April 2025 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

20 Years Of Git
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Apr '25

08 Apr '25

The Git version control system for software development is now 20 years old <https://www.tomshardware.com/software/git-turns-20-as-we-celebrate-decades-…>.

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Comparison Of Python Asyncio-Supporting Web Frameworks
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Apr '25

08 Apr '25

Trying to decide whether Quart or Starlette was the better bet for a higher-level web framework, I came across this comparison, from just a few years ago, of those two and some other possibilities at different levels <https://www.laac.dev/blog/should-you-use-asyncio-next-python-web-applicatio…>. As far as I can tell, it’s only slightly out of date: the Stripe issue they link to shows that that now includes async support for its Python API.

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The Rise Of “Frankenstein” Laptops In New Delhi’s Repair Markets
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 08 Apr '25

08 Apr '25

India has long had a, shall we say, “informal engineering” culture, where backstreet operators put together improvised machinery of various kinds from whatever parts are available. Now this extends to assembling working laptops out of the parts of broken ones <https://www.theverge.com/tech/639126/india-frankenstein-laptops>. This allows Indians on low incomes (which is much of the country) an alternative to unaffordable new-built machines. There is a downside to these operations, and that is the health risks from exposure to toxic materials. Seems the Indian Government is becoming aware that it can be helpful to these homegrown industries if it passed some good right-to-repair laws, as is happening in many Western countries. One question that isn’t answered in the article is: what OS are these recycled/refurbished machines running? I can’t imagine that Microsoft would offer Windows licences for them at anything resembling OEM prices. And I don’t think the company would accept that there is such a thing as a “secondhand” Windows licence.

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Open-Source Tool Designed To Throttle PC and Server Performance Based On Electricity Pricing
by Peter Reutemann 04 Apr '25

04 Apr '25

'Robotics and machine learning engineer Naveen Kul developed WattWise, a lightweight open-source CLI tool that monitors power usage via smart plugs and throttles system performance based on electricity pricing and peak hours. Tom's Hardware reports: The simple program, called WattWise, came about when Naveen built a dual-socket EPYC workstation with plans to add four GPUs. It's a power-intensive setup, so he wanted a way to monitor its power consumption using a Kasa smart plug. The enthusiast has released the monitoring portion of the project to the public now, but the portion that manages clocks and power will be released later. Unfortunately, the Kasa Smart app and the Home Assistant dashboard was inconvenient and couldn't do everything he desired. He already had a terminal window running monitoring tools like htop, nvtop, and nload, and decided to take matters into his own hands rather than dealing with yet another app. Naveen built a terminal-based UI that shows power consumption data through Home Assistant and the TP-Link integration. The app monitors real-time power use, showing wattage and current, as well as providing historical consumption charts. More importantly, it is designed to automatically throttle CPU and GPU performance. Naveen's power provider uses Time-of-Use (ToU) pricing, so using a lot of power during peak hours can cost significantly more. The workstation can draw as much as 1400 watts at full load, but by reducing the CPU frequency from 3.7 GHz to 1.5 GHz, he's able to reduce consumption by about 225 watts. (No mention is made of GPU throttling, which could potentially allow for even higher power savings with a quad-GPU setup.) Results will vary based on the hardware being used, naturally, and servers can pull far more power than a typical desktop -- even one designed and used for gaming. WattWise optimizes the system's clock speed based on the current system load, power consumption as reported by the smart plug, and the time -- with the latter factoring in peak pricing. From there, it uses a Proportional-Integral (PI) controller to manage the power and adapts system parameters based on the three variables.' -- source: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/03/0110212 -- blog: https://www.naveen.ing/cli-for-smartplugs/ -- github: https://github.com/naveenkul/WattWise Cheers, Peter

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EndeavourOS Mercury Neo Launches with KDE Plasma 6.3, NVIDIA 570, and Mesa 25
by Peter Reutemann 02 Apr '25

02 Apr '25

'The EndeavourOS team announced today the release and general availability of EndeavourOS Mercury Neo as a maintenance update to the EndeavourOS Mercury release addressing various issues and updating core components. EndeavourOS Mercury landed on February 10th, 2025, powered by Linux kernel 6.13 and featuring the KDE Plasma 6.2.5 desktop environment on both the live environment and the offline installation option. EndeavourOS Mercury Neo is here to bump the kernel to Linux 6.13.7 and the live session to KDE Plasma 6.3.3. In addition, this release improves the installation to automatically create a 2GB EFI partition instead of a 1GB partition when choosing systemd in the auto-install option. According to the devs, this change will give users more space and freedom to install multiple kernels and other desirable options. EndeavourOS Mercury Neo also removes the obsolete NVIDIA options from the NVIDIA boot menu, fixes the Arch Linux mirror ranking bug, and removes the xwaylandvideobridge package from the installation script since it was removed upstream. Moreover, it updates the NVIDIA graphics driver to version 570.124.04, the Mesa graphics stack to version 25.0.1, the Calamares graphical installer to version 25.02.2.1-2, the Mozilla Firefox web browser to version 136.0.2, and the XOrg Server display server to version 21.1.16. EndeavourOS Mercury Neo is available for download right now from the official website. Since EndeavourOS follows a rolling-release model where you install once and receive updates forever, existing users need only to update their installations by running the sudo pacman -Syu command in the Terminal app.' -- source: https://9to5linux.com/endeavouros-mercury-neo-launches-with-kde-plasma-6-3-… Cheers, Peter

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