I’m not stuck in time. I’ve embraced dependability.
Judging by this posi I should probably start using Debian stable
honestly man…it’s not a bad decision. I for a long time didn’t give Debian the time of day. Now i’m daily driving OpenBSD and I use a Debian VM on it for certain dev work (mainly builds and deploys) and then on my second NVME I first went with Bazzite to do gaming but then I changed my mind and was like “meh, debian” and it’s solid. it’s good. it stays out of my way for what I want to do on it which isn’t much.
It’s a decent distro that’s just kinda there and you don’t have to worry about it.
Except the NVIDIA drivers are 40 versions behind and break every time the kernel updates.
It’s perfect for my 8 year old laptop
The Nvidia driver in the Debian repos is virtually abandoned, though thankfully the Cuda repos hosted by Nvidia support Debian now, and give Debian users access to the latest drivers, like 610.
I enabled this repo last week on Debian 13 (RTX4080). While it technically works, I’d say it’s not without risks for those not a little familiar with linux.
It first required some fiddling cause the file that is supposed to blacklist Nouveau on boot was renamed by apt as .save or something as a result of the package upgrades, so the system just started loading Nouveau instead of the new driver. Fixing this got me further, as the 610 proprietary driver finally loaded.
Sarting my usual plasma X11 session didn’t work though. It launched but didn’t display shit (grey boxes instead of windows and taskbar basically).
Having also plasma wayland available from sddm, I tried to launch this session and it got me a working desktop. So I ended settling with this. Wayland used to be crap on my system, but with this recent NVIDIA drivers, it’s usable. My only real complaint is the extra latency on the mouse cursor.
I also had some difficulty getting it working on my rig, and I’m not a big fan if Debian’s documentation, as it often does assume knowledge, which makes it harder to follow along and feel confident you’re doing the correct steps.
Ultimately I switched my only Nvidia system to standard Linux Mint to have access to their easy to use Nvidia driver installer, which makes upgrading or downgrading the driver a 1-click process (though it requires a third party PPA done by a canonical employee to access the latest 610 drivers).
Just wait until the kernel updates.
I assumed using the repository instead of installing via the .run file would make the driver survive the next kernel upgrade, but time will tell.
It does, but it’s very far behind
My hardware is about 43 versions behind, so… we good. Kinda. Waiting for that bubble to pop.
I’m so glad it’s not just me that’s had this lol. My laptop blackscreened after a house move and when I saw the GPU was offline I thought it didn’t survive the journey.
Wait, openbsd can run debian vms?
Why wouldn’t it be able to if it supports virtualization? Probably could run Windows VMs if you wanted to.
vmm used to only support openbsd as guest os iirc, I guess it has added linux support.
yup very easy to setup too. it’s a VERY basic netinstall of Debian. but right now I have it to run builds, deploy, and even have nix on there to do some nixos stuff.
Casio for calculator but Hamilton for watch??
I’d expect a Debian fanatic to have a Casio watch as well!
Where’s your 25 year old leather belt that has wear marks near every hole? Documenting your progression into middle age like tree rings.
No 20 year old belt. But I do have a set of 20 year old suspenders or galluses if you prefer. I wear suspenders because I have a very large surgical scar from a ruptured appendix years ago. Belt are very irritating to wear.
I went from cutting edge tech excited nerd to literally this picture, and life is better.
Me too, friend. Generational leaps were so cool when I was a kid. Now that I’m in my thirties, I just see it all as a rent-a-spy.
At this point, even my printer is suspect. It stays unplugged until it’s needed.
But the phone? It’s a shame the telephone is always listening.
I used to be so excited about a everything-digital during my teenage years. Now I look at my mechanical tools with joy, and become suspicious of anything not having an open firmware.
Best part is even when you do a major version update, Debian still doesn’t break your shit. At least it never has with me. Can’t say the same for most other ditros I’ve tried.
Pic needs a Glock 19
“I’m in this picture and it’s quite OK here.”
My car is a 20 year old shitbox, my bike gets new brake pads and a bit of random lubricant on the chain once a year and other “maintenance” only when parts fall off, and my stereo is a mix of hand me downs from my dad’s college days and some eBay home theatre stuff that got sold because it didn’t support the newest HDMI bullshit.
Oh, and of course it is a Thinkpad, thanks for asking.
Just the other day, a friend of mine running Arch tried to install something, which resulted in him having to do a full system update, including fixing several “that should not happen” s. Meanwhile, every few years I spend an evening update to the newest stable, and never had bigger issues than the color of some icon being unfamiliar.
What?!
You haven’t bowed to the gods of built-in obsolescence?! How dare you!?Man I always hear about these people who have to fix random that should not happen things. Yet I haven’t had that problem in a decade of using rolling distros.
While ever time I’ve ever had a fixed release cycle distro update it implodes. What black magic fuckery is this.
