lti wrote on 2026-01-31, 02:40:

The problem for most of us is the cost of a basic (for modern software bloat) 16GB of RAM. People with more modest needs are more likely to have a smaller budget at the same time, so RAM prices are going to hit them harder.

For modest needs the small budget person will currently pick up 8 GB of DDR4 or 16 GB of DDR3 for less than 30 euros second hand. For double that they get double the RAM.

I'm so happy I updated my Cyrix 486 to 64MB RAM last summer. Future proofing ahead of time is definitely worth it.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-01-28, 15:08:

Few people would admit this but the reason these things don't happen to the Linux kernel is because there is a tyrannical quasi-autistic Finnish guy obsessively making sure it stays up to his standards. I don't think Microsoft has anything equivalent anywhere down the chain of command where the Windows codebase is concerned.

🤣!

Wasn't Linux criticized at some point for being a bunch of cheap hacks that just happen to work?

UCyborg wrote on 2026-01-31, 14:17:

keenmaster486 wrote on 2026-01-28, 15:08:

Few people would admit this but the reason these things don't happen to the Linux kernel is because there is a tyrannical quasi-autistic Finnish guy obsessively making sure it stays up to his standards. I don't think Microsoft has anything equivalent anywhere down the chain of command where the Windows codebase is concerned.

🤣!

Wasn't Linux criticized at some point for being a bunch of cheap hacks that just happen to work?

Well it was like that, then he let the reins looser and it's been a rodeo for backward compatibility for the last 7 years.... and linux forums can't get it through their thick heads that just because a problem was discussed at length 2 years ago, and had an easy solution, that that solution was invalidated about 2 months later, so YES I am asking this question again. It will continue to be a question with something that gets broken every damn release.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-30, 19:41:

It's a trap. […]
Show full quote

vvbee wrote on 2026-01-30, 17:17:

So list your own uses for the hardware and we can compare.

It's a trap.

Joke aside I can already tell you are in the AI bro camp, likely a vibe coder or slop creator pretending the LLM is real AI.

All AI is thus far is a hardware whore sucking up vast quantities of hardware, power and money with zero ROI.

It's interesting that vvbee is the only AI bro I've seen that doesn't try to tell us that LLM outputs are 100% accurate and should never be questioned. On the other hand, they're saying the rest of the bullshit, like recommending 8GB of RAM immediately after I said that software has bloated to the point where 16GB is the minimum for simple web browsing. My parents' computers both have 8GB of RAM (a laptop running Windows 11 and a desktop running Lubuntu 24.04), and they both run out of RAM and hit virtual memory (with at least Firefox freezing and sometimes the full system) with nothing open except Firefox with only one tab.

Your parents struggle to browse the web because a $30-60 RAM upgrade would hit them hard, yet you have 64 GB of RAM in your personal computer just because you could and you work in tech running 'serious simulations'. The priorities aren't adding up here.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-01-31, 14:17:

Wasn't Linux criticized at some point for being a bunch of cheap hacks that just happen to work?

That must be why it's so unstable and isn't widely used in high reliability environments.

Both Windows and Linux suuuuuuuck.

AmigaOS laughs at both of them. 😁

I must have come across what Theo de Raadt supposedly said over 2 decades ago (didn't know until now the quote is that old).

https://www.forbes.com/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-u … l_0616theo.html

Well, my previous smartphone, when it ran Android 4.4, in months before replacing the OS with newer Android 7 based LineageOS, FSCK would always find errors on /data partition. Couple of months ago, when I had to use the reset button after Pale Moon hung and somehow rendered everything unresponsive, KUbuntu's partition was rendered unbootable and had to run FSCK from live USB. Every once in a while, my car's infotainment would hang and reboot. It runs Linux beneath.

So I've seen enough to have my doubts about Linux being a savior, although it's a question how much the kernel is at fault.

I also wonder, is Git really that good or is it popular just because Linus came up with it? Though AFAIK, those old versions before another developer took over were horrible and difficult to use.

The whole Internet pretty much runs on Linux, so I don't think the robustness of the kernel is into question. Maybe if some of the old Unix variants had gone with a smarter business model without the ridiculous costs and vendor lock-in bullshit they could have prevailed, but that wasn't the case. And I would never trust anything Windows on a critical server.

Linux on consumer desktops/laptops is a different scenario though, it's nice that there are so many distros to choose from, but I think it's difficult for many non-technical users when you have a gazillion options and switching between one and the other requires you to learn slightly different things to do basic stuff. The lack of support for certain Windows-specific software is also a big deal, but I think stuff like Wine/Proton have really gotten things to a point where it's not longer a show stopper.

UCyborg wrote on 2026-01-31, 18:44:

I also wonder, is Git really that good or is it popular just because Linus came up with it? Though AFAIK, those old versions before another developer took over were horrible and difficult to use.

Git is good because it addressed the weaknesses of the previous de-facto version control systems (such as Subversion, and CVS before it). It makes easier to keep things under control when you have different teams working in parallel on different initiatives of the same codebase. Anyone who experienced big merges with lots of conflicts during the SVN/CVS days can probably tell you it wasn't fun to deal with.

I don't have a grudge with Git, just the sceptic in me wonders. My workplace still uses the freaking Subversion. Doesn't look like it will change until older generations die out, if the company will even survive until then (why anyone still buys from it is anyone's guess, but at least I don't have to stress about looking for another job, for now).