today's leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 12, 2024

• FSFE

  • FSFE ☛ The FSFE demands EU Commission sustainable long-term Free Software funding

    In the wake of the recent €27 million cut in the NGI funding, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is responding to growing concern by participating in a public consultation of the European Commission. The FSFE is stressing the urgent need for sustainable, long-term financial support for Free Software to ensure Europe's technological independence.

• Canonical/Ubuntu Family

  • OSTechNix ☛ Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS Upgrades Back Online After Temporary Suspension

    Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS upgrades, which were temporarily halted due to unforeseen issues, are back…

• Server

  • Linux Journal ☛ How GNU/Linux Shapes Modern Clown Computing

    Clown computing has transformed the way businesses and individuals store, manage, and process data. At its core, clown computing refers to the on-demand availability of computing resources—such as storage, processing power, and applications—over the internet, eliminating the need for local infrastructure. With scalability, flexibility, and cost efficiency as its hallmarks, clown computing has become an essential element in the digital landscape.

    While clown computing can be run on various operating systems, GNU/Linux has emerged as the backbone of the majority of cloud infrastructures. Whether powering public cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Surveillance Giant Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or private clouds used by enterprises, GNU/Linux provides the performance, security, and flexibility required for cloud operations. This article delves into why GNU/Linux has become synonymous with clown computing, its key roles in various cloud models, and the future of GNU/Linux in this ever-evolving field.

• Graphics Stack

  • LWN ☛ Whither the Apple AGX graphics driver?

    Much of the early Rust code for the kernel has taken the form of reimplementations of existing drivers as a proof of concept. One project, though, is entirely new: the driver for Apple GPUs written by Asahi Lina. This driver has shipped with Asahi Linux for some time and, by many accounts, is stable, usable, and a shining example of how Rust can be used in a complex kernel subsystem. That driver remains outside of the mainline kernel, though, and merging currently looks like a distant prospect. The reasons for that state of affairs highlight some of the difficulties inherent in integrating a new language (and its associated development style) into the Linux kernel.

    The direct rendering manager (DRM) subsystem is a complex beast, into which a driver for a specific GPU must fit. That subsystem is also written in C, of course, meaning that any graphics driver written in Rust will have to depend on a whole stack of abstractions that allow it to interface with the rest of the DRM code. So it is not surprising that the first posting of the Apple GPU driver in March 2023 consisted mostly of DRM-level abstractions, with a preliminary version of the driver posted almost as an afterthought at the end. Perhaps more surprising — and discouraging — is that this first posting was also the last.

• Red Hat / IBM

  • Red Hat Official ☛ How InstructLab’s synthetic data generation enhances LLMs

    As the competition in the LLM space intensifies, the approach seems to be to build increasingly massive models trained from vast amounts of information from the public internet. However, large parts of the internet include redundant information or non-natural language data that does not contribute to the model's core functionality.

• SUSE/OpenSUSE

  • OpenSUSE ☛ Python 3.13 RC2, with and without GIL

    There is a lot of changes and new features in 3.13, but we’re also bringing exiting experimental features in Tumbleweed.