Guy who's trying his best :(Feb 22
I'm still constantly baffled by just how absolutely beyond shit modern computers are
Show threadkabel42Feb 22
@OpenComputeDesign x86 was a mistake? :)
Show threadkabel42Feb 22
@OpenComputeDesign
16 bit was a mistake?
transistors were a mistake?
how modern are we talking? :)
Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 22

@kabel42 @OpenComputeDesign

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.

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 22

@rl_dane @kabel42

Yeah, tbh, we really should have stopped at 32-bit

Show threadkabel42Feb 22
@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane I had a good time with my first amd athlon 64 but sure, simpler times :)
Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 22

@kabel42 @OpenComputeDesign

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)

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 22

@rl_dane @kabel42

Yeah, older GUIs were _so much better_ it's actually impressive just how fast and how hard GUI design has fallen off a cliff

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 22

@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42

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 ?!?!????!?

Show threadpixxFeb 22

@rl_dane

I'd rather w95 with its software suite and interface than w11 with its.

W11 is a worse OS than w95 was.

@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 22

@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

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 22

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Modern software still absolutely _sucks_ with anything to do with memory. Any claims modern OS's make are, at best, just giving people a false sense of security.

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 22

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Brofam, Windows 95 used to crash on me daily.

Linux? Basically never.

FreeBSD? Maaaaybe once a week.

Show threadkabel42Feb 22
@rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign @pixx i had to reinstall win95 about as ofthen as i reboot linux :)
Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 22

@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx

Have to reinstall linux at least once a season :P

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 22

@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx

I have linux installs last me years. Except for Arch-based. :P
Also had bad luck with Solus, but I only tried it once.

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 22

@rl_dane @kabel42 @pixx

Well, the problem is, even if you have an install that lasts a few years, you'll still have to reinstall once the mirrors for your version shut down.

Show threadpixxFeb 22

@OpenComputeDesign

Only with a badly desifned os.

Never had thst problem with gentoo

@rl_dane @kabel42

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 22

@pixx @rl_dane @kabel42

It's fairly intrinsically tied to the dependency hell nature of Unix, though

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

I don't know what you mean by "Dependency Hell."

What OS does a good job of managing dependencies?

If you say Windows, I'mma MSCVRT40.DLL NOT FOUND ya face. XD

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Well, true, all OS's _do_ have dependency hell. But that doesn't make it _ok_

We can and _should_ do better than this. Rather than working as hard as we can to keep it the status quo

Show threadpixx
@OpenComputeDesign
Not all. Just don't use dynamic linking, there's literally no benefit to 99% of users.
@rl_dane @kabel42
Feb 23 at 7:01amWeb
Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42

And keep ancient library cruft and vulnerabilities embedded in every single executable?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

I'm so afraid of getting hacked through things like Imagemagik :P

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

That's a very real attack vector.

If you've never worked in infosec, you may lack the essential professional paranoia. XD

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Well, I actually was interning at a college IT department when reports started comming in that people suddenly couldn't open PDFs and it turned out they were using a font that Adobe deemed a security risk and blacklisted in an update, so everyone had to install none Acrobat readers to recover their documents :P

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Yeesh, Adobe software is an attack vector.

Then again, so is #OpenBSD. all software is an attack vector. It's just a matter of how big of a silhouette you want to give the attacker.

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Yeah, true. But, feel like at some point, you've just gotta pick your battles. And also remember that for every bug fixed, there's probably one introduced as well :P

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Simplicity is always preferable.

It's up to you if that means running Alpine Linux instead of Fedora, or FreeBSD, or OpenBSD, or NetBSD, or QNX, or Plan9, or a Commodore 64. ;)

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Actually, it's up to the websites I need to run :(

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Nah, just have one computer for perusing the crappy modern web, and another for personal enjoyment.

That's how I used OpenBSD until someone got Firefox working well on it in the latest version.

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Problem is, which ever computer runs ebay, my email, and matrix, _has_ to be my main computer :/

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

ebay -> no help there, sorry
matrix -> iamb, gomuks (terminal)
email -> aerc, *mutt, *pine, elm, or if you need OAUTH, claws-mail

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Do those work with gmail and protonmail?

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

claws-mail supposedly works with gmail, but I haven't tried that, myself.

Protonmail requires you to run their own bridge service, and then you can use the IMAP client of your choice, pointed at localhost.

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

iirc you have to pay to use their bridge

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Extra? It's a paid service to begin with, n'est-ce pas?

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

They have a free tier. I'm _way_ too poor to afford any monthly fees. I only make $1,000 a year, in one lump sum, and half that goes to pay off debts

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Ummm, wow, I thought I was broke.

Show threadGuy who's trying his best :(Feb 23

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

I mean, in my case, it doesn't really matter, because room and board are free

Show threadpixxFeb 23

@rl_dane
Myth. This is a solved problem.

Multiple systems have everything needed to do it safely. It's literally just dependency tracking. Oasis Linux does it iirc.

Glibc updates, you walk the rdep graph and relink everything. Relink. Not recompile. It's super fast, too. Most libraries are used by very few applications so it's usually even faster.

The tooling is better for dynamic linking because dl won. Not because dl is better.

@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42

Show threadR.L. Dane    🍵 Feb 23

@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42

Hmm, that's kinda fascinating!