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Poll

Mark your preference(s)

Gaming station full monty (complete with elaborate hardware controls and sound system)
[ 2 ] (12.5%)
Home workstation full monty (printer-scanner, music instruments and/or home cinema)
[ 3 ] (18.8%)
Modest homebox (just the absolutely necessary peripherals)
[ 1 ] (6.3%)
Laptop/netbook (hardware keyboard separate from the screen)
[ 3 ] (18.8%)
Big-screen tablet (software keyboard)
[ 1 ] (6.3%)
Smartphone
[ 3 ] (18.8%)
Gaming console with internet connection
[ 0 ] (0%)
Different devices on different occasions and for different purposes (specify in the thread)
[ 3 ] (18.8%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Topic: The Hardware Thread (Read 74904 times)

The Hardware Thread

The point of the poll was to include here the technology used to access the forums. For a while I thought of expanding the list with for example e-book readers, because these too sometimes have internet access, but I guess there are enough options already.

Discussion about e-book readers is  is still welcome. And about printed books (obvious hardware). For some people, wristwatch is the kind of technology they need most. All this is hardware subject for discussion in this thread. And of course computer parts.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #1 –
I would love to have something like an e-ink monitor for reading text. At least A5 size, preferably with a decent resolution.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #2 –
A search on the internet shows that e-ink monitor is doable for netbooks, but it turns everything black&white. Is this the desired result?


By the way, thanks for your hardware offer, but I got the kid's computer fixed, mostly. The hardware indeed needed just some rest and cleaning to begin to operate on some okay level.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #3 –
My wife's nook ( the older model before it became Yet Another Android Tablet ) has an e-ink display. Very nice for reading outside since it remains readable in direct sunlight, the downside is that it's very slow ( the display that is ) - it takes almost a second to update a page. Another side effect is that it only needs energy when changing, if you turn it off the display stays as it is.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #4 –
I'm against hardware.
If there was no hardware there would be no software. Or maybe the contrary but anyway it doesn't matter.
I use what the industry forces me to use.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #5 –
You could scribble your posts to a wall instead. Oh, wait, that would still be hardware the industry forces you to use :right:

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Macallan on

Another side effect is that it only needs energy when changing, if you turn it off the display stays as it is.

You mean when you turn it off, the text displayed last remains there indefinitely?

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #7 –
Quote from: ersi on

Quote from: Macallan on

Another side effect is that it only needs energy when changing, if you turn it off the display stays as it is.

You mean when you turn it off, the text displayed last remains there indefinitely?

Yes. I'm not sure about indefinitely but at the very least for a few months ( seen with my wife's nook sitting in a drawer with empty batteries for about half a year ).

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #8 –
Quote from: ersi on
A search on the internet shows that e-ink monitor is doable for netbooks, but it turns everything black&white. Is this the desired result?

What's desired is something that doesn't emit light. Displaying illustrations in color would be a nice bonus, but it's hardly necessary most of the time. What I'd like is something more like this, but probably rather as a desktop monitor.

Electrowetting is another thing for which I've been waiting since forever.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf1GjCaYzYg[/video]

Something available today at least in some capacity is improved classic monochrome LCD (another one). I believe there is or was a niche market for that kind of thing for medical displays that were at least several thousands of Euros.

Quote from: ersi on
By the way, thanks for your hardware offer, but I got the kid's computer fixed, mostly. The hardware indeed needed just some rest and cleaning to begin to operate on some okay level.

You sure? It looks like it might "only" be €26.10 for shipping through bpost. Now I'm going to have to find a different way to get rid of it. :P Okay, get rid of sounds negative. I've been using that rig from early '07 up till two weeks ago. It's still more or less equivalent to something like a €200 new computer, albeit wildly surpassed by a €500 one.

Quote from: Macallan on
the downside is that it's very slow ( the display that is ) - it takes almost a second to update a page.

For many ereaders part of it is lack of CPU processing power, although of course the display hardware also has its limits. I don't think it'd bother me too much because I prefer Page Up and Page Down regardless.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: ersi on
A search on the internet shows that e-ink monitor is doable for netbooks, but it turns everything black&white. Is this the desired result?

