@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.

@rl_dane @pixx @kabel42

Linux and NetBSD both crash on me daily :P

@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

@pixx @AnachronistJohn @kabel42 @rl_dane

weird :o

@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.

@kabel42 @rl_dane @pixx @AnachronistJohn

Too be fair, wayland is also absolute _crap_ :P

@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 @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

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

@kabel42 @rl_dane @AnachronistJohn

@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