5 ms·

NetBSD is a powerful force for sustainability. Foundation's commitment to running on a vast array of hardware—new and old—helps reduce e-waste. Old laptops and

by jrmg 1y ago

NetBSD is a powerful force for sustainability. Foundation's commitment to running on a vast array of hardware—new and old—helps reduce e-waste. Old laptops and single-board computers that would otherwise be in a landfill are given new life as robust firewalls, file servers, or even retro-gaming machines, all thanks to NetBSD. Emotionally I like this - but thinking more dispassionately, these systems use, by modern standards, a huge amount of power. I wonder if, for many (most?) of them, it whould not be more environmentally responsible to replace them with modern, less power-hungry devices.

dijit 1y ago
You know, I wonder about that. The cost of creating new computers has got to be pretty high to the environment (I've heard 85% of lifetime carbon emissions from computers are from the manufacturing process), and I strongly suspect that we don't take that into consideration since we greenwash ourselves by forcing China to do our dirty work, chastising them for it, and then patting ourselves on the back for buying "more energy efficient chips".
- bombcar 1y ago
  Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” but in general it’s better to reuse and reduce than to recycle. But if the cost of a new machine is the same as a year or two of the old operating the new is probably the way to go.
  - dijit 1y ago
    I'm saying that I think "cost" in terms of money is not a good proxy for environmental impact.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    > Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” They aren't; among other things, most environmental harm is externalized. When you buy things that produce climate change or microplastics, the cost of the impact is paid by society generally.
- CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
  > The cost of creating new computers has got to be pretty high to the environment But aren't those made regardless if the people with old computers upgrade to them or not? I guess over time, they'll make less if people buy less, but the ones we'd purchase today has already been made, and might as well replace less energy efficient devices than just being added to the global count.
  - dijit 1y ago
    I think you answered your own question here.
- mmooss 1y ago
  We need an index of lifecycle costs for products and services, broken down by phase (material production, manufacturing, logistics, operations, disposal, etc.). It's especially needed because those costs are often externalized for buyers (i.e., they aren't built into the price - you don't pay the true cost of gas, for example; many costs are externalized to everyone else). How else can consumers, manufacturers, policymakers, etc. make anything like an informed decision? I'm surprised someone like the Sierra Club, Consumer Reports, a scientific group, a government group, etc. doesn't undertake it. Yes, it's a bunch of work, there would be uncertainty, but it's essential and better than nothing. There are such things for food: * Klimato: https://klimato.com/ https://klimato.com/ * The Big Climate Database: http://thebigclimatedatabase.com/ http://thebigclimatedatabase.com/
  - davidw 1y ago
    This is why people keep bringing up a carbon tax. It does a lot of the work to internalize all those externalities so individuals or groups don't have to try and figure all this stuff out.
    - mrlongroots 1y ago
      Yes, unfortunately even the best intentioned individuals have very limited ability to make meaningful carbon-minimizing decisions. Carbon tax is such a sensible solution!
nolist_policy 1y ago
Also I bet >50% of personal computer e waste is bog standard x86-64 by now. No need to support a vast array of hardware.
- Gud 1y ago
  Have you considered any advantages with ensuring code is portable?
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    Isn’t that an advantage by itself?
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  > No need to support a vast array of hardware I hope you understand how unique netbsd is, it is one of the only systems which can be compiled so easily with just a single script even from linux or other systems and its rump kernel etc. drivers from what I know are (modular?) so they could be used with other kernels as well if any kernel wants ie. You never know where the innovation can be, I feel like that each kernel/operating system can bring a new idea, as an example, templeOS uses Holy C which basically is Just in time C (iirc) and that means that you can just edit files of templeOS and restart and those changes would occur I know TempleOS is niche and a meme OS but I feel like that there are a lot of ideas and unique operating systems and I have heard that netbsd can be good in giving driver support to. This is just one of many things, and I feel like the main point of NetBSD and the likes are fundamental hackability, they can run on things like routers as well although most run openbsd/freebsd but still. I don't see a reason not to unless you are speaking monetary (ie. it may take some extra funds developing/hosting but that is chump change) but I feel like NETBSD is a novel project with respectable goals and they aren't going to change just for this. More Options are a good thing. if I can have a project run on Netbsd, then its very easy to port it over to any other vast array of hardware as well, and that hardware includes extremely embedded hardware as well I guess
  - ghostly_s 1y ago
p_ing 1y ago
