[HN Gopher] The Lone Coder
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The Lone Coder
Author : weare138
Score : 96 points
Date : 2021-04-18 07:38 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (midrange.tedium.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (midrange.tedium.co)
| tux wrote:
| Said to see old project folding. Many people still use older
| hardware.
| justinsaccount wrote:
| Nothing is stopping those people from running linux on the
| older hardware and using modern software.
|
| Personally I don't understand why people spend any amount of
| energy supporting abandoned proprietary closed source
| platforms.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| The user-entitlement reminds me of the recent _Thanks for the
| Bonus, I Quit_ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26847780
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Dug the 68k.news link in the post: http://68k.news
|
| Now _that_ takes me back to an early web. I kinda like it. I got
| more content from scanning one screens-worth of that page than
| the actual Google news.
| thitcanh wrote:
| In a honest non-secure version, just like in the old times.
| leonroy wrote:
| > my G5 has not been my daily driver for a good couple years; my
| daily driver is the Raptor Talos II
|
| So I looked up the Raptor Talos II. It's a $7k (starting price)
| workstation running IBM Power9 RISC based CPUs which are
| typically used in super computers.
|
| OOC why would someone want to use such a niche architecture for
| their primary workstation vs say an AMD Epyc or Intel equivalent?
| wott wrote:
| > So I looked up the Raptor Talos II. It's a $7k (starting
| price)
|
| There are cheaper models, "down" to $4k, probably around $3k if
| you build it yourself; that's still expensive of course, but
| less :-)
|
| (I wasn't able to read the linked article, so perhaps he indeed
| describes the version matching the price you quote, I don't
| know.)
| avhception wrote:
| He's got multiple power9 systems, he regularly blogs about it
| at https://www.talospace.com/
| bombcar wrote:
| The G5 was a PowerPC chip - if you continue to want PowerPC
| architecture the Raptor Talos II makes sense.
|
| Clearly this is hobbiest for him in at lease some ways.
| hlandau wrote:
| The primary appeal of Raptor's products is that the firmware is
| completely open source. Compare this with x86, where all modern
| Intel and AMD systems rely on vendor-signed firmware blobs as
| an intrinsic part of the boot process.
|
| POWER9 has some deployment in supercomputer clusters but its
| primary use is in IBM servers, basically the modern descendant
| of IBM minicomputers. These are purchased by businesses that
| want to run IBM i or AIX (or Linux).
| dehrmann wrote:
| Are there any laptops this open?
| angrais wrote:
| Why does the fact it being open source impact a product
| decision? Especially when that likely doesn't matter in
| practice, e.g., I doubt owners of the device are contributing
| to the source frequently, if ever.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| The more open source hardware we have the more innovation
| we can expect if the open source softens movement is any
| indicator.
|
| Financially supporting a nascent open source hardware
| movement seems like a good thing.
| hlandau wrote:
| This relates to a preference for owner-controlled computing
| (as opposed to vendor-controlled hardware). See:
|
| https://libreboot.org/ https://coreboot.org/
| https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
| [deleted]
| avhception wrote:
| I've got a TalosII sitting under my desk, not the 7k$ BTO
| version but just the mainboard and 2 of the smallest CPUs. I
| stuffed it into a PC chassis pretty much how you would build
| your average x86 desktop system.
|
| Supporting owner-controlled computing was one point, but I also
| really like toying around with exotic systems, especially if
| they've got UNIX heritage :)
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > On top of all of this Kaiser, a medical doctor and infectious
| diseases expert, has had an immeasurably difficult job over the
| last year as the public health officer for an entire county
| during a pandemic, a position he was recently removed from after
| gaining a reputation of being ahead of the curve on things like
| requiring mask-wearing.
|
| Some people accomplishes so much, they are a hard example to
| follow.
| [deleted]
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I've noticed a lot of doctors have a Lot of hobbies, and other
| business adventures.
|
| That's all I'll say before I get in trouble.
| illys wrote:
| No reason for trouble: I notice it too. They certainly need
| some kind of way to get their minds away from injured people,
| sick children, parents with cancer, dying elderly people,
| devastated relatives... Keeping sanity requires some other
| occupations.
| latte wrote:
| The website is down right now, here's the archive link if anyone
| is interested:
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20210418161124/https://midrange.t...
| karmakaze wrote:
| Not a TL;DR but if you prefer to read comments skipping the
| article, here are some juicy bits about supporting a web browser
| supporting a "fork of Mozilla Firefox for the Power Macintosh and
| Mac OS X Tiger PowerPC".
|
| > If you aren't paying for the software, then please don't be a
| jerk. There is a human at the other end of those complaints and
| unless you have a support contract, that person owes you exactly
| nothing. Whining is exhausting to read and "doesn't work" reports
| are unavoidably depressing, disparaging or jokey comments are
| unkind, and making reports nastier or more insistent doesn't make
| your request more important. This is true whether or not your
| request is reasonable or achievable, but it's certainly more so
| when it isn't.
|
| > As kindly as I can put it, not all bug reports are welcome.
|
| > And that puts undue pressure on the one guy who is pushing this
| specific platform forward on what is arguably its most important
| tool. (On top of all of this Kaiser, a medical doctor and
| infectious diseases expert, [...] during a pandemic, [...] who
| briefly hinted at this in his TenFourFox post, literally was the
| person who called off Coachella this year.)
|
| So in addition to maintaining a fork of Firefox he averts an
| explosion of COVID-19 cases from Coachella in his day job.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think it goes beyond "free" software and should be a rule of
| thumb for any bug reports - be polite, be descriptive, be
| appreciative and don't expect anything. It's rare software
| where the "customer" whether paying or not has much influence
| on getting something fixed - your best bet is almost always
| going to be following the list above.
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(page generated 2021-04-18 23:02 UTC)