Matt Campbell
2016-07-25 22:41:42 UTC
Hello:
I read the white paper referenced on the Crowd Supply campaign page [1],
and I was particularly interested in the section on "good enough"
computing. The following paragraphs describe some problems that, as far
problem of having a three to five year old computer is not so much that
it can't do the job it was designed to do: if the computer was not
connected to the Internet it could continue to be used for its
designated tasks until it suffered major component failure (possibly in
8 to even 15 years time).
recent smartphones are more powerful than high-end desktop computers of
a decade ago. The latest version of Google Maps, for example, when using
the "Street View", overwhelms a recent version of Firefox running on a
computer with 8 Gigabytes of memory and a Dual-Core Dual-Hyper-threaded
2.4 Ghz processor, causing it to reach 100% CPU and lock up the entire
machine.
application often brings in a set of dependencies that can result in the
entire operating system needing an upgrade. And the longer the duration
since a software upgrade, the less likely it is that one single
application may be upgraded without huge impact and inconvenience. With
no knowledge (or convenience) on how to upgrade software or hardware,
most people pick the simplest solution...
This "upgrade treadmill" has bothered me for a while. Yes, with modular
hardware like the EOMA68 cards and housings, the environmental impact is
lessened because we only have to discard computer cards, not whole
laptops. But unless we can stop the upgrade treadmill, we'll still have
to discard our old computer cards when they would otherwise still be
functional.
I remember the laptop I used throughout my university education, from
1999 to 2003. It had a 366 MHz mobile Pentium processor and 64 MB of RAM
(later upgraded to 192 MB when I had to work on a fairly memory-hungry
Java application under Windows). In its original configuration in 1999,
that laptop was perfectly comfortable for everything I wanted to do, at
least under Linux: Web browsing, email, word processing (including
StarOffice), software development, and listening to music. Now I don't
know if X would run at all in 64 MB of RAM.
As another illustration of how much waste the upgrade treadmill causes,
here's a paraphrased bit of dialogue from the 2012 novel _Off to Be the
Wizard_ by Scott Meyer. One character, a time traveler from 1984 whose
last computer was a Commodore 64, asks, "What on earth can a person do
with 4 gigabytes of RAM?". The other character, from 2012, replies,
"Upgrade it immediately." Maybe that was supposed to be funny; the whole
book is pretty light-hearted. But to me it's just sad.
So what can we do about this? The only idea I've got is that I and other
software developers should do all of our work on the most underpowered
computer that will let us get buy, rather than the nicest one we can
afford. Then maybe, out of necessity, we won't be so wasteful. But then
maybe we won't be as productive either, particularly if not being
wasteful means we have to write everything in C or C++. And of course,
it won't do any good if I'm the only one who chooses to make those
sacrifices.
At least with free software, there's always the possibility to fork
projects that succumb to the upgrade treadmill. For example, the MATE
desktop environment is a fork of GNOME 2, and one of its explicit goals
is to run well on non-compositing graphics hardware. I imagine MATE will
run quite well on something like the A20 card. But still, we can't live
in a forked, time-warped world. We have to interact with mainstream
websites, which means using a mainstream browser or at least one of the
major rendering engines. In this regard in particular, I wonder if the
upgrade treadmill has already left the A20 behind, particularly since we
can't use full GPU acceleration. I can certainly understand why the
JZ4775 wasn't chosen, though it checks all the other boxes for ethical
computing.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Sorry if this is too much of a
rant or off-topic here. FWIW, I just backed the campaign by ordering an
A20 card.
Matt
[1]: http://rhombus-tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/
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I read the white paper referenced on the Crowd Supply campaign page [1],
and I was particularly interested in the section on "good enough"
computing. The following paragraphs describe some problems that, as far
Now, in 2015, "good enough computing" has been cross-examined, and
found wanting - perhaps not for the right reasons though. The keyproblem of having a three to five year old computer is not so much that
it can't do the job it was designed to do: if the computer was not
connected to the Internet it could continue to be used for its
designated tasks until it suffered major component failure (possibly in
8 to even 15 years time).
The problem is that the kinds of web sites that most people visit and
want to use are being designed with modern computers in mind. Even somerecent smartphones are more powerful than high-end desktop computers of
a decade ago. The latest version of Google Maps, for example, when using
the "Street View", overwhelms a recent version of Firefox running on a
computer with 8 Gigabytes of memory and a Dual-Core Dual-Hyper-threaded
2.4 Ghz processor, causing it to reach 100% CPU and lock up the entire
machine.
But that's not so much the real problem: the real problem is the
inter-dependent nature of Software Development. Upgrading even just oneapplication often brings in a set of dependencies that can result in the
entire operating system needing an upgrade. And the longer the duration
since a software upgrade, the less likely it is that one single
application may be upgraded without huge impact and inconvenience. With
no knowledge (or convenience) on how to upgrade software or hardware,
most people pick the simplest solution...
This "upgrade treadmill" has bothered me for a while. Yes, with modular
hardware like the EOMA68 cards and housings, the environmental impact is
lessened because we only have to discard computer cards, not whole
laptops. But unless we can stop the upgrade treadmill, we'll still have
to discard our old computer cards when they would otherwise still be
functional.
I remember the laptop I used throughout my university education, from
1999 to 2003. It had a 366 MHz mobile Pentium processor and 64 MB of RAM
(later upgraded to 192 MB when I had to work on a fairly memory-hungry
Java application under Windows). In its original configuration in 1999,
that laptop was perfectly comfortable for everything I wanted to do, at
least under Linux: Web browsing, email, word processing (including
StarOffice), software development, and listening to music. Now I don't
know if X would run at all in 64 MB of RAM.
As another illustration of how much waste the upgrade treadmill causes,
here's a paraphrased bit of dialogue from the 2012 novel _Off to Be the
Wizard_ by Scott Meyer. One character, a time traveler from 1984 whose
last computer was a Commodore 64, asks, "What on earth can a person do
with 4 gigabytes of RAM?". The other character, from 2012, replies,
"Upgrade it immediately." Maybe that was supposed to be funny; the whole
book is pretty light-hearted. But to me it's just sad.
So what can we do about this? The only idea I've got is that I and other
software developers should do all of our work on the most underpowered
computer that will let us get buy, rather than the nicest one we can
afford. Then maybe, out of necessity, we won't be so wasteful. But then
maybe we won't be as productive either, particularly if not being
wasteful means we have to write everything in C or C++. And of course,
it won't do any good if I'm the only one who chooses to make those
sacrifices.
At least with free software, there's always the possibility to fork
projects that succumb to the upgrade treadmill. For example, the MATE
desktop environment is a fork of GNOME 2, and one of its explicit goals
is to run well on non-compositing graphics hardware. I imagine MATE will
run quite well on something like the A20 card. But still, we can't live
in a forked, time-warped world. We have to interact with mainstream
websites, which means using a mainstream browser or at least one of the
major rendering engines. In this regard in particular, I wonder if the
upgrade treadmill has already left the A20 behind, particularly since we
can't use full GPU acceleration. I can certainly understand why the
JZ4775 wasn't chosen, though it checks all the other boxes for ethical
computing.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Sorry if this is too much of a
rant or off-topic here. FWIW, I just backed the campaign by ordering an
A20 card.
Matt
[1]: http://rhombus-tech.net/whitepapers/ecocomputing_07sep2015/
_______________________________________________
arm-netbook mailing list arm-***@lists.phcomp.co.uk
http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook
Send large att