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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: January 17th, 2022

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  • FWIW I do use a PineTab2 on a daily basis and… it works. I can warmly recommend it but some caveats :

    • WiFi didn’t work for a while, it’s good now though (mostly stable, AFAICT no instability for me)
    • BT still does not work (not ideal if you need a mouse)
    • USB-C is a single port for charging, single port for devices, iirc usb-C hubs don’t work, only usb-C to A single converters
    • it’s… not fast, so if your workflow is a bit of Web browser or a text editor great, if it’s Blender or Gimp or anything that can be a bit demanding, it might test your patience
    • WebCam does not work, problematic if you have to do video calls

    Overall while keeping such limitations in mind, still recommended! (if you can get it shipped somehow)




  • upgrade the UEFI or other hardware-level firmware you need a way to upgrade

    Indeed but unless the unit received is seriously flawed (to the point of possibly being exchanged by the manufacturer), no upgrade to UEFI or hardware-level firmware is actually required. Most people who received a computer never even upgrade the firmware. I’m not saying it’s not “nice” to upgrade it but the typical scenario for most common laptop or desktop is that such upgrades are optional.


  • I have a Blade Stealth 13 QHD+ touchscreen (RZ09-02393E32) since 2017. Until recently it was mostly Windows and Ubuntu side by side. I realized few months ago I never ever boot on Windows so I removed it. I also got tired on Ubuntu pushing for its own package management system which I don’t find useful. Consequently back to “just” Debian stable and works great for me. Didn’t have to tinker with anything, just works.




  • Indeed. That being said I have a (sigh) Android video projector (Nebula Mars II Pro, by Anker) and even though it does comes with its bloatware (namely “trying” to force installation, without actually doing it, of e.g. YouTube or NetFlix apps) attempts one can ignore that, install F-Droid, install VLC and Launch on Boot from there then boot straight to VLC without have to interact with the stock launcher. Also remote adb works by default so one can tinker quite a bit without even having to active a kind of developer mode.




  • I used Kodi with LibreElec for years in a similar setup. It was nice… but in practice I didn’t really use the “cool” functionalities (like indexing, image preview, Web remote control, etc) so instead I checked how Kodi works and noticed DLNA. I saw that my favorite video player, namely VLC, supports DLNA. I then looking for DLNA server on Linux, found few and stuck to the simplest I found, namely minidlna. It’s quite basic, at the least the way I use it, but for my usage it’s enough :

    • install VLC on clients, including Android video projector, phones, XR HMDs, etc
    • install minidlna on server (RPi5)
    • configure minidlna to serve the right directory with subdirectories ( /var/lib/minidlna by default )
    • configure few extra software that get videos to push them (via scp script and ssh-key) to rpi5:/var/lib/minidlna/

    voila… very reliable setup (been using for more than a year on a daily basis.



  • Just yesterday I pinned VLC on my KDE Plasma Task Manager. Why? Because this way I can directly open “Recent Files” from it. I discovered about this functionality just last week with Libre Office Draw. It’s so efficient, it absolutely changed how I use my computer daily!

    but… why do I bother with this long example? Because IMHO that’s from KDE, not Debian. When a distro improve the UX, as I also wish, it can be mostly by selecting the best software in its packages to maintain (e.g. here KDE but yes could indeed be their own custom made package, even though it requires a lot more resource AND other distro could also use them back assuming it’s FLOSS) but arguably the UX is mostly of the distribution itself is limited to the installation process.


  • a shortage of meaningful innovation

    Well… a distribution IS a selection of packages and a way to keep them working together. Arguably the “only” innovation in that context is HOW to do that and WHICH packages to rely on. For the first, the “latest” real change could be considered immutable distributions, as on the SteamDeck, and declarative setup, e.g. NixOS. For the second… well I don’t actually know if anybody is doing that, maybe things like PrimTux for kids at schools in France?

    Anyway, I agree but I think it’s tricky to be innovative there so let me flip the question, what would YOU expect from an innovative distribution?


  • I’d happily give technical advice but first I need to understand the actual need.

    I don’t mean “what would be cool” but rather what’s the absolute minimum basic that would make a solution acceptable.

    Why do I insist so much? Well because installing a distribution, e.g. Debian, takes less than 1h. Assuming you have a separate /home directory, there is no need to “copy” anything, only mounting correctly. If it is on another physical computer then the speed will depend on the your storage capacity and hardware (e.g. SSD vs HDD). Finally “configuring” each piece of software will take a certain amount of time, especially if you didn’t save the configuration (which should be the case).

    Anyway, my point being that :

    • installing the OS takes little time
    • copying data across physical devices take a lot more time
    • configuring manually specific software takes a bit of time

    So, if you repeat the operation several times a week, investing time to find a solution can be useful. If you do this few times a year or less, it’s probably NOT actually efficient.

    So, again, is this an intellectual endeavor, for the purpose of knowing what an "ideal’ scenario would be or is it a genuine need?