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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

#91

Post by pdimitar »

vondur wrote: post #73
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 checked and it looks like the PowerPC's were power efficient. The 667Mhz model usually ran around 14W up to a maximum of 19W. The G5 processors were known to be hot and needed a lot of power. I remember having a PowerBook with a G4 back then, and remember closing the lid without shutting it down, and coming back days later with only a few percent's of battery draw. Of course, performance wise, the Intel mobile CPU'…

Seems I thought of the G5 indeed, thanks for the correction!

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

#92

Post by Glyptodon »

The sad thing that trips me up is that I can easily run out of memory web browsing on most machines w/ less than 16gb just by forgetting to close tabs. But my desktop is has a CPU from over a decade ago and I don't really foresee needing a new one soon.

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

#93

Post by andai »

Sesse__ wrote: post #88
mro_name wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

indeed, developing fast software requires slow hardware.

It does not. Slow hardware _can_ give you a certain amount of _motivation_ for speeding up your software, but this is by no means a given (if software running slowly on your own computer automatically made you optimize it, there would not be software that is really slow even on fast hardware, and there clearly is). If you care about making software fast, you invest time in the measurements-ideas-measurements loop, wh…

>if software running slowly on your own computer automatically made you optimize it

I recently changed 1 byte in Chrome.dll and decreased the lag for copying large images by a factor of 2-3. (The UI freezes for 5-10 seconds. Turns out it's re-encoding a 2MB JPG into a 20MB PNG for the clipboard, at compression level 6 no less!)

I put up with it for years thinking there was nothing I could do, but one day I decided to ask some people smarter than me, and they gave me enough info to track down the code in IDA (I had never used it before).

My point is, motivation is a powerful thing!

(Offtopic but turns out Firefox copies the original file, so you can paste it right into Windows explorer—blew my mind!)

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

#94

Post by steponlego »

Typing this on my T420 running OpenBSD. It does everything I really need it to do. I don't play (new) games, and I have a more powerful server tucked away here in case I have any CPU-intensive jobs I need done.

Honestly after seeing the absolute state of Linux on the desktop over the last decade, there is no reason for me to even consider it any more.

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

#95

Post by andai »

Sakos wrote: post #76
NikolaNovak wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with general gist of your laptop vs desktop argument. I will add though that there exist laptops that are / were built to last ; I am nowhere near the ThinkPad fanatic some people are :-) but I still have several t420s laptops, 11-12 years old I think, running as daily drivers with windows 10. That's about as long or longer as any desktop I've owner particularly considering how little I've changed it (mainly…

T420 would be perfect if it wasn't for the god awful displays manufacturers used. I'd still be using mine otherwise. Just going from a 1080p monitor back to it was a pain. After using my M1 MBP und my 4k monitor for the past year, I could never go back.

Not sure about this model but I modded an X230 with a better display for $100. Surprisingly easy, it pops right open.

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

#96

Post by amatecha »

ornornor wrote: post #71
BizarreByte wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not suggesting one should use a setup like this daily, mostly commenting on how good the experience still is when running *BSD on it. At the end of the day if all you need is a computer, it’s nice to know that basically any computer can still be serviceable. In a world where you can get 4k series i5s in the trash though, I don’t actually think anyone will be using such an old Mac seriously.

Seriously, you should see the hardware companies are throwing away right now… i5/7 6xxx computers and up… what a waste. They’re fully functional but they’ve been amortized so thrown away to the landfill and replaced with todays model to be thrown away in 3–4 years. What an incredible waste.

Ohh.. I've always wondered how to get my hands on this "garbage". The machine I use every day is from like 2013... the fastest PC I own has a processor that was launched in 2014. It's partly because I'm frugal and partly because I don't believe in constantly replacing hardware that works just fine. But it sounds like by this point companies are throwing away stuff far newer than what I use! haha

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

#97

Post by shp0ngle »

jamesgill wrote: post #52

A side note: I love this website. It makes me nostalgic for the early-mid 90s when web pages were basic, personal, and mostly text.

I tried to get into Gemini for a while - it’s like Gopher but reimagined with some more modern ideas.

However I quickly figured out there is not much to actually do there. The way modern web works is horrible (I don’t want to click just another cookie banner thanks), but at least it’s easy for all people to contribute.

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

#98

Post by asveikau »

Sesse__ wrote: post #88
mro_name wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

indeed, developing fast software requires slow hardware.

It does not. Slow hardware _can_ give you a certain amount of _motivation_ for speeding up your software, but this is by no means a given (if software running slowly on your own computer automatically made you optimize it, there would not be software that is really slow even on fast hardware, and there clearly is). If you care about making software fast, you invest time in the measurements-ideas-measurements loop, wh…

How about the fact that performance best practices vary on different hardware?

CPUs have changed a lot, in that caches, speculative execution, and parallelism are the way to get performance, and that was not true in the heyday of a classic Mac.

I'm still in favor of porting to old platforms for various reasons. But we need to keep in mind that performance optimization is not one size fits all.

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

#99

Post by wsc981 »

pdimitar wrote: post #89
oriolid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not completely convinced. The early PCs didn't need heat sinks or fans other than the 80mm PSU fan. They were inefficient, but the total power wasn't that huge. Even for newer computers, I have a Raspberry Pi 2 that draws 3 watts at maximum load and less when idle. It's powerful enough for what it does and even with this energy crisis it would need to run for years before the energy savings would cover the cost o…

Yep, it's not a super clear win. But I was talking about the old desktop or all-in-one machines. They still draw a bit more but you're also right that the amortized cost blurs things. But since I plan on using the refurbished modern machines that I got, for years, maybe the equation will be in my favor... eventually. :)

I wonder if the same is true for a -say- G3 based laptop or desktop. Apple’s laptops would often be usable much longer on batteries compared to its Wintel counterparts.

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

#100

Post by karteum »

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…

> It offers tangible benefits

Yes, you listed them and they are valid, except

> including long-term environmental sustainability

Err... no not really ! The environmental impact of pretty much all consumer electronics is by (very) far dominated by the impact of its manufacturing (mining, water for manufacturing the chips, oil for transport, robots for assembly in countries where electricity is made with coal, etc), therefore anyone trying to be serious about "environmental sustainability" understands that it mostly implies to extend as much as possible existing equipment and avoid buying new ones (even if the old ones are bulky, noisy and consume a lot of electricity compared to the new)

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