Dyslexic Privacy & Foss advocate, and Linux user.

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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Rustmilian@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlHow bad is Microsoft?
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    3 months ago

    1. Monopolistic business practices to crush competition (Netscape, Java, web browsers, etc.).

    • Microsoft was found guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly and engaging in anti-competitive tactics against competitors like Netscape Navigator and Java in the 1990s antitrust case.

    2. Illegal bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows to eliminate browser rivals.

    • The U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally bundling Internet Explorer with Windows to crush competition from other web browsers. Microsoft was found guilty of this tying arrangement.

    3. Keeping useful Windows APIs secret from third-party developers to disadvantage competitors.

    • Microsoft allegedly kept useful Windows APIs secret from third-party developers to give an advantage to their own applications, though this was not a central part of the antitrust case.

    4. Embracing proprietary software and vendor lock-in tactics to prevent users from switching.

    • Microsoft has been criticized for embracing proprietary software and vendor lock-in tactics that make it difficult for users to switch to alternatives, such as their failed attempts to establish OOXML as an open standard for Office documents.

    5. “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” strategy against open source software.

    • Microsoft has been accused of using the “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” strategy against open source software to undermine adoption of open standards. This is also shown in the leaked Halloween documents.

    6. Privacy violations through excessive data collection, user tracking, and sharing data with third parties.

    • Microsoft has faced scrutiny over privacy issues, such as the NSA surveillance scandal and their handling of user data with Windows 10.

    7. Complicity in enabling government surveillance and spying on user data (PRISM scandal).

    • The PRISM surveillance scandal revealed Microsoft’s complicity in enabling government spying on user data.

    8. Deliberately making hardware/software incompatible with open source alternatives.

    • Microsoft has been accused of deliberately making hardware and software incompatible with open source alternatives through restrictive licensing requirements.

    9. Anti-competitive acquisitions to eliminate rivals or control key technologies (GitHub, LinkedIn, etc.).

    • Microsoft has acquired many companies over the years, sometimes in an effort to eliminate competition or gain control over key technologies and platforms.

    10. Unethical contracts providing military technology like HoloLens for warfare applications.

    • Microsoft’s $480 million contract to provide HoloLens augmented reality tech for the military drew protests from employees and criticism over aiding warfare.

    11. Failing to address workplace issues like sexual harassment at acquired companies.

    • Microsoft’s failed acquisition of gaming company Activision Blizzard raised concerns about ignoring workplace issues like sexual harassment at the acquired company.

    12. Forced automatic Windows updates that override user control and cause system issues.

    • Microsoft has faced backlash for forcing automatic updates on Windows users, including major updates that have caused issues like deleted files and crashed systems. Users have little control over when updates install.

    13. Maintaining monopolistic dominance in productivity software and operating systems.

    • Microsoft has maintained its dominance in areas like productivity software (Office) and operating systems (Windows), making it difficult for competitors to gain market share. This monopolistic position allows them to exert control over the industry.

    14. Vague and toothless AI ethics principles while pursuing lucrative military AI contracts.

    • Microsoft’s AI ethics principles have been criticized as vague and toothless in light of their pursuit of lucrative military AI contracts.

    15. Continued excessive privacy violations and treating users as products with Windows.

    • Windows 10 has been criticized for excessive data collection and lack of user privacy controls, essentially treating users as products to be monetized.

    16. Restrictive proprietary licensing that stifles open source adoption.

    • Microsoft’s proprietary software licensing makes it difficult for open source alternatives to be adopted widely, as they have a history of undermining open source software and interoperability with Windows.

    This isn’t even anywhere near everything.








  • TL;DR :

    Zram itself doesn’t compress data in the backing device. The data written to the backing device is stored unmodified by Zram. Zram’s function is to compress data within its allocated RAM space. Once that space is full, any incoming data, compressed or uncompressed, overflows to the backing device unmodified by Zram.

