!Pinebook Pro 6-month update --- agk's diary 22 October 2021 @ 14:06 --- written on Pinebook Pro while watching pathopharm lecture --- I got it new six months ago for $200. It's the most modern computer I own. I use it for nursing school, which I attend mostly via web browser and in real hospitals. Kernel: 5.14.12-1-MANJARO-ARM Resolution: 1920x1080 CPU: (6) @ 1.416GHz Memory: 889MiB / 3863MiB I throw it in my backpack, drive to the college of nursing, pull it out and invoke nmtui to connect to the eduroam-managed wifi AP with my credentials. st/tmux pane ------------ I keep st terminal emulator multiplexed by tmux in the left 1/4 of desktop 1. I invoke sc spreadsheet to track how I spend time. I break my school day into 25 minute increments with a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato, or invoke termdown 25m. I write with micro editor. Sometimes I edit papers in vi and use nnn to browse directories and open files instead of remembering the name of the default program to open pdfs or whatever. Need to look up something? I made three little shell scripts to query duckduckgo, frogfind, and etymology online. > cat /usr/local/bin/frog #!/bin/bash case "$1" in -g) lynx http://www.frogfind.com/read.php?a=https://$2 ;; *) lynx http://frogfind.com/?q=$1 ;; esac # Purpose: call frogfind and search or go. # Use: frog half-life+heparin # frog -g ci.uky.edu/kentuckyhealthnews/tag/rural-health/ I check the forecast with curl v2.wttr.in, read news with lynx legiblenews.com, social compute (email, com, gopher, bboard) on SDF with mosh, post to gopher with scp, and listen to the radio with a shell script: > cat /usr/local/bin/radio #!/bin/bash case "$1" in -a) mpg123 -b 768 http://anonradio.net:8000/anonradio ;; -e) mpg123 -b 768 http://wevl.streamguys1.com/live ;; -n) mpg123 -b 768 http://crystalout.surfernetwork.com:8001/WNOV-AM_MP3 ;; -o) mpg123 -b 768 http://wwoz-sc.streamguys1.com/wwoz-hi.mp3 ;; -t) mpg123 -b 768 http://azuracast.tilderadio.org/radio/8000/radio.mp3 ;; *) echo "syntax : 'radio -a' plays anonradio, -e WEVL, -n WNOV, -o WWOZ, -t tilderadio" ;; esac # Original script posted on sdf bboard in 2021 by Publius. # agk added 3 streams and removed one. When I listen, radio and alsamixer run in tmux on desktop 2. I keep notes on admin tasks with Hal Pomeranz's plod (from comp.lang.perl). I invoke poweroff to shut the computer down. firefox pane ------------ The right 3/4 of desktop 1 is generally firefox. Tabs contain class canvas shells, yuja media rec- orded lecture videos, microsoft365 email, textbooks on vitalsource, and interactive course material from elsevier evolve, sherpath, simchart, and brainscape. One professor requires us to use turning ttpoll and adobe spark during zoom lectures. Everything required for school except zoom and respondus lockdown browser works on the Pinebook Pro. I run zoom on one of the college's iPads, and lockdown browser on a sluggish Dell the college where I got my first degree gave me when I graduated (It's always using 100% of disk write updating windows 10 and >300 MB RAM running an unkillable endpoint security service). I paste papers I write into libreoffice, do APA formatting, and submit on canvas as microsoft word documents. My firefox extensions are OneTab, Multi- Account Containers, and uBlock Origin. School stuff opens in a school container. Youtube and such open in a sus container. So: you can do modern uni stuff on a Pinebook Pro. Annoyances ---------- Reaching for backspace key and hitting power button. Good thing it boots almost instantly. How the hardware stands up to my abuse -------------------------------------- The magnesium case has a lot of flex. I use a little screwdriver a couple times a month to tighten the screws that hold on the case bottom. They wiggle loose. None of them fell out and got lost yet. The battery sometimes won't charge from the barrel plug. I switch to USB-C and it's fine. I switch back for the same reason. I think I overcharged it once. The power LED flashed red and green. I unplugged the charger. All was well. The battery life's great. I busted the headphone jack. I dropped the computer while it was attached to my home stereo's RCA phono ins, playing radio -e. Maybe I can fix it. Otherwise, a new side board is $7. When it's back in stock, I'll yank the ribbon cable from my old one and plug in a new one. There's no suspend or hibernate, which took getting used to. Screen brightness keys don't work in i3 without configuration I haven't had time to figure out. They work in KDE plasma. The machine's light and thin. The screen's good. It's nice to have a laptop that obeys me and doesn't need much attention. I like that it doesn't cost much and I can use it how I like without a ton of work.