Post by archaem on Nov 18, 2020 22:26:20 GMT
Hello,
This response is being typed in Leafpad displayed in a dual monitor setting where the second monitor is displaying the Bodhi Forum via the Links Browser while the first monitor displays the Leafpad text editor. This point is worth sharing because it indicates an inability to adequately quote posts with the forum's "quote" feature.
For the record, the use of Bodhi32Legacy on the IBM T40 is a deliberate exercise to demonstrate that "old" hardware does not mean "dead" hardware, especially in 2020. In other words, one can consider this a live exercise arguing that technology is not *better* simply because it's *newer*. And for those curious about this exercise, the process so far demonstrated that one can function reasonably well on older hardware in the contemporary era if they're willing to make some necessary trade-offs, as discussed below.
enigma9o7:
*****
Thank you for your suggestions regarding the Palemoon browser and in particular using the "mobile" variation of websites instead of the default "desktop" option. Your point that the mobile variation of the YouTube website loads faster due to the homepage displaying less content is clever. Although there is an issue of playing a selected Youtube video which can become a resource intensive task, the Palemoon browser application is noted and will be tested against Midori on this machine. It's essential to qualify here that there is no intention to access social media websites and in particular YouTube. And on the topic of ads: arguably the best aspect of using a text browser -- either Lynx or Links/2 in this case -- is that advertisements are not visible!
On the topic of adfree Internet browsing, if anyone wants to browse content Online the "old fashioned way" without additional data-harvesting scripts that consume unneccessary resources and also interferes with their reading experience, try a text browser. Sure, the learning curve may take a few days -- seriously -- due to memorizing the key configurations, however browsing the Internet without distractions (from advertisements in particular) enhances the reading experience. Again, it's a trade-off: no social media and some websites are not accessible due to their obsessive script design. However, reading -- for instance -- a Reuters news article without distraction(s) is a worthwhile endeavour if one's interested in accessing literary content without unnecessarily added media. And a final point about social media: Twitter recently (a few months ago) ceased availability of the "Legacy" website option, which means Twitter is no longer accessible from a text browser -- although it was accessible from their Legacy website.
... come to think of it, one may have grounds to raise an "accessibility" claim against major website businesses if they *force* viewers to access their website without providing an "accessible" option. Now I'm curious if anyone thought of raising an "accessibility" claim against Twitter due to their removal of the "Legacy" website variation..? For all the complaints against Google, of all the major Internet corporations, they arguably go the furthest in providing their users with "accessible" means of accessing their website content. [Digression over.]
On the topic of limiting backgrounds tasks: the point is to continue with habitual computing behaviour without making what can be considered as excessive trade-offs. Therefore, closing every application just to view a single webpage can be considered an excessive trade-off. With a text browser one can -- and I do have -- multiple applications running simultaneously. For instance now, with a dual monitor setup whereby I can type on Leafpad in one monitor and view the Bodhi Forum in the second monitor.
[...] And for those curious, according to "top" at this time:
Tasks: 133 total, 3 running, 129 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 1.7 us, 12.3 sy, 30.6 ni, 55.5 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem : 509292 total, 19348 free, 224012 used, 265932 buff/cache
KiB Swap: 393196 total, 380232 free, 12964 used. 260944 avail Mem
-----
This was just copied from "top" which is running within an additional workspace in the Terminology application.
>>> For those interested: note the "swap" memory currently used.
Thank you again for the point you've raised enigma9o7 regarding Palemoon and in particular the "m." trick when accessing websites. Fortunately Midori has served its purpose as a "gateway" to scripted websites for now, nevertheless I'm curious to determine how the Midori browser compares with Palemoon.
thewaiter:
*****
Regarding the swap partition, if I recall correctly from when Bodhi was originally installed, the automatic partition feature from L/Ubuntu was applied. As noted above, the "swap" feature is active and I've noticed that it's used regularly, especially when alternating between applications or desktops. Due to this "swap" feature, I've had to keep in mind that a significant portion of hard disk space must be clear. Forunately the dual monitor environment permits me to have "top" and "Exterminator" task manager running simultaneously with additional applications enabling a live reading of resource usage while operating applications.
