I have finished the backups task. Finally. So basically I was trying Borg with borgbase.com and Megasync. Eventually stuck with Borg and Vorta, the program I use for Borg.

The cool part: same program doing backups in the cloud and on another drive. Since you can also have local backups. Also Borg works with other apps too, which is cool. You can even setup your own Borg Server and backup to it. So yeah, it is more of an universal backup method.

Basically now I have 1 single main drive, 4TB NVME SSD, inside my new laptop. I have around 2TB of files on it. That's all I heave really, except the TROM II files that are stored on a 4TB HHD connected to my laptop. Those are temporary files. When I'm done with TROM II I will "archive" that drive physically :D.

So for now my 2TB data backups on borgbase.com + an external 10TB HDD backup drive. Then the TROM II files, totaling some 3TB, backup to the same 10TB HDD but also to MegaSync since I still have an account there till March, at the end of it. After that I won't renew it but that's fine, I don't need it. So I do backups every few hours and keep files up to 2 years. Just in case.

Basically after TROM II is released I'll be left with only my laptop, as I planned. And only cloud backups maybe. Will see. I want to declutter myself of drives and wires. All of my backups are encrypted, all of my drivers are encrypted too. I play it safe ;).

I should be back to work on TROM II in just a few days time. Excited to finally work on the last part! :)

And I LOVE the new laptop. I got used to the keyboard mostly, so I am ok with that. And everything else is great....that screen is amazing. Thank you again to those who donated for this cause!

In 2011 after I released the TROM documentary someone who was helping me proofread parts of it suggested that I should run a donation campaign to buy a new computer that I desperately needed in order to redo the documentary with a proofread script and voice overs instead of the text-to-speech I had used.

Seemed like a crazy idea to me to ask for so much money. But I did. And I raised over 1.000 Dollars. I was shocked. I was sleeping in a bunkbed in the same room with my sister. I woke her up to tell her. I was so happy.

I had a super shitty computer but then I managed to buy a fantastic one. I remade the TROM documentary and released in 2012.

Even before this, from 2007 to 2010 I had a blog in the romanian language that had a decent traffic. I asked for little support to help me pay for the hosting, but only got a 1 dollar donation one time, despite so many considering my blog very interesting and useful. I did some video series like today's Daily Dose of Internet and such, that had thousands of views per episode, and was recommending movies, documentaries and more on my blog. So it was not simply a personal blog. Regardless no one helped me financially despite being broke as hell.

After I released the "remastered" version of the documentary I created the TVP Magazine. Monthly issues, digital, well made. I wrote for it, designed, all that. Did it 8 months for free then I had to go for a massive donation campaign to help me work for a full year. By that time I was so broke, yet I was doing a bunch of online projects that thousands enjoyed. I had to survive in this trade bullshit society.

The golden age of donations.

It was a period of time when websites like Indiegogo or Patreon started to emerge. Platforms where people were mainly asking for donations to support their projects. Looked genuine. Honest. Real. Not many were using them, I was one of the first to create an account with Patreon.

So we did an 18.000 Euros Indiegogo donation campaign for TVP Magazine:

To my shock we raised the amount. It was exciting.

It felt like a genuine help. We were doing THIS and to keep on doing THIS we needed THAT. There were no "perks", no bullshit, no special clubs for those donating. That's how donations should be. If you donate because you want a tshirt, or be mentioned on some page, or whatever other crap, then you are not genuine. You are not there to just support a project, you want a handjob too. A scratch on your back, a thank you so that you can feel a bit more special. It is about you, at least a bit. And that's awful.

We got support for some 3 years but in that meantime websites like Indiegogo, Kickstarter or Patreon started to become more and more scammy and full of prostitutes. The notion of "donation" morphed into pay-me-and-you'll-get-to-see-my-tits sort of thing. Plus the so many scams...so many "cool new tech" that will become reality, you just have to chip-in a bit and you'll also get a piece of the pie when we bake that cake. Then these projects disappeared. And people were angry.

