• ~/Prototypes for … my prototypes, typically either starting from an empty directory or cloning a repository and adapting it for my needs. I have this directory on nearly all my devices, desktop of course but also NAS, server, phone, standalone XR headset, etc.
• ~/Apps in addition to ~/bin, typically binaries but all AppImages

Can’t talk about AMD but I’m on NVIDIA and I always followed https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers and never had issues others seem to be having. I typically hear good things about AMD GPU support, on Debian and elsewhere so I’m surprised.

Now in practice IMHO GPU support doesn’t matter much for NAS, as you’re probably going headless (no monitor, mouse or keyboard). You probably though do want GPU instruction set support for transcoding but here again can’t advise for this brand of GPU. It should just be relying on e.g. https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Hardware/AMF

Finally I’m a Debian user and I’m quite familiar with setting it up, locally on remotely. I also made ISOs for RPi based on Raspbian so this post made me realize I never (at least I don’t remember) installed Debian headlessly, by that I mean booting on a computer with no OS all the way to getting a working ssh connection established on LAN or WiFi. I relied on Imager for RPi configuration or making my own ISO via a microSD card (using dd) but it made me curious about preseeding wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Preseed so I might tinker with it via QEMU. Advices welcomed.

PS: based on few other comments, consider minidlna over more complex setups. Consider Wireguard over tailscale (or at least headscale for a version relying solely on your infrastructure) with e.g. wg-easy if you want to manage everything without 3rd parties.

IMHO fix whatever you can, donate it all locally (HackerSpace, RepairCafe, Linux non-profit, etc) as there are quite a few people dedicated to refurbishing computers for schools, people who need a computer to find work, etc.

Then for the tinkering aspect, keep one, that’s enough.

Honestly even 1 isn’t really required. Pretty much everything listed here can be done more efficiently without an actual physical computer :

• your current computer can be a server, just turn off the screen or even accept (which I’d argue is a fair assumption) that at night it will be off. If you want external access put WireGuard or another VPN on it.
• Want to test distributions or anything else? QEMU or containers, no need for actual hardware

Nitpicking but a line is missing IMHO namely The code of the program: should also suggest which file to edit, e.g potato.go. It might be obviously to anybody working with Go but for others it’s not.

FWIW makes me wonder how much work would be required to have this as a Web container, e.g. Dockerfile with

FROM debian:13
RUN apt update && apt install -y qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils
WORKDIR /linux-inside-out

then https://github.com/container2wasm/container2wasm#container-on-browser

Edit: FWIW the image of Debian 13 with QEMU and its utils is ~1.1Gb

Very cool, reminds me of https://jsandler18.github.io/tutorial/boot.html

Half a dozen people said so already but I’ll repeat :

backup your stuff.

You are like a tightrope walker on a high line without security. Sure the view is amazing, yes you feel free… but a misstep and that’s it.

How? Well depends what your data is but start simple, copy your most important files, e.g. family photos, personal notes, etc (NOT HD movies from the Internet… not anything you can get elsewhere) on a USB stick you go stuffed in a drawer.

Once you DO have your stuff saved though, please, pretty please DO go crazy! Have fun, try weird stuff, bork your installation… and restart from a neat safe place. It’s honestly amazing to learn, so deeply empowering for yourself and those around you. Just make sure your data don’t suffer from it.

Had one from the start and also had a reMarkable 1, 2, Pro and e-readers with e-ink. I did discuss all that before so feel free to check my comment history. You can also check related prorotypes at https://fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Eink including for the PineNote.

Now on your questions :

how usable is the pinenote with Linux?

Last time I check it didn’t run well enough (basically CLI only) so I’m still on their stock Android OS. Worked great. According to other comments it seems fine now and I’m familiar with KOReader and a bit Xournal++ so I’ll try again.

How hard is the install process?

Easy, I didn’t do anything ;)

Can an average Linux user/self hoster use it daily?

Well in my case yes but again Android, so if you are familiar with it, e.g. adb then it’s easy.

How’s battery?

Fine but power management kind of sucks so it will not go to sleep properly and thus waste battery. It’s also heavy so honestly I wouldn’t travel with it.

Couldn’t find many reviews online…

Again, I did share on Lemmy quite a bit. I do warmly recommend it if you are a tinkerer who doesn’t travel too often. If you are a minimalist who wants to get things done then IMHO reMarkable is better.

The version of Debian it shipped with had a bug where I couldn’t install any software updates without deleting some random lib64 directory. Once I did that, everything was fine.

