Now, Nate, who's on the podcast with me, told
me that Papa West is the best thing ever. And
he will tell everybody that it's the best distro.
It's what he uses. He swears by it. So I don't
really care for Papa West all that much. I just
think it's an older version of Debian, actually.
I'll make a sponsored video if you just give
me the desk. But you have to make a 10 minute
long video. What is your audience going to think?
They're going to call you a sellout. I don't
care. I don't care. I would have happily taken
their desk. I actually had to give them my actual
address. So I thought, well, you know what? I'm
going to get killed. That was definitely a serial
killer. It's given up. Have you ever told it?
Claude does it better or Deep Seek does it better.
I told Claude, I actually told Claude that today.
I told him you're way better than chat GPT. If
you're listening to this as a podcast, remember
that it was originally recorded as a video. If
you're not following along, you can go to my
YouTube channel. My username is Linkarzu. And
if you want to support me to keep this podcast
going, you can donate in Ko -fi. I'm going to
leave a link in the description. All right. So
let's get started with this chapter then. Hey,
Matt. How's it going? Hi there. How are you doing?
I'm doing good, man. Thanks for coming on today
and sharing with us. Sure, sure, sure. I guess
most of my audience knows you, right? Because
if you search for Linux, three people are going
to show up usually. That's going to be you. DistroTube
shows up a lot of the times in Brody, right?
So I have watched your videos. who you are, basically.
So my name is Matt. I run a Linux channel called
the LinuxCast, very creatively named. Mostly
it's just regular content, but we do a podcast
every week as well, which is why we call it the
LinuxCast. Everything else is just kind of Linux
-related stuff. I try distros, applications,
stuff like that. So yeah, that's pretty much
it. Also, that's an awesome keyboard. Oh, yeah.
Which one? We can talk about keyboards in a little
while. Oh, definitely. Hey, you put a keyboard
on the screen. I'm going to get distracted by
it. So you can't blame me for that. Yeah. And
what is. I've noticed that you have a podcast
you mentioned, right? So I'm always curious,
like, so is the Linux cast like. a crew or is
it just you or how does that work is it more
than one people so it's me uh drew who does just
the guy linux on youtube um and nate who's nate
picks tech world we do it together and then there's
another guy tyler who's zany on youtube he's
there every once in a while so there's four of
us who do it normally and then we have guests
every once in a while like this past week we
had nick from the linux experiment on so yeah
but the channel is yours right or is it a channel's
mine yep Oh, okay, okay, okay. So I'm looking
at your videos here and you talk about Linux,
home labbing, NixOS. I'm curious about NixOS.
And recently, macOS. You have, let's see, 67
,000 subscribers. How did it all get started?
Like, why did you decide that you wanted to start
doing YouTube? And how did it become so popular?
Because it's a big channel. OK, so I've been
the Linux cast itself started in 2017 when one
of my friends and I decided we're going to switch
to Linux. And at that point, there was no YouTube
channel. We just did it as an audio podcast because
he and I've been podcasting since 2009 for something
else. And we just decided we're going to switch
to Linux and make a podcast about it. So that's
really how I started the podcast was because
I switched to Linux because of, you know, a friend.
We did it for a little while. I stayed using
Linux. He really didn't. So the podcast kind
of fell down. Not very many episodes. And then
just kind of like none at all for like two years.
And then I hopped into the analytics on Spotify
for the podcast and realized people were actually
listening to the podcast. There were many years
old at that point. I was like, you know what?
Maybe I should start doing this again. I'm going
to say like mid 2020, like halfway through the
pandemic, you know, we're all at home. I really
had nothing to do. I was still using Linux full
time. So I was like, I'm going to start the podcast
again. And then in September of that year, I
decided I needed to put the podcast up in another
place. So I started a YouTube channel. And at
first it was just the podcast. And then December,
the pandemic got worse a little bit. I had more
time on my hands. So I started making videos
and basically that's, it got probably by, I'm
going to say late February of 2020. Okay. I have
the, I have the years wrong. So that was December,
2020. I believe it's in March, 2021. Yeah. March,
2021 district tube shouted me out on his channel.
I went from 400 subscribers to about 1400 subscribers
in a day. And then since then, it's just kind
of grown slowly but steadily. I mean, I'm not
like going to be Mr. Beast anytime soon, but,
you know, it's just slow and steady. And yeah,
now I've been on, you know, Brody's podcast a
couple of times. I've been I've talked to Nick
and a few other people and it's kind of that's
the way it's been. So really, it's all DistroTube's
fault that I'm where I'm at. I blame him. Yeah,
but it's 67 ,000. That's a lot. Has it, like
you mentioned, has it been growing gradually
or have you had more like bumps, like big bumps
in subscribers or has it been like steady the
whole time? There have been a few big bumps.
So I had one video. on the live display manager
that went viral you know it got like 200 000
views and that ended up getting you know that
ended up getting like two or three thousand extra
subscribers quite quickly um but other than that
it's been very slow and steady like 30 or 40
a day and it just grows every once in a while
i'll have a big day every once in a while At
least there for a while, I was getting like,
you know, 10 subscribers sometimes, you know,
and that was a slow day. And then I have 14 or
15. It was last year was my best year where I
was averaging between 60 and 100 a day. It's
slowed down since then just because my life has
gotten a lot busier. I haven't been making as
many videos. Have you ever felt like discouraged
to stop doing YouTube or something or you're
just all in to YouTube? kind of right now to
be honest with you i'm at a point now where i
feel like i don't want to talk about distros
very much anymore i've i'm just kind of i've
been gone on the whole distro review you know
first look thing for a long time and the long
-term reviews which i do like to do but those
take a long time to accomplish and You know,
there's only so many times you can talk about
the big Linux topics. Like, are there too many
Linux distros, you know, Vim versus Emacs or,
you know, the best open source browser or, you
know, whatever. There's only so many topics.
And I feel like, I mean, I have over a thousand
videos and I feel like I've covered everything
that there is to cover. And so it's really hard
sometimes for me to go through and do figure
out what I want to do. And now I've tried, I've
thought about transitioning over to doing more
like. how -to and tutorial content but those
are harder videos to do and they don't hardly
ever do as well because they're more niche you
know they're just like you're only ever going
to view that video if you need to know how to
do that thing and so that's not it's not it doesn't
feel as rewarding because there's it's a lot
more effort for less reward you know so right
i'm at a point right now where i'm still kind
of I feel like I'm on a transitory period where
I need to figure out where I'm going with the
channel next. I still have some content in the
queue or whatever to pop out, and some distros
that I'll end up looking at and stuff. The one
that just kind of really demoralized me the most
was actually the most recent video I did. I did
a NixOS video. I assumed that it was going to
do well, because usually those do. It bombed.
I don't know why, but it did. That's just YouTube.
Sometimes you're like, oh my god, this thing
is going to... It's going to rock, and then all
of a sudden, 10 out of 10, and nobody watched
it. The mysterious ways of the algorithm, you
know? Yeah. Same here, man. It's like, you don't
know what to expect. You know when some of them
are going to be a huge hit. You know, I had four
guests recently. DT was there, DJ, and another
Niobe maintainer, and another Emacs guy. I knew
that was going to be big, but usually... I have
no idea what's going to happen. It's hard to
predict. That's for sure. Yeah. And is YouTube
your full -time job or you do something else
besides it? No. I have another job. I edit words
for a living. I studied history in college. And
for a long time, I was writing for a historical
magazine online. And since then, I've been working
for them. Oh, God. 13 years now, 14 years, something
like that. So it's been a long time since I've
been working for them. And over time, I've just
kind of gotten promoted. Now I edit for them.
So I'm a top editor for them. So I edit other
people's history articles. That's basically what
I do. Interesting. Okay. Okay. I had no idea.
I thought it was going to be related to IT or
something. So it's not at all. I am not at all
good with computers. They don't like me at all.
I pretend to be good at computers on TV, but
I'm not actually good with computers. It's just
like things just go wrong for me all the time.
They wouldn't want me in their server room. First
off, if there was a Windows server in there,
I'd probably overwrite it with Ventoy. And what
does your family think about you doing YouTube?
Like, do they know you're popular? Do they share
it? I think that the vast majority of them think
that it's cute. And that I should probably grow
up and get a real job. Because I don't think
my editing as an editor is actually that much
of a real job either. Because all my family is
like boo -collar guys. You know, they did real
work. for a living like out in the factories
and stuff and you know i sit in front of a computer
all day don't really consider that world world
work but the the youtube part of it i think my
mom is shocked that i make money off from it
uh any amount of money like she she i think she'd
be less shocked if it was like you know all right
you made 10 bucks or whatever but like you know
i mean i made a little bit of money and they're
like she like enough money that I had to claim
it on taxes, right? And she was like, really?
And that was kind of shocking to her. But most
of them, I think, just think it's a hobby, which
is what it is. Yeah, it's a hobby. Is it still
fun, right? Right now, you said that you're in
a transitioning period and you're trying to see
what the channel is going to, you know, be about
in the future, maybe. Do you still find it fun,
you know, to come up with videos? Are you a one
-man band? Do you edit? Do you do everything
or you have someone behind? So I edit all of
my videos. The podcast is edited by Nate, who's
also on the podcast, which I'm eternally grateful
for. That thing's an hour long. I edited it for
years. I don't want to edit. But mostly I'm a
one -man band other than the podcast. As for
do I have fun? Sometimes. Usually the videos
that I have the most fun on are the ones that
do the worst. And so that kind of deters me from
doing the ones I'm interested in. But more I
have fun with the podcast. I have fun with the
Linux user group that I do twice a month. You
know, just a bunch of people getting into a room
and chatting about Linux. That's fun. The more
I have more fun when I have free time, I've been
goaded into trying Emacs again. And I'll tell
you this, I don't hate it this time. So I've
had a lot of fun putting that together. I switched
to NixOS recently because my two -year challenge
on OpenSUSE was over. I've had fun putting that
together. So I feel like in the last month or
so, I've rediscovered Linux a little bit in terms
of the channel. I don't know about the fun part,
but the Linux part, I've actually kind of had
some more fun recently. So, yeah. And how does
it go with analytics? Because I have a problem
with that, man. I limited my, you know, YouTube
analytics application, the YouTube Studio app,
so that I can only see it 15 minutes a day. And
I uninstalled it, but I reinstalled it. And I
just keep coming back to it. I hate it because
it doesn't make a difference. It doesn't change
anything. But it's... Like I don't know it's
tough. Do you do you have a problem with that
or no when I first started? Yes, absolutely.
I think that that's, I think if you start getting
any views, like if you start seeing your videos
get like 50 views, all of a sudden it becomes
a thing. Like, oh my God, I have 50 views. I
got 50 subscribers. You know, I freaked out the
first time one of my videos got like a thousand
views. Like I went crazy. I was in that app probably
every five minutes that day. Like, oh my goodness.
I actually remember the day that DistroTube shouted
me out on his channel. I probably actually just
kept it open, to be honest with you. It was just
like because they could just keep seeing the
views and the numbers go up now I'm like it wasn't
like gonna ever go to him like a million subscribers
But for me going from 400 to 1400 and in 24 hours,
that was crazy I was like, oh my god I just gonna
keep going going and then because you know what
to get monetized on YouTube you have to get to
a thousand subscribers like when I fight The
funny thing is actually think I don't know how
I can show them But I actually have the screenshots
of the YouTube studio app like several times
throughout that day every time I hit like I hit
500. I hit 700. I hit 1 ,000. And then it's crazy.
And then when that live video went viral, I also
did the exact same thing with that. Because it
didn't go viral when I published it. It was like
six months later. I opened it up one morning,
and all of a sudden I had like 30 ,000 views
for that day, which is absurd. And I was like,
what the hell happened? So that day I was like,
I took probably took like 50 screenshots of every
time. Like, oh my God, it just keeps going and
going and going. So yeah, I had a serious problem
looking at that over and over again. And the
subscribers thing was a big thing because it
constantly grows. Like I get more every single
day. And even now I still open it up twice a
day, at least. It's gotten better. I don't open
it up. Like I'm not attached to it. But I do
open it up twice a day, usually in the morning.
I'll see how it did overnight. Usually it's like,
oh, my God, I lost five subscribers. Yeah. And
then, you know, I'll open up at night and see
how the video I published that day I did or,
you know, put a post up or something, you know.
But it's usually just twice a day now, whereas
before. Yeah. All the time. Like constantly needing.
Checked it, refreshed. Like, I don't know if
you ever experienced it, but I have an Android
phone. On the Android phone, sometimes if you
refresh too often, it kind of like freezes. So
you have to like manually kill it in order to
get it there. And that was very frustrating for
me sometimes. So yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's
pretty addictive, that thing. Now, in one of
your videos, you mentioned that you're 40 years
old. Is that correct? Yep, born 1985. Man, you
look pretty young. Everybody says that it's the
baby face. I have actually gotten carded. So
fairly recently, which is hilarious because I
haven't been 21 in 20 years. Oh, yeah. I thought
you were like 30. It was like, yeah, he must
be 30. And when you said 40, I was like 40. And
you look younger than me and I'm 38 right now.
But yeah. I had my gray hairs in the back. Oh,
yeah. Okay. Now, something that I want to discuss
with you is something that I noticed in your
videos as well. Recently, you bought a Mac, right?
So would you mind sharing with us why that happened
and how has the experience been? You love Finder.
Tell me. You love it, right? I hate Finder with
a passion, and anyone who likes it is my mortal
enemy, actually. I've decided this. It is bad.
So I'm a file manager, a connoisseur, I can't
even say the word. I'm the king of file managers.
