Another update: startrek.website/post/13283869 I found a fix for my issue. I'm annoyed that I had it in the first place, but I overall still like my laptop.

Important update in this post: startrek.website/post/14075369
I still consider this a good laptop, but this is an important fix if you're using this on Debian 12. When 13 comes out next year, the out-of-box support of this laptop should be basically perfect.

Anyhow, back to the original post:
I recently got a brand new laptop, a Thinkpad 21JT001PUS, to consolidate/replace my array of various on-the-go-Linux devices, and I have to say, I'm impressed. I know Thinkpad and Linux aren't news, but for such a recent device, I am surprised how well it works. The price wasn't bad (which makes up for the fact that it's a Zen 3 chip with DDR4, in my opinion), it has good upgradability (I'll touch a bit on my experience later), and hardware support was really good.

I initially tested hardware support with Debian Testing Trixie XFCE (as that was the Live USB I happened to have on hand, since I often test devices and also keep it around as a backup for my desktop, which runs Testing). At first I couldn't get it to boot, but then I found the BIOS setting to enable non-Microsoft certificates. After that, I booted in and found everything worked out of the box (except the fingerprint sensor, of course, but that's extremely rare for any laptop anyway). However, after experience with my previous portable devices, I learned I prefer stable distributions on those, as during some parts of the year, I can go months without opening the laptop.

Thus, I retested with Bookworm. Almost everything worked still, except for the Wi-Fi (which seems to have been introduced in later kernel versions). Luckily, this thing has an ethernet port (From which it is HECK to remove cables - I've found I had to twist the end up a bit to get it out), so I was able to do an install and then add the Backports kernel to get Wi-Fi working.

One minor issue I had (a software fault rather than a hardware/kernel one) was Bluetooth headphones, but as it turned out, it was just that PulseAudio was installed instead of Pipewire, so after switching, it worked flawlessly with Blueman).

As for battery life, so far it seems okay (as I write this, it says 3:29 left at 51%), but I haven't rigorously tested it yet (though I threw on the usual tlp and stuff like that for good measure).

For performance, I once again haven't tested it too rigorously, but I did play some Civ VI, which it was keeping up with just fine.

The upgrabability of this laptop does have one caveat, though. The bottom is a bother to remove, and most Youtube crap conveniently glosses over them. For one, some of the screws would get loose but not come out all the way. I eventually found the trick was to throw some pry tool under the screw head to hold it up so I could get it the rest of the way out. After they were all out, the bottom cover STILL wouldn't budge. This too ended up being a matter of jamming a pick in one corner of the case and running another one to slowly pry up the bottom case on all sides. I lost a plastic tab or two in the process, but that doesn't show up on the outside, and I think 24 GB of RAM (and 2 TB of NVME 2280 storage + 256 GB, the Windows drive that I left in the 2242 bay) will be plenty for a long time.

Overall, I would say this is a great laptop for those who don't want to go the route of purchasing a used laptop for Linux. I'll say an 8.5 out of 10 due to the hard-to-remove bottom cover and weird ethernet port (Update: 8 out of 10 now due to the nasty Wi-Fi bug I had to fix with a few module options, see posts linked in top of page).

Here's the Linux Hardware probe: linux-hardware.org/?probe=1e50…

Twitter hat sich verändert und das leider nicht zum Guten!

Hier ein paar Schlagzeilen:

• Elon Musk Is Turning Twitter Into a Haven for Nazis
• Elon Musk says he’s letting Donald Trump back on Twitter
• Twitter’s sacking of content moderators raises concerns
• Elon Musk won’t stop tweeting his way into trouble

Ich habe, um ehrlich zu sein, keine Ahnung, warum ich immer noch bei Twitter bin, und ich glaube, bei Facebook hat damals wesentlich weniger gereicht, um meinen Account zu löschen…

Klar, Twitter war über 17 Jahre lang das soziale Netzwerk meiner Wahl und hatte über lange Zeit hinweg wenig bis keine Konkurrenz! Ich habe viele spannende und inspirierende Menschen kennengelernt. Twitter hat mir geholfen, mich mit der deutschen Web2.0-Community zu vernetzen. Barcamps und Webmontage wurden über Twitter organisiert und diskutiert. Außerdem verdanke ich Twitter wohl auch meinen aktuellen Traum-Job bei Automattic!

