Emacs for the win

So my OS had a significant update yesterday which [broke my WM](https://www.reddit.com/r/kdeneon/comments/y1dei8/so_that_update_broke_erm_everything/irzhj2j?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) one day before a work conference trip. `alt+ctrl+f3` Login `doom run` Problem solved - who needs a GUI (... me, I need my GUI to do the non-emacs stuff)

exwm guys are coming soon...

We won't tell then I need wayland

A properly implemented Emacs Wayland Compositor would be the best, straight up.

Consider switching to a proper distro that supports rollbacks, or diy your own snapshots. That’s outright liberating. Snapper can be installed on Ubuntu (and, presumably, KDE Neon), and will do snapshots around each apt-get. Here’s an older instruction: https://cli.pignat.org/ubuntu-18.04-server-install-snapper.html NixOS and GuixSD are exemplary, but have a learning curve. Fedora Silverblue / Kinoite are rock-solid, but also require a change of your habits. SuSE comes with snapper preinstalled.

Sounds like snapper would have saved me - I'll check that out once I've sorted this mess I had best luck with Arch but was lazy on this device - KDE Neon is fastest route to plasma 5.25+ with wayland (the device is a MS surface)

Hmm, this is not necessarily an emacs thing, any console editor can do that.

You're not wrong, but emacs has my org-roam config

Oh so you're using emacs to access information rather than using it to fix your os.

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Agreed! I have Emacs set up in NixOS and I cant see myself using any traditional OS ever again

Any easy presentation of how to start with Nixos for non devs users (>15 years on Linux, incl. Arch, Void.. though). Not a complete newbie but some concepts must be explained in plain words....>!!<

I would say that nixos for non-devs is pretty straight forward. For developers on the other hand you will need to understand the technology and that is a bigger job. The resources are out there but it will take time to get comfortable with anything non-FHS i would argue

I think we need OS kernel implemented in Emacs core directly, even better in the firmware.

> So my OS had a significant update yesterday which broke my WM one day before a work conference trip. I saw in my Arch they pushed new KDE update. Years since I booted into KDE or Gnome. I have both installed for the applications, but no way I will ever run those desktops as my main OS GUI again. I can warmhearted recommend a smaller WM and custom X11 config. It is so much faster and stable than anything those guys are cranking out.

> I had best luck with Arch but was lazy on this device - KDE Neon is fastest route to plasma 5.25+ with wayland (the device is a MS surface) What is so good with plasma 5.25? By the way, you have Arch on Surface? If you have Arch there, you can just rollback your Arch to either previous update, or if you prefer to some previous date (you will need internet for the second option). I would though like to know how well does Arch work on Surface regarding to drivers and firmware?

Plasma 5.25 has OK touch support for tablet use - still about 1% of an ipad tho I haven't got Arch, but r/SurfaceLinux will be able to give you their experiences I'm sure

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I'm tempted by sway, but will eed to set up fusuma or similar for gesture / rotation support and on screen keyboard etc

Ah ok, sorry. I understand. I have no idea how good is touch support for ordinary WMs, probably not so good.

Non existent, Gnome and Plasma are (sadly) the best options :(

Yes, I understand. That is unfortunate indeed.

Its a very niche problem trying to use linux on a tablet like device

Thank you. Was thinking of eventually getting a Surface, but didn't make my mind. I will probably go with something else anyway, still looking around for which 13'' laptop or tablet has good Linux driver support.

I understand that.

Arch rollbacks are ok, but bootable snapshots (or NixOS generations) are more bullet-proof. I was affected by the 5.19.12 GPU bug, so couldn’t boot after update. On NixOS, I just chose a previous generation in the boot menu and went on with my day. Read about the bug in the evening papers. A “traditional” setup, even with pacman rollbacks, would have put me out of commission for hours at best.

I've been thinking about this but how would you envision it? If a package takes a long time to run a function your whole desktop locks up. I'm thinking one workspace = 1 separate emacs instance but that is a bit overkill

Aaarghhhh.... another distro to test... I had just switched everything to Artix and runit... but I won't bear the curiosity... your answer is too... promising.

I just learned about this: https://sr.ht/~shunter/wayflan/ It's Common Lisp, but still, you can run the ~~compositor~~ client in a REPL and control it through Emacs. EDIT: it isn't a compositor, it's a client library.

Somehow I‘m relatively sure an Emacs Wayland compositor is just a matter of time.

linux nuzzlock challenge. if it breaks once dont fix or use it again and see how far you get :O

Sorry! :-) headsup: NixOS is systemd-based if that was a reason for artix.

Thanks, that's really cool!

There's a lot of work that needs to be done on redisplay and threads, which are currently the least hackable parts of Emacs. But it can be done. Probably.

My longest is about 1 year.

That's not a compositor but a client library

Off-topic, but it's nice to see SourceHut links!

A long long time ago, we had a handful of Sun 3 workstations. These were archaic even then, so I decided to turn them into Xterms (what you'd call thin clients these days). One user complained that we'd made his workstation unusable. It turned out that rather than use Sun's windowed environment, he just ran in the text console (and Emacs) all day. As a result, when we'd forced the X window system on him, he didn't have anything set up, the default font was too small for him to read, and so forth. In the end, I had a minion set up his environment to just have one giant full-screen terminal window with 24-point font, in which the user could happily run Emacs.

Lol, as much as I want to be this person, I can't even manage emacs windows. Did take org-roam notes all day at a work conference

I'm thinking of moving all of my GitHub stuff there. I still haven't decided which code forge site I like best though.

My mistake. Thanks for pointing that out.

No problem, wayland/x11 terminology is confusing for sure

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SourceHut is paid (really a feature since you then the user and not the "used"), fast, and no JavaScript. What's not to love?!