My goal was to see what it was like to use a terminal-only computer for my personal computing for two weeks, and more if I fancied it. In early Novemb

Using (only) a Linux terminal for my personal computing in 2024

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2024-11-23 19:00:03

My goal was to see what it was like to use a terminal-only computer for my personal computing for two weeks, and more if I fancied it.

In early November, I identified a machine from the pile - a ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 2, which I know plays nicely with Linux (it was the machine from which I harvested parts for my day-to-day X1) - and installed Debian testing.

No real surprise that, while I could do a lot, and I’ve certainly picked up some new and improved skills, a terminal alone is not enough for me.

To learn from it. I use terminals every day, out of preference, and this is already proving a valuable learning experience. Even I don’t stick with it - and, frankly, it is unlikely that I will - then I’ll stick with what I have learned from it.

Keeping older computers usable. I have quite a collection of older computers. I might get graphical environments running on some of them. On some, perhaps not. But I feel that having some more skills with a terminal may well come in handy in the future, and may well help me breathe life (or a subset of life, at least) into them.

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