Closing the Digital Divide: Q&A with Local Computer Upcycler Mike Kelly
trl.org
Meet Mike Kelly, who’s closing the digital divide by upcycling laptops, reducing e-waste, and empowering lives across Thurston County…

This is extremely encouraging to me. I am not affiliated with the project but here is what I’ve gathered. Run by Mike.

  • Nix (with the functional declarative design)
  • Cinnamon (DE mostly used by Linux Mint, Mike and I think Cinnamon doesn’t get enough respect)
  • Two versions, main and “lite”.
  • zero config auto update is a huge selling point imo
  • flatpak is a nice touch

Main:

  • “4 core and 4GB of ram” target
  • Flatpak integrated and auto-updates
  • Zoom flatpak
  • Chrome flatpak and Firefox
  • Libreoffice flatpak
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    git
    firefox
    libnotify
    gawk
    gnugrep
    sudo
    dconf
    gnome-software
    gnome-calculator
    gnome-calendar
    gnome-screenshot
    flatpak
    xdg-desktop-portal
    xdg-desktop-portal-gtk
    xdg-desktop-portal-gnome
    system-config-printer

Lite:

  • “2 core and 2 GB of RAM” target
  • no flatpak
  • firefox
  zramSwap.memoryPercent = 100;
MemoryHigh = "500M";
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    git
    firefox
    libnotify
    gawk
    sudo
    gnome-calculator
    gnome-calendar
    gnome-screenshot
    system-config-printer
  ];

Github

Installing

boot the special ISO and connect to wifi via the system settings via the start menu (rough edges here). install.

secure boot is not first-class supported in nix but it ‘can’ be done.

Does the market need this?

It feels like yes. See what do you install on other people’s computers?. A zero-support OS that isn’t tied into ChromeOS is a tall order. There are a lot of distros that are “semi” friendly but which are strong enough to give to a stranger and never hear from them again?

The pitch is compelling enough that I put it on my small laptop. I used it for about 20 minutes. That laptop is not a project laptop, and if I could just browse and do basic linux stuff and never think about maintaining it again I’d be happy. I can report back (and contribute to nixbook) if it serves my needs. If it passes my tests I may transition the family Win10 PC to nixbook. I’m getting spooked at how many more threats target Windows than Linux.

tweaking

I’m an ultra noob with nix but you should be able to edit this and have it work. Mike has a post about which config file to edit but I can’t find it. https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nixos-rebuild

$ # Edit your configuration
$ sudo nano /etc/nixos/configuration.nix
$ # Rebuild your system
$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch

I added silversearcher tldr tilde and seemed to work.

Cool tweet

https://fosstodon.org/@codemonkeymike/115582530036847888