Neat, I’m still running the stock Android but I’ll try. How long ago did you do that? Is your fix documented somewhere?

No doubt NVIDIA is peddling AI as they are financially depending on it now.

Now from claiming something is powerful and even used to actually shipping code on something low level and benchmarkable like (GPU) drivers I have doubt. I imagine they can say they use AI there to rephrase comment and it would “technically correct” but beyond that I’m still skeptical.

Regarding chip design, AI has been used for decades … if you consider routing to be AI. It’s not generative in the modern sense, it’s not using LLM, but it’s automated a process.

To me it’s the typical Harvard Business School playbook. C-suite repeat keywords they read in their peer most popular magazine, they aggregate in a document they call “strategy” they lower down the chain of commands people “execute” that because they must, thanks to KPIs.

I’d love to hear it from an actual engineer working on drivers but I imagine it’d be hard to get a honest opinion with NDAs and all.

Thanks for providing all the sources!

Source please

Sure, but FWIW I play from AAA to indies and it “works” as in no bug, no noticeable visual glitch.

I don’t benchmark from my driver version to the previous one on Windows or Linux or a price point equivalent with AMD hardware, I just play. I don’t think anybody gain much from checking performance benchmarks before playing a game, at least I can say for sure to me that’s not part of the fun.

I would notice if something was blatantly wrong e.g 50% performance hit, but I wouldn’t if it’s 5% hit. I don’t really care for it as it doesn’t affect my gameplay. Like I said, it’s from a casual player, not a pro player nor a game tinkerer.

Working “better” on Windows means nothing to me. Either I can play and I’m happy or I can’t (which never happened) then I’d be disappointed and potentially check why.

PS: I’m also a developer of XR content so I’m relatively confident I’d spot any significant problem.

No idea, I’ve been playing “normal” games and VR games with my NVIDIA card for years now on Debian and… it just works. It just keeps on working. Maybe people are hardcore tinkerers that mess with specific options but me, I just play and I’m happy with it.

Of course, in fact you do not have to change right now, or even next month. Instead you are in a great position when you already have a device because it means you can take the time you need to prepare for a transition without any rush. The problem IMHO is … if you repeat the cycle. If in few years, or whenever you do change phones you say, again “Switching isn’t necessarily easy or doable for everyone” while having done nothing to change your situation.

Please, don’t rush a change and make it painful. Take the time and use the resources you have… but do something, even if a small thing, to go where you want to be. Do not stay stuck in a place you do not even enjoy.

Honestly… I come from iOS, using for nearly a decade. Yes that stuff is secure, yes that stuff is (or at least was) stable, yes that stuff is slick to the point of being a status symbol… but DAMN does it suck for interoperability!

Every success of bringing the Apple ecosystem to interact with anything is just so ridiculously hard… for in the end bringing very little.

Do yourself a favor, switch to (deGoogled) Android to enjoy KDE Connect, adb, scrcpy, etc just working out of the box, copying normal files the normal way, however you want. Try “just” Linux if you can’t but on mobile that’s not for everyone.

Again, I celebrate this success and all ways, e.g. iSH or Homebrew, that help to tinker, manage, work with Apple hardware but honestly I suggest ignoring it entirely. Just rely on software and hardware that actually provides the bare minimum to be interoperable. Not this.

Instead use this, and iSH, Homebrew, libimobiledevice, and the rest to transition AWAY from that locked ecosystem.

FWIW rsync also works on mobile phones and VR standalone HMDs, via e.g. termux or ish … so it’s really on working fine on… pretty much anything with a terminal and a connection really.

Warmly recommended.

Also if you need more than solely the last version, check rdiff-backup.

Became quite trivial, e.g. took me 15min to get CopyParty on a Debian on a Banana Pi running RISC-V https://mastodon.pirateparty.be/@utopiah/115332958192905605 and staying headless performances are fine.

Yep, that’s the point of https://lemmy.ml/post/39238406/22339896 but it’s “just” an FPGA though "Precursor - Mobile, Open Hardware, RISC-V System-on-Chip (SoC) Development Kit "

Ah… but then that’s not enough, you need to insure that the supply chain itself is 100% free! For example if you are using an Intel CPU, how can you verify it does what it says it does?

Enter precursor.dev ! Check this out if 100% free is not enough for you.

PS: honestly do what makes pragmatically your world, and that of the ones around you, better. Hopefully it is toward free software but IMHO if you have more agency with usage (which yes does overlap significantly with this) then it’s a powerful step to keep on doing so.

yet to get my first. I had been considering the Meta Quest 3, but Meta.

Perfect then