But what angered me was the complete and utter rape of the action of donating. How can you call it a "donation" when you get something out of that? If I give you some money and then you'll give me something, but you'll only give me that something if I give you that amount of money, then that's a TRADE my friends. THAT is NOT a DONATION. So Patreon transformed into a marketplace where people were buying access to special clubs, merch, and all sort of "perks". Pretending to "support" the "creators". In fact they were buying shit from merchants.

SciShow, who joined later on than we did with our projects on Patreon, relies on subscriptions rather than support:

For 500$ a month you can have sex with one of their staff members.

Look at this:




Are you telling me that these are "creators" that others "support"? Fuck off, these are merchants like everyone else, and they sell shit. And people pay to access that shit. The same ol' trade game.

These are some of the most popular merchants on Patreon.

Hell yeah, even Mastodon sells shit:

Access to their select club and ads on their joinmastodon website for your "company".

This is a very very sad world.

Of course it does not work for me to rely on donations when I do not engage into these marketing tactics. If it weren't for 3-4 close friends who helped the project/me over the years, I don't know what I would have done. To give you an example I am trying to raise 250 Euros to pay for the backups for some 30 websites: like our Friendica instance, Nextcloud, Peertube, Matrix, SearX, Cryptpad, VideoNeat.com, TROMsite.com, TROMjaro.com and so much more. Currently only 35€ was donated.

At least hundreds of people are using these websites/services, if not several thousands. If only 100 of them would donate 3€ a year we could over the backup costs. But they don't and they won't.

In general a small fraction of people donate to the projects that they use. A few years ago when I looked into this, it was like 0,1% of those subscribed to some youtube channels who also donated to these "creators". Even when these "creators" (merchants) sell shit, the support is relatively small. But probably there are more such people supporting you if you also give them shit in return. After all, humans are used to this "I give you but you also give me" mentality. So now that TROM provides nothing but the TROM project, probably it is not as exciting to "support" as the other projects are.

Fuck me The Moneyless Society who are blabbing about how this monetary system is the cancer, has this on their front page:

The link leads to here:

The irony is astonishing.
Their Patreon is equally as bad:

You see I wanted to walk that talk. If I say this bullshit trade-based society is awful, then I won't play by its rules when it comes to TROM. Never sold anything, never inserted ads, collected data, provided special access to those who provided financial support for the project. That's the real way of doing this sort of work. I prefer that over selling shit. I'd rather see the TROM project dying than transforming into yet another trading practice, marketing nonsense, influencer-on-patreon whore.

TROM is not a popular project, maybe in part because of our content that's at times lenghty and upsetting for some. Maybe in part because we don't play by the marketing rules. I had the dignity to move from facebook, twitter and youtube, to the fediverse entirely, despite "losing followers". I had the courage to write/publish some 40 books and never sold any. I had the guts to provide 20+ services over trom.tf and treat everyone as equal. To me that's priceless, and I am so thankful to a handful of humans who still see that value in what I do, and follow the work, and some support it financially in order to keep this boat afloat.

Humans nowadays trade nonstop. For games, in games purchases, netflix, entertianment, crypto-investments, buying special access from the people they follow, and generally being consumed non-stop. Even if TROM gets more popular, it may not be exciting for these consumers since TROM gives you nothing but TROM. And they may want a handjob or some other stuff like that.

TROM is not a whore and never will be. It will stay honest, decent, humble, and non bullshitter. We are walking the talk until we cannot.

If I do not raise the money for the backups I will pay for them myself. If I cannot sustain some of the TROM.tf project I will discontinue them. As simple as that. To rely on donations, the real ones, is the only way to stay unbiased in this trade-based society. But it sucks that donations have transformed into purchases.

BUT:

I need to remind you that all of these whores and charlatans that I've been talking about, are like that because of the trade based society we live in. We are forced to be like that. At the end of the day I am NOT accusing any of them. Just pointing them out, as they are victims, nothing more.

This is it:

I needed a new laptop to get rid of my old one that was not portable. I made 3 posts already about this journey: 1, 2, 3 - so I will try not to repeat myself.

My mission: get a sturdy and powerful laptop that can last me for a decade. Upgradable and fixable in a reasonable manner. Big screen, yet portable. Do it!

