Open-source News

Published at the start of the new year was 2.3k patches providing "fast kernel headers" as a major speed-up to Linux kernel build times and addressing the dependency hell among all the header files in the Linux kernel source tree. It will likely take some time for that massive patch series to work its way to mainline in full, but at least for Linux 5.18 already the patches touching the kernel's scheduler area are ready to land...

Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation  The Register

Earlier this month AMD began publishing code for their "GFX940" graphics block as a new CDNA GPU, presumably what will be the AMD Instinct MI300 series as their next-gen datacenter GPU. More GFX940 open-source driver enablement work is getting underway...

While there have already been a number of vulnerabilities exhibited for Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) from Prime+Probe to Plundervolt, Spectre-like attacks, SGAxe, and others, it looks like they expect more still to come in the future. Intel engineers are working on the ability for SGX to gracefully handle live CPU microcode updates without a reboot, which these days is increasingly driven for security mitigations and system administrators wanting to apply said updates right away while foregoing downtime...

Intel Preparing Linux Support To Handle Live Microcode Updates Affecting SGX  Phoronix

It's been nearly one year since Microsoft published CBL-Mariner 1.0 as their internal Linux distribution in use at the WIndows company. Microsoft continues building upon CBL-Mariner and using it for a variety of use-cases from within Azure (for Sphere OS) to WSL and much more. They continue publishing monthly ISO releases for those wanting to use this Microsoft Linux spin for their own uses...

Panfrost's PanVK Vulkan driver for Arm Mali graphics hardware had been exposing Vulkan API 1.1 support but that was premature and has now been reverted to Vulkan 1.0...

[Update] Apex Legends Is Borked Again On Steam Deck & Linux  Fossbytes

Java is more than just a programming language: It's also a runtime.

Applications written in Java are compiled to Java bytecode then interpreted by a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which is why you can write Java on one platform and have it run on all other platforms.

A challenge can arise, however, when a programming language and an application develop at different rates. It's possible for Java (the language) to increment its version number at the same time your favorite application continues to use an older version, at least for a while.

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How to Install Docker in Fedora Linux [Beginner's tutorial]  It's FOSS

Could open organization principles successfully apply to entire societies?

That's the question I asked as I read the book Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg, which aims to examine the relative success of "open societies" throughout global history.

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Manage Java versions with SDKMan Seth Kenlon Tue, 03/15/2022 - 02:01 Up Register or Login to like.

Java is more than just a programming language: It's also a runtime.

Applications written in Java are compiled to Java bytecode then interpreted by a Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which is why you can write Java on one platform and have it run on all other platforms.

A challenge can arise, however, when a programming language and an application develop at different rates. It's possible for Java (the language) to increment its version number at the same time your favorite application continues to use an older version, at least for a while.

If you have two must-have applications, each of which uses a different version of Java, you may want to install both an old version and a new version of Java on the same system. If you're a Java developer, this is particularly common, because you might contribute code to several projects, each of which requires a different version of Java.

The SDKMan project makes it easy to manage different versions of Java and related languages, including Groovy, Scala, Kotlin, and more.

SDKMan is like a package manager just for versions of Java.

More on Java What is enterprise Java programming? Red Hat build of OpenJDK Java cheat sheet Free online course: Developing cloud-native applications with microservices arc… Fresh Java articles Install SDKMan

SDKMan requires these commands to be present on your system:

• zip
• unzip
• curl
• sed

On Linux, you can install these using your package manager. On Fedora, CentOS Stream, Mageia, and similar:

$ sudo dnf install zip unzip curl sed

On Debian-based distributions, use apt instead of dnf. On macOS, use MacPorts or Homebrew. On Windows, you can use SDKMan through Cygwin or WSL.

Once you've satisfied those requirements, download the SDKMan install script:

$ curl "https://get.sdkman.io" --output sdkman.sh

Take a look at the script to see what it does, and then make it executable and run it:

$ chmod +x sdkman.sh
$ ./sdkman.shConfigure

When the installation has finished, open a new terminal, or run the following in the existing one:

source "~/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"

Confirm that it's installed:

$ sdk versionInstall Java with SDKMan

Now when you want to install a version of Java, you can do it using SDKMan.

First, list the candidates for Java available:

$ sdk list java
=================================================
Available Java Versions for Linux 64bit
=================================================
Vendor   | Version      | Dist | Identifier
-------------------------------------------------
Gluon    | 22.0.0.3.r17 | gln  | 22.0.0.3.r17-gln
         | 22.0.0.3.r11 | gln  | 22.0.0.3.r11-gln
GraalVM  | 22.0.0.2.r17 | grl  | 22.0.0.2.r17-grl
         | 21.3.1.r17   | grl  | 21.3.1.r17-grl
         | 20.3.5.r11   | grl  | 20.3.5.r11-grl
         | 19.3.6.r11   | grl  | 19.3.6.r11-grl
Java.net | 19.ea.10     | open | 19.ea.10-open
         | 18           | open | 18-open
         | 17.0.2       | open | 17.0.2-open
         | 11.0.12      | open | 11.0.12-open
         | 8.0.302      | open | 8.0.302-open
[...]

