Alex Vranas @Alex@vran.as

@neil @liw Next year is my 19th year as a Linux Desktop user.

The only thing that ever kept me using Windows on the side was PC Gaming, but that's not a problem anymore. My Gaming desktop runs Linux, and I have a Steam Deck, and both run everything I need them to.

I swear, the only people still badmouthing the Linux Desktop are people who are afraid of learning a little bit of bash, which quite frankly isn't difficult, and you don't need to use it often if you don't want to.

Theory: At any given point in time, there is at least one smartphone screen breaking.

@Estebiu I loved my Thinkpad T440p. It was old, but it worked great. There were a few Linux hiccups, but nothing I couldn't glue back together with scripts.

This new laptop feels like a toy it's so light, but I'm blown away by the performance, and the Linux QA work that S76 does really makes it feel like a finished product, as far as the Linux Desktop experience goes.

Might look into one of their Thelio towers in the future once I've broken this new laptop in.

I feel pretty upgraded today!

Got my new #System76 Lemur Pro laptop, a 9 year jump in hardware over my last laptop.

Figured out that I can switch my Pixel 7 Pro into high-DPI mode, which my eyes are still capable of enjoying.

Feels like the future!

I was going to visit my parents for Christmas, but decided that I'd just go visit them the first weekend into the new year because "I have a bad feeling about holiday travel this year".

I love being right.

Now, I know, I admin my own private instance, I have the unilateral power to defederate, and I definitely wield it

But anyone can block an instance from the account level, and more people should take the liberty of doing so.

I see the discourse about QTs is roiling right now, and just some food for thought:

QTs already exist on the Fediverse. Pleroma implemented it a while ago. Getting QT'd has lead to me having to play whack-a-mole with malicious instances telling me to unalive myself, because they weren't happy with my antifacist takes.

The most powerful tool I have here is the block function. This alone has halted dogpiles, and I never had to involve my followers in it.

Die Hard is a story about a cop that murders an unarmed 13 year old, and regains the confidence to kill again when a fellow cop's life is at stake.

Your friendly holiday reminder that the Whos in Whoville get freaky this time of year.

@CharmingDolphins@musicians.today The open source firmware and Linux optimizations are the big selling points for me. It's basically an open source Macbook Pro equivalent.

Core hardware is Clevo, which is less expensive if you buy direct, but it looks like the customizations and support are worth the premium. Plus S76 develops their own Ubuntu-based OS called Pop! OS that looks slick.

My new laptop has shipped!

I haven't had a *new* laptop in a decade. I always end up buying refurbished Thinkpads. My daily driver is a 2014 Lenovo T440p that I bought in 2018.

Before that it was a 2012 Dell XPS, my last actually new Laptop.

Decided to buy a fully spec'd-out System76 Lemur Pro for the New Year.

Excited to go from 2 CPU cores to 10. 8GB of RAM to 40. 1TB SSD to 4TB NVMe!