cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/435150

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/435149

I want to find the most sustainable operating system, because computers nowadays waste a lot of energy, because of data collection and data processing. Avoiding unnecessary processes and using resources in a mindful way could reduce the CO2 output on the whole world.

This discussion grew very fast and I put all links to other platforms in the end of the blog article.

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[–] akkartik@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What do you think of more minimalist OSs that aren't trying to replace everything in GNU/Linux/BSD? https://permacomputing.net/projects has a few, including projects by me. What I like about this approach is that it encourages building things for yourself, which feels much more in line with the Solarpunk ethos than just consuming applications created by others.

You likely won't live exclusively in these habitats for a very long time. Perhaps we should all even hope we never have to. But it might be good to build up these skills while we still have the energy to burn on things like Flatpak and Electron.

[–] utopify_org@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I already read for a few days about CollapseOS and Oberon, which lead to read a lot about micro controllers and how to salvage parts and so on. But I couldn't find a tutorial on how to actually build a system for those? On Youtube you can find a lot of videos of the results, people compiling stuff on their diy machines, but no chance to find tutorials. I think you need advanced skills in electro-engineering, as a software developer I look at it, like a normie on an app and I just don't know how all this stuff works. This is definitely a nice hobby project to understand how computer works and it might be a sustainable project in the future. But it's nothing for a workstation for every day use.

May I ask which projects are yours?

[–] akkartik@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I don't know much about electronics either, unfortunately. I spent a few years building just the software side out from scratch (just machine code) without using any existing software: https://github.com/akkartik/mu. But eventually I had some doubts about this direction: https://lobste.rs/s/h4lnkn/what_are_you_doing_this_week#c_juxc6y Lately I've compromised a little bit on not using any existing software. There's lots of good stuff out there that's worth using. Lua is a small, fast programming language implemented in just 12k lines of code. And it has a game engine (https://love2d.org) that's a great sweet spot in implementation size vs features (though it's a lot more than 12k lines :) So I've been adopting it exclusively for a few months. This is the largest project I've built with it: http://akkartik.name/lines.html. The goal is a program that is useful, easy to use, easy to build and easy to change to your needs. It's not as energy-efficient as some of the other projects on that page, but hopefully it's useful in some possible futures of this world.

[–] utopify_org@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Okay, I read a lot and every time I followed a link, there have been other links and I had to read those, too, going deeper into the rabbit hole. But in most cases I didn't even understand what's going on and it's depressing, because I studied computer science and should at least understand what's going on...

Maybe I should come back to this topic at another time, when I really have the time to dive deeper into this topic.

Have you created any videos about this topic? Couldn't find anything about Mu yet. But they would really help.