[...] I've just returned from inputting the "fdisk -l" command in Terminology and can share the disk partition output data if you're interested. The partition data will not be shared in this particular post in its entirety considering this post has become lengthy. In summary, Bodhi32Legacy has roughly half of the T40's ~35GB disk, whereas WinXP consumes the other half of the disk. Concerning your point regarding upgrading RAM, and recognizing what can already be accomplished in this minimal environment, it's reasonable to suspect that doubling the RAM or even maxing it to 2gigs (which might be this computer's limit) will drastically enhance performance! Albeit relative to the applications installed and accessed on the machine.
In response to your promotional comments for BL6, for sure you can use the information shared in this post. Perhaps other folks have old machines which Bodhi can help them revive. Or, who knows, perhaps a family or a business or a school has old machines in a storeroom which they can revive for various purposes, from simply text-browsing the Internet, to painting in Pinta, to tabluating data in Gnmeric, to playing around with some code in Geany, and so on. Heck, if their old machine has a DVD Drive, Bodhi can restore it to function as an offline media player.
fidoedidoe:
*****
For sure, use the information shared in my posts as you will. If there is any specific hardware information you're curious of which can be obtained by running a command or two in Terminology, I'll share as requested.
In response to the quote here:
"The Bodhi Installer runs best with more than 512MB of RAM (ideally 1GB or more). With 512GB RAM, the Bodhi installer will work, but it will work slowly. After installation, you will find Bodhi runs reasonably well with 512MB RAM."
When Bodhi was installed on the T40 just about one month ago, the installation process required some patience, so the above quote is appropriate.
The only issue regarding installation was that the machine (the T40) had a USB 1.0 port which -- as one can imagine -- *significantly* slowed the process. Older machines will likely have CD/DVD Drives and an installation DVD was made. On this topic, if I remember correctly, the .iso for Bodhi32Legacy was just over the maximum storage size permitted for a CD. Fortunately, this old machine had a DVD Drive and another machine had a DVD write drive and an application to burn an image to a disk, so the potential USB-restriction problem was overcome with the creation of an installation DVD.
Regarding Gmail and email in general (this comment was raised by enigma9o7):
A lightweight e-mail client can be an option to use to overcome the hurdle of accessing Gmail or another e-mail service directly from an Internet browser. Since an e-mail client has not been tested on this machine, perhaps an overview of lightweight e-mail client applications will be conducted in the coming days.
This response is being typed in Leafpad displayed in a dual monitor setting where the second monitor is displaying the Bodhi Forum via the Links Browser while the first monitor displays the Leafpad text editor. This point is worth sharing because it indicates an inability to adequately quote posts with the forum's "quote" feature.
For the record, the use of Bodhi32Legacy on the IBM T40 is a deliberate exercise to demonstrate that "old" hardware does not mean "dead" hardware, especially in 2020. In other words, one can consider this a live exercise arguing that technology is not *better* simply because it's *newer*. And for those curious about this exercise, the process so far demonstrated that one can function reasonably well on older hardware in the contemporary era if they're willing to make some necessary trade-offs, as discussed below.
enigma9o7:
*****
Thank you for your suggestions regarding the Palemoon browser and in particular using the "mobile" variation of websites instead of the default "desktop" option. Your point that the mobile variation of the YouTube website loads faster due to the homepage displaying less content is clever. Although there is an issue of playing a selected Youtube video which can become a resource intensive task, the Palemoon browser application is noted and will be tested against Midori on this machine. It's essential to qualify here that there is no intention to access social media websites and in particular YouTube. And on the topic of ads: arguably the best aspect of using a text browser -- either Lynx or Links/2 in this case -- is that advertisements are not visible!
On the topic of adfree Internet browsing, if anyone wants to browse content Online the "old fashioned way" without additional data-harvesting scripts that consume unneccessary resources and also interferes with their reading experience, try a text browser. Sure, the learning curve may take a few days -- seriously -- due to memorizing the key configurations, however browsing the Internet without distractions (from advertisements in particular) enhances the reading experience. Again, it's a trade-off: no social media and some websites are not accessible due to their obsessive script design. However, reading -- for instance -- a Reuters news article without distraction(s) is a worthwhile endeavour if one's interested in accessing literary content without unnecessarily added media. And a final point about social media: Twitter recently (a few months ago) ceased availability of the "Legacy" website option, which means Twitter is no longer accessible from a text browser -- although it was accessible from their Legacy website.
