Snowflake Challenge #8

[ratcreature]

Challenge #8: In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.

Well, this is depressing. I didn't accomplish anything beyond survival in 2021. Even my book reading declined by more than half compared to 2020, to 72 from 150 books. I guess that I managed to stick with posting my reading in the Wednesday Reading Meme for a while was something? Before my reading fell off a cliff that is.

I baked a lot of Christmas cookies that I gave as gifts throughout December?

And not that getting Linux to work on my new laptop went particularly well, but I am proud that I managed to get both Adobe Digital Editions and Kindle to run under Linux on my new laptop via various different layers of windows emulation and several days of tinkering (because they would not both work with just one kind), and I wrangled a kernel update outside the distribution update cycle to get my wireless network controller to work. Standby/sleep is still borked though.

Comments

[mithun]

I baked a lot of Christmas cookies that I gave as gifts throughout December?

Frankly I think that sounds really lovely! And I'm impressed by your Linux herding skills. Multiple layers of Windows emulation sounds like advanced magic (to me, who used to give up if something didn't run in Wine, back when I was using Ubuntu).

[ratcreature]

The cookies were well received. I made seven different kinds (different Lebkuchen, Zimtsterne, Vanillekipferl etc. etc.) and my grocery bill skyrocketed because of all the expensive nuts, but several people commented that they were tastier than store bought.

The ADE and Kindle thing I ran into when setting up my new laptop was such a nonsense, and just because I want use my ebooks under Linux. Kindle would only run under PlayOnLinux not under wine directly but ADE only under wine itself but not in PlayOnLinux. And the underlying wine version that I got to work was different for both. It all required trying so many different combinations of versions of wine, winetricks, windows python, python crypto libraries, and the Calibre DeDRM plugin... But I can now still buy and open ebooks from both Amazon and Kobo under my Linux and in my non-Kindle reader.

But it certainly reminded me why I keep computers for their maximum lifetime, and it's not just not wanting to wreck the environment unnecessarily or being frugal, but the incredible hassle that always happens with one thing or another.

[mithun]

several people commented that they were tastier than store bought.
I bet they were! They sound amazing.

Ugh, that's a lot of hoops to jump through! I can only imagine how great it must have felt when it finally started working. :D

[ratcreature]

It ended with much trepidation because by the end I wasn't even sure anymore what exactly I had tweaked differently when it finally all worked, and I just didn't touch anything further...

[senmut]

You mod the art rec community. YOU BROUGHT JOY to so many people by encouraging the sharing of art. It can be so hard for non-artists to find and appreciate fan art these days, and YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Thank you.

[ratcreature]

Aw, that's sweet. I didn't consider it as possible accomplishment to list for 2021, because it's already a decade old, and I didn't post any recs myself. But I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[brokenhighways]

I didn't accomplish anything beyond survival in 2021

This is a fine accomplishment - and the most important. Don't feel bad that you didn't read as many books, 72 is still amazing! I'd love to read that many!

[ratcreature]

Yeah. Everyday life is stuck on hard mode right now. I mean, one personal highlight 2021 was definitely managing to get vaxxed as early as I could and then finding a booster opportunity on the 29th December. The latter in particular took some effort.

[kingstoken]

Surviving is a perfectly valid thing to have accomplished in these times

[ratcreature]

Yeah. I'm not particularly ambitious at the best of times, and these are definitely not that.

[spikedluv]

beyond survival in 2021

That's an accomplishment in and of itself. Also, cookies. *g* (Wrangling Linux also sounds pretty daunting to me, so kudos for that.)

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I certainly didn't feel guilty about extra helpings of cookies. We all deserve some for making it through the last year. More than the usual mid-winter ration you need just on account of it being dark and dreary.

[mesotablar]

Wow on the technology front! I always do some minor customisation to Windows but Windows 10 messed everything up, yet I haven't yet jumped into Linux but it sounds finicky

[ratcreature]

Well, modern Linux distributions have gotten a lot better about working out of the box, but if you are unlucky and something doesn't work automatically it can get really finicky.

If you want to just try whether Linux will work on your computer, putting Ubuntu (or another user friendly distribution) on an USB stick and trying it out without installing anything is a good idea. If all your hardware and periphery (graphic tablets, printers, scanners, bluetooth speakers, whatever) works then, it's likely you will have a smooth permanent installation too. If it doesn't work, it's still likely that you can get it to work in a permanent installation, but you will likely have to tinker, and it can get very frustrating especially if you aren't familiar with Linux and don't enjoy making the workings of your computer a hobby in their own right.

[mesotablar]

Thanks for the info. I don't work with a lot of wireless peripherals or syncing with phones/tablets so I think I might come to less problems than most people. Though I will say tinkering with my computer workings is more of a dreaded task I learned the skill set for by trying to keep my old laptops alive - Hey, the 14 year old still gets the job done (sometimes)

[ratcreature]

You should then try it first on one of your older computers. Their hardware is likely better supported under Linux than the newest. Like, the problems I had with my wireless were because my new laptop used a relatively new chipset that wasn't supported in the kernel yet. It was in the later ones, but that wasn't the one in the stable long term support ubuntu (which I picked to not need distribution upgrades any time soon).

With much older laptops you might want to pick one of the more minimalist window managers for your GUI since the default ones can be somewhat of a resource hog to include fancy graphic effects and such.

[mesotablar]

Good to know, especially about being resource hogs. I like everything to be as light as possible because only my newest computer uses SSD and I've gotten used to the speed. I have a 7 year old laptop I can play around with...and I realise now that there is a 7 year gap in age between all my computer purchases!

[tassosss]

Survival this past year was an accomplishment. I'm not just saying that; it was a hard year in the world.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I agree, which is why I mentioned it, but it's still not something that I feel "went well" or gives much of a sense of personal accomplishment in the way the challenge prompts. Which is why I found it a bit depressing to look over 2021 for this challenge.

[tsuki_no_bara]

honestly, sometimes "i survived this year" is enough. and you did survive! which is worth patting yourself on the back for. also, you baked cookies. :D

[ratcreature]

Yeah, it's true that just making it through another year is worth celebrating in itself. Though it's more of a necessary baseline for challenge participation rather than noteworthy occurrence.

[svgurl]

Survival is more than enough, any year, but especially during these past two. That is something to be proud of. Also Christmas cookies! I think cookies are worth celebrating too and I bet the people who received them as gifts feel the same way. :D

[ratcreature]

Well, survival is one of these "necessary but not sufficient" conditions for posts in the first place though (well, unless you set up autoposting, I guess).

I mean, I take your point that managing to make it through another year is a win in itself, and more so right now considering how many more than usual didn't, but it's still kind of the implied baseline of meme participation.