Do you have a bulk food store nearby? We have one where you can BYO containers, tare and label them, and then fill them up at the store. Bulk food with no bags or single-use containers, it’s great.

Is this useful?

https://github.com/rodlie/powerkit

Not affiliated and haven’t used it, but its tagline of “Desktop Independent Power Manager” seems like it fits the bill.

…let me get this straight, you’re divorcing Minnie because she’s very silly?

Debian got me through grad school.

Not the latest and greatest (if you run stable), but if you need the latest e.g. Julia, it’s not too bad to compile it.

RHEL would like a word ;)

“popularity contest” is an opt-in on Debian. It’s not malicious, and it’s not for financial gain, but it is in a loose sense spying.

It’s at a much, much larger scale** than that — our local group is collapsing in on itself, and it’s ~10M lightyears in diameter.

** talking about length scales only makes sense in reference to the specifics — two bananas separated by 10M lightyears, with no other matter nearby, would (I’m guessing) be expanded away, but a cluster of galaxies will not.

Is the dotfile overhead of a DE substantially more than any other program? Is there a particular conflict that you’re thinking of?

For a multiuser system it can be great to have multiple DEs or WMs.

I think the advice should be taken to heart here — you’re dealing with a userspace problem but you’re trying to get the kernel to make it all better.

You’ve already mentioned the two big things, compressed RAM and swap; optimizing userspace (or paying for more RAM) may be the only option at some point.

If you want to get creative, is there a reason you can’t use a local computer for some of these services? An old raspberry pi or similar could potentially run some of your services. You could run some containers on your home server and call it a day. Quick search turned up this https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/routing-docker-host-and-container-traffic-through-wireguard

You might be interested about this, too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion

RTGs aren’t radioactive-specific, they are just a solid state way of turning a temperature difference into electricity. The better way to do this (at scale) is e.g. a steam engine, which is what big power plants do.

Yes, I don’t think RTGs are really what you’re asking about. It’s just a solid state way of turning heat into energy instead of using steam.

Lot of comments about RTGs, but I don’t think that’s what OP is asking. RTGs convert heat to electricity, same as a conventional power plants — they just do it in a solid state way instead of steam. In RTGs it doesn’t matter where the heat comes from; they are not really analogous to solar cells, as the title asks.

In fact, there are consumer products that use the same technology — you can buy a little electric fan that sits on top of a wood stove and, once up to temp, will start spinning. The electricity is generated by the thermal gradient using heat from the stove, essentially the same as an RTG.

One practical thing I like about Linux is that you can control the GUI/window manager independently of the rest of the system. So I can use i3wm, a tiling window manager, and my interface to the computer will be the same — I can upgrade my computer, I can install a new distro, whatever, and I’ll always have the UI I want.

I have a similar vintage Air, 4GB. I run Debian+i3, though that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Machine feels quick, except for bloated websites.

ETA: In case you’re not familiar, i3wm is a lightweight, tiling window manager that is very keyboard-driven. I love it, and you might too! But it takes a little getting used to and definitely isn’t a Windows-esque experience.

As others have mentioned, a few possibilities (I’m in the US, not sure how specific this is):

• Payment isn’t always monthly, it is often every two weeks. So sometimes you get two paychecks in a month, sometimes you get three.
• Compensation isn’t just salary, even if you’re salaried. Bonuses, stock grants, etc. might be done yearly/every 6 mo./every quarter.
• Expenses aren’t always monthly. If you own a place, you probably pay property tax which isn’t due every month AFAIK. If you budget for vacations, holiday travel, etc., these are costs that vary wildly month to month, but have some stability on a yearly basis.
• ETA: taxes are based on annual income, too.

Looks awesome! I’d put a big emphasis on piping/IO redirection (maybe move it further up the curriculum?). I find this video, when Kernighan explains some basics, just amazing: https://youtu.be/tc4ROCJYbm0?si=3l48F_Ci9FYDkNEi

I’d also maybe move shell script basics up a bit — like the really basic stuff. I think it really hammers home the point that the command line and a script are doing the same thing — telling the computer what to do!

Say it with me now: N+1

Yeah, my pedals alone (Assioma Duo) are now worth more than an entry level bike.

It’s a good way to eat breakfast and feed my sourdough starter at the same time.