I'll put that on a shirt. Finder is atrocious
as it gets really really bad I was astonished
to find out that it has tabs because the last
time I used Mac it did not have tabs So kudos
to them. They're actually adding tabs. It took
them about as long as it as Windows did with
Windows Explorer but overall the Mac's fine I
had a Very hard time getting NFS set up on it
because my videos are always stored somewhere
else and I was gonna do the editing on it so
you want you asked why I bought it because I
have become attached to DaVinci Resolve. And
DaVinci Resolve on Linux is, well, it's garbage.
It's not very good at all. Specifically installing
it. Installing it is very, very difficult, especially
if you're on certain distros. Maybe I'll talk
about that here in a minute. At the time I was
on OpenSUSE, I installed it with DaVinci Box.
It worked for a little while. And then an update
came through and it stopped working. I tried
multiple things. I tried installing it on the
hardware here. I tried installing it on the other
hard drive on another distro. I tried installing
it on another computer that I have that had an
NVIDIA card in it. Because usually the NVIDIA
stuff will work. Nothing worked. Now, Nate, who's
on the podcast with me, told me that Pop OS is
the best thing ever. And he will tell everybody
that it's the best distro. It's what he uses.
He swears by it. I don't really care for Papa
West all that much. I just think it's an older
version of Debian, actually. But it's not actually.
Don't tell him I said that. Anyways. He got burned.
Yeah. But anyway, so I installed Papa West on
there. I did get DaVinci Resolve installed, but
it wouldn't run. So after messing around for
like three weeks, trying to get Resolve to work
on Linux and having to suffer through the indignity
of using Kdenlive, which Kdenlive is not actually
that bad, but once you've used Resolve, it's
really, really hard to go back. I decided I'm
going to buy a Mac. I found a fairly good deal.
I got one of those little M4 Mac minis and then
proceeded to ruin the deal by ending up having
to get an SSD to go along with it because that
ballooned the cost up and I ended up having to
get a stand to go with it and all the accoutrement
to go with it. And I got that set up and moved
the monitor over and gave it a dedicated setup,
had its own keyboard and everything. And turned
it on and I was like, well, this is pretty, but
almost useless for me. It just feels useless
to me. And it's not that it actually is. It's
just that it's very constrained more than I'm
used to. I'm used to doing whatever I want. I'm
used to doing things in a certain way. I'm used
to when I want to actually use. Say, for example,
I mentioned NFS. NFS is hard to set up on macOS
because the macOS user is not actually 1 ,000
like Linux is. macOS users is 500. And that means
you have to go back to your Linux machine and
basically create Mac its own user on Linux in
order for you to share between two things. It
has to be a member of the NFS groups and everything
that's associated with it in order for that to
actually work. Otherwise, you can get to any
NFS, but it's all it's all read only. So it took
me probably three or four days to figure that
out. And a ton of trips to chat GPT because there's
there's very few people actually apparently who'd
share files between Mac and Linux and especially
with NFS. Now, Samba, there's a lot more like
documentation out there, but I can't stand Samba.
So I had to use NFS. But anyways, yeah, that
that was. That was probably the hardest part.
Resolve, though, worked fantastically well. Like,
exactly how it should, had all the codecs and
stuff, which you never experience on Linux, no
matter how well you get it to run. And I think
the other thing that I had the biggest problem
with was the scrolling. And it's not the direction
of the scrolling, it's just you have to install...
Like, I have a MX Master... I don't actually
use this very often. I use an Elcom Huge as my
main. But for that setup, I was going to use
the regular mouse. And in order for the scrolling
to work very well, you have to install the Logitech
software. This is a new experience for me because
on Linux, it just works, which is a weird thing
to say, right? Usually in Mac and Windows, it
just works. But there I had to install the software.
On Linux, it worked fine. And I don't know if
you've ever experienced Logitech software or
not, but it's basically like installing a Trojan
horse onto your computer. I have it installed
on Mac. You cannot uninstall it easily. And it
pops up all the time. Like you did an update
yesterday. Why do I need to do an update again?
I don't understand. It's so stupid. How often
are you updating this thing? I cannot uninstall
it because it comes with an uninstaller. I don't
know where the uninstaller went. So now I don't
use the Logitech, what, microphone? Is it a microphone?
I think. But I cannot install that thing. So
I just disabled it and it's just whatever. It's
running there still. Even if you reinstalled
Mac OS, it'd still find its way on your computer
somehow. It's like a cockroach. It can't die.
Yeah, so overall experience on macOS was fine.
I'm in a situation right now where I don't actually
need it, which is hilarious, because when you
arranged this podcast, I was still using it basically
every day to edit videos. But since then, I've
switched to NixOS, and NixOS has Resolve in the
repositories. You can just install it from the
repositories, and it works. It works. It doesn't
have the codecs that you want, which is fine,
and the update. This that came down murdered
it. But, you know, I managed to fix that. OK.
But anyways, yeah, I have a Mac. It's for sale.
Oh, so you're done with the Mac already. I'm
not. OK, so probably not. I'm going to keep it
as a back because, like I said, Resolve is notoriously
flaky on Linux. Like eventually, like yesterday
afternoon, I did an update on Nexos. And I went
from 20 .0 to 20 .0 .1 on Resolve. And I booted
into it today to edit a video. I already had
the project saved. So I double -clicked on the
project. Usually it just loads up. Today, it
froze. And for the life of me, I couldn't figure
out what was going on. I opened it up in the
terminal and thought maybe I'd see some errors
or something. And I hopped on AI again to see
if they could help me out. I called one of my
NixOS friends. And basically, you know, it was
just a bad update. So I had to learn how to go
back. But my point is that yesterday, if you'd
asked me, absolutely, I'm selling the Mac because
it's expensive. I get my $100 back. But with
the experience I had today with Resolve, I think
I better keep it because if I have to edit a
video and Resolve does its Resolveness. I probably
better have something that I can edit videos
on. But right now, it's literally not on. It
is connected to my KVM switch, which I probably
will end up changing because sometimes that has
problems with connectivity with the keyboard
or whatever. But I may end up putting it on its
own monitor again or something. I don't know.
Just in case you decide to keep it. I hate Finder
as well. It sucks. It's terrible. We could be
friends. Yeah, it's terrible. I gave it a try
and I tried to use it for a long time. Now, I
finally gave up. There's this tool. If you see
my screen right now. It's a finder alternative.
It's called Forklift. It's not free, you know,
but it comes in a subscription that I paid for,
so I just installed it. And it has a dual pane
thing, right? So on each pane, you can have multiple
tabs. You can have the thingy on the side, the
preview on the other side, and you can hide them.
So if you ever want to... better finder on macOS,
I would recommend this one probably. I haven't,
I tried another one and it was really buggy.
It was horrible. This one works decently. It
looks very nice. I will, so I know you're a little
disappointed that I'm no longer like a Mac user,
but so, but we can talk about my previous Mac
experience if you want. So back in college. I
was a full -time Mac user. Like I used Mac full
-time. I had one of the white clamshell Macs
for a couple of years because every university
student had to have one. They like threw those
things at us at Michigan State. Like every six
weeks or whatever, they would have like a deal
at the computer store. Like you can have one
of these for like $400. Like, okay, well, hand
me two. And then when I got out of college, I
bought a 2009 iMac. one of the big chunky boys,
before they did the remake. So I was a Mac user.
Granted, I'd been out of college for 15 years,
so it's been a minute. But back then, just because
we were talking about Finder, because Finder
was worse back then. It was really bad. Because
they didn't even have tabs back then. There was
one called, I believe it was called Pathfinder.
Oh, I tried that one and it was buggy. That is
the one that I tried. Well, it may not be still
maintained or something because it's been around
for a very long time. But that thing, you could
attach like seven panes. You get seven panes
all over the place and had a built -in terminal.
It was amazing. It was also like $80, I think.
That was before the whole subscription mania
where everything was a subscription. You know,
I paid for that. I was like, oh, that's awesome.
Actually, when I think of the best file manager
of all time, that's the one that I think of because
you can have all the panes. You can put them
wherever basically you want. It worked really,
really well. Now my favorite is Crusader, but
even then I don't use that anymore. I just use
Ranger. It's just faster. And it's a terminal
-based one, right? Ranger or, okay. And you can
use it on Mac as well. Yeah, probably. I'm sure
you can install it with Brew because it's just
a Python program, so it's not anything special.
But on the Mac, I just have Ranger on there,
or Finder. The thing is, I spent money on the
hardware. And I just had no interest in spending
any more money on it. So I knew that there were
alternatives to Finder out there. I knew about
Pathfinder, but I'm sure my license is long since
gone. Even if it was like an eternal license,
I doubt very much I could go find it because
I've changed email since then. So I would have
had to buy it again. And I just had no interest
in spending any money whatsoever in the Mac App
Store. Now, I did have an iPhone. I've had iPhones
off and on over the course of the last 10 years.
So I have an Apple account. I have a lot of iOS
software. But I don't have a lot of Mac software
anymore. Because last time I used it, the Mac
App Store wasn't even a thing. Getting in there,
I did explore. I got some free stuff. I downloaded
a Mastodon client. Toodles, I think was the name
of the app. I don't even remember. I downloaded
Vivaldi, but that wasn't in the App Store because
everything you want isn't actually in the App
Store. Firefox wasn't in the App Store. Yeah,
that sucks. The App Store completely and 100
% sucks. do everything through brew and the app
store. I, I never use it unless I have like no
choice at all, but I rather go to the website
and download it from there than using the app
store. I will. Okay. So I will say that the way
Mac installs programs, like traditionally, not
like brew, but like being able to, you get a
DMG or whatever it is, and it pops up this window
and says, here, drag this from here to there.
It's installed. Congratulations. You know, that's,
that is, that is like, the way app images was
supposed to be. And the fact that they didn't
do that is really weird. But that's like the
greatest way to install a program ever. Like
you just download this thing, you drag it into
your applications folder, it installs. You don't
have to worry about dependencies or anything
like that. It just installs. That's probably
the greatest part about Mac is just you can do
that. And no other, like Windows still has wizards
that look like they were developed in 1998. You
just hit next. All the time. Yeah, yeah. And
here's a 12 -page EULA that nobody's actually
going to read. And excuse me, would you like
it if we closed Windows Explorer and attempted
to relaunch? If you can't relaunch, you have
to reboot. Of course, and then afterwards, you
have to reboot. So Windows hasn't got it. Linux,
I love Linux because obviously, you know, Linux
nerd. It has 12 million different ways of installing
packages, and none of them are the best. None
of them are the worst. They're just what they
are. So the fact that the best part of the Mac
was the way it installs packages, just being
able to draw it. Now, some of the applications
eschewed that. DaVinci Resolve installs with
a wizard. A couple of other ones install with
a wizard, just like it's a Windows program. But
most of the time, you just drag it over. And
that's a very good experience. That's the way
installing applications should work. But Mac
is the only one that actually does that, which
is disappointing. There's another small application
that I want to just share with you just in case
that you decide to give it a try. It's called
Trickster. It changed the way that I work in
Mac. I don't even use the Finder too much now.
But if I bring it up, in my case, I just type
G and it comes up. So it monitors whatever folders
you want to monitor, right? So let's say that
I stop recording this video. And I bring this
app. It's going to show up there so I can drag
it to DaVinci, for example. Right. Or if I download
a photo and I save it in my downloads, it's in
since it's monitoring that folder as well. And
I show up here in this trickster little app and
I can drag it to whatever, whatever I want to
upload it. Right. So for video editing and media
related stuff, it's kind of useful just in case.
You want to keep it in mind as well. What do
you use to edit your stuff? DaVinci as well.
DaVinci. You're one of us then. Good luck ever
leaving. You're not leaving the cult, man. Yeah.
That way it's easy to transition into Linux if
I ever do. Now, regarding NexOS. What happened
there? Okay, so. I do these challenges. Basically,
it's a challenge. So I'm a big distro hopper,
or at least I was. I love to install Linux and
move from distro to distro. But at a certain
point, I just got sick of it. And I wanted to
challenge myself to get out of that habit. So
two years ago, I challenged myself to use the
same distro for two years. That was OpenSUSE
Tumbleweed. And in July, that two years was up.
I won that challenge. I'm very happy to say that.
But I wanted to challenge myself again because
OpenSUSE was very, very good. I always show the
sticker on my videos. I got myself an OpenSUSE
sticker. I need to get myself a NixOS sticker
so I can equal opportunity. But basically, the
time was up and I wanted to challenge myself.
to a new distro because OpenSUSE was just, it
was very good, very, very stale, but I needed
to move on to something different. So I, I chose
between NixOS and Gentoo. I decided on NixOS
because I've had some very interesting conversations
with the, with the community. They're very prickly
folks, the NixOS guys. So I, I, so, all right,
let me tell you a story. I made a video. entitled,
NixOS is not a real distro. I wish I actually
had my hat. I have a hat that actually says it
on there. It says, NixOS, not a real distro.
I did that in spite of those people. But anyways,
I made a video basically claiming that it wasn't
a real distro, because there's so much different
about NixOS than traditional Linux distros. There's
just stuff that's not where it usually is. It's
all stored in one directory, basically. Everything
else is different than... Linux is, and it just
kind of emulates a Linux distro. And it's all,
instead of using a regular package manager, you
configure it in a configuration file, all this
stuff, right? So I just got on there. It was
very, I didn't say anything negative about NixOS.
In fact, I'm pretty sure I said it was an excellent
operating system, but that triggered. So many
people. Like, they were mad. Some of them were
so mad that they left death threats and told
me to go kill myself. So I had to pull the video
down because they got so upset about that. And
at that point, I was like, I'm done with NixOS.
I'm never touching this thing again. But I figured
that that was letting them win. So when my two
years was up on OpenSUSE, I decided to go to
NixOS. And I've been there now for, oh, I don't
know. 35 days is how long I've been on there.
So yeah, I've had a good time. It's a very good
Linux -based operating system. It's not a distro.
