Open-source News

Linux 6.3 Improvements Yield Better Chances Of Successfully Compiling The Kernel With ~32GB RAM  Phoronix

Anbernic RG353P retro handheld has Android & Linux compatibility ...  Gadget Flow

Going back to 2016 Intel began work on the SoundWire support for Linux, the MIPI standard started in 2014 to help consolidate audio interfaces between PC and mobile hardware. In preparation for seemingly new AMD hardware coming to market with SoundWire support, AMD engineers recently began working on an AMD SoundWire driver...

AMD SoundWire Driver For Linux Coming Together  Phoronix

While the open-source Mesa 3D drivers are most well known for use on Linux, they are used by other platforms too like Haiku, the BSDs, and even Microsoft Windows with WSL and the like. For those making use of the Mesa 3D drivers on the BeOS-inspired Haiku operating system to enjoy OpenGL support, merged for Mesa 23.1 is an improved EGL implementation for that platform...

Valve doesn't need much to make a Steam Deck 2 a huge success  GamingOnLinux

Valve doesn't need much to make a Steam Deck 2 a huge success  GamingOnLinux

A lot of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) updates were merged for the Linux 6.3 cycle to further enhance the open-source virtualization stack...

Following last week's SoC and platform updates that included mainlining of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 support, new Qualcomm 5G RAN platform support, and many more Arm boards being enabled, this week saw the SoC driver updates now submitted...

New ARM/RISC-V SoC Power Management Drivers Arrive For Linux 6.3  Phoronix

SCAN UK now selling a WD 1TB SSD compatible with Steam Deck  GamingOnLinux

Steam Deck and Desktop Steam Beta updated, adds DualSense ...  GamingOnLinux

SysUpdate Malware Strikes Again with Linux Version and New Evasion Tactics  The Hacker News

How Web3 and a mesh organizational design can turn challenges into opportunities jenkelchner Thu, 03/02/2023 - 03:00

We're in a new era (or at least the early days of a new chapter)—not just a new period in our technological history but also a new paradigm for how people work and contribute to solving problems. One significant challenge I've found in working with leaders is that most organizations are not designed to adapt—let alone thrive—in this new era.

With the rapid emergence of Web3 technologies and the rise of open source software as the basis for these advances, I see multiple challenges every organization can turn into epic opportunities immediately. I detail these in my recently published book, Mesh. In this article, I'll offer a quick overview of three of the most distinct opportunities: Reliance on distributed structures rather than decentralized ones, trapped and untapped value, and the emergence of Web3.

What is Web3?

Many people have preconceived notions of what Web3, or features like blockchain, is or isn't. Web3 refers to the next generation of the internet, which is decentralized and enables more direct, secure, and private interactions between users without intermediaries. Instead of relying on centralized systems like companies or governments, Web3 uses technology such as blockchain to create a network of peers who can transact and exchange value directly with each other. Blockchain provides a secure and transparent ledger for recording transactions and tracking data, enabling trust and collaboration. This results in a more open, transparent, and fair environment where users have greater control over their data. Simply put, Web3 is a more empowering and equitable internet. The features and technology of Web3 bring new opportunities for organizations to improve insights, strengthen connections and build trust as we transform many aspects of how we work and do business.

Distributed and decentralized Challenge 1: Distributed workforce and systems without an updated organizational model

"Distributed" and "decentralized" are often used interchangeably, but they have slightly different meanings.

"Distributed" refers to the distribution or spread of resources, tasks, or functions across multiple locations or devices. This can include movements like distributed computing, where a single task is broken down and executed across multiple computers, or distributed systems, where different system components are located in different places and communicate over a network, though still coordinated by some central actor or authority.

"Decentralization," on the other hand, refers to relocating power and authority away from a central point or hierarchy. This approach can apply to many different types of systems where power is channeled among various branches or levels of organizational systems where decision-making is allocated across varying levels of management, contributors, or community members rather than concentrated in a single entity. Decentralization can increase the speed of decision-making and action.

The fact that a system is distributed does not necessarily make it decentralized, yet many organizations still wonder why distributing their resources and actors doesn't lead to performance gains. For example, think of the turn now to a "distributed workforce," which refers to a group of individuals working remotely or from different geographic locations and collaborating using technology and communication tools to achieve a common goal. Workers can be distributed but not decentralized, relying on the same outmoded hierarchical systems and structures that typically slow them down—now simply at a distance.

