[jiggawatts]

"Please do not require racing slicks for your formula one cars, some of us are still racing with wooden wagon wheels and can't afford to upgrade to Bridgestone rubber tyres."

The listed excuses are all in the category: "We've been doing things wrong, sometimes for a decade or more, please don't make us change our erroneous ways!"

First of all, if anyone is using any kind of cloud hosting, then there is no excuse. Zero. None. All public clouds allow the choice of CPUs with instruction sets up to and including AVX-512. It's a dropdown menu. Go look at the options it has.

You didn't, did you? You deployed your high performance data warehouse cluster (Clickhouse) with the default VM SKU, didn't you? Admit it. That's a pile of money you'd rather burning than admit that you are too lazy to even glance at the menu options when creating a $50K/month VM cluster.[1]

The next one is the VMware Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC), which allows specific CPU features to be masked out, enabling old servers to coexist with new servers in a single cluster. This too, is a setting that was almost certainly set once when the cluster was created, and nobody bothered to revisit the setting a decade later. I bet 95% VMware clusters with AVX masked are running on hardware 100% capable of using AVX. Again, this is leaving a ton of performance on the floor. Heck, I've seen brand new, uniform-hardware clusters with AVX-512 capable CPUs lobotomised down to SSE4.2 because admins have no clue what EVC actually does.

I remember reading the same articles by admins just as lazy as the guy from that rant when 64-bit-only server software first appeared. "It's too hard to ask the SOE team to make a 64-bit SOE!", or "Our backup software from 1999 doesn't support 64-bit!", etc...

[1] I watched several customers make this mistake, not just occasionally, but literally every time. We eventually had to block the 11-year-old VM SKUs using cloud policies to stop the unfathomable laziness.

[xet7]

Ok, so MongoDB adds requirement for AVX, and then you blame anyone having non-AVX hardware about laziness? Requiring to buy new hardware to run that software? When there could be possibility to use AVX where feature exists, and not use when it does not exist?

Similarly, Win11 adds new requirements for TPM 2.0 etc, so all not having that are blamed about laziness, and required to buy new hardware to run Win11?

It's like, if there is not enough landfill already.

[pavel_odintsov]

Great feedback, thank you. We have customers in many countries around the World and in many cases even medium sized businesses cannot afford buying new equipment just to make some random software happy about CPU flags.

In multiple countries import tax may reach 50% on top of equipment cost. When multiplied by exceptionally weak local currency even medium level server will cost like racing car.

Old equipment without AVX is perfectly capable running modern workloads and artificial requirement to have AVX hurts people and increases digital divide.

To address such cases we found nice trick by using FerretDB to replace MongoDB in such environments: https://fastnetmon.com/docs-fnm-advanced/using-fastnetmon-ad...

[LoganDark]

> Similarly, Win11 adds new requirements for TPM 2.0 etc, so all not having that are blamed about laziness, and required to buy new hardware to run Win11?

How are people even finding hardware without a TPM? my random ASUS laptop from 2020 had a TPM, and Apple has been adding (custom) TPMs to all their computers since 2016. It's honestly more impressive that there are so many people without TPMs to use.

[VancouverMan]

I don't find it surprising at all. Many of my clients and other individuals I know are still using PCs from 2014 or before.

Hardware from that era is still very capable, especially for basic office or home usage.

Even if those computers originally ran Windows 7, or 8, or 8.1, pretty much all of the ones I'm familiar with have been upgraded to Windows 10 since then. They could probably run Windows 11 just fine, too, if it weren't for these new requirements that don't really seem all that necessary.

Being able to use Windows 11 just isn't a compelling enough reason for these kind of people and organizations to buy new hardware, and to go through the hassle of replacing PCs that are otherwise working fine and have been for nearly a decade or longer.

[LoganDark]

I feel like I just don't understand, as someone who has to upgrade hardware every few years just because it breaks.

My PC laptop's keyboard is broken, the bottom panel is snapped off, one of the hinge covers is missing, the ethernet port is broken off the motherboard, the charging cable is soldered in place (because the barrel jack kept breaking), the USB-C port is iffy, the fans keep failing, and it took all that to make me get a new desktop. But that happened in the span of about two years of using the machine in bed. I can't imagine trying to make that machine last any longer, it's a lost cause.

> Hardware from that era is still very capable, especially for basic office or home usage.

Are people used to waiting for their computers to do things? I can't use slow computers because I heavily depend on multitasking and task switching, but seeing some of the things people put up with—like Firefox taking 15 minutes to load—makes me wonder if everyone else is just okay with having a slow computer.

[cesarb]

> I feel like I just don't understand, as someone who has to upgrade hardware every few years just because it breaks. My PC laptop's keyboard is broken [...]

That's your mistake: you're using a laptop. In my experience, desktops are much more robust than laptops (and they're also more modular, so partial replacement when something breaks is viable); most of these people "using PCs from 2014 or before" are probably using desktops.

> Are people used to waiting for their computers to do things? I can't use slow computers because I heavily depend on multitasking and task switching, but seeing some of the things people put up with—like Firefox taking 15 minutes to load—makes me wonder if everyone else is just okay with having a slow computer.

Yes, they're used to it. You can't stand it because you're used to a faster computer, but those who are used to a slower computer might not even notice it, or they work around it (like going for a coffee while the software starts up).

[LoganDark]

> That's your mistake: you're using a laptop.

Not anymore. I've replaced my laptop with a desktop.

