4 ms·

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions#Later_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions#Late... Even my last, crazy long

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions#Later_versions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions#Late... Even my last, crazy long in the tooth, desktop supported this and it lived to almost 10 years old before being replaced. However at the same time, not even offering a fallback path in non-assembly?

wtallis 1y ago
> However at the same time, not even offering a fallback path in non-assembly? There's probably not any hand-written assembly at issue here, just a compiler told to target x86_64-v2. Among others, RHEL 9 and derivatives were built with such options. (RHEL 10 bumped up the minimum spec again to x86_64-v3, allowing use of AVX.)
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  Or even, a compiler told to target nothing in particular, and a default finally toggled over from "Oh, we're 'targeting x86'? So CPUs from the early 2000s then" to "Oh, we're 'targeting x86'? So CPUs from the mid-2010s then."
vocx2tx 1y ago
Looking at the issue their builders seem to be Opterons G3 (K10?)[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_10h https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_10h
- ozim 1y ago
  I can imagine this has to be like that as they usually get $1500 per month in donations. You could buy a newer one but I guess they have other stuff they have to pay for.
  - a012 1y ago
    For $500 you can get a decent refurbished server on ebay that supports those “new” extensions
  - WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
    This is a bit of vicious circle. How much of that money goes even into keeping those servers running? The electricity bill alone, geez. They could do a dedicated fundraiser to get themselves two boxes that are a decade old and still have spare parts available, coming from Broadwell era, they will have enough instruction set support to cover the baseline towards which multiple distros are converging (Haswell and up).
    - Zak 1y ago
      Given their target audience, they could probably just request a hardware donation. Some sysadmin out there is probably getting rid of exactly what they need.
    - Palomides 1y ago
      if it's colocated (surely the case) they aren't paying per kWh
  - yaro330 1y ago
    I am 100% sure that if they put out a call for action and asked for hardware donations they would be able to get newer stuff. Ryzen 7 1700 goes for as cheap as 50$, DDR4 ram at supported speeds (2133 MHz) is also dirt cheap.
  - delfinom 1y ago
    $1500 / month is probably swallowed by how much of powerpigs those Opertons are, like they are bad, real bad.
  - chillingeffect 1y ago
    >$1500/month Wow, i just got into newpipe/fdroid. Its neat to think even a donation the size of mine can be almost individually meaningful :)
- SSLy 1y ago
  at this point they're guzzling so much power the electricity is more expensive than replacement platform
- yonatan8070 1y ago
  I have a home server with a 9th gen i7 that's doing jack sh!t most of the time, is there a way to donate some compute time to build F-Droid packages?
CJefferson 1y ago
The problem with offering fallbacks is testing -- there isn't any reasonable hardware which you could use, because as you say it's all very old and slow.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pestatije 1y ago
I'm sure theyll appreciate your old desktop donation

wtallis 1y ago

> However at the same time, not even offering a fallback path in non-assembly? There's probably not any hand-written assembly at issue here, just a compiler told to target x86_64-v2. Among others, RHEL 9 and derivatives were built with such options. (RHEL 10 bumped up the minimum spec again to x86_64-v3, allowing use of AVX.)

shadowgovt 1y ago
Or even, a compiler told to target nothing in particular, and a default finally toggled over from "Oh, we're 'targeting x86'? So CPUs from the early 2000s then" to "Oh, we're 'targeting x86'? So CPUs from the mid-2010s then."

vocx2tx 1y ago

Looking at the issue their builders seem to be Opterons G3 (K10?)[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_10h https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_10h

ozim 1y ago
I can imagine this has to be like that as they usually get $1500 per month in donations. You could buy a newer one but I guess they have other stuff they have to pay for.
- a012 1y ago
  For $500 you can get a decent refurbished server on ebay that supports those “new” extensions
- WesolyKubeczek 1y ago
  This is a bit of vicious circle. How much of that money goes even into keeping those servers running? The electricity bill alone, geez. They could do a dedicated fundraiser to get themselves two boxes that are a decade old and still have spare parts available, coming from Broadwell era, they will have enough instruction set support to cover the baseline towards which multiple distros are converging (Haswell and up).
  - Zak 1y ago
    Given their target audience, they could probably just request a hardware donation. Some sysadmin out there is probably getting rid of exactly what they need.
  - Palomides 1y ago
    if it's colocated (surely the case) they aren't paying per kWh
- yaro330 1y ago
  I am 100% sure that if they put out a call for action and asked for hardware donations they would be able to get newer stuff. Ryzen 7 1700 goes for as cheap as 50$, DDR4 ram at supported speeds (2133 MHz) is also dirt cheap.
- delfinom 1y ago
  $1500 / month is probably swallowed by how much of powerpigs those Opertons are, like they are bad, real bad.
- chillingeffect 1y ago
  >$1500/month Wow, i just got into newpipe/fdroid. Its neat to think even a donation the size of mine can be almost individually meaningful :)
SSLy 1y ago
at this point they're guzzling so much power the electricity is more expensive than replacement platform
yonatan8070 1y ago
I have a home server with a 9th gen i7 that's doing jack sh!t most of the time, is there a way to donate some compute time to build F-Droid packages?

CJefferson 1y ago

The problem with offering fallbacks is testing -- there isn't any reasonable hardware which you could use, because as you say it's all very old and slow.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

pestatije 1y ago

I'm sure theyll appreciate your old desktop donation