h3ndrik @ h3ndrik @feddit.de

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2 yr. ago

Out of curiosity: Did you measure the idle power consumption?

A second-hand used laptop. Or an used Intel NUC.

I'd say it's difficult to buy anything new for $100 that's actually worth spending that money.

I'd recommend one if the Mini PCs like

• https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B0BVFKN7ZL
• https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005004822965821.html

But that's about twice your budget with a decent amount of RAM and some storage. (And way faster than a RasPi.)

Hmm. I wasn't trying to recommend privileged or non-privileged mode, just trying to use that to single in on the actual issue.

Alright, if it's just av1, maybe try to use a tool like vainfo to find the supported codecs. I think ffmpeg fails if an unsupported codec is explicitly specified. But take care if Encoding is mentioned. Some hardware has decoding capabilities only.

It's a complicated topic. And it also took me 2 whole evenings to get the permissions and everything right. I'm using systemd-nspawn, so my experience doesn't directly translate. And it's not any easier than docker.

For video acceleration I found the Arch wiki somewhat helpful. But it's lots of info and not specific to Docker. Maybe it helps anyways: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardware_video_acceleration

Hmm. I mean now reading your first output in privileged mode properly, I don't see any errors, or am I missing something... Seems it loaded vaapi sucessfully?!

Have you tried verifying it's not the group permissions? You could preliminarily temporarily set permissions with chmod 666 /dev/dri/render128

My older Skylake processor has a bit worse video quality (occasional artifacts) with QuicSync.

Thanks. I've learned a lot.

In the end I still don't understand that specific culture. I've scrolled through a few of the hashtags and links you gave. Some of them I'd shorten to half the length. That some bubbles in an infographic have different color is completely useless information without telling what they're trying to convey with the color and how that connects things. Other images I think they describe the details that are just fluff. Those details are irrelevant because they just set the atmosphere. Just say what the armosphere is, then. I think that's making the text too long and all over the place. Making it difficult to focus on what's really going on in the picture, what's important, because there's so much noise added.

But some of the descriptions are really next level good. I wouldn't have expected that. I think I need some more time to familiarize myself with that culture. I can't tell if it's some people being ultra good at it and some people mimicking it without really understanding its purpose... Or it's me not grasping the concept / culture.

If you say you're already adding a concise description and a long one and adding that to the body text... Seems I've arrived with my reasoning somwhere near what you've already been doing.

I see now why you'd like to talk about the Fediverse as you originally said. Seems to me like a matter of the Fediverse not interconnecting the way you'd need it to. And I see a fundamental problem here. I got that you're using Hubzilla. But we've got to think about the perspective of a Mastodon user as long as most of your audience is there. And that platform is meant for short chunks of text. The whole platform and interface is designed to cater to that. And you're doing long blog posts. There is a fundamental split between the two. Yet the platforms interconnect. I don't see a way to make messages short and long at the same time. And the Fediverse is about connecting a diverse set of platforms. There is bound to be some difficulty and I don't know if there is a good solution.

And your perspective might be a bit spoiled. Since you're on Hubzilla and that's meant for a wide variety of tasks. And Mastodon on the other side is meant to narrow things down to the use-case of microblogging... It's kind of per design that your content falls through in the process of narrowing it down. And lot's of Fediverse platforms are meant for one task only. Either pictures or videos or threaded conversations like here. That also doesn't translate to other platforms and looks weird on Mastodon. The users of "all-in-one" platforms like Hubzilla or Friendica etc get it all. But then it get's problematic when interconnecting to users of "narrower" platforms. It's always been that way. And I don't see a way around that. At least fundamentally.

And this manifests in the smaller issues you're having. Like alt-text and culture that's different amongst platforms. It's all consequence of connecting diverse places. With your added explanation, I think I've now homed in on your issue...

Lemmy seems to be the wrong place to discuss it. I don't see the users here have and particular knowledge about such topics. And Lemmy doesn't federate in any unique way that'd make it stand out concerning this. It's a good place for discussion, though. Mastodon's choice to narrow down social media is valid. So if they like not to have long text, it's their choice. And I applaud them for developing their own culture. I'm not sure if there is a good place to discuss this. Maybe within the "all-in-one" platforms like Hubzilla. You're bound to find more people with the same struggles there. But you also want to reach us and the Mastodon users. I mean these places are also about linking external content and blog posts. So linking a Hubzilla blog post starting a discussion about this is the best thing I can come up with. But you need to lay down the groundworks properly. I mean it also took me several back and forths to understand the core of the issue. And it's kind of a niche topic in a niche. So brace for little engagement or interest.

Oh well. That's a bit more complicated than I thought.

