Ah, yeah, like ls -F. I have ls aliased to add some options, including that one.
Interesting. Havenāt tried to do that.
Neat. Iāve never tried to put any ssh-agent info in the prompt. Itās nice having the pipe status though. For some reason, zsh calls it $pipestatus instead of $PIPESTATUS, but otherwise I think it works the same.
I have it in an optional prompt segment, so it appears when relevant and disappears the rest of the time. When visible, itās shown in red. It also does a variety of things to shuffle parts of the prompt around when it needs more room, adding a second line sometimes, or shorten or omit parts when necessary. There are several context-sensitive prompt segments.
The return codes and other info about a commandās result appear in the next prompt, on the right side. Generally itās just a timestamp, but can also include error codes, duration, background status, etc.
It has kinda just been accumulating more and more config over time. I tried to switch to p10k at one point, but itās not compatible with adjusting the number of lines on the fly, or resizing/omitting segments to fit.
Yep, I can second that. A friend had a really bad experience with a W-series, I believe it was from before 2010. But IBM/Lenovo have always had a mix of junk and jewels in their product lineups, and the ThinkPad T-series remained excellent for a long time after that. In my opinion the last great Thinkpads were the T530/T430 in terms of design and quality, and it was all downhill from there.
Probably, But I have a t460 and T490 that have been solid.
I had responsibility for PC replacement for 10K users. We bought about 250 laptops per year. For 10 years I bough Lenovo laptops. I had very few problems. They let somebody else take care of it. He went HP. They sucked. 40% failures within 3 years (our replacement cycle). Went back to Lenovo and things stabilized. Always went with t series for most and X series for C guys. Then later the carbon series.
My T490 was hot (literally as well as figuratively it turns out) for its day. i7 4 core 8 thread 4.2 gig turbo, 32 gig of ram, 500 gig M2 SSD. WiFi 6. You knowā¦IT guy need POWER But battery life sucks at maybe 6 to 7 hours ( in performance mode)ā¦ and it gets real hot (i have seen 92 C on the CPU) so I run it throttled back most of the time. PIA battery replacement. But after 4 years it has been solid. AND, with it plugged in running full out, it is a beast. Easily running 5 VMs in VMWare workstation (Win 10).
I think their downfall was when they decided to follow the trend of ultra thin and light laptops. I have 5 Lenovo laptops (X202, X301. T430, T460, and T490) They still all work well, a most being over 10 years old.
I guess that is some kind of testimonialā¦ But I have no experience with the laptops they have made in the last 3 years or so.
The HPs (supposedly their business line) that they bought were more expensive than the comparable T series IBM/Lenovo machines.
But I donāt really care. A 40% + failure rate in 3 years is unacceptable for anything.
But yes, the āTā series (not all of their lines) was aimed at the business user. And they were built like it and their reliability reflected that.
Iām on a tired X230 and its replacement will be a first non-thinkpad after many years. Iām no longer happy with the build quality, repairability and design. Iāll either get a Linux-first computer like Starlabs, or buy my company-issued Zbook once they get me a new one.
Yes. But like with phones, this is a consequence of the thin and light concept. Cram everything in, minimum of fasteners, serviceability be damned. I see it as a problem for all of the mainstream laptops currently available. I tend to think the ZBook is not much better. But yeah, for a person that once fixed their own laptops, the situation is not good overall.
I can assure you that the X230 is not built thin nor light. The 4:3-era Thinkpads were even sleeker, with thinner bodies, narrower display bezels etc. Some newer models do follow that but my impression is that most of the features that irk me about the X230 are due to cost cutting, not attempting an ultrabook.
And Iāll take a handle-battery over thin and light every day.
No question, but nothing like that is being produced now (that I know of). The old 6 to 8 cell easily replaceable battery packs were great. Carry a a spare and get 20+ hours of use.
So the question is, what would you buy now if you wanted a new laptop. Do you see any good options?
I wonder if I will ever again buy a new laptop at this point. But I am interested in knowing the best current options. I mean, for better or for worse (definitely the latter IMHO) we are where we are.
Iāve recently been tempted to switch to a tablet, like the Starlite, and design and print a rugged case with a handstrap. Some of my computing is done in places like up ladders, in cramped spaces and in generally unwelcoming environments and for those I like my PC to be robust yet compact. There will be a docking station with a proper display connected at home, and I could bring my little BT mechanical keyboard for away-but-with-a-table-available situations.
