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

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

#31

Post by pdimitar »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #21
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…

How/where did you purchase the Chinese laptop? Does it have a name? Most stuff I can buy is overpriced branded crap

https://www.chuwi.com/product/items/Chuwi-GemiBook.html

The guy bought it from AliExpress. Since then I bought a bunch of electronics from there and was always satisfied.

And Chuwi have official store there btw.

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

#32

Post by pdimitar »

goosedragons wrote: post #26
jokethrowaway wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How/where did you purchase the Chinese laptop? Does it have a name? Most stuff I can buy is overpriced branded crap

My guess is AliExpress or a site like BangGood. You can also find some lurking around Amazon.

Yep, from AliExpress indeed.

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

#33

Post by johnklos »

There are lots of people in the comments here who appear to not get it. This isn't about replacing a contemporary computer with something old. It's about the usability of a decent OS on very modest hardware.

One of the systems on which I run NetBSD is a 33 MHz m68030 Mac LC III+ (http://elsie.zia.io - it's hosting a site about an LC II, which I'm still working on). It's quite useful to see how assumptions people make about "acceptable" performance regressions bear out in the real world. Sure, not much can be done about taking six or seven minutes to ssh, but when bad coding causes a shell script to take twice as long, it's much more obvious on hardware like this than on a modern Ryzen system.

Nobody is telling others to forego your modern computer and your Windows needs. It's just interesting to some of us that we can still run modern things on very modest and, in some cases, very non-mainstream hardware in 2023.

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

#34

Post by thedriver »

tambourine_man wrote: post #25

Something that aged poorly are browsers. Can you run contemporary Chromium, Firefox, WebKit decently on a 800mhz G4? And I doubt it could handle more than a few open tabs with 512MB of RAM. Most everything else I use computers for have been fast enough for 20 years or so.

Even something like Debian with the Mate DE can be pretty lightweight. Modern web crap is really the biggest resource hog for most users.

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

#35

Post by busterarm »

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…

The biggest things that OpenBSD doesn't support (well) are Bluetooth, some wifi cards and TPM modules. And you can literally fix all of these issues with a supported USB device. Been running OpenBSD on multiple generations of Thinkpad laptops without issue. Using the Protectli 6 port device as an OpenBSD router (Intel NICs are well-supported).

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

#36

Post by BizarreByte »

johnklos wrote: post #33

There are lots of people in the comments here who appear to not get it. This isn't about replacing a contemporary computer with something old. It's about the usability of a decent OS on very modest hardware. One of the systems on which I run NetBSD is a 33 MHz m68030 Mac LC III+ ( http://elsie.zia.io - it's hosting a site about an LC II, which I'm still working on). It's quite useful to see how assumptions people mak…

Thank you for getting it, this was my entire point and I’m glad it came across to someone.

Obviously I would never suggest someone replace their modern daily driver computer with one of this age.

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

#37

Post by G3rn0ti »

squarefoot wrote: post #20

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.

ARM or RISC-V based single board computers are becoming a thing. If one needs a small low-power Linux system with a fully-working desktop experience nothing beats those in terms of power consumption. Most of them are even passively cooled and, hence, very silent without efforts.

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

#38

Post by rrdharan »

rakoo wrote: post #30
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…

In digital, pollution happens during construction way more than usage. It still makes sense to use a decade-old computer. The second-hand market is filled with material that was built at same point; you having access to your nice second hand laptop is due to newer laptops being built all the time. It is still sending a signal upstream that such a computer can be sold. I do agree that buying second hand is much better…

> It still makes sense to use a decade-old computer.

Economically the incentives are not aligned this way though, if you pay for grid power... you still have to pay for the electricity, and there's also the opportunity cost of that payment (e.g. you could spend the money you save on your electric bill on carbon credits or green charities or whatever).

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

#39

Post by johnklos »

refuse wrote: post #27
hedora wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I really want to see something like this. I'd honestly be happy with something like a RaspPi with an SSD and a huge battery in a laptop with good build quality. My system reqs are really low; a laptop that would survive 20 years with regular use would be fantastic.

The Pinebook Pro is well supported by NetBSD (not sure about OpenBSD), and it can take eMMC, at least. It's quite affordable, battery life is excellent, and my Pinebook feels pretty rugged. It has a six core RK3399 and 4 gigs of memory. I don't think you can get a better laptop for the price ($220 US).

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

#40

Post by hirako2000 »

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…

I took your concerns to some extreme. Idle at 4 watts, about 10 watts maxing the 4 cores. 88 dollars. Keyboard excluded.

https://streamable.com/roro2y

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