Open-source News

EndeavourOS Cassini Nova Launches with Linux Kernel 6.2, Bug Fixes  9to5Linux

Build magical colonies and manage resources with lasers in ...  GamingOnLinux

Humble Choice for March has some fun picks like BIOMUTANT ...  GamingOnLinux

Starfield from Bethesda launching September 6 | GamingOnLinux  GamingOnLinux

Ubuntu Announces Official Support For The PolarFire SoC FPGA ...  Phoronix

Following work bringing Ubuntu Linux to the RISC-V boards like the StarFive VisionFive 2, LicheeRV, Nezha, and others, Canonical today announced they have published an optimized RISC-V image for the Microchip PolarFire SoC FPGA powered "Icicle Kit" development board...

BeaglePlay® From BeagleBoard.org® Brings Fun to Building With ...  Business Wire

Samba 4.18 is out today as the popular open-source implementation of the SMB networking protocol that allows for file and print service interoperability with Microsoft Windows systems in an Active Directory (AD) environment...

A change merged to Qt this week can allow for Wayland clients to survive compositor restarts, such as when the compositor crashes...

In wanting to avoid waiting for pipes via the IOCB_NOWAIT option in order to further enhance IO_uring performance, Jens Axboe has implemented said functionality and in a simple test is seeing 10x to 23x performance improvements...

IOCB_NOWAIT For Linux Pipes Yields 10~23x Performance ...  Phoronix

If you are an AMD Radeon RX 7900 series "RDNA3" GPU owner and don't mind running bleeding-edge open-source graphics driver code, you'll want to pull down today's Mesa 23.1-devel Git snapshot...

One of the newer Linux distributions that has been making waves is Vanilla OS as an immutable and atomic version of Ubuntu Linux that aims to provide a pleasant Linux desktop experience, close to upstream, and is augmented by the growing selection of Flatpak packages. Now though the project has decided to move from Ubuntu Linux as its base over to Debian Sid...

Vanilla OS 2.0 Shifting From Ubuntu Base To Debian Sid  Phoronix

SparkyLinux 2023.03 Rolling Brings Linux Kernel 6.1 and KDE Plasma 5.27 LTS  9to5Linux

Python 3.12 Alpha 6 was released on Tuesday as the newest development release toward this next major Python release...

Top 10 Open-Source Programming Languages in 2023  Analytics Insight

Linux Tweak Brings Big Speedup ¦ DCs in SPAAACE (Redux ...  DevOps.com

8 examples of influential women in tech AmyJune Wed, 03/08/2023 - 03:00

A journey through open source is rarely something you do alone. Your hobby, career, and your life has been affected by others in the tech space, and statistically some of those people have been women. That's one of the many reasons International Women's Day exists, and it's a good excuse to reflect upon the women who have inspired your career in tech. We asked Opensource.com contributors for their thoughts.

Inspirational women Dr. Kathleen Greenaway

One of the women that inspired me was my university professor, Dr. Kathleen Greenaway. She was exactly who I wanted to be. I remember her saying at a women's event about breaking the glass ceiling that she couldn't believe that we were still talking about it so many years later. I now find myself thinking the very same thing. This is just one example, but she was it.

—Shanta Nathwani

Hilary Mason

I owe my knowledge and start in PHP to Hilary Mason. While she was a professor at Johnson & Wales in Providence RI, she ran an elective study on server-side programming. She showed us PHP, and for a final project had us build something using a database. I think I built a simple login system and a commenting tool or something. I love telling folks I learned PHP from a woman (the lead data scientist at bit.ly, at that!)

—John E. Picozzi

Carie Fisher

The most inspirational woman in tech for me is Carie Fisher. I met her when I first started getting involved in the accessibility community. She invited me to help with projects and helped me through my impostor syndrome when applying to jobs, getting certified, and speaking at conferences. Her compassion and devotion to digital inclusion is matched by only a few.

—AmyJune Hineline

Kanopi Studios

I've been working in tech for 25 years and have often been the only female developer in a company or department. Then I joined Kanopi Studios, a women-owned and led agency with many smart, tech-savvy women from whom I am inspired every day. My gender is no longer a barrier to my career success. I feel respected and heard, and my accomplishments are recognized.

—Cindy Williams

Barbara Liskov and Sandi Metz

I think Barbara Liskov is one of the most influential figures in our field I also really really like Sandi Metz, whose speaking and teaching skills helped me a lot in my career. I recommend any of her books or conference videos.

