• 33 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 27th, 2023

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  • See if anyone has reviewed how the model of interest performs under Linux or check if there’s a report for it on linux-hardware.org

    Around 2020, I had purchased a new laptop and desktop. It took about two years until everything worked on the laptop under Arch, main issue being the microphone and speakers. About another year and a half until the same on Debian. On the desktop, the wireless card didn’t work with Linux on day one and still doesn’t work that well on Linux to this day. Swapped that thing out with an Intel wireless card.


  • Building an Android ROM is decently resource-intensive. Back when DivestOS was first discontinued, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do about rolling my own updates for my device. Decided against it once I saw how much RAM (or tradeoff being time) it would need.

    Also I’m lazy and I’d probably miss security updates if I had to go through the build process as frequently as GrapheneOS updates.





  • 1000% agree. Had to install an older version of Pinta because it was also gnomed a while back.

    While I’ve yet to contribute to open-source projects aside from reporting issues, I’ve got my eyes set on something like libadapta. As soon as one of the programs I use on a daily basis gets gnomed, I’m going all in to soft fork libadwaita and restore as many GTK3 features as I can.

    • someone who ran rm -rf /usr/share/icons/Adwaita


  • Depends on the degree of coreboot support. If the vendor or a firm like 3mdeb officially supports coreboot on your model of choice, it’ll have first-class support and you won’t miss out on anything compared to your typical proprietary BIOS.

    If you plan on installing it yourself, do read carefully through the coreboot docs since some systems will have a few quirks (e.g. audio jack issues on T480/T470). But once coreboot is up and running on your computer, it’s smooth sailing on Linux. Compiling and flashing can be a bit of a rabbit hole, but I’m happy to give some pointers if you go this route.

    I daily drive a ThinkPad X230 with Libreboot and haven’t had any issues. The only significant differences I’ve noticed are

    • Faster boot times (1 to 2 seconds to reach LUKS prompt)
    • Config menu (nvramcui payload) has very few options
    • (Libreboot exclusive) Full-disk encryption by having GRUB with LUKS2 support directly on the BIOS
    • I left out UEFI support since it’s complicated on the X230 and it’s not necessary for Linux to boot



  • I’ve been daily driving Debian Stable for the past 5 years and I am more than happy to continue for the next five. It’s also on nearly all of my machines and the majority of my VMs.

    I’m honestly not very keen on the latest features or hardware, but I am very keen on my software being predictable and consistent, so the Debian release cycle is perfect for me.


  • Fellow Debian user ricing my daily driver here. Other people may call me crazy too, but I can see where you’re coming from. I’ve mostly come to terms with it by reminding myself that most people are either blissfully ignorant or too busy to care.

    Have you considered making a sort of install script or even just a public repository for your tweaks? Makes it all a bit more accessible for those interested to adopt elements of your system. I’ve personally wanted to put together an automated install script once I perfect my Chicago95 rice since I’d imagine there’s quite a few people who want a one-click, retro, but functional system.





  • I’d say go for it. I can attest that it’s a very polished experience and the GrapheneOS devs go at length to ensure that their work is both secure and reliable. Just make sure it’s the factory unlocked variant so you can unlock the bootloader. Any apps that require regular Android can be put on a separate phone.




  • Functionally, not really. I can get my work done on anything from FVWM to GNOME without a hitch.

    Aesthetically, very much. The Chicago95 theme sparks joy and makes work just a bit more enjoyable. KDE and GNOME might have more creature comforts, but I will happily tolerate XFCE because it works well with Chicago95. I don’t even do fresh installs anymore because of the time it takes for me to configure the visual style just right. I’ll instead image from an install I’ve prepared on a VM.




  • Certainly. I’ve had setups with FVWM as a pure window manager while using XFCE’s xfce4-terminal, MATE’s Caja file browser, and GNOME’s Evolution mail client. Some utilities will pull a few extra dependencies from their native DE, but they won’t get in the way either.

    Display manager won’t matter too much, most should be configurable to point at your WM of choice. LightDM integrates nicely with GTK themes, SDDM for Qt, and GDM for GNOME.

    The biggest pain point from my experience was configuring power management and lid close actions manually, if using a laptop, since those often are only done for you if you install an entire DE at once.

    Also grab a copy of qt5ct if you’re interested in making your Qt packages look more integrated next to GTK packages.