It's not a traditional Linux distro. I will stand
by that. So I don't know what's your experience
with Linux. How much Linux have you actually
used? I installed Arch like a week ago or two
weeks ago. And that was your first? My first
experience with the desktop with Arch because
I have used Linux in servers, Debian. I have
like three servers. I run like, I don't know,
20 Debian VMs. But just that, you know, just
SSH, no graphical. So that's the really confusing
part for me because I didn't want to do the manual
thing because what am I going to learn? pasting,
copying and pasting commands. I'm not going to
learn too much. Probably I will, but I have my,
you know, I have experience with Linux, not desktop
at all, you know? So that was the really confusing
part. Like, should I go with Hyperlens? Should
I, there were like 20 different options in the
Arch install thingy and I was like completely
lost. And then I chose the incorrect greeter,
someone told me, and I was like, what? Confusing.
Yep. Too many options. So there is this thing
going around the Linux community at the moment,
and it's perpetuated by Arch users who claim
that Arch is a new user distro. It's just not.
And it's not even that you configure it and install
it in a TTY, which is that text -based installer
that you saw, right? That's, you know, it's not
even that. It's just that it's, you're right,
it's too much. It requires too much foreknowledge
to be able to correctly get to where you need
to go. Now, people will come at me and say, well,
Matt, I did. Arch was my first sister. It works
very, very well. OK, well, that's great. I'm
very happy for you. But for the vast majority
of people, Arch isn't that. There's a reason
why Ubuntu and Linux Mint are the distros that
we point new users towards because it's a lot
easier. It's installed with a graphical client,
just like Windows is, just like Mac OS is. You
know, you install it basically the same way.
It runs through user creation. It runs through
time zone selection, all that stuff, right? There's
a reason why we point new users towards that.
Arch just doesn't have any of that stuff. It's
all different. It's like pointing somebody towards
NixOS. Where NixOS, the installation isn't hard,
it's the post install, which would be much harder.
So the reason why I asked you about your experience
with Linux was because once you got into the,
and you would know this from running servers,
you go into like the root directory, you're going
to have certain things like the USR directory
and the ETSI directory and all this stuff, right?
And they're going to be populated with a bunch
of stuff. On Nix, the ETSI directory is there
and most of the stuff is normal. It's the USR
directory, which I always just call the user
directory, which is completely different. It's
empty. There's nothing in it. It's completely
different than any other distro out there because
they do it differently, and it's fine. So my
experience with Nix so far has just been it does
a lot of things the same way as all Linux does,
but there are certain things that it just does
differently. Some of them... have grand advantages
over regular Linux. Some of them are just kind
of pains in my ass. NixOS has been a very, it's
been fun for me, but I would never, like, I wouldn't
tell you to go install Nix, right? Everyone tells
me in the comments, you should try Nix. They
stopped already because I was like, no, I'm not
doing that. Probably what they're talking about
is because you can use Nix on Mac. Yeah, Nix.
It's basically like another version of Brew.
I mean, they work completely differently. So
Mac OS fanboys and Nix fanboys get it. I understand
they work differently, but the idea is that they're
both package managers. basically what you'd use
them for. I wouldn't do that. Brew is perfectly
fine. Now, Nix has more stuff in it and gives
you access to more stuff, but you'd have to learn
how to do all the Nix things in order to actually
make it useful. And Brew, you just copy that
curl thing off from their website or whatever,
install it, and all of a sudden you have access
to every command line tool you've ever could
possibly want. Or you can create a file. I have
files, you know, in which I specify all of my
packages, you know, my root packages. I have
a script which allows me to set up a Mac in one
hour, right? It installs all of my packages,
clones my .files, configures everything, everything
in root is, you know, what are the benefits of
Nix? I get, you know, and people tell me that
it's, you can reproduce your machine pretty easily.
Is that a real benefit? Okay, so, well, first
off, it depends on how often you have to reinstall,
right? Because if you have to reinstall a lot,
like if you're someone who hops from distro to
distro, Nix could be, you know, that kind of
thing for you. But basically what Nix does, and
the Nix Western guys are going to... hate me
for this but they basically nix os is an install
script the thing that you created with brew nix
does automatically because it has a configuration
file which is basically a script instead of written
in bash or whatever you wrote your script in
um it's written in the nix language and nix language
is kind of like bash only everything is a function
instead of things being a lot of different things
right now there's there's loops and stuff in
nix just like every other coding language or
you know whatever but you basically everything's
a function And the idea here is that you have
a configuration file. It has a list of all of
your applications and settings. You take that
configuration file over to your new machine or
when you reinstall on your old machine or whatever,
you point Nix towards that old configuration
file, enter a command. It rebuilds everything
from the ground up. You reboot. You have everything
that you started off with. Basically, probably
what you did with Brew. You created a script
that... reinstalls all of your stuff. Nix has
some extra advantages depending on how you use
it. So if you're on the OS... You can use Home
Manager outside of NixOS, but I don't have any
experience with that. You can use something called
Home Manager on NixOS, which will extend that
ability of installing applications to all of
your configuration files. So things like your
Ranger configuration file or whatever, like whatever
application you have, you have all these settings
or whatever, they're installed inside of Home
Manager, with Home Manager rather. And then when
you go to a new machine or reinstall, You point
it towards those configuration files, it builds
everything up. You're set with a system set up
exactly how you want. So, go ahead. Who creates
these configurations? Let's say for Ranger, right?
Do you create it from scratch or are they libraries
in which you go, okay, so here's a template for
Ranger. I'm going to use it. to start or how
does that work well you can you can create one
from scratch if you want to but you usually just
start off with their default one like they have
a default one that has filled out with a whole
bunch of comments or whatever it tells you exactly
what each line does and then you set your settings
so like mine i've been using mine for probably
six years or something that's been just over
time when i need a new key by now i'll go in
there plop one in but the The thing about all
this whole discussion, though, is that you have
got to be very familiar with the command line.
And that's where it would never be a good thing
for a new user because you don't want to point
someone who... to an operating system that relies
on that. Now, the next guy will tell you, well,
you can edit your configuration file in VS Code
if you want to, which is true. But you still
have to hop into the terminal to run the command
to rebuild the system. So you have to have that
extra knowledge. And that's where it kind of
falls apart as a new user distro. But I don't
think I've ever, unlike Arch, where there's people
all over the place now saying that Arch is a
new user distro. I don't think I've ever seen
anybody say NixOS is a great new user distro.
It's a developer distro is what it is. It's for
developers and for people who distro hop a lot,
which is really good. It's also for people that
are nerds who enjoy getting into a configuration
file and dealing with, like we talked about Resolve
earlier. Or yesterday, I did that update. It
killed Resolve. In order to fix it on XOS, I
had to do this really complicated thing called
an overlay. And basically what that entailed
was me going back several generations, which
is basically like a snapshot of my system, kind
of like time shift. It's not exactly the same.
It's not a backup. It's more like a working mechanism
for going back in time. But anyways, I went back.
got Resolve working because it went before the
update. And then I had to go into my configuration
file, use something called an overlay in the
next language to pin Resolve to this version
so that it doesn't update the next time I update
my system. It took me three hours to figure out
how to do that. It took me a lot of trips to
Claude in order to do it. And when Claude obviously
failed, because it always fails, I had to go
to an actual real person and have him help me
figure it out. And it took forever. That's just
not the kind of experience you can have as a
regular person. And even someone who's going
to use Nix on, like, say you wanted to use Nix
on Mac. you're still going to have to deal with
all that stuff because Nix basically would then
take over for Brew or basically everything, right?
So it's an experience for developers and nerds,
basically, but not anybody else. I still think
it's fantastic, but it's not for everybody. Yeah,
something that I've realized is that I don't
like spending time troubleshooting when I don't
need to. If I want to open Resolve, let's say
that I want to record the video. and edit a video
and it doesn't work, I don't want to spend time
figuring that out. You know, I want to figure
other stuff out, but not that, you know? So maybe
it was a one -time thing and it doesn't happen
all the time, right? Because that's what the
Nix users are going to say, you know? But is
that the only experience that, you know, weird
experience you have had with Nix? Well, I don't...
I wouldn't say that it's the only way. So I've
had some prickly things with Nix. So things like
the Valdi won't install from the repositories
anymore. You have to install the fly pack. It's
fine. It's just because whoever maintains that
particular package hasn't updated it or hasn't
fixed it or whatever. So there was that. I've
been working with someone on my Discord who's
having some issues with getting the GPU. Actually,
just now, the GPU. Hey, there I heard the thunder.
Yeah. I've worked with someone or somebody in
the Discord who's having problems getting the
GPU part of Btop, which is like a system manager
kind of thing, to show. And that's a Nix problem
because it didn't have that problem anywhere
else. For me, I've had some prickliness surrounding
audio every once in a while, but that's a Linux
in general thing. So that just happens from time
to time. So my biggest one was this resolve thing
that happened today. It was the most disappointing
thing. My time with the Mac was fine, but it
was a tool. And that's what computers are supposed
to be. They're supposed to be tools. I didn't
want to do anything on the... I think I installed
Hearthstone on it, but I didn't play it. It's
just there. That's what I do with all my games.
You fell dirty. It's in the Mac. Yeah, well...
The thing is, it just... It was fine, but it
was just... It was just a... It was a thing.
I went in there, I edited a video, I got out.
On Linux... I can do my work, but I also have
a lot of fun, because I'm a Linux nerd, you know,
having, you know, getting into Emacs again, even
though I hate Emacs with a passion. I love NeoVim.
Like, NeoVim is my thing. But someone bet me
about Emacs, and my pride couldn't handle it,
so I'm using Emacs. But I've had a really good
time. I feel like I had a really, really good
time configuring Emacs this time. It's just been
a fantastic time. I've had the same experience
with Next. I've had a good time doing that. With
the Mac, I never had a good time. It was just
a tool. And I still listen to this day. So I've
been listening to some podcasts about the Mac
for years. Mac Geek Gab is one of my favorite
podcasts. I've been listening to them for probably
close to 20 years. I don't use Mac. I mean, despite
having bought one, I don't actually use one.
So I enjoy the idea of the Apple ecosystem. Like,
I have an iPad here. Like, it is deader than
a doorknob. Every once in a while, I'll charge
it to make sure it still works. I did buy, like,
the $150 pencil that goes along with it because
I had aspirations for taking notes on this thing.
Yeah. That didn't that didn't work. I have it.
I had hopes of buying one for taking notes, but
I know that it's not going to happen. If I could
give you some advice and you like you come into
money or something and you decide, you know,
I can buy whatever I want without any fear of
my budget. Get the mini. Get the little one.
Because this big one – because I'm a big reader.
I like to read a lot. Like I read upwards of
80 books a year. Not this year. I'm going to
be quite a bit behind because I've been busy.
But usually that's around where I'm at. And I've
recently had to – well, recently, like within
the last year or so, I've had to go digital because
I've run out of room on my bookshelves for physical
books. So I've gone completely digital. And I
don't really care for – I have a – kindle paperweight
here somewhere i don't know where it's actually
at which is the point i don't use it i end up
using my phone but what i wanted was a slightly
bigger screen so i bought an ipad my mistake
was getting the big one so this thing is like
what 1 .2 kilos or you know, pound and a half
or something like that. I think it's not, it's
not, this is, I mean, I'm a, I'm a big manly
man. I can, I can, I can, I can handle this thing.
But man, you, you read on this thing. It becomes
heavy, really, really heavy. And especially when
you're comparing it to a, you know, a phone and,
you know, oops, it, yeah, it was, it was a bad
experience. I definitely should not have, Got
the big one. I should have got the mini one.
So if you come into money, get the small one.
You'll be much happier. It has all the features
in a smaller package. Interesting. OK, now I
watched the video about Nix going back to that
real quick. And man, I ended up more confused
than when I started because he was rebuilding
something. You mentioned something about rebuilding
right now. So if I want to make a change in an
application, I go and edit a file. And the changes
are not hot reloaded. I have to do something
else. I have to, what do I have to do? Rebuild
the whole system or what? Well, okay. So the
way that it works is, so you go into your Nix
configuration file. Say you wanted to install
Vim. You can go in there. You put the word Vim
where it's supposed to go, which is a certain
section. And then you exit the file and you run
a command. It's sudo nixos rebuild switch. And
then maybe something else if you're using a flake.
Basically, what that does is it creates a new
generation. So I mentioned generations earlier
when I said I had to roll back, right? So basically,
every time you run that command, NixOS is creating
a new snapshot of your system. The one before
you ran it didn't have Vim installed. The new
generation does have Vim installed. But say for
whatever reason, Vim was broken and it decided
it was going to crash your system. It's not going
to happen. It's Vim. But let's just say. And
the idea behind generations is you could then,
because that snapshot is broken, you can reboot,
get into your boot menu, and select the previous
generation where your system was loading. And
go in there and you know that it's working. Because
that version didn't have the package that broke
the system. That's the idea behind, at least
one of the ideas behind NixOS. So yes, you do
have to rebuild. Rebuilding seems onerous right
when you say use the word rebuild you think you're
like you you didn't it was like Legos or a wrench
or something It's really it's a it's one command.
It usually takes between 10 and 15 seconds to
run okay, so it's not so it's basically like
brew install Whatever, right? It takes a little
while to install something from brew. This is
basically the same thing. It's just instead of
doing brew install vim, you're getting into a
configuration file first, putting vim in there,
then running the install command. It's more complicated
than that because there's more stuff that can
be tacked onto it. There's more stuff that you
can do with it. But that's the general idea.
It's not that much more complicated than installing
with a package manager like brew or whatever.
It's just... It's just using different terminology.
