I can't speak to the doom scenarios (death trap and whathaveyous) but I can share my experience. I was faced with buying what's considered a new "decent" bike for close to $1K and went the other way - I bought a used one for $80 in sorta OK shape; no idea who made the frame but the majority of its components are of chinese origin.

the rationale was a) to see if I even want the thing - what if I ride it a couple of times and then decide it's too much bother, and b) I should learn how to maintain it and fix the usual stuff.

three years later, I've replaced close to all of the key components by myself - wheels, crank shaft, pedals, front and rear derailleurs, brakes, calipers, cables, chains, tyres, etc. I had no experience fixing anything and got all my education from youtube. some of the gear failed and was replaced, other was upgraded preventively, mostly with shimano's value line. I'm not blaming the original components for failing, there's ample wear and tear the way I ride it and I also happen to be kinda oversized for this bike, shoulda gotten an XXL frame.

my advice is, ride the bike as is and replace components as they fail, you'll learn how to fix stuff in the process and the replacements are super cheap. only then, when you're a seasoned rider start looking into better alternatives.

regarding its UX, nothing close exists; when it comes to converting normies, so you have someone to actually talk to, then there are no alternatives. that's a pretty shitty state of affairs for something that shoulda been solved a long time ago.

lesson learned, I guess, don't put all your eggs in one basket and have multiple fallback solutions. I've begrudingly moved to Signal and I'm cursing it out at least once per day, can't believe the navel-gazing, self-righteous cluelessness behind it; but that's the best there is at the moment. it's beyond shitty that we're having trouble achieving what we had in like 2012 by way of XMPP and friends, let alone surpassing it.

the parts are cheap, the prices are low

does it matter how bad it is? does it matter how much shit is in a shit sandwich?

I'm not having it however little there is.

any mods around? what's this bullshit have to do with programming?

that (and many other irritants) is why I switched to plasma. please try it before going back, it's way better in every regard.

just watched a video where the dev explains LG; this is for a Windows VM that allows GPU pass-through, or am I missing something? when you say "host" and "client", you're referring to two physical devices or how does that work in your case?

I have two physical machines (both running linux, Fedora 40 on the desktop and Debian 12 on the laptop) connected to the same monitor, keyboard and mouse and I need to alternate between them.

edit: aha, the LG site refers to KVM as kernel-virtual-machine, whereas I'm talking about KVM as in keyboard-video-mouse; completely different things, maybe I should amend the post's title.

granted, but they are inextricably linked and you have to consider the software that does or doesn't allow you to utilise said hardware.

like, I've waited years for kernel devs to catch up to the proprietary hardware in my 2-in-1, namely the drivers for the ipu3 cameras. they are now obsolete and the focus is on ipu6 models. kinda important if you want this to be your main device.

and as to software, it's important to note that the touch-friendliness was an afterthought, so it isn't propagated through the system. like, in Gnome's own system settings app, you can't initiate dropdowns with touch! that's a pretty significant UI element that's been around since forever. another common stumbling block is initiating "right-clicks" on elements, by long-pressing stuff; sometimes it works, other times not. the on-screen keyboard usually appears when an input is focused, but it doesn't often enough that it's annoying.

speaking of, Gnome's OSK is only somewhat usable (and less so if you're on a non-US layout). if you're used to Android or iOS keyboards, it's pretty basic. however bad that is, Plasma's maalit keyboard makes Gnome's look like advanced alien tech, it's broken on so many levels you're better off disabling it. I didn't follow development in the past year or so, but one default "feature" of Gnome OSK was that it remembers everything you type - that includes passwords! - and helpfully offers them on the suggestion strip, with no way of turning it off!

obviously, the OSKs don't work if you need to unlock your disk on boot and I'm not sure they work on the login/lock screen; someone please correct me if I'm misremembering.

OK, screw OSKs, you're gonna use the cover keyboard. except, it's prone to just not work half the time. then you rip it apart (pardon, you disconnect it) and attach it again to have it working, maybe.

you're used to reading stuff, books, comics, whathaveyous, for hours. well, those screens aren't super power-efficient and the batteries aren't humongous either. plus, that thing is heavy and thick (easily twice my Samsung Tab) so maybe don't hold it up ABOVE YOUR FACE WHILE LYING DOWN - ask me how I know! speaking of screens, they aren't the greatest - try scroll-flinging a long page and watch this stuttering-flashing mess; you're gonna need new eyes if you keep this up.

I tried to make one work as a 3-in-1 solution. why have a desktop, a laptop, and tablet when I can have a single device and forego the constant copying and syncing and stuff. semi-decent specs, i5, 16 GB, 500 GB NVMe more than enough for my needs, so I got me a USB-C Dock, attached a huge 4K monitor, LAN, sound, mechanical keyboard, mouse... when I'm needed in the field, just detach it and off I go with all my shit on the drive AND I got a free iPad out of the deal, I just have to marvel at how smart I am!

yeah, nah. bottom line, they are bad as desktop replacement (throttled all over the place on account of anaemic cooling + whiny fan holler), bad as a laptop (on account of the kickstand, you hafta use it on a desk only, plus the keyboard is pretty bad and so is the tiny touchpad) and very bad as tablet (for reasons galore, some mentioned above).

so, like I said, as a fun project to play with - by all means, it's super fun trying out different OSs/apps (I haven't touched on Waydroid, Android x86, FydeOS, note-taking apps, etc.) but, as a daily driver, one that your livelihood and/or education depends on - hard pass.

QOwnNotes (had to look up the exact name as it's the stupidest app name ever). but compared to joplin it's lighter, faster, simpler (no database but individual .md files and folders) and works well enough with syncthing.

the least you can do is provide the basics - AMD/Intel, GPU, wayland/x11, os and kernel version, I'm not looking up what an 8th gen x1 runs on.

as to your question, seen similar with ryzens freezing for seconds intermittently on older kernels.

not important for this use case. I'm referring to the fact that I can close it shut and leave it for a week. I open it and it's ready to go and the battery has barely lost a percentage point. that's 2010 tech and something completely unattainable to me 13 years later. I've moved on from macOS but can't help being envious.

thanks for the link, explains it very well. how bout my activity, like IP address, up/down votes, clicks on links, favorites and whatnot, is that federated around or how does that work, i.e. who has access to it?