New Web Host - Linode

For those following on RSS, apologies for the long delay! I've finally set up a very very easy way to make new posts on this site, so perhaps more content soon..
Previously, I was using a hosting provider with a managed Apache PHP server, which I ultimately did not have great access to the terminal or even proper git support. In order to make new posts, I would have to use the web interface, which I guess isn't brilliant, as each post is a Markdown post, better suited to your text editor of choice. Or, I would have to manually sync files over FTP, which is also a pain. Not ideal and I think in retrospect the managed hosting wasn't a good choice, but it was easy enough to get going quickly. Better suited to WYSIWYG CMS like Wordpress. But, it also has another issue, which is one website per web host (probably..).
Now, I have moved this website, which uses Grav (a PHP CRM) on to a virtual private server on Linode. Now I can SSH in easily. I've installed Tailscale, and Syncthing. So I am not writing this blog post on my personal machine, and as soon as I press control+S it goes live. Who needs a draft. The code I save on my machine gets very quickly synced with the Linode server, in under 10 seconds or so. This is a lot quicker and easier than making posts via the web interface which I don't really enjoy, and isn't the point of this flat file CMS. The idea is you can write a blog post with a text editor. Also easier than using say Filezilla to sync files from my local machine, and using FTP is not very secure. I intend to move some other website I have over to this Linode server, so I can save some money and also update them more easily.

Tech setup - changed again, back to Apple despite my previous post being anti-Apple

I did write a blog post saying how I disliked Apple for not having great devices across the board, particularly not repairable or user upgradeable (eg the SSD in new MacBooks). But I am currently mostly back to Apple, and I have an iPad Air M2.

Laptop

I decided that I wanted to try Apple properly, before I gave up on them. Previously I had a MacBook Air M1 with just 256GB of storage, which I naturally used up most of it. I suspect Apple wants you to use the cloud or a NAS if you're a "Pro". But for me that space gets used up with applications, my projects, legally purchase music, my entire pictures collection, work stuff. I have been mostly enjoying the MacBook, now it has more storage. I also have an iPad Mini 6 and iPhone 13 Pro now. I made the difficult decision to buy an iPad Air thinking I might not use this, but I am.

iPhone

One big reason I'm staying with iPhone at least, is that there aren't many Android phoens which have user-replaceable batteties, or any major stand out features to differentiate from iPhone. Some may argue Android has x, y, z. But for my use I don't need those software differences any more. It's more the hardware, eg headphone jack, micro SD card, replaceable battery, QWERTY keyboard, FM radio, IR port, I really like the Fairphone, but can't bring myself to buy an import for over $1300 or so which has no official warranty. Maybe I can repair it myself, but at cost and it might be very costly. I might change my mind about that one day, as I have a habit of doing..

Tablets

Then there's the tablets. The iPad Mini 6 has proven itself useful as an occasional mini note taking device. There are basically no easily available 7-9" alternatives that have a stylus with Android. I did buy a Kobo Libra Color, which is a small ebook reader with stylus support. I may use that, but the experience isn't as good. The 10" tablet for me has always been a very tricky device for manufactureres to get right. I just want a good device with a keybaord and trackpad. The current 10-11" options are limited to the Surface Go (3 or 4), Samsung's confusingly named tablets, and of course the extensive iPad line. I like the small 10" device because often I want to go places but I don't feel I need to bring my laptop with me because it's not like I'm going to sit down to do programming. I just want something that gives me the apps and services I often use, in a small form factor device. But with a keyboard! And trackpad. There are so many Android tablets that just don't have a decent keyboard, or don't have a decent trackpad as well. If I am going to spend upwards of $600 on a decently performing tablet, I want a good keyboard with trackpad. I bought a Poco Pad which does have a keyboard addon, but no trackpad. I guess I could use a mouse.. But then there's the issue that Android tablets aren't quite as good as iPads. Many apps just haven't quite been designed well enough for the larger screen, and use Android's less-good UI scaling features. That should be improving but I have seen a few major cases where it's not. Like with Facebook. Facebook in landscape orientation on an Android tablet is pretty bad. I mean one day I might use Facebook a lot less, but it's one example.

Desktops

After invesing in Apples ecosystem you do feel you want to go all-in Apple. For example, text messages can only be viewed on an Apple hardware device. Not even web. I think there is a project that lets you use a Mac to bahave as a relay, but again, you would need to buy more Apple hardware, just so you can have SMSs on your non-Apple devices. Android has the Messages app, which runs on the web and thus any major operating system. This is one thing that may get me going back to Android and Linux one day. So rather than forking out $2300 for a decent specced Mac Mini, or using my MacBook as my desktop, which is less ideal too because it's only got 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. When I now have an x86 desktop with 64GB of RAM and 10TB of storage. It makes my MacBook Air seem like a poor choice. Even if it can do many things I need. But also there's the gaming department. I am a big PC gamer, and have been for a long time (Early 2000s). I have built up a decent size Steam library. Gaming on Macs just isn't there yet.

Gaming on Macs

This deserves a separate section. I wanted to see if I could actually game a bit on my Macbook Air M3. Using Crossover to run Windows games. You might see many YouTube videos claiming it works ok, with AAA games like Cyberpunk, GTA V, The Witcher 3, Elden Ring, etc working well enough. But the issue with gaming on Macs seems to be with older games, particularly 32bit 3D games, or games using DirectX 10 or earlier. I help run a LAN party group for NDIS participants, and I tried using my MacBook Air to run the games we play, and the results were poor. A particular game I keep testing, is Codename CURE, a zombie Source engine mod, runs very poorly, like unplayable most of the time. As soon as action appears on the screen, the framerate drops below 15FPS. I don't know why, and maybe it's fixable, but on a Mac you shouldn't have to fix things. So it rules out Macs as a replacement for Linux as a gaming platform.

