4 ms·

A period correct Windows 7 era machine is something like a Core 2 Quad with 4-8 gigs of RAM, I'd hope that even the worst modern web abomination runs on that.

by oynqr 3y ago

creshal 3y ago
The vast majority of systems back then had Core 2 Duos, modern web apps (or overcomplicated sites) can easily choke those.
- drewzero1 3y ago
  I was using a Core2 Duo with 4GB as my main home computer until about a year ago, and while some sites made it run slowly (mostly recipe sites and others with a lot of video ads) it was certainly still usable. The trick was to keep the browser down below 10 or so tabs and close it when I needed to use some other heavy piece of software.
  - iforgotpassword 3y ago
    Interesting, maybe it actually is Firefox being slower than chromium, but incidentally a few days ago I was trying to make an old core 2 duo laptop a browser-only machine for a friend's kid, and with debian 12 and Firefox, the start page of YouTube with no video playing had both cores hover at around 70%. The page worked but was notably slow. Videos played smoothly. So I guess if you don't mind the fans spinning constantly it's usable, but eh...
    - creshal 3y ago
      Google regularly tries to break Firefox, Chromium probably works a lot better, if you can convince it to use GPU acceleration on Linux.
      - leeoniya 3y ago
        > if you can convince it to use GPU acceleration on Linux. which isnt all that difficult, btw :) good to point out that it's not enabled by default.
        creshal 3y ago
        Yes, it's not difficult, but if you compare default settings it'll skew the results.
    - pantalaimon 3y ago
      You probably didn’t have Hardware Video Decoding enabled in the browser, that’s still not the default on Linux.
      - iforgotpassword 3y ago
        But as said, that was on the landing page with no video playing. What is it even doing there that can load up the CPU like that? I was rather surprised then that playback was actually smooth at least at 480p. Otoh I doubt core2duo had any sort of hardware acceleration for video decoding, but don't quote me on that...
        pantalaimon 3y ago
        > I doubt core2duo had any sort of hardware acceleration for video decoding That would be the job of the GPU anyway, but H.264 decoding was pretty much standard back then. That's why plugins like h264ify[0] exist for old hardware. [0] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdc...
        joecool1029 3y ago
        > That's why plugins like h264ify[0] exist for old hardware. Which the intel GMA GPU's did not support in core2duo era. Those features were added by their gen5 (ironlake) GPU, the first intel HD gpu.
        pantalaimon 3y ago
        X4500HD introduced H.264 decoding on the last Core 2 generation https://web.archive.org/web/20120620155937/http://intellinuxgraphics.org/h264.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120620155937/http://intellinux... edit: turns out this was never merged and attempts to get the old code running on a modern stack were not successful https://github.com/intel/intel-vaapi-driver/issues/544 https://github.com/intel/intel-vaapi-driver/issues/544
conradfr 3y ago
I have machines like that and it runs OK if you have a SSD, and more than 8GB of ram definitely helps.
- ape4 3y ago
  Hopefully you can read hackernews without an SSD and many GBs
  - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
    To be fair, you can also read Hacker News in links, so if that's your only goal, Chromium is overkill.
  - Narishma 3y ago
    You can. Old reddit as well. I do that regularly on a 1st gen Atom netbook with 1GB of RAM and no SSD.
bsimpson 3y ago
I just donated a couple of ~20 year old Vista machines. One was an Athlon; the other was a Core Duo. They both had 1GB RAM.
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  Donated to who??? Isnt that like donating your old socks?
  - bsimpson 3y ago
    https://www.computercorps.org/ https://www.computercorps.org/ but I don't think they take old socks.
  - nraf 3y ago
    Our first computer was an MS-Dos machine that our local high school were getting rid of back in 1994. I learned a lot from playing around on the machine, trying to understand the command line.
    - idiotsecant 3y ago
      This is a different time though, computing resources are ubiquitous and cheap. I'm not sure what anyone can do with a 20 year old machine
  - tomcam 3y ago
    You make that sound like it’s a bad thing https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/12/28/bill-clintons-great-skivvies-give-away/0dac853d-cf3d-4faf-8104-bcf124bd93b4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/12/28/...