    If the data is overflowing from Zram into the backing device because the Zram block is full, that doesn’t necessarily mean that data is uncompressible. It simply means that there’s no place to put it even if it was compressible. The truly incompressible data ideally should be stored in the RAM that’s not allocated to the Zram block device, unless that RAM space is also already taken, then that data would go to the backing device. The scenario I’m thinking of is a lot more specific. Ofc, Zram would prioritize truly incompressable & idle data first when pushing into the backing device, keyword there is "idle", which supports the idea that the data isn’t necessarily uncompressible.

    Already compressed media, for example, can’t really be compressed. In fact, if you try, you might just find it actually ends up bigger than the original.

    There’s no case where this would happen, the data being pushed to the backing device is always unmodified by Zram, regardless if it’s compressible or not. Also, already compressed media would not necessarily be seen as incompressible by Zram. Zram can still compress already compressed data to some extent, depending on the type of compression used and the compressibility of the original data. For example, if the original data was compressed using a simple algorithm like LZMA, Zram might be able to achieve better compression using a more advanced algorithm like LZ4.
    However, the benefit of compressing already compressed data with Zram is usually minimal as you’ve already said.
    This is the primary purpose of CONFIG_ZRAM_MULTI_COMP to handle cases where the primary algorithm is unable to efficiently compress certain data.
    Also, Btrfs uses a built-in pre-compression heuristics algorithm to analyze each file and determine if compression is beneficial. Comparatively, Zram has no such mechanism so it attempts compression regardless.

    Tbh, deep down the rabbit hole is an understatement. here’s a more detailed documentation of Zram.

    Edits : Wording improvement’s and added supporting sources.



  • Rustmilian@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.worldGET FREE WAM
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    4 months ago

    Zram offers way more flexibility and versatility compared to ImDisk.
    Zram can be used for swap space or as a general-purpose RAM disk. Unlike a traditional RAM drive, Zram can compress data using a nice hand full of algorithms, notably Zstd; allowing it to store more information within the same RAM capacity leading to faster I/O and efficient memory usage with minimal CPU usage; & LZO-RLE; offering the fastest compression and decompression speeds leading to faster data swapping between compressed and uncompressed states, potentially improving overall system performance. Also, ImDisk afaik only offers NTFS compression for RAM drives which is… well… pretty damn slow for this particular use comparatively.
    Additionally, Zram persistence can be configured with writeback devices. ImDisk typically doesn’t offer persistence.
    ramdrive.sys isn’t even worth talking about, it never had any kind of compression let alone anything else I mentioned previously.












  • Why should we have the same standard for two fundamentally different languages with distinct design philosophies and features?
    Even if the C coding standard was used, it fundamentally will not make Rust more legible to C-only kernel devs. Imposing the C coding standard on Rust would be fundamentally counterproductive, as it would undermine Rust’s safety and productivity features. Rust’s coding guidelines align with its design principles, promoting idiomatic Rust code that leverages language features like ownership, borrowing, and lifetimes.
    This ensures that Rust code in the kernel is safe, concurrent, and maintainable, while adhering to the language’s best practices. While the C coding standard served its purpose well for the procedural C language, it is ill-suited for a modern language like Rust, which has different priorities and language constructs. Having separate coding standards allows each language to shine in its respective domain within the kernel, leveraging their strengths while adhering to their respective design philosophies. Having separate coding standards for C and Rust within the kernel codebase is the sensible approach.



  • This error is caused by a compatibility issue between Wine’s RandR (X11 display extension) implementation and the NVIDIA proprietary drivers.

    a. Install winetricks and run winetricks orm=backbuffer glsl=disable This will configure Wine to use a different rendering method that is compatible with the NVIDIA drivers.

    &/Or

    b. Use a tool like Q4Wine to configure the Wine prefix and set the “UseRandR” option to “N” This will disable Wine’s use of the RandR extension and use a fallback method instead.

    That should fix it.