3 ms·

My phone is slightly faster, but only 1GB RAM. For linux tasks, it is overkill - many unix utilities were designed in the 70's with many magnitudes less power a

My phone is slightly faster, but only 1GB RAM. For linux tasks, it is overkill - many unix utilities were designed in the 70's with many magnitudes less power available. Command-line java development (ecj, dx, git, etc) is practically instant. (If you need an activity-center IDE, you're gonna have a bad time.) The only problems I've encountered are super javascript-heavy retail pages (Why do they do that? They can only restrict their audience. Interactivity needn't be heavy. Are they just using frameworks upon frameworks upon frameworks?) And unfortunately, some Khan Academy graphical exercise. Strangely, "kalite" (offline version) works instantly, probably because it uses an older presentation - I bet it's "modern" frameworks again (though maybe because offline?).

jillesvangurp 9y ago
Back in the day at Nokia Research we were abusing their N800 linux tablets (mind you, this was 2007, way before the iphone shipped and when android was a mere rumor). These things were running a debian linux based OS with X based UI, and a mozilla based browser. Pretty much anything command line just worked after a simple apt-get install and most gui stuff kind of worked except for formfactor issues (low resolution screen, touch based interaction, keyboard overlay, etc.). The N800 specs were very modest compared to this stuff (something like 500Mhz and 256MB if I'm not mistaken). So, for command line stuff, most of the stuff you'd use 12 years ago would still be valid today. Stuff hasn't really changed that much. If anything, some things might run a bit faster than they used to on the same hardware due to ongoing optimizations and cumulative fixes. E.g. python has improved a lot since 2.5, which I think was current then. Compilers have gotten better, kernels have improved a lot, etc. However, these days, a minimum requirement for most would be to be able to run a modern browser (i.e. with all the security holes patched) capable of browsing all popular websites. Unfortunately, that just requires a lot of memory and CPU these days. Websites have gotten a lot more complex in the last 12 years. I'd say memory is actually the biggest bottleneck here. Most laptops are effectively idling most of the time and grow extremely hot if you actually run them at 100% CPU. So a modern low power ARM SOC with enough memory suitable for e.g. a mid range smart phone of around 200$ should have everything you need for comfortable browsing.

jillesvangurp 9y ago

Back in the day at Nokia Research we were abusing their N800 linux tablets (mind you, this was 2007, way before the iphone shipped and when android was a mere rumor). These things were running a debian linux based OS with X based UI, and a mozilla based browser. Pretty much anything command line just worked after a simple apt-get install and most gui stuff kind of worked except for formfactor issues (low resolution screen, touch based interaction, keyboard overlay, etc.). The N800 specs were very modest compared to this stuff (something like 500Mhz and 256MB if I'm not mistaken). So, for command line stuff, most of the stuff you'd use 12 years ago would still be valid today. Stuff hasn't really changed that much. If anything, some things might run a bit faster than they used to on the same hardware due to ongoing optimizations and cumulative fixes. E.g. python has improved a lot since 2.5, which I think was current then. Compilers have gotten better, kernels have improved a lot, etc. However, these days, a minimum requirement for most would be to be able to run a modern browser (i.e. with all the security holes patched) capable of browsing all popular websites. Unfortunately, that just requires a lot of memory and CPU these days. Websites have gotten a lot more complex in the last 12 years. I'd say memory is actually the biggest bottleneck here. Most laptops are effectively idling most of the time and grow extremely hot if you actually run them at 100% CPU. So a modern low power ARM SOC with enough memory suitable for e.g. a mid range smart phone of around 200$ should have everything you need for comfortable browsing.