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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

#251

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

emodendroket wrote: post #215
LeFantome wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not wanting to acknowledge they exist, or not wanting to do them because they find them less proeuctive? Different issues.

"Productive" is a nice euphemism for "I'm a web developer and can't be bothered to learn anything that isn't Javascript".

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

#252

Post by fsckboy »

amatecha wrote: post #200
fsckboy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> restart Firefox frequently on my X230's running OpenBSD what wildly multithreaded memory hogs are you running? I love my x230s, and I have dozens and dozens of windows open all the time. probably I benefit a good bit from running ublock Origin and uMatrix, but I have gigabytes of RAM free. I don't think running a newer machine would give me any benefits at all.

The problem of Firefox "freezing" (rendering no longer working and UI elements like menu/scroll broken) and requiring a restart I don't think relates to memory. For example the browser is only using around 1.8gb at this moment and the machine has 8gb of RAM. I've been in contact with the Firefox OpenBSD maintainer (landry@) and he didn't have any certain indication from the logs/data I provided. He says he runs into…

I quit (actually I pkill) and then I restart and restore previous session with wifi/internet turned off. Then I turn internet back on and use the tabs that I want, and they reload only when I use them. If one of them misbehaves, I'll find out when I get there, but generally, I'm closing other tabs first so whatever interaction it may have been might be gone.

if I don't do this when i restart, HN tells me it can't serve pages that fast :)

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

#253

Post by sgt »

syntex wrote: post #65

The power usage is a serious issue, I recently scrapped an old PC. It was perfectly fine and usable, but I found it draws with graphics card more than 200W. And taking into account how much electricity rose in Europe it's super expensive to run. And the new one it's 15 times less. So let's take care at least a bit about the environment.

I think your priorities are a bit off. If you want to help the environment, look at your other habits first that have impacts that are orders of magnitude more. Flying, driving, plastic, food, etc

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

#254

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

deelowe wrote: post #172
contravariant wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's wild how much data can fit on a microSD nowadays. People would think you were crazy if you told them just a few decades ago.

MicroSDs and even thumb drives are INSANE. I remember how difficult it used to be to move large amounts of data reliably. Superdisks, Zip drives, CD-R/RW, and on and on. Portable storage solutions were an absolute nightmare for ages.

I was thinking back on this the other day and I remembered my iPod Classic with the 1.8" HDD in it. Boggles the mind how that thing didn't just immediately die. The number of 2.5" drives I've lost in laptops and external drives over the years...

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

#255

Post by cranium »

Speaking of good enough computers, I'm really happy with the power of mobile processors right now. With my usage (dev, some Docker, browsing, on a light Manjaro+i3), I can shop for form factor and utility and know it won't feel sluggish. Replaced my 2017 15" Dell workstation with a 8" GPD Pocket 3 that feels more snappy and sharper. I thought it would be my couch/on-the-go/emergency computer but it became my mobile workstation as well. Only grip with the form factor: it's too small to fit on both laps so I have to use my bag to have a "laptop".

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

#256

Post by jkepler »

harel wrote: post #147
contravariant wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's wild how much data can fit on a microSD nowadays. People would think you were crazy if you told them just a few decades ago.

it's more than wild man. It's magical! Just yesterday or the day before my 700KB or so Amiga floppy seemed like it would last forever...

Wasn't it just the day before yesterday that Bill Gates famously said nobody would ever need more than 64 KB storage?

It /is/ amazing the progress we've seen in our lifetimes. I remember life before the web (http) was invented, before mobile phones (much less smartphones) became commonplace.

Some of the supposed 'progress' is really regression---like the number of people who economically could productively use computers but think a mainstream smartphone can let them do the same things. Sure, they can web browse, access online banking, ticketing, commerce, and other services through apps, but they usually miss out on the entire creative and productive side of computing.

However, I don't just blame technology. At least in Occidental countries, we tell ourselves we're consumers, vocabulary that hides the fact we're also producers/creators in our work. But it fits a mechanistic view of society, and works well with the central planners Utopian pretensions.

I love hearing of projects like the OPs---breathing new life into unused machines.

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

#257

Post by MandieD »

amatecha wrote: post #96
ornornor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In Germany, https://www.afbshop.de/ provides PC disposal services, and then sells the reconditioned machines with new hard drives/SSDs. They also have retail shops in some German cities; I bought an HP Prodesk micro PC from the one in Nürnberg.

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

#258

Post by chalst »

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.

Electron allows you to use the DOM model and npm so that there is less friction moving between web standards and native apps.

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

#259

Post by nextos »

slondr wrote: post #181
nextos wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any Linux distribution that can be configured to be minimal (e.g. NixOS, Arch Linux, etc.) can boot a mainstream stack (systemd + pulseaudio + Xorg + tiling window manager) in less than 300 MB RAM. It's a great experience. I use an old NUC (i5-4250U) as a daily driver and it's almost as fast as a new machine for regular tasks, it feels like the OP's.

I always get whiplash seeing people mention hardware newer than the stuff in my server rack, which I would consider to be high-performance, and call it "old" and describe daily driving it as if it's a nearly unbelievable phenomenon

Well that's a bit unfair. Lots of CPUs slightly older than the one I pointed out will struggle a lot as a daily driver since they will lack hardware support for lots of functionality, e.g. video decoding.

Also that CPU is ultra low power, like those on laptops, and it doesn't age nearly as well as server stuff.

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

#260

Post by _Algernon_ »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #247
emodendroket wrote: post #212

What I found is that you can get an old computer to work great with an old OS right up until you open the Web browser and start visiting Web sites.

"browservice" will render web pages server-side and then deliver them to your browser as an image with simple javascript. It works in virtually all "old" browsers and can be very useful for older computers. https://github.com/ttalvitie/browservice For very old web browsers, WRP works similarly but replaces the javascript with an imagemap. https://github.com/tenox7/wrp

At that point you have a local energy inefficient terminal that barely contributes to what you are trying to do, and a cloud computer which must be run on your behalf somewhere, both of which require energy. What's the point? At that point I doubt it has any benefit compared to running a more modern machine.
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