It seems to have worked for Bill Gates as well. He definitely did some not so nice things when starting and running MS - I think it unfortunately goes with the territory of running a successful company at scale.
But subsequently he has become more know for his philanthropy.
When I was in the college in the early 2000s, I had a friend who ran OpenBSD. He always sang its praises, mostly because it was the most secure operating system.
I tried a bunch of Linux Distributions and FreeBSD before mostly settling on MacOS, but never actually got around to running it.
Glad to see OpenBSD is still being actively developed.
I love obsd A perhaps unjustified amount, but not because it's security, I like it... well it's hard to explain, it's a small understandable system, but it's not a minimal system, there are enough built in services to put any linux distro to shame but they are all small, well built, well documented services, the OS as a whole hits well above it's punching weight. I find obsd makes for perhaps the best unix desktop system, but I don't mean desktop how mac or windows or even the linux desktop environments mean desktop. It is far simpler than that, I mean unix command line, window manager only style desktop. There is something about it, something that I find hard to put into words, but may be best described as comfortable.
But honestly, despite all that it's mainly what you are used to. I tolerate linux, it is one of the good guys, fighting the good fight and all that. But I still find it a bewildering mess compared to obsd. I am sure a primary linux user feels the same way about obsd.
I used to use it at University after one of the guys I was in labs with was using it for his daily driver. The first release I tried was 3.8.
It was quite a shock coming from SuSE 9.2. It was much easier to install than FreeBSD, however the installer is even more archaic than FreeBSD. Someone wrote a graphical installer years ago and but nobody bothered with it.
The BSDs really need at least something like the archinstall.
It is certainly different than Linux. You really need to read the FAQ and manuals as you won't find much out by doing a web search, unlike Linux. One of the other things that differs from Linux is that supported hardware / software will work, however Linux hardware support is obviously a lot better than in 2005 when I first started looking at OpenBSD.
Hard disagree, the Openbsd installer is the gold standard to which all other installers compare poorly.
When I picked a linux distro to put on my system to play games on, the one I choose was void linux, why, mainly because the installer looks and feels directly ripped off from obsd.
> Hard disagree, the Openbsd installer is the gold standard to which all other installers compare poorly.
No not really. I recently took my friend through it and there is several places where it is pretty easy to screw something up. Whenever people say stuff like this, they are usually accustomed to the quirks.
> When I picked a linux distro to put on my system to play games on, the one I choose was void linux, why, mainly because the installer looks and feels directly ripped off from obsd.
Choosing distros based on the installer is kinda a bit silly. I've done a Linux From Scratch build and I can tell you there is very little difference between one distro an another.
>> Hard disagree, the Openbsd installer is the gold standard to which all other installers compare poorly.
> No not really. I recently took my friend through it and there is several places where it is pretty easy to screw something up. Whenever people say stuff like this, they are usually accustomed to the quirks.
Like what places, and how are they pretty easy to screw up on? I'm genuinely curious, as to me it's the cleanest and most straight-forward console installer I've ever experienced. I managed to get it done the very first time I, 25 years ago, with zero *nix experience, decided to try OpenBSD. Also, you can always exit the installer and restart the process. You're not "screwed" unless you reboot at the end without having reflected over your instructions.
> Like what places, and how are they pretty easy to screw up on? I'm genuinely curious, as to me it's the cleanest and most straight-forward console installer I've ever experienced.
To you it is. I installed on 3.8 and it was not straightforward. I used to go to university with a guy that used OpenBSD and he even said the installation at the time was straight forward. So it isn't just me.
I can't remember specifics as it was about 4-6 months. It was something to do with drive labelling IIRC, it was super confusing and I think I just ended up removing drives temporarily.
> you can always exit the installer and restart the process.
Nope. I tried that. It did not work.
> You're not "screwed" unless you reboot at the end without having reflected over your instructions.
The installer is a plain *sh script. You simply ctrl+c to break out and return to the shell, then run "install" to start the script again. I can't see why you would end up with an installation medium containing a different installer than everyone else.
> The installer is a plain *sh script. You simply ctrl+c to break out and return to the shell, then run "install" to start the script again
I ended up in situation where that wasn't possible. I wasn't sure how that happened. But it did.
I have done many installations over the years on real hardware and VMs. It only happened once, but it can happen.
I could also bring up the issues with the auto partition layout that is suggest which can make impossible to install any larger of software after installation. Or how the disks can be confusingly labelled in some cases (especially in VMs).
The point being communicated is that it isn't as straightforward as many people claim.
I first started mucking about with it in like 3.8/3.9, and you had to do something which was very archaic (even for 20 years) with calculating partition size, so it has improved.
> I can't see why you would end up with an installation medium containing a different installer than everyone else.
I don't appreciate how you worded this.
I am not lying about my experience. I just can't remember the exact set of steps of what happened because it happened several months ago now.
> very little difference between one distro an another
These days the differences come down to systemd or no systemd. I joke that we should refer to it all as SystemD/Linux (akin to how "GNU/Linux" was used).
I did the LFS build with SysV init scripts. I think there is a systemd version of LFS. LFS was a good learning exercise to see generally how everything was put together. I wouldn't want to manually manage all of this myself.