It's rebuilding the system because it's creating
that snapshot, which you can then go back to
if you need to. And if I want to make a change
in my FIM configuration, let's say, just modify
a setting, you know, just a Boolean, something
that I switch from yes to no. Do I have to rebuild
the whole thing? It depends. Okay, so if you're
doing just like you have a NeoVim configuration
file now, right? If you still have that NeoVim
config, whether it's in VimScript or Lua, and
you make that change, it works just like you
did now. It's exactly the same. If you're using
something called Home Manager, that thing I mentioned
earlier where basically you can have your configuration
files come with you on a rebuild. then yes, every
time you make a change, you would have to rebuild
the system. Now, I do not use Home Manager, so
I can't tell you how long that takes, but any
amount of time is too much for me. I make changes
too often, so one of the things that I do is
I like to make my system look pretty. I have
a Window Manager, I use Hyperland, I have a bar
at the top, I like to configure that and make
it look nice. I have several pre -made themes.
Right now, I'm using something called PyWall,
which is basically like Material You on Android.
Basically, it takes all the colors from the wallpaper
and applies them to the system. I change my wallpaper
five or six times a day. If I were to use Home
Manager, every time I did that, I had to rebuild
the system. Now, the Home Manager guys are going
to say, that's not that big a deal. Just stop
changing your wallpaper so much. No, I'll do
the way I want to do. But for most normal people
who aren't me, rebuilding it every once in a
while to make a change, not that big a deal.
Like if you make one, you probably have had your
knee of them config for a long time. You probably
don't make a lot of changes in it. You make it
once a week, twice a week, whatever. Rebuilding
is not going to be that big a deal. But if you
make a change every day, like I've been getting
into Emacs. If you look at my GitLab commits,
I've probably made, three or 400 commits over
the course of the last week and a half or so
as I've been doing this Emacs thing. Because
every time I get in there and I have a working
config, I always want to upload it and make sure
that next time I mess it up, which I'm inevitably
going to do, I can, you know, go back to a working
version. Yeah. So the idea of having to rebuild
my entire system every time I made an Emacs config
change, it would have driven me running away
from the system. Like in the first two hours,
like there's no way I would have ever made it.
So Home Manager for me just has not, the idea
of being able to take your configuration file
in like basically script form and go to a new
computer, like it's laptop I had beside me, put
it in a USB, install NixOS, give it the configuration
files, have it run one command and then have
everything. That's a fantastic idea. And the
app stuff, I'm all behind. Like I think that
that's great. The configuration file stuff, there
are ways you can get around configuring everything
in the next language. Like you can have it just
basically point the config files from one place
to another where they need to go and all that
stuff. You can do that in theory, but you still
have to do that whole rebuild thing every time
you make a change because it's going to rebuild
the symlinks basically. And that's... fine for
some people, but for me, it was just never going
to work. So the idea behind what I basically,
what I've done is there is a program called GNU
Sto. It's a program by the GNU people, basically
the same people who do all the other stuff. If
you want to show something on your screen, you
just open it and I can switch to it. I don't
have it up, but basically the idea... It's very
simple. I don't even have to show it. It's just
basically one program. It just links. You have
a Git repository. You run this command. It moves
all of those files where they need to go. It's
done. So basically what I've done is I've created
a script that allows me to rebuild my NixOS system.
And then you stow with my configuration files.
to do it that way. It's more traditional. It's
kind of like your brew script or whatever to
install the applications. It just moves all of
my stuff where it needs to go. And I use that
on this laptop over here. It works fine. And
I don't have to do all the crazy home manager
stuff that you don't have to do. I do it in my
CSHRC file, you know, symlinks. I don't use Sto.
I just created my own method of, you know, symlinks.
I guess a lot of people use symlinks. So I just...
Or my .files created all of the symlinks that
I need for, you know, directories. And that's
the way that I manage it. I did the same thing.
In fact, I was very arrogant about it. Like,
I don't need Sto or Chesmois or whatever. There's
another tool called Chesmois or something. Everyone
recommends that as well. Yeah. I don't need that.
I just did my own script. It works all fine.
I don't have to rely on anybody else's work.
And then I tried Sto. Man, it is really, really
good because it's very, very simple. Literally,
all you do is you have your GitHub directory.
And then you have basically your file tree in
this directory. So you have .config. But it has
to be in that structure, .config, right? It does,
yes. So in your .files, when you go there, you
just see the .config and everything. Yes. I don't
like that too much. See, I didn't either, but
it's just so easy to do compared to what I was
doing before that it's kind of won me over. I
do. Like the idea of not having to have everything
in .config and then have it moved over that way.
I enjoyed that old way. But this was just literally
you just go into that file and just hit stow
period. And it works. Everything is moved where
it needs to go. And it makes scripting so much
easier. Like I have this whole script that I
used to use with like ln -s and then path after
path after path. Like over and over again, like
for hundreds of files. And like, I spent, you
know, hours doing that. Yeah. And. With Stow,
it's just done. And so for all those people who
told me years ago to use Stow, because Stow is
like older than we are. It's been around for
a very long time. I'm sorry. I should have done
this ages ago. It's very, very good. They were
right. Yes, they were right. Stow is magnificent.
It's going to be one of those tools that I use
that just has to be installed on every system.
So, yeah. I have to give it a try. And other
folks recommend a lot this Chemois or however
it's pronounced. Those two, they tell me to use
one of the two. I haven't yet, but maybe someday
I'll give it a try. Now, how did your home labbing
continue? Did you ever continue with your home
lab? What's the status of that? I do have my
home lab, but actually underneath this desk,
it's very funny. four computers on underneath
this desk. I have my main, my main one. I have
a, a couple small Lenovo think centers, and then
I have my big HP workstation, which houses Proxmox.
And so I, I have Proxmox with a few virtual machines
and a few LXC containers. And basically I run
everything in Proxmox and Portainer and all that
stuff. So yeah, I still have my home lab. I,
at the beginning. I was very much like, oh, my
goodness, look at all these Docker containers.
I'm going to install everything. I'm going to
self -host the world. And eventually that slowed
down. Some of it was just like, what do I actually
need a Pastebin of my own for? Pastebin exists.
I can just go use it. I use it like once or twice
a year. I don't actually need to host this thing
on myself. So I don't need my own Pastebin. Maybe
if you're a developer or whatever, that'd be
really cool to have, but I'm not a developer,
and I don't share code with anybody other than
putting it on GitHub or GitLab. Eventually that
slowed down, but every once in a while now I'll
go find, I think the most recent thing that I
installed was something called Glance. I'm going
to make a video about that. Actually, I actually
have a video already made for it. All I got to
do is edit it. And it's basically this homepage
that you can set as your homepage on your browser
or new tab or whatever. And it shows you, it
can show you your bookmarks. It can show you
the status of your Proxmox server. It can show
you the status of your Docker containers. It'll
show you like. subreddit feeds for Reddit, basically
whatever you want. No, it is configured with
a YAML file. So if you're like me and you can't
stand YAML, every time I hit one extra space,
it's like, oh my God, I'm going to freak out.
It's just, I can't handle it. But anyways, it
is configured that way, but it's very good. And
I've enjoyed self -hosting. It's not as, I don't
think it's as useful as I'd hoped it to be. So
there are some things. For I think the one thing
I use the absolute most is the fresh RSS. I use
RSS like crazy and fresh RSS is amazing. Like
I have hundreds of RSS feeds in that thing. I
have it on my phone. I have it on my iPad when
it's charged. I have it on my computer. I spend
probably two or three hours a day in RSS because,
you know, just, you know, before bed or in the
morning or whatever else that there is basically
my way of reading the news. Nobody's actually
covering the news in the feeds. I think so. I
have no clue what's going on But you know you
get my point That's the thing that I use the
most the thing that I built the thing the server
for was Plex I don't use it nearly often as I
should so first off I don't watch I don't have
a lot of time So I can't watch movies and TV
shows as much as I want, but I might do I use
Plex The music is where I was really hoping for
it to change my life at. Because I have a music
library of something like 80 or 90 gigabytes.
It's not the biggest one you're ever going to
see. Someone's going to tell you, oh, I have
two terabytes. Good job. But I have a fairly
large thing going all the way back to the early
90s. I've been collecting these things from CDs
and stuff. And they've all been digitized. The
problem is that they all have really, really
crappy metadata. Like really, really bad. I'm
probably going to get you demonetized for this.
You may want to post edit this part out. But
I got a lot of stuff from back in the early 2000s
when I was in college. So and if you've ever
downloaded anything, you know. like that, you
know that the metadata is shit. It is really,
really bad. Often, sometimes it's not in English.
Sometimes it's non -existent whatsoever. So it
just says unknown. Sometimes it's completely
wrong. So like I have some country music stuff.
This is all exactly the same metadata. It all
has the same song name, same artist. None of
them are right. So the problem is I have this
entire music library. Hardly any of the music
metadata is right. It's almost impossible to
fix. Someone's going to say, well, Matt, you
should use Beats or you should use MusicBrain's
Picard. MusicBrain's Picard is this application
you can feed your library into, and it will supposedly
go through from what it knows and try to fix
all the metadata. I did that. It made it worse.
It made it way, way worse. I guess so much better.
All of a sudden now I have like 12 songs called
Boy Named Sue from Johnny Cash. Like I don't
even have that song, but I now have 12 copies
of it somehow. I don't understand. So it's really,
really bad that I've never actually gotten beats
to work. So that's something to try some other
time. But the point is, is that I have all this
music. None of it's labeled. I shouldn't say
none of it. A good part of it isn't labeled properly.
And some of it's like in really old, like MP3,
very low quality stuff. So if you're there jamming
down to Breaking Benjamin or something like that,
and it's like really, really good audio levels,
and all of a sudden Shinedown comes on in the
next song, and it's like half the volume. Yeah,
half the volume. I remember using a program back
in Windows many years ago to level the gain of
the songs. It was a nightmare, yeah. So Plex
has that built in. Plex has the ability, but
there's only so much leveling it can do. And
it doesn't do a very good job. So the next one
comes on, it's like really, really, you got to
crank the volume so you can hear it. And then
the next one comes on and it's normal level.
And all of a sudden, oh my God, you know what
I mean? You got to pull the headphones away from
your ears because it's blowing your eardrums
out. My goal of being able to get away from the
streaming services, which was why I built the
Home Lab to begin with, I'd call it a failure
because I can't do it. There's only so many options.
I can either go through artist by artist, song
by song, fix the metadata, and make sure everything
is the proper level, which would take me 10 years
probably with that much music. Because despite
what people will tell you, there's no real automatic
way of doing it. Or I can delete everything and
just go buy everything new. And I've considered
that. But first off, it would take a lot of time
because it's going to take a lot of money. There's
a place online you can go buy used CDs. You used
to be able to go into Best Buy or whatever and
buy a CD for like $10. Like, okay, $10, $9 .99.
It's great. That was even like a new release.
And then it eventually went up to like $15 .99.
Reasonable price. I can pay that. Used CDs now
sometimes go for $30 or $40 a piece. And I'm
like, okay, no. I'm not paying that amount of
money for a used CD. Even a new CD I'm not paying
that amount of money for. I'm not doing it. It's
because a lot of these have become collector's
items. Oh, yeah. It's crazy. And then you have
to rip it, right? Then you have to... Yeah. Well,
I wouldn't even mind if it was a reasonable cost.
If I could buy two or three CDs a month, just
every month, replace everything with two or three
CDs, $30 a month, I can afford that. Eventually,
I would get done. But you can't buy for it's
the cost. It's not like I I have some I've got
some old like TV shows on DVD I got a DVD player
that will rip us. It doesn't take very long.
I can do that It's not that big a deal. It was
the money behind it That was the big deal and
you know, I got a little bit of money But I ain't
going to go through and in and spend through,
you know a hundred dollars a month on three CDs,
you know, in order to do it. It's just not, it's
not that important. Not when I can for $10 a
month or $12 a month or whatever it is, get Deezer
and have millions of songs available to me and
I can just play it and it works with last FM.
So I've started scrabbling all of my plays and
then post all of that stuff on my, on my blog.
And so it works with that. And it just has all
these songs like. Despite my, I don't want to
have to pay that much money every month. I don't
want to have to give them my data and all the
stuff that goes along with using a streaming
service. But actually hosting your own is much
harder and more time consuming and much more
expensive than I expected it to be. So that part
of it has definitely been a complete failure.
Yeah, I try to do that as well. You know, manage
my own music, you know, metadata. I went through
all that and I just gave up. And now I just pay
for Spotify. My wife has it. I have it. We have
it on Alexa in the living room. I don't care.
I just pay for that. I don't even listen to music
anymore, man. Do you listen to a lot of music?
Because I don't even know what to listen. I'm
tired of listening to music because I'm like,
OK, so I'm. bored of the songs i don't want to
hear the songs that i listen to all the time
but i'm not open to listening to music to new
music so i'm in a vicious cycle in which you're
in the old man cycle is what you're in yeah and
i can't escape it so i am older than you but
i haven't got there yet so i i have a very eclectic
taste in me so to answer your question yes i
listen to a ton of music i have music going on
all the time like like constantly um so It's
definitely worth it for me to pay for that kind
of thing. But my music, the reason why I'm so
okay with it, because my music taste is all over
the place. So I like country music. I like...
hardcore metal and rock and roll and a little
bit of R &B and I like rap and I'll listen to
some classical music and jazz and I'll listen
to like every once in a while. There's a few
channels on YouTube where it plays lo -fi music.
I'll go listen to that for a little while, even
though I have no interest in that kind of music.
It just it's soothing. So I'll listen to it.
So I'm all over the place in terms of. So I don't
get tied down to, I do have a playlist of favorites.
It's like 200 tracks long. It's just been compiled
over the course of forever. And every once in
a while, I'll go listen to it. Like just favorites
or whatever. A lot of times I'll just pop on
a mix or something that Deezer has recommended.
And it will, you know, how this last time, this
last one that I was listening to had, I don't
even remember where I started off. I don't remember
what, like you can click on a song and have it
play the radio basically. And it played some
like 90s alternative. And then it ended up on
Kelly Clarkson. Like it was all over the place.
