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Comment by zxexz | Hacker News Reader

I still use a core 2 duo some days. For basic web browsing (albeit with a pihole on the network) and shelling, it works fine. I think it’s the longest running machine I have.

A Thinkpad X200 - not wiped in 13 years (since installing Arch). Truly a frankenstein’s monster of a machine now. Hardware mods are so easy on this thing - I switched to an SSD probably 10 years ago, some RAM upgrades. Upgraded Wi-Fi card a few times (mostly based off mainline kernel driver support). Touchpad a couple times, keyboard at least the same. Keeping Arch running on this machine without wiping everything is the only think keeping my Linux skills sharp in the era of company-issued macs.

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That is pretty cool.

I installed to an SSD in an enclosure with the hopes that it could become an eternal install that I just bring from machine to machine (perhaps DD-ing over to a new drive as SSDs advance). So far is has gone fine for like 5 or so years, but I haven’t really found the need to upgrade since then, so it is really just living as a single desktop.

Actually, this may have inspired me to try plugging it in to another machine tonight just to make sure it hadn’t gotten too dependent on that hardware. What kind of Frankenstein would I be if my monster was constrained to a single body?

This is the itch that NixOS scratches.

One of these days, it will actually have good UX...

reads in Pee-wee Herman voice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEGywhma69E)

This... is NixOS. Immutable root. It isn't glamorous, or cool, or kid's stuff. It's the most addictive kind of package manager, and it can kill your motivation to work on actual packages. What's really bad is, nobody knows how much you'll need. Every time you use it, you risk your sanity. It isn't worth it.

Look: everybody wants to be cool. But doing it with NixOS doesn't just take long, it could be dead long.

(Disclaimer: I love Nix and couldn't leave it if I tried)

The insane part is that all it needs is good documentation.

Where is it written that steam-run will magically execute most binaries without patching them? Certainly[1] not in the article that tells you how and why to patch binaries!

[1] I see now that it's linked to at the bottom "See also" section. Still awful, IMHO.

> Where is it written that steam-run will magically execute most binaries without patching them?

Somewhere in here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime

But I do get what you're saying. Once Flakes are default, I hope people start a proper push to clear up documentation and streamline the development process. The end-result is amazing, and the perfect OS/packaging system for my needs. The means of getting there... need a lot of work. I'm along for the ride either way.

I did this for a few years with one SSD in various laptops or desktops as logisitics warranted. Desktop at home, 12in Thinkpad while traveling, 14in Thinkpad at work. It was easy to swap drives with the Thinkpad drive bay that they used to have.

Sadly, once most laptops went over to NVME 2280 pcie cards, it got a little too tedious to constantly swap out drives any more, and I started worrying about accidentally breaking them. Also had some weird issues with very poor write speed which I thought was overheating necessating a heat sink, but it turns out nvme speeds are actually just as slow as anything else under real workloads.

My enclosure claims to be Thunderbolt 3 compatible, but I actually don’t know if it is operating as USB-3 or thunderbolt when I boot Linux from it. In general, it is usually fine. Although, I’ve got an OK amount of ram, so sometimes I’ll use a RAM disk if I think it is a problem.

Actually, it is kind of funny, I’ve got an NVME drive inside the actual computer. When I want to do something that requires fast drive speeds, I make a RAM drive. When I want more memory, I swap on the internal NVME drive.

Hypothetically could I end up writing to a file on the RAM disk, and then get it swapped to the internal drive? Mayyybe. I’m not sure if Linux will just call that too silly.

A quality-of-life upgrade you might be interested in: https://www.tindie.com/products/mikepdiy/lenovo-charging-por...

I had to replace the charging port in my x220, but I did not use this usb-c one, because I didn't know at the time that it existed. It's a lengthy job (the power port is one of the first parts put into the chassis / last parts to come out) but satisfying.

The only downside of a core 2 duo is that they run hot.

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