There is quite a range of devices out there now with varying capabilites. Things like the Onion Omega2+, Oranage Pi, and more.

Raspberry Pi also remains good. While the Pi5 is expensive and more powerful - raspberry pi also makes the Pi Zero boards which are cheaper less capable boards which are closer to what the original raspberry Pi was but newer hardware.

I’d say the Pi5 is a heading more towards a full PC like device (hence the comparisons to cost and capability minipcs pepple are making in thia thread). But there remain plenty of lower spec machines out there now similar to the original cheap Raspberry Pi concept. And we’ve had high inflation recently - to some extent the cost perception avtually reflects money being worth less than it was and buying less for $10 or $20.

Laptops are not generally designed to run like that with a closed lid. Heat dissipation is designed around the idea the laptop is open and some of it is through the keyboard surface. The lid closed would change that.

Systems can of course be setup to power off the display but for server/service uses open laptops may not be efficient space wise.

Having said that if the scenario is low power use the heat dissipation may not be a major issue. But if there is an unremovable battery i’d still be concerned about heat dissipation with the lid closed and even just the battery itself regardless of heat dissipiation.

Low power and arm architecture are big differentiators between Pi and laptops.

I totally agree recycle laptops where possible, but they’re generally noisier and less energy efficient plus the battery degrades over time and is a fire risk.

They’re not necessairly a good fit for always-on server or service type uses comparef to a small board like Raspberry Pi. But a cheap or free second hand laptop is definitely good for tweaking, testing and trying our projects.

I’m not hyped by the Switch 2: its expensive, its games are expensive and the launch titles are paltry. It also has competition in the form of the Steam Deck and a range of SteamOS and Windows handheld devices with a huge volume of games available including many at significantly lower prices.

Switch 2 needs exclusives to justify its price and its existence. Switch 1 games with slightly improved graphics (which you have to pay for) and a small handful of launch titles make the Switch 2 a bad proposition for anyone except diehard fans at this point.

At the moment there are no compelling 1st party games in the pipeline. 3D Mariocart and Donkey Kong Bananza seems to be it for now. No new Mario platformer, no Zelda, no pokemon at launch. Everything is old games with better graphics, and much of it available on other platforms like PC with better graphics already anyway (e.g. Cyberpunk 2077 - a 5 year old game which most people have played and is still better on PC or PS5/Xbox; why is that a compelling launch title?).

Nintendo has a lot of work to do - I think there is a real risk the Switch 2 will be a flop if they dont get 1st party exclusives out before the holiday season.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but the commands would apply within the zsh, which is a bash alternative, not within the programmes running themselves?

Or are you saying its sus because its illogical/confusing to have opposite uses for tgebsame shirt cut? I can see that as people using a terminal and launching vim would constantly be working against “muscle memory” each time they switch which would be annoying! Being familiar with keyboard shortcuts is what can make terminal based workflows so fast.

Do you have any drives/ partitions set up to load at boot other than the main linux partition?

A common issue can be if linux is trying to mount a partition specified in fstab (the config file that lists all the hard drives to be loaded) and it can’t mount it, it will go into emergency mode. It does this as it assumes the drives are critically important and to prevent any damage to your system. You can mark non essential partitions as “nofail” in the fstab file so that linux continues to boot even if those partitions are unavailable.

If you’d added a USB drive or another hard drive to auto mount at start up and its not available to linux then that might be the issue. Reinsert those drives and linux should boot. Alternatively you can login using emergency mode and edit the fstab file yourself if you know what youre doing. The offending drive can be removed/commented outthe fstab file or the nofail option added.

If your linux install is set to mount your windows C: partition (for file access in linux for example) then its important to know the drive can be locked out by windows. Windows “fast startup” is a very common cause - it basically means windows doesnt shut down fully, it does a fake shutdown (hibernates), and doing this locks down the drive, preventing any access to the C: drive including in linux. If this scenario applies to you, boot into wndows, disable fast startup in the control panel and then try to reboot into linux.

