On 05/07/10 18:43, Renato wrote: This is something that's bothered me for some time - pretty much any piece of electronic hardware you use contains minerals which have been dug out of a big hole in the ground somewhere, usually in a poor country and often without respecting the rights of local people and their environment. With some products you can buy fair trade in the hope that this is making some difference at least to the unfair trade practices that are the root of the problem, but there's no such thing as fair trade usb sticks. Seeing as I like computers, I've found this quite painful over the years - every now and again I hear of another story of people being forced off their land or having to live in a polluted environment, and if I'm going to think honestly about it, there's no escaping the fact that the things I buy are part of what's causing these problems. On a personal level the only answer I've come up with is to think before I buy something whether it's something I'll actually use, and try to stick with old hardware as long as possible (e.g. I still use a non-internet mobile phone). Also to give stuff away when I don't need it rather than throw it away. On a wider level I'm not sure what the answer is, but publicising the issue and calling companies to account for their responsibility in the worst cases of social and environmental abuse can only help. So I think it's ok to post stuff like this every now and again. andy _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user

On Mon, Jul 05, 2010 at 10:14:47PM +0200, Renato wrote: Re-use old gear rather than buying new gear! And keep your old gear running longer. All of which are easily possible thanks to Linux (and, look, we're back on-topic again!). We don't have Vista-bloat, so if we're environmentally-conscious (or just poor, or both), we can keep old gear afloat nearly forever and put it to some useful purpose, or dig up old hardware and run a Linux kernel on it and make it do something, instead of buying new crap that requires raping the earth and/or indigenous peoples. -ken

On 07/07/10 08:55, Philipp Überbacher wrote: I think it's pretty hard to say - any comparison of this sort ends up comparing two or more quite different problems (e.g. global warming from fossil fuel use versus local water pollution from copper mining). People try to put numbers on this sort of thing, but the methods they use are often pretty suspect. andy

The only problem with old gear is power consumption. I don't know what's worse from a purely ecological point of view. Most power is still generated from non-renewable sources.

On Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 07:09:01PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote: Like most optimization problems, it's a balance. Every once and a while, it makes sense to give in and purge/upgrade gear. But, with Linux, at least you aren't forced into doing it on an accelerated schedule due to software bloat. For 4 years, my router was a Linux 486 with two ISA ethernet cards and a PCI wifi card. The electrical bill and noise got on my nerves, so I replaced it with a Linux Linksys WRT. That Linksys is still in continuous service and has been for 6 years now. Silent, reliable, fast, and uses very little electricity.