It would be awesome to see a cost breakdown/environmental impact of continuing to run a P4 or G5 today vs. the metals/materials/recycling process/disposal process cost and environmental impact. I always had the same question about cleaning recycling as it went through a recycling plant -- is the water usage environmentally "friendly" versus what is ultimately recycled (which is often not much, sadly).
- steve1977 1y ago
  That brings up an interesting point. While recycled materials like gold are obviously revenue for the recycler, the cost of polluting water might get externalized in some cases maybe.
zenlot 1y ago
Always funny to read from environmentalists discussing how much power draws a lenovo laptop from 2014 running NetBSD. Come on, look at all the businesses and what's really happening in the space you're commenting on. That laptop literally means nothing.
- NathanielK 1y ago
  Even the Pentium M systems from a decade prior have <10W idle. Honestly embarrassing to mention when AI chips are dumping kilowatts.
  - cluckindan 1y ago
    Wonder how long you could run an old laptop on the energy used by a single ChatGPT conversation?
    - rootnod3 1y ago
      Months at the minimum probably.
    - Fnoord 1y ago
      Wonder how useful the ChatGPT conversation is compared to a Google search from begin '00s (when Google was new and something like Pentium 4 was new).
- jrmg 1y ago
  I think it’s a fair question when I’m literally commenting on a statement about sustainability and reuse of old computers. And on a larger scale, you could use your dismissal against almost everything. Every part of society (and businesses are part of society) can think ‘that thing I do means literally nothing when so much else is going on!’ about almost anything.
- mrweasel 1y ago
  That old computer running NetBSD probably also isn't running 24/7, making the environmental impact that much lower. The comparison probably needs to be: Running that old NetBSD machine for a few hours a day, worst case about 40 while I work vs. producing an running a brand new laptop. If we're talking desktops, then many older machines have 2-300W PSUs, not even enough to power a modern graphics card (I know, an Nvidia card isn't running 600W all the time).
NathanielK 1y ago
Outside of keeping a SPARC blade system running 24/7, most old systems use similar power to a light fixture. This argument misses the forest for the trees for non-commercial users.
rpcope1 1y ago
Given that there are a lot of cases that old systems are used for that don't run the system full out and that they probably idle a lot when on, just like your new stuff, given that a lot of older hardware barring known stupid designs like Pentium 4 that draw ludicrous power for the perf, and given how much of an absolute shit show electronics recycling is (I've seen a good amount of how it actually gets "broken down"), I honestly think we upgrade way too often for most use cases. If you can still get by doing something important with a P3 or a Core 2, honestly I would be really surprised if it was actually vastly more cost efficient and environmentally friendly to refresh to new hardware.
- jrmg 1y ago
  Computers of that vintage drew way more power at idle than modern systems.
agumonkey 1y ago
This was the reason I moved from my sturdy ~2008 laptop, power efficiency. That said I don't buy new anyway, i just jumped to the 2010-2015 range.
agalush 1y ago
I have a raspberry Pi 2 running NetBSD at home providing a lot of useful services. It uses just 1.5W. Any more recent alternative would consume much more power.
- jrmg 1y ago
  That’s sort of why this is on my mind. I’ve just replaced an old Cubieboard (RPi1 alternative - about 2W) running Pi-hole and an old temperamental gigabit router (~10W) with a 2014 Mac mini (plus second Gigabit adapter) - which uses about 11W (a really efficient computer for its age!) It’s less than the old combo drew - but I wonder if I could be accomplishing the same with an (or even a couple of) SBCs - and if that would ‘pay for itself’ (environmentally well as financially) after a couple of years.
  - toast0 1y ago
    > and if that would ‘pay for itself’ (environmentally well as financially) after a couple of years. At 11W, the financial costs of running are quite low. I think it's about 90 kWh per year. Depends on your rates, but I've seen $0.60 quoted in comments lately as a high rate for PG&E customers in California, which is about $55. You might well be able to invest in something that can run your load for fewer watts, but I don't know if it's worth the effort. You're likely to get a lot more savings by looking at things that use more energy.
- wltr 1y ago
  Why is it NetBSD and which services do you have? I’d love to read about that, and I think I might utilise mine that way too.
  - agalush 1y ago
    NetBSD because I love simplicity and because it draws less power than running Raspbian. It is running Gitea, Prometheus and a bunch of small tools I wrote (weather monitoring, home automation, family data sharing and tools for my Kids)
rootnod3 1y ago
Manufacturing probably way outshines the usage. And, the side-benefit of using old machines with say NetBSD or OpenBSD etc is that it makes people realize that they don't NEED new modern shiny hardware. I am still daily-driving a x220 on the road (it gets 99% of my stuff done) and at home I am using mostly a slightly upgraded T480. So a 15 year old and a 8 year old laptop. And power consumption wise, my T480 lasts about 17 hours on a charge. That is about same time I'd get out of a modern M3 MacBook Air. With a bit less performance? Sure. But for my use-case it works. And more people realizing that might actually be a good thing.
- wltr 1y ago
  17 hours?! I can’t believe it! How did you optimise the machine to be that energy efficient?
