[NTLK] [ADMIN] Happy New Year! Happy New Server!

[Forrest]

Vladislav:

Feel free to jump in with your thoughts; if this were a private conversation it would not be on here.

A caution: One of the guiding principles here on NewtonTalk is—no PC vs Mac discussion. While I’m certain that this was meant for the 90s/00s when such talk was actually a heated discussion and not today (when we have much better things to argue and fight about! ;-) ), it still is worth consideration. There are people that LOVE Windows, and good for them—I am not among them. (Or, as the TV show “Seinfeld” once said, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”)

The heart of this discussion initially was how Macs (and MacOS and Apple) have changed, to the point where the (IMHO) dreaded Windows machine is actually a better alternative. Still, I’d love to hear other’s thoughts on what machine they prefer and how, like Vladislav, you’ve managed to modify it to do what you want.

Mahalo,
Forrest

Sent from my T-Mobile iPhone 11

> On Jan 15, 2021, at 2:08 AM, L.W. Brown via NewtonTalk <newtontalk at newtontalk.net> wrote:
> 
> so VERY tempted to attempt installing popOS linux on an old mac air—sort of a mac•n•hack•n•linux (but – O – what a struggle that’ll be, i’m certain, esp. since so few seem to have done it)…
> 
> Sent from ProPad
> 
>> On Jan 15, 2021, at 12:54 AM, Vladislav Korotnev <vladkorotnev at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Sorry to hijack the conversation, but this is something that strikes
>> close to home.
>> …
>> But for the time when I need some rest, I've found an island of
>> comfort in another machine — a Thinkpad X220 tablet with Linux.
>> Configured it to look like Mac OS 9 with Platinum and the Charcoal
>> font, top bar menu, Platinum sounds, a real bootscreen even (shameless
>> plugging: https://github.com/vladkorotnev/System8).
>> Wrote a bunch of scripts to connect all the media platforms I use over
>> RSS into Liferea, rebuilding everything with GTK2 to avoid the
>> non-platinum looks, Pale Moon and Claws Mail styled as OS 9 era
>> Netscape.
>> Youtube videos end up in RSS, opening any videos automatically pauses
>> music like on the iPhone. Menus click and pop like in the old days,
>> fonts aren't blurred and are easy to read. Full control over
>> everything that happens is in my hands, not whoever designed the
>> OS/Website/Platform.
>> 
>> It's a huge mess of scripts, took a few months to get right, and for
>> sure, one day code rot will kill it all — but for now, it's a great
>> reminder of how things could have gone if computers were still used to
>> *solve problems*, not *make apps*.
>> 
>> Maybe someday I'll do a writeup on how to set it up if there's enough
>> demand, but it's clearly not for the faint-hearted :/
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> http://newtontalk.net
> http://twitter.com/newtontalk