First of all, it might be true that people here won't understand you. And I'm not sure if Lemmy is the right choice for you anyways. The OpenSim community doesn't seem very active. And since you're talking about 13.000 character descriptions... That will also not fly on Lemmy. I think we have a 10k character limit for posts and comments here. You'd exceed that here, too.

And then Mastodon is a microblogging platform. Originally intended for short messages. I know some people use it for a different purpose. And some people go there because of the short and concise messages. So I'm not really sure if that's your place either. It might be you using the wrong tool for your task, since it's intended for a different purpose and you'd need a different tool.

I mean I don't know where the community of 3D worlds mingle... Maybe you can take some inspiration from them if you're not the only one.

But it could very well the case that the alt-text and character limits of the platforms aren't the issue here. But you choosing platforms that are not suited for your task. I'd say if your texts regularly exceed a few thousand characters, you don't want a microblogging platform, but a macro-blogging (or just blogging) platform. There are some that are meant for long texts. And you can even use Wordpress or something like that, do your own blog and install an ActivityPub plugin if you want a connection to the Fediverse. I mean in the old times, people used more than social media and shared their thoughts in forums or on a personal blog, or a website dedicated to a topic. That comes with almost no restrictions.

Ultimately, I haven't seen your posts/toots. And I don't really know the alt-text culture on Mastodon. Maybe my advice isn't that good.

Another thing: Is it really necessary to write that super detailed description in an alt-text? As far as I've learned about alt-text in webdesign, that is originally intended to give a concise description of the image in the context regarding the rest of the text. It is meant to be short and concise, like a tweet. It's read by screenreaders and displayed if the image didn't load. It'd be more something like: "a medieval market squares with dozens of booths, bustling with player activity." But you won't describe what's sold in the market stand at the bottom right, or the portal on the left, unless it's important in the context of the rest of your post. If you want to do a comprehensive analysis or a discussion like in art class, I'd say that goes into the main body text, and not into the alt-text. I'd consider that "abuse" of the alt tag. And it might even do a disservice to people who need accessibility, who now get a completely different experience than everybody else. I'd put that detailed description into the normal text. Maybe make it a spoiler so it collapses.

In the end I'm not part of that community, and everything depends on what you're trying to achieve. But that'd be my perspective: A blog would be better suited. And long descriptions go into the body text, not the alt-text. And if you choose to write longer blog posts, you can still link them on Lemmy, or post a link to it on Mastodon.

Hmmh. I've advocated for more nuanced content warnings here on Lemmy. Didn't resonate well with neither the community nor the developers. I dropped the topic. I'm waiting for PieFed to come along and bring me an alternative backend for the Threadiverse.

Thanks for the summary. I don't really use Mastodon so I wouldn't know. But I'm all for alt-text to images. I set them on every website I'm involved with...

I'm not sure about Lemmy. I use this more for textual conversation. But now that I've learned how to do it in Markdown, I'll add the description to the 5 (or so) pictures I post every year.

I don't think other places on the Fediverse have a distinct culture or vision. Like Mastodon has. For example Lemmy is quite random. And still dominated by the lots of ex-Reddit-users who migrated here. And we often can not agree on where we'd like to go. And I perceive a split/separation between the developers and the users. There isn't really a conversation going on. Neither between users and developers, nor between the users themselves. So my prediction is: As of now we're not going anywhere. Lemmy is going to stay relatively random and will also stay about the same size, until someone steps in and changes this place.

Do you have a vision? Is there a reason why you started this conversation? Something you'd like us to do?

(I mean you could post your comprehensive perspective in a post/thread here, and then also toot the link to Mastodon, or boost it or whatever that's called. I think this is just a meta discussion and it's probably not going anywhere... You got a bit of attention here, but ultimately we're still not discussing the actual topic. At least I didn't yet understand if you have a need or a proposal to make.)

Idk, a plant? a nintendo emulator? enlighten me...

I see Github as a mere tool. As I could use a proprietary operating system like Windows on my development computer, I can use Github to distribute the code. It doesn't have that severe consequence to the open source project itself and works well. And it's relatively transparent. Users can view issues etc without submitting to Microsoft. And it's been the standard for quite some time.

I'm far more concerned with FLOSS projects using platforms like Discord, which forces their users to surrender their privacy and that actively contribute to the enshittification of the internet. I wouldn't want to be part of that.

Maybe a port forward can do it? That's under Network -> Firewall. in the "Port forward" tab.

I'd need more info on the intended use-case and what's the requirement for a tunneling software that's making ssh tunnels and vpn tunnels unsuitable.

Would you happen to know why that is? Are there enough users using screenreaders or something so that a missing alt-text catches their attention? Or are these the nerds who use like a Linux command line client and that's why they rely on proper text descriptions?

