Oxide Computer: Docs • Hacker News Board

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#51

Post by usefulcat » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 11:48 PM UTC

howinteresting wrote: post #39

helf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a great listen. Thanks for mentioning it

[flagged]

For that one comment, probably not, but maybe for dozens of previous flagged and/or dead comments

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#52

Post by ThinkBeat » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 11:48 PM UTC

I recently saw a horrible presentation by Microsoft on how they built the OpenAI supercomputer on Azure. (with custom bits).

How would an Oxide computer systems look like for for an "OpenAI super computer" compared to Azure?

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#53

Post by wmf » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 11:50 PM UTC

chamakits wrote: post #47

solarkraft wrote: post #29

Finally I actually understand what they're building. Now I must ask: Why? On-prem servers aren't a new invention. The market seems pretty saturated (and shrinking). Virtualization isn't a new invention either. The market seems pretty well served, at least commercially. Can the integration of both be a convincing enough advantage? The management UI certainly looks nice; it's something I'd like to have on my KVM box at…

I'm not affiliated with them, but I recall this being marketed at some point as giving you the flexibility and customization powers that the Googles and Facebooks of the world have with their on-prem infrastructure without needing to have as deep of a dedicated staff as they do to just this which allowed them to develop all their custom tooling in the first place. Basically if you are on-prem, and you are dissatisfie…

I would say Oxide is inflexible and non-customizable since they have exactly one hardware configuration and few software features at this point. Their claim is more that their rack works and everything else on the market is full of bugs.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#54

Post by strangemonad » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 11:50 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #29

Finally I actually understand what they're building. Now I must ask: Why? On-prem servers aren't a new invention. The market seems pretty saturated (and shrinking). Virtualization isn't a new invention either. The market seems pretty well served, at least commercially. Can the integration of both be a convincing enough advantage? The management UI certainly looks nice; it's something I'd like to have on my KVM box at…

A dumbed down interpretation. What most people can buy off the shelf for servers more or less looks like a pc shoved into an odd looking case (1u, 3U rack). To get anywhere near the cost / performance of the big players you need something that’s designed for the data center server workloads.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#55

Post by benjaminleonard » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 11:52 PM UTC

dist1ll wrote: post #5

As someone who's only dealt with commodity server hardware, these specs make me salivate. And all these boot/management TUIs are just so satisfying to look at. (Sorry to be that guy, but just a friendly suggestion: high contrast dark themes are difficult to read for people with astigmatism. Especially since this is technical documentation, intended to be thoroughly read, you might want to consider a light theme toggl…

All of our sites and indeed the web console itself are driven by the same design system and we are planning on a light theme as soon as we can.

Thanks!

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#56

Post by howinteresting » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 11:56 PM UTC

usefulcat wrote: post #51

howinteresting wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

For that one comment, probably not, but maybe for dozens of previous flagged and/or dead comments

Once you're shadowbanned your comments start off as dead by default and have to be vouched to be visible.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#57

Post by rafram » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 12:03 AM UTC

0x6c6f6c wrote: post #8

> Oxide Computer Model 0, also known as the “0x1” So is it 1 or is it 0..

It was a 0 in both names, but cosmic rays flipped one of the bits.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#58

Post by mburns » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 12:03 AM UTC

howinteresting wrote: post #39

helf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like a great listen. Thanks for mentioning it

[flagged]

looking at his (recent) comment history, I can’t imagine this is the one in particular that got him shadow banned.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#59

Post by rtpg » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 12:05 AM UTC

corysama wrote: post #20

Oxide's "On the Metal" podcast is an incredibly fun deep dive into technical issues no one should have to deal with as told by people who lived them. "Deep" as in: software DRAM drivers, Ring -1 security, bespoke motherboard designs... I only wish there were more episodes. https://oxide.computer/podcasts/on-the-metal I just noticed they have a second podcast. I'll assume it's just as good. https://oxide.computer/podc…

Oxide + Friends is very good. It's very motivating to listen to and gets me excited to try and build new things. Way more positive vibes being put out there than a lot of stuff.

Re: Oxide Computer: Docs

#60

Post by mwcampbell » Fri, Jul 21, 2023, 12:06 AM UTC

I'm a little surprised that, according to the docs, "the Oxide rack does not come with any preloaded machine images" [1]. But I guess it makes sense that the initial, early-adopter customers wouldn't have a problem with rolling their own VM images. I'm at least glad that Oxide didn't decide to start by only allowing VMs that use a pre-defined set of pre-made images in some custom format.

[1]: https://docs.oxide.computer/guides/creating-and-sharing-imag...