Bad Opinion GuyI'm still constantly baffled by just how absolutely beyond shit modern computers are
kabel42@kabel42 Well, probably all of computing was a mistake. But the last five to ten years or so have been near suicide inducingly bad. Everyone currently working in tech should be _deeply_ ashamed.
R.L. Dane 
🍵 
16-bit/early-32-bit was my favorite era. (Basically, the #68k era ;)
Computers were just becoming capable, but not too big for their britches.
Computers should have been magically capped at 1GB RAM.
That would've been utopian.
(What do you mean, "'utopic' isn't a word?!?" It should absolutely be a word!)
@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane I had a good time with my first amd athlon 64 but sure, simpler times :)
I think computers were honestly better when they were limited to absolutely no more than 1GB RAM, no more than 256 colors, and no more than 1024x768 screen resolution.
1GB RAM: no LLMs
256 colors: no horrid low-contrast soupy interfaces
XGA Resolution: no horrid empty spaces and bloated interfaces
I keep wanting to make that as an OS 😄
(If only I had the skillz)
Yeah, and the pushback I get from statements like that is insane to me.
"But we don't want to go back to Windows 95."
I don't either, it was a crap OS, but the interface was better than the crap interfaces they're shipping today, so ?!?!????!?
pixxI'd rather w95 with its software suite and interface than w11 with its.
W11 is a worse OS than w95 was.
@pixx @rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign
Your mouse was moved do you want to reboot and update the cursor position?
Your mouse was moved do you want to reboot and update the cursor position?
As someone who just had to reboot twice this morning because Linux stopped recognizing the mouse, and who has an OpenBSD computer that has to be booted up with no mouse connected and connect the mouse post boot to get OpenBSD to recognize it, you're clearly still talking about modern software :P
Ethan Black@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx @rl_dane On my Haiku Dell #D630 I have to hold down left-click on the touchpad at the correct time during boot in order for the trackpoint (the trackpoint, not the touchpad) to work.
@golemwire @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx
lol, this is basically opening up a new category of behavior I'd like to call "computer tai-chi" XD
@rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx Don't ask how I figured that out 😂 [I don't remember lul]
Štěpán 💤@golemwire I don't know what to ask first, whether how does this happen, or how the hell did you figure out that solution 
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx @rl_dane
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx @rl_dane@stepan @golemwire @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx
Lol, that's why I call it computer tai-chi. ;)
Because it's not only so intricate, but you have to wonder how someone would even stumble upon that kind of solution. ;)
@rl_dane @stepan @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx OK so what happened is that my trackpoint wasn't working; when I checked the syslog, I saw something about 'ALPS header misaligned' or so.
With enough familiarity with binary data, one can guess what this means... somehow the stream gets misaligned (lots of binary streams come in repeating units with a header with a byte length; if the stream gets misaligned, it can be hard to become aligned again.) [1/2]
With enough familiarity with binary data, one can guess what this means... somehow the stream gets misaligned (lots of binary streams come in repeating units with a header with a byte length; if the stream gets misaligned, it can be hard to become aligned again.) [1/2]
@rl_dane @stepan @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx
If you think about it, you might come to this solution. Because if you can change the data stream near the beginning, you might be able to prevent the misalignment. And if all goes well, each byte length will always be a relative pointer to the next byte length value.
Yes, it took lots of tries to find this. I can get stupidly determined; it pays off sometimes :)
Would you like to know what else I have to do to keep it running correct? 😂
[2/2]
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx
tedu's alt account located. XD
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx
The dude who yeeted BT from the #OpenBSD kernel. ;)
https://undeadly.org/features/2015/10/beastie_pl_interviews/ted-unangst.html
@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42
It does have memory protection, though. That was Windows 95's most glaring weakness.
Edit: I meant to say that it doesn't. derp.
Edit2: No, I was saying that W11 has memory protection. lol
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42
Brofam, Windows 95 used to crash on me daily.
Linux? Basically never.
FreeBSD? Maaaaybe once a week.
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42
Maaaaybe it's your hardware? RAM?
Most linux crashes I've seen have been hardware faults.
We really need ECC to be mandatory. Real ecc, not the fake shit ddr5 uses.
@pixx @rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign and sane hardware vendors, if the eeprom in the ram chip says x MHz, don't overclock to x*1.5 MHZ as default...
