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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

#281

Post by dangus »

layer8 wrote: post #131
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.

That’s just exemplifying how the web tech stack has been going astray, isn’t it?

Gone astray? Astray from what? Text and forms?

The web has gotten exponentially more useful. The fact that my computer needs to be trivially more modern to use it seems like a completely reasonable trade-off.

You couldn't buy a fully functioning computer for $35 in 2023 dollars back before the web "went astray." That wouldn't even buy you a modem!

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

#282

Post by dangus »

shp0ngle wrote: post #97
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.

Just use an ad blocker to block cookie banners. Annoyances list built-in to uBlock Origin should work.

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

#283

Post by piva00 »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #277

Kinda sad that the top comment is something about a web browser. There's much more to computers and the internet than web browsers. I use links text-only browser coupled with stunnel or haproxy for TLS. Unlike the "tech" company browsers, this software compiles quickly and easily, it's relatively small and it works great on older computers. Here is what no one is mentioning. Currently, 90% of the world's most advanac…

If something happens to TSMC there will be a global effort to lift all that knowledge back into stable, developed countries to continue production as fast as humanly possible.

Just like the lifting of Nazi rocket scientists, it's a technology that is directly intertwined with the existence of contemporary advanced economies/societies, if TSMC ceases to exist there will be a concerted effort from major economies to re-gain that knowledge. Right now it's just too expensive to do it instead of outsourcing it, the moment it becomes an existential threat it won't be relatively that expensive anymore.

I don't think old computers as such will ever be relevant as you envision, if it happens it will be a blip during a gap of 3-5 years until production restarts somewhere else.

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

#284

Post by Sesse__ »

wahern wrote: post #150
Sesse__ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the case of OpenBSD itself, the popularity of the PCEngines APU2 has definitely provided motivation for improving the performance of PF. Also, ironically, people elsewhere in this article thread keep mentioning that older hardware is too power intensive. But the reason the APU2 is still around is because neither Intel nor AMD offer modern chips with a maximum TDP as low as the AMD G series. At maximum load, with a…

> In the case of OpenBSD itself, the popularity of the PCEngines APU2 has definitely provided motivation for improving the performance of PF.

And Linux' packet processing now pushes 100Gig and beyond, which is not motivated by low-end hardware but certainly helps it. :-)

> But the reason the APU2 is still around is because neither Intel nor AMD offer modern chips with a maximum TDP as low as the AMD G series.

You can get Alder Lake-N at 6 W TDP, which is the same as on AMD GX-412TC (the CPU used on the APU2).

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

#285

Post by rkta »

rewgs wrote: post #18
sourcecodeplz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the second comment here claiming that w3m displays HN correctly - what am I doing wrong? Most comments are not correctly indented.

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

#286

Post by specialist »

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.

Ya, pretty much. Electron is a lot of monkey motion just to emulate SDL.

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

#287

Post by specialist »

rewgs wrote: post #18
sourcecodeplz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is there a @media query type thing for TTY devices?

Some way to tell the server to render text-only, gopher, or gemtext (from gemini protocol)?

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

#288

Post by horsawlarway »

jack_pp wrote: post #177
horsawlarway wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a need and you already own it - knock yourself out. But comparing spending 40 bucks on craigslist or ebay for an old pentium/core 2 duo, vs getting an rpi... You're probably better off with the Pi (assuming you can source it, which is not a given atm). I don't even buy most of mine used, I just get hand-me-downs from friends/family because they want to get rid of the machine and ask me to wipe the drive i…

I'm curious how you manage to use 650kw+ per month. I don't go over 300 even in the summer with the AC on. Also why would you just keep running extra machines all the time? I understand a personal machine and a server but more than that.. for what?

The short answer - Live somewhere very hot and humid. In my case - Atlanta.

Add an old house on top and throw in working from home, and usage can creep up on you very quickly. We average around 1000kwh a month, but summer months where it's 95+ and near 100% humidity means the AC reasonably needs to be on.

Jun/Jul are the worst, we hit 2200kwh over those months last year.

As for the machines - like I mentioned, they run a k8s cluster I host numerous services on. I run seafile/bookstack/jellyfin/keycloak/homeassistant/email/dns/mealie/snipeit/etc on them. Most idle around 5watts and aren't a big deal. I recycle the machines that would end up costing me real money in power usage.

---

I'll add - my next personal project is going to be moving the entire cluster over to a dedicated solar system. As long as I don't do any grid-tie, I can do it without permits. Just waiting to find a decent deal on inverters at this point. Since I already have a pallet of used panels.

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

#289

Post by horsawlarway »

lelag wrote: post #279
horsawlarway wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It still makes sense to use a decade-old computer. I don't really think it does, at least not some of them. A lot of those older machines are just running really, really high idle power draw. Ex: Pentium 4/5, Core 2 Duo, Athlon64, etc. Running from 40 to 100 watts idle. For comparison, a new RPI will go as low as ~1-3 watt idle, tops out at ~5-7 watts under full load, and will generally have better performance char…

Replacing really obsolete machines used as servers by RPI does certainly makes sense power-wise (as long as you don't need storage), so not arguing with the point you make about that. However, I agree with with the OP comment that computer should not be replaced simply because newer, more energy efficient alternatives exist: at least not for anything made after 2010. When comparing whether it is worse it or not to ex…

> Replacing really obsolete machines used as servers by RPI does certainly makes sense power-wise (as long as you don't need storage)

You do need storage, but you need it for all of them anyways. I certainly won't trust the original spinning disk HDD that comes with hand me down machines with anything more than an OS image. Everything else goes on the NAS.

> However, I agree with with the OP comment that computer should not be replaced simply because newer, more energy efficient alternatives exist: at least not for anything made after 2010.

This - this is where the answer is to measure it. Sometimes the result will surprise you quite a bit. Most machines made after 2010 will be fine, but trust me, it's really worth plugging it into a watt meter and making sure.

Turns out all sorts of things adjust power draw, and one of the least maintained parts of old machines is the PSU - usually it's filled with dust/dirt, and as long as the machine still runs no one has paid it any mind in the last 10 years.

> Not saying I would not still buy a M1 over keeping the slow Mac Intel but please don't claim your are helping the environment when doing so

Who the fuck is talking about replacing an intel macbook with an m1? I'm talking about getting old tower machines from office/school closeouts or as hand-me-downs and repurposing them. An intel mac (even a 2010-2013 era one) is still worth WAY more than an RPI (~$200 vs $40), and laptops in general use a very different power curve (batteries matter - who knew...?).

Not to mention you can't even run a decent OS on the modern intel macs after 2016... (although at least Asahi is making progress these days) so trust me - I'm hardly suggesting a macbook update (I would strongly suggest purchasing from a different company, though - but that's a different conversation related to a different set of morals).

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

#290

Post by MobiusHorizons »

Ygg2 wrote: post #242
MobiusHorizons wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few options depending on your application type. Fltk is old and ugly, but may work for you. There are others that come from the world of game UIs. Things like sdl2, Nuklear, and dear imgui. I’ve also seen some vulkan based frameworks (mostly from the rust community)

Point isn't to make some hacky game ui, it's to make application UI on par with Web, feature and stability wise.

The vulkan based gui that neovide seems to come close to what you want. But I don’t think it’s a library you can use easily.
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