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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

#201

Post by userbinator »

winter_blue wrote: post #179
userbinator wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or apps that have no business being webapps, but somehow are. When a chat and video/audio call client take 4GB all by itself...

It's bloat caused by stuff like Electron, and people choosing to write desktop apps in HTML + JavaScript/TypeScript + some framework. If people even used a framework like Qt (a really mature and well-maintained desktop framework the favored framework of KDE Plasma, etc.), their memory usage would be so much lower. (I'm not counting the memory used by Qt's shared .so / dynamic library files.)

and people choosing to write desktop apps in HTML + JavaScript/TypeScript + some framework.

While the "web everything" trend is definitely responsible for a lot of the bloat, it is upon closer inspection not the whole story. For example, I remember various "AJAX chat" clients were quite popular around the turn of the century, worked in a browser like IE5 on a system with probably 64-128MB of RAM and a single core Pentium II/III, and you could also do other things like listen to music, play flash games, or read other sites at the same time. Those clients loaded relatively quickly over connections with bandwidth measured in KBps, and I don't recall much in the way of complaints about their resource usage.

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

#202

Post by ZephyrBlu »

Gigachad wrote: post #195
bandrami wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electron lets you write a graphical application without knowing what you're doing. Whether this is "right" or "wrong" is a difficult question to answer.

I have a hard time believing that companies like Discord are using Electron simply because they do not know what they are doing.

I completely agree with you. It would be extremely odd for a company like Discord, who has done things like using nightly Rust in production, to naively choose Electron because they "don't know what they're doing" with native apps.

Many people on HN either don't understand or don't care for trading off runtime performance and other technical qualities for other things like e.g. development speed, DX, easier hiring, etc.

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

#203

Post by nortonham »

bandrami wrote: post #192
mjhay wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not something that's remotely practical on most modern sites. I hate everything new as well, but at some point it's easier to just suck it up and face the hell that is the modern internet.

When I'm on lynx I find I don't miss the rest of the Web. Reading documents without people constantly trying to sell me crap is kind of refreshing.

I agree with what you're saying but firefox with ublock origin and reader mode is definitely useful

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

#204

Post by nortonham »

verytrivial wrote: post #101

I love the idea of OpenBSD but have only had a couple of sad reintroductions over the years and never spent the time apparently required to "get it just right" before needing to get something else done. It feels like a base install leaves you in several hours of configuration debt, and I apparently don't have the concentration span to dig my way out to somewhere interesting and not just half way back to productive on…

What did you need to configure before being able to be productive?

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

#205

Post by LeFantome »

Gigachad wrote: post #185
winter_blue wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bloat caused by stuff like Electron, and people choosing to write desktop apps in HTML + JavaScript/TypeScript + some framework. If people even used a framework like Qt (a really mature and well-maintained desktop framework the favored framework of KDE Plasma, etc.), their memory usage would be so much lower. (I'm not counting the memory used by Qt's shared .so / dynamic library files.)

Is virtually every single company and developer wrong? Or is Qt actually not that good, forcing people to use Electron despite it's resource usage? I find it far easier to believe that Qt and GTK have fallen behind rather than the whole world is under a grand delusion and didn't know Qt exists.

It is web designers and JavaScript devs not wanting to acknowledge that desktop dev and C++ exist.

I use an old 2008 iMac running Linux frequently and it runs remarkably well. Firefox and MS Edge are certainly the apps that bring it down from a memory perspective ( it only has 6 Gigs ). Electron apps like MS Teams are right up there though and make it chug even more than the browsers do.

To be fair, I have dozens of tabs open including beasts like GMail but I certainly have to restart the browsers from time to time.

Compiling huge C++ code bases is a memory nightmare as well.

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

#206

Post by amatecha »

andai wrote: post #95
Sakos wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nice, I've considered doing this... though then that would effectively double the amount I paid for the system. Are the improved displays from a later/different ThinkPad model, or are they something being newly-manufactured? Part of the reason I chose such an old computer is to purchase already-existing hardware second-hand, rather than put my money towards newly-manufactured stuff.

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

#207

Post by Sunspark »

serf wrote: post #189
sgtnoodle wrote: post #180

This week I've been "rejuvenating" my 11 year old i7 2600k desktop. I built a zen 3 based computer a couple years ago, purely as a luxury, after spending 5 days in the hospital ICU. The i7 was chugging along just fine doing whatever I needed it to do, and it seemed a waste to just forget about it. I fully disassembled it and cleaned out the dust. I spent an evening lapping the CPU and heat sink down to 2000 grit. I p…

The worst part isn't that the old hardware isn't worthwhile; it's that it has to be hobbled so much in order to be secure on todays' net. Things like Spectre created a lot of additional obsolescence.

I think you can still be secure on the net with the Spectre and Meltdown mitigations disabled on a personal system. If your browser is current, it already has mitigations built into it. Are there any mathematical calculations showing the risk % of disabling mitigations? Or is this just herd activity where everyone sets it as a default because they don't want to accept the liability for the remote chance of lightning striking?

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

#208

Post by amatecha »

NovaPenguin wrote: post #170
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…

My White Whale... the Dual 2Ghz PowerMac G5 I bought for $50. Sure it took months until I finally figured out how to get the OS to install properly. Having to delve into the patch work of information on Open Firmware and even then I am not entirely sure how I did it. And in the end I was left with a machine that ran well over 300 watts to do what a Raspberry Pi4 can easy do in well under 5 watts. I should have known,…

Dang, yeah it's unfortunate how high the power usage is. I didn't realize this when I bought a couple for ~$75 each. They are really cool-looking systems, but definitely not too efficient :\

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #180

This week I've been "rejuvenating" my 11 year old i7 2600k desktop. I built a zen 3 based computer a couple years ago, purely as a luxury, after spending 5 days in the hospital ICU. The i7 was chugging along just fine doing whatever I needed it to do, and it seemed a waste to just forget about it. I fully disassembled it and cleaned out the dust. I spent an evening lapping the CPU and heat sink down to 2000 grit. I p…

[deleted]
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