ETA for context I do live sound engineering and lighting design for art installations on the side and mostly need a computer as a remote controller.
When the Mac my family bought me got old and excruciatingly slow, I bought a 10 year old dell optiplex with a 2tb hard drive, 16gb ram. It came with āfreeā windows (10).
Added a 2TB SSD drive and Linux Mint and it screams!
Amazing, I was reading through Starlabs website but hadnāt reached the Starlite yet. With a quad-core Alder Lake CPU, 16GB and a 12.5" 2880x1920 display it could be the answer for my prayers here! Granted, EUR 500 is not cheap, but this is more in laptop than tablet territory, and combining this with the flexibility of using it as a (very powerful) tablet would more than justify its price.
I see it comes with a 38Wh battery. Does it really work for up to 12h with that battery? That would put its power consumption at just a little over 3W, which is astounding for such a machine.
Does suspend and resume from Linux work 100%? That way, when the battery is gone I can suspend it and resume where I left off when I have access to a charger.
Also, how well do its USB-C ports work? Well enough to connect a USB-C to USB-A powered hub and connect a bunch of HDDs to that hub?
EDIT: just noticed you used the word ātemptedā, meaning you donāt have one yet Seems I was just a little bit too excited and so I skipped that word when I first read your message
Then there are the Framework āopen hardwareā laptops.
Expensive, but designed to be customizable, expandable, and repairable by the end user.
Even available in kit form.
All the Best,
Jeff https://frame.work/marketplace/laptops
Got a Surface Go laptop last year, touch screen and keyboard, pretty neat stuff. I check email and look up stuff on the internet that I want to learn about. Thatās it. I try and use it as little as possible. Though I do enjoy the handful of forums I check in on.
The laptop updated itself to Win11 shortly after I got it. Itās okay. Again, I donāt use computers much at all. Well except work.
In the early ages of the internet I messed with Linux. Got busy with kids and never really stuck with it. I use to love using DOS and LYNX for browsing back in the 9600baud days.
Iām personally a PC guy, mainly because Iām used to using a PC from a young age and never had the need or incentive for switching to a MAC. (Besides from the fact that I donāt want to pay for the āApple premiumā and I donāt agree with Appleās anti (3rd party) repair and lack of upgradeability.)
Iāve also been a PC gamer whole my life, so that (in general) also rules Apple/MAC out. In the past I mainly bought pre-build PC, but something like 5(?) years ago I built my first ācustomā (gaming) PC, with all the ābells and whistlesā.
Today I actually recieved the (expensive) parts for a (necessary) upgrade of my PC: a new graphics card and power supply! (GPU: Sapphire Pulse RX 6700 XT and PSU: Seasonic GX-750).
Yup, it is sure nice to be able to do āmodularā upgrades on a PC. The tower case (modded for better cooling) has been around for like 20 years. Many, many power supplies, motherboard/cpu and video card changes.
But my tweaking compulsion has subsided. I have had a whole set of parts for an upgrade sitting here for months (MOBO, GPU, RAM, M2 TB drive). One day I will install themā¦ . Thing is, my 6-7 year old stuff (maybe 2 year old video card) is still more power than I use, and it just works.
You can rule out most of this with an Apple machineā¦ Not to mention their āwalled gardenā crap.
Though I am a bit jealous of the latest versions of their hardware. If they would just sell parts (MOBO CPU) that are OS agnosticā¦ Yeah, never going to happen.
More like walled prison.
Hard drive soldered to the motherboard?
Really?
And no repair by 3rd party. Even when Apple is incapable/incompetent of fixing their stuff.
If I treated my customers like that I wouldnāt have lasted a year in the PC-verse.
All the Best,
Jeff
But battery life sucks at maybe 6 to 7 hours ( in performance mode)ā¦ and it gets real hot (i have seen 92 C on the CPU) so I run it throttled back most of the time. PIA battery replacement. But after 4 years it has been solid. AND, with it plugged in running full out, it is a beast. Easily running 5 VMs in VMWare workstation (Win 10).
Seems I was just a little bit too excited and so I skipped that word when I first read your message 