Opportunity: Improve autonomy, resilience, and adaptability through decentralization

Decentralization may also be a way to increase autonomy, resilience, and adaptability in organizations, networks, or systems. By distributing decision-making and power across multiple actors, decentralization allows for more local and diverse perspectives. It can reduce the risk of a single point of failure, making the overall system more robust and adaptable to change.

Trapped and untapped value Challenge 2: When trapped and untapped value exists, it can limit the growth and development of the organization

In the early days of my consulting career, I began to use the phrase "trapped value" when doing strategic analysis work. Since then, my understanding of the concept has evolved; I now see value in organizations as trapped and untapped value (TUV). Understanding TUV helps organizations identify barriers to growth in a more nuanced way.

TUV is the value available to an organization that is nevertheless not being used. Trapped value could result from a limitation or barrier that prevents a goal from being realized; untapped value can be overlooked, unseen, or undervalued opportunities and resources.

Organizations rely on a combination of procedures, systems, and workflows to operate. However, as time passes, organizational actors introduce new procedures and systems without considering the previous ones or their potential effect on the organization. These changes can lead to siloed departments, communication breakdowns, and an accumulation of procedures that result in pockets of TUV.

Opportunity: Releasing the regenerative value of capabilities and capacities

Throughout Mesh, my co-author Gráinne Hamilton and I examine burnout, or performance TUV; blackouts, or lack of visibility of skills; and the circuit breakers that prevent optimized deployment of resources through the organization and ecosystem. We also explain how an organization's various "power generators" offer sets of capabilities and capacities for releasing TUV. Doing this can lead to organizational regeneration. An organization has avenues for transforming through continuous cycles of change, remaining relevant and sustainable. With an open, regenerative culture that innovates on how its people contribute, the people's capabilities become more visible, teams become more balanced, and value can be realized in newly beneficial ways.

The emergence of Web3 and its features Challenge 3: It's all so new and overwhelming

Web3 technologies, such as blockchain, smart contracts, and tokenization, are relatively new. While some organizations actively use these technologies, many others are still experimenting with them, exploring their potential benefits, and figuring out how to implement them best.

Blockchain, for example, has been used in supply chain management to increase transparency, reduce costs, and improve security. Some organizations also use blockchain to develop digital identities and create new business models, such as the tokenization of assets. Smart contracts—self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement written into code—are used in industries such as finance, insurance, and real estate to automate processes and reduce costs.

Many organizations are still evaluating the potential benefits and how to implement these technologies best to grow and scale their business.

Opportunity: Gain insights from data, establish trust, and build the future

Web3 technologies offer organizations a wide range of opportunities to gain insights, improve connections, and establish trust for organizational gain. However, organizations also need to consider how to integrate and take full advantage of these technologies. Decentralization and Web3 also create unparalleled opportunities for rapid organizational and commercial benefits and for building connections and trust. For example, data that can be sourced and verified via blockchain can provide incredible visibility and pose new connections to solutions. Likewise, decentralizing contributions and community can empower relationships across "borders" and boundaries to rapidly solve problems or even maintain ongoing projects, while trustless transactions can enhance organizational trust.

I recommend that organizations prioritize digital transformation initiatives that align with the shift towards Web3 technologies and be mindful of their organizational models, processes, and cultural behaviors to take advantage of this new era.

Learn about open organizations Download resources Join the community What is an open organization? How open is your organization? An open and regenerative organizational culture can optimize the benefits of decentralization

Organizations need to adopt more open and decentralized practices to effectively engage with and maximize the use of Web3 technologies.

Open approaches tend to espouse granularity, flexibility, and reusability. Open source cultural practices organize around transparency, participation, and community. The open organization characteristics, for example, elevate the idea of people coming together to actively participate and co-create in a community.

Looking deeper at Web3, we see that its tenets revolve around transparency, autonomy, and decentralization; they emphasize an infrastructure that enables distributed components that may or may not collaborate to develop outputs but still connect in an organizational context.

We can connect these complementary views on open practices by stressing three tenets: Connection, visibility, and trust (incidentally, this is what my co-author and I do in Mesh). These tenets are designed to bridge the convergences and divergences of open practices and Web3 while also expanding upon them. It's important to be human-centric and prioritize personal agency and psychological safety while at the same time enabling open, regenerative behaviors to foster a mesh organizational design.

Organizations can optimize the benefits of decentralization by catalyzing the components and connections of an open and regenerative culture and recognizing that a mesh structure can connect, work together, create value, and attract others to participate. As a model, mesh allows organizations to make the most of things like data, internal knowledge, and contributions of its people by using, combining, and reworking them. We can manage the distributed and decentralized nature of how we work and collaborate with Web3 solutions such as blockchain, tokenization, and smart contracts. Visualization tools can enable collating, connecting, and clustering data from various sources to provide helpful insights, optimize processes, and ultimately release value.