But yes. My mistake was indeed thinking that a Windows laptop could fill the void of a broken MacBook Pro. Build quality simply does not exist. The MacBook lasted over 5 years before it had a random logic board crap-out (unknown whether it was my fault or not).

> most of these people "using PCs from 2014 or before" are probably using desktops.

Yep.

> Yes, they're used to it. You can't stand it because you're used to a faster computer, but those who are used to a slower computer might not even notice it, or they work around it (like going for a coffee while the software starts up).

Valid argument, honestly.

I've experienced this with monitors: before my MacBook I could use a regular old 1080p monitor and not have any issues whatsoever, but now trying to use the same exact 1080p monitor today is extremely painful, and my minimum requirement is 4k.

And because my computers have been so fast, I'm used to being able to use alt+tab instead of having multiple windows on-screen, I'm used to being able to augment every conversation with quick Google searches, and so on. My workflow wouldn't work on a slow computer, because my workflow is efficient and demands interactivity.

But I guess if people are just OK with their computer being slow, there's no reason to upgrade just because it's getting out of date. And I guess if software requirements are the only reason people are being forced to upgrade, software requirements are what people are going to get upset with.

[JohnFen]

> That's your mistake: you're using a laptop.

Even so -- I just replaced the cheap laptop I was using as my main driver because it was starting to get a little flaky. It was 10 years old.

[JohnFen]

> as someone who has to upgrade hardware every few years just because it breaks.

You do? What are you doing to those poor machines??

> if everyone else is just okay with having a slow computer.

I don't have a good handle on what you consider to be a "slow" machine, but most people that I know aren't really that fussed about having the fastest possible machine.

[LoganDark]

> You do? What are you doing to those poor machines??

I... legitimately have no freaking idea. I do nothing to the machine, the fan bearings start to fail. I open the screen too many times, the bezel starts popping off and the hinge cover breaks due to that. And the ethernet cable was always loose in the port and trying to fix it eventually resulted in the port snapping off. And the charger barrel is so cheap that the metal coating scrapes right off the moment it ever rotates, causing it to stop being conductive. I think the main thing that was actually my fault was the keyboard because I think I drove a screw into the PCB and cracked it during one of my repairs (you have to remove the entire heatsink assembly and repaste the entire machine in order to get at the fans).

> I don't have a good handle on what you consider to be a "slow" machine, but most people that I know aren't really that fussed about having the fastest possible machine.

I started considering my laptop slow when it started taking a couple seconds to alt+tab. Sometimes it would even skip as if I pressed Tab twice when I really didn't. That kinda stuff annoys me so much because I need to be able to switch tasks really quickly. But I don't know if that's how decade-old machines really perform, which is why I just said "slow computer".

I guess by "slow" I really meant "unresponsive" where it doesn't react quickly to your inputs. That's what would annoy me the most from a computer.

[zbrozek]

The desktop computer I've been using since 2015 doesn't have a TPM and is still plenty fast for my needs. And probably lots of machines a fair bit newer don't have them either. Hardware from 2020 is very new.

Luckily, I have no desire to run Windows 11.

[LoganDark]

> The desktop computer I've been using since 2015 doesn't have a TPM

Yeah but it's from 2015. Windows 11 is from, like, 2021. That's over 6 years before the OS started asking for something you don't have. I think this is why people cry laziness, because it does legitimately sound that way from an outside perspective.

[JohnFen]

That doesn't sound lazy. That sounds like not wanting to replace perfectly good equipment.

[LoganDark]

For me "perfectly good" means "supporting the capabilities required to run the software I need to run" so once I need to run something that my computer doesn't support, it stops being perfectly good.

[JohnFen]

> How are people even finding hardware without a TPM?

Most of the computers I use don't have TPM. I buy older, used computers, but I think the oldest one I have in every day use is 7 years, so not ancient.

Of my friends, both technical and not, most of them have computers that are older than 4 years.

[zinekeller]

This comment honestly smells like arrogance. It's frustrating that you are writing as if ClickHouse and MongoDB is only used by large companies that are either can afford new servers or cloud production since that I have seen cases where software (especially MongoDB) being used on desktop-class and embedded-class hardware. To note, "Not all CPUs from the listed families support AVX. Generally, CPUs with the commercial denomination Core i3/i5/i7/i9 support them, whereas Pentium and Celeron CPUs before Tiger Lake do not." Intel is rather famous of withholding features for the sole sake of market segmentation (ECC anyone?)

I'll withheld my expletives on you narrow-minded comment but the point is that you are only considering the subset of actual users to the point that it's not funny.

[CommanderData]

Quite an edge case but Graylog 5 requires MongoDb 5 which requires AVX.

I was unable to get this setup on my 3 year old nas (920+) and had to resort to running an older version which will most likely stop getting updates very soon. AVX is old but apparently Intel decided to keep it out of certain line ups.

[pavel_odintsov]

Yep that's serious issue and it's similar to our case. Our main product can work just fine even without SSE 4.2 but MongoDB requires it and then indirectly leads to AVX1 support as we use MongoDB as storage. We did PoC with FerretDB last month and I think it may be good option for Gerylog: https://www.ferretdb.io

[muxamilian]

It’s not only about old CPUs. Intel Atom still doesn’t support AVX. Atoms are quite common on industrial controllers. For example, Tensorflow crashes with an obscure error on Atom CPUs. If you don’t support AVX at least output an error message.

[th3typh00n]

Recent Atom CPUs (since Gracemont) do support AVX and AVX2.