I have not had many issues in the past 15 or more years myself running Linux exclusively aside from a shorter Macbook period. Perhaps I have just been lucky.

We sported (in guessed cronological order of first buy): Dell, HP, Lenovo, Slimbook, Tuxedo, Starlabs, BTO all running Linux at our company. We have not had big issues with any except for keyboard on a Dell, Tuxedo, Slimbook and cooling on a Lenovo. Since I chose the Slimbook many have followed on the path of smaller suppliers and I think we rarely buy from the big makes now.

I have been very happy with slimbook. I came from a macbook (bad idea) with the bad butterfly keyboard and the slimbook was a big upgrade on that front. It’s still not the greatest keyboard for some but I do like it. I have been wanting to buy a new one but whenever something broke or was insufficient I could either upgrade (2 x nvmeSSD slots and RAM can be replaced) or they still supplied spare parts when I sent them an email (keyboard replacement after 4 years). I wanted a framework but Slimbook has offered me spare parts as needed for longerbtham could buy a framework and the slimbook still works well. Plus it’s less expensive. Replacement of the keyboard was not toolless requiring glue to be heated but I did manage to quickly do it with a sleepy head at night. I’d buy their new 13" if this one would be out of service. I’d buy one now but it feels such a waste.

Things I did not like 6 years ago: webcam and microphone of lesser quality, display nice and matte with good color rendition but lower resolution than I’d prefer, no USBC charging on USBC port. Display and USBC are resolved on the new models, no clue about webcam and microphone.

When the battery gets fully discharged it degrades much faster.

I’d be searching for what’s draining the battery and in the meantime I’d add a battery disconnect switch for these periods.

I have since tried to browse Lemmy on it a few times. The lack of emitted light and terrible color rendition make it more boring. I guess that’s the point, a more boring device. Pictures are a problem due to dithering and bad color rendition.

Updated my comment to reflect this. Thanks for clearing out the confusion.

There is a standard connector which existed before big screens landed in cars, the OBD2 connector. Dongles are cheap and you can read the output from your phone or computer. Some dongles support bluetooth. The connector is mandated in some markets and I guess that makes it less interesting to add a redundant interface inside of the car. It’s fun to try if you’re interested. Manufacturers can extend the error codes IIRC.

Tesla has a service mode on the display through which you can scan the car for faults, run a battery test, … It is password protected but the password is publicly available.

This is a great overview. Some extra notes:

Linux will be sluggish running “live” off the usb stick. Do poke around but know it will be faster running from the laptop’s SSD.

For a way to install onto a USB stick, check Balena Etcher. I guess there are better tools out there but this worked for me every time I tried it, seems to work on windows too, and I found it intuitive.

They are also very Chinese and closed and without a proper Google Play store. I used a HiSense 5c pro as daily phone (hope I have the name right).

Bought it because I’m quite interested in eink. It is interesting to use and it is really usable. It is ok to read text on. I was not able to root it and was thus a bit locked in. The lock screen couldn’t be adapted to my liking and I did not fully trust in what spying it might be doing (like Google location tracking and such).

I dropped my FairPhone 5 from a bicycle on unwelcoming pavement at good speed. Broke the camera glasses, the screen protector, the carry case and the back cover. It looked positively destroyed and my first thought was “yay, it’s repairable”. Repairing was easy enough and aside from some war wounds on the side of the case (scratches) it’s as good as new. I’m glad I got this phone.

Aside from being repairable, I also appreciate the e/OS support.

Battery temperature management seems to be a key limiting factor.

At least a few years ago, and likely still, the reasons and conditions under which the barrier layers in the battery degrade were not super well understood. Heat seems to be a key contributing factor and charging a battery quickly warms up the battery and I suppose not fully evenly within a cell. Not knowing the complete extent of this makes the early LEAF’s lack of actively cooled battery a reasonable choice. Before that, the batteries of earliest Prius cars held up way longer than expected.

Like with a phone: heat and cold is not super awesome for the battery. It seems heat is especially bad for longevity.

I write my notes in org-mode. It’s supported in many editors in a basic form, letting you add code snippets etc in an unobtrusive way. Using a well thought out format helps you in the long run.

I use this in Emacs, through which it lets me refer to emails, execute code snippets, attach related files, fetch content on/from remote servers, send off the debug session as an html email, … Support will depend on your editor but even as raw text it works.

I don’t use something specific to make non-code repeatable as you suggest here, but you could embed a test language in an org code block.

The syntax is straight-forward and exports to multiple external formats exist (eg: html).

Nice script. What is the reason to toggle the brightness?

Kubernetetes is crazy complex when comparing to docker-compose. It is built to solve scaling problems us self-hosters don’t have.

First learn a few docker commands, set some environment variables, mount some volumes, publish a port. Then learn docker-compose.

Tutorials are plenty, if those from docker.com still exist they’re likely still sufficient.

I am waiting for federation to land. Would love to give it a spin and see how smooth that works across instances.

https://browse.feddit.de/ has helped me discover some good subs