If you look at the LFS compile instructions for each package they are essentially the same as the PKGBUILDs scripts in Arch, I suspect it is similar with Gentoo, Void or any other similar Linux distro.
It feels like Alpine tries to imitate the OpenBSD installer somewhat as well, but it is just not the same as it forces you to make choices between SSH servers, NTP daemons, etc. So, it still very much feels like the Linux "pick and mix box". What makes OpenBSD so special is that there is one choice, it tends to be a good choice, and it is the only choice they will support and therefore they will put in the hours to make it solid.
> the Openbsd installer is the gold standard to which all other installers compare poorly.
Very hard disagree.
It took me half a dozen installs in VMs before I dared try on hardware. I never managed to get the Arm64 version installed at all, due to the cryptic minimalist info the installer gave me, which wasn't anywhere near enough to go on.
I have it on hardware now. It took a day or 2 of work but now it runs it's totally stable. However, the Byzantine partitioning scheme it uses means that although I gave it 32GB of disk, I don't have enough disk space to install Xfce.
It is on a Thinkpad W500, on a ~250GB SSD, multibooting with WinXP64, and NetBSD 10, and both Crunchbang++ Linux and Alpine Linux.
I tend to find that people who praise the installer tell me that it's never crossed their mind to dual-boot and they find it simple because they single-boot it on a very over-specced system where space restraints don't matter much.
Similar thing with the disk layout happened to me in a VM. I just did auto layout and one of the partitions were so small I couldn't install any other software. I ended up remaking the VM and just using two partitions for the entire disk IIRC.
They have gotten used to stuff like this and think is normal.
Debian has similar issues with making partitions too small. It makes the /boot partition so small that if you have more than a couple kernel images, you run out space. If you use the LUKS crypt with LVM, the suggest layout would have vg-root too small.
If you use archinstall as I said you can be up and running in 20 minutes on a fast connection. You literally just state what you want setup through a menu, make a hot drink and you have a working desktop. It is pretty hassle free in my experience.
I haven't tried the FreeBSD installer in a couple of years but I always find that I end up lost in the menus or something doesn't work correctly. Then I am kinda left faffing trying to get X working, ports or something else working. I couldn't set the desktop resolution properly and I suspect there was some magic flag I had set somewhere or install firmware.
I just can't be bothered when I can install Debian or Arch in about 15-20 minutes and everything works fine.
>I just can't be bothered when I can install Debian or Arch in about 15-20 minutes and everything works fine.
And that's perfectly fine, i would also never criticize people who just buy a Mac, some people are just interested in different stuff. However if you have problems getting lost in "menus" but wanna try out a BSD try GhostBSD:
> And that's perfectly fine, i would also never criticize people who just buy a Mac, some people are just interested in different stuff.
I used to be an operating system enthusiast. I've tried them all at one time. I just have a job now (I have to use Windows at work) and I just not interested in faffing to get graphics working. The experience hasn't changed that much with FreeBSD in 20 years. Some might be okay with that, but I don't really want to have to spend 3 days getting a basic desktop environment behaving properly.
OpenBSD is better in this regard than FreeBSD, I've found.
> However if you have problems getting lost in "menus" but wanna try out a BSD try GhostBSD: https://www.ghostbsd.org/
This is kinda like distro-hopping. I don't want to run some weird fork of the OS, because you will end up with a new set problems potentially. I don't use derivative distros for this very reason and only use mainline distros.
I don't understand why (I don't care for wanky reasons that often quoted) that there isn't a mechanism for me to quickly get up an running with a desktop. The situation hasn't changed in 20+ years. Whereas Linux (for all the faults that it has) has effectively had this problem solved for over a decade now.
> It's really a YOU problem, i have working X on all my machines, have a good day.
Not at all. I can read the man pages and docs fine. Stuff like this should work out of the box by now. It doesn't with the BSDs typically. That is the reality.
Also, it isn't just X. It is other issues once you have X working.
Once you spent a good few hours sorting things out, there is almost no benefit over running a decent Linux distribution where almost all of this working OOTB.
I don't understand why you are getting bent out of shape. I am simply stating the facts as I see them.
> You do You and that's good, just use what you like.
Well obviously I am going to use what I like.
However stating that doesn't mean you stop me (or anyone else) from making constructive criticisms of something you like.
I have used tried many of the *nix variants over the last 20 years. It is just easier to use Linux if you want a desktop OS.
> Super happy for you, you found your OS and that's fine,
That isn't what I said. I said that Linux is easier than BSD for a desktop and there is no real reason why that should be the case. That is an objective fact.
I would rather use neither of these systems, but the alternatives are worse. At the moment Linux is the least worst option if you want a Desktop OS.
> but also super proud of myself that i can setup X on every FreeBSD machine so nonchalant ;)
As I said it isn't just X.
The point that you don't want to engage with (bit childish tbh), is that a lot of this should completely unnecessary. There really should need to be a fork of the OS for having a desktop configuration that works reasonably well out of the box.
That is failure of both the OS and the community, which judging by your username you seem to be a member.
