Bad Opinion GuyI'm still constantly baffled by just how absolutely beyond shit modern computers are
kabel42
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.
@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 @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.
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 @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
@pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
4GB RAM, 4GB Swap space. I have mastodon, matrix, gmail/gchat, protonmail (actually, usually close protonmail so I can have more youtube), and youtube is pretty much all I ever have open on this computer. I only ever have a web browser open, no other programs except terminals, and I reboot twice a day
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
...I know firefox sucks but 4G for that is a bit insane imo
@pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
Well, it runs fine on first boot. But after a while (A few hours, less if I'm doing research and opening extra tabs), all the webapps have leaked enough memory for it to really slow down.
Just as an experiment, I've opened some extra tabs to accelerate the usage (I'm on a fairly fresh reboot) and just 600mb of Swap used is enough for the system to lag really hard when switching windows
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
huh
Well I just ran out of RAM on Linux twice, _without swap_, and system recovered fine. Was responsive enough for me to go kill the system update (which was using all RAM to compile, uh, vscodium, i think. used that one fucking time lol.)
This tab in firefox got killed, as did steamwebhelper and several other FF tabs, but the system is just, fine
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
I wonder if swap makes it _worse_ lol
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
TBH I want to see a memory usage breakdown of your system when this happens, I think that's what you'd really need to know what's going on :/
Firefox shouldn't generally be leaking memory. I've left 100 tabs open for weeks and memory usage never just randomly goes up
@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
Firefox is good about suspending inactive tabs to save RAM.
@rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
agreed, other than the part where you started by saying "firefox is good" /snark
@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
I think that Firefox is objectively, ethically the least bad among any modern web browsers that can load a page like youtube or amazon.
Horrible bar to pass under, of course, but it is what it is.
@rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
sure, it's still shit software thuogh
I'm not even talking ethics, just as a pure matter of code
it's bad code
@pixx @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
Bad ethics, bad code, still better in both respects to Chrome imo :P
Still don't like it, though
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
I'm not so sure that Firefox is better code than Chromium. But definitely more ethical. Or at least, up until a couple years ago.
@rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42
I dunno, chromium based browsers have always been buggy as _fuck_ in my experience. Yes, even worse than firefox.
@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
when I use chromium it it usually is pretty ok except for roll20 that somehow manages to crash the waylands session
when I use chromium it it usually is pretty ok except for roll20 that somehow manages to crash the waylands session
@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Too be fair, wayland is also absolute _crap_ :P
@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Yes and an app crashing the whole session is defenetly a wayland problem
Yes and an app crashing the whole session is defenetly a wayland problem
@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Hey, as we've all been told, on a preemptive multitasking system, it is _impossible_ for one crashed app to effect the rest of the system. So you must just be imagining things, anyway :P
@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
No, preemption isn't memory protection and every thing that communicates can fuck up handling it's input buffers
No, preemption isn't memory protection and every thing that communicates can fuck up handling it's input buffers
@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Does wayland not use memory protection?
@OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Linux has memory protection, not sure if wayland is adding anything?
But Wayland still has to parse data that is send to it to then render.
Could also be a problem with amdgpu not being grat yet, it does sometimes spam dmesg
Linux has memory protection, not sure if wayland is adding anything?
But Wayland still has to parse data that is send to it to then render.
Could also be a problem with amdgpu not being grat yet, it does sometimes spam dmesg
@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Did not everyone get the memo about sanitizing inputs?
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Well, yes, but the memo was html with css, which then crashed the html viewer plugin of the email program I was using, and... and... and... and... and... XD
@kabel42
Amdgpu is far from perfect, and I've had it crash my wayland sessions a few times, but never the kernel, and it always recovers (as of recently anyways. It used to be a lot worse.)
@pixx @kabel42 @OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane …and to be fair, if Wayland, or any other GUI program, for that matter, dies in such a way that the only sensible way to get the system back in to a running state is to
ssh in and reboot, that’s a pretty big shortcoming and bug or set of bugs.@pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn
Well, I generally find that wayland crashes wayland
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx @AnachronistJohn
But we're not talking about the kernel crashing, we're talking about the Wayland session crashing.
So, a bad web "app" does something wonky with the browser, the browser does something wonky with its parent process (desktop or compositor), the wayland session goes belly-up and all of its children go *POOF*.
NOTHING has happened to the kernel, or anything not a child of the wayland session.
This is a wayland problem, not a kernel problem. It's not even a preemption or memory protection problem.
@rl_dane @kabel42 @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Well, the end result is still the same of an unstable system :P
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @pixx @AnachronistJohn
Yes, but not an unstable kernel. It's an important distinction to make, since we're speaking in the context of kernels and schedulers.
