Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Sick Sun (sun@shitposter.world)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:30:44 JST Sick Sun
   MNT Pocket Reform is super cool but I just plain don't need it.
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:32:21 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     @sun@shitposter.world I prefer the larger Reform myself, but indeed true. I simply don't need it, but I will probably buy one of these once my trusty old Thinkpad X200 finally kicks the dust.

     Sick Sun likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:33:53 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     @sun@shitposter.world Just like how I want to very badly replace my server with a Raptor Computing board but it is simply not necessary.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sick Sun (sun@shitposter.world)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:34:14 JST Sick Sun

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq That would be rad. Yeah, the Raptor board is too expensive.
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:35:24 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     @sun@shitposter.world I mean I think the Reform is expensive too considering I paid 100 euro for this X200 that I have used for 10 years at this point.

     Sick Sun likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sick Sun (sun@shitposter.world)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:36:13 JST Sick Sun

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq my W530 still works but I used it so hard that every component is worn out multiple times. I replaced the trackpad, the keyboard and the screen.
   • Embed this notice
     Sick Sun (sun@shitposter.world)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:37:08 JST Sick Sun

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq still my favorite laptop I've owned, despite it weighing like 10lbs
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:37:16 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     @sun@shitposter.world Oh yeah it is quite unfair to say that this laptop only cost me 100 euro in total, that was just the initial purchasing price but obviously this laptop is the ship of thesis at this point and there's not that many original parts left.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and Sick Sun like this.
   • Embed this notice
     Sick Sun (sun@shitposter.world)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:38:11 JST Sick Sun

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq I find completely open hardware interesting so there's a reason to buy a Reform even if I had a Thinkpad.
     
     Would be rad to install OpenBSD on it.,
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:41:20 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     @sun@shitposter.world Also instead of buying another Lenovo you would be supporting a small independent business instead.
     
     I don't have a Reform myself but I convinced a friend of mine who needed a new laptop to buy one and they like it. They run Debian on it.

     Sick Sun likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Pleroma-tan (kirby@lab.nyanide.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-May-2024 21:43:49 JST Pleroma-tan

     in reply to
     @sun i'd get one but the price being more demanding than some high end desktop towers that have way more punch in them basically prevents me from actually getting that thing.
     Sick Sun likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 22:28:07 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq >I want to very badly replace my server with a Raptor Computing board
     The KGPE-D16 is much cheaper and is just as freedom respecting.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 22:50:32 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙
     @jihadjimmy Then you don't really have much choice except for certain Aarch64 SBC's, certain MIPS leemotes (too slow for current bloat) and shelling out raptors price - as there isn't much complete hardware can be used with only free software.
   • Embed this notice
     𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙 (jihadjimmy@the.asbestos.cafe)'s status on Wednesday, 29-May-2024 22:50:33 JST 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     • SuperDicq
     @Suiseiseki
     @SuperDicq
     
     
     > The KGPE-D16 is much cheaper and is just as freedom respecting.
     
     
     What if I despise amd64 and I wanna burn alive every fucking degenerate involved making the spec for that ISA?
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 00:07:03 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com I currently have one but the Raptor Computing boards are a lot more powerful and they support more modern features like PCI-E 3.0, DDR4 memory and such. Real limiting factors on those old AMD boards.

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 02:32:51 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq >they support more modern features like PCI-E 3.0, DDR4 memory and such.
     >Real limiting factors on those old AMD boards.
     Not really?
     
     Any current GPU that has a free driver isn't bottlenecked by PCIe 2.0 bandwidth even pushing 2560x1440@120Hz, so I'm not sure what practical use PCIe 3.0 has.
     
     I thought the raptor boards supported PCIe 4.0, but I guess the blackbird model would only support 3.0.
     
     I've read something about limited amounts of PCIe lanes being available despite all the ports, but I haven't run into any problem myself.
     