This provides a list of different Java distributions available across several popular vendors, including Gluon, GraalVM, OpenJDK from Java.net, and many others.

You can install a specific version of Java using the value in the Identifier column:

$ sdk install java 11.0.12-open

The sdk command uses tabbed completion, so you don't need to view a list. Instead you can type sdk install java 11 and then press Tab a few times to get the options.

Alternately, you can just install the default latest version:

$ sdk install javaSet your current version of Java

Set the version of Java for a terminal session with the use subcommand:

$ sdk use java 17.0.2-open

To set a version as default, use the default subcommand:

$ sdk default java 17.0.2-open

Get the current version in effect using the current subcommand:

$ sdk current java Using java version 17.0.2-openRemoving Java with SDKMan

You can remove an installed version of Java using the uninstall subcommand:

$ sdk uninstall java 11.0.12-openMore SDKMan

You can do more customization with SDKMan, including updating and upgrading Java versions and creating project-based environments. It's a useful command for any developer or user who wants the ability to switch between versions of Java quickly and easily.

If you love Java, or use Java, give SDKMan a try. It makes Java easier than ever!

The SDKMan project makes it easy to manage different versions of Java and related languages, including Groovy, Scala, Kotlin, and more.

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Image by WOCinTech Chat, CC BY 2.0

Java What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. 6482 points (Correspondent) Vancouver, Canada

Seldom without a computer of some sort since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1978, I have been a full-time Linux user since 2005, a full-time Solaris and SunOS user from 1986 through 2005, and UNIX System V user before that.

On the technical side of things, I have spent a great deal of my career as a consultant, doing data analysis and visualization; especially spatial data analysis. I have a substantial amount of related programming experience, using C, awk, Java, Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and lately Groovy. I'm looking at Julia with great interest. I have also built a few desktop and web-based applications, primarily in Java and lately in Grails with lots of JavaScript on the front end and PostgreSQL as my database of choice.

Aside from that, I spend a considerable amount of time writing proposals, technical reports and - of course - stuff on https://www.opensource.com.

Open Sourcerer People's Choice Award 100+ Contributions Club Emerging Contributor Award 2016 Author Comment Gardener Correspondent Columnist Contributor Club Register or Login to post a comment.

Open exchange, open doors, open minds: A recipe for global progress Ron McFarland Tue, 03/15/2022 - 02:00 Up Register or Login to like.

Could open organization principles successfully apply to entire societies?

That's the question I asked as I read the book Open: The Story of Human Progress by Johan Norberg, which aims to examine the relative success of "open societies" throughout global history.

Learn about open organizations Download resources Join the community What is an open organization? How open is your organization?

In this review—the first article in an extended discussion of the work from Open Organization community members—I will summarize more precisely what Norberg means when he uses the term "open" and offer an initial assessment of his arguments. Ultimately, however, our discussion will explore more expansive themes, like:

1. the importance of open societies,
2. what the future could (or should) look like in a more open world, and
3. how these principles impact our collective understanding of how organizations operate in service of "the greater good"

Four dimensions of openness

Essentially, Norberg is looking at four dimensions of "open," which he calls:

1. "open exchange" (global goods and service flows across borders),
2. "open doors" (global movement of people),
3. "open minds" (global receptivity to new and different ideas), and
4. "open societies" (how cultures should be governed to benefit from the above three)

Let me discuss each one more extensively.

Open exchange

Norberg uses the phrase "open exchange" to refer to the movement of goods and services not just across borders but within them as well. Simply put, he believes that people across the world prosper when trade increases, because increased trade leads to increased cooperation and sharing.

His argument goes like this: when a nation (and to be sure, Norberg aims his advice at contemporary nation-states) allows and includes foreign goods into their market, in general they also gain expertise, skills, and knowledge, too. Surplus goods/services that one may have should be sold anywhere they might provide value and add benefit for someone else—and those benefits might include, for example, favors, ideas, knowledge, not just goods and services themselves. Reciprocity and relatively equal exchange is for Norberg an unavoidable aspect of human nature, as it builds binding relationships that promote more generosity. Generosity in turn promotes more trade, creating a cycle of prosperity for all involved.

This view holds for organizations working with uncommon trade partners as well. Greater organizational specificity leads to the need for more cooperation and sharing, which leads to even more specialization. So here we can see a link between open societies and open organizations regarding trade issues.

Open doors

For Norberg, "open doors" refers to people's ability to move across national borders, for one reason or another. He believes the gradual inclusion of foreigners into a society leads to more novel and productive interactions, which leads to greater innovation, more ideas, and more rapid discoveries. For a society to be productive, it must get the right talent performing the right tasks. Norberg argues that there should be no barriers to that match-up, and people should be mobile, even across borders, so they can achieve it.