And I really actually enjoy that. I mean, I couldn't
tell you any of the songs that were actually
played, but most of the time it's just in the
background while I'm sitting there trying to
figure out why this person in front of me. wants
to spell the word the wrong several times you
know and and it just keeps me from banging my
head against the wall while i'm trying to figure
out why people don't know how to do regular grammar
you know when they can just use the spell checker
you know what i mean so um the music helps it
keeps the it keeps the demons away oh okay yeah
i i like keeping music in the background as well
but I always tell Alexa, Alexa, play classical
music and it always plays the same damn song
and I'm tired of it. So I just don't use it anymore.
I'm like, whatever. I'm not going to listen to
anything. I don't like being in silence. I don't
like it. I like having music in the background,
but I don't know. I'm in a tough spot at the
moment, man. Which, I mean, I don't know what
type of music you end up listening to, but if
you go to YouTube, a lot of times these places,
there'll be channels or whatever that stream.
certain types of music, and that's a good way
to have something in the background that doesn't
have a lot of lyrics or whatever to it. It's
just kind of like beats and tunes, and it fills
the silence, but you don't have to go through
and play the same thing over and over again.
I will agree with you that Shuffle has sucked
for decades, and it continues to suck. It will
play Lewis Capaldi 12 times. So the first thing
you do in basic computer science course, probably
one of the first things to do is write a random
number generator. It's like four lines long,
right? And depending on what language you're
doing. If it's C, it's more like 30 lines long.
I don't even know that for a fact. I'm just throwing
numbers out there. But anyways, one of the first
things you do in computer science 101 is write
a random number generator. My random number generator,
when I took that course, was better than any
shuffle that has ever been invented. It can't
be that hard. Literally, just look at the playlist,
find out how many tracks there are. Then use
your random number generator to split those things
up and make sure that there's no numbers that
are... together, actually together. Now, I'm
not a developer, so maybe that's harder than
it sounds, but to me, it sounds very easy not
to put numbers in order. Numbers can't be in
order. It feels like... Make it a little bit
more random. We're not demanding too much, but
just don't play the same thing over and over.
Right. And if you're playing a playlist of all
the same artists, and or maybe your playlist
is only six tracks long, then it's more on the
user, right? But if you have a track list of
like 200, you should be able to listen for a
few hours without hearing the same song. But
even on YouTube, even on YouTube, if you have
music playing on YouTube, like all day long,
you're going to hear the same song pop up at
least three or four times. How hard is it for
YouTube to say, if you've played this song before,
do not play it. That's an if statement, okay?
Like, if played before, do not play, else play.
I've written it for you. It's so obnoxiously
stupid. And I don't know why they can't fix it.
It's the silliest thing. Yeah. Now, moving on
to other topics. I wanted to ask you your thoughts
because I have not seen that you have sponsorships
on your video, like the usual 60 second ad, you
know, like Brilliant or, you know, what other
notion, whatever. What are your thoughts on sponsorships?
So I would take them if they were offered to
me, but they are not offered to me. It's not
100 % true. So like I have a sponsor of ProtonMail.
And by sponsors, I mean that they've signed me
up for their premiere program, which basically
just gives me a higher percentage for people
who sign up. They don't actually pay me anything
unless someone signs up. I still don't use it.
I've thought about putting an ad in front of
the podcast. I think that most people would be
okay with it. And maybe I will end up doing that.
But for the most part, I don't get offered them.
I don't go searching for them. And when you put
your YouTube email on your channel, And you get
any subscribers at all. Like if you have two
subscribers, you're automatically going to get
at least one email for something stupid that
says they're a sponsor or they want to do a paid
collaboration. 95 % of them are scams. And I've
never been good at figuring out which ones are
scams. So I just assume that they all are. So
the only reason I have the Proton one was because
I was able to figure out that the person sending
it to me actually worked for Proton. And I did
a ton of research before I messaged them back.
Usually I just delete them things and I get probably
60 a day. And the stupid thing about it is that
they always use a different email address. So
you add one to spam. It doesn't matter if you
add it to spam. They're just going to use a different
email address and it's still going to come through
your inbox. I've put in filters inside of my
email program to try to, anytime it says collaboration,
I just automatically move it to a different folder,
which has probably ruined some relationships
with YouTubers. I think I sent you an email.
I think. So that's probably, if you use the word
collaboration, you probably ended up in my spam
folder. There's no real way around that because
that's like the word that they'll use is collaboration.
Like I'm Mr. Beast or something. Like why would
you want to collaborate with someone who has
$60 ,000? I will tell you this though. I had
like a really big old wooden desk for a long
time and I needed a new desk. My biggest regret
ever is not reaching out to a desk company. Because
if you go on YouTube and watch like desk setup.
videos, all of them have contacted desk setup
companies and all of them, some of them are like
four or five thousand subscribers total. Like,
why didn't I do that? I paid a thousand dollars
for my desk. If I went to the company that made
this desk and said, hey, I'll make a sponsored
video if you just give me the desk. But you have
to make a 10 minute long video. What is your
audience going to think? They're going to call
you a sellout. I don't care. I don't care. I
would have happily taken their desk. And I have
no morals whatsoever. I am very cheap. Just give
me the desk. I will say it could be the worst
desk in the history of the world. If it's free,
I'm happy about it. I'll say good thanks. It's
not actually true. Someone did send me this Linux
phone. This thing is called the... I don't know
how it's called. Anyways, I... I wanted to make
a video about it. It has really good hardware,
really crap software. It's called the furry phone,
I think. Furry, like your audience? Like furry?
I think it's more the kind you're thinking of,
yeah. Anyways, that's what they call it. Yeah,
F -U -R -I, furry phone. Oh, okay. I thought
with two R's, but just one R. Okay. Yeah. Anyway,
it's a crap name, but they sent they sent to
me like back in, I don't know, October of last
year and in in expectations that I would make
a review. And I was right up front with them
say, hey, yeah, you can send this to me, which
is first off was very. It was a little nerve
wracking because I don't have a post office box.
I actually had to give them my actual address.
So I thought, well, you know, I'm going to get
killed. Definitely. That was definitely a serial
killer. But, you know, someone's going to send
me for something. Anixo is this, you know, mad
user. Yep. Yeah. They're coming after me. But
anyway, so they sent me this thing and I didn't
actually end up making the review on it. I couldn't
get conscious. They sent it to me for free. And
this thing is so bad that I felt bad. And the
thing is, it's not even their fault that it's
bad. It's just Linux on mobile is crap. It's
garbage. It's not good. And they've been working
on it for 20 years. It's never going to be good.
So, you know, I couldn't make that review. But
anyways, the point was, I will take free things
if they wanted to send it to me. But I just don't
get those kind of offers. I regret the desk.
thing immensely because there's obviously companies
out there that will look at someone who says,
I'm a YouTuber. They won't look at the subscriber
count or the amount of views that they get. They'll
just send them a desk, like a thousand dollar
desk. They're going to send it to them. And like,
why didn't I do that? Like that would have been
that would have been great. I've been waiting
on BenQ because I have seen, you know, other
YouTubers talk about BenQ monitors. BenQ, if
you're watching this. I want a monitor and I
will talk about it in a video. I think Matt as
well, because they offer like a 4K monitor. Have
you seen that in some videos? Yeah, I would.
I would happily take a new monitor. Yes. I would
also talk if if. Any keyboard company out there,
no matter what crappy keyboard you sell, wants
to give me a keyboard, I will take it because
I love keyboards. I would happily take all the
keyboards. I mean, I make videos about all of
them, but some of them I definitely will. I've
always wanted to start a YouTube channel about
keyboards. And if someone wanted to send me a
starter kit of, I don't know. 10 keyboards, I
have 10 videos ready to make. I'd be there for
it. It'd be grand. Unfortunately, those guys
do look at the subscriber count, so you have
to be pretty big in order to actually get those
things for free. Because keyboards are epic.
They're pretty expensive. Which keyboard do you
use, by the way? Which one are you using at the
moment? So I have a Dactyl Manuform. And it is,
I will actually, if I can, I will try to get
it up on camera for you so that you can actually
see. Give me just one second. All right. Yeah.
It is an amazing keyboard that was entirely too
expensive. Let me know when I can switch to your
screen. You're going to show it on your screen?
Yeah, you can actually see it right here. Let's
see. Oh, I have seen that one. Okay. That's not
the exact one that I have. It's from the internet,
but it's very close. It was... uh obnoxiously
expensive and just just the keyboard itself without
any switches or keys was five hundred dollars
and then i added Yeah, no switches. Are they
hot -swappable, the switches? Yeah, they're hot
switches. You can just plug them right in. Yeah,
if it had been soldered, I probably wouldn't
have got it. I've soldered a little bit in the
past. My soldering's not great, mainly because
of the big man hands. And you've got to be very
precise with that kind of stuff, and I'm just
not that precise. But yeah, they're hot -swappable,
and I've switched them several times. So I've
probably put close to $1 ,000 into this one keyboard.
The problem isn't even that. I have a keyboard.
I collect keyboards. So I have probably within
this room and then the room over, I probably
have 50 keyboards. And I've spent tens of thousands
of dollars over the course of the last 20 years
on keyboards. Now, unfortunately, I don't have
them well displayed and they're not in very good
condition because I'm a user of keyboards. So
if I buy it, I'm going to use it. And the problem
is I'm also not very good at storing things together.
So I have Ziploc bag after Ziploc bag of keycaps.
They're all mixed together. They're not by set.
And they're not by layout or form factor or any
of that stuff. They're just all mixed together.
So that's not good. And then they, you know,
I have probably the same thing with all the switches.
Like I probably have, I don't know. two or three
four five thousand switches within my house somewhere
you know different kinds because i've tried all
of them and you know whatever now it has it has
slowed down so since i've gotten this keyboard
it's slowed down i haven't bought a keyboard
in over a year which i think is great i used
to like buy one every few months it's it was
it was insane not because i necessarily even
wanted to use it was just like oh my god that
looks cool i'm gonna buy it um but since i got
this one It's great. I have no interest whatsoever
in going and getting another one. I've seen some
other ones. I've thought about buying another
one of these when I had the Mac set up and I
thought I was going to be using Mac for a good
portion of my day to edit videos and stuff. I
didn't want to use the Alice layout, actually.
It's within reach. It's funny. You guys think
that I'm kidding when I have a keyboard addiction?
Actually, there's more. I won't get all of them.
But anyways, I had this over on the Mac. And
the Alice layout is fine. I like it a lot. If
you are looking to get into a split keyboard,
an Alice layout is a great way because it's very
close to a regular layout, but a little bit apart.
So it gets you used to using two halves of the
board. Without having to deal with things like
tenting, things like positioning of the two halves
and stuff like that. This is set. You can learn
on that, figure out how to get your hands there.
And then you can move. So my first split keyboard
was a Moonlander. Oh, how was that? Did you like
it? It was atrocious. It was horrible. Why? And
it wasn't even because the... Keyboard itself
was bad. It's just because it was my first experience
with a split keyboard. And that one is obnoxious
when it comes to trying to get it in the right
position. You have to deal with the height and
the angle and all of this stuff, right? And I
could never get it comfortable. I could just
not get it. I was like 10 words a minute by the
time I was done. I sold it to a friend. You remember
if it was difficult to type the B, the B as in
boy and the N, which are on the bottom corner.
You remember? Because I had a tough time with
those. Oh, yeah. So on, like on this Alice layout
that I showed you, I have B on both sides. Like
the end, the very last column in the middle,
I have B on both sides. Because sometimes I have
the stupidest keyboard, stupidest typing layout
ever. Sometimes I hit the B with my left hand.
Sometimes I hit the B with my right hand. You
never know what it's going to be. So I had to
have it in both places. Now, with the actual
split keyboard with the dactyl, I don't have
that problem. So I was able to use the one on
the left side for something else. But on the
Alice, when I first started it, yeah, I had to
have that in both places. And it's even worse
because on the dactyl, when I first got it, my
biggest problem was that I had You have to really
curl your index finger on your right side to
get to the period, right? Because it's really
far down there and it was very uncomfortable.
So what I did was I moved the period key up here.
So basically it's on a row above. And it's worked
really, really well on the split. But every time
I go to my laptop where it's just a regular QWERTY
keyboard, I'm pressing. Yeah, it just messes
with my mind. So I'm actually much faster on
a split keyboard now than I used to because I've
made those changes. And like the one that you're
seeing on screen right now is actually worse
because it has fewer keys than mine does. Mine
has six rows instead of four rows. So I actually
have an extra row there. Now, I thought about
this. When I first bought it, I had no clue what
the thumb cluster really needed to be. So I bought
just three on each side. Where I bought it was
able to have six on each side, like what you're
seeing there that has six on each side. And that
would have been amazing. I would love to have
that. And I will probably one day with like a
tax refund or something, buy me a new Dactyl
with the six in the thumb cluster on each side.
Mainly because the way I have with only three.
I can only have the super key on one side. The
other one has to have shift and enter and all
the stuff because I ran out of keys. Now, I tried
to do the different layers and stuff like that,
and it works for some things. But when you have
the... For example, in the middle on the left
-hand side, I have the enter key. It's a little
bit different in this one because, like I said,
I only have three. The middle key on the left
-hand side, I have that to space. And in the
software, you can set it so that if you hold
down the key just long enough, right, you can
set it to something else. So I set that to the
super key, which I use all the time. But the
problem is I can never quite get that timing
right. So every once in a while, I'd accidentally
press a key binding when I was just meaning to
put a space in there. So I haven't been able
to quite get that down there. So if the next
time I do end up buying a new keyboard, which
I'm eventually going to fall off the wagon, it'll
probably just be another one of these, but with
the six clusters. Now, the place that printed
mine has a keyboard. That is very tempting. It's
basically this, but instead of it being just
uniform for everybody, they take pictures of
your hands and they customize the curve of the
keyboard to your hands. Plus, you can get it
so that it has a trackball on both sides. And,
oh goodness, do I want that so bad. If I had...
