Linus Learns Analog Circuits | Hacker News Reader

Linus Learns Analog Circuits

github.com

171 pointsGaggiX42 comments

He’s 55, and still learning new stuff, every day.

Looks like he learns, pretty much the same way I do. It seems to be common.

One of the nice things about being retired, is that I don’t have to retire. I just direct my own work, instead of having knuckleheads trying to steer the boat. Since I like learning, I look to do stuff I don’t already know how to do[0].

I don’t think he’s retired, but he seems to be in a place, where he’s free to follow his own muse.

[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

He's also likely financially independent...

He's wildly financially independent. He had early shares from red hat and geeknet, on top of millions from the linux foundation and corporate work. His net worth is in the tens of millions at least.

When Red Hat went public, they gave those who submitted a bug report or fixes a chance to buy pre-IPO shares. I got a chance despite just a minor bug report and bought some shares and despite some poor timing of selling, eventually made enough along with my work related stock to have enough financial cushion to leave my job to get my masters degree and a career change. And it worked out well because not long after the dot com tech bubble burst and many tech stocks plummeted or went out of business while I was focused on my education.

His work on Subsurface and some other stuff keeps him afloat

keeps him submerged, rather

Yeah I feel exactly the same way about retirement

> He’s 55, and still learning new stuff, every day.

Why wouldn't you? I'm not retired, and I still pick up new skills and hobbies all the time, too. It's the spice of life.

55 isn't particularly old either. My mother's partner is pushing 75 and in the middle of diving from scratch into SDR and building out a little mesh network.

You'll also find that people who excel in FOSS communities are typically great self-directed learners and good at picking goals. It's survivorship bias in the sense that FOSS communities are bad at task assignment, so you more or less have to bring motivation and picking-directions skills.

It's why I like to hire from the FOSS community (with some caveats). If you are able to provide and environment where they can stroll around your codebase/product and improve things, instead of staying in their lane, they generally will.

My thoughts exactly.

I retired at 55. I’m 63, now, and learn new stuff, every day.

I think one of the reasons that I learn as quickly as I do, is because I have an enormous baseline of experience on which to draw.

I probably don’t pick up new stuff as quickly as I did when I was younger, but my baseline means that I already have a great deal of background to apply to new stuff, so I don’t need to re-learn a lot.

TL;DR: I probably could “start from scratch,” a lot more easily, when I was younger, but I can “extend my knowledge,” a lot faster, these days.

IBM's linux-themed take on 'learning new stuff' https://youtu.be/x7ozaFbqg00#linuxistenyearsold

Linus recommends SMD parts kits that are quite expensive, and relatively bulky, I prefer the books of SMD components, they're more compact and ~$15 each and you can buy refills for ~$5.

For things you use a lot of (1k/10k resistors, 1uF/0.1uF caps etc) buy reels, they're surprisingly cheap <$10 from Digikey (if you visit Shenzhen you can pick them up for $2, I bought a complete set years ago for under $100).

I've largely standardised on 0603 parts for hand assembly, I'm older and have older vision, I need a binocular microscope to work - they're worth the investment if you're doing more than a tiny amount of SMD work.

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-0608-capacitor-kit.ht...

I tend to go for sample books too, if I run out of a value I buy a reel. That way I only have to keep reels of the parts I use most often. For more expensive parts like many ICs I usually try to buy at least as many as the first bulk price discount on Digikey/Mouser/etc. E.g. I tend to use LT3757 switching controllers when I need to make power supplies, so buying 10 of them at $5 each is a much better deal than buying 1 at $7.50 each 10 times!

I just learned how to do an inline "Note" in markdown (noticed this in his README.md) which I had either never seen before or just never noticed. I made a gist so I wouldn't forget how to do this.

https://gist.github.com/jftuga/2e4cf463dc0cdd9640c5f3da06b69...

This feature is specific to relatively recent, Github-flavored Markdown. Pandoc, for example, uses different syntax ( https://pandoc.org/demo/example33/8.18-divs-and-spans.html#d... ).

Markdown doesn't support that; it's a GFM extension.

There are a few different styles: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/16925

Thanks for the link. These are nice additions.