Streaming with Sunshine and Moonlight

I also tried setting up a gaming PC as a game streaming machine. With Sunshine as the host, and Moonlight as the client application, it works better than expected. I of course also tried Parsec. What I found was that Sunshine and Moonlight was a superior experience. Lower latency input and extremely good visual quality. It really is good enough to stream your dekstop for most things, bar say actual professional esports. Which I may never return to. Only issue for me was that I have a 4K 160Hz monitor now. It's a great monitor, I got it to be future proof, hopefully the last monitor I buy for a long time. But, being a bit abnormally good, with my setup I had to downscale to 1080p 60Hz. The streaming machine was my home theatre PC attached to a 1080p projector. Yes, in theory I can mess around with a dummy adapter and custom EDID data. But again it's just too much hassle. It's much nicer and simpler to run your games on the native machine whenever possible.

Linux - I almost gave up again

So my desktop PC I much prefer to be a x86 machine, when I own the parts that are way better than the specs of my MacBook Air. I really like Linux, but my toxic trait is I also really like good UI design, or UI design that has the fewest issues. With my 32" 4K 160Hz HDR monitor, I found that X11 based distros had numerous issues:

Wayland - No or poor fractional scaling

For example Linux Mint does not have any option for fractional scaling. I do like the UI, but when running it on a 4K display, the UI is too tiny. The taskbar and window buttons in particular. Text is okay I guess, but everything else feels too small and I find my eyes are relieved when I turn the resolution down. This is the same for Xubuntu, the Budgie desktop

Wayland - Game support

Another area of weakness. Some games do not work well when you set your desktop resolution to be lower than the game resolution. I tried a game, Ion Fury, which only created a window that took up a less than 100% portion of the monitor. My experience with games on Wayland has been flawless in comparison. With this negative experience, it has put me off gaming on X11.

HDR

No support for HDR with X11, if your monitor has that feature (mine does) it won't be supported.

KDE is still WIP

I have been keeping track of KDE over the years. I have seen it incrementally imrprove a lot, but, it still has some issues, and the desktop feels overwhelmed with features. I use an app called UpNote, which when I run it on KDE the window shadow does not appear. I can make it appear if I make a window rule, but then I end up with double the window buttons. I am not moving off UpNote any time soon as it's been pretty good. Just an example of a UI bug that needs fixing. Maybe there are others. Also, KDE, as it's been worked on over time, a bit like Windows, has accumulated a lot of UI bloat. Everything is just a little more complex than it needs to be. I have seen them simplify a lot, but for example the terminal app has quite a few UI elements. It's a terminal app, it's supposed to be as simple as possible. Most of the KDE apps, like Kate and Discover also feel a little less "modern" and overly complex. Maybe some people prefer that style, but I tend to like keeping up with design trends, or going back to basics when possible (terminal).

GNOME is too different and I won't adapt

I think the title speaks for itself. GNOME has excellent visual design, but I still can't adapt to the layout. Why no visible dock or pop up dock? I know you can add that with plugins, but plugins are 3rd party and sometimes don't keep up with GNOME's updates. Again, some people may like it because it helps you focus. I'm using a tiling WM now which also helps me focus. But it has advantages that GNOME doesn't have.

Arch and Hyprland

I'm currently using Hyprland. I can't remember how I found it, but I had not heard of it before. PewDiePie recently released a video on his Linux setup, and he uses Hyprland. If he can use a tiling WM, I can I guess. The thing that surprised me is that for one, I finally got archinstall wokring, as in a working desktop after rebooting. I had a few issues in the past with bits missing like networking. I probably didn't follow the installer properly. I got Hyprland installed on a machine and working. It's very BYO in that you have to for example add a top bar (eg waybar) for things like time and system tray and workspaces. I found a Hyprland CSS style that was ok and I modified it for my preferences. It is a bit of a rabbit hole. With my CSS experience I can customise the UI quite easily. The layout is defined as a JSONC file (JSON with comments). And a general config file which is very pre-filled and easy to modify, eg to set monitor modes. very good documentation on the website. Compared to all the other Linux DE's I've used, I find it to be a good enough experience to keep me using it for now. I like Linux Mint a lot, but with no Wayland support, the UI is tiny. Hyprland also does not have great fractional scaling - I tried it's scaling mode but it just scales by pixel instead of the native scaling that GTK and Qt supports. Like lowering the resolution. But - I find that I need it less with Hyprland because there is no taskbar or window buttons. Most apllications are good enough for now. Editing this blog post at native 4k 100% scale is alright. I don't get any eye strain. But this is something I will re-assess over time. I do have a habit of distro hopping, and maybe I will find myself getting a Mac Mini, bu I can't predict.

LAN Party PC

I also built a small form factor ITX LAN party PC. I help run fortnightly LAN parties, I bring my PCs along, so as another hobby I have been building the dream LAN party PC. When I was younger I read an Atomic magazine which had a Shuttle case build and they described it as the dream LAN party machine. I really wanted that PC and I got something close, a Micro ATX cube PC in around 2006 or so. But Mini ITX is smaller. This Metalfish T40 ITX case has a handle and can fit a SFF GPU, which I've put in it an RTX 3050 8GB. I think I've accomplished one childhood dream.