utopiah

I definitely recommend it... but I also wouldn't dare predicting the future.

So far unofficial hacking on the reMarkable has been great. The Discord is very active, new development e.g. https://github.com/asivery/rm-appload (random pick from Discord) so that's the sign of a healthy tinkering environment.

Yet, reMarkable has never pushed for customization either. They also got VC funding in 2019 and 2022 but that seemed to have changed nothing on that front.

So... I highly doubt they would somehow break the ability to connect to ssh then install applications. They definitely can not even technically do that as long as one does not automatically update. Consequently I can safely say that if you get a reMarkable today, you will be able to do a lot with it.

All that being said, even though it's Linux proper, it's also a rather specialized environment with limited resources. If you do not love to tinker, make sure the application you actually need is already available and working on the right version you want (e.g. might work on rM2 but not on rM Pro).

If you have a specific need in mind, let me know and I can try to share the right resource, otherwise join the Discord and ask there.

I had the remarkable 1, 2 and now have the Pro.

I also have a PineNote.

My notes on both https://fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Eink including installing specific apps

That was posted 3hours ago. By now you could have installed at least 1 "normal" distribution (i.e. pretty much anything that allow you to download packages for your architecture, not LFS) and have some of your work files either copied on /home or better mounted as a directory that is safely on another partition or even disk.

Don't like whatever you installed? Explain us WHY then we can better help you narrow down what you need.

Overall software availability and performances are pretty much NOT distribution specific.

It is rare that a specific feature is not available as driver that can not be installed somehow, same for state of the art software, e.g. something coming right of the repository rather than a built package.

Why? I have a hard time imagine a use case where restoring the OS itself would be appropriate.

I can imagine restoring data, obviously, and services running with their personalization ... but the OS is something generic that should be discarded at whim IMHO. You probably chance few basic configuration of some services and most likely that's stored in /etc but even then 99% is default.

You can identify what you modified via shell history, e.g. history | grep /etc and potentially save them or you can also use find /etc -type f -newerXY with a date later than the OS installation and you should find what you modified. That's probably just a few files.

If you do back up anything beyond /home (which should be on another partition or even disk than the OS anyway) you'll most likely save garbage like /dev that might actually hinder your ability to restore.

So... sure, image the OS if you actually have a good reason for it but unless you work on archiving and restoring legacy hardware for a museum then I doubt you do need that.

Check using e.g. top for your CPU (nvidia-smi or amd-smi for your GPU) or System Monitor on KDE if any of your resource is being maxed out. If so then most likely you found the culprit.

Regarding what the actual codec is being used you can use ffprobe but anyway what matters if resource bottleneck and thus if you can have hardware acceleration for it.

It's probably worth investigating so that you don't keep on getting video files too big for your computer to handle. I imagine it's something very high resolution with very recent compression. If so, look for something less demanding, e.g. x265 720p and if that's still leading to performance hiccups the older x264 720p or even 480p.

It's rare that the media player itself, e.g. VLC or mpv, actually is the bottleneck.

I'm using fWallet for Eurostar, plane tickets, etc anything with PkPass. Very minimalist, just does the job.

• code repository https://gitlab.com/TheOneWithTheBraid/f_wallet
• f-droid delivery https://f-droid.org/packages/business.braid.f_wallet/

knowing my software is up to date

Wouldn't that be solved with random notifications saying software X has been updated to version Y.Z even though it might not be true?

The excitement of features from the cutting edge

I don't understand how Debian limits that. You can use Debian for your distribution BUT for whatever you want to be cutting edge, use whatever alternative method you want. It can be alternative package managers, e.g. am but if you want the absolute bleeding edge, go on the repository of the project, get a specific branch, build, install, use. That's absolutely no problem with even Debian stable.

I'm genuinely confused at comments implying that have a stable distribution means having outdated software.

I guess it depends what you mean by "chip production".

AFAICT mostly via Chip War (2022) and reading a bit on the topic there are few bottlenecks, e.g chip design IP like ARM (UK) or lithography machines like ASML (NL) or high efficiency chip production like TSMC (Taiwan) but overall the grip from the US is mostly on democratization and scale with AMD, NVIDIA, Broadcom or even Intel, namely making a LOT of chips, not necessarily high end (some are) or mobile (also some), for a relatively low price. What I mean is that China is already claiming that they are producing about on-par IPS with e.g. Loongson.

So yes there are for sure incumbents based in the US that do not want RISCV and overall open architectures to make significant progress but is it fair to call them "the US" I'm not sure. Are they heavily leaning on US lawmakers to get their positions strengthened? Maybe. Maybe they do not yet do so simply because they don't believe it's a threat yet, nor it might be ever be.

I believe that in chip production you can lock production via innovation but also, like in other sectors, solely with the supply chain. ASML is powerful because they basically own their markets but also because who would contract with newcomers versus a very well established company that can provide all the insurances imaginable that they will indeed deliver on time a specific amount? Why risk it when you are already contracting with the leader?

Sure there is a potential innovator dilemma but what could prevent e.g. NVIDIA or Intel to switch to RISC-V if somehow they can dominate there too thanks to both their existing expertise but also supply chain stronghold?

If you like working in slow motion, yes, sure.

Source : I have a Banana-Pi SBC https://www.banana-pi.org/en/banana-pi-sbcs/175.html and... it works, running Linux proper, with a desktop environment, which is in itself pretty cool IMHO but damn, you have to be patient. That being said "just" already being at that stage on economically affordable hardware is amazing. We are probably not far, say few years at most, with usable RISC-V chips for mundane tasks, e.g. text authoring, coding, Web browsing, but don't expect compilation of a browser, Blender, or gaming on this for few more years. IMHO it will go fast because it's catching up so the path is rather well laid down, which is much harder than innovating and pushing the envelope.

I won't enter the arguments about Debian itself (did that often enough, feel free to check my history or ignore entirely) rather my point is to have a default suggestion rather than "pick any" for newcomers which precisely are scared by the plethora of choices, as this very post suggests.

It's rare that a software compatibility is distribution specific but just in case for games you can verify with ProtonDB and for the rest WineHQ AppDB. That's assuming there is no native support which in this case according to a quick DuckDuckGo search returns https://linuxvox.com/blog/unreal-engine-linux/ indicating that it seems fine.

So... I'd suggest you pick whatever distribution you heard most about, if you are unsure I'd advise on Debian (Stable) but honestly I don't think it matters much. There might be slight difference in hardware support and performances but assuming you use mainstream hardware it hopefully should have minimal impact.

Regardless of what you choose, document the process and as long as you learn while doing it, you're going forward!

If you are in rush... maybe postpone the transition to after that project or do it with a 2nd computer.