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how i use computers

← 3/5 in the series liberatory computing ∀ →

❡ 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 entities 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 .

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 various 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 your qubes using two-character strings so you can search for them more quickly with 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
• if your qubes use XFCE , you can qvm-run the following command in each of your qubes to enable dark mode :

  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
• you can invoke rofi inside a qube using qvm-run in dom0 scripts , but you must use the rofi flag -normal-window to disable override_redirect , which allows the program window to appear undecorated & on top in X11

❡ programming

❡ language

currently , my favorite languages are Haskell & PureScript .

things i like about them are :

• very clean syntax
• strict , static , & strong type system with inference
• functional purity
• high abstraction power
• frequent overloading with typeclasses
• hoogle/pursuit
• ghcid/pscid
• row polymorphism (in the case of PureScript)
• automatically curried functions
• wonderful libraries like Concur & optics

part of being autistic for me is that i get overwhelmed by extraneous detail very easily , so i view many of these as accessibility features^[5] for the way they keep code clean , easy to read , & reduce the number of things i have to keep in my head .

❡ 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^[6] . 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 .