  - rootnod3 1y ago
    T480 can hold 2 batteries. A swappable and an internal one. At least under FreeBSD the swappable alone gives about 10-11 hours on low brightness. The internal one carries the rest of the way. I did replace the screen with a low power screen, which easily had the biggest impact on battery life. I haven't tested the T480 under OpenBSD in a while, but my guess is that if I ran it with "apm -L", it would get close to the same numbers.
    - wltr 1y ago
      Oh wow, thanks! And a low power screen is what? I thought they’re mostly the same, with probably exception of the most recent oled ones.
      - rootnod3 1y ago
        It's the Innolux IGZO Low-Power FHD Panel. There are similar ones or same on AliEpxress for example. Compared to the default FHD screen of the T480, The low power screen cuts the power consumption of the display by about 40%. While also having better contrast and brightness. Biggest power-saving upgrade for the T480.
spauldo 1y ago
Yeah I don't buy that argument either. The amount of e-waste being saved by NetBSD is so tiny as to be insignificant. NetBSD is great for retrocomputing, since it's a modern OS that can run on very limited hardware. It's also a very nice traditional UNIX. It's well documented, has a nice codebase, and is a pleasure to use. But for saving e-waste, Linux has it beat.
wltr 1y ago
Well, look, here is my use case. I have some really old hardware that I used to play with earlier in life, it’s located at the parents’ place. I still use that hardware, but not too often, since I live on my own. I could replace all that, as it consumes a lot of power indeed (comparing to SBCs). But in absolute numbers, they’re just regular computers, so power draw is somewhere at 60–90 Watt/hr, I suppose. Which is not that much, especially given I run the machines half a day once a month. What I learned over the years, you can utilise some servers by not running them 24/7. One server there, I wake it over LAN nightly, copy some backups there, and turn it off again. Very useful. So, I think I’d keep them running for as long as they’re alive.
muyuu 1y ago
most older systems are surprisingly frugal on idle and are typically used sporadically
kev009 1y ago
It probably works as an economic argument. Readers of this site and many in first world countries have limited barriers to buy new equipment and there are low cost options. Elsewhere that may not be true, either the low cost equipment is still beyond reach, or it is simply difficult to import or completely unavailable. It's interesting to observe that a 1990 (386) vs 2000 (Pentium III) computer is a heck of a lot different than a 2015 vs 2025 computer. We're talking about Skylake (2015) which would have no issue as a daily driver for quite a lot of people.
- Fnoord 1y ago
  It is a logistics issue. People replace perfectly working computers all the time. Sure, if you use Skylake you list performance from Spectre and Meltdown. You may not even be able to run Windows 11 on perfectly working x86-64 machines. But for poor people, power usage may even be more important than for you or me (businesses generally don't care). That Skylake's successors were so terrible is due to Intel and thankfully it allowed AMD and ARM-based SoCs to thrive.
fujigawa 1y ago
You're right, the world is better off having some Asian kid taking apart your junk and breathing in solder fumes with no protection, rather than you running a legacy box in your basement that uses some extra kWh per year. After all, he probably won't live long enough to tell his grandkids stories about power-hungry hardware. That reminds me, my homelab could use a SPARC box just because.
Panino 1y ago
In some cases yes, replacing an old machine with a new one can be an evironmentally responsible choice. But in general that's not the case and one should thoughtfully consider the variables including but not limited to software choice, grid carbon cost (see Electricity Maps below), embodied carbon cost of materials, environmental issues of mining and production not strictly related to climate emissions, and more. Low Tech Magazine wrote an article about this here: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stop... https://app.electricitymaps.com https://app.electricitymaps.com
dlcarrier 1y ago
I get my power off grid through solar generation and battery storage, so I monitor usage pretty closely. In my experience, newer computers have slightly higher idle power consumption, but much less total consumption for a given compute task. On top of that, new computers are more likely to have dedicated hardware to accelerate the latest codecs. If you're using an old computer for ray tracing or neural networks or video transcoding, it's probably using enough power that it's worth upgrading. If you're browsing the Web or watching YouTube videos or running a file server, power consumption is probably similar on old and new computers, but regardless of the age, much higher on desktop computers than laptops. Look at power supplies on vintage computers, and you'll see that they're much, much smaller than on modern computers.
PunchyHamster 1y ago
Also, all of the devices that could run NetBSD can just run Linux
- Narishma 1y ago
  Not true. For example most Linux distributions have dropped 32-bit x86 and/or ARM support and I think it's only a matter of time before the Linux kernel follows suit.
myaccountonhn 1y ago
Hardware is far more resource intensive. Its better to continue to use old devices.
soapdog 1y ago
Upcycling offloads manufacturing costs. Unless you're running something that consumes a boatload of energy, then it should be cheaper. Also, if you power it from renewables it is even cheaper and more sustainable.