If I had that, I would be so very happy. But
this one was expensive. That one was way off
the price range. It was like well over $1 ,000
by the time I was done pricing it out. So basically
just picture what you're seeing on screen, but
with a trackball on each side. Man. You know
which one I purchased if you look at my screen?
Well. I pre -order it because it's not out yet.
This is the one that I'm using right now, the
Glove 80, right? It's been great, but I'm using
too few keys. It has 80 keys and I'm just using
40. So one day I was just, you know, in my Discord,
someone showed up in the Discord and told me,
hey, you were looking for a Korn that is flat.
So this is not expensive. Half the price because
it's a prototype. It's not out yet. And it's
really flat. It's just 42 keys. Yeah, 42 keys,
I think, you know. But that's what I'm using
right now. Just 42 keys. But look at it. It's
beautiful. This is the regular sized Korn. Big
for me, right? I have it. You have it? The Korn?
It's not that exact one, but yeah, I have a Korn
keyboard. So I use all of my keys as my problem.
I actually don't think I have enough keys. So
I just told you that I wanted three more on each
cluster. Because I love keyboard. The thing about
Linux, and especially in Vim and stuff, you know,
that's your Vim user, key bindings are everything,
right? And the more key bindings you have, the
more key bindings you can use. Now, obviously,
you can get creative with key chords and all
sorts of stuff. So if you don't have as many
keys as you need, you can do that. But I like
having a dedicated key for everything. So the
more keys, the better for me. So I have the Korn.
It's the best sounding keyboard I have because
it's made with a stainless steel base. So it
sounds thocky, like crazy. If you're in the keyboard
community, you know what the word thocky means.
Not actually a word, I'm pretty sure. But anyways,
it sounds spectacular. It kind of sounds like
this one, but not quite as good. I had it on
my desk for a little while just so I could every
once in a while reach over and press a few keys
just to hear it. That's how good it sounded.
I was never able to quite get used to it because
it didn't have enough keys. And there was so
much stuff that had to go on other layers. And
I've never been good at layers, like ever. I'm
assuming that if I put enough time and effort
into it, I could get used to using layers. But
I haven't yet. And it's kind of like the time
I switched to Dvorak or Colmac and trying to
do those. I never really gave it enough time
to... And what are you on right now? Qwerty?
Qwerty, yeah. I'm probably going to be on Qwerty
until I die. I got the best at Dvorak. I got
up to 30 words per minute on Dvorak, which is
serviceable. My biggest problem with all the
alternative keyboard layouts is that they, at
least most of them, some of them are different.
There's a Colmac version that keeps the copy
and paste keys where they are, like on Qwerty,
which is good. But every other... layout moves
c and v like one has c over here v over on the
other side and i use copy and paste all the time
like literally probably thousands of times a
day and moving those key bindings was nuts and
also once you get used to hjk and l being in
where they are spots trying to get those in a
different place is horrendously confusing to
your mind. And you can get into Vim and, like,
remap those to whatever the key layout has in
those positions. So, like, with Dvorak, I think
it's something like EIO... No, it's... See if
I can remember this. It's like NT... I don't
remember. I can't remember. But anyways, it's
something really weird. I did remap Vim to those
letters so that basically it just took the place
of HJKNL. still mess with my mind because i was
still expecting hjknl all the time and it's just
because i expect i use hjknl everywhere like
i've built it into my browser yeah it's you don't
use it only on even and that's something that
i tell everyone i i use it everywhere on mac
because there's an app that allows you to use
emotions on any app you know even slack discord
email doesn't matter so If you remap it on Vim,
you're going to be good there, but not everywhere
else on your system. And that's going to be a
problem, right? Yeah. You're right. You just
put it in the browser. I've spent the last week
and a half trying to get Emacs to function exactly
like NeoVim. That's my point. So this whole Emacs
thing, if you want, you can actually... Here
in a second, you can switch to the screen, show
my screen here. This is my version of Emacs.
And this is exactly what my NeoVim looks like,
actually. The only difference is there's all
these .el things there in the recent files. That's
because I've been messing around with the configuration
all the time. And so I've spent this entire time
getting my Emacs to function exactly like NeoVim,
like in every way possible. And I've succeeded.
I've really succeeded. Every Vim binding you
can imagine is in this. So the reason why I'm
in this, I'm a big Vim guy. I have a hat over
that says, I love Vim. I'm that big of a Vim
fanboy. And it's really hard to pry Vim out of
my hands, even though I've tried multiple times
to try other things just for content reasons.
On my Discord, there's a guy named Darth Vader.
I should have known better than to move to the
dark side. But he was saying bad things about
OpenSUSE. And OpenSUSE is a Discord that I'm
really, really happy to have used for two years.
And I'm very proud of it. And I like it. And
I like other people to like it. And he was talking
crap about OpenSUSE. So me and my big mouth decided
to challenge him to use OpenSUSE for two years.
And he said, sure, as long as you use Emacs for
two years. Now, I have used Emacs many times
in the past. Every single time I've said, this
is stupid. I don't want to use it anymore because
it's stupid. Everything in this program here
is a key binding. So if I do like meta X, you're
going to see all this stuff. If I do control.
x or whatever it's going to show you a whole
bunch of extra things you can press you know
i kind of and you can't learn all that nonsense
no emacs users you'll learn a few of those things
the vast majority of times you're going to need
this little cheat sheet that shows up there at
the bottom and you know whatever so you know
my big mouth is like You know, you've got to
use OpenSUSE, and I'm going to use Emacs. And
so, like, fine, I'm going to win this thing.
So first off, I have an advantage. He's never
used a distro for two years ever, as far as I
know. He always hops off from them eventually.
So I have that advantage. But also, I'm a big,
fat cheater. Because I went through and made
this as close to Vim. as I possibly could. And
I've succeeded. You can even see there, welcome,
Matt. This is hell. Remember Vimit's letter?
Yeah, I read that. So I just got to put that
up there. So I've had fun doing that to the point
where I have my... Before I modularized my Emacs
config, it was like... almost a thousand lines
long. It was crazy because I did almost everything
by hand. And when I say everything by hand, I
mean I went and stole everything by hand from
as many people online as I possibly could. Because
other people have done this before me. I just
basically took the parts that I needed. Everyone
steals from everyone. So that's what I've been
doing. That's how I cheated. I'm using vanilla
Emacs. It even says GNU Emacs right up there
at the top. So anybody who's questioning that
this isn't actually It is actually Emacs. But
the problem is that it functions exactly like
Vim for me. So I'm cheating, and I will win that
bet. I will happily gloat for the next 10 years
in his face when he eventually fails at OpenSUSE.
Because he's already complaining about how OpenSUSE
is a useless distro, and how it's the worst distro
he's ever used. And we're only like 10 days in.
There's no way. He's making it two years. I wrote
this on my blog. I will actually be mad now if
he comes to me like tomorrow and says he's hopping
off OpenSUSE because that means the challenge
is over. I've spent. Like, every furry moment
for the last 10 days outside of work and away
from family, configuring this thing to the way
I want it, right? If he comes tomorrow and says
he's failing, I'm going to be so pissed off because
I put all this work in. And I'll let you in on
a little secret. Because it acts so much like
Vim, I could use it forever because it's just
Vim for me. Now, people are going to be like,
Matt, why don't you use Org Mode? I don't need
any org mode stuff. Just keep that to yourself.
I don't need it. I have Markdown. Why not org
mode? Once you get into org mode, it's kind of
actually kind of like home manager on NixOS.
Once you put your stuff in there, it's hard to
get it out. Like you can go through and write
all of your configs in org mode and stuff like
that. But then what are you going to do if you
just go decide to use them again? All of your
stuff's in org mode. You can't actually get that
stuff out there without doing something, going
to Emacs, translating it all to whatever it's
supposed to be, and then moving on. It adds an
extra step. And all of my work is done in Markdown.
basically so why would i add like someone someone
in my discord was arguing with me like you should
use org mode but why would i want to do that
i'd have to learn something new just to translate
something to markdown which i already know it'd
be like learning c but in order to It'd be like
learning C and then translating everything over
into Python that you already know. It'd be silly.
There'd be no reason to do something like that.
So I have no interest in Markdown or org mode.
It's like a walled garden that it'd be sealing
me into, and I have no interest in doing that.
So all of your notes are in Markdown then. Did
you start with Markdown? Because I started with
Google Docs, and I'm talking about, what, 20
years ago. Google Docs, I took a lot of notes,
thousands of, you know, pages of different Google
Docs documents. I don't even look at them right
now. I didn't migrate them to Markdown. They're
still in Google, you know, but then I moved to
Markdown. So did you start with Markdown? No,
most of my notes actually started in Google Keep.
I use that as well. So Google Keep was my place.
And yeah, I think it supports Markdown. Maybe
it just started. I don't even know. So the vast
majority of my note takings happens on my phone,
or at least it did. And for years, it was just
Google Keep because Google Keep would sync to
my Google account. I could get it everywhere.
If I needed to take a snippet or a copy and paste
something, I'd just pop it in there and it'd
sync everywhere. And it was great, but I hate...
relying on google for things because eventually
they're going to kill keep and you know obviously
google has all the privacy stuff that goes along
with it and stuff like that so i've i've been
on a constant lookout for a note -taking solution
that works for me and i this last like few months
i found one so i have obsidian on my desktop
and i have next cloud on my desktop my vault
rely it resides in my next cloud So it gets synced
with NextCloud. And on Android, there's an application
called Quillpad. I believe it's just one word.
Yes, one word. Q -U -I -L -L -P -A -D. And it
is basically Google Keep. It's exactly like Google
Keep. So that connects to my NextCloud. Obsidian
Vault, and they sync back and forth between each
other. And that's how I've been keeping notes.
It has been spectacular. It has been so good.
So because the application on Android is so similar
to Google Keep, I haven't really noticed a big
difference between thing. I was using a self
-hosted application called Memos for a while.
That's also very much like Google Keep. The problem
is it doesn't, as far as I know, it does not
have an application. Someone told me that does.
I never actually found it. So you had to use
a progressive web app in order to actually use
that. So QuillPad is much better. I do have my
qualms with NextCloud, but it works fairly well
for small text files. It doesn't work very well
for bigger files because of other stupid reasons.
But this setup has worked fantastically well.
All of my stuff from Google Keep now has been
moved over. That was a pain in the ass. That
was not fun. I didn't move everything over. I
didn't need grocery lists from 20 years ago.
That stuff got deleted. I had a novel idea from
high school or whatever. I wanted to keep that.
I don't think I'm ever going to write the novel,
but it was cool that I had the idea, so I wanted
to keep that. I had a whole bunch of stuff like
that that I had to move over. Basically, that
was a manual process. It was not a good thing.
Now, they will let you export your data, but
it's in a mixture of XML and JSON. Theoretically,
I could like vibe code like a script or whatever
to pull all the stuff out, I suppose. But by
the time I got to figuring that out and stuff,
it was just easier just to go through this stuff
and organize it the way I needed to do anyway.
So, yeah, that's that's where my note taking
situation is right now. I'm on this my next I'm
on like a scripting. um like extravaganza or
something right now i've written a whole bunch
of scripts lately for for specifically for my
blog but i want to do one for notes i'm still
going to use this setup that i have but i would
love to be able to look to have like a a rofi
script like a like a thing you have popped up
earlier on your screen but only for like a It
is like a menu selector thing, kind of like Alfred
on the Mac or whatever it's called, right? But
you pop that up, and it will show you an option,
say new notes, and it will let you type the note,
and it will just kind of save in a file, and
that will sync to my phone. I'm going to script
that. It's going to be awesome. That's my next
scripting opportunity. So that's going to be
good. With your current note setup, do you ever
get scared of, you know, deleting part of a note?
And I guess you don't have them in version control,
right? So you cannot go back to a previous state
on that note. Or do you also keep them in, you
know, GitLab or whatever? No, they're just in
Nextcloud. But Nextcloud, if you're in some things,
at least if it's in the notes directory, does
keep versions. So if you want to go through and
go back to a certain version, you can do that.
Now, it doesn't apply to everything that's in
your next cloud directory because that would
take a ton of space. But the notes directory,
it does keep a series of like a historical thing
for you. I don't use that often. I think I've
switched note -taking solutions so much because
I've wanted to get off. keep for so many years
i've moved back and forth so many times i think
i've lost so many notes that i'm immune to feeling
bad about it so if i were to delete one it's
not that big a deal um and it's not like i'm
putting rocket science in there if i if i lose
something eventually the thought will filter
through my brain again and i'll just make the
note again so yeah eventually yeah it won't be
that big of a deal and probably i do have a i
i do backups of my next cloud folders too, like
to Borg. So chances are, as long as that thing's
still running, I have a backup of it somewhere
too. Oh, okay. Okay. I used Obsidian for quite
some time as well. I loved it, you know, but
ever since I moved to Nuvem, I view images, I
paste images in Nuvem. I basically do everything
in Nuvem nowadays. So I just moved away from
Obsidian. What is it that you love about Obsidian?
so much is it on the plugins it's fast right
i like the i like the plugins uh i think it's
so when i first got introduced to obsidian my
biggest problem was that i don't want all of
my stuff in one vault and you can't have two
vaults open in the same window at the same time
with obsidian which always drove me nuts but
eventually i got over myself and just put everything
in one vault and just use a whole bunch of directories
for stuff But I think what I like about it is
simply that it's the best Markdown editor I think
I've ever seen. It does a fantastic job with
Markdown. You can get other ones that are very
close to that, but it just does a really good
job of doing solid, pure Markdown. For example,
there's an application for Vim called VimWiki.
