Top all-time · #7726
Matt Gadient
Personal blog · mattgadient.comhardwaresystems
Matt Gadient's personal blog at mattgadient.com covers hardware and systems. Since 2021, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 10 times, most often “7 watts idle – building a low powered server/NAS on Intel 12th/13th gen”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Matt Gadient's hands-on posts on running Linux on old Macs, including 64-bit distro installs, and on x264 encoder settings. One commenter links the x264 post as an explanation of psychovisual enhancements.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Tech stuff, some fixes/solutions, and occasionally a passionate rant.
Most-linked posts?
- 7 watts idle – building a low powered server/NAS on Intel 12th/13th gen2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-12-31
- Interactive video encoder comparison by Matt Gadient2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-21
What Hacker News says?
AFAICT AV1 is just a significantly more complex byte stream to create vs h264, especially if you want that byte stream to be meaningfully more compact than h265 created with x265 @ slow. x265 @ slow was already pretty time consuming[1][2]. And x265 itself had a hard time against x264 for years too[3]. So it may not be that the AV1 initiative is neglecting the public encoders and more that the math and algorithms for…
Comment linking /x264-vs-x265-vs-vp8-vs-vp9-examples/
on “H.264 is Magic (2016)”Submitted 7 watts idle – building a low powered server/NAS on Intel 12th/13th gen as a story · 332 points
HN discussionPicking up a generic Intel Mini-ITX board and dropping a cheap Celeron or i3 into it can produce some surprisingly low idle powers. Around 10-11W is not uncommon, which is lower than this quad Raspberry Pi 4 board. The key is to pick motherboards with minimal features (few extra chips to power) and an Intel CPU. Intel historically has much better idle power than AMD, although AMD held the power efficiency crown unde…
Comment linking /building-a-low-power-pc-on-skylake-10-watts-idle/
on “Turing Pi 2: 4 Raspberry Pi nodes on a mini ITX board”Submitted 8-Port SATA on PCIe 1x lane - Looking at the PCE8SAT-M01 expansion card as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThat's one of the "psychovisual enhancements" employed by modern codecs. Here [0] is a nice explanation I could among in top search results: "... x264’s psychovisual enhancements do a pretty good job of keeping detail where you’d notice it (the face), at the expense of the stuff you normally wouldn’t notice while watching (like those background areas)." [0] https://mattgadient.com/comparing-x264-rf-settings-in-handb…
Comment linking /comparing-x264-rf-settings-in-handbrake-examples/
on “CD sales grow for first time since 2004”Submitted I tested GeoDNS vs. Anycast for websites – seeing which one is better as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI bought one for €25 about 4 years ago. Ironically for an Apple product, it's just about the easiest machine to modify for Libreboot (no need to tinker with RasPis or other hardware): https://libreboot.org/docs/hardware/macbook21.html Mine's now fully "libre", running Trisquel Lite. If anyone else has trouble installing 64-bit distros on these, this page is useful: https://mattgadient.com/2016/07/11/linux-dvd-images…
Comment linking /2016/07/11/linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-bit-efi-macs-late-2006-models/
on “Why the Black MacBook Cost More”Submitted Interactive video encoder comparison by Matt Gadient as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI recall this blog post[1], discussed here[2] at the time, discussing how a SATA chip driver prevented the CPU from going to sleep state C6, instead keeping it at C3, leading to higher power consumption. Switching the SATA card to one with a different chip fixed that. There were other surprising factors which affected power draw. My takeaway was that as in real life, sleeping can be hard. [1]: https://mattgadient.co…
Comment linking /7-watts-idle-on-intel-12th-13th-gen-the-foundation-for-building-a-low-power-server-nas/
on “Ryzen 8000G review: An integrated GPU that can beat a graphics card, for a price”I have 3 old Macbooks. MacBook2,1 from 2007 (64-bit CPU with 32-bit EFI boot environment) MacBookAir4,1 from 2011 (full 64-bit) MacBookPro10,2 from 2012 (full 64-bit) The article author had a link to this page at the bottom. I've used this software for years to modify the Linux ISO and then it boots perfectly fine on these old 32-bit EFI machines. https://mattgadient.com/linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-b... I run…
Comment linking /linux-dvd-images-and-how-to-for-32-bit-efi-macs-late-2006-models/
on “Reviving decade-old Macs with antiX and MX Linux (2022)”