by jrmg 1y ago

dijit 1y ago

You know, I wonder about that. The cost of creating new computers has got to be pretty high to the environment (I've heard 85% of lifetime carbon emissions from computers are from the manufacturing process), and I strongly suspect that we don't take that into consideration since we greenwash ourselves by forcing China to do our dirty work, chastising them for it, and then patting ourselves on the back for buying "more energy efficient chips".

bombcar 1y ago
Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” but in general it’s better to reuse and reduce than to recycle. But if the cost of a new machine is the same as a year or two of the old operating the new is probably the way to go.
- dijit 1y ago
  I'm saying that I think "cost" in terms of money is not a good proxy for environmental impact.
- mmooss 1y ago
  > Money dollars are a pretty good “stand-in” They aren't; among other things, most environmental harm is externalized. When you buy things that produce climate change or microplastics, the cost of the impact is paid by society generally.
CaptainOfCoit 1y ago
> The cost of creating new computers has got to be pretty high to the environment But aren't those made regardless if the people with old computers upgrade to them or not? I guess over time, they'll make less if people buy less, but the ones we'd purchase today has already been made, and might as well replace less energy efficient devices than just being added to the global count.
- dijit 1y ago
  I think you answered your own question here.
mmooss 1y ago
We need an index of lifecycle costs for products and services, broken down by phase (material production, manufacturing, logistics, operations, disposal, etc.). It's especially needed because those costs are often externalized for buyers (i.e., they aren't built into the price - you don't pay the true cost of gas, for example; many costs are externalized to everyone else). How else can consumers, manufacturers, policymakers, etc. make anything like an informed decision? I'm surprised someone like the Sierra Club, Consumer Reports, a scientific group, a government group, etc. doesn't undertake it. Yes, it's a bunch of work, there would be uncertainty, but it's essential and better than nothing. There are such things for food: * Klimato: https://klimato.com/ https://klimato.com/ * The Big Climate Database: http://thebigclimatedatabase.com/ http://thebigclimatedatabase.com/
- davidw 1y ago
  This is why people keep bringing up a carbon tax. It does a lot of the work to internalize all those externalities so individuals or groups don't have to try and figure all this stuff out.
  - mrlongroots 1y ago
    Yes, unfortunately even the best intentioned individuals have very limited ability to make meaningful carbon-minimizing decisions. Carbon tax is such a sensible solution!

