Ada Rose CannonApr 27, 2018
But in all seriousness:
• It was not too long ago when running a browser on under 1GB of RAM was normal.
• Consumer devices are being produced today have less that 1GB of RAM and mobile chips.
• Browser maintainers are doing great work to ensure they work on these devices.
Show threadbhtooefrApr 27, 2018

@ada Another thing is bandwidth use.

In uncivilized countries like the US, there are a surprisingly high number of people on dialup, on <1 Mbit ADSL, on slow/high latency/metered satellite connections, on unreliable/slow WISPs, and on metered cellular connections.

But, many developers (of both web sites and even native stuff nowadays) assume you're on a 50+ Mbit always-on connection.

Show threadbhtooefrApr 27, 2018

@ada Realistically, I'd argue that every developer targeting either the web or targeting desktop Linux should be forced to test their software on a Raspberry Pi 1 B+, 0, or 0 W, with dialup (or with the ethernet interface throttled to dialup speeds).

If your stuff is usable on that, it'll *fly* on actually good hardware and connections. Battery life on modern hardware will be vastly improved. And, your users will probably get whatever they want done much faster.

Show threada fox named EricaApr 28, 2018
@bhtooefr @ada Yes, please this. Because for everyone who has a high end gaming rig, there’s probably 5-10 for who the Pi 0 W would probably be an upgrade from their current setup.
Show threadbhtooefr

@queerhackerwitch @ada I dunno that it'd be that bad, unless you're counting developing nation users on Nokia 1100s - outside of 3D graphics and video decoding, a RPi 0 will perform similarly to an early Pentium III, I believe.

But if you're right, then I need to revise my estimate downward. I'm not sure what to, though - the RPi 1 B+ is the lowest performance widely available desktop-experience computing device I'm aware of, in 2018.

Apr 28, 2018 at 2:15pmWeb