OK, maybe you wouldn't pay three grand for a Project DIGITS PC. But what about a $1,000 Blackwell PC from Acer, Asus, or Lenovo?

OK, maybe you wouldn’t pay three grand for a Project DIGITS PC. But what about a $1,000 Blackwell PC from Acer, Asus, or Lenovo?

Besides, why not use native Linux as the primary operating system on this new chip family? Linux, after all, already runs on the Grace Blackwell Superchip. Windows doesn’t. It’s that simple.

Nowadays, Linux runs well with Nvidia chips. Recent benchmarks show that open-source Linux graphic drivers work with Nvidia GPUs as well as its proprietary drivers.

Even Linus Torvalds thinks Nvidia has gotten its open-source and Linux act together. In August 2023, Torvalds said, “Nvidia got much more involved in the kernel. Nvidia went from being on my list of companies who are not good to my list of companies who are doing really good work.”

  • QuarterSwede@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    14 hours ago

    I bought a former office HP EliteDesk 800 G2 16GB for $120 on eBay or Amazon (can’t recall) 2 years ago with the intention of it just being my server. I ended up not unhooking the monitor and leaving it on my desk since it’s plenty fast for my needs. No massive PC gaming rig but it plays Steam indie titles and even 3D modeling and slicing apps at full speed. I just haven’t needed to get anything else.

    • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
      7·
      14 hours ago

      Being blind, I don’t play video games and don’t do any kind of 3D graphics and stuff like that. So many, many computers would fit my specifications.

      Edit: My laptop right now is a Dell Latitude E5400 from like 2014 with eight gigabytes of RAM and a 7200 RPM drive with an Intel Core i5 and it works well enough. Honestly, the only problem with it is that it does not charge the battery. So as soon as it is unplugged from the wall, it just dies. And it’s not the battery itself because I’ve tried getting new batteries for it. It’s something in the charging circuitry. It works fine when it’s on wall power, but it just does not charge the battery. I figure with it being 10 years old already, at some point I will have to replace it.

      • Snot FlickermanOPEnglish
        1·
        14 hours ago

        Oh snap I am really sorry to intrude but I have a question for someone like yourself who is an avid PC user and is also blind.

        How do you feel about the prohibitive cost of braille terminals? I am not blind but I remember seeing the film Sneakers when I was young and the blind hacker Whistler using a braille terminal. As an adult I looked into them and was shocked that some cost more than a mid-range laptop. Are they even that useful or is this a relic that I recall but has been superseded by more useful assistive technologies?

        • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
          4·
          13 hours ago

          Mind you, I don’t use Braille super often. And the Braille note taker devices are quite expensive. For sure. But just direct Braille displays have come down quite a bit in price. I remember a couple of years ago, a Braille display was launched called the Orbit Reader 20, which is a 20 cell Braille display. And I think it was like $400 or something like that. Compared to the $5,000 that some Braille note-taker devices can cost, $400 is nothing.

          • Snot FlickermanOPEnglish
            1·
            12 hours ago

            Thanks for the feedback, that’s super interesting to me. I’m glad to hear they’ve come down in price more recently, for sure!

            • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipEnglish
              2·
              6 hours ago

              Same here. It used to be that you had to get them subsidized by government programs such as vocational rehabilitation. But now they are affordable by just saving for a little bit.