What's desired is something that doesn't emit light.

What about when it's dark?

I occasionally think about a fancy backlit keyboard. Right now I end up switching on a lamp directed onto the keyboard.


Quote from: Frenzie on

You sure? ...€...€...€...

Yes, I am sure. As said, it's not for me personally anyway. I am overequipped and underfinanced right now. Overequipped with crap, which is a problem, but the shortage of liquidity is a bigger problem.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #10 –
Quote from: ersi on
What about when it's dark?

Especially when it's dark. I want my light reflected, not emitted. Preferably the reflective properties of the medium should be similar to good quality paper and the resolution similar to good quality print, but even bad quality paper with bad quality print is significantly superior to a screen — and yes, I'm also referring to relatively nice high pixel density (albeit oversaturated) panels like on the iPad.

With the way display technology is going I guess my upgrade will be to a "4k" screen instead. With the new GPU I picked up for €100 (not bad for something that's €190 new I believe) my hardware should be ready for 60 Hz through DisplayPort. Something like the Dell Ultrasharp UP2414Q looks interesting, but still too pricey for the moment. Despite emitting light, my phone's still got the most comfortable display currently in my possession at ~297 PPI. It helps that the backlight can go a fair bit less bright than my desktop monitor, too. However, the automatic adjustment is a bit finicky. Reflective surfaces don't have such issues either.

Quote from: ersi on
I occasionally think about a fancy backlit keyboard. Right now I end up switching on a lamp directed onto the keyboard.

There's a topic for such pictures. :P I paid extra so I could have a keyboard with no wasteful useless media keys whatsoever. (Okay, actually I paid good money for the switches, but the no-nonsense is a definite perk.) The lack of markings is a bit of a gimmick and somewhat annoying if you quickly want to type something with one hand, but perhaps surprisingly it also feels better. A backlight? Perish the thought. :)
Quote from: Frenzie on

Not a great picture, but here's mine:



Quote from: ersi on
Yes, I am sure. As said, it's not for me personally anyway. I am overequipped and underfinanced right now. Overequipped with crap, which is a problem, but the shortage of liquidity is a bigger problem.

A quick check on Ebay suggests that even just the DDR2 RAM I've got in there goes for well over €50 used. For the record. :P (Meanwhile the CPU goes for a mere €20…)

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Macallan on

You could scribble your posts to a wall instead. Oh, wait, that would still be hardware the industry forces you to use :right:

I prefer this kind of electronic graffiti. Easier to clean out.

I give you an example of what a decent hardware would be, electronic ink. You paint a normal book with pages made of paper with such a ink. Then, by connecting a microchip the pages of your paper book presents whatever text you want to read. Or photographs.

Or changing the color of your car, home or clothes everyday.

That would be a decent hardware advancement. But you can't think about ink as an hardware, you're formated to accept what the industry make you buy.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: ersi on
What about when it's dark?

Especially when it's dark. I want my light reflected, not emitted.

This idea is applicable to home desktop solutions where you always have sufficient light around from various sources. With mobile devices, such as laptops and netbooks, I basically have to carry my own lights along. It makes sense to have the light inbuilt in this case.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #13 –
Quote from: ersi on
This idea is applicable to home desktop solutions where you always have sufficient light around from various sources.

Sufficient light is a subjective term. Once I was reading on a transatlantic flight because I couldn't manage to get to sleep. One of the stewards noticed and insisted on turning on my overhead reading light even though I said I was really quite okay reading by the dim nighttime cabin lights. But with or without a reading light, my netbook would've just hurt my eyes.

Quote from: ersi on
It makes sense to have the light inbuilt in this case.

A book (or eink device) with a separate battery-powered reading light offers a significantly superior experience to me. I'd be vaguely curious about one of those eink devices with a backlight for reading in the dark to see if it's backlight per se or just something about backlighted LCD but I most certainly wouldn't spend the €20 to €50 more when you can get very decent reading lights for €5 at the very most.

My phone's "high" PPI is better, but it's just not good enough. Part of it is that at least double the PPI is needed. Apple's "Retina" term is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. Another part of it is that it still is fundamentally the same light emitting technology. (Even though I really, really must thank Apple from finally changing this horrible 1080p resolution we've been stuck with for the past five years.)

