To upgrade the UEFI or other hardware-level firmware you need a way to upgrade. Best OEMs use LFVS; good OEMs use have ISOs or bin files you can flash from UEFI; terrible OEMs lock that into a Windows-only executable.

In my case there was a fan & thermal update I was never able to get.

I find myself not often using my open hardware USB security token since it is inconvenient to use a dongle (same reason phones should never have dropped headphone jacks)

None.

I had a Razer laptop in the past when they were talking about being dev laptop forward & supporting Linux.

This never happened. Instead flashing Linux voids the warranty now, support drops you, & firmware upgrades only happen thru a green-accented genuine Microsoft Windows GUI installation (no *.bin flashing, no CLI FreeDOS support, no Windows PE).

The USB 2 is for a mouse or keyboard as extra bandwidth does nothing.

I can’t relate tho. My laptop only has two USB4 with type-C connectors. I really wish it tad at least one type-A connection. Luckily unlike my last laptop, at least this one has a headphone jack (I guess ASUS learned from their folly & never skipped the jack on future models).

Similar can be said of Guix

Xmonad. I prefer tiling window managers, & I tried Sway but I can’t do color work without proper color management… something Wayland doesn’t support. Thus, I moved back to my old Xmonad config awaiting Wayland to get its shit together after years saying color management was around the corner & distros still adopting it despite not being ready.

Why tho? The logs give you information & progress. After boot you don’t even see it.

I honestly wish Android booted like this.

Meanwhile folks I work with Linux is basically seen as a must (if not specifically NixOS). You are on your own if you want to use OSs that don’t work well with Nix since there is too much value in immutable builds to warrant supporting your proprietary setup. Most ended up switching to or getting a second laptop for Linux.

I mean that sounds like a them problem. Why would your setup, your ergonomics be influenced by others?

Yet Wayland is still working on proper color management… which doesn’t make it fit for professional work

This is insane lol

The biggest shake-ups in a while outside we-don’t-use-X (no systemd, etc.) are the declarative distros like NixOS & Guix. You do the whole system setup & config thru a single file (or broken into multiple). Learning curve is very high for the config but the payoff is less things changing out from under you & setting up new machines & rolling back to working states without resorting to FS snapshots. They are good languages to learn for software development too where you want repeatable software.

The ability to defederate arguable makes it more free & open even if it isn’t what I would prescribe.

I recall having some fun with League of Legends when you could just join chat & chat rooms thru a regular XMPP client. This was convenient at work on Linux to not need a working client to catch important messages from teammates. But everyone wants a walled garden now.

Not open? Wat

It is a standard, starting at RFC 6120. Everyone can use it today. 😃

Since we are on a decentralized platform & many of us care about federation, do yourself a service & read this little history lesson: How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) (archived)

I stopped after 7 🤷

The last week 10 was an easy, free upgrade, I upgraded then gave the machine to a friend to do some very, very early LLM training to never see it again.

Vista all over again?

LoL is addicting & sucks your soul out; Roblox does this while making child labor on their platform on how the games are built & monetized inside their platform. It is pretty gross.

I am happy Arcane is good tho. Knowing the characters makes it a more fun & engaging. They built some good art & lore.