@kabel42
Ehh the overclocking is often safe and tested.
...breaks cpu warranty though iirc.
@pixx @rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign not if you overclock that much, when i build my current pc memtest threw the first errors after 5 minues
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42
Because of course you have 32GiB+ of RAM like all the devs and their corporate sugar daddies do.
@OpenComputeDesign
That's a fair point, though imo swapping on linux is, kinda a bad idea tbh.
@rl_dane @kabel42
That's a fair point, though imo swapping on linux is, kinda a bad idea tbh.
@rl_dane @kabel42
Bitslingers-R-Us@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane @pixx @kabel42 Is it the OS that crashes, or applications running on the OS?
Are the crashes related to video output?
The OS should never crash. If it does, you most likely have defective hardware, or you’re finding issues with your video hardware support.
@AnachronistJohn @OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42
I kinda wish computers had an OS-level reset button that was supported directly by the kernel.
You flip open a protective door, hit the button, and the kernel takes over immediately, unmounting everything and rebooting.
That would definitively answer your question.
I know Linux has the magic sysrq key combos. I used to know how to use them a few years ago when troubleshooting these kinds of bugs, but I haven't had to in a while.
I don't know if #FreeBSD has an equivalent.
@rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 hw.cnmagic, perhaps?
The idea of a set of shortcuts in the kernel debugger is a neat one.
@AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane
If a program crashes, 95% chance the OS crashes with it. Preemptetive/memory protected is a flat out lie.
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane uhhhhh no. just, no.
I have programs crash semifrequently and have had maaaaaybe two OS crashes on linux in the last five years
one of which was due to the hard drive failing
@pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
Admittedly most crashes are from come from running out of RAM/modern computers sucking at handling Swap latency. But even when programs properly crash without running out of RAM, even if the system doesn't _technically_ go out with it (which it often still does), there's still rarely any chance of recovering the system without (if you're lucky) a reboot or (more likely) a hard reset. Even xkill doesn't help all that much a lot of the time
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane You might have hardware problems, then.
I’m compiling perl on a system with 24 megs of memory, so the system is basically entirely in swap. If that can run like that for a week or two and be fully fine afterwards, then the VM system is doing what it should.
I can’t speak for Linux - it’s becoming the Windows of the open source world - but I also thrash the heck out of memory and swap on modern high memory systems, too, without issues.
@AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane
I used to be able to live out of swap both on Linux and the BSDs. But these days, neither Linux nor the BSDs like touching swap _at all_. Linux is still much worse about it. But on every computer I have, touching swap is like running through a minefield blindfolded.
It's way too widespread of a problem to be a hardware issue
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane Let’s reproduce it so it can be reported.
I have an amd64 system here running NetBSD. I can force the memory down from 32 gigs to whatever I want with a kernel config change.
Can you come up with a recipe for software to install and run, and perhaps sites to visit and do things, that you’re pretty sure will result in a non-responsive system?
@AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane
Yeah, if I load up firefox, log into all my chats and emails, and play a couple youtube videos, that's easily enough to use up all my RAM, dip into Swap space, and cause the system to start freezing and hitching, and eventually become completely unresponsive.
But erm, I'm guessing you meant that _other people_ could use to reproduce my issue. So uhm, let me find some sites that don't require other people to log into all my stuff...
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
...how much ram did you say you have? That's kinda ridiculous unless you have a _lot_ more chats than I think you do O_o
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
> used to live out of swap
...it's possible that the drives are getting worn, if you were using the swap that regularly?
@pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
No, because I get new computers and drives with some frequency
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
I've definitely noticed Linux is less.. well. It's _less_ than it used to be, but what you're talking about seems an order of magnitude worse than anything I've ever seen with it :(
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42
I remember when systems would aggressively load infrequently accessed regions of RAM into swap to have more room for cache.
Maybe they still do, I don't know. I don't think I have any swap. XD
No wait, I do have a little:
rld@Intrepid:~$ free
total used free
Mem: 7.61 Gi 2.28 Gi 5.32 Gi
Swap: 10 Gi 304 Mi 9.7 Gi
rld@Intrepid:~$ uname -srm
FreeBSD 14.3-RELEASE-p5 amd64
rld@Intrepid:~$