—benelori

Family

I have been inspired by a number of women in my life, both personally and professionally. I always say that my mother, my sister and my grandmother have been great references for me in everything. But I have great colleagues with whom I work today who, for me are my references. I always think something like: Those people who have been important to you, try to keep them close. When I was studying development, we had no references. No one taught us that the first programmer was a woman or that we have WiFi or GPS, thanks to a woman. There is a very good book that I am reading right now The Invisible Woman that I highly recommend.

—Marta Torre

More open source career advice Open source cheat sheets Linux starter kit for developers 7 questions sysadmins should ask a potential employer before taking a job Resources for IT artchitects Cheat sheet: IT job interviews Sarah Drasner

Written by an amazing woman in tech, it brought to my attention to another amazing woman in tech, Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner. This book (and the amazing dev manager, Jody, who sent copies to all the leads) is the reason I am going to be facilitating some discussions about how we experience feedback differently. We realized that a lot of folks may not even really know how to talk about what they need or what works for them, so an open/casual chat where we share some good and bad experiences (optionally, of course) and look at some examples of different styles will hopefully be a really helpful collaborative learning experience.

—Fei Lauren

Sheryl Sandberg

My first book about women in tech, which was recommended to me at the WomenPower conference in Hannover, Germany, was Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. Not only was I impressed by her own way but very much by how she managed to use the powers we as women are given and what makes us different for her own success and the company's success.

—Anne Faulhaber

Your own influence

In open source, maybe more than anywhere, we all are influences on each other. Sharing and collaborating are built into the process of open source. Tell us about the influences you've had during your open source journey.

Members of the Opensource.com community share stories about the important women who influenced their tech careers.

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Opensource.com

Women in tech Careers Opensource.com community What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 16 points Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Equipped with a Bachelor of Commerce in Information Technology Management and a Black Belt in Karate, there’s nothing Shanta Nathwani can’t do. She is a full-stack developer who specializes in WordPress, Node and React with a love for life and learning.

A natural teacher, Shanta spent six years teaching WordPress courses at Sheridan College as well as having given more than 40 WordCamp talks. Her topics include data architecture, custom post types and ACF, as well as beginner topics like posts versus pages and how to create a website in 30 minutes. She served as a QA Supervisor at a software company for 2 years before starting her own company, Namara Technologies Inc., where she served as the President & CEO. After being accepted at Codeable.io as an expert, she is now the Project Liaison Manager for the platform.

When she’s not working, she can be found volunteering as a Co-organizer for the Hamilton WordPress Meetup Group, taking stunning photographs, singing karaoke, and, of course, practicing martial arts.

| Follow ShantaDotCa | Connect nathwani Community Member 78 points Providence RI

My official role is Solution Architect at EPAM working from home in Rhode Island. My unofficial role at any organization I work for is resident Drupal fanatic; I believe strongly in contributing to the Drupal community and supporting open source in any way I can.

I’m the organizer of the Drupal Providence Meetup, an Acquia-certified Site Builder, a co-host on Talking Drupal, and a co-organizer of the New England Drupal Camp. I hold a bachelor degree in Web Management and Internet Commerce, as well as an associate degree in Web Development from Johnson & Wales University. Throughout my career I have crafted Drupal solutions for organizations like CVS Caremark, Leica Geosystems, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Marriott International, Rhode Island School of Design, and Getty Images.

When I’m not immersed in the world of Drupal, I enjoy spending time with my family, traveling, drinking craft beer, coffee, and cooking!

| Follow johnpicozzi Open Enthusiast Author 16 points Nashville, TN

I am a full-stack web developer based in Nashville, TN with over 20 years of professional experience creating and maintaining websites for businesses, schools, non-profits and healthcare organizations.

I am currently employed as a Drupal Engineer at Kanopi Studios, where I work within the support department to maintain and enhance customers' Drupal and WordPress websites.

| Follow cindytwilliams Community Member 16 points Community Member 16 points Santander

Freelance full-stack developer at martatorre.dev. In love with open source, teamwork, good practices in software development and I am an active volunteer in the WordPress support and translation teams.

Recently, I've been a very active #Diversity volunteer in the global WordPress team, because I see it as unfair not to include one type of person because they are different.

| Follow martatorredev | Connect martatorredev Community Member 16 points Community Member 16 points | Connect anne-faulhaber Community Member Register or Login to post a comment.