After months of searching and thanks to Roma and Guil primarily, who donated 98% of the money for the laptop, I settled for the Dell Inspiron 7620 2-in-1 16 inches. It has a core i7-1260p - 12 cores 16 threads. An Nvidia MX550, 64GB of RAM and 4TB NVME. 4k screen, 16:10 aspect ratio.

I will tell you why I chose this one.

First let me tell you the negative parts of this laptop, since none can be perfect for me I guess. Then I'll tell you why overall it is a great laptop for me.

What I don't quite like.

The keyboard. You see I write a lot and I want a great keyboard. This one is too shallow. I miss the depth of the previous keyboard....but I guess I'll get used to it eventually. The keyboard is also in German....since I bought the laptop from germany, ebay, second hand but unused. Basically brand new.

The Y and Z are switched but I chose a QWERTY layout in TROMjaro so despite showing differently, the letters are in a QWERTY format. I will try to also manually switch them but I am affraid not to break them.

I also kinda don't like the arrow keys...

The up and down arrows are too tiny. This is a bad design on any keyboard.

To add salt to the injury... this layer:

It is a layer of some sort of plastic/glass on top of the metal chassis, that is great for the touchpad but the edges are a bit sharp so when I type my arms get cut a bit in these edges....that happens when I sit on my desk. Like 99% of the time....

SO the typing experience is not that great. Not awful, and I will get used to it, but yeah....that's the biggest downside so far.

Another slight discomfort: opening the laptop to upgrade was a scary experience. You have a few screws but once you start unscrewing them the top part of the bottom case starts to violently try to get out, and things are bendy and make noises. Maybe the captive screws on that side should not be fully unscrewed but loosen and then try to open the case little by little.

Like all laptops (almost) the bottom detachable case has plastic bits inside that clip into the laptop, and these are always sketchy...so I even broke 2 while opening it. Was not a great experience but I guess next time it will be easy. Luckily the entire laptop is made out of aluminium so even without these plastic things everything can close pretty tight.

It can be loud and it is a bit heavy. Having a dedicated GPU the fans will be pretty loud when you do intensive tasks, but probably that's quite normal... Also it is heavy for a "tablet" and quite huge. So this is not really comfortable to use it like that. On the desk is properly fine.

Software-related issues.

Since this laptop is quite new, not even a year old, the hardware is not flawless with Linux. The worst of them all: the speakers will stop working after a few minutes of use. You have to restart pulseaudio for them to work again for a bit. Then they stop again. This seems to be a bug that was reported and should be fixed with newer releases of the kernel. I can easily put up with that since I never use the laptop's speakers - I have external ones - but for most people this would be a reason not to use Linux on this laptop.

The Hibernate mode kills your laptop. I found out the hard way. I had to fix some bad sectors on the drive because it was not booting up anymore. Probably another issue that will be fixed in the near future, but for now no Hibernate mode. Suspend works ok tho.

If I turn the screen brightness down completely, from the keyboard, I cannot bring it up again. I have to shut down the laptop from the power button....that sucks.

The face recognition camera does not have any real support in Linux so that's not usable....this is the case for all laptops as far as I know.

Closing the lid won't respect the XFCE settings I setup for it, so it won't turn off the screen, or lock, or else.

Basically, with Linux, this laptop is not easily portable. You can't use the speakers, you can't hibernate it, you can't even close the lid to have it turn off the screen....

So, you may wonder, why did I keep this laptop if it has these issues?

First of all the software related issues will be fixed and they won't bother me much at all. Pretty much every laptop I had to install Linux on, had some sort of issues like that. It is normal when you create an operating system for ALL laptops out there.

Second, the hardware-related issues are not that bad. I am getting used to the keyboard and I won't have to open up the laptop that often anyway.

So, then, the good parts.

The build quality is great.

This is all metal. Slimbook for example felt flimsy, this one feels really sturdy. I can kill a human and a dog with this laptop and I am sure it will still work :). The hinges, metal, feel like they will last me a lifetime. It barely bends, no cracks, and feels really solid overall...

It is also super slim and of course bendable 360 degrees:

Look how great that looks. So thin, so portable. This is a lot more slim-book than the Slimbook one :). And the charger is also tiny compared to the Slimbook or my previous laptop:

The touchscreen is also a plus since I can test TROMjaro directly on my own machine.