Aber das alleine hat mich die letzten zwei Jahre nicht auf Twitter gehalten. Die Menschen, die mir wichtig sind (inklusive mir), sind weitergezogen und haben das Fediverse für sich entdeckt. Ein besseres Job-Angebot als das von Automattic ist aktuell eher unwahrscheinlich (😍) und wenn es hochkommt, schaue ich maximal alle zwei Wochen bei Twitter vorbei, und seit Monaten nutze ich schon keine Twitter-Apps mehr auf meinem Handy oder Computer.

Das was mich hält, kann also nur Nostalgie und die Romantisierung der „guten alten Zeit“ auf Twitter sein!?!

Ich widme jetzt fast 20 Jahre meiner Zeit der Open Web Idee (von Web2.0 über Social Web bis hin zum Fediverse) und predige auf meiner Seite, auf totem Holz, in Podcasts und auf Konferenzen, wie wichtig es ist sich unabhängig vom „corporate web“ zu machen und die volle Kontrolle über seine eigenen Daten zu haben.

Nur fair, wenn ich jetzt auch umsetze, was ich da so von mir gebe!

Ich glaube, vielen geht es ähnlich wie mir: Sie sind unzufrieden mit Twitter, haben ihren Account aber aus Sentimentalität noch nicht gelöscht. Doch so wird sich langfristig nichts ändern. Der einzige wirkungsvolle Protest ist das konsequente Löschen all dieser inaktiven Profile. Das Netzwerk verdient durch uns und mit uns Geld, und nur wenn die Nutzerzahlen sinken, wird genügend Druck erzeugt! Aber selbst wenn nicht… das ist dann nicht mehr mein Problem ☺️

Also…

…oder um es mit den Worten von Groucho Marx zu sagen:

Hello, I must be going, I cannot stay,
I came to say, I must be going.
I’m glad I came, but just the same,
I must be going.

Wir sehen uns im Fediverse 👋

Blog post alert

Let me start off by saying: If you just want to have a working system to do your thing with minimal effort, Slackware isn't for you (anymore).

Running Slackware today is like being gifted a Ford Model T by a weird, bearded museum curator, and then finding out that after some minor modifications and learning how to drive it, you can keep up with any modern car on the road. Only it has no ABS, AC, power steering, starter motor, crumple zones, airbags or seatbelts.

Most people who still run it (by any realistic estimate, fewer than 10000 people in the world now) have been running it since the 90's and follow the advice not to change a running system to the letter. So why should anyone who hasn't studied CompSci in Berkeley in the 90's try it today?

First of all, the most widely known criticism (it has no dependency resolution) is a bit of a misunderstanding. Slackware is different. The supported installation method is a full installation, which means you install everything in the repository up front. That way, all dependencies are already resolved. And you have a system you can use equally well on a desktop or server. It uses 20GB but disk space is essentially free now.

What if you need something that isn't in the repo? Well, do whatever the fuck you want. There's Slackbuilds which aren't officially supported but endorsed by Slackware's dev. There's Sbopkg, a helper script with dependency resolution very much like Arch's AUR helpers. There's Flatpaks. There's the old school way of compiling from source and administering your own system yourself. Slackware doesn't get in the way of whatever you want to do, cause there's nothing there to get in the way.

It's the most KISS distro that exists. It's the most stable one, too. Any distro-specific knowledge you acquire will stay valid for decades cause the distro hardly ever changes. It's also the closest to "Vanilla Linux" you can get. Cause there really isn't anything there except for patched, stable upstream software and a couple of bash scripts.

Just be mindful of the fact that Slackware is different (because the Linux ecosystem as a whole has moved on from its roots).
One example:
Up-to-date Slackware documentation isn't on Google, it's in text files written by the guy who maintained the distro for 31 years, which come preinstalled with your system. Or on linuxquestions.org, where the same guy posts, asks for input from users, and answers questions regularly.

It's still a competent system, if you have the time and inclination to make it work. And it's a blast from the past, where computing was about collaborating with like-minded freaks on a personal level. And I love that.