61–70 of 101 posts
If you want a modern web browser then you need a computer made in the last 10 years or so. The statement that "It's just a browser!" is not a good argument. The modern web is very resource intensive so you need a decent computer.
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I am also against a throwaway society but there comes a point where you need to accept old computers/vehicles/toys/instruments/tools are beyond your ability to maintain/use them. If you want to fork over some money semi-regularly or learn how to do it yourself, it becomes an ornament. Somehow expecting 20 year old computing hardware to be supported now, free of charge, in Linux is a valid criticism. 20 years ago, set…
It's also trivially easy to pick up five year old computer parts for a few of whichever monetary unit you use. Ten year old stuff will run perfectly and is often free. Twenty year old? That's entering hobbyist territory. The effort required to support those with modern OS'es is completely out of proportion, and makes little sense, and in terms of power consumption such an old computer is not a very sustainable choice…
10 year old laptops can take either 8 or 16 GB RAM and have at least 2 cores + hyperthreading. It'll not just run perfectly, but it'll run even the most bloated Linux distributions or Win 10 just fine.
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Yes, but those modules need to be maintained as the kernel is updated. If a specific architecture’s tree is abandoned, it would make sense to remove it from the tree until someone picks it up again.
The problem: once something is removed from the tree, it is almost impossible to get it back in, since whoever wants to do that has to replay the extreme amounts of refactorings done since the removal. The Linux kernel famously only guarantees outside stability of interfaces, but in-kernel interfaces are regularly changed - one might suspect intentionally , to make the lives of people doing off-kernel work (such as g…
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It's also trivially easy to pick up five year old computer parts for a few of whichever monetary unit you use. Ten year old stuff will run perfectly and is often free. Twenty year old? That's entering hobbyist territory. The effort required to support those with modern OS'es is completely out of proportion, and makes little sense, and in terms of power consumption such an old computer is not a very sustainable choice…
5 year old enterprise hardware is only now leaving its warranty cycle. 10 year old laptops can take either 8 or 16 GB RAM and have at least 2 cores + hyperthreading. It'll not just run perfectly, but it'll run even the most bloated Linux distributions or Win 10 just fine.
20 years ago is AMD Duron and Pentium 4, pretty much just getting past single-core 1 Ghz (various 1.x GHz variants were announced during 2001). very different world.
I have old computers, Raspberry Pi's, and virtual machine cloud instances with just 128MB to 512MB RAM and they work perfectly fine for the tasks I use them for. None of those tasks involve anything graphical. If you want a modern web browser then you need a computer made in the last 10 years or so. The statement that "It's just a browser!" is not a good argument. The modern web is very resource intensive so you need…
> The statement that "It's just a browser!" is not a good argument. The modern web is very resource intensive so you need a decent computer.
The modern web is resource intensive, but not that resource intensive, unless you insist on keeping a myriad of tabs open and active.
A Linux desktop with half a dozen webapps open in Chrome (and more tabs suspended) can still stay under 3GB RAM used (I'm clocking in at 2.2 right now), so it's still viable on 32 bit hardware.
3GB RAM dualcore notebooks were available 15 years ago, and for the past ten years you could retrofit them with SSDs for reasonably cheap.
Both together are like 150 bucks according to a brief ebay survey, that's a very low bar for "decent".
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5 year old enterprise hardware is only now leaving its warranty cycle. 10 year old laptops can take either 8 or 16 GB RAM and have at least 2 cores + hyperthreading. It'll not just run perfectly, but it'll run even the most bloated Linux distributions or Win 10 just fine.
Right, 10 years ago is e.g. Sandy Bridge Core 2 Duo systems. Thinkpad X220, things like that. Potentially even has USB3 and an SSD already, or can be upgraded. 20 years ago is AMD Duron and Pentium 4, pretty much just getting past single-core 1 Ghz (various 1.x GHz variants were announced during 2001). very different world.
The exactly ten years old X201 is limited to 8GB RAM, but you can retrofit USB3 with an ExpressCard adapter and it can take one SSD. Two with the optional docking station.
I really don't understand the point the author is trying to make. If you have old hardware just use a lightweight distro, or an older version of one of the more popular ones. If running new software is so important just buy a new computer!?
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Right, 10 years ago is e.g. Sandy Bridge Core 2 Duo systems. Thinkpad X220, things like that. Potentially even has USB3 and an SSD already, or can be upgraded. 20 years ago is AMD Duron and Pentium 4, pretty much just getting past single-core 1 Ghz (various 1.x GHz variants were announced during 2001). very different world.
X220 is technically 9 years old, that gives you USB3, two SSDs, and a whopping 16GB RAM. The exactly ten years old X201 is limited to 8GB RAM, but you can retrofit USB3 with an ExpressCard adapter and it can take one SSD. Two with the optional docking station.
Not all X220 models had USB3 though, only the i7 variant did.
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I am also against a throwaway society but there comes a point where you need to accept old computers/vehicles/toys/instruments/tools are beyond your ability to maintain/use them. If you want to fork over some money semi-regularly or learn how to do it yourself, it becomes an ornament. Somehow expecting 20 year old computing hardware to be supported now, free of charge, in Linux is a valid criticism. 20 years ago, set…
It's a bit complicated. Linux the kernel no longer supports certain machines for valid reasons. However, many if not most userland tools (with the exception of these that actually use certain CPU extensions) would gladly run on an 386 if compiled for it even if the current kernel version doesn't support it. The problem is, you need the whole system to support, say, 386. So one solution would be to use the last versio…