dingdongitsabear

check out dell latitude 5285/5290 2-in-1. they are Surface Pro lookalikes with detachable keyboards, but with way service-friendlier interior - easy to open and SSD, comms, battery can be easily replaced, whereas RAM is soldered. the screens (12" 1920x1200 IPS mutlitouch) are gorgeous and the hardware isn't too shabby, kabylake (7xxxu) and kabylake-r (8xxxu), with standard UEFI BIOS so you can install Linux and have SecureBoot even. I can get them locally for $100-150, dependent on config and equipment (even less if they're without battery and keyboard).

edit: yeah, I misunderstood your idea, I thought you wanted a cheap linux tablet. what you actually want is a fantasy - an ultra-portable device with huge battery autonomy running linux and such a thing doesn't exist, for any kind of money.

namely, the mentioned dells are twice the heft of a normal android tablet and the battery autonomy is laughable; not only is it not an improvement over a normal laptop, it's likely to be worse, as that thing's essentially a laptop with extras, like touch, gyros, etc.

then comes the real hammer - touching the thing. Gnome and Plasma (and their derivatives) have touch support but if you're coming from an android or iOS tablet, that support is in its infancy. it's crude, inconsistent, flaky, and not very well propagated throughout the system. it's way better than it was a few years ago, but this is not something you'll want to hang your career or education on.

you can tweak the thing into something semi-usable, and for the price (around $100) that's a worthwhile endeavour and cute hobby project. it bears repeating, it is not daily driver material, and that includes way pricier solutions - saw a Ryzen 6-series the other day for like $700; everything I've written applies to it as well.

regarding the pricy enclosures, there are vastly cheaper eGPU solutions especially if you're able to utilise the on-board M.2 or mini-PCI slot. if you don't move the laptop around, it's a viable option. this would be an example - not an endorsment. you'd need a $15 PSU to power the graphics and it works well in linux, with the hotpluggability being the primary issue; if you're willing to shutdown before attaching the eGPU, close to no issues.

you can run it as graphics card (i.e. utilize its display outputs) or just use the laptop's display with optionally switching between the onboard and discrete graphics.

to me the Ian Holm abomination was terrible, without any redeeming qualities. same thing as rogue one, exact same shittyness, zero technological progress, crude and unnecessarily distracting.

using rsync:

why not btrfs send | btrfs receive? is there some advantage to rsync?

did you hotswap the drives after each btrfs replace or shutdown and then swap?

what's your host OS and do the drives spin down if inactive?

thanks for the writeup!

I've set up a local mail archive with just dovecot + imap plugin. you don't need the full mail server with postfix and whatnot, as it's not intended to send anything anywhere, or even receive anything for that matter. it just sits there ready to be searched with thunderbird, no need for other complex solutions you've mentioned.

this right here. remove partition and apply and then start the installer. there is a way to map this partition in the installer, but that's such a horrific UX mess that it's a challenge even for experienced folks.

you can still run both tools, I do so on my main workstation. they stay in the status bar and don't bother you none. when you're done working and recline on your sofa, you can send e.g. youtube videos to the rig and they play fullscreen by way of mpv.

I've gone the other way - there is no interacting per se with the media PC; instead, it's a dumb sink that plays back everything you send it, by way of macast and jellyfin-mpv-shim. you use android apps to send it stuff (e.g. newpipe share to allshare which connects to macast and jellyfin android app which connects to JMS) and to control playback (pause, skip, change subs, etc.). so, all media selection and playback control is done from the mobile device, no need to touch the media PC doing the playback.

not sure this will fit into your use case because of spotty internet, but that should prompt you to install jellyfin post-haste. then you have two options, the mentioned android app + JMS or just the jellyfin media player which can run in TV mode with a pared down controller (up/down/left/right/enter/back) - I've successfully repurposed an ancient Apple Remote that has just those six keys.

correct, no idea how I managed to do that.

you're overcomplicating it. get a separate $20 SSD and install the OS to it, dicking around with wine and tools within virtualbox is a headache you don't need. set it up as desired (I recommend using flatpak versions of lutris and friends because of freshness) and then install the games one by one, followed by transferring the game data/settings/etc. you can experiment to your heart's desire because you always have the fallback solution of your original drive.

then, when you know what's what and where's what you can make the transition. good luck!

I mean, OK, it's a vulnerability and there are interesting implications, but this is hardly significant in any pracitcal sense of the word.

the potential victim has to run their system without a firewall, has to print to the printer they've never interacted with before and then the attacker can run shit with whatever the printing system's user id is, which shouldn't be an issue on any reasonably modern distro.

I routinely remove cups and friends from any system I run because I have no need for printing and it bothers me to see it constantly during every system upgrade.

https://github.com/morgant/mlvwm