It this works it is still worth using the “nofail” option in fstab for any non essential drives. I personally dont auto mount my windows drive at all anymore; I have it visible in my file manager but manually mount it (just clikcing on it does it) when I need it.

As someone else has said; important to check the model number for the offical guide but if its a LAPQC71 (A, B, C or D) then this covers it: https://manualmachine.com/intel/bqc71abbu6000/8104213-user-manual/

The slots look to be hidden behind your hand in your photo.

The guide says its made for an 80 mm NVME (i.e. 2280). You look to be holding a 42mm (2242) or 60mm (2260) which is too short. There could be screw holes there that aren’t documented but if not you’d have to get an adaptor to extend the length of the NVME to fit. Far better would be to get a drive the right length.

NVME 2242, 2260 and 2280 are all the same in terms of the connection, the only difference is the board length. The longer ones can potentially fit more memory on them so are “better” (good in full desktops for example where there is plenty of space) while the 2242 are designed to fit into smaller spaces like laptops or miniPCs. This laptop seems to be supporting the longer slots which is actually good but unfortunately it may mean your card is not going to be big enough.

It’s always worth reading the manual before upgrade components as it will tell you exactly what slots are available and what standards are supported. There are 2 NVME slots - 1 is NVME only, the other can support NVME and SATA.

Yeah that looks right assuming its the right model; compared to the diagram in the quick start guide, in the picture he’s covering the area where the slots are with his hand and the drive hes holding. This quide for the same model numbers is the same: https://manualmachine.com/intel/bqc71abbu6000/8104213-user-manual/

OP needs to check his model number.

Unfortunately the guide suggests it only supports 80mm length (2280) NVME drives. There could be a screw hole for the 42mm or 60mm sizes but they’re not mentioned. It may be the NVME he has is too small for the design of the laptop. OP is holding what looks like a 2242?

There are adaptors (e.g. on ebay) to add length to a shorter drive to fit into the slot, but the ideal is to buy the right size of the slot.

They’d be idiots to ally with him; they’ll just be tainted with the same brush.

However maybe the behaviour of the Republicans and Democrats may finally open the way for a third party challenger. Who knows. Politics in Europe is rife with new populist parties; in the US the conventional wisdom has been that the Republicans are the manifestation of that but the disgust and disenchantment with the mainstream parties has helped drive 3rd parties here in Europe. That could still happen in the US even though the system is so heavily rigged by the 2 parties in their own favour.

Yeah true, but if you’re choosing Debian then I can see why there is caution about “unverified” flatpaks.

Ultimately if they’re not verified then you’re taking it on trust that they’ve been repackaged by a good actor and not a bad actor. We have no reason to believe there are malicious flatpaks are on flathub and verified only really meansnit was packaged by the originating project itself. But it is still a separate chain of packaging and security from the official one in a distro.

And Flathub doesnt need to be the repo used. Fedora for example created its own repo so it could verify its own flatpaks in the same way as its other system repos. Other distros do not seem to be following that path.

Personally I take the risk on flatpaks in the same way I will take risks on the opensuse OBS (or AUR in arch) - if i need/want the software and it’s not in the main repos for my distro I will generally take it off flathub rather than add an OBS source I dont know well. (If its small software I might build from source myself).

You can try a site like justwatch.com to see if the film is available on a streaming sire you could use.

You can also search for rentals online so you can pay for it.

You can look on eBay or similar for cheaper second hand copies.

Or piracy.

It’d kinda does - no M/M/M/M or M/M/M/M/M under Foursome and Fivesome, but there are F/F/F/F anf F/F/F/F/F. Would that be a bit too gay for them?

Even John F. Kennedy Assassination is there.

Except the big danger with fully self driving cars is that drivers are not paying attention at all as they have nothing to do most of the time. They’ll be on their phones regardless of what theyre supposed to do and that will cause deaths. So such a glaring safety flaw will have numerous opportunities to happen in real life - humans do not make good safety features in cars; thats what the self drive stuff was for.