     
     Sure DDR4 is higher bandwidth than DDR3, but DDR3 has a lower latency - I'm not bottlenecked by my 128GB of DDR3-ECC either.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 02:38:39 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙
     @jihadjimmy https://pine64.org/devices/#single_board_computers
     
     Many of these seem incomplete and still have proprietary parts, but the RockChip ones seem possible to run without proprietary software (as RockChip does the bare minimum to allow their customers to use their hardware).
     
     I would avoid the Allwinner ones that they're known for their GPLv2 violations and every single fast RISC-V chip I've see requires proprietary software to init.
     
     
     There is also the Librepi project if you don't need HDMI output (ssh-only control is fine, although annoying to setup and you can get NTSC output if you really want output now).
   • Embed this notice
     𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙 (jihadjimmy@the.asbestos.cafe)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 02:38:40 JST 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     @Suiseiseki
     
     
     > certain Aarch64 SBC's
     
     Like which one?
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 02:45:03 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • 翠星石
     • 𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙𝅙
     @jihadjimmy Further details here; https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 05:56:24 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com I totally agree the AMD boards are definitely good enough for most desktop usage with a average amount of RAM and a decent GPU, however I use mine as a server.
     I'm not sure what practical use PCIe 3.0 hasFor example lots of expansion cards simply require PCIe 3.0 minimum to function at all. NVMe storage is a big one that comes to mind, I would really like to upgrade to NVMe if possible.
     
     And yes Raptor Board support PCIe 4.0 even.
     
     DDR4 is much better than DDR3. The AMD boards run exclusively ECC ram sticks and they can be really damn picky when it comes to RAM sticks. I tried like 5 different ram sticks that I had lying around and none of them worked and I ended up having to buy known working ones from the very limited Vikings Wiki ram list: https://wiki.vikings.net/hardware:kgpe-d16
     
     And yes the AMD boards are capped at 128 GB. If you run big databases like I do this can actually be a limiting factor. With the Raptor Computing boards I don't think I will run into RAM limits for a long time as they support up to 2 TB I believe.

   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 17:36:11 JST 翠星石

     in reply to

     • SuperDicq
     @SuperDicq >For example lots of expansion cards simply require PCIe 3.0 minimum to function at all.
     Those devices are not compliant with the PCIe specification - compliant cards will operate even in a PCIe 1.0 port, albeit at a reduced speed.
     
     >The AMD boards run exclusively ECC ram sticks and they can be really damn picky when it comes to RAM sticks.
     Not really? I found that you just need to get quality double-sided (not single-sided) sticks from Hynix or Micron and avoid Kingston ones (fairly cheap in ex-server DDR3 ECC RAM bundles).
     
     Even then, I managed to get mixed Hynix/Kingston to work in a non-standard layout too.
     
     A GNUboot developer is fixing up the RAMinit, so eventually RAM support will be much improved.
     
     >And yes the AMD boards are capped at 128 GB.
     According to the vikings page you posted, 192 GB can be reached with most quality DIMMs and 256GB can be reached with a specific DIMM models.
   • Embed this notice
     SuperDicq (superdicq@minidisc.tokyo)'s status on Thursday, 30-May-2024 17:47:01 JST SuperDicq

     in reply to

     • 翠星石

     @Suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com >Those devices are not compliant with the PCIe specification - compliant cards will operate even in a PCIe 1.0 port, albeit at a reduced speed.
     
     Running NVMe drives at PCIe 2.0 speeds kinda removes the purpose of getting NVMe in the first place you know.
     A GNUboot developer is fixing up the RAMinit, so eventually RAM support will be much improved.That's nice to hear that the code for these is actually being fixed by someone, considering that Coreboot has abandoned the old AMD boards already.
     256GB can be reached with a specific DIMM models.I did not know that, might be worth considering as an upgrade then.
     
     Also instead of buying a Raptor Computing board I could also decide to buy a second AMD Board and just run my database clusters on two machines to split the workload which might be a way to speed things up on a lower budget.
     
     However I do like experimenting with something new tho.