Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dijit | Hacker News Reader

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> Technically Gentoo is also in the running, but can you imagine trying to compile all your packages from scratch on a system that benchmarks worse than a raspberry pi 3?

Uh, I actually did this, it wasn't so bad honestly it just took about a day to rebuild everything.

Honestly the Sony VAIO that I had was _awesome_ in some regards, the hi resolution display was extremely crisp! It fit comfortably in my inside jacket pocket, the battery didn't suck.

The only issue I had honestly was the proprietary connector to get ethernet (though this was more annoying in 2012 when I was doing this, these days laptops don't seem to have ethernet); the only other issue was that the GPU was extremely slow with Linux.

it was probably extremely slow in Windows too, but vista (which was installed on the thing) was far-far too heavy to understand why it was slow at all.

The nearest best laptop I've found that is in all areas superior than the Sony VAIO P-Series (aside from being a bit taller) is the GPD P2 Max which is basically perfect.... if only it had a passively cooled ARM CPU.

https://gpd.hk/gpdp2max2022

Compiling your own software is a really humbling experience. When it takes way more time to compile a browser than a full fledged OS or you find out that seemingly simple programs need to pull a mind boggling amount of dependencies you really start to question the state of the software world

I think the main reason browsers are so extremely slow to compile is the heavy templating.

But, I agree, I can compile my entire OS including user-space software and desktop environments in about the same time it takes to compile chrome.

Which is scary.

But then again, people want it to do everything (WebUSB, WebGL etc; etc; etc;). So it stands to reason that it's inherently complicated and difficult to compile.

I wonder if the high iteration time hampers development...

> I wonder if the high iteration time hampers development...

You might be interested in this post from someone on the Edge team at Microsoft:

https://textslashplain.com/2020/02/02/my-new-chromium-build-...

In particular:

> I returned to Microsoft as a Program Manager on the Edge team in mid-2018, unaware that replatforming atop Chromium was even a possibility until the day before I started. Just before I began, a lead sent me a 27 page PDF file containing the Edge-on-Chromium proposal. “What do you think?” he asked. I had a lot of thoughts (most of the form “OMG, yes!“) but one thing I told everyone who would listen is that we would never be able to keep up without having a cloud-compilation system akin to Goma.

> ...that seemingly simple programs need to pull a mind boggling amount of dependencies you really start to question the state of the software world

Recent jawdrop: 'apt-get install asciidoc' on a pi needs to pull 189 packages, will use 889Mb of additional disk space.

Maybe you already know, but in case not or someone else needs this: try with --no-install-recommends, it skips a lot of bs.

I don't recall exactly what it was, but I remember installing something like a tiny library and it wanted to also install mysql-server or something like that >_<

is good advice for any system not operated by a novice

  echo "APT { Install-Recommends \"false\"; }" >/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/90norecommendsthxby

Why is that not good advice for a novice too? I do this by reflex every time I install Debian or Ubuntu, and to my experience it did not create a situation that needed "expertise in apt".

due to depends on latex and friends.

Gentoo was fun, too bad I don’t have time for it anymore. I used to go for nice walks when Firefox was compiling. Great opportunity to go outside and take a break.

USE flags in Gentoo also allows for a much more configurable system.

I use a GPD Micro PC throttled to 6 watts TDP, which means the fan can stay off permanently. It fits in a jeans back pocket, and has an ethernet port. And a serial port. And a full size HDMI port. And three full size USB ports, and a USB-C port.

I wouldn't trade it for much...

Well you'd trade it for around $600. That's what it costs, new.

AKSHUALLY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect

(but also, what I meant was there are few extant devices I would prefer to be using, even if price were no object. It's nearly perfect.)

Details please, which? Or is there a whole range of options?

This: https://gpd.hk/gpdmicropc

>>> imagine trying to compile all your packages from scratch on a system

used to be the norm back in the unix days. finding exact pre-compiled binaries for your exact arch/OS combo was like finding a pot 'o gold ;)

am also amazed at how well gba emulators run on older devices!

You just reminded me of this site I used to use for Sparc/Solaris binaries:

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/packages/solaris/sparc/

I’m sure it’s been 15 years since I’ve even thought about it.

I also did this (around ~2008), a friend of mine and I built near identical Atom boxes with first gen (Diamondville) 64bit atoms on Intel motherboards running 865 chipsets IIRC. The GPU/Chipset was louder than the CPU because the CPU was completely passive. I did emerge Xorg on that... it took I think a day and a half(ish) even optimizing the heck out of compile options to use everything march=native... it was slow as heck. But it lasted me for years as a little project box until I replaced it with an 4th gen i5.

You really do start to ask yourself if you need a package if compiling it will take a day or two. Hence OpenOffice never got installed.

> GPD P2 Max

Save for the processor being better than any VAIO's, I disagree. I find all of these to be absurdly unreliable (crappy firmware) and very cheap hardware for the price, not comparable at all to the typing experience on the P-Series. And the "trackpoint substitute" is a disaster, resembling a "tiny touchpad" more than a trackpoint.

Hrm, interesting.. I disagree with your opinion about the hardware quality, it feels sturdy and keys travel quite nicely. The screen is fantastic in color reproduction (for my needs), has high resolution and gets bright enough.

There’s no trackpoint/nipple and I hadn’t considered that a problem as I’m weird and spent a lot of time getting used to only using the keyboard some years ago- so an oversight on my end and you’re completely right, the touchpad sucks.

The firmware is extremely bare bones, but I wouldn’t say it sucks since I don’t have any reason to believe it’s bad. (Nor good, it just works for me.)

I think you are mistaking the GPD Pocket 2 Max with the non Max version. The Max version has a real touchpad while the GPD Pocket 2 has that tiny thing on the upper right.

I have the GPD Pocket 2 and while the trackpoint thing is not the most precise you get used to it and I have no complaint to do regarding the hardware. It just works.

At one point in college, I was using an old Thinkpad x41 tablet and wanted to mess around with gnuradio. I wanted it on my tablet laptop since I had that on me most hours of the day. Compiling gnuradio took several hours. I was running arch so I want unfamiliar with compile times for things I grabbed from the AUR but it was atrocious. I started it in my first class of the day and would just throw my laptop in my bag while it was still compiling and walk quickly to my next class so I could grab a power outlet before Pentium M sucked up all the battery.

I did Gentoo on a 600mhz Athlon. It was certainly a humbling and informative experience.

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