I guess it depends on how much you can abuse or ignore it. Debian works just fine if you put it in a locker for 3 years and then try to update. With gentoo, if you didn’t update for a week, you might as well reinstall :)
Arch is somehow in the middle, I had an arch VM that never had any problems except that certificate issue despite not getting many updates.
Different colored icon? Literally unusable! Time to distro hop
/jk
I feel like when humble-bragging Thinkpad it must be one of the models that became a Linux enthusiast meme.
Nah, L390 Yoga. I wanted touch because i thought I’d use it, but it ended up in a docking station most of the time anyway. Upgraded RAM and SSD, battery still hold “a few hours” despite being 7+ years old. I figured those 8th gen quad cores would last a while, and so far, they do. Doesn’t feel too terrible compared to my modern core u 235 work laptop.
I don’t have a Thinkpad myself. I do have a 10 year old Acer Aspire V3-372T. It’s a perfectly cromulent laptop. I use it to listen to podcasts and YouTube. I check my emails sometimes. I check weather.gov. I have a copy of my music library. I write my personal budgets. It has a touchscreen that I never use. I get around just fine.
One day, I’ll either get a Thinkpad or a Framework.
Perfectly fine if it does what it should. That is imo the essence of this post: Better is the enemy of good. I wouldn’t buy a new one (again), this one was a bit of an exception (customer return, with a little scratch), since used touch laptops with good performance were quite rare.
Older doesn’t necessarily mean worse. Dependability is important for sure.
It also doesn’t necessarily mean more dependable. There definitely is a fallacy problem that many fall into where they believe old = reliable.
That’s true, but if you have a 20-year-old item that is still working and a different 5-year-old item that is still working and you know nothing else about them, the statistics do work out that the former will likely maintain its working condition longer. It’s obviously not a hard rule, but as a rule of thumb, it exists for a reason.
Survivorship bias. Garbage products from 20 years ago are long gone.
I’m not sure if you’re meaning that as agreement or disagreement, but yes, that’s another way to phrase the same phenomenon.
Well if it is reliable, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a good way of looking at it too. This is fair though!
What the fuck? Who’s been taking pictures of my stuff?
The Debian Stable lifestyle is appealing to me more and more every day now
I drive an older model manual transmission acura and use a 1980s style programmable thermostat with no smart features or connectivity. Use Debian stable with KDE. Checks out
I use arch linux and drive a 2001 sebring i found abandoned. My internet is a hotspot and i have 3 powerstrips hooked into a single outlet
Sir, please step away from the everything.
I do use Debian stable and I do still use a calculator like that and a wallet I repaired many times.
If they’re still working just fine, why replace them?
Here’s my actual wallet.
I bought it for $25 in 2009 and have carried it every day since. The fabric in the cash pocket has separated from the leather and the plastic window for my photo ID is missing. My wife told me I should buy a new one since this one’s so worn. I said, “Why? It still works perfectly.” Not a knock against her. We just have different ideas about the meaning of durability.
Literally a fossil.
Are you calling them a fossil, or the wallet?
Similar, but I’ve had mine since 1996. It’s Kenneth Cole brand. It’s amazing how well it’s held up.
I looked at replacing it a few years ago, but couldn’t find one with the same features.
“Genuine fossil classic” just makes it better
This was my husband. He only bought a new one because he wanted one of the metal ones that just hold cards, that you can stick on the back of your phone. I spent 15 years with him before that, and he’d had the wallet at least 7 years when we met.
Is that tire pressure gauge archaic? It’s handy & effective & requires no electricity. I keep one in my glove box.
No shit, do people not check their tire pressure? WTF?
Nah air pumps at the store usually come with them.
Many cars these days have built in tire pressure monitors and will light your dash with a warning light when it is low. Both my vehicles do that. I still carry a tire gauge in my glove box though.
Some of these tire pressure sensors transmit unencrypted data via radio. You can use that to track people.
That might be, but the 10 year old vehicles I own are not very likely to do that.
I choose to believe that you’re the authentic Bill Murray from OG Ghostbusters.
Hey, those old school Craftsman ratchets and wrenches last forever. My dad bought a set in the 70s, he died in 2023 and they were one of the things I kept in the aftermath and they are way better than the ones I have bought for myself over the years that are much newer.
My advice to anyone these days is if you want it to last get the version of that thing that was being sold in the 1950s-1970s. Maybe the 80’s/90’s depending on what it is. If it was made in the last 20 years it is almost always made to be thrown away in a decade or less.
I’m in this picture and quite frankly it’s a great place to be. Everything either just works, I know how to fix it, or I at least know what is broken and not worth fixing.
Though that is a terrible style of air pressure gauge. Get a good dial one with the tube.
Or the tutorial written for Ubuntu users works without having to think about different package managers
I feel targeted by this. Also how did you get into my house?
