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How To Install Third-Party Linux Applications with Deb-Get  Tom's Hardware

Going along with many recent s2idle (suspend to idle) fixes as well as other fixes/workarounds/improvements like around S0ix, a patch is pending as a fix/workaround to get s2idle behaving correctly -- or rather, more timely -- on more AMD Ryzen powered Lenovo laptops...

Mesa's Radeon Vulkan "RADV" driver is in the unique position of supporting Vulkan ray-tracing for older AMD GPUs rather than just the latest-generation RDNA2 GPUs with dedicated ray-tracing cores. Though it's slower on these older GPUs, the code is in place for this open-source driver and the latest addition is now supporting LBVH going back to AMD GFX6 hardware -- in other words, all GCN GPUs...

Canaan K510 CRB RISC-V AI development kit ships with dual-camera module and LCD display  CNX Software

Adding to the growing list of changes expected for introduction in Linux 5.19 is the thermal subsystem adding a new thermal library, daemon, and "theromometer" temperature capture tool to the kernel's source tree...

Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver engineers sent in another smorgasbord of "i915" kernel graphics driver changes for the upcoming Linux 5.19 merge window...

Linux Workaround Coming For Better s2idle Resume On More AMD Lenovo Laptops  Phoronix

How open source leads the way for sustainable technology Hannah Smith Sun, 05/08/2022 - 03:00 Register or Login to like Register or Login to like

There's a palpable change in the air regarding sustainability and environmental issues. Concern for the condition of the planet and efforts to do something about it have gone mainstream. To take one example, look at climate-based venture capitalism. The Climate Tech Venture Capital (CTVC) Climate Capital List has more than doubled in the past two years. The amount of capital pouring in demonstrates a desire and a willingness to solve hard climate challenges.

It's great that people want to take action, and I'm here for it! But I also see a real risk: As people rush to take action or jump on the bandwagon, they may unwittingly participate in greenwashing.

The Wikipedia definition of greenwashing calls it "a form of marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organization's products, aims, and policies are environmentally friendly." In my view, greenwashing happens both intentionally and accidentally. There are a lot of good people out there who want to make a difference but don't yet know much about complex environmental systems or the depth of issues around sustainability.

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking a simple purchase like offsetting travel or datacenter emissions by planting trees will make something greener. While these efforts are welcome, and planting trees is a viable solution to improving sustainability, they are only a good first step—a scratch on the surface of what needs to happen to make a real difference.

So what can a person, or a community, do to make digital technology genuinely more sustainable?

Sustainability has different meanings to different people. The shortest definition that I like is from the 1987 Bruntland Report, which summarizes it as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." Sustainability at its core is prioritizing long-term thinking.

More great content Free online course: RHEL technical overview Learn advanced Linux commands Download cheat sheets Find an open source alternative Explore open source resources Sustainability is more than environmental preservation

There are three key interconnected pillars in the definition of sustainability:

1. Environmental
2. Economic / governance
3. Social

Conversations about sustainability are increasingly dominated by the climate crisis—for good reason. The need to reduce the amount of carbon emissions emitted by the richer countries in the world becomes increasingly urgent as we continue to pass irreversible ecological tipping points. But true sustainability is a much more comprehensive set of considerations, as demonstrated by the three pillars.

Carbon emissions are most certainly a part of sustainability. Many people consider emissions only an environmental issue: Just take more carbon out of the air, and everything will be ok. But social issues are just as much a part of sustainability. Who is affected by these carbon emissions? Who stands to bear the greatest impact from changes to our climate? Who has lost their land due to rising sea levels or a reliable water source due to changing weather patterns? That's why you might have heard the phrase "climate justice is social justice."

Thinking only about decarbonization as sustainability can give you carbon tunnel vision. I often think that climate change is a symptom of society getting sustainability wrong on a wider scale. Instead, it is critical to address the root causes that brought about climate change in the first place. Tackling these will make it possible to fix the problems in the long term, while a short-term fix may only push the issue onto another vulnerable community.

The root causes are complex. But if I follow them back to their source, I see that the root causes are driven by dominant Western values and the systems designed to perpetuate those values. And what are those values? For the most part, they are short-term growth and the extraction of profit above all else.

That is why conversations about sustainability that don't include social issues or how economies are designed won't reach true solutions. After all, societies, and the people in positions of power, determine what their own values are—or aren't.

What can you or I do?

Many in the tech sector are currently grappling with these issues and want to know how to take meaningful action. One common approach is looking at how to optimize the tech they build so that it uses electricity more effectively. Sixty percent of the world's electricity is still generated by burning fossil fuels, despite the increasing capacity for renewable energy generation. Logically, using less electricity means generating fewer carbon emissions.