Also seems to render nicely in Obsidian.

If Linus does something industry changing in the space of electronics then I’m done.

Linus has a joke that he named both Linux and git after himself, so presumably he ought to follow the pattern and name his circuit design tool after himself somehow too!

Linearus.

How git it's name after himself?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git

Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor all need competition. GNU/Linux needs to hurry up and stop focusing on gimmicks like application software

You can't write that type of software without being a close partner of a foundry. It's literally the least open source software you could write.

Good thing Linus is a rich hardware bro with plenty of cash

How long before Linus writes his own circuit design tool that changes the world?

USB pedals for a software modular synth would be a good project, too.

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44120903 :

> BespokeSynth is an open source "software modular synth" DAW that can host LV2 and VST3 plugins like Guitarix, which can also add signal transforms like guitar effects pedals. Tried searching for an apparently exotic 1A universal power supply. Apparently also exotic: A board of guitar pedals with IDK one USB-A and a USB-C adapter with OSC and MIDI support; USB MIDI trololo pedals

From "Python notebooks for fundamentals of music processing" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40555387

> Additional Open Source Music and Sound Production tools:

Brandon's Semiconductor Simulator lists what all is not yet modeled. "Basic equations of semiconductor device physics [pdf]" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44723304 :

> Notes re: "Brandon's circuit simulator", which doesn't claim to model vortices in superconductors or the Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect, for example; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43942279#43948096

electronics.stackexchange has CircuitLab built-in; TinkerCAD has circuit assembly and Python on Arduino in a free WebUI, but it's not open source. Wokwi and Pybricks (MicroPython on LEGO smart hubs over web bluetooth) are open core.

LPub3D is an open source LDraw editor for LEGO style digital building instructions. LeoCAD works with the LDraw parts library.

"WebUSB Support for RP2040" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38007967 :

> USB 2x20 pin (IDE cable) GPIO

FWIU Fuzix and picoRTOS will actually run on a RP2040/2350W. 2350W have both ARM-Cortex and RISC cores, but something like an STM can work for months on a few batteries.

I wish I was that good at even just documenting my hobby projects.

He is a good at writing and seemingly enjoys it. This is what allows him to be a maintainer which is to a large degree about being able to write good feedback and guidance.

Anyone have some recommended resources for learning this stuff? I know there are commonly recommended electronics books like "The Art of Electronics" and "Practical Electronics for Inventors" but are there any resources that are focused specifically around guitar pedals? Ideally some sort of progression that introduces analog circuit basics through a set of increasingly involved projects and results in something that actually sounds good and that I would use as a musician.

The Lantertronics YouTube channel has a bunch of good stuff. https://www.youtube.com/@Lantertronics

Also, Small Signal Audio Design by Douglas Self is really good, but probably not as a first EE textbook, and you have to really want to go into the weeds, as an electrical engineer would. But there is an entire chapter (chapter 12) on just electric guitars (pickup, preamps, effects, direct injection, etc.)

Rod Elliott's sound-au.com[1] has a wealth of information about audio. But guitar effects pedals would be one exception.

Microphones, amplifiers, filters speaker crossovers and so on - all explained failry nicely. The site has two main areas, projects and articles.

1. https://www.sound-au.com/

Not specifically about guitar pedals, but cute sound hacks nevertheless: Nicolas Collins, Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Electronic-Music-Hardware-Ha...

One of the first PCBs that I have tried to build as a 16 year old was a guitar pedal circuit from a German electronics magazine (Elo?).

I used the sun as a UV source for the photoresist exposure, boiled iron chloride in my mom's Pyrex containers, stained bunch of her towels permanently yellow in the process. And the circuit didn't work. It is still a sore point from my youth that I remember occasionally.

Linus builds guitar pedals? Cool, one of us!

It sounds to me like Linus, as a hobby, has learned more about analog electronics design than most EEs.

When a financially indepente person decides they want to embark on a hobby, do they hire a team to help them through the process? Or, is that called a startup?

I mean, neither is gonna generate money

Dude is a learning machine.

Aren't we all?

I like learning as much as the next guy, but I’m no Linus Torvalds.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com