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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

Wow... I still remember recompiling the NetBSD kernel on my Amiga 3000 to tweak the timings on my Retina Z3. Took 14 hours to compile the kernel...

So if processors are now >1500x faster than they were in 1991, why is it that my Amiga 3000 has a faster, more responsive UI?

Why is it that an ssh session takes 8 seconds to establish?

Why is it that browsing a network share is 10x slower than viewing a file list was on a BBS?

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Edit your sshd config and add useDNS: no to it, don't forget to restart the deamon.

Either way, I get your point, I remember programming in Delphi, compiling, chatting on IRC and browsing the net with a 56K Winmodem (all the modulation was software driven) with a Pentium 2 all at the same time, and now I can't even have and IDE and slack open at the same time.

IDE? Slack? "There's your problem right there."

I'm old enough to remember 14k, 28k and 56k modems - and while yh internet held great wonder, waiting for pages to load and files to download was really frustrating.

Oh, and having to hangup so my parents could make a phonecall wasn't fun either!

This at least is something that has got orders of magnitudes better, and is very much noticeable. At times I still shake my head in wonder at being able to download a GB in less than 2 mins on a residential FttC connection.

Something's wrong with your DNS setup, I guess. SSH session takes less than one second to establish for me.

Because not everything is CPU bound.

But all the other bounds have improved massively, too:

- CPUs are multiple orders of magnitude faster

- GPUs are multiple orders of magnitude faster

- RAM is multiple orders of magnitude faster and more abundant

- Disks are multiple orders of magnitude faster and bigger

- Network connections are multiple orders of magnitude faster

Why is it that the end result feels the same?

The answer, of course, is that software complexity has kept pace: software, like a gas, expands until it fills its container.

No, the answer is your ssh configuration. You're hanging on timeouts, either doing DNS resolution or trying multiple auth mechanisms.

Use -vvv to find the hangup.

I wasn't the author of the original comment. SSH ain't a problem for me. I was talking more about system responsiveness in general.

You are getting good replies, but the main answer is... nobody knows (and you aren't alone). There are so many little reasons for slower modern computers, but it seems to come down to increased complexity and, I guess, entropy? It's frustrating.

Regarding your SSH session, have you turned off gssapiauth (assuming you aren't using it)?

See https://coderwall.com/p/fukoew/speed-up-ssh-logon-by-disabli... for some details.

Sounds like you have a slow network and are using protocols optimized for high throughput on LAN connections.

How many -b bits did you specify for ssh-keygen?

And today’s software is more than 1500x the size.

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