There's no new "life with NetBSD" report due to my semi ongoing health issues, so I'm going to boost the previous one.
I'm thinking, when I have time and energy, about a personal project related to surviving in the era of collapse of personal computing. Likely it'll be just a blog about making things cozy for me and my partner, where we would be exploring topics like:
- building offline-only Debian workstation based off old-stable, and potentially fetching some security fixes from upstream
- making NetBSD a simple desktop OS with minimum slop/no AI-tainted packages coming from upstream
- some minimal risk evaluation for software we use in terms of "will it bitrot, will it be taken over by fash"
- exploring alternative OSes more: not just BSD, but Haiku, Redox, FreeDOS
- collection of links to cool human-made projects
- etc etc
This is a gigantic project that I feel like I have to do for my own sanity. It'll take a long time to even get started.
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Nina Kalinina
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •While I'm still feeling meh, I want to at least call your attention to some projects that are worth highlighting:
cproc C compiler
sr.ht/~mcf/cproc/
Did you know that GCC allows fully LLM generated tests and some amount of LLM code in codegen? Did you know that LLVM allows even more? That tinycc main branch is free for all with vibe code? That author of chibicc is now full on in vibe coding, and even vintage pcc, watcom and tack might be endangered to slop? It's all very, very sad and scary.
Cproc is the only C compiler that I know of that is explicitly not allowing LLM output in its code. It is reasonably mature, as it can compile a Linux distribution called
oasis, and it is fairly portable - e.g. I had very little problems of building simple programs with it on NetBSD amd64 - but it is not a drop in replacement for GCC.(I forgot 9front's compiler, it's fine too, but it's not the C flavour I know)
🧵 Continues
cproc: C compiler based on QBE
sr.htsarah tonin
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •GitHub - fuhsnn/slimcc: C23 compiler with C2y/GNU extensions for x86-64 Linux/BSD, written in C99
GitHubNina Kalinina
in reply to sarah tonin • • •sarah tonin
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •yea
but honestly, i don't think c compilers is an area where there is much of an actual worry, they aren't impossibly simple that any student can make their own, but they are simple enough that anyone with time could make their own, and so jumping from one to another isn't a big ask so long as you keep to only the standard (and maybe only very common extensions)
tkchia
in reply to sarah tonin • • •@SRAZKVT (1) Myself I am not too worried about C compilers for flat memory addressing architectures (such as Intel x86-64).
Alas, for compilers that directly support the 8086's segment:offset addressing & far pointers, the choices become a lot more narrow. I know of
- Open Watcom
- gcc-ia16 (still has at least one codegen bug related to segmentation 🙁)
- & maybe Lindauer's cc386 (fortunately I mirrored that: codeberg.org/tkchia/cc386.lads…).
cc386.ladsoft
Codeberg.orgtkchia
in reply to tkchia • • •@SRAZKVT
(2) I find "bitrot" to be a rather ... weird concept, actually.
It is like, we are blaming some Awk interpreter code (say) for not "adapting" to changes in the OS it runs on, & not asking if the OS should be making such breaking changes in the first place.
Also we really do not want to normalize people being "culturally" "expected" to maintain code in their unpaid time...
We probably need better vocabulary than "bitrot" to characterize the problem, whatever it is.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to tkchia • • •tkchia
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •I suspect we actually agree. 🙂
I suppose the problem is more that bits can "rot" for many reasons. For risk evaluation purposes, it is worthwhile to reason about them separately. Un-obtainium software is definitely a real risk.
(My main beef is with the idea -- in some circles -- that a fixed piece of software "rots" & becomes less relevant over time just because "entropy", & must be constantly updated by an active (& unpaid) maintainer just to stay relevant.)
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Nina Kalinina • •@Nina Kalinina @sarah tonin gcc and the Linux kernel were a massive blow. As much as I swore I was done distro hopping for mission-critical machines, I feel I'm being railroaded into at least exploring BSD, especially since the distro I landed on was Debian.