Speaking of the screen, the screen is AMAZING. The blacks are so black that if I were to select a 16:9 instead of 16:10 resolution I can't even tell since the black borders are as black as the screen's chassis. The colors are vibrant and it looks amazing from all angles.

Also...am I crazy or 3-4k resolution is no different from Full HD!? I tested with this laptop and there is 0 difference in how it looks. That's good since I can use the FullHD resolution and this improves the battery life. From my initial tests it can last some 5-6 hours on wifi doing things. Others have tested this and it can last some 20h if you are not connected to the internet and just watch local media.

When the speakers work they are very loud and sound great, despite only using 2 of them out of 4 in Linux.....when they will all work this laptop will sound amazing am sure.

The touchpad is great. Smooth, HUGE, and looks neat.

The glassy surface that cuts my arms while typing feels great when using the touchpad :D

Speaking of looking neat, there is only 1 logo on the back.

And that's not even that visible. I like that.

The port selection is perfect. On the left side you get an HDMI, normal USB, and two USB C / Thunderbolt - meaning they support any sort of connection basically.

On the right side you get another normal USB port, an audio jack, and a full SD size card reader.

So you can be sure that this laptop can connect to anything.

For example the way I set it up now that I have to work on TROM II and need a bunch of external stuff, I use a USB-C dock. It connects to the laptop into one of the USB C ports. One cable, mind you. This dock has the following connected to it: 3 HDDs totaling 14TB of data + my headphones + speakers + external microphone + mouse + external display + projector + 1GB Ethernet + power charging so that it also charges the laptop + webcam.

This is so amazing. It means I can quickly unplug one single cable and take the laptop. Then plug it in and all of those are connected.

The webcam is also better than your average laptop camera, like for example many times better than Slimbook's. The built-in microphone I've heard is also very good but I have not tested it yet. The webcam also has a physical shutter so you can block it.

THE INSIDES!
I think this is the only laptop-convertible in the world that's 16inches and has a 16:10 aspect ratio, is so slim yet all metal build, but allows you to replace the RAM and has 2 slots for it. This was a must for me. It was advertised as 32GB max, but I easily added 64GB of RAM. DDR4. And I upgraded the NVME M2 to 4TB.

To compare it now with the Slimbook Executive 16, that one costs 1.750 Euros with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Sure, the CPU is a bit better and the GPU much better (useful only if you play video games which I do not). This laptop, the Inspiron 7620 costed me 1.100 Euros and with 64GB of RAM + 4TB SSD around 1.700 Euros. MUCH MUCH MUCH better in all regards than the Slimbook offer.

Lastly the power button it is also a fingerprint reader:

And I managed to make it work in TROMjaro - wasn't that difficult. How amazing that now I can unlock the computer with the fingerprint and works perfectly fine. Or when I install new packages....FINGERPRINT! NO more typing my very long admin password :).

OVERALL.

For 1.700 Euros I got a great laptop. It has a big and amazing screen, great port selection, fantastic build quality, great touchpad, good webcam and mic, ok upgradability and repairability, great CPU and good GPU. Touchscreen, bendable 360 degrees, consumes less energy than the Slimbook, small power charger (USB C), great price overall. In time I'll get used to the keyboard too and the software related issues will be fixed.

Ok ok, a very long post.....but to me this machine is important since it allows me to do the so many projects I am doing. It is an extension to my brain. So it matters to me.

Now I plan to give my old laptop to a dear TROM friend who has helped the project a lot for the past year or two. If I manage to send it to the other side of the globe somehow to not break our pockets. I want to give my older stuff to others who can use it for longer.

I will try to get "laptops" out of my head and in a week or so focus again on TROM II. I spent a lot of time searching for a good laptop and I feel like I have finally found it. It is time to move on :)

I have finally ordered the laptop I was craving for: Inspiron 16 7620 2-in-1

Thanks to the TROM Laptop donation campaign. Mind you, I do a ton of work and all I do is free, including the upcoming 5+ hours TROM II documentary. So I need a powerful and robust, yet portable laptop.

