@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.

@rl_dane @kabel42

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

@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)

@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

@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 ?!?!????!?

@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

@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

@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.

@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42

Brofam, Windows 95 used to crash on me daily.

Linux? Basically never.

FreeBSD? Maaaaybe once a week.

@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx

Have to reinstall linux at least once a season :P

@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.

@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.

@OpenComputeDesign

Only with a badly desifned os.

Never had thst problem with gentoo

@rl_dane @kabel42

@pixx @rl_dane @kabel42

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

@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

@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

@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @kabel42

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

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

@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