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If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

muezza.ca

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Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#11

Post by anthk »

The blog's author might like this dillo fork. It needs autoconf, automake, gmake, mbedtls and ftlk.

https://github.com/w00fpack/dilloNG

Mpv it's recommended, at it has a context menu to play videos with it and the help of youtube-dl or yt-dlp. A config for it:

~/.config/mpv/config

    ytdl-format="bestvideo[height
Also, for X.Org, you can set the config for the ATI driver so it loads the DRI2 drivers among the EXA rendering module.

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-ati.conf

    Section "Device"
    Identifier "ati"
    Driver "ati"
    Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
    Option "DRI" "2"
EndSection

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#13

Post by doublepg23 »

I have plenty of criticisms of OpenBSD but that wide array of support is why I end up running it on hobby systems. I’ve got a Lemote netbook (which uses a homegrown Chinese MIPS chip) and a PPC Mac of similar vintage in the post. It is really cool to boot up these oddball systems and use familiar programs on them.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#14

Post by [deleted] »

pdimitar wrote: post #6

The problem with arguments like these is to me two-fold: 1. Physical space. Most of the older tech takes too much space. I don't live in a mansion and I have no dedicated rooms just for big bulky computers. 2. Power consumption, heat, noise. I would love to be less consumerist and use stuff from 15 years ago and stop feeding greedy corporations but... the old stuff consumes 90 to 200 watts, heats up easily and notice…

[deleted]

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#15

Post by [deleted] »

pdimitar wrote: post #6

The problem with arguments like these is to me two-fold: 1. Physical space. Most of the older tech takes too much space. I don't live in a mansion and I have no dedicated rooms just for big bulky computers. 2. Power consumption, heat, noise. I would love to be less consumerist and use stuff from 15 years ago and stop feeding greedy corporations but... the old stuff consumes 90 to 200 watts, heats up easily and notice…

[deleted]

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#16

Post by hedora »

pdimitar wrote: post #6

The problem with arguments like these is to me two-fold: 1. Physical space. Most of the older tech takes too much space. I don't live in a mansion and I have no dedicated rooms just for big bulky computers. 2. Power consumption, heat, noise. I would love to be less consumerist and use stuff from 15 years ago and stop feeding greedy corporations but... the old stuff consumes 90 to 200 watts, heats up easily and notice…

This. The thing I dislike the most about openbsd is the lack of modern, supported hardware.

One notable exception is the PC Engines APU 2, though that’s stretching the definition of modern.

Seriously: Pick a laptop SKU that is still being manufactured and has similar ergonomics to a MacBook Pro or classic thinkpad (centered keyboard + trackpad, 4K screen, all the other bits in the right spots, reasonably quiet, 8 hour real world battery), and mark it up by $200. Sell it from a site that OpenBSD links to.

Make sure the manufacturer agrees to build that exact laptop for at least 5 years. (Moore’s law is dead, after all.)

Have the project test 100% of the hardware devices in that laptop on each point release, and donate the $200 markup to the project.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#17

Post by andai »

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #5
abricot wrote: post #4

If you are happy not surfing most of the Web, any computer is good enough. It's usually browsers and web pages that brings these older PCs down.

I've heard there's quite the group here on HN that browse the web on CLI browsers.

Been a while, but I had a better time with w3m. I think it was the only textmode browser I tried that preserved the nesting of comments on HN.

Context: I was on a 3kbps connection and basically everything was unusable, so I ran a textmode browser on a VPS over Mosh.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#18

Post by rewgs »

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #5
abricot wrote: post #4

If you are happy not surfing most of the Web, any computer is good enough. It's usually browsers and web pages that brings these older PCs down.

I've heard there's quite the group here on HN that browse the web on CLI browsers.

I use w3m as often as I can. I already pretty much live in the command line, and text-heavy sites like HN or some sort of documentation look just fine (or, IMO, even better) via w3m. Not always, but often. It's a very nice option to have.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#19

Post by peatmoss »

hedora wrote: post #16
pdimitar wrote: post #6

The problem with arguments like these is to me two-fold: 1. Physical space. Most of the older tech takes too much space. I don't live in a mansion and I have no dedicated rooms just for big bulky computers. 2. Power consumption, heat, noise. I would love to be less consumerist and use stuff from 15 years ago and stop feeding greedy corporations but... the old stuff consumes 90 to 200 watts, heats up easily and notice…

This. The thing I dislike the most about openbsd is the lack of modern, supported hardware. One notable exception is the PC Engines APU 2, though that’s stretching the definition of modern. Seriously: Pick a laptop SKU that is still being manufactured and has similar ergonomics to a MacBook Pro or classic thinkpad (centered keyboard + trackpad, 4K screen, all the other bits in the right spots, reasonably quiet, 8 hou…

My desktop is a new-ish AMD CPU, brand-new intel wifi, brand new AMD GPU computer, and I didn't so much as think about anything related to compatibility with OpenBSD. For laptops, I'd assume the Framework laptop works without issue? Hard to compete with Apple on portables for sure, but anything but macOS is a WIP there.

For me the thing that keeps me from running OpenBSD 100% of the time is my Steam library, but I'm considering demoting my PC to a living room gaming device and handling my modest desktop computing needs via something small and fanless running OpenBSD.

Re: If you're happy with OpenBSD, probably any computer is good enough

#20

Post by squarefoot »

I totally understand the nostalgia value, but energy doesn't grow on trees. A small mini-PC would consume a fraction of the current needed to run those old machines, offering much more computing power in return. Not to talk about the much better scaling achieved by modern processors; some iMac models would idle at almost 100 Watts.
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