A bit of ranting about this machine:

This is my first TP machine (X13 Gen 2, Intel) and while it is fine as a very-overpriced business unit (seriously, it should cost half the asking price - and then I paid for 5y of top tier warranty and support on top of that, as it’s my first TP and I don’t trust past praise to equal future quality), I was surprised, annoyed, to find that there is absolutely no Linux support for it. Like yeah, it shipped with win 10 pro, but several similar machines have at least Ubuntu and something else officially supported, can’t remember off the top of my head. My suspicion is that it’s due to the (lack) of cell modems in those units. I don’t think Lenovo wants these units with, I guess ‘potential liability’, getting unlocked and used in non-Windows environments. That might be all bullshit but they sure as fuck aren’t going to give an honest answer about it.

I went with the TP because it was offered through my cell carrier, so compatability was guaranteed, and because everyone is like ‘woo ThinkPad!’ but… it’s fine, but it’s not this steamrolling, ass-kicking, blazing machine and experience that I was foretold. Hell, the battery has had to be replaced just 6 months into ownership, it would last 30 minutes full to empty with mere web browsing. The replacement, now a year later, is reporting like 88% life. I use this machine suuuuper lightly, as a glorified hotspot and web browser when I’m away at conventions and stuff. If they’ve cheaper out brutally hard on something as obvious as the battery, what else have they cheapest out on?

Anyway lol. Just venting.

I tried a slew of distros - some recognize the modem, but nothing more, most don’t even see/interact with it. It took hours of combing through outdated forums, mailing lists, wiki, etc to find commands that would not only see the modem, but unlock it and connect successfully. This was found on the Debian unstable wiki, and the system would install but fail to boot on stable, so I have no idea if the instructions work for Debian. Kubuntu however, boots successfully on that machine (a ThinkPad) and the modem “works” (is seen) ootb and can be unlocked + used successfully with the rest of the commands in that wiki page.

The fact that I tried nearly a dozen distros, and I tinkerer with it for a literal month, I’m not touching shit. I didn’t want to go Ubuntu for this machine, but cell connectivity (and hotspot hosting) is a 100% requirement, so I’m using what works.

I’m a moderate nix user but fuck packaging my own drivers and figuring out what software packages are needed to enable the modem. 20 years ago, sure. Now, fuck no, it should “just work”. PTSD from wifi not working, requiring windows drivers in a wrapper, etc. I’m not diving into that again, nope nope nope.

Vista*

As a Debian user (for two servers) and a Kubuntu user (because literally nothing else that ships with KDE supports my machine’s 5G modem), I’m sorry but I’m going to have to kill you. Nothing personal, you see, but we’ve had a vote and well, it was quite strongly in favor for your demise due to the statements you’ve made.

Terribly sorry about this. bang

Debian. Vista. And somewhere around Snow Leopard, though I stopped getting upgrades around that time so fuck you apple.

These are the selections of the peak power user, and they shall not be questioned, as the punishment is using Windows 8 for a month, followed by death, which will be merciful after that month.

*by default. It’s not “unrootable”, it’s just not recommended.

I’m just skimming this thread, but paragraph 2 is basically fact. I’m on my second synology box, the UI is simple and I want reliability, I don’t want shit to break because of a git push on some bullshit tool. But recently I snatched a Lenovo server and threw proxmox and Debian on it, and also got a vps.

The synology is actually pretty capable, especially if it can do docker, and if you are willing to venture into (as a beginner) copy/pasting commands from the internet into the task scheduler as a half-assed way to get at the terminal, it can do literally everything that I want. But I’m a geek, why should I keep a stable, reliable system as my only machine? :p

My synology does files, some docker stuff. Lenovo does a couple docker stuff, BOINC since it’s just idling most of the time, and docker for game and related hosting on my vps. Hell, this entire thing could be ‘just add a network folder, and install docker and dockge/portainer’.

Though (paragraph 3) I tried and didn’t like TrueNAS. Maybe it’s because the synology does it already, I was just exploring, but it has that ‘foss feel’ where you have no idea what you are doing, even when you know what all the pieces do, and it just kinda is like ‘here you go, figure it out’ and leaves. I remember the UI being equally… ‘designed by a programmer’ let’s say. It might be powerful but oof, slick it ain’t.

💥

hunter2

Why are we going into a glass of ice

Golden Balls

furry

uwu

Origin was better in literally every way, but it’s predecessor, the EA Download Manager, was even better, as it wasn’t an always-online DRM piece of shit. You logged in, it listed your games, it downloaded them, and games still used a CD key.

Though I’m still pissy, as I bought NFS Carbon and obtained it via EADM, but when they moved to Origin, existing games didn’t transfer, and there was no way to grab games for archival. So EA owes me a fucking copy of Carbon, since I didn’t have it installed when they sunset EADM.

Fuck you, EA. In every conceivable sense of the word and action.

“oh that’s okay, I have cash, coin, and check”

Me: restores from backup

Wifi driver: fades to nothingness

Me: ptsd dog meme

blows off dust

here we go… april 2007? uhoh…

• Have your domain send all messages of unknown accounts sent to one ‘real’ address (catch-all)
• Have unique email addresses for every website/service (use a password manager to keep track of credentials)
• When an address gets compromised, caught in a data breach, etc just change the email address to a new address and also (see next)
• When shit websites don’t respect opt-out/account closure/etc, send messages to that address to a black hole

Squeeky-clean inbox, and a happy you

Those are baked into the app, though

Everyone here is like “use this” “use that” which is great but the immediate solution is

switch to desktop mode

You’re welcome

“this ad blocker doesn’t help with solving my not-at-ad issue! what good is it?!”