Norberg outlines how, throughout history, diverse groups of people solve problems more effectively—even if they create more friction as they do so, as members have their assumptions questioned. This kind of open environment must be promoted, supported, and managed, however, in order to avoid groupthink, the predominance of voices that are merely the loudest, and the outsized influence of niche interests.

Critical to the success of "open doors" are recognition, respect, understanding, acceptance, and inclusivity toward others. Norberg discusses the importance of these qualities, citing the World Values Survey, which measures some of them. Done well, open doors can allow societies to cross-fertilize, borrowing ideas and technology from each other and multiplying that which works best.

We could say that's equally true for an organization wanting to develop a new product or market, too.

Open minds

"Open economies stimulate open-mindedness," Norberg writes. For him, "open minds" are those receptive to thoughts and belief systems that may seem different, foreign, or alien to them—those that both offer and receive different perspectives. Open minds, Norberg claims, lead to more rapid progress.

Open minds flourish when given the space to encounter new ideas and explore them freely—rather than, say, simply accept the given dogma of an age. According to Norberg, people from a wide range of disciplines, specialties, and skills coming together and sharing their perspectives stimulates growth and progress. But this is only possible when they exist in an environment where they feel free to question the status quo and possibly overturn long-standing beliefs. Barriers to creating those environments certainly exist (in fact, the entire second half of Norberg's book offers a deeper analysis of them).

Open minds flourish when given the space to encounter new ideas and explore them freely—rather than, say, simply accept the given dogma of an age.

Of course this is true in organizations as well. The more people (and the more different people) who look at a problem, the better. This not only leads to faster solutions but helps overcome anyone's individual biases. Serendipitous solutions to problems can seemingly come out of nowhere more often, as there will be better and more peer review of strongly held positions. And yet differences create friction, so standards of protocol and behavior are required to ensure progress.

For Norberg, the world benefits when scientists, philosophers, industrialists, and craftspeople can influence one another's thinking (and are receptive to having their thinking changed!). The same is true in open organizations when people with different roles and functions can work together and enrich one another's thinking. More experiments and greater collaboration among disciplines lead to richer discoveries.

Open Organization resources Download resources Join the community What is an open organization? How open is your organization? Open societies

Combining open minds, open exchange, and open doors can lead to fully open societies globally, Norberg argues, and "the result is discoveries and achievements." Governments, he asserts, should work to foster those kinds of societies across the globe. In this way, societies can tap into the greatest talent from the entire global community.

According to Norberg, more inclusive societies based on these open policies can lead to material gains for people—fewer hours working, the ability to launch careers earlier (or retire earlier), longer lives in general, and more. This is not to mention reductions in extreme poverty, child and maternal mortality, and illiteracy globally. On top of that, for Norberg global cultural collaboration leads to better utilization of ecological, natural, and environmental resources. All this can be achieved through specific specialties that advance societies at an exponential rate though openness.

Open makes a historical argument. Norberg believes that throughout the ages it was not defenders of tradition that prospered most. Instead, those thinkers, engineers, and philosophers that challenged the status quo made the greatest contribution to global prosperity. Those figures benefitted from societies that were more open to improvements because they governed their own experiments, fostered rapid feedback loops, and built systems that quickly self-correct during setbacks.

Yet like any history, Norberg's is partial and selective, presenting isolated cases and examples. And some of those include even the most brutal empires, whose violence Norberg tends to overlook. In future parts of this review, we'll dive more deeply into various aspects of Norberg's analysis—and discuss its implications for thinking about a more open future.

Openness, this new book argues, has always been a necessary cornerstone of human civilization.

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Opensource.com

The Open Organization 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.

The post MX Linux Review – A Debian Based OS for Linux Beginners first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides .

Are you a Linux newbie or an intermediate user looking to try out a powerful, user-friendly, and simple Linux distribution with applications that work out of the box? Then MX Linux is just what

The post MX Linux Review – A Debian Based OS for Linux Beginners first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides.

For Red Hat, diversity, equity and inclusion are core tenets of our culture and the foundation of the company that we strive to be. And as part of that, one area we have been focused on for several years is pay equity. In recognition of Equal Pay Day, taking place in the U.S. today and in the spirit of transparency, I wanted to share the steps and tools that have worked for us — many of them we consider to be essential for businesses wishing to commit to closing the pay gap.

'Dirty Pipe' Linux Flaw Affects a Wide Range of QNAP NAS Devices  The Hacker News

While Debian 11 "Bullseye" released just last August, there is already talk of development milestone dates for Debian 12 "Bookworm" for a likely release in 2023...

Chinese pro-govt paper claims NSA Linux tool NOPEN found  iTWire

Updated Reports On Linux Software Market Size, Growth, Revenue, Regional Analysis – 2028 | Google, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, Oracle, Novell, RedHat, DELL, Samsung, Microsoft… – The Bollywood Ticket  The Bollywood Ticket

MSPs and the Rising Tide of Mac and Linux Cyberthreats  ChannelE2E