And yes, that is a meaningful action that anyone can take right now, today. Optimizing the assets sent when someone loads a page to send less data will use less energy. So will optimizing servers to run at different times of the day, for example when there are more renewables online, or deleting old stores of redundant information, such as analytics data or logs.

But consider Jevon's paradox: Making something more efficient often leads to using more of it, not less. When it is easier and more accessible for people to use something, they end up consuming more. In some ways, that is good. Better performing tech is a good thing that helps increase inclusion and accessibility, and that's good for society. But long-term solutions for climate change and sustainability require deeper, more uncomfortable conversations around the relationship between society and technology. What and who is all this technology serving? What behaviors and practices is it accelerating?

It's common to view advancing technology as progress, and some people repeat the mantra that technology will save the world from climate change. A few bright folks will do the hard work, so no one else has to change their ways. The problem is that many communities and ecosystems are already suffering.

For example, the accelerating quest for more data is causing some communities in Chile to have insufficient water to grow their crops. Instead, datacenters are using it. Seventy percent of the pollution caused by mobile phones comes from their manufacture. The raw resources such as lithium and cobalt to make and power mobile devices are usually extracted from a community that has little power to stop the destruction of their land and that certainly does not partake in the profit made. Still, the practice of upgrading your phone every two years has become commonplace.

Open source leading the way for sustainability

It's time to view the use of digital technology as a precious resource with consequences to both the planet and (often already disadvantaged) communities.

The open source community is already a leading light in helping people to realize there is another way: the open source way. There are huge parallels between the open source way and what our wider society needs to do to achieve a more sustainable future. Being more open and inclusive is a key part of that.

We also need a mindset shift at all levels of society that views digital technology as having growth limits and not as the abundantly cheap and free thing we see today. We need to wisely prioritize its application in society to the things that matter. And above all else, we need to visualize and eradicate the harms from its creation and continued use and share the wealth that is does create equitably with everyone in society, whether they are users of digital tech or not. These things aren’t going to happen overnight, but they are things we can come together to push towards so that we all enjoy the benefits of digital technology for the long-term, sustainably.

This article is based on a longer presentation. To see the talk in full or view the slides, see the post "How can we make digital technology more sustainable."

There are huge parallels between the open source way and what our wider society needs to do to achieve a more sustainable future.

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Announcing Reliable VPS Server Hosting Provider with Australia, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne based IP –  EIN News

Small-Scale Fab: Make Parts with Free/Open Source Software  thenewstack.io

How To Use the Grep Command in Linux to Search Inside Files  Tom's Hardware

Making for an exciting Saturday morning, Miguel Ojeda has posted the latest patch series plumbing Rust language support into the Linux kernel. The "Rust for the Linux kernel" patches are now up to their sixth version for adding the necessary infrastructure for this second, optional language to the kernel plus continuing to add more sample code / basic functionality for showing off use of this memory-safety-focused language for kernel purposes...

It's been a while since there was last a Wine-Staging update with notable new patches added for this experimental version of Wine. But with today's Wine-Staging 7.8 release based off yesterday's Wine 7.8 there is a new patch worth mentioning as well as updates to some of the existing patches...

KDE Plasma 5.25 has embarked on its soft feature freeze meaning the focus is quickly turning from feature development to bug fixing and testing for this next KDE desktop update...

How to Install Python 2 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Linux  Linux Shout

For better power-savings with new/forthcoming AMD powered laptops, this week AMD engineers sent out a patch series for PSR2 / PSR-SU MPO functionality for reducing display power consumption...

Rust Code Updated For The Linux Kernel - Networking & Async Support Started  Phoronix

Build community engagement by serving up Lean Coffee Angie Byron Sat, 05/07/2022 - 03:00 Register or Login to like Register or Login to like

I recently started a new job at MongoDB as a Principal Community Manager, spearheading the MongoDB Community Champions program. In that role, I faced two challenges.

First, I was joining a brand new, fully remote team. Not only was I new myself, but the team as a whole was just beginning to form, with new members coming on board a couple of times per month. This team was also spread across several time zones, with about half of them older, established members who've been with the company for a long time and know each other pretty well, and the other half entirely new faces.

Second, the Community Champions program started during the pandemic. As a result, program participants from around the world had very little opportunity to meet each other and meld as a group. I wanted to find out more about what they wanted to discuss and learn, so I could use that to plan out the first few months of programming. I also wanted to give them a chance to talk with each other about their interests.

I ran these scenarios past a friend of mine, the fabulous Donna Benjamin, and she suggested an extremely useful tool from the Open Practice Library: Lean Coffee.

More great content Free online course: RHEL technical overview Learn advanced Linux commands Download cheat sheets Find an open source alternative Explore open source resources What is Lean Coffee?

