Discussion
I now have a semi functional eink terminal running a fairly recent (pre-slop) build of debian.
I'm going to configure it as an offline first portable computer, with a focus on reading and writing.
What would *you* consider the essential applications for such a system.
@ajroach42 pre-slop?
Whats Debian done? I hope not the ways like Ubuntu.
@chigh I posted a long thread about it yesterday but the gist is 1) AI authored contributions are now allowed in the Linux kernel, and 2) also in the Debian project and repos.
They put up some "safeguards" but I think that's meaningless.
Go read the vote, if you're curious. It's... Well, the anti-ai position was doomed from the outset because of how it was structured.
@ajroach42 I'd add visidata for CSV diving, tmux, a Gemini browser (the lightweight hypertext protocol, not the LLM junk), and a RSS reader.
@ajroach42 If it has the space: some zim reader + wikipedia/wiktionary and the like? Also units(1) and some simple calculator application (searching for a CLI/TUI thing, https://git.betalupi.com/Mark/daisy looks promising, even if not "simple" anymore). I think these alone could cover 30% of my search queries.
Since the focus is on reading/writing, a spell checker (their integrations into editors vary too much to make a useful recommendation beyond "the one your editor supports best")
I have koreader, frotz, a text editor (no holy wars, please), mutt, frotz, offpunk, lynx, and slrn.
I also grabbed bsdgames.
@ajroach42 Got frotz on there twice so you can play Zork AND Zork II?
@mdhughes lol, I didn't notice.
But yes, Zork and Zork II, the only games.
@ajroach42 You've already got offpunk, so amfora is probably unnecessary duplication.
Maybe gurk, for access to CLI signal chat? That might be too online to consider, though.
@Unlikelylass I'll probabloy go for krystal or one of the other graphical clients at some point.
It's offline first, rather than offline only, so live chat is on the table, but I don't want my signal chats on another device rn. The ones they are on already are too many, imo.
Oh, and cmus, I went ahead and set up cmus.
This thing has 4 cores and 4 gigs of ram, enough juice to run Firefox or whatever. (although that isn't exactly the *best* experience on eink, in dithered mode, it's certainly usable. )
Built in speaker isn't total garbage!
Bluetooth audio though, either does not sound good, or stutters like hell.
It's using SBC, and that sounds bad, but SBC-XQ just doesn't work.
Dunno why.
@ajroach42 Personally? LibreOffice suite, calibre (to manage its own ebook library), favourite text editor.
And a mediawiki instance running locally for my notes, but of course YMMV.
@patcharcana my notes live in markdown files that live in a syncthing folder.
I do most of my word processing, etc on the command line.
I'm using KOReader for ebooks.
But yeah, same hat.
@ajroach42 Gaming was not mentioned, but that'd be a great system to put ADVENT, some other text adventures, and maybe a few ports of old PalmOS games on.
You know, lightweight stuff that isn't trying to redraw the screen 60 times a second.
@patcharcana I snagged bsd games and frotz, and I'll probably load in the infocom collection.
Install bonfire.cafe
Get the full app experience
