RTC2′ and RTC3’, to contrast them from the very basic and barebones RTC that debuted with the STM32F1 series.

Commonly experienced in the ubiquitous and often cloned STM32F103 MCU, this ‘RTC1’ features little more than a basic 32-bit counter alongside an alarm feature and a collection of battery-backed registers that requires you to do all of the heavy lifting of time and date keeping yourself. This is quite a contrast with the two rather similar successor RTC peripherals, which seem to insist on doing everything possible themselves – except offer you that basic counter – including giving you a full-blown calendar and today’s time with consideration for 12/24 hour format, DST and much more.

With such a wide gulf between RTC1 and its successors, this raises the question of how to best approach these from a low-level perspective.

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FreeCAD Foray: From Brick To Shell

September 9, 2025 by Arya Voronova 18 Comments

Over a year ago, we took a look at importing a .step file of a KiCad PCB into FreeCAD, then placing a sketch and extruding it. It was a small step, but I know it’s enough for most of you all, and that brings me joy. Today, we continue building a case for that PCB – the delay is because I stopped my USB-C work for a fair bit, and lost interest in the case accordingly, but I’m reviving it now.

Since then, FreeCAD has seen its v 1.0 release come to fruition, in particular getting a fair bit of work done to alleviate one of major problems for CAD packages, the “topological naming problem”; we will talk about it later on. The good news is, none of my tutorial appears to have been invalidated by version 1.0 changes. Another good news: since version 1.0, FreeCAD has definitely become a fair bit more stable, and that’s not even including some much-needed major features.

High time to pick the work back up, then! Let’s take a look at what’s in store for today: finishing the case in just a few more extrusions, explaining a few FreeCAD failure modes you might encounter, and giving some advice on how to make FreeCAD for you with minimum effort from your side.

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