David Emerson
I am a person and I do person things.
Keebio has a bunch of options on their keyboards for arbitrarily bindable rotary encoders… this is super handy for media control. https://keeb.io
Millennial here. I used computers from a very young age, and when my near-continuous use became untenable, my parents got me my own: first computer was a Macintosh IIfx, then a Sun Ultra 1, then a Power Mac G4 (the stripes on the front, handles, don’t remember exact model name). Everything after the G4 has been less exciting, even if it’s all more powerful. Not sure if this is because I’ve gotten older or if the gear has gotten less fun.
I’ve found sysupgrade to be pretty good at the core OS, but I have definitely had issues with drivers (particularly audio and display) and third party packages installed through pkg_add. Upgrading seems to be a mixed bag in terms of continuity of function when you’re running a richer system, as a workstation often is. On a server, with minimal package surface area, things are just fine.
Exploring! SDF is like the coalition of servers I ran in college with friends and campus friendlies. A little of it was explicitly practical, some of it unstable, all of it educational and fun and sometimes stuff took off. I love that SDF survives, and I love that they have paying members.
When new or esoteric stuff hits, whether it’s 9front or the latest fedi service, SDF is where to see if it makes sense for you. Sure there’s home labs, but a home lab doesn’t have the community around it that we have here on SDF, which means it doesn’t give you the sense of how a service runs at scale or in the (sometimes positive, sometimes corrupting, but always informative) presence of others.