To be fair, I've been BSD-curious for a while anyway. This just gives me an excuse.
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in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •like this
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wyatt
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Bitslingers-R-Us likes this.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to wyatt • • •@wyatt @me @SRAZKVT
modload compat_linuxand Carol's your auntie. There's even openSuse 15 in pkgsrc, enough to run Va-11 Hall-A (if you're lucky)kNetBSD used to be a thing too!
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wyatt
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Bitslingers-R-Us likes this.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to wyatt • • •@wyatt according to nia, it worked great. On my laptop with NetBSD 11 I have kernel panic triggered by libopenal 😓 see washbear.neocities.org/valhall…
@me @SRAZKVT
VA-11 HALL-A using NetBSD's Linux emulation
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wyatt
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •i'd be running linux wine probably for deltarune :\
with alsa, fuck pulseaudio
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Nina Kalinina • •Nina Kalinina likes this.
werdahias (tired)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to werdahias (tired) • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Software projects you probably should know about, continues
Chromium and Firefox rely on LLM generated code extensively. This means Firefox forks and Chromium forks are AI-tainted. WebKit, too, has Claude and Codex generated code in it. This means ways of browsing the web, the modern web, without slop, are critically endangered. If you want to reduce the harms of LLM usage, even moving to a Firefox fork would be a net positive thing, but our next best bets for slop-free web browsing are either Servo (warning: Rust and some dependencies needed for it are somewhat AI tainted) or forks of old Firefox, I think. And alternative js-free browsers.
I'm really, really sorry, but I think modern web might not make it. Smolweb? Sure. Let's use smolweb more
🧵 Continues
Pale Moon | Custom, Private, Open-Source Web Browsing.
palemoon.orgtoots
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to toots • • •toots
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Mayke 🍁
in reply to toots • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •Mayke 🍁
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •toots
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •Mayke 🍁
in reply to toots • • •@toots It's tragic, but most people's opinion of AI seems directly proportional to how much AI hurts them or those around them. I.e. Artists and creatives: much hate.
I'm afraid that "AI-free" is destined to be the "organic" or "free range" of software. By that, I mean it's something not easily verified, it's something where the fine print is not well understood, etc. Like regardless if you can successfully produce the product without AI, a portion of the coffee consumed during production was acquired with child labor, the PC used contains components manufactured in unsavory work conditions, the switches/routers/software that deliverer the packets were touched by AI. Yes you can say you did your best to cause no harm, but the level of pedantism necessary to truly know is unrealistic. 🥲
I don't think embracing AI is the answer either, but you need to be careful you're not acting "holier than thou" as if you go deep enough, it may be disingenuous.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •@mayke @toots I think my analogy with veganism holds here. Most people aren't vegetarian or vegan, even though there are many arguments for it. From vegan point of view, harm reduction is a positive thing. Less AI is better. Simpler, more humane software is better. It might be difficult to prove things, but for small projects and communities around them, the care people put into their projects is tangible, and personal reputation is important.
I'm just very pissed off that big tech decided to convince many decision makers to put figurative meat (that also probably spies on you and rots your brain) into all the food that used to be vegan
Mayke 🍁
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •rosalyn
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •Mayke 🍁
in reply to rosalyn • • •toots
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to toots • •@toots @rosalyn @Mayke 🍁 @Nina Kalinina My understanding is that the thing that pushed VHS over the edge was the "extended play" or whatever mode that let you run the tape more slowly to record for a longer period of time. Without using this feature, both had similar fidelity.
I could be mistaken on this. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
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toots
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •toots
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •toots
in reply to Mayke 🍁 • • •F4GRX Sébastien ⸚
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien ⸚ • • •aeva
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •oh dang seamonkey is still around 😮 and gentoo has a package for it 😮
did they just keep going with whatever was current at the time the project was established, or do they use firefox's browser engine now days?