Exactly. It's still bad, but it's a "freedesktop.org is shit" problem, not a "linux is shit" one
There's plenty of both lmao
@kabel42
Yeah preemption only prevents cpu hogging. Memory protection is orthogonal
@kabel42 @OpenComputeDesign @pixx @AnachronistJohn
> No, preemption isn't memory protection and every thing that communicates can fuck up handling it's input buffers
* Windows 95 has entered the chat
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx That’s a bit disingenuous.
Obviously, on a Sinclair QL or an Amiga, a rogue program can take down the whole system.
On Windows, with tons of design issues and decades of bad decision history, a rogue program can take down the whole system.
With Linux and the BSDs, this shouldn’t happen, but it’s possible, and most often it happens when trusting stuff like video hardware to do its thing where the rest of the OS has not as much control over things as it does with the rest of the computer.
With Linux and the BSDs, if you can reliably crash the whole computer using a userland program, that’s a big bug and should be reported.
On the other hand, sometimes it feels good to vent, and if that’s the purpose of what you’re saying, that’s fine, but understand that your generalizations aren’t correct.
@AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane
*Thinks back to the tech support I've given family as they've switched to Linux, and my own experience with it over the past ten years*
No, it's deffinitely a fair generalization
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane It’s a non-technical generalization.
If you don’t even know whether the whole OS has locked up / become unavailable or if it’s just the window manager / a GUI program, then can you really say that the OS has locked up?
@AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane
The metric I generally use for whether or not the system has locked up is if pressing ctrl+alt+f2 changes anything, or if pressing any of the lock keys and waiting a few minutes for a light change. If neither of these do anything, the system is probably locked up. Or at least, it's totally unrecoverable
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @pixx @kabel42
Lol trying to switch virtual consoles in wayland on freebsd kills the UI XD
@AnachronistJohn @OpenComputeDesign @pixx @rl_dane
I think since the NT days a lot of windows bluescreens were bad drivers. Not sure if thats 10% or 70%
I think since the NT days a lot of windows bluescreens were bad drivers. Not sure if thats 10% or 70%
@kabel42 @AnachronistJohn @pixx @rl_dane
Ok too be fair drivers are literally the worst thing ever and it would genuinely be better for everyone if we just standardized hardware so drivers could be abolished completely
@OpenComputeDesign @AnachronistJohn @pixx @rl_dane no drivers is gonna suck, but something more modern than vesa would be great
@kabel42 @AnachronistJohn @pixx @rl_dane
What possible downsides could there be to no drivers?
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @AnachronistJohn @pixx
YAAASSSS FAM
100% this
If you have a reliable repro for crashing the whole system on any system I'm aware of it'll be treated as a top priority bug by literally everyone.
If you could demonstrate this on any bsd or linux or plan9, people *will* pay attention qnd look into it, and not just us in the thread
*because* it's supposed to be impossible
@pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane
idk I've tried quite a few times to get issues resolved. Got pretty sick of it tbh.
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane It’s particularly frustrating in the Linux world where it’s unclear whether to send bug reports to the kernel people, to the distro people, to the Wayland people, and/or to the browser people.
@OpenComputeDesign @kabel42 @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn
wayland crashing is not the same as the OS crashing though lol
Memory protected systems cannot have, say, a bug in _grep_ bring down the OS
A bug _in wayland_ bringing down _the wayland session_ is not the same as a bug in one wayland session bringing down a _seocnd_ wayland session on another TTY for instance :P
@pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn
Well, in this case, if a program crashing crashes wayland, and especially as wayland is becoming the defacto standard, then from an end user perspective, they might as well be using a cooperative multitasking system, because they're getting no stability benefit from preemption
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn
But there is a difference between some bugs making you system unusable and all bugs doing that
But there is a difference between some bugs making you system unusable and all bugs doing that
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 @AnachronistJohn
Yes. Pity nobody cares about desktop users.
@rl_dane @OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 The more I try to use modern GUIs on open source OSes, the more I just want to use a fast Amiga.
Heck - a modest Amiga is less frustrating.
No, they're getting a benefit from preemption.
That's like saying we shouldn't bother with passwords with code in C since there's no memory safety
It's completely unrelated
@pixx @kabel42 @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn
I would say it's the opposite. If you don't have passwords, there's no point having memory protection. And if userland crashes, doesn't really matter if the kernal is still running, despite being unreachable
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn depends how userland crashes, when wayland crashes for me, i'm back on a login screen which is at least slightly faster than rebooting
@OpenComputeDesign @pixx @kabel42 @AnachronistJohn
> If you don't have passwords, there's no point having memory protection.
No. These two are not related. Memory protection is just as much about stability as "security."
@pixx @OpenComputeDesign @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn
Well, its very specifically roll20.net in chromium with amdgpu throwing up in dmesg.
Doesn't happen on other websites or in firefox or with a nvidia 970 and binary blob drivers
Well, its very specifically roll20.net in chromium with amdgpu throwing up in dmesg.
Doesn't happen on other websites or in firefox or with a nvidia 970 and binary blob drivers