nolist_policy 1y ago

Also I bet >50% of personal computer e waste is bog standard x86-64 by now. No need to support a vast array of hardware.

Gud 1y ago
Have you considered any advantages with ensuring code is portable?
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  Isn’t that an advantage by itself?
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
> No need to support a vast array of hardware I hope you understand how unique netbsd is, it is one of the only systems which can be compiled so easily with just a single script even from linux or other systems and its rump kernel etc. drivers from what I know are (modular?) so they could be used with other kernels as well if any kernel wants ie. You never know where the innovation can be, I feel like that each kernel/operating system can bring a new idea, as an example, templeOS uses Holy C which basically is Just in time C (iirc) and that means that you can just edit files of templeOS and restart and those changes would occur I know TempleOS is niche and a meme OS but I feel like that there are a lot of ideas and unique operating systems and I have heard that netbsd can be good in giving driver support to. This is just one of many things, and I feel like the main point of NetBSD and the likes are fundamental hackability, they can run on things like routers as well although most run openbsd/freebsd but still. I don't see a reason not to unless you are speaking monetary (ie. it may take some extra funds developing/hosting but that is chump change) but I feel like NETBSD is a novel project with respectable goals and they aren't going to change just for this. More Options are a good thing. if I can have a project run on Netbsd, then its very easy to port it over to any other vast array of hardware as well, and that hardware includes extremely embedded hardware as well I guess
- ghostly_s 1y ago

p_ing 1y ago

It would be awesome to see a cost breakdown/environmental impact of continuing to run a P4 or G5 today vs. the metals/materials/recycling process/disposal process cost and environmental impact. I always had the same question about cleaning recycling as it went through a recycling plant -- is the water usage environmentally "friendly" versus what is ultimately recycled (which is often not much, sadly).

steve1977 1y ago
That brings up an interesting point. While recycled materials like gold are obviously revenue for the recycler, the cost of polluting water might get externalized in some cases maybe.

zenlot 1y ago

Always funny to read from environmentalists discussing how much power draws a lenovo laptop from 2014 running NetBSD. Come on, look at all the businesses and what's really happening in the space you're commenting on. That laptop literally means nothing.

NathanielK 1y ago
Even the Pentium M systems from a decade prior have <10W idle. Honestly embarrassing to mention when AI chips are dumping kilowatts.
- cluckindan 1y ago
  Wonder how long you could run an old laptop on the energy used by a single ChatGPT conversation?
  - rootnod3 1y ago
    Months at the minimum probably.
  - Fnoord 1y ago
    Wonder how useful the ChatGPT conversation is compared to a Google search from begin '00s (when Google was new and something like Pentium 4 was new).
jrmg 1y ago
I think it’s a fair question when I’m literally commenting on a statement about sustainability and reuse of old computers. And on a larger scale, you could use your dismissal against almost everything. Every part of society (and businesses are part of society) can think ‘that thing I do means literally nothing when so much else is going on!’ about almost anything.
mrweasel 1y ago
That old computer running NetBSD probably also isn't running 24/7, making the environmental impact that much lower. The comparison probably needs to be: Running that old NetBSD machine for a few hours a day, worst case about 40 while I work vs. producing an running a brand new laptop. If we're talking desktops, then many older machines have 2-300W PSUs, not even enough to power a modern graphics card (I know, an Nvidia card isn't running 600W all the time).

