> All Chromebook Plus laptops come with the the following guaranteed hardware specs:

> CPU: Intel Core i3 12th Gen or above, or AMD Ryzen 3 7000 series or above

> RAM: 8GB+

> Storage: 128GB+

> Webcamera: 1080p+ with Temporal Noise Reduction

> Display: Full HD IPS or better display

It feels a little weird and sad that an i3 is the bar to make something "plus" in performance.

In fairness, a 12th Gen i3 is not massively far from an M1. The iX branding has become a little silly lately as a user who is not hardcore pushing the system could not possibly tell the difference between a 1215u and a 1235u.

i3 is probably still associated with "can barely hold 3+ apps open" era but thats not the case for many years now

That seems more like a memory/hard drive issue.

Ever since the Core 2 product line, intel’s CPUs have all been fine for stuff like office use (browsing, editing files, reading email).

Well other than atoms obviously.

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.

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

:p

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.