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Sufficient light is a subjective term. Once I was reading on a transatlantic flight because I couldn't manage to get to sleep. One of the stewards noticed and insisted on turning on my overhead reading light even though I said I was really quite okay reading by the dim nighttime cabin lights.

It seems that we perceive light similarly. I used to be a gluttonous reader and my parents were worried about my eye-sight, as I tended to read in fairly dark conditions. Light that may seem necessary for others may cause book pages daze my eyes.

Quote from: Frenzie on

But with or without a reading light, my netbook would've just hurt my eyes.

Screen/monitor backlight is usually configurable. In a brighter place turn it up. In a darker place turn it down. In a dark room minimal light is sufficient, but no light is, well, not enough.

That's why I hate to turn on the lamp for keyboard: It cannot be configured. It's bright and hot like lava! But some light is inevitable. A tenderly toned backlight would be okay.

Quote from: Frenzie on

Apple's "Retina" term is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. Another part of it is that it still is fundamentally the same light emitting technology.

I have heard that it's bullshit, yes, but I have to clarify for myself how it's so. I have never bought a monitor specifically. I have only used other people's leftovers.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #15 –
Quote from: ersi on
It seems that we perceive light similarly. I used to be a gluttonous reader and my parents were worried about my eye-sight, as I tended to read in fairly dark conditions. Light that may seem necessary for others may cause book pages daze my eyes.

It's not that I prefer to read in dark conditions. I love sunlight, albeit not necessarily directly on the page of my book. I just don't like artificial lights to be too bright, especially later at night.

Quote from: ersi on
Screen/monitor backlight is usually configurable. In a brighter place turn it up. In a darker place turn it down. In a dark room minimal light is sufficient, but no light is, well, not enough.

Without backlight a modern LCD is simply very dark gray. My netbook has a function key to turn off the screen to preserve energy, something I've started using as a reflex (like Ctrl+s) because it can really prolong your battery life. What it actually does is not to turn off the screen, but to turn off the backlight. You can still make out some text and window decorations.

Anyway, turning the backlight down all the way as far as it can go is tolerable, but I'd like to go down further. For example, I typically use my desktop monitor through a range of about 0 through 6, occasionally up to as much as 10 when it's particularly bright out and the sun shines in through the window just the "right" way. The thing goes to a maximum brightness of 100…

On my laptop and netbook it's similar. I don't know if the actual panels have the same range of fine-tuning available as my desktop monitor, but only 10 steps or less are actually exposed to the user (and no, that's not a Linux bug, although on my netbook there is this strange thing in Linux where it increases and decreases the brightness with two steps at a time, so I typically have to go all the way up or all the way down and then reverse in order to reach the desired brightness — luckily it's an odd number of steps).

Quote from: ersi on
I have heard that it's bullshit, yes, but I have to clarify for myself how it's so. I have never bought a monitor specifically. I have only used other people's leftovers.

Apple means to imply that you can't see any pixels and that therefore the screen quality couldn't get any better with a higher PPI. To be "fair" I believe they say that applies to a distance of 12 inch (30 cm), but who the heck holds their phone or tablet an arm's length away? In any case, you can simply compare the "Retina" display on the iPhone to the full HD display on something like the Samsung Galaxy S4 (a little over 300 PPI vs a little over 400PPI) and you'll see the S4 looks sharper — even at 30 cm.

There are some very simple tests you can perform on screens (but less easy to do so on phones…) to tell whether or not such claims of not seeing pixels are bullshit.

1. The checkers pattern: http://carltonbale.com/pixel_by_pixel_checkerboard/ Does it look like a uniform gray? If not, you're seeing pixels. This is how (some) printers make gray. My 300 DPI laser printer used to look quite checkerish when printing gray, even if its letters looked nice and sharp. A slightly later 1200 DPI model didn't look too checkerish at a superficial glance. I believe nicer inkjet printers can put out a wide variety of different colors and shades of dots (only up to a gross or so, but still) so their dithering methods are a lot more sophisticated than mid-'90s laser printers that could only do black in various densities. Even relatively cheap models offer 2400 DPI. Let's say because of the dithering we should say the effective resolution is only actually a fourth of that compared to a monitor — that's still 600 effective DPI. And that's consumer-level medium quality print.