Right. And VimWiki, I used it for a long time
with notes, but it doesn't use pure Markdown.
It uses its own little brand of Markdown. So
like headers are different. Right. And for years,
I also used something called ZimWiki, which is
like a graphical version of VimWiki. It, too,
uses its own version of Markdown, which means
when you go to use a Markdown application, all
of those things are wrong. Yep. So. I just wanted
an application that just did markdown really,
really well. And Obsidian does that. And then
you add in a whole bunch of the other things
like the plugins. And like, so like I have a
habit tracker in there that works really well.
I really love the daily notes thing where it
will basically create the daily note for you
and just pops up every time you open it up and
you can just go do your daily thoughts or whatever
you're going to journal or whatever. You know,
I've been basically tracking everything I've
been doing lately so I can blog about it because
I'm a blogger now all of a sudden. You can basically
just write down everything you have in there.
There's a plug -in that allows you to do a key
binding that will put in the exact time of that
key binding. So you can kind of keep track of
your time throughout the day. Really cool. And
also there's like, I have also like a word counter.
So it'll count how many words I've written that
day. Not very many lately, but that's really
cool. So I really do like those plugins. And
also the UI is really cool. I mean, I really
do. I like the UI. So it's good stuff. The UI
is good. What about the data view? Because that's
one of the things that I did not use in Obsidian,
the data view plugin. You're talking about like
the map thing? No. No, no, there's like a database
that it has in which you can pull up data from
other nodes and create like tables and I don't
know, it's something. Oh, you're talking about
bases. No, data view is what it's called. Okay,
because they're coming out with something like
Notion has with like the database stuff in Notion.
Those are called bases. I'm not quite sure what
you're actually talking about. I don't use it,
obviously. Oh, okay. The only thing I use, I
have a couple of canvas things basically that
I've created for tracking and stuff. But that's
about as far as I've gotten. Otherwise, I just
use. This is the one that I'm talking about.
Hold on. Where? How can I zoom in? Oh, leave
it like that. So you just specify this like in
a code block data view and you, you know. Type
a query, right? And it's just going to query
all the different nodes, you know, table. And
it's just going to show the different rows from
games, sorting and all that stuff. So and then
it displays it this way organized in your Obsidian
file. So this is going to produce this. I didn't
use it because it's not going to be compatible
if I leave Obsidian. So I just wanted to know
if you had any thoughts on it or not. I have
something similar for tracking, but it doesn't
use that view. It uses... Oh, I probably can't
show it because it probably has some other stuff.
But I have a canvas in there that has something
very similar. It uses that same nomenclature.
It has the three ticks or whatever and then whatever
for that. And what that does is it shows a calendar
for tracking. So it does something kind of like
that without the table stuff. I do have... something
like that uh maybe called dashboard or something
like that i i installed it from like a youtuber
who was telling me telling people what the best
plugins to avail to download i downloaded like
all the plugins i just haven't used it so um
the thing is like i do well with note -taking
if the note -taking solution is pretty simple.
It's when I start adding in complexities that
kind of gets... Now, I've added some complexity
to mine, like I've added the word counter, I've
added the tracking stuff. But as long as I don't
add more stuff to it, I feel like this is the
best solution for me. If I were to add in all
this extra stuff, I don't know that I would...
So I have Notion. Notion has all this stuff.
It has databases, and you can link between...
and obsidian does that right but i don't use
it because if i did that like i did in notion
i just ignore it like it's just too it's just
too complex it becomes a job you know i have
to start managing and organizing stuff i don't
like when i get into the quill pad thing i just
write the note and leave behind most of the time
i don't put it in a in a notebook it's like the
directory It's just in there somewhere and eventually
I'll go into up sitting and move things where
it needs to go But it's just I want it to be
like my memory is horrendous if I If I don't
write if I don't get in my in the know like right
away, it's gone like it's immediately gone So
it has to be something that's like I'm very quick,
like very quick. Otherwise it's gone. Yeah. If
you ever decide to give NeoVim a try, it does
have the same syntax that Obsidian, depending
on the plugin that you install. I installed an
LSP. It's called Marksman. So at least the linking
of the notes works quite well, right? So if I
GD here, it's going to take me to the other notes
and I can go back, you know? So, oh, hold on.
Control O can go back to the other node. So I
just opened my Obsidian Bolt actually in NeoVim
and I just implemented the stuff that I needed
or that I missed from Obsidian. So if I open
this file in Obsidian, it's going to be the exact
same thing. It's going to work the exact same
way than in NeoVim, you know, because I wanted
to keep that compatibility that you mentioned
actually. Oops, I went to the wrong thing. I
have mine set up almost exactly the same way
in NeoVim. I don't use Marksman. I think I use
something very similar. It doesn't have the linking
capabilities, but at least shows the markdown
in a similar way. Now, actually, it's probably
a good thing that I wasn't able to show you,
because if I went into NeoVim, I'd regret my
time in Emacs. But yeah, I have something very
similar to that. But I don't get into my notes
very often there. Most of the time it's for other
Markdown things that I do. Because I actually
use Obsidian for other Markdown stuff, or at
least I did before I got into the Emacs thing.
Okay, okay. How much time do you have left? I
think you have to run, right? Yeah, we're a little
over, but that's okay. Okay, okay. I wanted to
ask you about browsers as well. Yeah, go ahead.
Ask your questions. I'm going to go ahead and
do it. I moved from, what was I using? Chrome.
Then from Chrome, I went to, what did I? Yeah,
it's been Chrome. But I tried Vivaldi, right?
I used Vivaldi for a few, you know, for a few
months. It had an issue with WhatsApp because
I use PWAs a lot. For WhatsApp, I use PWAs. And
the reason is because I can switch to those applications.
Like YouTube, I use a PWA because I like switching
to each one of my apps with a shortcut, right?
Vivaldi had an issue with WhatsApp. I could not
download files from the PWA. So I got tired of
it and I just went back to Brave. I'm on Brave
now, right? So what has your experience been
with browsers? Vivaldi is the only good browser.
That's my experience. Brave, you can turn the
crypto nonsense off, but it's still there. um
and i have no really no interest in crypto nonsense
um so it also it's just too chrome for me like
it looks exactly like chrome does and i don't
want if i want to use chrome i just use chrome
um so brave was out for me firefox is just like
yeah who uses firefox like i i want to use firefox
it's free and it's open source and it fits right
in with the whole linux thing and it's great
but mozilla is like The worst stewards of a browser
ever, they don't put any effort into it. It's
not great. Edge and Chrome, I was never going
to use those anyways, right? Vivaldi, my thing
about Vivaldi is that I have, at one point I
was a tab hoarder. At one point I had thousands
of tabs open all the time. Some of them were
years old. Now, I'm not there anymore. I'm reformed.
I went to a group or anything. So right now I
have. four, five, six, seven, eight, nine tabs
open, which isn't, you know, not bad. That's
a huge progress, yeah. I'm very proud of myself.
So one of the main features of Vivaldi is it
has really great workspaces. So you can kind
of organize things. So I was a very organized
tab hoarder. Like everything was in its proper
place. It was categorized. You know, it was in
tab stacks and everything where it needed to
go. At one point, all of that stuff was there.
Now, I don't even use workspaces very much anymore.
If I need to show something on camera and I don't
want to show all my regular tabs, I'll do it.
But right now, I'm just using one workspace.
Now, the feature that keeps me on Vivaldi is
something called tab stacks. It's basically tab
groups. But the way they do it in the UI where
it's actually a one, it becomes like a multi
row tab stack. It's really, really good. And
like right now, I'm learning Rust. So I can't
actually show you this because you'd get a double
video or whatever. But I have a tab stack of
all the Rust things that I'm doing, you know,
trying to learn in a tab stack. It's just grouped
there and it can stay there forever. It will
reopen when I reopen the browser. And other browsers
do have groups. They just don't do them as well
as Vivaldi does. Add in all the other little
things about Vivaldi that I like, the UI, the
ability to move the UI around so that it is customized
the way I want it. Because sometimes I'll feel
in a feisty mood and I'll put the address bar
at the bottom. Sometimes I want at the top. Sometimes
I want tabs along the side. Sometimes I want
them at the bottom. Sometimes I want them off
altogether. Now you can do that in Firefox. You
have to use CSS to do it. I don't want to have
to do that. I want to have it automatic. It's
in settings with Vivaldi. I can do that. It's
very, very easy. If I want to have the... Bookmarks
are on the bottom. It's just a check box in the
settings. It's very, very easy. So I like the
UI fluidity. There are some Firefox forks that
allow you to do something similar. They're trying
to emulate Vivaldi, but they just don't do as
good of a job yet. And they all have this really
weird way of doing workspaces. Like on Vivaldi,
when I use a workspace... and I open up another
window of Vivaldi, I can go to that workspace
in any instance of the browser I want. It'll
have the same tabs. Now you can only have it
open in one instance at a time. So, you know,
it will tell you it's opening on the window.
In every other browser that does workspaces,
for whatever reason, the workspaces are very
specific to that instance. So if you were to
open up another version of the Zen browser, for
example, you could go to the workspace. other
workspaces you created, but the tabs won't actually
be there. Those are specific to that other client.
And that's just not the way workspaces for me
are supposed to work. So switching to another
browser is basically at this point, something
that I sometimes dream of because I want to use
an open source browser and Vivaldi's not. It's,
it's, it's, what do they call it? They call it,
they call it, it's not, they use a really weird
term for it. They use, I'm forgetting, but basically
it's source available that's what they call they
call it source available so you can go look at
their code you just can't do anything with it
right so um i don't i don't know whether it'd
be open source but it's just so good i can't
leave it behind so yeah vivoli is the only good
browser and if you're a tab hoarder there really
are no other browsers you should be using like
you should use It's just the best one you can
go through and organize the workspaces in addition
to tab groups. It's like having two different
versions of tab groups. It's like having subfolders,
basically, is what I'm talking about. And you
use vertical tabs, right? Oh, hell no. Every
once in a while, I'll try it because, oh, it
looks cool. But then I'm like, no. Even in my
reformed state where I don't have nearly as many
tabs open. But it keeps things organized, and
you have a lot of space. Just look at how much
space. I know, and it looks so good, but it just
doesn't work at all. It does. It really doesn't.
Maybe I'm brave. Can you hover over those and
have it expand like that? Is that how that works?
What do you mean? When you go over to that side,
do you have to press a button in order to get
to expand? No, just hover over it, and it shows
that little card. Yeah. See, on Vivaldi, there's
no way to actually get that to expand. You actually
have to click and drag in order to get the whole
title up there. Or you have to hover. Like, hover
and it'll show you a little card. Like, it's
showing you there. But on Vivaldi, you can't
get it to show the whole, like, tab. It just
shows just the icon. Or you have to drag it out,
like, your... Oh, like, expand this. You mean
make this... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
You have to do that in order to get to show everything.
So maybe that's just the browser. Vivaldi just
doesn't do them as well. Maybe if I could hover
over them so I can actually see what it is. Because
sometimes I have four or five YouTube tabs open.
In the Rust tab group, for example, I have three
Rust videos open. And if I were to just have
the icons layer along the side, I just have three
YouTube icons. And in order to find the one I
want, I have to go over there and hover instead
of just going immediately. So it adds a level
of resistance to my workflow that I just can't
get over. Despite the fact that they look amazing.
I would love to have them over there. And every
once in a while, I will put them over there.
But it usually lasts about a half an hour. And
then I go back to either top or bottom. Top or
bottom is usually where the tabs are. Right now,
they're along the bottom. Oh, okay. Yeah. I think
I got used to NeoVim because my files are, you
know, everything is done vertically in NeoVim.
Tmux sessions, everything is vertical. Files
in NeoVim, vertical. So I wanted to have my tabs
the same way because I got used to looking at
things vertically. I don't use tabs in NeoVim.
I don't use tabs. I don't use Tmux windows, which
are like tabs, we could say. You use tabs on
your terminal, right? Oh, yeah, all the time.
Yeah, you're a big tab user. I use tabs everywhere.
So if actually you switch to my screen here,
you can see my Emacs config. On the top, it has
a tab. Okay. And so if I go over there and I
press control T, you can actually see. You can
actually, it opens up another tab. So if I, you
know, like I open up my config, you know, one
of my Nix files here, I can actually switch back
and forth between the tabs and, you know, whatever.
The dashboard goes away once you go away from
it, but that's just a Emacs quirk. But anyways,
I can switch back and forth between different
browsers. It's better than having like a vertical
split, you know what I mean? So you love tabs,
actually. If I switch to mine. You're going to
notice that if I want to see which files I have
open, you cannot see. I cannot see. I just know
that I have four files open, right? Four buffers
that are open because of the number that I put
here, right? Four. But if I actually want to
see them, I bring this up and here they are,
right? The four different files. It's always
vertical for me. I just got used to this vertical.
Okay. Okay. Switch back to mine. I'll show you
because, because in Emacs, you can actually do
the same thing. So if I do leader key B, you
can actually see, I have basically the same thing.
It shows all of my buffers and, you know, you
know, I can, I can go to, you know, I've got
another whole thing here, you know, and it would,
it would show the thing. And it was, so I have
both, but I do like to have multiple. things
open at the same time. It's just the way that
I've always worked. And in Vim, I have it set
up exactly the same way. Even with the same keybindings.
I told you, I recreated NeoVim in Emacs. That's
exactly what it is. People will ask, why didn't
you just use Doom Emacs? Doom Emacs did this
for me, but one of the rules of the bet was that
I couldn't use a fork. I had to start from vanilla.
So that's the reason why I've done this. So he
played you dirty. The other guy played you dirty,
right? That's why I'm going to win. I'm in this
game to win. I will beat him. It's just a matter
of time before he comes crawling and says, well,
I got to go back to Nix or I got to go to Arch
or Ubuntu. It'll be some distro because he'll
find some package or whatever that isn't in the
open build service and he'll have to move away.