Lean Coffee is a structured but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build their own agenda, and begin talking.

You start with a Kanban board with To Discuss, Discussing, and Discussed columns. Optionally, you can add an Actions section to write down anything that needs following up after the meeting. Participants get a fixed amount of time to brainstorm topics to talk about. Each topic is then written on a sticky note.

All sticky notes are placed in the To Discuss column and clustered by grouping similar topics together, also known as affinity mapping. This is followed by a round of dot voting, which is exactly what it sounds like: voting by placing a dot on a sticky note to indicate your choice. At the end of the process, you might have a board that looks something like this:

Image by:

(Angie Byron, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The most popular topic moves to the Discussing column, then you set a timer for 5-7 minutes and start the group talking. When the timer goes off, everyone votes again on whether to keep going for another few minutes or switch to the next topic. Stickies are moved and topics are discussed accordingly until the allotted meeting time runs out.

Lean Coffee all but guarantees you'll be harnessing the passion and interest of the group, since these are all going to be things they want to talk about. It's also great because the format is extremely lightweight; you can do it with just a whiteboard, a few pens, and some sticky notes in person or with virtual tools that emulate them, such as Scrumbler.

So how might Lean Coffee work in practice?

Real-time remote team building

This is an example of utilizing the Lean Coffee pattern as intended: to foster a conversation among people who may or may not know each other, but for whom you want to try and surface commonalities and spark discussion.

First, choose a time that works best for your team as a whole. This is critical, because if your focus is on building up team cohesion, you do not want some of your team to feel left out. Lean Coffee can stretch or shrink to fill whatever time you have available, but an hour is a good amount of time.

Since you will be using virtual tools, you may want to begin with a short icebreaker exercise to get folks used to the tool and the voting process. For example, you could put up a couple of open-ended questions on sticky notes and allow people to vote on which one they want to answer as a group. Next, run the Lean Coffee exercise as documented: Set a timer, let each person drag over sticky notes and write down their topics, cluster the responses together, then discuss!

During our first run of these, we talked about everything from where we would most like to travel to what our favorite kinds of food were and what hobbies we had. There were insights and laughter, and the team came away feeling it was a really positive experience.

Asynchronous topic gathering and discussion

With the Champions, it is impossible to get everyone on a call at the same time due to the international nature of the group, everyone's personal schedules, and so on. But it's possible to run a modified, more drawn-out version of Lean Coffee for this situation.

First, walk folks through how the tool generally works and what they should do. You can do this live on a video meeting or via a prerecorded video. For topic gathering, set the time limit for something like a week to 10 days to accommodate peoples' various schedules, vacations, sick kids, and anything else that might come up. Expect that because the deadline is extended and there's no real-time component, you will need to send one or two gentle reminders to folks to participate. You should also expect that, despite your efforts, there will be some drop-off in participation.

After topics are in, you can cluster them as you do in the synchronous version. Since you can't talk through this in real time as a group, you will probably want to add headers above each cluster to explain your thinking. Some of our clusters were Best Practices, Learn about Product X, and so on. For clusters that already clearly have consensus, you can wait for the voting process or just go ahead and move those to the To Be Discussed column proactively.

Repeat the "timer" (and the gentle reminders) with the voting process, leaving a week or so for folks to get their votes in. If there are a large number of topics generated, you may want to allow each member more than one vote—up to three, for example. By taking the highest-clustering and highest-voted topics, you effectively have a backlog of meeting topics. Set a meeting schedule over as many weeks or months are needed and work your way down the topic list for each meeting.

This approach is definitely not as dynamic and exciting as the real-time version of Lean Coffee, but the basic mechanics serve the same purpose of ensuring that the members are talking about things that are relevant and interesting to them. This is also a useful approach if you, like me, need to track down one or more people (such as product managers or engineers) in order to have a useful discussion about a given topic.

Lean Coffee for remote and in-person collaboration

Lean Coffee is a versatile, fun, and engaging way of allowing relative strangers to meet each other, interact, find common ground, and learn from each other. Its simplicity allows it to be modified for a variety of remote and in-person gatherings and used for a variety of purposes.

There are dozens of other patterns like this in the Open Practice Library, so you should definitely check it out!

This idea from the Open Practice Library can re-energize your in-person and remote meetings.

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Pixabay. CC0.

Community management What to read next 7 ways anyone can contribute to Open Practice Library This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Register or Login to post a comment.

Those with extra time on their hands this weekend can try out the AlmaLinux 8.6 Beta as the newest version of this completely free enterprise Linux distribution built off the RHEL sources...

Wine 7.8 is out today as the newest bi-weekly release of this software for enjoying Windows games and applications on Linux, macOS, and other platforms...