... come to think of it, one may have grounds to raise an "accessibility" claim against major website businesses if they *force* viewers to access their website without providing an "accessible" option. Now I'm curious if anyone thought of raising an "accessibility" claim against Twitter due to their removal of the "Legacy" website variation..? For all the complaints against Google, of all the major Internet corporations, they arguably go the furthest in providing their users with "accessible" means of accessing their website content. [Digression over.]
On the topic of limiting backgrounds tasks: the point is to continue with habitual computing behaviour without making what can be considered as excessive trade-offs. Therefore, closing every application just to view a single webpage can be considered an excessive trade-off. With a text browser one can -- and I do have -- multiple applications running simultaneously. For instance now, with a dual monitor setup whereby I can type on Leafpad in one monitor and view the Bodhi Forum in the second monitor.
[...] And for those curious, according to "top" at this time:
Tasks: 133 total, 3 running, 129 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
%Cpu(s): 1.7 us, 12.3 sy, 30.6 ni, 55.5 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st
KiB Mem : 509292 total, 19348 free, 224012 used, 265932 buff/cache
KiB Swap: 393196 total, 380232 free, 12964 used. 260944 avail Mem
-----
This was just copied from "top" which is running within an additional workspace in the Terminology application.
>>> For those interested: note the "swap" memory currently used.
Thank you again for the point you've raised enigma9o7 regarding Palemoon and in particular the "m." trick when accessing websites. Fortunately Midori has served its purpose as a "gateway" to scripted websites for now, nevertheless I'm curious to determine how the Midori browser compares with Palemoon.
thewaiter:
*****
Regarding the swap partition, if I recall correctly from when Bodhi was originally installed, the automatic partition feature from L/Ubuntu was applied. As noted above, the "swap" feature is active and I've noticed that it's used regularly, especially when alternating between applications or desktops. Due to this "swap" feature, I've had to keep in mind that a significant portion of hard disk space must be clear. Forunately the dual monitor environment permits me to have "top" and "Exterminator" task manager running simultaneously with additional applications enabling a live reading of resource usage while operating applications.
[...] I've just returned from inputting the "fdisk -l" command in Terminology and can share the disk partition output data if you're interested. The partition data will not be shared in this particular post in its entirety considering this post has become lengthy. In summary, Bodhi32Legacy has roughly half of the T40's ~35GB disk, whereas WinXP consumes the other half of the disk. Concerning your point regarding upgrading RAM, and recognizing what can already be accomplished in this minimal environment, it's reasonable to suspect that doubling the RAM or even maxing it to 2gigs (which might be this computer's limit) will drastically enhance performance! Albeit relative to the applications installed and accessed on the machine.
In response to your promotional comments for BL6, for sure you can use the information shared in this post. Perhaps other folks have old machines which Bodhi can help them revive. Or, who knows, perhaps a family or a business or a school has old machines in a storeroom which they can revive for various purposes, from simply text-browsing the Internet, to painting in Pinta, to tabluating data in Gnmeric, to playing around with some code in Geany, and so on. Heck, if their old machine has a DVD Drive, Bodhi can restore it to function as an offline media player.
fidoedidoe:
*****
For sure, use the information shared in my posts as you will. If there is any specific hardware information you're curious of which can be obtained by running a command or two in Terminology, I'll share as requested.
In response to the quote here:
"The Bodhi Installer runs best with more than 512MB of RAM (ideally 1GB or more). With 512GB RAM, the Bodhi installer will work, but it will work slowly. After installation, you will find Bodhi runs reasonably well with 512MB RAM."
When Bodhi was installed on the T40 just about one month ago, the installation process required some patience, so the above quote is appropriate.
The only issue regarding installation was that the machine (the T40) had a USB 1.0 port which -- as one can imagine -- *significantly* slowed the process. Older machines will likely have CD/DVD Drives and an installation DVD was made. On this topic, if I remember correctly, the .iso for Bodhi32Legacy was just over the maximum storage size permitted for a CD. Fortunately, this old machine had a DVD Drive and another machine had a DVD write drive and an application to burn an image to a disk, so the potential USB-restriction problem was overcome with the creation of an installation DVD.
Regarding Gmail and email in general (this comment was raised by enigma9o7):
A lightweight e-mail client can be an option to use to overcome the hurdle of accessing Gmail or another e-mail service directly from an Internet browser. Since an e-mail client has not been tested on this machine, perhaps an overview of lightweight e-mail client applications will be conducted in the coming days.