Nina Kalinina
in reply to aeva • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •I wish I could offer more advice and guidance on living without AI-tainted or anti-humanist/fascist software. I think if you're worried about it, and have energy and time, you should try keeping your existing software and hardware going for as long as it is feasible. If updates stop coming, consider moving things to be offline-only. Research repairable alternatives. Learn about emulation. Choose safer options, and you probably will find No-AI list as helpful as I did:
noai.starlightnet.work/list.ht…
Additionally you might want to be aware of Open-Slopware list, though it keeps the projects in the list to a very high standard, including things I personally find forgivable (e.g. MartyPC is in the list): codeberg.org/ethical-foss/open…
Finally, if you want my opinion on Linux: I'm sorry but I think it's mostly done for, for my purposes. I don't think I'll find it fully ethical to use after LTS support for the late 5.x/early 6.x kernel drops. And don't get me started on systemd, python and other things that embrace AI.
🧵 end
open-slopware
Codeberg.orgmaru
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •p.s. as I'm saying, I'm going to research things more, write about them more, as much as my health and time allow, but sadly there's no solution to the poly-crisis that'd fit all. I wish NetBSD or OpenBSD could satisfy everyone's needs - but they can't, at the moment, be as simple to use as Linux, and for many, moving to, say, NetBSD could feel like moving to a foreign country without most of your possessions and without your family and support network. The friends I made when I arrived to the BSD land are great, but I still feel like I've lost my $HOME. And I don't feel like my answers will work for everyone. So I won't tell you to do exactly what I did.
Instead, I think we should experiment more. Embrace permacomputing more. Embrace smaller communities. And among those, we might find new, cozy homes. Maybe Haiku will be great for you. Maybe you'll find 9front exciting. Maybe you'll enjoy writing in tal for uxn. Survive. ❤️🩹🫂 Stay sane. Look after each other. Stay kind to humans.
dwardoric
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Ilia Iverson
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Ilia Iverson • • •Ilia Iverson
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Ilia Iverson • • •SackOfBones (any/all)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to SackOfBones (any/all) • • •@sackofbones Rust has a relatively good anti-AI policy but fetches tainted upstream ;( and then there's LLVM.
Rust GCC is promising, but then, GCC 😓
SackOfBones (any/all)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •SackOfBones (any/all)
in reply to SackOfBones (any/all) • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to SackOfBones (any/all) • • •@sackofbones GCC allows LLM use in codegen if it's below 15 lines and as much as you want in tests.
Rust policy bans all LLM code: github.com/rust-lang/rust-forg…
Add an LLM policy for `rust-lang/rust` by jyn514 · Pull Request #1040 · rust-lang/rust-forge
GitHubSackOfBones (any/all)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to SackOfBones (any/all) • • •SackOfBones (any/all)
in reply to SackOfBones (any/all) • • •And then I can have my slopless music player* if my proposal** with Dear ImGui goes through
* Cause the navidrome builtin is pretty bad and I haven't seen any others that look pretty other than Feishin, and Feishin is really buggy
** github.com/ocornut/imgui/issue…
Proposal: make an anti-ai ai policy · Issue #9558 · ocornut/imgui
OneOfKropotkinsCats (GitHub)sinza (e/em/eirs or vi/vim/vis)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •slowclap 👏
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •personally I’m trying to think about this the same way I think about gas and animal cruelty. These systems are inherently problematic but they have been adopted to the point that ideological purity feels pretty unattainable. (It’s wild to say that about LLM’s given how new they are, but it does feel like that’s happening here too)
I hope that will change (and soon) but I (perhaps cynically) suspect it won’t. However, I do think that building knowledge, using simpler tools, refusing to engage with LLMs in a way that diminish our creativity and authorship over the things we build, all still matter. IMO they matter more than anything, because if enough people are doing that, these technologies lose so much of their destructive potential (and their market value, which is the main thing driving their destructive potential as best I can tell.)
I know I don’t have as hardline of a stance on AI as many, but it’s certainly enough to retain authorship over everything I build. I just know from experience with other societal moral failings that even when we’re stuck in an imperfect system, making it a bit better (or a bit less worse) is worth celebrating.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to slowclap 👏 • • •@slowclap I generally agree with you, but I also think that most people outside of tech can't really tell the difference between Office 2003 and Office Co-Pilot 365 and will likely happily run either, as long as it works fast enough. So I hope some of the harms could be reversed.