This particular laptop is great, in theory at least, because it seems really well built (fully metal), you can upgrade the RAM (2 slots) and has 1 slot for an M2 SSD. I already purchased a 4TB stick and I hope it can work well with it (it should).

I paid 1.100 Euros from ebay, second hand, but in excellent condition (unused) they say. You cannot find this laptop in Europe it seems....it is quite new and I barely found a few options. This one comes from Germany. The only issue is that the keyboard is in german and although am ok with that, the fact that Y and Z are switched is annoying. Luckily we ship TROMjaro with AutoKey and you can easily switch the two :).

If I manage to add a 4TB SSD on this and 64GB of RAM, then I'll get just a bit over the 1.600 Euros budget.

The fact that this is a convertible can be useful to adapt TROMjaro for touchscreens and such devices. Same for the fingerprint reader, I'd like to find a solution for TROMjaro for it.

The i7-1260P processor has 12 cores, 3 more than my current one, and 16 threads, twice as many as mine. Thus, it is more than enough for my needs. It also comes with an NVIDIA GeForce MX550 which is better than the one I currently have. So hardware wise, it is perfect.

What I also really like and I am surprised by, is that Dell provides an in depth guide to the laptop, so that you can change any part of it. See. This is fantastic. They showcase even what screws are used, the steps to follow, and show pictures. It is not as easy to service as say the Framework, but pretty damn good.

So I am quite excited to get it. It may be the perfect timing since I will finish the 3 parts of TROM II before it arrives and I can take a week or so break before starting the last part, to setup the new laptop and move everything over to it. So that I can finish the editing on the new laptop.

Should arrive the next week. If I keep it I'll do a video review of it.

I got a refund for the Slimbook Executive 16 that I sent back. Although they refused to pay for the transport which, form what I read online, should have been covered by the refund. It was around 20 euros in total and I didn't want to "debate" over it anyway. They were generally nice over email and I also removed their stickers from the laptop and perhaps I should not have done that. So it is ok.

Am happy that I returned it because I want to test other laptops. Now I am convinced I will order (to test) the Dell Inspirion 7620 2 in 1:

It has a 16inch screen at 16:10, something I fully love.
I has a good keyboard it seems with no nonsense numpad:

It is very well built I've heard. Fully aluminium. A bit heavy at 2kg, but because it is really sturdy I'v read. My laptop is 3kg....and shitty built :D

It is also a convertible and has a touch screen + fingerprint reader:

Not that I'd use these much, but it is a nice bonus considering that I tweak TROMjaro for touchscreens too, and now I can directly test it on my machine and not rely on the old tablet that we have. I would also love to add a proper fingerprint reader support to TROMjaro, so now I can test it.

As for the internals, I will go for the i7-1260P CPU and perhaps the MX550 Nvidia GPU combo. Not as powerful as the Slimbook, but a lot more than my current laptop. The advantage is that this combo consumes a lot less power than what Slimbook had under the hood. Which means much better battery life (they say it lasts all day) + a much slimmer and usb-c power adapter that you can buy for like 20 Euros from any tech-store if you need to replace it.

So in a way although the Slimbook is half a kilo lighter, its charger is massive so....this Dell with such a small charger despite being heavier I would like it to be like that.

Another cool thing about this laptop is that it has dual channel RAM slots that you can upgrade. For a 2 in 1 this is quite unique. They say max 32GB in total, but I've heard you can put 64GB and I will try that. As for storage unfortunately it only has 1 m2 slot and they say that it supports up to 2TB, but again I've heard you can add up to 4TB. I will compromise to 2TB of storage if this laptop is as good as I read it is, but 4TB would be perfect for me....will have to try and see.

Actually the entire laptop seems quite easy to fix and upgrade:

And being a bit popular you can already find components despite being released just a few months ago. They have a detailed manual about how you can replace and upgrade parts.

Speaking of that, the awesome Framework 13.5inch laptop that is marketed as very repairable (and it is) clocks at around 1.400 Euros with the same CPU and no GPU. This Dell clocks around 1.300 Euros new via ebay and around 1k second hand via the same ebay. So it is much cheaper overall, seems very durable, much larger screen, yet still relatively easy to repair/upgrade.