A period correct Windows 7 era machine is something like a Core 2 Quad with 4-8 gigs of RAM, I'd hope that even the worst modern web abomination runs on that.

by oynqr 3y ago

A period correct Windows 7 era machine is something like a Core 2 Quad with 4-8 gigs of RAM, I'd hope that even the worst modern web abomination runs on that.

creshal 3y ago

The vast majority of systems back then had Core 2 Duos, modern web apps (or overcomplicated sites) can easily choke those.

drewzero1 3y ago
I was using a Core2 Duo with 4GB as my main home computer until about a year ago, and while some sites made it run slowly (mostly recipe sites and others with a lot of video ads) it was certainly still usable. The trick was to keep the browser down below 10 or so tabs and close it when I needed to use some other heavy piece of software.
- iforgotpassword 3y ago
  Interesting, maybe it actually is Firefox being slower than chromium, but incidentally a few days ago I was trying to make an old core 2 duo laptop a browser-only machine for a friend's kid, and with debian 12 and Firefox, the start page of YouTube with no video playing had both cores hover at around 70%. The page worked but was notably slow. Videos played smoothly. So I guess if you don't mind the fans spinning constantly it's usable, but eh...
  - creshal 3y ago
    Google regularly tries to break Firefox, Chromium probably works a lot better, if you can convince it to use GPU acceleration on Linux.
    - leeoniya 3y ago
      > if you can convince it to use GPU acceleration on Linux. which isnt all that difficult, btw :) good to point out that it's not enabled by default.
      - creshal 3y ago
        Yes, it's not difficult, but if you compare default settings it'll skew the results.
  - pantalaimon 3y ago
    You probably didn’t have Hardware Video Decoding enabled in the browser, that’s still not the default on Linux.
    - iforgotpassword 3y ago
      But as said, that was on the landing page with no video playing. What is it even doing there that can load up the CPU like that? I was rather surprised then that playback was actually smooth at least at 480p. Otoh I doubt core2duo had any sort of hardware acceleration for video decoding, but don't quote me on that...
      - pantalaimon 3y ago
        > I doubt core2duo had any sort of hardware acceleration for video decoding That would be the job of the GPU anyway, but H.264 decoding was pretty much standard back then. That's why plugins like h264ify[0] exist for old hardware. [0] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdccplidncghkekgioiakgal https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/h264ify/aleakchihdc...
        joecool1029 3y ago
        > That's why plugins like h264ify[0] exist for old hardware. Which the intel GMA GPU's did not support in core2duo era. Those features were added by their gen5 (ironlake) GPU, the first intel HD gpu.
        pantalaimon 3y ago
        X4500HD introduced H.264 decoding on the last Core 2 generation https://web.archive.org/web/20120620155937/http://intellinuxgraphics.org/h264.html https://web.archive.org/web/20120620155937/http://intellinux... edit: turns out this was never merged and attempts to get the old code running on a modern stack were not successful https://github.com/intel/intel-vaapi-driver/issues/544 https://github.com/intel/intel-vaapi-driver/issues/544

conradfr 3y ago

I have machines like that and it runs OK if you have a SSD, and more than 8GB of ram definitely helps.

ape4 3y ago
Hopefully you can read hackernews without an SSD and many GBs
- Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  To be fair, you can also read Hacker News in links, so if that's your only goal, Chromium is overkill.
- Narishma 3y ago
  You can. Old reddit as well. I do that regularly on a 1st gen Atom netbook with 1GB of RAM and no SSD.

bsimpson 3y ago

I just donated a couple of ~20 year old Vista machines. One was an Athlon; the other was a Core Duo. They both had 1GB RAM.

idiotsecant 3y ago
Donated to who??? Isnt that like donating your old socks?
- bsimpson 3y ago
  https://www.computercorps.org/ https://www.computercorps.org/ but I don't think they take old socks.
- nraf 3y ago
  Our first computer was an MS-Dos machine that our local high school were getting rid of back in 1994. I learned a lot from playing around on the machine, trying to understand the command line.
  - idiotsecant 3y ago
    This is a different time though, computing resources are ubiquitous and cheap. I'm not sure what anyone can do with a 20 year old machine
- tomcam 3y ago
  You make that sound like it’s a bad thing https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/12/28/bill-clintons-great-skivvies-give-away/0dac853d-cf3d-4faf-8104-bcf124bd93b4/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/12/28/...