Teslas self drive technology is not fit for the roads regardless of this. Musk had sensors stripped out pf the cars design to save money because apparently he knows better than all the worlds self drive engineers. The guy is a just an investment bro woth a huge ego - he can’t let the people hes investing in get onwith it, because he sees himself as a “genius”. The guys a moron.

Yeah this is inbuilt (not an extension) and very similar to Windows fancy zones.

So, unfortunately a lot of YA fiction seems premised around the “chosen one” archetype. The protagonists lead boring hard lives but then discover they have special magic powers and that changes their life and the world forever.

Stories are increasingly not about ordinary people who make their lives and the world around them better because of their own inherent skills or hard work.

Film, TV and Books are telling kids only “special” people get to change the world and only “special” people are important. Lots of media is escapist fantasy at all ages and unfortunately they’re giving the message that “change is so hard only super powers will do”.

Don’t let your children be raised solely by the media they consume. Show then that they are special or powerful even without super powers and that all change comes from people. Everything that is good in our world came from people - nothing at all came from gods, super heroes, or magic.

Yeah its wine/proton and linux together. Wine/Proton efficiently handles translating the Windows programmes API calls into POSIX calls while Linux seems to offer a lower OS overhead so there is more system resource available for the games.

I do think Proton gets a little too much credit. Its wine plus faudio, dxvk and other open source projects combined. Proton is great but it is standing on the shoulders of giants.

I work in healthcare in a specialist field, and the best are not the ones who get recognised. The ones who get recognised chase respect and fame - in healthcare that is going to conferences and speaking, and writing as many papers as possible.

But the best people in my field are the ones who do the actual job each day at an extremely high level. They go unrecognised except by those of us who understand what it takes to be good. They’re humble and focused. Some of them for sure go and speak at conferences and publish papers etc but its not those things that make them the best, although those are the only those things that make them “visible” outside their place of work.

The same goes for music and actors. The most famous are not necessarily the best. They are the ones who people like or are the most commercial etc. The best singers are not necessairly world famous - they may be working professionally in less popular sectors such as opera or classical music or choirs, or they may be totally amateur. Similarly the best actors may be strutting a stage somewhere and never seen in a movie or tv show by the majority of the world. And even then they may be the “star”.

Fame and notoriety has get little to do with talent - some famous people are undoubtedly near the top of their field but it is far from required.

Yeah, Transport Fever is not a city building game. Its a transport game, like Transport Tycoon.

City Skylines has a great transport element to it but its ultimately a city builder.

Cities 2 has been an unmitigated disaster. The single biggest strength of the first game was its user generated assets easily accessed via steam workshop but cities 2 still has no official way of doing it even now. They seriously compromised and broke the game by trying to make something that works the same on PC and Consoles. Its been 18m and that still isn’t fixed and they’re still focused on trying to release for consoles rather than fix the single biggest fundamental flaw.

Transport Fever 3 is a game people are looking forward to, but not as a replacement for cities skylines.

Stack Overflow, like Reddit, derives its value entirely from its users—it’s just a host. Now that users (and their knowledge) are moving elsewhere, the platform’s importance is fading.

It’s odd when people worry about Stack Overflow’s decline. Online communities have always shifted: from BBSs and newsgroups to forums, chat, Yahoo Groups, Reddit, and Stack Overflow. Each had its time.

The next gathering spot for tech-savvy users might be the fediverse, but who knows at this point. AI isn’t solely to blame for the shift—people moved to Stack Overflow because it was better than what came before. Now, as it declines in quality thanks to general enshittification of services as companies try to monetise uaers, they’re moving on again.

Many are suggesting deleting the Windows partition and resizing the Linux one, but another option is to back up your data and do a fresh Linux install.

During setup, you can delete all partitions and create new ones—ideal if you want to separate the root system and /home folder. Keeping system and user data on separate partitions makes future reinstalls easier, as your personal files can be preserved.