I don’t usually write about the tech-y things I do, because I’ve never done any of it professionally, and I feel like I don’t know enough to talk about it on the internet without getting snarked at. But I’m procrastinating and the world is on fucking fire and I feel like talking about nerdy things.
I’ve been daily driving some version of Linux for at least a decade at this point. Right now, Mint on my primary system (a kinda sad HP laptop from 2017) and Slackware on a similarly aged (but less sad) Lenovo Thinkpad that Stace rescued out of an e-waste pile. Running Slackware has been a huge pain in the ass but also I’ve learned more on there in the past 6 months than I have in the years I’ve spent on Mint. I would probably never run Slackware on a primary system because it’s just too wonky – hardware/network compatibility has been hit or miss, and manual dependency resolution is wildly time consuming. Having said that, it’s the most stable distro I’ve ever used – it never, ever crashes, has no bloat, starts up fast, and doesn’t use up a ton of system resources just sitting there. And I’ve gotten much more comfortable doing things from the terminal because it doesn’t come with graphic interfaces for all that much by default – if you want a thing, you have to go find and install it your own damn self, and as previously stated, installing programs kind of sucks. The result is that I’ve become much more confident mucking around in the file system, and also have a way greater appreciation for just how much shit Mint does for you under the hood.
Anyway. The aforementioned HP laptop is finally on its way out after 8 long years of service and many upgrades/fixes (replaced a swollen battery, upgraded ram from 8 to 32 GB, switched from a spinning disk to an SSD, replaced that piece of shit when it failed after a year). But now the USB controller is dying, and it’s leading to some annoying/bizarre problems (flaky power and connectivity for USB devices, possible cause of frequent system crashes) so it’s finally time to move on. Thankfully, Stace acquired an older but well-appointed computer tower for me last year, and it’s just waiting for some Linux or something. (Strongbad, is that you??)
So now, the eternal Linux nerd question: do I stick with the same distro, or try something new? I’ve done a fair bit of distro-hopping in the past (Ubuntu, PopOS, Arch, OpenSuSE etc etc) but I kinda need this system to just work, and do audio things with a minimum of jackassery. Currently leaning toward the Debian edition of Mint – I think I want to try something new without dealing with a complete unknown, and Ubuntu can kinda suck it anyway.
So… yeah. The world is a hellscape lately, but I’m still here being a snarky little asshole on my stupid little blog, which I will keep doing until morale improves. In unrelated news, we got a kitten over the summer!! Her name is Squid, she’s about 10 months old now, and she is a tiny ball of chaos, purring, and sass. I think Miso sent her – he knew we needed a bossy but loving sass monster in the house to balance out Zappa’s sweet derpy self, and to keep the humans in line. <3
{current music: DJ_Shah_feat._Adrina_Thorpe_-_Who_Will_Find_Me.mp3}