Mastodawn

Am I misremembering, have I just been more patient back then? I don't remember old hardware with old software being this slow and would unironically like to know what makes a modern application on a modern Linux so much slower than their old counterparts from the past.

Installed a current LMDE with Firefox and LibreOffice on a ca. 15 yr old laptop with a P6100 CPU, 4GB RAM and a traditional spinning HDD. It's working, but obviously it's very slow.

Obviously? What did we add in the past 15 yrs? Genuinely want to know.

It's not just the modern websites that ask for more resources. I'm talking about the system before ever visiting a single website.

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Marcus Rohrmoser 🌻Dec 22

Hi @hzulla,
that's #Wirth's law: "#Software becomes slower faster than #Hardware faster." https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Articles/LeanSoftware.pdf

So, law of nature, inevitable :-)

Seriously that's IMO a consequence of growth (money as debt). Corporations are expected to spend money and make surplus. People want promotions and bonuses. So stuff gets added. Removal is rare and dangerous and makes few friends. Just a bunch of #permacomputing misfits. You won't run a business for them. I delivered a 5-min talk at #36c3 https://marcus.rohrmoser.name/talks/#:~:text=sustain

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Hanno Zulla Dec 22

@mro Not fully convinced that this is the primary explanation. I'm talking about a Linux operating system stack with Linux applications like Firefox and Libre Office on top of it. There are less corporate interests involved here than there obviously are for a Windows/Office combination.

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Marcus Rohrmoser 🌻

Hi @hzulla,
take Wirth's words first, not mine.

The whole IT (#FOSS included) is dominated by #corporate #culture (look at youtube, github, paypal reliance, even at congress).
The #permacomputing / #forth bubble (e.g. #uxn) is different but near invisible. Like rodents to dinosaurs.

P.S.: e.g. #Firefox has a lot of google money in it. Libreoffice competes with and mimics #MS office and it's Xerox/PARC precursors. #Linux (you don't think https://AlpineLinux.org, do you?) has IBM's systemd, the author today being on MS payroll.

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