NathanielK 1y ago

Outside of keeping a SPARC blade system running 24/7, most old systems use similar power to a light fixture. This argument misses the forest for the trees for non-commercial users.

rpcope1 1y ago

Given that there are a lot of cases that old systems are used for that don't run the system full out and that they probably idle a lot when on, just like your new stuff, given that a lot of older hardware barring known stupid designs like Pentium 4 that draw ludicrous power for the perf, and given how much of an absolute shit show electronics recycling is (I've seen a good amount of how it actually gets "broken down"), I honestly think we upgrade way too often for most use cases. If you can still get by doing something important with a P3 or a Core 2, honestly I would be really surprised if it was actually vastly more cost efficient and environmentally friendly to refresh to new hardware.

jrmg 1y ago
Computers of that vintage drew way more power at idle than modern systems.

agumonkey 1y ago

This was the reason I moved from my sturdy ~2008 laptop, power efficiency. That said I don't buy new anyway, i just jumped to the 2010-2015 range.

agalush 1y ago

I have a raspberry Pi 2 running NetBSD at home providing a lot of useful services. It uses just 1.5W. Any more recent alternative would consume much more power.

jrmg 1y ago
That’s sort of why this is on my mind. I’ve just replaced an old Cubieboard (RPi1 alternative - about 2W) running Pi-hole and an old temperamental gigabit router (~10W) with a 2014 Mac mini (plus second Gigabit adapter) - which uses about 11W (a really efficient computer for its age!) It’s less than the old combo drew - but I wonder if I could be accomplishing the same with an (or even a couple of) SBCs - and if that would ‘pay for itself’ (environmentally well as financially) after a couple of years.
- toast0 1y ago
  > and if that would ‘pay for itself’ (environmentally well as financially) after a couple of years. At 11W, the financial costs of running are quite low. I think it's about 90 kWh per year. Depends on your rates, but I've seen $0.60 quoted in comments lately as a high rate for PG&E customers in California, which is about $55. You might well be able to invest in something that can run your load for fewer watts, but I don't know if it's worth the effort. You're likely to get a lot more savings by looking at things that use more energy.
wltr 1y ago
Why is it NetBSD and which services do you have? I’d love to read about that, and I think I might utilise mine that way too.
- agalush 1y ago
  NetBSD because I love simplicity and because it draws less power than running Raspbian. It is running Gitea, Prometheus and a bunch of small tools I wrote (weather monitoring, home automation, family data sharing and tools for my Kids)

rootnod3 1y ago

Manufacturing probably way outshines the usage. And, the side-benefit of using old machines with say NetBSD or OpenBSD etc is that it makes people realize that they don't NEED new modern shiny hardware. I am still daily-driving a x220 on the road (it gets 99% of my stuff done) and at home I am using mostly a slightly upgraded T480. So a 15 year old and a 8 year old laptop. And power consumption wise, my T480 lasts about 17 hours on a charge. That is about same time I'd get out of a modern M3 MacBook Air. With a bit less performance? Sure. But for my use-case it works. And more people realizing that might actually be a good thing.

wltr 1y ago
17 hours?! I can’t believe it! How did you optimise the machine to be that energy efficient?
- rootnod3 1y ago
  T480 can hold 2 batteries. A swappable and an internal one. At least under FreeBSD the swappable alone gives about 10-11 hours on low brightness. The internal one carries the rest of the way. I did replace the screen with a low power screen, which easily had the biggest impact on battery life. I haven't tested the T480 under OpenBSD in a while, but my guess is that if I ran it with "apm -L", it would get close to the same numbers.
  - wltr 1y ago
    Oh wow, thanks! And a low power screen is what? I thought they’re mostly the same, with probably exception of the most recent oled ones.
    - rootnod3 1y ago
      It's the Innolux IGZO Low-Power FHD Panel. There are similar ones or same on AliEpxress for example. Compared to the default FHD screen of the T480, The low power screen cuts the power consumption of the display by about 40%. While also having better contrast and brightness. Biggest power-saving upgrade for the T480.