2. The line test. I couldn't find a quick example, but create an image with two one pixel lines one pixel apart. If you can't tell the lines apart, you're not seeing pixels. I've never seen a display on which I wasn't easily able to discern the two separate lines, although I haven't had the pleasure of being able to try it on a display like the Samsung Galaxy S4's. I expect it to be slightly harder than on the iPhone, but not impossible.

Some more technical background can be found here. It implies that beyond 600 PPI we'd be unlikely to notice much of an improvement for typical use cases (whatever that means). That may or may not be true, but we're hardly there yet. Me, I tend to think all of these "typical" things are written about 50-year-olds with faltering vision when I see how obviously non-"Retina" those Apple displays are (even if very nice compared to ye olde pixel monsters).

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #17 –
lol, well, it is also a well-known optical illusion. :P

I think the odd effect you get when zooming in is weirder though.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #18 –
I just replaced my extremely annoying AMD stock cooler with a Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Slim. The idle temp dropped from 48° to 35°, and seems to hover between 40° and 45° for regular use (previously between 50° and 55°). Under load it seems to max out at around 55°. This also opens up overclocking potential to get some extra life out of the tail end of this Phenom II X4 955 BE CPU. It seems to be stable at up to 3.8 GHz (stock 3.2 GHz), although I suspect that a proper stress test would show that to be untrue. That being said, I haven't played with voltages yet. I'll probably investigate that further whenever I feel like I'm short on power, after which I can implement something like this to help speed up e.g. compiling while keeping power consumption acceptable.*

I could've gone for the Shadow Rock 2 which was similarly priced, but that just seemed excessive at twice the size and almost twice the weight.

This cooler should last me at the very least through my next upgrade.

* Although provided I put something fairly sensible like -j 4 after make it's already quite significantly faster at that than with my old Core 2 Duo E6600.

Regarding monitors
Quote from: Frenzie on
Something like the Dell Ultrasharp UP2414Q looks interesting, but still too pricey for the moment.

Upon some further research, I would advise against buying this screen even if you can get it for under $500. The problem is it doesn't actually appear as one screen to the computer under SST, but instead pretends to be two separate screens because its controller can't handle one big screen internally yet. It does a clever hack with MST instead. The bigger ASUS PB287Q doesn't have that problem, nor should other second-generation 4k monitors.

Regarding eInk
A very interesting device should be released next week: the Kobo Aura H2O. It could be quite useful to read some of my many PDF and other electronic books that I completely ignore in favor of paper…

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #19 –
Just for the record, here's the inxi output of my greatest machine:
Code: [Select]

System:    Host: kaasaskantav Kernel: 3.15.10-1-MANJARO x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.9.1) 
           Desktop: Xfce 4.11.7 (Gtk 2.24.24) Distro: ManjaroLinux 0.8.10 Ascella 
Machine:   System: Dell product: Inspiron 3521 v: A04
           Mobo: Dell model: 0RPT6C v: A00 Bios: Dell v: A04 date: 11/21/2012
CPU:       Dual core Intel Pentium 997 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3) bmips: 6387 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 893 MHz 2: 898 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.15.2 driver: intel Resolution: 1366x768@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Sandybridge Mobile GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.2.6 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.15.10-1-MANJARO
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 01:00.0
           IF: enp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath9k bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-3: Atheros usb-ID: 003-007
           IF: null-if-id state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (32.7% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST500LT012 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 48G used: 23G (49%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 
           ID-2: /home size: 352G used: 123G (37%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 8.32GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda7 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 147 Uptime: 1:12 Memory: 1027.9/3830.1MB Init: systemd Gcc sys: 4.9.1 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.241) inxi: 2.2.1

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #20 –
inxi, eh? I guess it automates grabbing information from e.g. /etc/proc/cpu_info and dmidecode? Well, let's give it a try.