However, the biggest and the worst stuff is coming from big tech, either way ;( so I'm not quite sure what to do here, but I know we have to resist. I refuse to go down quietly.
slowclap 👏
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •I could be wrong, but personally I don’t see the general populace interacting with AI in a way that’s driving the increased data center needs or going to meaningfully impact jobs, or any of the other major ethical downfalls of AI.
Obviously that’s still feeding money into a corrupt system, but it’s far from the only corrupt system society is pouring money into.
And where my stance differs from most anti AI people is that I personally don’t see much harm in people using it as a tool to learn and improve (and I do think, despite its failings, it has some potential there). Yes it’s built on stolen knowledge, but I don’t really lose sleep over anyone stealing it back.
The problematic people I see are almost exclusively vibe coding tech bros, and I just don’t think the benefits are actually as pronounced there as AI advocates want to believe.
Even if AI produced perfect, reliable code every time (which it obviously doesn’t), the work that distinguishes good software from bad software doesn’t actually get done by shoving every valid idea in a blender and deploying what comes out. I think this is why we haven’t seen anything meaningful being vibe coded into existence.
And even if the next round of tech purchases most people make are far more infected with this stuff than I’d prefer, I think turning off these features, not using them, (or even barely using them) and supporting people and software that aren’t using AI, or are using it more responsibly, is going to keep sending a message.
Maybe I’m naive but I think the way we solve this problem is additive: boosting the discoverability of indies that aren’t overly reliant on LLMs, talking about projects and alternatives like you’re doing, supporting real art, real writing, handcrafted software, and building each other up (socially and financially ideally)
If there’s a healthy ecosystem of real stuff made by real people that isn’t feeding money into big tech and we’re helping people find it and build it, more people are going to want to engage with that system and benefit from it.
This is a very roundabout way of saying that I think you are doing the right thing, I hope I’m doing the right thing, and even if LLM’s stay a part of the world and become increasingly involved in our software in ways we can’t avoid, there’s still a lot of ways to resist and I find a lot to admire in the way you do!
Eggs now in different baskets.
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •@slowclap Not just that.
I met someone doing a Masters degree who could not understand that the Windows desktop and Word were two different things.
It was just "the computer".
I think it is easy to underestimate how confusing computers can be to even otherwise intelligent people.
MaddieM4
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Good thread, and I'm feeling a lot of the same things - I'm even installing NetBSD today for the same reasons, after a failed attempt last night.
As for Linux, I don't think we should leap to the conclusion that low-friction *must* imply opening the doors for corporate dickweasels, even though the two often go hand in hand, and the correlation can feel inescapable. But I think the trick is, we should not let corporate interests be the ones showing up to "come to the rescue" for healing all the paper cuts. We can and should do that as a community, for our community, properly internalizing that the less technically literate are still members of our community and under our duty of care.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to MaddieM4 • • •@MaddieM4 Good luck with NetBSD! There are quite a few good threads about installing NetBSD here on fedi, with advices and know-hows, and the documentation is generally very high quality. I hope people here can help if you run into trouble.
As for Linux, the kernel has big tech as major contributors, and it, to a large extent, serves the needs of Google, Meta, Amazon, Nvidia and so on. The voices of humans might be important to many people in the communities, but the corporate interests are going to be lobbied hard. It is already pretty bad in some parts of the kernel, I've heard
MaddieM4
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Aprazeth
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •🫂
Take it easy and do the things you want and can do. Things that give you energy and fulfill.
Be safe, be healthy, be having fun
tom jennings
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Well stated. Im slowly moving to net or free for my main desktop, slowly. But yeah its not a universal solution. The 'moving to another country' metaphor is apt.
I like disruption, while discomfort in obvious ways it identifies places where ive been stuck or running unquestioned habits that would benefit from change.
