cni (@cni@mastodon.social)
This CNI talk from Cynthia Tysick describes a University at Buffalo Libraries collaboration with the Enugu Ministry of Education to provide #DigitalLiteracy staff training, curriculum development, offline digital resources, and #OpenAccess educational content in low-connectivity environments using Kolibri, an offline, open‑source learning platform.
Watch at: https://youtu.be/n9sO8bxRgOY?si=iVikZqSyf5LcFCHd
#TeachingAndLearning #OpenSource
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harrysintonen (@harrysintonen@infosec.exchange)
As it happens, we still use CVS in our operating system project (there are reasons for doing this, but migration to git would indeed make sense).
While working on our project, we occasionally have to do a full checkout of the whole codebase, which is several gigabytes. Over time, this operation has gotten very, very, very slow - I mean "2+ hours to perform a checkout" slow.
This was getting quite ridiculous. Even though it's CVS, it shouldn't crawl like this. A quick build of CVS with debug symbols and sampling the "cvs server" process with Linux perf showed something peculiar: The code was spending the majority of the time inside one function.
So what is this get_memnode() function? Turns out this is a support function from Gnulib that enables page-aligned memory allocations. (NOTE: I have no clue why CVS thinks doing page-aligned allocations is beneficial here - but here we are.)
The code in question has support for three different backend allocators:
1. mmap
2. posix_memalign
3. malloc
Sounds nice, except that both 1 and 3 use a linked list to track the allocations. The get_memnode() function is called when deallocating memory to find out the original pointer to pass to the backend deallocation function: The node search code appears as:
for (c = *p_next; c != NULL; p_next = &c->next, c = c->next)
if (c->aligned_ptr == aligned_ptr)
break;
The get_memnode() function is called from pagealign_free():
#if HAVE_MMAP
if (munmap (aligned_ptr, get_memnode (aligned_ptr)) < 0)
error (EXIT_FAILURE, errno, "Failed to unmap memory");
#elif HAVE_POSIX_MEMALIGN
free (aligned_ptr);
#else
free (get_memnode (aligned_ptr));
#endif
This is an O(n) operation. CVS must be allocating a huge number of small allocations, which will result in it spending most of the CPU time in get_memnode() trying to find the node to remove from the list.
Why should we care? This is "just CVS" after all. Well, Gnulib is used in a lot of projects, not just CVS. While pagealign_alloc() is likely not the most used functionality, it can still end up hurting performance in many places.
The obvious easy fix is to prefer the posix_memalign method over the other options (I quickly made this happen for my personal CVS build by adding tactical #undef HAVE_MMAP). Even better, the list code should be replaced with something more sensible. In fact, there is no need to store the original pointer in a list; a better solution is to allocate enough memory and store the pointer before the calculated aligned pointer. This way, the original pointer can be fetched from the negative offset of the pointer passed to pagealign_free(). This way, it will be O(1).
I tried to report this to the Gnulib project, but I have trouble reaching gnu.org services currently. I'll be sure to do that once things recover.
#opensource #development #bugstories
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omgubuntu (@omgubuntu@floss.social)
Dracut makes the cut, while initramfs-tools is given the boot, after feature freeze exception granted for Ubuntu 25.10.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/09/ubuntu-25-10-switches-to-dracut-by-default
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nicolafioretti (@nicolafioretti@mastodon.uno)
🚀 Rilasciato #Agama v17, il nuovo installer di #openSUSE! Molti i miglioramenti all'interfaccia, in particolare per rete e storage. Ora è più semplice installare su dischi interi e il sistema rispetta i moduli di sicurezza come #SELinux. #Linux #opensource
https://linuxiac.com/opensuse-agama-installer-17-released-with-ui-improvements/
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newsramp (@newsramp@mastodon.social)
pgEdge launches Enterprise Postgres and transitions distributed components to open source, enabling scalable database solutions for organizations seeking flexible, powerful PostgreSQL infrastructure #PostgreSQL #OpenSource
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miskatonicstudio (@miskatonicstudio@mastodon.social)
Today, I wanted to extend Godot Array Modifier to handle nested nodes. It turned out that the duplicate() method already takes care of that 😁
https://github.com/miskatonicstudio/godot-array-modifier
#godotengine #madewithgodot #opensource
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alevsk (@alevsk@infosec.exchange)
Ever wondered how to streamline debugging and optimizing LLM apps? 🤖📊
Opik by Comet introduces deep tracing, automated evaluations, and scalable dashboards for LLM systems & RAG workflows. Features like Opik Guardrails ensure safer production deployments. #LLMs #MLOps
🔗 Project link on #GitHub 👉 https://github.com/comet-ml/opik
#Infosec #Cybersecurity #Software #Technology #News #CTF #Cybersecuritycareer #hacking #redteam #blueteam #purpleteam #tips #opensource #cloudsecurity
— ✨
🔐 P.S. Found this helpful? Tap Follow for more cybersecurity tips and insights! I share weekly content for professionals and people who want to get into cyber. Happy hacking 💻🏴☠️
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cassidy (@cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family)
Seven years ago today I convinced a handful of fellow Linux and open source peeps to join me on top of a mountain after LAS. 🏔️
I look forward to attending the next LAS, wherever and in whatever shape it may take place.
#LinuxAppSummit #LAS2018 #LAS2026 #OpenSource #Linux
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Jill_linuxgirl (@Jill_linuxgirl@mast.linuxgamecast.com)
LWDW is live on YouTube!!!
Come have some fun and get some #Linux #News along the way!
💖😂🐧🐧🐧
#OpenSource #podcast #technews
#SwitchtoLinux #FOSS
https://shorturl.at/CbBHP
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alxd (@alxd@writing.exchange)
#GreenLathe is organizing a #Solarpunk #healthcare #conference this November the 8th!
A FREE virtual conference brought to you by Public Invention and GreenLathe Collective, featuring scientists and inventors covering topics such as:
Open Medical Hardware
Open Software for Medical Systems
Community Action and Resilience in Medicine
---
I know these people, they're actual #openSource #openHardware scientists and I'd love to join! :)
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linuxiac (@linuxiac@mastodon.social)
openSUSE's new Agama installer v17 brings improved storage UI, better network handling, and new JSON options.
https://linuxiac.com/opensuse-agama-installer-17-released-with-ui-improvements/
#opensuse #suse #linux #opensource
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defendopsdiaries (@defendopsdiaries@infosec.exchange)
A single phishing click shook NPM’s open-source world—compromised packages like chalk and debug hit millions of cloud setups in just two hours. How did the community turn the tide so fast?
#npmattack
#supplychainsecurity
#opensource
#phishingawareness
#cybersecurity
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