Agreed, but company does not provide us devices. Everything I've said applies to my second phone running GrapheneOS, which I am using as my work phone. I'm trying to avoid setting up and running Play Services just for nice-to-have notifications when none of my other apps require it.
A modern, power-efficient replacement motherboard for the Thinkpad X220/230
Would be absolutely fine if it were just a low-profile SBC that sat in the SATA compartment with some barebones connections out to the ports, keyboard, display, speakers, and battery. It can't be that crazy of a product. There's already million super-niche SBCs out there, literally the only hurdles would be interfacing with the proprietary keyboard (a solved problem) and the battery.
When maximizing uptime, Debian is the no-fuss way to go.
Organic Maps. Living in a somewhat walkable area, it gives me good walking directions. I might be a bit out of touch though since I just commit routes to memory if I'm driving.
For the occasional satellite map, Google Maps unfortunately. If anyone knows of a privacy-respecting map with satellite views, I'd be interested.
Well said. LUKS implements AES-256, which is also entrusted by the U.S. government and various other governments to protect data from state and non-state adversaries.
Possibly overestimating the value of the data entrusted to me, but whenever I see that xkcd, I like to think that I at least have the option to remain silent and die with dignity if I really don't want the contents of my disk out there.
The effort needed to neuter surveillance equipment in modern cars without compromising functionality is comparable to the effort of sprucing up an older car. Possibly biased from driving and maintaining a decades-old car. Is there a particular reason you prefer a modern car?
I miss print coupons. Hearing "get the app" or "there's an app for it" makes me flinch these days.
Storytime!
As a physics major, daily driving Linux worked out pretty smoothly. The thing that saved me from trouble the most was making a weekly full system backup (I used Clonezilla and my file server). If anything was truly incompatible, I took care of it on the school's computers.
In my second semester, I began dual-booting on my X201 Tablet and desktop, eventually booting into Windows infrequently enough that I made my X201T Linux-only by the end of my second year.
Around that point, I began using LUKS full-disk encryption on my machines and USB drives. I highly recommend if you don't already, even if just for peace of mind. I have strong ideas about the way things ought to look and work, so being able to customize Linux to my heart's content (with Chicago95 ofc) made doing work on my computer a bit more enjoyable.
Documents
- MS Office: Libreoffice worked 95% of the time. For the other 5%, I used the school computers or my Windows VM.
- Google Docs and GMail: accessed through Chromium, which I only used to access Google and sites linked to my school's SSO system.
- We did a lot of writing in Latex, though it might be a physics thing
- A lot of other small stuff I'm starting to forget, but if I don't mention it, I probably did it through the browser.
Lab
- MATLAB: GNU Octave sufficed 75% of the time, often needing just slight changes to the code. Otherwise I used the lab computers or my desktop with actual MATLAB.
- Proprietary dana analysis software: One had a .deb package for oldoldoldstable so I set up a VM just for that. Otherwise, lab computers it was.
- Lab computers running old and new versions of Windows were available to us, so if there was anything computationally intensive or requiring proprietary software, I would just take care of it in the lab.
Social
- Slack, Discord, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp: browser client, which I would check on a schedule
Tools
- VPN: NetworkManager, though it was a bit janky. I think it's a lot better nowadays.
- Printing: We had a web print portal to upload docs and pdfs to a printer of our choice.
Graphics
- Mostly prepared my posters, etc in a mix of Libreoffice Draw, GIMP, and Inkscape
- Adobe: Had to use it on one occasion. Used the library computers where it was installed for everyone to use.
- Digital notes: I would use Xournal on my X201 Tablet whenever I forgot to bring my notebook or refill my fountain pen. Managed to impress a few of my iPad-toting classmates when I whipped out the pen and the display around on what they believed to be an ancient clunker.
As for the desktop, I had purchased it with gaming in mind, but it eventually became my SMB file share, media server, and RDP session host so I could make any library desktop like my own. Each thing in its own VM, of course. By the end of it, I was one of about 3 students running a server over the campus LAN. Even in the comp sci department, surprisingly few students used Linux.
Linux also met all of my computing needs while studying abroad in Germany. For five whole months, I had not used Windows once. Though my SSD did give out on me once, a backup saved the day.
A friend once did need to use a rather invasive remote proctoring tool. Highly recommend a separate laptop or at least a fresh SSD for this case.
Mobile privacy, if it's relevant
- I was in the fortunate position where none of my classes or jobs required proprietary mobile apps
- Friends used Venmo or whatever else, I paid back in cash
- SMS and emails sufficed for regular communication
Overall, it was smooth sailing using Linux throughout my college years and no incompatibilities that couldn't be solved in the library or a computer lab.
edit: i used debian btw
yt-dlp. Too many options to remember and look up every time, but all useful and missing from GUIs when you just want to dowload audio or 'good enough' quality video in batches without re-encoding.
While nmtui is perfectly fine for the CLI-uninitiated, I sometimes wonder why the nm-connection-editor window doesn't provide the same level of functionality.
A metal 128 GB USB on my keychain next to the U2F key
16 GB Ventoy partition with:
- Clonezilla ('deploying' my system image and backups)
- Mint Debian Edition (everything needed to test and recover my Debian systems)
- Debian netinstall
- Various manuals and reference documents
- Portable CrystalDiskInfo and VeraCrypt for Windows
- Dumping grounds for files that I intended to transfer between machines, particularly the XP retro gaming rig
- An optimistic IF-FOUND.TXT
- KeePass
- Previously Windows, until once upon a time, I booted into WinRE via Ventoy, got confused between X:, C:, and whatever else, and proceeded to nuke my USB instead of another disk. The Windows installer lived on its own USB happily ever after.
And a LUKS encrypted partition in the remaining space with more documents and a backup of almost all of my photos.
monovergent
joined 1 year ago
Volume control for the ears, with equalizer, decibel normalizer, and active noise cancelling.