how i use computers

• 2024-08-24
• series : 5/6 in liberatory computing : [previous] [next]
• tags : qubesOS , programming , haskell , purescript

introduction

what follows is an outline of the various hardware & software i currently use for daily computing tasks , in case it's useful for someone else . this is not a prescription of how other people should use technology , nor is it a description of my ideal computing environment .

hardware

if i need to purchase a new device , i prefer to find one that is already used , due to the numerous ethical issues with the production of electronics by large companies .

my primary computer is a Thinkpad T430 running QubesOS . i chose this laptop because , out of the options that can be flashed with coreboot , it was old enough to be somewhat affordable^[1] , while still running fast enough for most tasks that don't involve graphics ( & some that do ) .

i don't use any peripherals except for a large monitor , to maintain good posture . i have tried mechanical keyboards , but i dislike like how they feel & sound compared to the built-in Thinkpad keyboard . split keyboards are more ergonomic though , so it would be nice to find a split rubber dome keyboard .

my "smart"phone is a Pixel 4a^[2] running CalyxOS^[3] .

software

i primarily use CalyxOS for taking notes with Orgzly , tracking sleep with Plees Tracker , web browsing away from home , insecure communications , & listening to audio-based educational materials .

i use QubesOS for web browsing , programming , Serious Writing , & other forms of expression .

i chose QubesOS because i find ambient authority horrifying , but i'm not aware of any robust capability-based operating systems that would fill the same need for me .

QubesOS is slow & doesn't have screen reader support yet , but it does have some great features like configuration using Salt^[4], Whonix qubes , & offline qubes . here are a few things i've learned that make it more tolerable :

• install i3
• name qubes using two-character strings so they can be searched for more quickly using dmenu
• make shortcuts for locking the screen & toggling the status bar
• make a shortcut ( mine is bound to Alt + i ) for opening a dmenu list of helper scripts & frequently opened programs
• use Salt , but not for everything . some tasks are much simpler ior faster with a shell script in dom0 , so i use a top-level shell script to apply salt files & do other things
• dark mode can be enabled in XFCE qubes by qvm-runing the following command in each of them :

  1xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Net/ThemeName -s 'Adwaita-dark'

• it may not always seem like it at first , but most tasks can be automated from dom0 , including mounting & attaching drives inside qubes . i take advantage of this in a backup script that backs up specific qubes using BorgBackup
• i wrote a shell script that copies dotfiles from one qube to the others & applies them , so i only have to clone my dotfiles in one place , but still have my bash aliases , helix config , etc. in every qube
• rofi can be opened inside a qube using qvm-run in dom0 scripts , but the rofi flag -normal-window must be added to disable override_redirect , which allows the program window to appear undecorated & on top in X11

programming

language

currently , the languages i find most useful are Haskell & PureScript ( which is very similar to Haskell , but compiles to JavaScript ) .

a few things i like about them are :

• very clean syntax
• functional purity
• Hindley-Milner type system
• typeclasses
• Hoogle/Pursuit
• ghcid/pscid
• high abstraction power
• automatically curried functions
• lazy evaluation
• row polymorphism ( PureScript only )
• wonderful libraries like Concur , optics & apecs

i'm autistic & get overwhelmed by extraneous detail very easily , so i view many of these as accessibility features^[5] , because of way they encourage code that is easy to read & reduce the number of things i must keep in working memory at once - while still feeling quite empowering .

for native programs that target embedded devices ior need to be statically built ior cross compiled , Rust is a nice language that provides a somewhat similar experience to Haskell , while making those tasks much easier .

i've experimented a lot with Nix for provisioning systems & development environments , but i'm hesitant to recommend using it , particularly if , like me , one is significantly constrained by the power of their computer hardware / disk space / network speed , ior are marginalized in some way^[6] . i've definitely benefited from Nix before , but those benefits have only barely outweighed the many negatives i've experienced along the way . maybe Lix & Aux will manage to solve some of those issues .

code editor

the code editor i use most often is helix .

my first editor was Sublime Text , then VSCodium , then Atom , & i finally found an editor i liked when i tried vim & realized i could mostly avoid using the mouse^[7] . once i was proficient with vim , i moved on to Doom Emacs .

Emacs has a lot going for it , like radical introspection & extensibility , but it was just too slow for me . the language servers for Haskell & PureScript would often crash my qube because of how much memory they used in Emacs . i also disliked dealing with the Doom abstraction , but when i tried going without it , maintaining a complex configuration was too time consuming .

so , i switched to helix . it is rarely too slow for me , even in a qube with 4GB of RAM . it hardly requires any configuration to match my Doom Emacs setup . after learning them properly , i've also grown to appreciate the Kakoune-inspired keybindings more than vim's .