I suppose the most tangible benefit I get out of it is embedding a custom initramfs into the kernel and using it as an EFI stub. And I usually disable module loading and compile in everything I need, which feels cleaner. Also I make sure to tune the settings for my CPU and GPU, enable various virtualization options, and force SELinux to always remain active, among other things.

I have this device and use it to store my keepassxc and onlykey backups, and it’s useful to me because I’ve stopped using passwords (I only need to remember the pins for these devices which can unlock my keepass dbs that have everything else).

It seems secure enough for my use case, especially since the files I store in it are themselves encrypted (the onlykey backup still requires a pin), but I still want them to be difficult to access.

I’ve had to rely on it before but only because I didn’t prepare a backup onlykey ahead of time- ideally it should be one of many recovery methods. But so far it’s worked great for me.

Maybe try programming? It’s incredibly exciting once you get the hang of it. It can be frustrating at times but it’s really rewarding. Since becoming my hobby/job its given me an endless source of things to do at home. Plus it can open up new career paths :)

mpd + ncmpcpp

Yes! Awk is great, I use it all the time for text processing problems that are beyond the scope of normal filters but aren’t worth writing a whole program for. It’s pretty versatile, and you can split expressions up and chain them together when they get too complicated. Try piping the output into sh sometime. It can be messy though and my awk programs tend to be write-only

Yeah for me it’s been great and I do essentially leave it plugged in the whole time I’m using my PC (attached to my keys). It does require a pin entered each boot, so leaving it in would still offer security. But as someone else mentioned getting kwallet PAM working would make things easier in any case

Lol. I press a button on the device (which I unlocked with a pin before boot), but it would be nice to have the DB unlock automatically

Personally, I’ve relied on an OnlyKey for a few years (with backups and an extra fallback device) and haven’t needed to type passwords since. This doesn’t help with the number of prompts, but it does make them easier to dismiss.

I do use autologin, but I don’t use a system wallet (only KeePassXC, which I do need to unlock manually). Autologin with system wallets can be tricky, but I’ve had some luck setting it up in the past. You might want to check out this wiki for PAM configuration.

I usually use Awk to do the heavy lifting within my Bash scripts (e.g. arg parsing, filtering, stream transformation), or I’ll embed a Node.JS script for anything more advanced. In some cases, I’ll use eval to process generated bash syntax, or I’ll pipe into sh (which can be a good way to set up multiprocessing). I’ve also wanted to try zx, but I generally just stick to inlining since it saves a dependency.

I started by writing small scripts to automate things, but really got into it after learning how fun it can be to make the computer do stuff. I also see it as a kind of creative outlet, but in general I just want to learn how to fix anything in software if I’m not satisfied with how it works.

I use LUKS-encrypted LVM volumes to store everything (and transfer via SSH or HTTPS), but would use GPG if I needed to encrypt individual files.

Ah good to know! Will try that if I ever run into issues, thanks

I’ve been using it for years and I think it’s great. Currently on a 6 Pro. It’s true that some apps don’t work without Google Play services, but GrapheneOS has the option to install the google stuff in a sandbox, so you shouldn’t run into any issues if you do that. Personally, I don’t use Play services unless I need to, and use Aurora store for any apps that aren’t on F-Droid.

In any case, you can always revert to stock or try another OS

Edit: as faede has pointed out, it appears that Google Wallet has issues. Also, the usage docs mention issues with banking apps in general, so that’s something to consider

If you’re willing to spend the time to learn how to write custom policies, SELinux can be used for this, to some extent. It’s highly customizable and can sandbox your apps, but the process of doing so is quite complicated. I wrote a small guide on custom policy management on Gentoo in another comment if you’re interested.

There’s also apparently a “sandbox” feature, but I don’t know much about it. I just write my own policies and make them as strict as possible.

As an example, my web browser can’t access my home directory or anything except its own directories, and nobody (including my own user), except root and a few select processes (gpg, gpg-agent, git, pass) can access my gnupg directory.

This only covers security/permissions, and doesn’t include many of the other benefits of containerization or isolation. You could also try KVM with libvirt and Gentoo VMs; that works pretty well (despite update times) and I did that for a while with some success.

I’m happy with it so far! No swipe typing, and it’s pretty difficult to land on the right key, but I’ve found that I’m getting better at using it with time, especially after customizing it to my liking

For vegetables I throw everything into a big stew with a lot of different things (kale, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, potato, mushrooms, tofu, garlic, beans), lots of hot sauce, seasoning, olive oil, etc. and eat the same thing every day, for the most part. I don’t eat enough fruit but I do have a handful of dried fruit with oats every day

I learned by watching a bunch of cppcon videos, reading cppreference, and writing a lot of programs. Learning how to understand the error messages is also really important

Ah true! Thanks, yeah that’s a better way to do that. It seems I’ve developed a bad habit of going into visual more often than I need to- will keep an eye out for that

As a Vim/NeoVim user my number one reason is speed. There’s a pretty steep learning curve, but it doesn’t take long to see noticeable improvements.

Aside from terminal applications generally running faster than GUI ones, there is a tremendous amount of flexibility that it offers when it comes to actual text editing. For example, you learn how to type things like _f(vi(cfoo _f(ci(foo^† which goes to the beginning of the line, finds the first open parens, selects everything inside of the parens expression, then replaces that text with “foo”. After a while these kinds of inputs become second nature, and you can start using them to construct macros on the fly that can be applied to different places in your code.

One major downside is that it can take some configuration to get working the way you want it, especially if you want an IDE-like environment. NeoVim comes with a built-in LSP interface, which I’ve been able to get working pretty well for all of the languages that I use the most, but it’s still kind of a pain to configure.

I’m sure Emacs is similar, but I’ve never used it. I don’t think many people use Nano unless they need to edit something in a terminal but don’t know how to use Vim. On that note, being comfortable with a terminal editor means that you’ll have no problem if you’re SSH-ing into a server or using the TTY console.

^† _f(ci(foo avoids an unnecessary mode change, see comment below

Nice :). It’s pretty basic but has just enough configuration options for what I need. It’s basically just an app drawer and favorites drawer, but you can set the favorites drawer to never close and the app drawer to never open.

The UI tools are pretty limited and I had to play around with a screenshot in GIMP and re-arrange the exported settings file in order to get my favorites ordered as desired (possible without doing that, but slow). But since setting it up everything has been pretty smooth