Alright. I didn't get that. But I think my recommendation still holds true. As you found out already, it's not happening unless the UI incentivises the users to do so. I think most users don't care about accessibility or aren't educated on the subject. It's just not something within their lives/perspective. So I think if you want to solve that issue, it has to happen in the UI and the software developers have to nudge people to do it.

If you want to talk to a few users, I think this place is as good as any.

Judging by the history of this community, I'd say you're invited to discuss it here. But it won't change anything. You'd get back a few random opinions of other Lemmy users. But I'm not sure if anyone concerned with the development process reads this. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

And I'm not sure about the Lemmy software. The developers always say they have enough on their plate. UI changes are rare. And they mostly implement what's on their agenda, not what users wish for.

If I were you, I'd take this to one of the newer projects that's going to replace Lemmy at some point. That would be PieFed for example. They're pretty active and welcoming and open to suggestions. I think accessibility is already on their agenda: see https://piefed.social/post/17408

Another tip: The real discussions regarding software development usually don't happen on social media. You'd need to go to the project page on GitHub or Codeberg (in this example) if you want to get in contact with the development community.

it does not break the kernel any more the way it did.

Hehe, yeah that'd be hard to achieve.

I'm not sure. Didn't they just move the code that was previously executed in the proprietary kernel module to the new also proprietary userspace driver that's just connected to the hardware by this new and open source wrapper module? And the other half into firmware? It's still arbitrary and closed code that gets forwarded to the hardware. And running there it has access to all the memory, screen content etc... I'm not sure if this is a win concerning security. I think it's pretty much unchanged.

But there are several big advantages. Now the kernel probably won't get tainted any longer and we can have signed kernels and activate secure boot easily. And that's maybe a big plus for security. And I hope we'll get the convenience, too. In the past I had the NVidia driver crap out on me while debugging stuff with recent kernel versions or release candidates. And NVidia was lagging behind, leaving me with a console instead of the desktop environment...

I think that's a good question. And a nice video. The findings in the paper seem to arrive at that conclusion and we might need to find a better approach. Mind that (as he pointed out) it doesn't rule out growth in AI. It just hints at probable stagnation with the current methods. I'm already fascinated by the current tech and the new possibilities. But AI is really hyped as of now and I too, think we should take the claims of the big AI companies with a grain of salt. I'm sure the scientists at OpenAI are already concerned with exactly this as they do research for the next generations of ChatGPT. It's a bit of a bummer that lots of the research get's done behind closed curtains and we're going to have to wait for a bit longer to find out.

To follow that up: 45W isn't that bad. Depending on where you live, I'd say it's worth it if you get something out of it. (Be able to fit the HDDs, upgradability, ...)

Ultimately you'd need to do the maths. Check what it costs to afford an additional 20W of power in a year and whether you should spend that money on better hardware. If my maths is right, 20W for a year at a high price of 30ct/kWh is about $52. So there isn't that much to be gained. And your electricity might be considerably cheaper anyways.

Hmmh, No I don't think you can make the idle power consumption go down. Sure, you got to set the right options in the BIOS and Linux. But there is a baseline and that's with which chipset the mainboard was designed and what kind of components they chose.

And there's the efficiency of the power supply. Usually they're built to have a certain degree of efficiency (>80% or >90%) but that's measured at a certain percentage of the maximum power draw. They're not at all that efficient at 40W draw. You'd need an expensive PSU not to lose additional efficiency at low power. And generally they don't come with a standard PC.

So you'd probably end up replacing half of the components of a standard PC while making it more power efficient. And I don't think that'll be cheap. You better find something that's already designed to factor that in. Sadly it's not what they print on every PC. You have to look for that info and sometimes it's buried in some PC magazine forum or on Reddit. Sometimes they have additional tricks to squeeze out a tiny bit more, but you better be fine with that number.

I think mostly it's about the mainboard. Most of the time there are some chipsets that are known to be more power efficient than others. But I'm not up to date anymore and can't give any good recommendations.

If you want it cheap and most power efficient, generally the advise is to use an old laptop. They're made to idle at like 10-15W. But you won't get any SATA ports that way. You'd need external HDDs and connecting them via USB isn't really super reliable. It's frowned upon to use a setup like that for RAID or advanced things... But it's how I started back in the day.

With the upgradability it's always the question. That's an additional requirement that makes it more difficult. If it's an old machine you could end up needing to replace most of it anyways, since you need a new mainboard for a new CPU and along with that the next generation of RAM and then you've replaced most of your computer anyways. I'd say there is a limited window of opportunity when upgrading makes sense. But if you're buying an old machine it may not always be a good idea to make it a requirement.

Most important thing with FUTO is, they learn how to do open source and engage with a community. Maybe it helps if they adopt a few projects with existing communities and which are more than source available.