How to get the fun back in computing?

[tinfoil-hat]

I used to really like tinkering with Linux and opensource software, servers and stuff. But my Distributions just works and Virtual Machines don't give a feel I get from bare metal. My servers do What they should do, no need to tinker with it. Anyone feel the same? Anyone have some hints or ideas?

- tinfoil-hat

 

[redcrazykid]

I used to really like tinkering with Linux and opensource software, servers and stuff. But my Distributions just works and Virtual Machines don't give a feel I get from bare metal. My servers do What they should do, no need to tinker with it. Anyone feel the same? Anyone have some hints or ideas?

- tinfoil-hat

Same here. I used to spend hours a day on InvisionFree creating themes and modifications. But they closed down because nobody used forums anymore.

 

[wildman]

I like to be in control of what is on my machine and find that Linux fits that to a tee. If it ain't broke don't fix it. I switched from Microsoft and will never go back. I do like making .gif avatars.
Always,
Wildman

 

[vs2-free-users]

That's one of the reasons why I have a vs2-free. It is mainly focused on IPv6 and has minimal "hardware" and I still try to get everything working with it. Its like the raspberry at the beginning of his life.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

But my Distributions just works and Virtual Machines don't give a feel I get from bare metal.

If you're talking about performance issues in VM then consider GPU passthrough and optionally other hardware as well depending on what you're doing in VM.

 

[Aristarchus]

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But my Distributions just works and Virtual Machines don't give a feel I get from bare metal.

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Then use VM hypervisor I. Best and most secure is Qubes. Each VM has direct access to the bare metal and access is controlled by hypervisor.
Qubes is not very userfriendly so there you go: you can tinker.
However, Qubes must be installed as main OS for it to work. I have seen crazy people installing Qubes in VM...

 

[JasKinasis]

I’m constantly tweaking my setup, so for me - the fun is endless.

And even when there’s a period where things are working exactly the way I want them to and there are no bugs to fix, or settings to tweak - I can just enjoy using my PC.

Aside from tinkering with the OS, I have fun learning new programming languages, or learning to use various pieces of software in more productive/efficient ways - Vim, Bash, Blender, Libreoffice, Gimp, Krita, Inkscape, Ardour, kdenlive, Openshot etc etc.

There’s always something new to explore!

 

[tinfoil-hat]

I’m constantly tweaking my setup, so for me - the fun is endless.

And even when there’s a period where things are working exactly the way I want them to and there are no bugs to fix, or settings to tweak - I can just enjoy using my PC.

Aside from tinkering with the OS, I have fun learning new programming languages, or learning to use various pieces of software in more productive/efficient ways - Vim, Bash, Blender, Libreoffice, Gimp, Krita, Inkscape, Ardour, kdenlive, Openshot etc etc.

There’s always something new to explore!

do you fiddle with window managers, dotfiles or something else?

 

[tinfoil-hat]

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Then use VM hypervisor I. Best and most secure is Qubes. Each VM has direct access to the bare metal and access is controlled by hypervisor.
Qubes is not very userfriendly so there you go: you can tinker.
However, Qubes must be installed as main OS for it to work. I have seen crazy people installing Qubes in VM...

it's been several years I tried Qubes OS, seems like they made good progress on usability. Going for a Dualboot as for now, I guess, I can pass trough my nvme ssd to a VM and boot from another drive. Thanks for the idea

 

[JasKinasis]

do you fiddle with window managers, dotfiles or something else?

I settled on my perfect window manager years ago - suckless’s dwm, a lightweight, tiling wm. (Aside: Before X11 is eventually removed from the Debian repos, I do need to find a satisfactory alternative to dwm that will run on Wayland. But I’m not in a rush for that. Alternatively, I’ll have to fork X11 and maintain my own branch of it, or something…… I don’t relish that prospect!)

Rather than using the version of dwm from Debians repository, I build and install dwm from source via the suckless git repo. I’ve added their official system-tray patch, plus a ton of my own modifications. Mostly custom keybinds for firing up certain bits of software that I use a lot (File-manager, web browser, libre-office etc etc). Enabling/disabling my touchpad, starting/stopping conky, controlling media playback, volume etc.
And I’ve re-jigged the order of the different desktop modes so monocle mode is the default, followed by tiling mode, with floating mode last. And I’ve hidden the top-bar. The list goes on….

So I regularly update and rebuild/reinstall dwm from source. Meaning I have to update the master branch, then merge the latest changes from the master branch into my custom branch and ensure that none of my customisations have been adversely affected, before building and installing.

I regularly add or change keybinds in dwm too. Which also requires a rebuild and reinstall. For example, shift + win + f is a shortcut I use to fire up my file-manager. For years that was dolphin, but when kde5 came out - theming was a bit of an issue on dwm. I did fix it, but then I noticed that dolphin was getting slow to start and was performing rather sluggishly. Which annoyed me, so I swapped out dolphin for pcmanfm, which starts up immediately and is really snappy.

I’ve got a number of other pieces of software that are built and installed from source too. They require regular similar manual updates. Dmenu, sent, tabbed, cmus, tong (a game that’s both Tetris and Pong)…. Numerous others….

And then there are all of the dotfiles. Like my .vimrc, .bashrc, tmux.conf etc.

Again, I’m constantly tweaking things to allow me to be more productive and efficient.