And i think a lot of people think rhey want minimal, but want better automaticity, or something like that. There's a dilemma in here; to get code to that place where its stable and easy often means its also built on old paradigms, not necessarily bad or good ones, just not familiar ones.
Linux's hardware support is just flat amazing. And seamless. That's hard to beat.
Eggs now in different baskets.
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •"...but I still feel like I've lost my $HOME. "
That resonates here for me.
With Chat Control likely to be forced through in the EU/EEA will mean, for me at least, the death of IM and video chat.
I no longer share pictures of my offspring as I do not know who has AI agents enabled on their devices. So I do not know where those images will end up.
So the reasons why the internet seemed exciting to me in 1992, being able to discover, connect and explore seem to be disappearing.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to Eggs now in different baskets. • • •[ SomGye ]
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •alberto ⁂
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •imho you are very brave. I am still appalled and finding myself stuck at the acceptance phase that most everything that I was keen on learning and using at a deeper level of knowledge (e.g. Linux, all of the major desktop environments, python) has been/is in the process of being destroyed. I have very very little energy and feel terrified of making such extensive changes as changing to BSD, learning yet another language, finding and learning replacements for most of the programs i use.
Might as well make my 2008 iMac full of pirated software/abandonware my main machine again.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to alberto ⁂ • • •PulkoMandy
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •(🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •those are some great resources. ty
im glad to be mostly 'really old apps' oriented with my creativity.. Grafx2, gimp, pov etc.
gets hairy with things that filled a real niche need, like osmand/comaps -_- guess i gotta stick with older versions.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to (🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆ • • •(🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •David JONES
in reply to (🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆ • • •SackOfBones (any/all)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •ZanaGB
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Honestly, you just telling your story on how you're managing to do things and providing resources for others to go and try is already an excellent showing. Things are dire and your solutions may not be universal (there is no such thing). But being there to show that you can do things and it can be done is a lot on itself.
Seriously. Walking the path with someone is not always needed, pointing others in the right direction is often more than enough, and for that, we thank you!
And, yeah, we think anyone who is involved on IT and cares the slightest bit on tech AND humanity is probably going through some rough times right now. You should keep your own health a priority wherever possible.
Sending many hugs your way 🫂
tbgosalvez
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •i'm glad there's still cool stuff to explore
cthos 🐱
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to cthos 🐱 • • •Paul - Antifa. LGBTQ+ safe.
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Paul - Antifa. LGBTQ+ safe. • • •Paul - Antifa. LGBTQ+ safe.
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Thank you so much, Nina.
Haelwenn /элвэн/
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •> I'm really, really sorry, but I think modern web might not make it. Smolweb? Sure. Let's use smolweb more
Yeah, at least it's a sort of nice opportunity to shed a lot of modern web nonsense in foss so it's smolweb compatible, or can be nicely used from simple native clients.
The slopweb can then go into slop-browser jail or whatever.
Mitsunee | 光音
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •insetshorthand back into it's older equivalent.Nina Kalinina
in reply to Mitsunee | 光音 • • •Dillo browser
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •@mitsunee I talked with Adële about this, it would be very useful to have a set of HTML/CSS features implemented by light browsers so you can focus on following those rules.
But building such a list is complicated. I would like to reuse many of the WPT tests so we can know which features are supported by testing them all on the browsers themselves (that's why dilloc was created).
Until we don't have a way to test these features, we don't really know how well they work.
Evie 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •sarah tonin
in reply to Evie 🏳️⚧️ • • •sarah tonin :wlfBlep: (@SRAZKVT@tech.lgbt)
sarah tonin :wlfBlep: (LGBTQIA+ and Tech)Roland \\
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Roland \\ • • •sinza (e/em/eirs or vi/vim/vis)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •I cautiously recommend Chawan. It's a TUI browser that has Javascript support and is on Codeberg and Sourcehut, which are green flags in the using LLM department to me. I doubt LLMs are used in the development of Chawan, but this is a surface glance, and there's no AI policy either way.