spauldo 1y ago

Yeah I don't buy that argument either. The amount of e-waste being saved by NetBSD is so tiny as to be insignificant. NetBSD is great for retrocomputing, since it's a modern OS that can run on very limited hardware. It's also a very nice traditional UNIX. It's well documented, has a nice codebase, and is a pleasure to use. But for saving e-waste, Linux has it beat.

wltr 1y ago

Well, look, here is my use case. I have some really old hardware that I used to play with earlier in life, it’s located at the parents’ place. I still use that hardware, but not too often, since I live on my own. I could replace all that, as it consumes a lot of power indeed (comparing to SBCs). But in absolute numbers, they’re just regular computers, so power draw is somewhere at 60–90 Watt/hr, I suppose. Which is not that much, especially given I run the machines half a day once a month. What I learned over the years, you can utilise some servers by not running them 24/7. One server there, I wake it over LAN nightly, copy some backups there, and turn it off again. Very useful. So, I think I’d keep them running for as long as they’re alive.

muyuu 1y ago

most older systems are surprisingly frugal on idle and are typically used sporadically

kev009 1y ago

It probably works as an economic argument. Readers of this site and many in first world countries have limited barriers to buy new equipment and there are low cost options. Elsewhere that may not be true, either the low cost equipment is still beyond reach, or it is simply difficult to import or completely unavailable. It's interesting to observe that a 1990 (386) vs 2000 (Pentium III) computer is a heck of a lot different than a 2015 vs 2025 computer. We're talking about Skylake (2015) which would have no issue as a daily driver for quite a lot of people.

Fnoord 1y ago
It is a logistics issue. People replace perfectly working computers all the time. Sure, if you use Skylake you list performance from Spectre and Meltdown. You may not even be able to run Windows 11 on perfectly working x86-64 machines. But for poor people, power usage may even be more important than for you or me (businesses generally don't care). That Skylake's successors were so terrible is due to Intel and thankfully it allowed AMD and ARM-based SoCs to thrive.

fujigawa 1y ago

You're right, the world is better off having some Asian kid taking apart your junk and breathing in solder fumes with no protection, rather than you running a legacy box in your basement that uses some extra kWh per year. After all, he probably won't live long enough to tell his grandkids stories about power-hungry hardware. That reminds me, my homelab could use a SPARC box just because.

Panino 1y ago

In some cases yes, replacing an old machine with a new one can be an evironmentally responsible choice. But in general that's not the case and one should thoughtfully consider the variables including but not limited to software choice, grid carbon cost (see Electricity Maps below), embodied carbon cost of materials, environmental issues of mining and production not strictly related to climate emissions, and more. Low Tech Magazine wrote an article about this here: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stop... https://app.electricitymaps.com https://app.electricitymaps.com

dlcarrier 1y ago

I get my power off grid through solar generation and battery storage, so I monitor usage pretty closely. In my experience, newer computers have slightly higher idle power consumption, but much less total consumption for a given compute task. On top of that, new computers are more likely to have dedicated hardware to accelerate the latest codecs. If you're using an old computer for ray tracing or neural networks or video transcoding, it's probably using enough power that it's worth upgrading. If you're browsing the Web or watching YouTube videos or running a file server, power consumption is probably similar on old and new computers, but regardless of the age, much higher on desktop computers than laptops. Look at power supplies on vintage computers, and you'll see that they're much, much smaller than on modern computers.

PunchyHamster 1y ago

Also, all of the devices that could run NetBSD can just run Linux

Narishma 1y ago
Not true. For example most Linux distributions have dropped 32-bit x86 and/or ARM support and I think it's only a matter of time before the Linux kernel follows suit.

myaccountonhn 1y ago

Hardware is far more resource intensive. Its better to continue to use old devices.

soapdog 1y ago

Upcycling offloads manufacturing costs. Unless you're running something that consumes a boatload of energy, then it should be cheaper. Also, if you power it from renewables it is even cheaper and more sustainable.