Oh and I've read that the speakers on this Dell, 4 of which, are one of the best out there. Same goes for the webcam that even has a camera shutter for privacy.

Overall the laptop (in theory from what I read and see) seems quite slim, very robust, very powerful, decently upgradable and repairable, amazing screen, good keyboard, great speakers and good webcam, great battery life. At least in theory, let's see in practice.

I will likely buy it second hand since this laptop is a very new model and so second hand units should be barely used. Getting it much cheaper allows me to buy a 4TB m2 and even some 64GB of RAM, if the laptop can handle all of that.

For now I will continue with the work on TROM II but I plan in February or so to order it and test.

Massive thanks to Roma and the few others who donated for my laptop campaign. Basically Roma made this possible.

The laptop is my sole enabler of everything you see TROM-made. Websites, video editing, TROMjaro and all of that. Therefore it is the most important piece of technology in my life, and thus I want to choose with care. Basically I would love to just have 1 laptop and that's all.

Anyway, I am sharing these in case it helps others too.

I was trapped into a mystery for the past few weeks. You see, I like what Slimbook and Tuxedo provide for the Linux community in terms of making their laptops geared towards Linux. And I want to buy a new laptop. Now....their laptops look like identical twins. So I thought it is the same company that makes them but different brands. They confirmed this is not the case. One is a Spanish company, one is a German company.

Ok. Fine.

But Tuxedo told me their Infinity series, which I was keen to buy, was not made out of magnesium alloy like they advertise on their website, but made out of plastic and the magnesium alloy is steamed onto it.

But look, the Slimbook looks identical:

Even inside, ports, specs, weight, EVERYTHING!
Yet the Slimbook people told me: no no, our is FULLY metal. No plastic what-so-ever in the chassis.

Which one was right? Me, CONFUSED.

If they are so identical they must come from the same manufacturer....right? I then watched this video review of the Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14 and bellow someone comments that they basically buy these laptops from a Hong Kong manufacturer named TONGFENG Computers....and Tuxedo confirmed in the reply:

Now you can go on the TONGFENG Computers website and you'll see those laptops hk.tongfangpc.com/thin-6h1-ser… - they are identical to the Slimbooks and Tuxedo ones.

I asked the Slimbook folks if they get them from there and rebrand them, but they said:

I'm sorry, but due to company policy, which I'm sure you understand, we do not provide that information.

At least I like that Tuxedo seem more honest in that regard. Maybe because they had to respond to the claim publicly!?

Now on the TONGFENG website they claim that these 16inch laptops are "all metal design":

Look, it is not a bad thing ok!? Of course these are not German or Spanish manufacturers, these are German/Spanish companies that buy laptops and rebrand them. Then they sell them. However Tuxedo advertises the laptops as "made in Germany":

So, my thoughts are these: both Tuxedo and Slimbook buy their laptops from the TONGFENG Hong Kong company. They simply deal with the software side of things to make them more Linux friendly, and do some custom chassis/keyboard prints. After testing the Slimbook Executive 16 my feeling is that Tuxedo seems more on the honest side of things and those laptops are made out of plastic with magnesium alloy steamed onto them. They are not bad at all, and I may buy a Tuxedo eventually if I can't find better alternatives.

But they for sure seem not honest to me. None of them to be honest. If Tuxedo tells me one thing but one their website they write another....or if they say their laptops are "made in germany" while they are not....then....you get the idea...

I do not trust any company. Period. They are entangled with whatever they trade so they can never be reasonably honest. Maybe Tuxedo and Slimbook do want to do good things and I still have that hope. Overall maybe they are nice people, but they for sure are shady, here and there at least.

In a trade-based society humans will sell you anything, and wrap it to appear as if they do so because they care. It is an old tactic. But they need to care about their profits too, more so. So don't simply take it for granted when these Open Source driven companies tell you that they are there to do a good thing for the Open Source. Be skeptical of their claims.

Both the Slimbook and Tuxedo people provided a great email support for my questions. All are nice. The Slimbook Executive 16 was very well put together, but probably not by the Slimbook team, but the Hong Kong one. I am still tempted to buy a Tuxedo to test it, these next months, but don't expect much honesty from companies in general.

These are my thoughts.