What about running a chrooted nix install and using a vnc to connect to it? While web browsing and playing a background video? Just because you don’t use your ram doesn’t mean others don’t. And no, I don’t use all my ram, but a little overhead is nice.
Comment on Apple argues in favor of selling Macs with only 8GB of RAM
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months agonothing that requires 8GB of ram lol.
I’ve played the entirety of java minecraft on an old thinkpad with 4GB of ram. It didn’t crash (i dont use swap)
There literally shouldn’t be anything capable of using that much memory.
IthronMorn@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
on a phone? I mean i suppose you could do that, but VNC is not a very slick remote access tool for anything other than, well, remote access. The latency and speed over WIFI would be a significant problem, i suppose you could stream from your phone to your TV, but again, most TVs that exist today are smart TVs so literally a non issue.
my example here was using a computer rather than a phone, to show that even desktop computing tasks, don’t really use all that much ram.
IthronMorn@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Well, then by that logic, since desktop computing tasks don’t really use all that ram: we shouldn’t need more than 8GB in a desktop ever. Yes, my example was a tad extreme, vnc-ing into your own VM on your phone, but my point was rather phones are becoming capable and replacing traditional computers more and more. A more realistic example is when I was using Samsung Dex the other day I had 80ish chrome tabs open, a video chat, and a terminal ssh’d into my computer fixing it. I liked the overhead of ram I had above me. Was I even close to 12GB? No. But it gave me room if I wanted another background program or had to spin something up quickly without disrupting my flow or lagging out/crashing.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Well, then by that logic, since desktop computing tasks don’t really use all that ram: we shouldn’t need more than 8GB in a desktop ever.
if this is the logic we’re using, then we shouldn’t have phones at all. Since clearly they do nothing more than a computer. Or we shouldn’t have desktops/laptops at all. Because clearly they do nothing more than a phone.
I understand that phones are more capable, my point is that they have no reason to be more capable. 99% of what you do on a phone is going to be the same whether you spend 200 dollars on it, or 2000.
greedytacothief@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Is this bait? Because like, you could be rendering, simulating, running virtual machines. Lots of stuff that aren’t web browsers also eat ram
RippleEffect@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Web browsers also eat ram.
greedytacothief@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I was trying to mention things that weren’t just web browsers. Since it seemed the comment was about programs that use more ram than they seemingly need to.
RippleEffect@lemm.ee 7 months ago
And games!
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 7 months ago
No, the photogrammetry apps all use cloud processing. The LIDAR ones don’t, but that’s only for Apple phones and the actual mesh quality is pretty bad.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
i suppose photo editing would be one? Maybe? I’m not sure how advanced photo editing would be on mobile, it’s not like you’re going to load up the entirety of GIMP or something.
As for photogrammetry, i’m not sure that would consume very much ram. It could, i honestly don’t think it would be that significant.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
90% of which can be paged in the background, it’s not like most people are chronically browsing the web on their phones.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yes, they do.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
on a phone? Why the fuck would anyone be running virtual machines on a phone?
dustyData@lemmy.world 7 months ago
My man, have you been to selfhosted. People are using smart phones for all kinds of crazy stuff. They are basically mini ARM computers.
pythonoob@programming.dev 7 months ago
Something like the Samsung Dex app that basically turns your phone into a mini computer with kbm and a monitor wouldn’t bee too bad tbh for most people. Take all your shit with you in your pocket and dock it at home or at work or whatever.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
yeah, i literally selfhost a server, running like 8 different services. I’m quite acclimated to it by now. Using a phone for this kind of thing is the wrong device. A chromebook is going to be a better alternative. You can probably get those cheaper anyway.
A big problem with phones is that they just aren’t really designed for that kind of thing, you leave a phone plugged in constantly and it’s going to spicy pillow itself. Let alone even trying to do that on something that isn’t an android. I cannot imagine the hell that self hosting on an android would be, let alone on an iphone.
I could see a usecase for it as a network relay in the event that you need a hyper portable node or something. GLHF with the dongling if you need those.
Unfortunately, if you already have a server, it’s going to be better to just spin up a new task on that server, as the cost of running a new device is going to outweight the cost of just using an existing one that’s already running. Also, you can get stuff like a raspi or le potato for pretty cheap also. not very powerful, but probably more utility, especially given the IO.
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 7 months ago
It sounds a lot more cost effective to get a used mini-pc than a flagship phone for any sort of server stuff.
greedytacothief@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Does the JVM count?
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
thats really funny, but no.
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 7 months ago
On a phone? I guess you could, although 4gb is probably enough for any video game that any amount of people use.
woelkchen@lemmy.world 7 months ago
People use phone apps for photo and video editing these days. The common TikTok kid out there doesn’t use Adobe Premiere on a desktop workstation.
Phone apps often are desktop applications with a specialized GUI these days.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
i mean yeah, but even then those are significant filters, and what makes you think that tiktok isn’t running a render farm somewhere in china to collect shit tons of data? They’re already collecting the data, might as well provide a rendering service to make the UI nicer, but i don’t use tiktok so don’t quote me on it.