Title: The Old Computer Challenge V3 | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 04 June 2023 | |
Tags: life oldcomputerchallenge nocloud | |
Description: Meet the old computer challenge third edition, an entire | |
week with a computer limited to a single core at lowest frequency and | |
512 MB of memory. | |
# Introduction | |
Hi! It's that time of the year when I announce a new Old Computer | |
Challenge :) | |
If you don't know about it, it's a weird challenge I've did twice in | |
the past 3 years that consists into limiting my computer performance | |
using old hardware, or by limiting Internet access to 60 minutes a day. | |
Blog posts tagged "oldcomputerchallenge" | |
# 2023's challenge | |
I want this challenge to be accessible. The first one wasn't easy for | |
many because it required to use an old machine, but many readers didn't | |
have a spare old computer (weird right? :P). The second one with | |
Internet time limitation was hard to setup. | |
This one is a bit back to the roots: let's use a SLOW computer for 7 | |
days. This will be achieved by various means with any hardware: | |
* Limit your computer's CPU to use only 1 core. This can be set in the | |
BIOS most of the time, and on Linux you can use `maxcores=1` in the | |
boot command line, on OpenBSD you can use `bsd.sp` kernel for the | |
duration of the challenge. | |
* Limit your computer's memory to 512 MB of memory (no swap limit). | |
This can be set on Linux using the boot command line `mem=512MB`. On | |
OpenBSD, this can be achieved a bit similarly by using | |
`datasize-max=512M` in login.conf for your user's login class. | |
* Set your CPU frequency to the lowest minimum (which is pretty low on | |
modern hardware!). On Linux, use the "powersave" frequency governor, | |
in modern desktop environments the battery widget should offer an easy | |
way to set the governor. On OpenBSD, run `apm -L` (while apmd service | |
is running). On Windows, in the power settings, set the frequency to | |
minimum. | |
I got the idea when I remembered a few people reporting these tricks to | |
do the first challenge, like in this report: | |
Carcosa's report of the first challenge (link via gemini http bridge) | |
You are encouraged to join the IRC channel #oldcomputerchallenge on | |
libera.chat server to share about your experience. | |
Feel free to write reports, it's always fun to read about other going | |
through the challenge. | |
# When | |
The challenge will start the 10th July 2023, and end the 16th July 2023 | |
at the end of the day. | |
# Frequently asked questions | |
* If you use a computer to work, it isn't affected by the challenge, | |
keep your job please. But don't use it to circumvent your regular slow | |
computer. | |
* If you use a computer with lower specs, this is compliant with the | |
challenge rules. | |
* Feel free to ask me questions, I want this to be easy to everyone to | |
have fun together. I can update this blog post to make things clearer | |
if needed. | |
* Gnome desktop doesn't start with 512 MB of memory :D |