False. There is some config required (these are in the READMEs that are in each package that specified what options need setting) and BTW some of it doesn't work on supported hardware.
Something I find weird is that this article compares a 9950x with two different laptop CPUs and concludes that performance has increased massively in the past few years. If you compare the 9950x with its two Desktop predecessors (released 2 and 4 years before), you see about a 6% increase from the 7950x and a 45% increase from the 5950x. So you should consider upgrading regularly, but potentially not every single generation. I think it makes sense to consider the performance and offer an upgrade when you see a 50% or so cumulative improvement. Everywhere I have worked has upgraded developers every 3-4 years, and it might make sense to upgrade if there is a massive change (like when Macbooks went to M-series).
As for Desktop vs Laptop, that is relevant too. Desktops are typically much faster than Laptops because they are allowed much larger power envelopes, which leads to more cores and higher clock speeds for sustained periods of time. However, there is always a question as to whether your use case will be able to use all 16/32 cores/threads in a 9950X CPU. If not, you may not notice much difference with a smaller processor.
My definition of science is something like "a methodical approach to reach some truth" whereas engineering is something like "a methodical approach to reach some functionality". And I think some version of that is pretty universally accepted.
So by that definition, prompt engineering is much closer to engineering than science. That said, I would consider it closer to product development than either of the above two; I don't count 'tell an llm you'll torture it until your website is hopefully less buggy' a methodical approach.
"Done properly" anything can be science/engineering. Just make a process, give it a KPI on how well it's performing, and you have an engineering. Movie making done properly is where audience is engaged with every act, you test screen it, see audience reaction, tweak, have a specific set of evals, and then you have something scoring high on the metrics. Part of that happens today, but you would not call that science. It's not what people mean when they call something as science or engineering. Your's is too broad of a definition to mean anything specific.
I had a licensed copy of Executor back in the mid-90s. It was the coolest thing ever. Thanks for being one of my inspirations to go into software development.
I think of LLMs as knowing a lot of things but as being relatively shallow in their knowledge.
I find them to be super useful for things that I don't already know how to do, e.g. a framework or library that I'm not familiar with. It can then give me approximate code that I will probably need to modify a fair bit, but that I can use as the basis for my work. Having an LLM code a preliminary solution is often more efficient than jumping to reading the docs immediately. I do usually need to read the docs, but by the time I look at them, I already know what I need to look up and have a feasible approach in my head.
If I know exactly how I would build something, an LLM isn't as useful, although I will admit that sometimes an LLM will come up with a clever algorithm that I wouldn't have thought up on my own.
I think that, for everyone who has been an engineer for some time, we already have a way that we write code, and LLMs are a departure. I find that I need to force myself to try them for a variety of different tasks. Over time, I understand them better and become better at integrating them into my workflows.
I’m job searching right now, and it’s definitely not the doom and gloom that I’m hearing about.
I think it’s a challenging environment for developers who are either inexperienced or who have skills that are out of date. I have found that companies are a bit more picky than i remember about knowing the exact tech stack they use, but they are still making offers and those offers are pretty good.
Note that I’m applying mostly to mid-sized non-public companies. I’m not sure what it’s like applying to MAANG-types right now.
I'm in loops at multiple FAANGs right now and it's not even that bad. Feels similar to when I did this last time? But I do get the impression that they're all just throwing out any resumes that don't already have a FAANG on them. If you're already in the club then it's ok, but I think it's harder than ever to join the club so to speak.
When the FAANGs stocks were soaring and they handed out options like candy, even low level devs at those tech companies were making the kind of money usually reserved for medical doctors and attorneys. There was a huge gulf between SV pay and pretty much everywhere else.
Now, those companies have mostly lost the luster they used to have, and the comp differences aren't as large.
I think of LLMs like smart but unreliable humans. You don't want to use them for anything that you need to have right. I would never have one write anything that I don't subsequently go over with a fine-toothed comb.
With that said, I find that they are very helpful for a lot of tasks, and improve my productivity in many ways. The types of things that I do are coding and a small amount of writing that is often opinion-based. I will admit that I am somewhat of a hacker, and more broad than deep. I find that LLMs tend to be good at extending my depth a little bit.
From what I can tell, Sabine Hossenfelder is an expert in physics, and I would guess that she already is pretty deep in the areas that she works in. LLMs are probably somewhat less useful at this type of deep, fact-based work, particularly because of the issue where LLMs don't have access to paywalled journal articles. They are also less likely to find something that she doesn't know (unlike with my use cases, where they are very likely to find things that I don't know).
What I have been hearing recently is that it will take a long time for LLMs will be better than humans at everything. However, they are already better than many many humans at a lot of things.
1. Any low hanging fruits that could easily be solved by an LLM easily probably would have been solved by someone already using standard methods.
2. Humans and LLMs have to spend some particular amount of energy to solve problems. Now, there are efficiencies that can lower/raise that amount of energy but at the end of the day TANSTAAFL. Humans spend this in a lifetime of learning and eating, and LLMs spend this in GPU time and power. Even when AI gets to human level it's never going to abstract this cost away, energy still needs spent to learn.
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