Hi, long post compiling shorter sections about some random hardware and software related stuff that I have encountered recently
Sub-sections
Reviving old laptop and 32-bit pondering
Enjoying KDE Plasma, despite my best efforts
Dead motherboard (Main PC)
It seems like the motherboard on my main PC is cooked. No power to any parts, usually the case & CPU fans spin for a second when switched on at the wall. I tried reseating all the parts, switiching around RAM sticks, replaced CMOS battery, all with no change. Looking online I found the 'paperclip test' and tried that; the PSU fans ran so it seems to be working. There's other signs I have ignored for a while that it may have been on the way out; audio cutting out randomly on USB headset, needing to fully power off at the wall in order to turn it on again, and a few rare total black screen crashes. This is kinda the worst part to break unfortunately, I need to find one of similar chipset and compatibility so I don't have to replace any other parts. I probably won't be running this PC for some time :(. I also can't currently access files from my M.2 hard drive without putting it in my server PC, which is encouraging me to be more itinerant with data & tech stuff in general (even more than I already am). After fixing it, I think I will just relegate this PC to games and intensive graphical programs, and keep useful data externally or on a live distro.
Reviving old laptop and 32-bit pondering
Just before my main PC broke, I was starting to update & try out using my old Toshiba Sattelite C660 more. I reaaaaallly like the screen and keyboard on this laptop, they are both very clear and nice to use. It also has a one screw panel on the underside to easily swap out the hard drive and RAM, and the battery is externally replaceable. I was thinking of using it for blogging more, the low power and RAM would suit that well. It already had antiX on it, but I decided to do a fresh install of their latest 32-bit version. After doing that I have found out this actually has a 64-bit CPU, it just defaulted to installing 32-bit Windows 7 from the factory and I never thought to double check since then (I got it in 2010). I was kinda insterested in seeing what can still be done on a 32-bit system now because more apps are dropping support and Debian 13 doesn't have a 32-bit ISO. Now I am wondering if I should just put 64-bit antiX on this thing to increase it's functionality and test out several 32-bit distros in VMs after I fix my main computer. One thing that's prompting that especially is less browsers offering 32-bit support, with the default on antiX (SeaMonkey) saying it will be dropped with their next update :O. Speaking of...
SeaMonkey is cool!
I've never come across this before, but it is a community run continuation project of the whole Netscape-Mozilla suite, after Mozilla dropped everything but Firefox and Thunderbird. So it provides browser and mail/calendar functionality as well as newsgroups/feeds, IRC chat, and a HTML editor! I haven't tried it out much (a lot of stuff is deprecated on 32-bit), but it has very retro firefox look and supports skins and other add-ons, I found a bunch of cool aero, XP, 9X styled themes. I also found (and deployed) a Star Trek next gen console theme, it's kinda hard to parse with all the colours, but still so cool! SeaMonkey looks and controls similarly to other older styled firefox forks like Pale Moon and Basilisk. I've read these forks can have more security/privacy issues and probably need further user configuration to improve that. Also I've read recently about firefox putting arbitrary AI crap in that may not be fully removed by forks without user configuration. Aside from that, I just think SeaMonkey's all-in-one offering is neat, gave me back a bit of that feeling of 'fun' when using a computer in the '00s.
Phone Swap
I will do a more detailed 'My Mobile Phone Problem' part 2 post, but I managed to get an old Samsung Galaxy A11 off a family member and have switched to that for the time being. It has Android 12 which has much better security than my older Android 9 phone, and it allows F-Droid to auto update/install. I plan on putting as little apps/data on it as possible and to use it way less. This should be easy because it is lower powered than my LG V30 was, even web browsing is quite slow on this thing (IronFox doesn't help that either). The V30 will be passed on to a friend who is doing the feature phone 'everyday carry' life, so he can have a functioning backup to leave at home for some apps. He has a near-dead pixel 3 that I am hoping to grab and test Ubuntu Touch on.
Enjoying KDE Plasma, despite my best efforts
Yes it turns out that the most (or second most?) popular Linux desktop environment is good, they got me. I thought for a long time this was going to be overhyped like the frustratingly minimalist GNOME. Instead; it is highly customizable, information is clear and abundant, the little bouncing app loading animations are kinda cute, and it has a nice style even on default. A total beginner could use Debian+KDE and have no issues whatsoever, even integrating Flatpak into the software centre was easy (unlike Ubuntu+GNOME). I put it on my Asus Vivobook laptop which already had Debian 12+Xfce, wanting to test it's functionality with a graphics tablet. This guide from David Revoy, an artist who only uses FOSS stuff, recommended it as Plasma has a solid built-in tablet configurator and allows you to run the desktop with both X11 and Wayland on Debian. The file manager also provides clear thumbnails of the contents of folders which I imagine would make art/photo management easier, but it also renders thumbnails for HTML files including any associated CSS styling! I also needed a Wayland capable desktop for trying out Waydroid with as little issues as possible, which it has worked well for. It isn't as fast as Xfce (of course) on this laptop, and I kind of have it there just as a tester anyway. I might end up using it on my main PC and move Mint+Xfce to this laptop for ease of use.
Site Updates
I think I am going to make separate pages about my computers/devices, to make the category pages less verbose. I have also scanned some keepsake paw prints of my cat Buffy that I think I want to decorate the site with, so she's always around. I have some other ideas of stuff to improve too.
Thanks for reading <3