However, it's a cautious recommendation becausr it is developed in nim, which is tainted. And iirc the nim lead (not the chawan dev iirc) is some kind of right wing asshat regardless.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to sinza (e/em/eirs or vi/vim/vis) • • •sinza (e/em/eirs or vi/vim/vis)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Yeah. It's a shame because Chawan is excellent, with it being the only TUI browser I'm aware of that supports enough Javascript to get past a wi-fi captive portal, which is something I run into often enough in my day to day life to consider.
Nim as a language does sound like a neat idea, a low-level language with Python-like syntax. Shame the lead dev of the language is like that. The choice in language is genuinely the only bad thing about Chawan, unless I somehow missed some LLM nonsense because the git forges it's on are pretty anti-LLM.
Dan Gordillo
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •I didn't know Servo and it looks great, but unfortunately it's sponsored by TestMu, an AI company u_u
Nina Kalinina
in reply to Dan Gordillo • • •Vaporeon ☭
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •> and even vintage pcc, watcom and tack might be endangered to slop
How? I'm confused
How do you sloppify something like
pccthat hasn't been updated in 10 or 20 years?Nina Kalinina
in reply to Vaporeon ☭ • • •Kirtai 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Worth mentioning that cproc is a front end to QBE which is also used by Hare.
More front ends for QBE would be nice, assuming the slop machines don't get to it.
(and even if they do, it should be much easier to handle a fork than gcc/llvm)
freya :3 (she/her)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to freya :3 (she/her) • • •freya :3 (she/her)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •freya :3 (she/her)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to freya :3 (she/her) • • •freya :3 (she/her)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to freya :3 (she/her) • • •(🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •David JONES
in reply to (🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆ • • •(🖬🖫). ₍^. .^₎⟆
in reply to David JONES • • •The Penguin of Evil
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina reshared this.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •Kirtai 🏳️⚧️
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •I wonder if you could build cproc & QBE under Fuzix with fcc.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to Kirtai 🏳️⚧️ • • •Kirtai 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Oh well, it was worth a thought.
(I didn't actually expect anyone to try it)
asie
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •The Penguin of Evil
in reply to asie • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •@etchedpixels @asie context: sourceforge.net/p/sdcc/mailman…
Looks like it might end up being accepted
Thread: [sdcc-devel] LLM use | Small Device C Compiler (SDCC)
sourceforge.netasie
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •I see.
Time to go back to mourning my retro console toolchain project.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to asie • • •@etchedpixels
asie
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •The Penguin of Evil
in reply to asie • • •@asie Maintenance to me is important. the 8086 gcc is amazing but it's never going to self host and about 3 people on the planet understand how it works.
For sustainable tools for old things there needs to be tooling that anyone can service.
mirth
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •The Penguin of Evil
in reply to mirth • • •mirth
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to mirth • • •mirth
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •F4GRX Sébastien ⸚
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to F4GRX Sébastien ⸚ • • •Cc @etchedpixels
The Penguin of Evil
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •@f4grx I have it writing code for the TMS7000 series parts so I think it can probably do most digustingly horrible chips to some level.
What it really can't cope with at this point is stuff with lots of registers although that's simply in theory a matter of writing a register allocator 8)
I think though you can make it write bad code for anything.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •@f4grx
Hugo Mills
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •The Penguin of Evil
in reply to Hugo Mills • • •@darkling @f4grx That's a very kind offer although I am not sure what is possible when you see very little of the program at a time because of memory limitations or how much you need to be looking at in one go.
In theory there's enough information in the data between pass 1 and pass 2 for an optimizer of some form (or something doing other processing) to load mulltiple expression trees and the bits around them at once.
Stylus
in reply to The Penguin of Evil • • •The Penguin of Evil
in reply to Stylus • • •@stylus Sorry I forgot this was going to get read by a wider circle
codeberg.org/EtchedPixels/Fuzi…
Fuzix-Compiler-Kit
Codeberg.orgARGVMI~1.PIF
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Silver lining re compilers like Rust and GCC: their attack surface is relatively small, so once they get buried under a mountain of vibe-code tech debt, the pre-collapse versions can be forked, and civilization rebuilt from there.
