The Pixel Tablet with GrapheneOS is the gold standard, but there’s even more than just the tablets with LineageOS support if you are adventurous.

I was gifted a Samsung Tab A7 Lite, which is without LineageOS support. However, I’ve been able to flash TrebleDroid Generic System Images (GSI), which are vanilla AOSP images modified to support as many devices as possible. They come with no Google apps or services.

Nearly everything works as expected, performance is much better, and battery life is unchanged. I can even run Android 15 smoothly when Samsung will end support for my tablet with Android 14. If anyone wants a writeup to the best of my memory, feel free to reply.

When maximizing uptime, Debian is the no-fuss way to go.

If you are flashing GrapheneOS, it is a very simple and safe procedure. I’ve even interrupted the flashing when my laptop went to sleep, got the system corrupt warning, and just flashed again without a hitch. All that’s needed now is a browser with WebUSB support and USB cable.

Organic Maps. Living in a somewhat walkable area, it gives me good walking directions. I might be a bit out of touch though since I just commit routes to memory if I’m driving.

For the occasional satellite map, Google Maps unfortunately. If anyone knows of a privacy-respecting map with satellite views, I’d be interested.

Ungoogled Chromium flatpak

In my personal life and in communicating with family, there are few compromises. Most of my compromises come from work.

Phone: Pixel with GrapheneOS and FOSS apps only as my primary. Old Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS as my secondary, with the main profile as testing grounds for various apps and a second profile holding work apps. Whatsapp seems to be the lowest common denominator for practical communication with colleagues.

My workplace is BYOD, with MDM only for software licensing. Alongside my customary X230, I carry my lightweight, secondhand X1 Nano, where I have Windows, software licensed alongside said MDM, and Firefox logged into my work Google account.

Key aspect for me is having work and personal life on separate devices. Not completely airtight, but as good as I can get it without making work any harder than it needs to be.

Banking: Fortunately everything my bank has to offer can be done through a browser. My plan if a mobile app with play integrity ever becomes necessary is to buy a regular Android with a removable battery just to host that app.

Transport: If I’m on a business trip without access to my car (no spyware, it’s from the 90s) and there is no public transport, I’ll get a friend or colleague to call an Uber for me. I haven’t gone out drinking at night since college and I’m not inclined to do so in the future.

Maps: Usually Organic Maps suffices, I generally commit routes to memory before going out. For the occasional satellite map, Google Maps in a browser. I have gotten my family to use Magic Earth though.

Fitness: no actual stats, just a handwritten entry in my daily journal as to whether I followed through with my exercise routine.

No, I don’t want to attract thieves and weird fans.

On a file share, a notes directory with each category as a subdirectory, and plain text files for each note. Accessible from my computers and phone.

On my laptop, the launcher for my text editor (Pluma) points to a bash script that creates a blank text file YYYYMMDD_text in ~/.drafts and opens that file with Pluma. If it already exists, YYYYMMDD_text_1, or whatever increment is created. That’s mostly to take advantage of Pluma’s autosave feature, which only works with already saved documents. Then I save the document to the file share if it’s worth keeping.

ThinkPad X230 with 9 cell, 16 GB RAM, total 1TB storage, and an Atheros NIC. A bit limiting at times, but I ‘outsource’ heavier tasks to my much more powerful desktop. I’m quite uncompromising with laptop design and ‘ergonomics’, so I’m trying to piece together a custom laptop based around the Framework mainboard before the X230 no longer meets my demands.

For testing stuff on Windows and work stuff that requires it, an X1 Carbon Gen 7 with 16GB RAM and 256 GB storage.

First experimented when Windows 8 took away Aero Glass and other customizations. Committed when I had to fight with Windows 10’s twice-yearly feature updates that messed with my settings and wasted space with new programs I didn’t ask for. I now keep a separate laptop just to run Windows when I have to.

Distrohopping was mostly confined to my first year using Linux. Deepin (kept crashing) -> UbuntuDDE (went unmaintained) -> Arch Linux -> Debian. Settled on Debian Stable since it just works, I haven’t been using bleeding-edge hardware, and I don’t like things changing around too often (see my Chicago95 rice).

• Room phone: A clear 90’s phone

• Cell Phone: Some sort of non-folding T9 phone, it wasn’t a Nokia though

• Smartphone: Knockoff iPhone 6

• Computer: Pentium III desktop with 256 MB RAM, 30 GB HDD, Windows Me. It was also the family computer. Later upgraded to 1GB RAM and Windows 2000

• Computer (my own): 10.6" notebook with a 1 GHz Celeron, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB HDD, and Windows XP (later upgraded to 2GB RAM)

Wondering if anyone else is in the opposite boat. I don’t recall the name of any Kardashian except for Kim but I’ve known about Yuri Gagarin since primary school.

I also had a netbook with an Atom Z3735F and 2GB RAM, albeit an Ideapad 100s. The 32 bit versions of Debian Stable 11 and 12 worked out of the box for me.

If you are at the terminal, try running apt install grub-efi-ia32-bin before installing grub.

No shame in that. My phone’s at 305 tabs. I’ll look random things up throughout the day and sometimes I’ll find a longer article that I’d like to read later. But I hate reading on my phone. So it just hangs out until my next tab purge, which is perhaps a yearly event.

More or less replicated the desktop layout I had used throughout childhood, sans desktop icons

• Debian 12 stable
• XFCE + Chicago95
• Chicago95 black cursors
• Helvetica bitmap font
• Not shown: wdm login and slock screen locker
• Running on an X230T with classic keyboard mod to complete the look

Windows 10. When your OS no longer respects your choices and you have to fight it every minute, there is something wrong. The creeping invasions on privacy have only cemented my use of Linux

Truthfully, I’m not sure if I would have ever switched over if Microsoft kept the Windows 7 paradigm. But I started my search for alternatives when Windows 8 - already too adventurous for me - came with the computer I bought.

Towards the end of my time using Windows 10 as my primary OS, the realization that the UI is not an inherent component of the OS sealed the deal. As a Windows 2000 fan, I fell in love with the way Chicago95 Debian replicated the look and stability that I had sorely missed.