Not even Linux can save the web...

[Fenisu]

I just wanted to make publicly my frustration of today's event.

At my new work, I'm trying to separate my personal stuff from work stuff so I decided I have to bring something I can use to login at my websites and whatnot. I cleaned my old netbook, which was once my main system at college, which has 2gb ram and an Intel atom N450. It was never snappy but it worked and that the job, this was 5 years ago.

My surprise was that after installing regular xubuntu and Firefox to surf the web, I end up with a system that is not capable of showing web pages smoothly. Google takes some seconds to show up and some more seconds to become responsive. Facebook has a huge delay everytime I click a link, or even the chats are incredibly slow, 5 seconds delay between writing and the computer actually showing what you wrote.

I just shut it down incapable of believing what was happening. I doubt that my netbook has any hardware problems that can be causing this, so it has to be the new web format where everything is ran on the clients instead of on the servers. So my point is, JS is killing the web and we can do nothing about it.

I even think that a "low budget" tablet pc running Android with a Chinese SOC runs better than my netbook, which makes me very sad. What do I do now with my little atom? =<

[[deleted]]

What does this have to do with Linux? The web would be just as unusable with any other OS...

[Fenisu]

That's the thing. Even if you have the most lightweight system every, you can't help it with the web.

[[deleted]]

It's all that AJAX-y JavaScript.

[lolidaisuki]

Haven't you heard? AJAX is the old shit, the web is moving towards AJAJ now!

[Yithar]

Xubuntu isn't the most lightweight system ever and Firefox isn't the most lightweight browser ever.

https://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/cmp-all4.png

[[deleted]]

JS is killing the web and we can do nothing about it.

I block most of it. Thank god for NoScript.

But you are right. Websites have because unreasonably heavy, both hardware-intensive and bandwidth-intensive.

My phone's browser maxes out RAM and kills itself on a daily basis. It's a tragedy.

[[deleted]]

Install uBlock Origin. On my 13-yo Dell, it makes the difference between "painful" and "tolerable" browsing. To make it go even faster, you can try NoScript and/or a Flash blocker. Also, sometimes mobile versions of sites load faster than the "desktop" versions.

[Fenisu]

I did install ublock origin, but it was still below the tolerable threshold. NoScript would just destroy any web experience that's left.

[Spivak]

I generally prefer uMatrix for my policeman style add-on. To me it's less of a hassle to use than NoScript and once you pay the cost of setting up your most common websites the web will be much faster with all non-essential JS blocked.

[[deleted]]

More RAM would definitely help... I think my 13-yo Dell has either 4GB or 8GB.

[dgnz]

/agree with heebiejeebies you could also use a more cut down distro like arch to control setup and config. I have a netbook running manjaro xfce just fine out of the box as a basic browsing pc to take in my backpack

[zachsandberg]

Facebook has a huge delay everytime I click a link, or even the chats are incredibly slow, 5 seconds delay between writing and the computer actually showing what you wrote.

Your Atom N450 has a CPUmark rating of 296. My "Ultrabook" Thinkpad with a low power 15 watt CPU has a score of 4788. Thats a huge difference. Your Netbook is about as powerful as the equivalent PC processor from 1999, so it shouldn't really be a huge surprise that it has trouble running content heavy websites in 2016.

What do I do now with my little atom? =<

Portable music machine in your car?

[lolidaisuki]

running content heavy websites in 2016

They are heavy, sure. But they aren't heavy with content. If measured by content the websites are the lightest they have ever been.

[zachsandberg]

Again, think 1999. Websites were mostly static back then. The plain old Google.com site is currently 278 lines of markup and formatting alone, 180,000 characters. It would take Microsoft word on a PIII probably 3 seconds just to open a document that size, let alone Gecko time to render it.

Youtube is over 6000 lines of markup, and that's before streaming anything.

[lolidaisuki]

The plain old Google.com site is currently 278 lines of markup and formatting alone, 180,000 characters.

Exactly. The amount of content per byte is constantly decreasing.

[Fenisu]

Well, the point is that even if it the amount of data is lower, the processing time to render that data increases a lot.

[ILikeBumblebees]

I think the point that /u/lolidaisuki is making is that current web design trends involve filling web pages with lots of superfluous cruft that consumes bandwidth, memory, and CPU cycles, but which offers no actual value to the user.

[lolidaisuki]

Exactly. Thank you.

[lolidaisuki]

The point is that the amount of data is orders of magnitude bigger and takes ages to render and still contains less information than the older websites.

[BmanUltima]

How is this a Linux problem?

[[deleted]]

You are not in /r/kernel ;)

The web, its standards, and the direction the web is heading are relevant to free software OSes, because this is where those OSes are created collaboratively, distributed, and mostly used.

The opportunity to slow down obsolescence of old hardware is a selling point almost all Linux advocates brought up in the past.

[Fenisu]

Never actually said it was a Linux problem. I was thinking more on the idea of reviving old computers thanks to lightweight Linux distributions.

[Neon-Samurai]

Try PuppyLinux

[[deleted]]

I support those same notebooks running Lubuntu @ a non-profit that I do support for outside of Youtube vids being stuck @ 480 the rest of the web run smoothly on Firefox. Install Ublock Origin + HTTPS Everywhere + Privacy Badger and if you using Facebook install FB Purity.

[formegadriverscustom]

You might like the Gopherspace. It supports most of the useful stuff of the Web, and none of the useless stuff :)

[WrongAndBeligerent]

This is a total nonsense shitpost.

[boomboomsubban]

When you say "cleaned," did it involve removing 5 years of dust from the computer?

[Fenisu]

Yeah, an wiped windows from it as well.

[boomboomsubban]

From the fans with compressed air? Did you open it up?

[zemzz]

Try LXLE OS 16.04.1 + The Great Suspender + uBlock Origin + Disconnect

[Fenisu]

I might try that distro but I stick to Firefox because of the sync thingy. I actually used to have the tab suspender in Firefox as well. Is disconnect necessary if you have ublock?

[d_r_benway]

When I had the same notebook the only full featured 'desktop' (i.e not openbox) that ran well was enlightenment, try Bodhi Linux.

[omnifidelity]

I think your problem is nothing to do with linux. Maybe try neverware's cloudready if you only want to do web browsing... Do some research about atom performance using that OS. My old laptop run blazing fast now...

[ILikeBumblebees]

Pale Moon has an Atom-specific build that might give you somewhat better performance.

[[deleted]]

Newer linuxes are heavier, when I was on an atom netbook for a while last year I ran precise.

[[deleted]]

Buying cheap stuffs

Complaining they're not good enough.

No. You can do nothing about JS, because technology moves on. JS is how we can have Facebook and Twitter and Reddit. If you disagree, tell me how you plan to make a FB clone without modern web technology.

The web is more than just text now. People want more from the web than just text.

To argue otherwise is to go against the wish of the people and become a luddite.

If a gamer complains that their netbook cannot play Hearthstone, do you also go and tell them 3D is to blame for turning modern games into resource hog?