Have you tried the fork VSCodium? It strips out some of the telemetry and makes it more FOSS.

I owned one for a while. It was great. But Apple will eventually drop Intel support and these can then become well-built Linux laptops.

This is a compile-time option that will tell the compiler to optimize for the CPU in your computer, rather than any CPU.

By default, the x86_64 kernel will build itself so that it can boot and run on any 64-bit Intel or AMD processor. This means it may have to ignore or check for newer instruction sets like (let’s say, totally at random) AVX512:

if (CPU supports AVX512)
    do_efficient_avx512_thing (a, b, c)
else
    a = something()
    b = some_nonavx512_prep_work()
    c = some_other_old_way_of_doing_things()
    do_nonavx512_thing (a, b, c)

So, if you have an AVX512-capable CPU, it still has to check before using that instruction. Plus, your compiled kernel will be slightly larger because it needs to contain both ways of doing the thing.

Using this option tells the compiler to compile code optimized for your current processor:

do_efficient_avx512_thing (a, b, c)

This is a gross oversimplication. The compiler will also take things into consideration such as instruction sets, scheduling, core and thread counts, big and small cores, and more.

But the tl;dr is that optimized code is smaller, faster, and maybe a teensy bit more power efficient.

The downside? If you try to boot this optimized code on an older CPU (or rarely, a newer CPU), it will eventually say “illegal instruction” and crash.

I second Waypipe. It tunnels over SSH, and while you have to run a command for it, it’s still much easier than X forwarding.

Processors of that age still exist in special builds, like tougher ones for automotive use with lots of heat and vibration, or radiation-hardened ones for space use where you can’t dispatch a technician. But for consumers use, they’re long dead.

Another KiTTY user! Can you share that setting?

Does CB radio allow data emissions? I thought it was only AM and SSB voice.

Could you send ePub files over ham radio? Let’s forget about TCP-IP mesh networking like AREDN for now. That’s too easy. Let’s look at radio protocols. D-Star can run at 128 Kbps on the 23 cm band. That’s not too common. Drop down to HF and you’re looking at 9 Kbps via PACTOR-IV.

In comparison, landline dial-up modems topped out at around 56 Kbps.

Now, I’ve seen ePub files around 1-2 MB, but that’s with cover art, images, embedded fonts, and all that fun stuff. With enough patience, that can work. But, strip out all that, leaving behind plain text and XML, and you’ve got something much more manageable that can be sent relatively quickly.

I can’t speak for Spain, but in the U.S., the FCC recently removed most symbol rate restrictions, so we might be able to squeeze out a little more speed.

My first Linux was Gentoo. It took several tries to get code compiled and working on that Pentium 4, but I will say, the process taught me a lot about Linux in general. It was the ultimate crash course. I’d recommend Gentoo for all beginners who don’t mind digging in to the point of frustration, because it’s a great learning experience.

This is literally what dd does and what I would have recommended, if this person hadn’t beaten me to it.

However, if you’re cloning to another disk or partition that will be plugged in at the same time as your existing installation, you’ll wind up with two partitions with the same identifier — a recipe for eventual disaster. In that case, I would run through setup (with your current disk unplugged) and then rsync over the new root partition.

I’ll second Debian. I run it on backports and it’s reasonably stable, but if you want it rock-solid, don’t do that.

You might want to keep your browser more up to date than the rest of your OS. That’s up to you as the user. Mozilla has a deb you can add to Apt manually, should you choose.

That’s almost identical to the ThinkPad I use every day. Sounds like a great daily driver.

It’s clear that MALIBAL sucks. Whoops, just got all Lemmy users and their mothers banned. My bad.

Extended Security Updates.

I agree with you on throwing out perfectly good hardware. Either you hang on it until it’s useless, or you throw it on eBay and let someone else have it.

That’s fair. My UniFi gear has added that in recent updates, though that’s an investment. If your system works for you, that great; stick with it!

But, I would try to find an alternative to Windows 10. Paying for ESU’s would be better spent getting something else. What that might be, I’m not sure.

Is there a reason you’re making your own access point instead of buying an off-the-shelf one? I know you said you don’t want to spend more, but a proper AP would let you simplify your server and remove the Windows VM entirely while still providing greater than Gigabit speeds (depending on the speed of your switch ports).

Absolutely! Give Waypipe a shot. Example: waypipe ssh desktop.local thunderbird

Apple tried it a decade ago. It was called the Fusion Drive. It performed about as well as you’d expect. macOS saw the combined storage, but the hardware and OS managed the pair as a single unit.

If there’s a good tiered storage daemon on your OS of choice, go for it!

Just curious, how does uBlock Origin Lite compare to regular uBlock Origin? I’ve heard from the Chrome crowd that it’s not as good as blocking ads due to the V3 limitations, but how’s the speed? I might consider it for lower-end hardware if it’s not too compromised.

Firefox implemented Manifest V3, but there are no plans to remove V2.