To upgrade the UEFI or other hardware-level firmware you need a way to upgrade. Best OEMs use LFVS; good OEMs use have ISOs or bin files you can flash from UEFI; terrible OEMs lock that into a Windows-only executable.

In my case there was a fan & thermal update I was never able to get.

None.

I had a Razer laptop in the past when they were talking about being dev laptop forward & supporting Linux.

This never happened. Instead flashing Linux voids the warranty now, support drops you, & firmware upgrades only happen thru a green-accented genuine Microsoft Windows GUI installation (no *.bin flashing, no CLI FreeDOS support, no Windows PE).

Similar can be said of Guix

Xmonad. I prefer tiling window managers, & I tried Sway but I can’t do color work without proper color management… something Wayland doesn’t support. Thus, I moved back to my old Xmonad config awaiting Wayland to get its shit together after years saying color management was around the corner & distros still adopting it despite not being ready.

Why tho? The logs give you information & progress. After boot you don’t even see it.

I honestly wish Android booted like this.

Meanwhile folks I work with Linux is basically seen as a must (if not specifically NixOS). You are on your own if you want to use OSs that don’t work well with Nix since there is too much value in immutable builds to warrant supporting your proprietary setup. Most ended up switching to or getting a second laptop for Linux.

I mean that sounds like a them problem. Why would your setup, your ergonomics be influenced by others?

Yet Wayland is still working on proper color management… which doesn’t make it fit for professional work

Seems like someþing folks should legislate against… ðat is unless ð lobby have all ð politicians in ðeir pockets. 🙃

The biggest shake-ups in a while outside we-don’t-use-X (no systemd, etc.) are the declarative distros like NixOS & Guix. You do the whole system setup & config thru a single file (or broken into multiple). Learning curve is very high for the config but the payoff is less things changing out from under you & setting up new machines & rolling back to working states without resorting to FS snapshots. They are good languages to learn for software development too where you want repeatable software.

The ability to defederate arguable makes it more free & open even if it isn’t what I would prescribe.

I recall having some fun with League of Legends when you could just join chat & chat rooms thru a regular XMPP client. This was convenient at work on Linux to not need a working client to catch important messages from teammates. But everyone wants a walled garden now.

Not open? Wat

Privacy is one part. The cost of joining & maintaining a server on the network is the other. Many servers have shut their doors due to expensive hosting. If you are lenient on how many messages need to actually be stored on the server for archives, self-hosting is now much more accessible which leads to a healthier, more decentralized network since more nodes can afford to join.

You can still creating your own archives in your clients or on your specific server via s2s communications, but Matrix has this as a network requirement for eventual consistency. You can’t have the “search all messages in the last 5 years” feature without eventual consistency—but this is the point I am trying to make: copying the Slack/Telegram/Discord model makes this a requirement to have in a decentralized sense which costs way too much. Step back & reassess if copying this model is the right call. We were fine last decade without this.

Drag can archive it locally just fine or on Drag’s own server if using a different protocol. Is it worth storing hundreds of thousands of messages & attachments that price out self-hosting & low-spec hosters & medium-sized communities on a budget? These storage costs add up quickly & without lots of nodes, the network is no longer federated but held by a few mega hosts like Matrix.org & a sprinkling of single-user hosts. I have seen many servers shut down due to costs. This tradeoff just isn’t worth it for a triving, decentralized platform (Mastodon suffers similar duplication issues).

Libraries are clearly communist… or anarchist… either way, I hate it!

It is a standard, starting at RFC 6120. Everyone can use it today. 😃

Since we are on a decentralized platform & many of us care about federation, do yourself a service & read this little history lesson: How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) (archived)

Same reason it is weird to want a FOSS copy of the UX of Slack/Telegram/Discord in Matrix instead of realizing you don’t need or want the chat history to persist for eternity. Good thing you can choose a different protocol/service in these cases.

I stopped after 7 🤷

The last week 10 was an easy, free upgrade, I upgraded then gave the machine to a friend to do some very, very early LLM training to never see it again.

Vista all over again?