Free software and older hardware
I just bought an old system from my friend for a small fee. Its not all that powerful, with only 256MB of ram, but thats twice as much as the pc that was in my room previously. (We do have a much more powerful family pc though).
Now, one great thing about free software is that it will run on much slower machines than propreitary software will. I could actually run compiz on this machine, but it slows everything else up - to get windows aero in a similar state you would need a machine several times more powerful.
Frustratingly, the machine is not as fast as I thought it would be. Perhaps I don’t have enough swap, or perhaps its the many services that run with (x)ubuntu (i had debian with xfce on my even older machine).
However, the thing that really got me thinking was this - how does free software’s ability to run on older hardware relate to Moore’s Law? Gradually the free software most people use regularly is requiring more memory (look at how memory hungry firefox and openoffice are). The ubuntu live cd for example wants >384MB to run, and I think there was controversy a while ago about fredora upping their requirements.
So, we know that the mainstream free software distributions is gradually requiring more powerful hardware, which is not really such a bad thing, since more poweful hardware is becoming more and more affordable (Moore’s law), and free software distros don’t require the expensive specs that vista does to run decently.
This brings me to my question, is the rate at which free software “slows” (for want of a better word), the same as the rate at which propreitary software slows, and at which hardware speeds up (albeit with a certain offset)..
OR is free software slowing at at a lesser rate, which would mean that the gap between the “midrange pc” and what gnu/linux needs to run well growing. Surely the conclusion of this would be that those who run free software would only need a pc ten times less powerful than the affordable midrange pc.
Since this would be such a startling and dangerous (for the hardware industry) thing, I presume it would be the first - same rate but with an offset. After all, it turns out that our needs do grow - 640k wasn’t enough for anybody. 
Does anyone have any ideas on this?
![[FSF Associate Member]](/img/fsf.png){kind=small}
penguinator:
This is an interesting thought. But it’s really the most resource hogging pieces of open source software you are talking about. And it’s mostly big graphical applications. There is not much useful alternative to firefox, but window managers and applications can get very light on resources. Latex and OpenBox are examples. Yes, they may not be as “feature packed” as the heftier wares, but I find i don’t need most of those features anyways.
22 June 2008, 7:48 pmTim Dobson:
So let’s get this straight, you *bought* a system?
places to get extremly cheap or gratuis computer systems that run gnu/linux & a GUI:
Your local Tip - often sell old computers for about £5 each - no gurantees but if you go at the weekend one should work
Freecycle - If you request a computer on this mailing list you are likely to be offered computers
anyway, back to the point
Your computer has 256 RAM.
My laptop has 256 RAM and my desktop did for a painfully long amount of time.
I *can* run compiz on my laptop, but realistically, the extra power is more valuable than the eye candy.
I run a full gnome desktop, though kde has worked fine in the past. A good amount of swap is always helpful, but the best way to make sure it runs fast is to make sure that the programs you use are low footprint - ie. don’t run OO.o if you can use Koffice or the GTK equivilents…
My way of making everything run really fast is the following:
Install “preload” - it will automatically load frequently used programs
use workspaces to their full potential - put your mail client in a workspace, your web browser in a separate workspace, your music player in another word processing in another. This way, anything which isn’t being used will always be swapped out.
If you want a *fast* desktop try E17 or fluxbox, however e17 is *really* confusing and you may want to customise fluxbox by setting it’s startup scripts to run “kicker” or “gnome-panel” or something.
and whilst the ubuntu live cds want lots of RAM I have run them on 128 MB machines sucessfully. Just because they recommend rediculas amounts of ram means that if you remove tracker and bluetooth services etc. You can get the running pretty well.
23 June 2008, 11:03 amBen Webb:
@penguinator: Yes, OOo and firefox are the resource hogs - but they are also the ordinary user orientated software. I know I will always have DSL etc. to run on ridiculously old hardware, but it isn’t quite usable for most people.
The big question I want to pose is whether the ordinary user free software - firefox, OOo, ubuntu - will bloat any slower than murphys law speed. And, if that is the case, given that more and more people are using free software, what would the implications of the computer hardware industry be?
@Tim Dobson: I’ve just installed preload and will check how much swap I have. I’ve used xmonad for a bit, so that would be my choice of *fast* desktop :D. Also, yes, I did pay for it, but it is from a friend, so I don’t mind getting rid of it. I don’t fancy visiting tips, and I subscribed to freecycle, but there is just too much noise there to make sense of it.
23 June 2008, 7:54 pm