Clem

I like the idea of having /home on a second drive. I’d do it now but the mini PC that I’m using only supports one NVME drive, so it’s on my list to look at when/if I can afford a PC upgrade of some sort.

My only grumble with the article is that it’s devoid of any detail as to how the task might be undertaken. If it’s that straightforward publish the steps involved.

There’s no such thing as an HD antenna (or aerial, as we call them here in the UK), nor are there digital TV antennas, just antennas that can effectively pick-up (in this case) OTA VHF and UHF TV broadcast signals.

The US is in a transitionary state, having a mix of ATSC1.0 and 3.0 signals to deal with, along with the issues surrounding DRM. This makes selecting kit more of a challenge than it should be, by all accounts, but any antenna, if manufactured properly and correctly installed, should handle both VHF and UHF transmissions, be they ATSC1.0 or 3.0.

Indoor aerials are a compromise. They work best in areas where the local transmitter signal is strong enough for indoor reception, and may need a lot of experimentation to get the best signal quality and strength. There’s no substitute for an outside antenna, which will guarantee best reception, but it needs to be correctly aligned. Loft locations do work, but again, they are a compromise.

YouTube is your friend here. Check out the AntennaMan channel or Lon.TV for more information.

I think that pearOS is a brilliant concept for those who’ve worked with Macs for some time, and who are considering the switch to Linux. The big ‘gotchas’ for me though is that it’s based on Arch Linux, which is concern enough, but the bigger issue is one of support. From what I can make out (and I could be wrong, of course), it’s pretty much a one-man band setup, and for me, that’s too much of a risk, more than using Arch Linux.

Were it to have better support, then I’d certainly give it a try, and donate to the project. I may try and spin it up in a VM at some point. I must confess that it does look very Mac-like, something I appreciate as a Mac user of some 20+ years standing.

I have tweaked the desktop on my Linux Mint 22.2 system, and it has a MacOS feel to it, but the transformation is scrappy in places. That said, it has enough of a Mac feel for me to be happy enough with the compromise. Near enough, yet sufficiently different to remind me that I’m using Linux, not MacOS, which isn’t a bad thing.

Although I’ve previously ran Ubuntu in a VM on one of my Macs, for running Linux on real hardware I picked Linux Mint. I want something that gives me Mac-like stability. To that end, thus far LM 22.2 (I haven’t felt the need to upgrade to 22.3) has behaved impeccably, but I’m under no illusion that I’ll run into issues at some point.

I found it easy to re-skin the desktop to give a Mac-like look and feel; performance is fine on an Intel-based N150 system with 16GB memory using NVME storage. All of the hardware was detected ‘out of the box’; new devices that I’ve added have just worked. Very Mac-like.

I probably will play with some more distros in VMs, just to get a feel for them, but for now, I’ll stick with LM as my daily Linux driver. Boring it may be. If you want to experiment, then try other distros. But if you just want to get stuff done, but still have the ability to tinker ‘under the hood’ from time to time, LM is your friend.

I use a pair of TP-Link adapters to give me Ethernet to a computer located in a part of my house that doesn’t get a decent wi-fi signal. They give nowhere near the promised speed, which I expected, having used the technology in the past, but I do get a usable 180Mbit/sec speed. Not stellar for sure.

If your expectations are not too high, then you won’t be disappointed if you try them.

I think that the confusing Ubuntu UI and the hardware support issues are the main issues here. Customisation in real terms is not a lot different to Windows. However, there are other distros that are more Windows-like, or can be. However, if you’re not technically savvy, when you hit an issue having moved to Linux, which you will, not having anywhere obvious to go to for support is the real killer.

Windows, for all its faults, and they are legion, has a decent support infrastructure behind it. In the Linux world, it’s fragmented. Many people don’t want to go near a terminal window, yet for many fixes that’s often still the way to fix things.

Having used Ubuntu, goods as it is, I now use Linux Mint. It has a lighter overall footprint, I can easily skin it to make it look like macOS (my main systems) and thus far, having been using it for ~4 months, it’s been rock solid. But I’m under no illusion. At some point, I will get bitten by a nasty problem. I’m sufficiently savvy to be able to sort most technical problems. Many aren’t. There’s the rub.