I guess that was inxi -v7?
Code: [Select]
$ inxi -v 7 -z
System:    Host: frenzie-desktop Kernel: 3.14-2-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.3) 
           Desktop: N/A info: xfce4-panel dm: lightdm Distro: Debian GNU/Linux jessie/sid 
Machine:   Mobo: Gigabyte model: GA-MA790XT-UD4P Bios: Award v: F8 date: 09/08/2011
CPU:       Quad core AMD Phenom II X4 955 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 28127 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 2100 MHz 2: 2100 MHz 3: 800 MHz 4: 3500 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Curacao XT [Radeon R9 270X] bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:6810
           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.0 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1200@59.88hz, 1280x1024@60.02hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PITCAIRN GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.2.6 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2 chip-ID: 1002:4383 
           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Cape Verde/Pitcairn HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7700/7800 Series] 
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aab0 
           Card-3 Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 driver: USB Audio usb-ID: 002-002 chip-ID: 046d:0990 
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.14-2-amd64
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: de00 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
           IF: eth2 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           WAN IP: <filter> IF: eth2 ip: <filter> ip-v6: <filter> 
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 3198.7GB (48.0% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sdb model: M4 size: 128.0GB serial: 0000000012060904C880 temp: 0C
           ID-2: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HD321KJ size: 320.1GB serial: S0MQJ13P201708 temp: 32C
           ID-3: /dev/sde model: SAMSUNG_SP2504C size: 250.1GB serial: S09QJ1TP100307 temp: 37C
           ID-4: /dev/sdc model: SAMSUNG_HD501LJ size: 500.1GB serial: S0MUJ1NQ115400 temp: 35C
           ID-5: /dev/sdd model: Hitachi_HDS5C302 size: 2000.4GB serial: MCE7215P0MAZBW temp: 33C
           Optical: /dev/sr0 model: SONY CD-RW  CRX320E rev: NYK1 dev-links: cdrom,cdrw,dvd
           Features: speed: 52x multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw state: running 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 24G used: 14G (60%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1 
           label: / uuid: b83b8f32-8a27-4ab5-a669-ab9d5957b7e6
           ID-2: /home size: 89G used: 55G (66%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2 
           label: home uuid: 860b3a98-668a-410b-b4a4-62d5b03096d0
           ID-3: /media/downloads-500 size: 459G used: 315G (73%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdc1 
           label: downloads-500 uuid: 5b91b7e6-024e-4258-b24e-7c4f1bb9e5d7
           ID-4: /media/data size: 230G used: 167G (77%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sde1 
           label: data uuid: 1d4f8dd5-5a9a-4143-9705-989d5f0b2dfb
           ID-5: /media/downloads-2 size: 1.8T used: 877G (51%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdd1 
           label: downloads-2 uuid: 95707d31-7b55-4ac6-b214-f33ee3ca700f
           ID-6: swap-1 size: 6.16GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb3 
           label: N/A uuid: f84f1d58-d8f9-438b-81bf-99b188464e0d
RAID:      No RAID data: /proc/mdstat missing-is md_mod kernel module loaded?
Unmounted: ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 63.37G label: N/A uuid: 2434875A34872DBC 
           ID-2: /dev/sda2 size: 256.70G label: blabla uuid: 263638FB32671645 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 39.8C mobo: N/A gpu: 40.0 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes: 200 Uptime: 1:14 Memory: 2238.7/3960.6MB 
           Init: systemd v: 208 runlevel: 5 default: 2 Gcc sys: 4.9.1 alt: 4.4/4.6/4.7/4.8 
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.241 running in xfce4-terminal) inxi: 2.1.28

I don't know how to get at the motherboard information without dmidecode -t baseboard (which requires super user permissions), so I'll have to take a look at the source of that script sometime.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #21 –

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #22 –
Stupid tablets. :P

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #23 –
I reinstalled the system on my main laptop and made Manjaro the only one on it. With a functional bluetooth, it's now good for everything. No more experimenting.

Re: The Hardware Thread

Reply #24 –
I applied for one of these and, to my surprise, actually got one :eyes:
Spent the last weekend doing the first few steps to port NetBSD to it :right: