Eric S. Raymond

Good: split your time between activities and reading something as satisfying as the things you “devour”. To that end, I would plus one Hackers (Levy) and Code (Petzold). Also, the Cathedral and the Bazaar by esr

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/

and other things from esr at

http://www.catb.org/~esr/

including the aforementioned jargon file. Here’s one I hadn’t stumbled on before, ‘Things Every Hacker Once Knew’

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/things-every-hacker-once-knew/

For an activity ymmv depending on how much time you can spend; an alternative to building a computer from scratch, or an OS from scratch, is to buy a vintage cheapie running cp/m or dos, something where the OS isn’t abstracting memory management for you. Growing up in the 80s, I think managing my own memory and _everything_ that implies was the greatest teacher.

> This is why we intend to build MLS into Google Messages and support its wide deployment across the industry by open sourcing our implementation in the Android codebase.

Weeeell…

Let's just say that this might also be a very smart move on Google's part, a classic "using Open as a weapon" strategy that sidesteps their historic issues with "yet another (cancelled) messaging app" by baking the functionality into a lower level of their platform:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/magic-cauldron/ar01s11.html

https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/12/open-source-as-weapon.html

Whether this ultimately solves the "blue vs. green bubbles" issue is an open question, but I suspect they'll (eventually) at least gain some leverage by introducing an equivalent UI affordance that legitimately indicates something like more-/less-/insecure.

I don't agree - I think if the original poster adhered to something like "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: Use meaningful, specific subject headers" [0] then we would not even be having this conversation because the original poster would have found their target audience of Linux Laptop Recommenders rather than a bunch of people that arrived to comment their favorite laptop and found that they were cut off by the original poster with no real explanation for WHY Windows/MacOS are not acceptable.

It would be similar to "Ask HN: Which text editor should I use for software development" with a body that contains "I have no intention of using an IDE or mouse". It's a poorly formed request if your intent is to ask for recommendations amongst the keyboard driven tiled editors.

[0] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#bespecific

I didn't organically encounter it [0], but my favourite is probably

* You are not expected to understand this.

I find the ultimately misplaced confidence [1] of the comment quietly inspiring, in the context of who wrote it. Even the titans of yesteryear fallaciously convince themselves that, hey, the code works fine, let's get going, and consequently have to bash their heads against some weird quirk they're unintentionally exploiting (and then just rewrite the whole thing).

[0] http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Y/You-are-not-expected-to-understand-this.html

[1] https://archive.is/eeYMW <- this is the dead hyperlink "explained this in detail" in the Hacker's Dictionary link above

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lions%27_Commentary_on_UNIX_6th_Edition,_with_Source_Code#%22You_are_not_expected_to_understand_this%22

Comically my favorite reference is a paper fold out cheat sheet I got 30 years ago. I’d link you to the company but it’s in my office gathering dust for the past year. I could find it through googling and don’t want to point you to one I don’t know about.

Beyond man, I use a very inefficient system of googling “man ls” (or whatever) and using the example sites, and end up using Linux.die.net [0] the most and find it easier to use than the actual man command.

And I found ESR’s guides [1] really helpful for understanding just how stuff works.

I’m sure I would drive a proper Unix user/sysadmin fits, but I just never am root and always have a backup to restore when I break stuff. So it’s hard for me to really break something.

[0] https://linux.die.net/man
[1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch10s05.html

Even though I'm a big admirer of keyboard-driven interfaces, I don't think mouse should be eliminated. Mouse can be better than keyboard for some tasks.

The problem I see is: a lot of things that non-modal, GUI interfaces use mouse for can be better done with a keyboard.

For example, all sorts of drop-down menus and icons that you click on to launch programs. This kind of interface is inherently synchronous: the computer suggests, you pick. To me, it's way more natural to asyncronously type in what I want without having my attention hijacked by whatever suggestions my machine has (sometimes those actually make me forget what I was trying to do in the first place). I love the related metaphor ESR came up with in his Unix Coans [1].

[1]: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html