[Linux-aus] contest proposal

[Nathan Bailey]

I like this idea. In the early days of IT, optimisation for hardware seemed
a waste of time in the light of Moore's Law. But we continue to deploy to
smaller form factors (smart watches, smart rings, smart water bottles,
...), so I think there is merit in looking at RAM/disk/CPU-based
optimisations.

In terms of "wasted effort" - some IT-capable people aren't skilled or
experienced enough to tackle deeper IT problems, but "shallow"
optimisations like those suggested by Peter Moulding are the kinds of
solutions that interns, undergrads or even non-traditional IT people could
explore.

And winning a prize for successfully delivering a significant optimisation
could be a real differentiator for those looking to land a job (or
promotion), and a fun recognition for those just doing it as something on
the side.

Russell - how would you propose this being structured? (ie. who assesses
using what criteria in what timeframe?)
-N

PS: Also, nationally/internationally-selected prizes are a great way to get
press attention if developing a higher profile for LA/LCA is desirable...


On Mon, 1 Jan 2024 at 16:31, Russell Coker via linux-aus <
linux-aus at lists.linux.org.au> wrote:

> On Monday, 1 January 2024 15:18:14 AEDT Brendan Halley via linux-aus wrote:
> > I've seen the issue of memory bloat discussed many times by lots of
> people,
> > all with different priorities. The consensus at the end of the
> conversation
> > is always why waste part of someone's life fixing the problem when memory
> > is so cheap.
>
> DDR sticks are cheap on ebay, but that's only a small portion of the issue.
>
> Laptops with soldered RAM are common particularly in the cheap market
> segment
> and the light market segment.  My preferred laptop is the Thinkpad Carbon
> X1
> which comes with 8G soldered on (at moderate expense) or 16G soldered (at
> brutal expense).
>
> I could afford a laptop with 16G of RAM due to having better than average
> knowledge of hardware allowing me to select a good option on ebay and get
> it
> cheaply repaired if it happens to not be as good as hoped.  The typical
> user
> would go to Officeworks and pay $250 for a laptop with 4G, $400 for one
> with
> 8G, or $800 for one with 16G.
>
> The cheap laptops advertised often have as little as 4G of RAM with no
> apparent option to upgrade.  I have not disassembled such laptops to see
> if
> that's really the case so I have to trust the specs.
>
> For the laptops with socketed RAM the RAM in larger DIMM sizes is not
> cheap
> and even the large sizes aren't that large.  DDR3 SODIMMs on ebay seem to
> be
> only up to 8G in size, so a 2 socket DDR3 laptop can only have 16G - which
> still has performance problems now!
>
> Windows 11 is incompatible with a lot of old hardware.  Linux running well
> on
> such older machines makes it a free software AND hardware option.  Even
> when
> RAM is relatively cheap and available (such as for older desktops) going
> from
> working with existing hardware to needing an upgrade is a significant cost
> increase.
>
> Systems like the Raspberry Pi fill a market niche for low end workstations
> and
> there are a variety of other uses such as the cases that can make a
> Raspberry
> Pi into a laptop.  The maximum RAM available for a Raspberry Pi is 8G and
> the
> vast majority of devices shipped have 2G or less.
>
> I believe that a phone connected to USB-C is a viable general purpose
> computer
> but one of the main issues is the fact that common devices like the
> PinePhonePro only have 4G of RAM.
>
> > Is your idea focused on the current state of affairs or more worried
> about
> > scaling issues in years to come if RAM prices increase/there aren't as
> many
> > technical developments in that area?
>
> Instead of raising this now when there's a large amount of hardware with
> 4G/8G
> suffering performance issues I could have raised it 9 years ago when it
> was
> hardware with 2G/4G or 18 years ago when it was hardware with 1G/2G.
>
> If we don't do anything to address this issue now then we will eventually
> have
> 16G or 32G systems having performance issues.
>
> There are real uses for more RAM, using RAM can cache calculations or disk
> data to allow large RAM to compensate for storage or CPU bottlenecks.  But
> sometimes a better option is to rely on fast hardware instead of complex
> caching, for example the search algorithms used in old versions of kmail
> on
> typical modern laptop hardware would outperform what current versions of
> kmail
> do with a mysql database on older laptops that have spinning media.
>
> --
> My Main Blog         http://etbe.coker.com.au/
> My Documents Blog    http://doc.coker.com.au/
>
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