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Ahem. Back in the day we were used to use a lot of niche software for legacy machines, and we succeeded. Not even being bachelor graded engineers or trade/vocat

by anthk 2y ago

Ahem. Back in the day we were used to use a lot of niche software for legacy machines, and we succeeded. Not even being bachelor graded engineers or trade/vocational sysadmins. We seeked alternative browsers and today people even gets around paywalls with ease. Non geek/nerd people, I mean. Then, using an external player for Youtube isn't rocket science. Several people do that with Newpipe for instance. On Chromium/FFox, yes, it can be done, 1GB it's the lower limit if you set up ZRAM and add some flags to the desktop shortcut. OFC, Ublock Origin it's a must. UBo, LXDE and Ungoogled Chromium with some custom flags (I can set an /etc/profile.d/chromium.sh guide with ease for any user) can make a Core Duo or Celeron notebook usable with just 2GB of RAM as today that machine can be handled as the new 'low end', kinda like a Pentium IV with SSE2 in 2008-2010. 1GB of ZRAM would be usable enough with ZRAM and just keeping two or three tabs open, something not unusual for the typical user. Even for a researcher. Also, both Chromium and Firefox have automatic tab suspending options, so in the end the CPU usage can be much lower and the RAM one would just be paged (and most JS bytecode or JIT will be GC'ed in the spot for sure, as there's no point on keeping objects for suspended tabs).

Rinzler89 2y ago
>Ahem. Back in the day we were used to use a lot of niche software for legacy machines, and we succeeded. Who's this "WE"? Not me I think. And "back in the day" computers were very expensive warranting the time investment into keeping them going, while now they're disposable commodities. Is it worth it to most (western) people who's labor costs are around 20$-80$/hour to spend hours/days figuring out Linux and several quirky tools and hacks that even tech workers never heard of, just to get a PC working that people wouldn't even take for free? Answer this. Why not spend all that time in more meaningful endeavors instead of keeping alive a piece of junk. It's cool if that's your hobby, but for most people it isn't.
- anthk 2y ago
  >Not me Everyone did; any experienced user had to seek lighter alternatives at some point. >Why not spend Tell that to a musician I know which uses a netbook and it can use Mastodon thru https://brutaldon.org https://brutaldon.org under his old laptop he uses for music production, where audio software works but modern JS crawls it's machine lot.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >Everyone did; any experienced user had to seek lighter alternatives at some point. Ha! No. For some users, their PC is just a tool, a white good, like their washing machine or their car. Do you think every car owner also knows how to change oil, brake pads or fix fender benders? No, they pay a profesional service to take care of it and once they see it doesn't run like they want it to, if they have the money they sell it off or take it to the junkyard and buy a new one, not keep it going forever through endless fixes and tinkering. If a new washing machine is $200 do you spend $70/hour on a handyman to fix your broken one? Same with computers. >Tell that to a musician I know Exceptions that prove the rule. Without any context and what exactly a "old and slow" laptop means and what a person's income is we can talk here all day, as that skews from person to person. If someone is broke AF then it's normal they'll keep their HW going for as long as possible if and less $20/month means skipping on food. But if someone makes a healthy income, they'll chuck the 6 year old laptop in the trash/ebay once it starts to be too slow for their standards and get a new one, instead of spending precious time learning about installing Linux and alternative foss apps, when they'd rather spend their precious time tinkering with their Harley or going to the beach and spend $1000 on a new laptop that works the way they like it out of the box.

by anthk 2y ago

Rinzler89 2y ago

>Ahem. Back in the day we were used to use a lot of niche software for legacy machines, and we succeeded. Who's this "WE"? Not me I think. And "back in the day" computers were very expensive warranting the time investment into keeping them going, while now they're disposable commodities. Is it worth it to most (western) people who's labor costs are around 20$-80$/hour to spend hours/days figuring out Linux and several quirky tools and hacks that even tech workers never heard of, just to get a PC working that people wouldn't even take for free? Answer this. Why not spend all that time in more meaningful endeavors instead of keeping alive a piece of junk. It's cool if that's your hobby, but for most people it isn't.

anthk 2y ago
>Not me Everyone did; any experienced user had to seek lighter alternatives at some point. >Why not spend Tell that to a musician I know which uses a netbook and it can use Mastodon thru https://brutaldon.org https://brutaldon.org under his old laptop he uses for music production, where audio software works but modern JS crawls it's machine lot.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >Everyone did; any experienced user had to seek lighter alternatives at some point. Ha! No. For some users, their PC is just a tool, a white good, like their washing machine or their car. Do you think every car owner also knows how to change oil, brake pads or fix fender benders? No, they pay a profesional service to take care of it and once they see it doesn't run like they want it to, if they have the money they sell it off or take it to the junkyard and buy a new one, not keep it going forever through endless fixes and tinkering. If a new washing machine is $200 do you spend $70/hour on a handyman to fix your broken one? Same with computers. >Tell that to a musician I know Exceptions that prove the rule. Without any context and what exactly a "old and slow" laptop means and what a person's income is we can talk here all day, as that skews from person to person. If someone is broke AF then it's normal they'll keep their HW going for as long as possible if and less $20/month means skipping on food. But if someone makes a healthy income, they'll chuck the 6 year old laptop in the trash/ebay once it starts to be too slow for their standards and get a new one, instead of spending precious time learning about installing Linux and alternative foss apps, when they'd rather spend their precious time tinkering with their Harley or going to the beach and spend $1000 on a new laptop that works the way they like it out of the box.