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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • I have a different Boox product, the low-end Poke Lite (I think version 4?).

    Pros:

    • E-paper display is easy on the eyes
    • Customizable backlight temperature and brightness
    • Runs arbitrary Android apps
    • Battery for days
    • Can install open-source reading apps like Librera
    • Still receiving software updates after a few years

    Cons:

    • Only runs Android 11
    • Installing Google Play requires jumping through some weird hoops, because it’s not Google certified. I recommend using F-Droid instead, or using a throwaway google account to avoid this security liability.
    • Built-in apps kind of suck in general
    • Home screen strongly pushes their own ecosystem, shoving regular Android apps into a different section
    • Most apps look like ass on a B&W display
    • Most apps look like ass on a 4:3 display (not applicable to the Palma)
    • The various display refresh modes are unintuitive

    The newer models, from what I understand, use faster-refreshing display tech, and some even support color.








  • Probably ~15TB through file-level syncing tools (rsync or similar; I forget exactly what I used), just copying my internal RAID array to an external HDD. I’ve done this a few times, either for backup purposes or to prepare to reformat my array. I originally used ZFS on the array, but converted it to something with built-in kernel support a while back because it got troublesome when switching distros. Might switch it to bcachefs at some point.

    With dd specifically, maybe 1TB? I’ve used it to temporarily back up my boot drive on occasion, on the assumption that restoring my entire system that way would be simpler in case whatever I was planning blew up in my face. Fortunately never needed to restore it that way.




  • YES.

    And not just the cloud, but internet connectivity and automatic updates on local machines, too. There are basically a hundred “arbitrary code execution” mechanisms built into every production machine.

    If it doesn’t truly need to be online, it probably shouldn’t be. Figure out another way to install security patches. If it’s offline, you won’t need to worry about them half as much anyway.