Unlock the potential of decentralization.

Image by:

Opensource.com

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Parallel and distributed computing with Raspberry Pi clusters visimpscot2 Thu, 03/02/2023 - 03:00

Since the Raspberry Pi's launch, creators have based countless computer science education projects on the humble pocket-sized system on a chip. These have included many projects exploring low-cost Raspberry Pi clusters to introduce parallel and distributed computing (PDC) concepts.

The UK Open University (OU) provides distance education to students of diverse ages, experiences, and backgrounds, which raises some issues not faced in more traditional universities. The OU experiment using Raspberry Pi clusters to introduce PDC concepts to distance learning students began in 2019 and has been featured in an academic paper but deserves to be known more widely.

The project uses Raspberry Pi clusters based on the OctaPi instructions, released under a Creative Commons Licence by GCHQ. Eight Raspberry Pis are connected in a private network using a router and a switch. One of the Raspberry Pis acts as the lead, while the others are servers providing results back to the lead device. Programs written in Python run on the lead Pi, and the dispy package distributes activities across cores in the cluster.

Three programs have been developed for the clusters, and you can download them from the Git repository.

Two of the programs are text-based and linked to search problems: The traveling salesperson and password hashing. As complete search problems, these are ideal for teaching PDC concepts. The third program is graphical. The image combiner takes three images as input, with non-overlapping obstructions. It constructs an image without any obstructions by comparing the RGBA values pixel-by-pixel across the three images and selecting the median.

Using the cluster

The Open University is a distance learning institution, so students access the clusters through a web interface. Remote access to the clusters uses the OpenSTEM Labs infrastructure at the university. Ten clusters (eight built with Pi 4, two built with Pi 3B+) are installed into racks, with webcams pointed at each cluster.

The students select which program to run, the number of cores to use, and the parameters for the selected program. As output, they see the time the program takes to run on an individual Raspberry Pi compared to the cluster using the number of cores selected. The student also sees the output from the program, either the password hashing result, the minimal and maximal traveling salesperson route, or the non-occluded image.

Image by:

(Peter Cheer, CC BY-SA 4.0)

A webcam shows a live stream of the cluster. The lead Pi has an LED display to show the program's state as it runs. The webcam makes it clear to students that they are experimenting with real dedicated hardware rather than getting simulated or pre-recorded results.

Image by:

(Peter Cheer, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Each program has two activities associated with it, illustrating different aspects of program design and PDC operations. One of the main learning points is that PDC computing can provide significant performance advantages but at a cost in the time and resources taken to divide and distribute a problem and, in reverse, to recombine the results. The second learning point is that efficiency is significantly affected by the program design.

More on Raspberry Pi What is Raspberry Pi? eBook: Guide to Raspberry Pi Getting started with Raspberry Pi cheat sheet eBook: Running Kubernetes on your Raspberry Pi Whitepaper: Data-intensive intelligent applications in a hybrid cloud blueprint Understanding edge computing Our latest on Raspberry Pi Students like it

Currently, the use of the Raspberry Pi clusters is optional. Based on the findings so far, though, students enjoy it and are motivated by having remote access to physical hardware.

One student has said, "It was really interesting to be able to use real clusters instead of having it virtualized."

Another adds, "It was really exciting to be able to actually see a cluster working and see the real effects of working with multiple cores. It was great to be able to try this out for myself, not just to read the theory about it!"

Students are using the clusters to undertake learning activities designed to teach the principles of PDC rather than writing and running their own programs. The experience of developing a low-cost Raspberry Pi cluster for use with open-distance university students demonstrates the benefits remote practical activities can have for teaching PDC concepts and engaging students.

When I asked Daniel Gooch, one of the team members behind the project, about it, he said: "For me, where we differ is that we've taken an existing set of Raspberry Pi instructions and worked on integrating in additional wrap-around material to ensure it can cope with the distance and scale we operate on."

This academic experiment using Raspberry Pi clusters introduces parallel and distributed computing (PDC) concepts to distance learning students.

Image by:

Dwight Sipler on Flickr

Raspberry Pi Education What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Register or Login to post a comment.

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Steam On Linux Marketshare Percentage Dipped In February  Phoronix

Valve has just published the Steam Survey results for the month prior and it points to Steam on Linux as a percentage dropping as well as a similar pullback in the Steam Deck hardware usage...

Linux desktop powers consider uniting for an app store  ZDNet