But yeah, there isn't really any way to avoid compromising my ethics here. I can replace desktop environments and maybe operating systems, but I don't know of any language that can do for me what Rust can.
My only hope is to survive. Maybe.
psf
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •#DesmetC is a self hosting 8086 C compiler with no LLM code that I know of yet, and is a tiny enough project that it's unlikely to attract LLM-ers. The project owner is active and took a bunch of my patches earlier this year.
github.com/the-grue/OpenDC
Unfortunately, it's mostly a K&R compiler, and doesn't like most modern software. What little C89 support does exist was implemented in the early 90s in a big rush, and would benefit from being knocked down and replaced with something stabler.
GitHub - the-grue/OpenDC: DeSmet C - Open source and completely built with latest toolchain
GitHubNina Kalinina
in reply to psf • • •Kirtai 🏳️⚧️
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •It's amazing how many small, kinda hidden projects are surfacing recently.
Steve Purcell
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Steve Purcell • • •Eamon
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Eamon • • •Ludovic Courtès
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •GCC allows for LLM-generated test cases, but nothing else according to it:
gcc.gnu.org/ai-policy.html
(Which is still not great especially since there are tools that can do a good job such as github.com/csmith-project/.)
Csmith Project
GitHubYvan
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Yvan • • •Kevin Graaf
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Kevin Graaf • • •@kevin I've written about it previously; long story short, they have one of the strongest anti-AI policies among all operating systems out there. They have no contributions from LLMs to the code (only to the text/translations), and they said they're committed to keep it this way. They do allow LLM code reviews, which I find regrettable, but all and all, if Linux had a policy like that, I'd be much happier than I am now.
See more in the thread: nerdculture.de/@boeckmann/1172…
Bernd Böckmann
2026-09-12 22:05:35
Kevin Graaf
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •tove
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •slowclap 👏
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Snosrapkungfu (They/them)
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Snosrapkungfu (They/them) • • •njsg
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •This is looking like a very interesting thread to read, so I'll have to look deeper with more time 😀
Do you think the project would/could also have a mailing list, a newsgroup and/or an IRC channel? Or are these less welcome ideas right now?
Jonathan Lamothe
in reply to Nina Kalinina • •@Nina Kalinina Somewhat unrelated question: what anime is that desktop wallpaper from?
Edit: just read the alt text.
like this
Nina Kalinina and Bitslingers-R-Us like this.
Nina Kalinina
in reply to Jonathan Lamothe • • •like this
Haelwenn /элвэн/, Jonathan Lamothe and Bitslingers-R-Us like this.
atsuko
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Running old Debian
tilde.gayJoshua D. Boyd
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Joshua D. Boyd • • •@jdboyd sadly they're running their legacy of clean room code
@landley
Rob Landley
in reply to Joshua D. Boyd • • •@jdboyd I don't do windows. It's not even LP64 data model, it does an insane devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewt… thing for legacy reasons.
Windows has been losing youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOh… to Linux for so long it did WSL so you could run linux binaries on windows (just like wiki.os2world.com/index.php?ti… made sure nobody needed to write native OS/2 code back in the 90s) and is now fretting that most new "windows" software is targeted to WSL and of course windowslatest.com/2026/09/22/m…
Nope, zero interest.
Steve Ballmer: Developers
MrWueb007 (YouTube)Ryan
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Hyperbola
www.hyperbola.infoTim Chase
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •as much as I enjoy "life with NetBSD" posts, save your energy for your actual needs, and please feel absolutely zero obligation to create new posts. Or even obligation to apologize for not penning a new post.
When you obtain a few spare spoons *and* decide it's worth spending them on the creation of another installment, readers can wait patiently until then.
🖖
Schall und Rauch
in reply to Nina Kalinina • • •Nina Kalinina
in reply to Schall und Rauch • • •