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Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

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Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#71

Post by CM30 »

jml7c5 wrote: post #6

I think an important category has to be: no outside servers designed to help with this speedrunning challenge. Without such a rule, one can get an outside computer to do much of the work. One would merely write a small program that connects to the known IP and pulls bootstrap code straight into memory. (Granted, still a fair piece of work, but without such a rule the finish line for the speedrun would become "establi…

Generally, speedrunning communities (for games and other things) already bar tricks and strats that require setup on an external file/system.

For instance, you can't carry hearts/stamina from one file to another in a Breath of the Wild speedrun, or use wrong warping to instantly go to a location saved on an alternate save file.

There are exceptions in certain scenes (in speedruns for Banjo-Kazooie, a glitch is used on another save file to fix the RNG for a quiz section later in the game), but generally, everything has to be done from an empty file/system with no external resources already setup.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#72

Post by 29athrowaway »

jml7c5 wrote: post #7
29athrowaway wrote: post #4

You get all this functionality from the kernel for free. http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/syscalls.2.html

Does the kernel provide a TCP stack? Either way, you still need to write an editor with which to write programs that utilize those syscalls.

Yes.

Also accessible as a file, since everything is a file.

echo "foo" > /dev/tcp/host/port

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#73

Post by fest »

jake_morrison wrote: post #33

Embdded development is like this sometimes. Start with some hardware. If you are lucky, you get a board support package with a Linux kernel. Otherwise you need to write some drivers to talk to the hardware. Progressively get it to the point that it will boot up and get on the network. Then get the application running. Microcontroller development is even worse. When you don't have any space, you may actually end up wr…

Or have some drinks with EEs and get them to value software development ease of use: things like using top of the line, or at least midrange MCU with enough flash for debug builds, populating debug connectors on EVT builds etc

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#75

Post by nottorp »

qeternity wrote: post #63
seba_dos1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. macOS simply implements touchpad gestures in continuous way as opposed to binary triggers, does it consistently across applications since most of it is handled by toolkit and comes with sane defaults that are harder to accidentally misconfigure than on other systems. Those things contribute to perceived user experience, but there's no real reason other than lack of software polish that it couldn't be like th…

That “nothing” is everything.

That "nothing" means that MacBooks (when running OS X) are the only laptops that are really usable without a mouse. Even in some games.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#76

Post by seba_dos1 »

qeternity wrote: post #63
seba_dos1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. macOS simply implements touchpad gestures in continuous way as opposed to binary triggers, does it consistently across applications since most of it is handled by toolkit and comes with sane defaults that are harder to accidentally misconfigure than on other systems. Those things contribute to perceived user experience, but there's no real reason other than lack of software polish that it couldn't be like th…

That “nothing” is everything.

Macbooks do literally nothing, it's macOS that does. And with a bit of effort and understanding of the input stack, you can get it pretty close on GNU/Linux anyway - at least close enough for really comfortable usage. I haven't been using mice for years now and I'm not a Macbook user.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#77

Post by lstamour »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #65
bschwindHN wrote: post #13

Bored? Write a touchpad driver based on libinput which gives you identical mouse acceleration between Macbook trackpads and linux trackpads.

My laptop has a Synaptics trackpad and came with Windows pre-installed. Trackpad acceleration was really comfortable on Windows. It all changed when I installed Linux. Tried adjusting the Synaptics driver settings but couldn't get it to match the Windows experience. So what causes this difference? Is the Windows driver just better than the Linux driver?

Possibly relevant: Windows “Precision Touchpad” specs, including https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/com... and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/com...

It’s hard to find other details, at least in public...

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#79

Post by DCKing »

qeternity wrote: post #63
seba_dos1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing. macOS simply implements touchpad gestures in continuous way as opposed to binary triggers, does it consistently across applications since most of it is handled by toolkit and comes with sane defaults that are harder to accidentally misconfigure than on other systems. Those things contribute to perceived user experience, but there's no real reason other than lack of software polish that it couldn't be like th…

That “nothing” is everything.

Yeah, "nothing" is a really poor term to summarize "Apple made fundamentally superior choices in terms of hardware development, software integration and general OS input architecture in the past 15 years".

I use both Windows and Fedora enthusiastically on desktop machines, but recognize that even high-end Windows laptops have trouble matching my 2012 Macbook in terms of input. Apple has been miles ahead of the competition in this specific regard for years. I would love to use Linux on a laptop, but although the combination of libinput and modern Qt and Gtk are helping here they're still ways off [1].

Many people who have only used Linux and Windows on laptops for years assume that a touchpad is only there as an emergency. That you cannot seriously use a laptop without a peripheral.

On Macbooks, that's simply not the case - I never use a mouse with my Macbook. It's easy and probably deserved to discount Macbooks in other areas (even in terms of e.g. keyboard input, looking at Apple's 2016-2019 lineup), but you don't know how good an input tool a touchpad can be unless you've spent some time familiarizing yourself with a Mac touchpad.

Apple sells desktop versions of the touchpad [2]. It might be difficult to believe, but they do so unironically. I bought one for when I connect my Macbook to a big screen.

[1]: I found that Ubuntu has a better laptop input experience when running in a VMWare Fusion than running natively on a Macbook, despite all hardware working out of the box...

[2]: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-...

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#80

Post by tom_mellior »

pests wrote: post #26
input_sh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

echo "line" >> file I really don't get the need for an editor.

This amuses me too. We had to bootstrap from nothing originally too. I think many have never learned the history or started from first principals.

> We had to bootstrap from nothing originally too.

I doubt that the original Unix was written without an editor, using only cat. Of course some earlier interactive system at one point did have to come up without an interactive editor... but still I'd think it's much more likely that the editor was written off-line and fed into the system on punched cards or tape rather than cat'ed from the terminal.

The original post only mentions the network and implicitly the keyboard as possible inputs, but of course the challenge would be much easier if you allowed a DVD, CD, or even floppy drive with drivers (which are part of the kernel). I think pretty much any historical bootstrapping of an interactive OS is much closer to this setting.

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