What cloud developers need to know about hardware JayF Wed, 03/08/2023 - 03:00

It's easy to forget the progress that people in tech have made. In the early 2000s, most local user groups held regular install fests. Back then, to configure a single machine to run Linux well, we had to know intimate details about hardware and how to configure it. Now, almost twenty years later, we represent a project whose core ideal is to make getting a single computer to run Linux as easy as an API call. In this new world, operators and developers alike no longer have to worry about the hardware in their servers. This change has had a profound impact on the next generation of operators and developers.

In the early days of computer technology, you had to put your hands on the hardware frequently. If a computer needed more memory, you just added it. As time passed, technology also evolved in big ways. This ended up moving the operator further from the hardware. What used to be a trip to the data center is now a support ticket to have remote hands on the hardware. Eventually, hardware was disposed of altogether. Instead, you now summon and destroy "servers" with simple commands and no longer have to worry about hardware.

Here is the real truth: hardware exists because it is needed to power clouds. But what is a cloud, really?

Why hardware is critical to the cloud

A cloud is a centralization of foundational resources built upon utilizing abstractions. It can range from being as simple as a hypervisor running a few VMs in your homelab to levels of complexity that include custom servers, networking gear, containers, and technology that's been designed from the ground up to focus on efficiencies of scale.

They are nebulous. They evolve.

Those entering technology today don't have the same hands-on experiences as more experienced developers had. Many are trained to use clouds from their earliest interactions with computers. They don't know a world without a button to change the memory allocation. They can point their attention to higher levels in the technology stack. Yet without an understanding of the foundations the infrastructure they use is built upon, they are implicitly giving away their opportunity to learn the lower levels of the stack, including hardware. No fault exists here because the implementer and operator of the cloud infrastructure have made specific choices to intentionally make their products easier to use.

This means that now, more than ever, you have to think intentionally about what trade-offs you make — or others make — when choosing to use cloud technologies. Most people will not know what trade-offs have been made until they get their first oversized cloud bill or first outage caused by a "noisy neighbor". Can businesses trust their vendors to make trade-offs that are best for their operations? Will vendors suggest more efficient or more profitable services? Let the buyer (or engineer!) beware.

[ Related read 5 things open source developers should know about cloud services providers ]

Thinking intentionally about trade-offs requires looking at your requirements and goals from multiple perspectives. Infrastructure decisions and the trade-offs therein are inherent to the overall process, design, or use model for that project. This is why they must be planned for as soon as possible. Multiple different paths must be considered in order to find your project a good home.

Explore the open source cloud Free online course: Developing cloud-native applications with microservices eBook: Modernize your IT with managed cloud services Try for 60 days: Red Hat OpenShift Dedicated Free online course: Containers, Kubernetes and Red Hat OpenShift What is Kubernetes? Understanding edge computing Latest articles for IT architects

First, there is the axis of the goal to be achieved, or the service provided. This may come with requirements around speed, quality, or performance. This can in itself drive a number of variables. You may need specialized hardware such as GPUs to process a request with acceptable speed. Will this workload need to auto-scale, or not? Of course, these paths are intertwined. The question already jumps to "Will my wallet auto-scale?"

Business requirements are another part of this to consider. Your project may have specific security or compliance requirements which dictate where data is stored. Proximity to related services is also a potential concern. This includes ensuring a low-latency connection to a nearby stock exchange or ability to provide a high-quality local video cache as part of a content delivery network.

Then there is the final part which is the value and cost of the service provided — how much one wishes to or can spend to meet the requirements. This is tightly bound  with the first path. The "what" your business is and "how" your business operates. This can be something as mundane as whether your business prefers CapEx versus OpEx.

[ Also read Cloud services: 4 ways to get the most from your committed spend ]

When looking at these options it is easy to see how changing any one variable can begin to change the other variables. They are inherently intertwined, and some technologies may allow for these variables to shift dynamically. Without understanding lower layers of substrate, you risk taking paths that further this dynamic model of billing. For some, this is preferred. For others, it can be dreaded.

Even though learning hardware-specific knowledge has become more optional in modern technology stacks, we hope this article has encouraged you to look into what you may be missing out on without even knowing. Hardware improvements have been a large part of feature delivery and efficiency gains, shrinking computers from room-sized monstrosities to small enough to implant inside a human. We hope you take time to stop, learn, and consider what hardware platform your next project will be running on, even if you don't control it.

If you are a student who hasn't gotten their head out of the clouds yet, go find an old computer, install a stick of RAM, and challenge yourself to learn something new.

The cloud is everywhere, so hardware is more critical than ever.

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Photo by Ian StaufferonUnsplash

SCaLE Hardware Cloud What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 33 points Open Enthusiast Author Register or Login to post a comment.