So yeah, I'm going to win. I'm definitely going
to win. Have you used any of these new IDs, the
AI related stuff like Cursor or Windsurf or what
is another one? I don't know. But have you used
any of those? No. I do a little bit of AI stuff.
Usually I use it for tech support. Recently I've
been using it for figuring out how to do the
Emacs stuff. But when I need AI stuff, I just
go to Claude in a web tab. The only AI I've ever
installed on my computer is called Whisper. And
that allows you to basically transcribe If you
wanted the transcript for this video, you could
run it through Whisper and it would give you
all the transcription. It's cool, but it took
forever. It also set my computer on fire. It
exploded. Luckily, I did it during winter because
it warmed the room up quite nicely. After that,
I was like, I have no interest. I have a good
graphics card. Yeah, it's a generation old. But
it shouldn't make it sound like an aircraft carrier
in this room. So I don't really do any AI stuff
locally. Everything is in a tab. Oh, OK. I use
AI the same way. I use ChatGPT. That's just what
I started with. You know, that was the first
thing. So I never moved to something else. So
I just copy, paste, you know, into the app itself
and then into my editor. I don't use. Is that
the way you use it as well? Basically, I switched
to Claude in the last few days because they came
out with ChatGPT -5 and it is buggier than crap.
It's really, really, really... It freezes all
over the time. And it just gives you... It always
gives you wrong answers. Every once in a while,
it's going to give you something that's blatantly
wrong. ChatGPT -5 gives you wrong answers all
the time. So I used it a lot in my process of
trying to figure out how to do this emaxing,
right? And I'd get it to a point where it was
workable. I'd do the Git push in order to get
it up onto GitLab. And then I'd move on to the
next thing on my checklist to try to figure out
how to get to be as much like them as possible.
I'd do my own research and do the Google and
stuff because I'm trying not to be too reliant
on AI. If I ended up having to go use AI, though,
I would, you know, it would... I'd put my question
in. It'd give me the solution. I'd read about
it. It would look good. I'd put it in the configuration
file. It would do the thing that it was supposed
to do, but it would break something else. So
then I'd have to spend an hour trying to get
it to fix what it broke in the first place. There
was like multiple times where I had to download.
I had to basically go back to a different. commit
in order to actually get to a working configuration
file again because it just broke everything.
And Cloud has actually been much better than
that. It does get things wrong every once in
a while, at least in my very limited experience,
but it's also phenomenally faster. It's almost
instantaneous compared to ChatGPT. I did use
Claude because ChatTPT was really stupid, you
know, like a year ago and I was tired of it.
And I was like, F this, I'll try Claude. Because
I was configuring NeoVim heavily back then. So
when you're doing that kind of stuff, you know,
it gets complicated. ChatTPT couldn't do it,
so I tried Claude. It was not doing a good job.
So I was like, F Claude. I'm going to go back
to ChatGPT. And I don't know. I don't know. Maybe
what I was doing, it was not too familiar with
at the time. Maybe it's gotten better. I have
no idea. I have to give it a try and explore.
But the thing is that each one of these things
is $20, right? So I paid $20 for ChatGPT. I'm
not going to pay $20 for Claude. Or I don't know
how much Claude is right now. It's $20. 20? Yeah,
it's 20. What I did was I canceled ChaiGPT and
just paid for Claude, right? It was time for
the renew anyways. And I really don't want to
pay. I have to pay for these. But I've used the
crap out of these things in the last... It's
really good to go... It's basically like a better
version of Google for me because it will just...
It will... 200 for Claude. For a year. That's
for the whole year. No, I... Do you pay that
monthly, Rumen? 200 a month for a clot? Man,
that's... Yeah, go on, sorry. Yeah, so I've used
so much of these things, so it feels okay to
pay for them because I think I get my money's
worth out of it. I don't think it will... I think
if there's like a month where I don't use it,
I'll just happily just cancel. That's the reason
why I didn't pay for it for the full year. I'll
just pay for it even though I could save like
40 bucks. I'll just pay for it monthly. If there's
a month where I don't use it, I'll cancel it.
The thing is, for me, it's like Google. I can
just go there, I can ask a question, and yes,
it will tell me how to do the thing I'm doing
and just give me the code, but it does a good
job of usually explaining what it does, and if
you read through that, you can actually learn
things. My worry about the whole AI thing is
that people will just take the code and just
go. Copy -paste it and not know what's happening.
So just pro tip, read the stuff because then
you can actually learn where it's done. And you
can see a lot of times you can stall any like
failures by reading what it's done because you
can say like, wait a minute, hold on a second.
You're doing something there that doesn't make
any sense. Rethink that, you know what I mean?
It will come back with another option. Another
cool thing about quad is that it will. it will
it will iterate on itself within the conversation
so it will it will like give you some things
and like it'll be like halfway through like wait
a minute this isn't the right way to do it so
it'll stop it'll start over again um and that's
something that chat chat jbt doesn't do on its
own you have to tell chat bt when it screws up
and it will go and then oh you ever use chadji
patina you tell it did something wrong like oh
you're right absolutely you know i'm so i'm so
sorry i made a mistake let me fix that for you
as if you were the one that made the mistake
in the first place the condescending piece of
sorry i found claude to be much more personable
i know it seems really weird but it just it doesn't
it doesn't try too hard to Chad GPT is like that
one friend you have who thinks he's right about
everything he does. And even when he's proven
wrong, usually he somehow manufactures a way
to make it look like your fault. Once you get
the first, you're absolutely correct. You know
it's just going to be shit after that. It just
goes down here. You're going to go in circles
after that. It's gone. You lost them. When I
was using the ChatBGP, I was doing some work
with the bar I use here in Hyperland. I was trying
to create a new design. And this uses a really
weird version of CSS. I think it's called SCSS.
And so it's like a pared -down version of CSS,
right? And nobody knows what it does include,
what it doesn't include. So it's just easier
sometimes to go ask. And the thing is that...
Chat GPT will not remember that this bar doesn't
use full CSS. You have to remind it every single
time. And it's not that you have to remind it
every single chat, which is, you know, fine.
If you don't remember stuff between chat, that's
whatever. It seems like you should be able to
do that, but, you know, let's move on past that.
Sometimes you have to remind it 12 or 13 times
within the same chat. Like, you can't even remember
the chat history? Like, come on, man. This is
stupid. Like, this stuff is... And sometimes
you'll get into chat to AI and like, man, this
seems like magic. You know what I mean? Like
this is the way things are supposed to work.
You're supposed to be like, it's like having
a Jarvis, you know, around where you can just
ask things, right? If you've ever used like the
chat GPT app, there's like a button on there
that gives you a floating circle and you can
talk to it, right? And it's kind of like having
Jarvis and it'll show you do stuff. And every
once in a while, it's like that. Like, it's really,
really cool. The vast majority of the time, though,
it's not so much magic as it is just slightly
better Google. You know what I mean? It's just
going to give you some results. And just like
with Google, sometimes those results are from
2008. You know what I mean? And they're not quite
where they need to be. So you have to use it
with your own caution. That's the way I've been
dealing with it. And sometimes it's not in the
mood. It's just like. It doesn't want to work.
But when it gives you the answer, you know, I
compliment it. And that's fucking stupid. Maybe
it works. And I tell it, man, that's awesome.
You did it great. I just wanted to continue,
you know, doing things right. Because if it gives
me the first, oh, you're absolutely correct.
I know it's fucked. I know I'm done. I'm not
going to get anywhere. So I compliment it. So
it continues, you know. Same way. I say please
and thank you to this thing. Like I say, good
job if it gets it right in the first try. The
funny thing is if you've been an editor for a
little while, it tells you that you're absolutely
right and you're in that loop where it's just
constantly getting something wrong. Finally,
you've just been in it for so long. Eventually,
ChatJPT will just stop being chatty. It will
just throw an answer at you. It will not say
any words. It will just give you a splot of code.
No explanation whatsoever. It's just code. And
you're like, what does that even do? What does
it mean? Why did you choose this direction? And
it's like, you know, it's given up. Have you
ever told it? Claude does it better, or DeepSeek
does it better. I actually told Claude that today.
I told him, you're way better than ChatGPT. Oh,
man. And it's true. It's way faster. ChatGPT
was so slow, I had to get away from it. Because
it was literally freezing the tab. You know that...
thing that comes up every once in a while, maybe
it doesn't do that for you very often, but every
once in a while, a tab will crash in your browser
and it'll just like show you the JavaScript logo.
It was doing that in ChatGPT. It was like showing
me, it was like just completely crashing and
I had to get away from it. So, yeah. Yeah. I'll
cancel ChatGPT and try Clot, you know. Every
time I have to use ChatGPT for me, it's like,
oh man, here we go again. It's not pleasant,
but it's way faster. I don't know Lua. I don't
want to learn Lua. I don't understand Lua. Lua
is difficult. It's different. It's really different
for me and I cannot get my head around it. So
AI has been really useful in that case. I'll
give it a try. I'll cancel ChatGPT, try Claude,
see how it is, and then come back. I keep coming
back to ChatGPT. It seems you're staying in Claude,
right? I mean, I'm not married to it or anything,
but if it stays the way that it is right now,
yeah, it's phenomenally better, at least for
what I've been doing. It's been getting the answer
more correct. lately anyways, and I can't discount
the speed. It's just so much faster than ChatGPT.
I'd rather have the wrong answer faster, because
ChatGPT is going to get it wrong anyways, but
it's slow. So at least give me the wrong answer
quick, because then we can move on and try to
work towards the part that's going to actually
work. And I do like the iteration that Claude
does where it will look at it. It's doing something
and then like something in the back of his mind,
like, oh my God, this isn't going to work. Now,
ChatGPT will allow you to upload all of your,
like say you wanted to do your NeoVim config
up there, right? You could upload the whole configuration
up there and it would be able to. to look at
that, right? No, in the chat GPT, you can do
that. You can upload the whole thing, and then
it can just kind of know exactly what your whole
configuration is about. But it's really dumb.
It doesn't get it, right? I tried uploading a
zip file, I remember, you know, very specific
NeoVim config, and it didn't do it. And I was
like, if, you know, I had to do it manually,
you know, small pieces at a time. So I do like
that about ChatGPT where, at least in theory,
you can upload the zip file. Cloud, you can do
that. So I have like 30 files, which are part
of my Emacs config. I had to upload them all
into the project. But once I had the project
knowledge, I found that it was able to actually
put things together better than ChatGPT ever
was, which I thought was good. There's this thing
called Cloud Code, I think, that has access to
your... to the files not only i have not used
it but i think it has access to all of the files
in a project for example in it and access the
the context rumen says that's what he uses so
you use clot code right rumen and doesn't have
access to the context or not have you tried that
by any chance matt or no No, because I don't
put any of that stuff. So I think cloud code
is something that you can download on your computer
and have it. But you can, if you want something
similar, attach your GitHub account so it can
kind of see all of your repositories, and you
can get it that way. I'm pretty sure that the
cloud code is something that you put on your
computer, but I haven't used it, so I can't tell
you that for sure or not. It sounds like a pretty
good idea to have it on your computer. I'm afraid
that if I get too comfy with it, I'll just use
it all the time. And I found myself, the more
that I use AI sometimes, I feel like I'm getting
dumber by the second. So I've tried my hardest
to not use it. And my first response is always
to go find the answer myself. I'll go do the
actual Googling, just like two years ago before
AI was even in our minds. Go to a Google search.
See if I can find the thing on Stack Overflow
or whatever it is. And if I can't, then I will
go. to ai and ask the question now granted most
of the time i still do end up on ai because it
just feels faster sometimes and as long as i
remind myself to read what it's doing i can at
least remember, you know, to try to at least
think that I'm learning something. But like your
guy in the chat, Ruman, says, Google has the
AI stuff now. So even when you're trying to be
good about it and go do it the old -fashioned
way, it still gives... Like the other day, I
asked for help with a bash script. It just gave
me the answer at the top. I didn't want the answer.
I wanted the experience of going, figuring out
how to do a case on my own. It's comfortable.
I must admit, because I hated that search at
the top. The result at the top, I was like, this
is crap. I never read it. And I skipped it, you
know. But recently I've been noticing the answers
that it gives. And I've been like, okay, this
one was right. Because I know that what it's
saying is right. I can confirm it. And I'm like,
okay, not too bad, you know. So I don't know
what's going to happen with search, actually,
you know. Yeah, I don't know. Gemini is one that
I wouldn't ever subscribe to. Like I have it
free for like six months or whatever. And I thought,
well, you know, because Google's good at that.
I give you a free six months trial to kind of
hook you in. But I also have Google stuff around
my office here. So if I want to turn the lights
off, I say, hey, you know, whatever, turn the
lights off. The problem with Gemini is that it
keeps a history of everything, including every
time you turn the lights off. So you go into
the Gemini UI and all of your. Your history is
just turn the lights off, turn the lights off,
turn on. So if you want to actually go see the
history of like when you're trying to work on
something real, you have to scroll through all
this stuff. And it's just it was not good. So
maybe I should just use different accounts for
that kind of stuff. But I just have the one Google
account. So. Anyways, yeah, I am going to have
to hop off here pretty soon. My dog needs to
go out and I need to go do my stuff. But the
AI thing is really, we've done multiple AI episodes
on the Linux cast. It's just one of those topics
that's going to keep coming up over and over
again because it does feel kind of like the future.
Yeah. All right, Matt. Really appreciate it,
man. I'm going to leave your channel in the video
description. I still had a few other questions
that I want to go over. Maybe we can meet another
day or something. I'm willing to do this again
if you want to do another episode in the future
or whatever. And just keep those for the next
time. I'm pretty much always around. I'll keep
them there. I just also want to thank the CEO
because I have memberships right now. So one
of the... deals is that if someone becomes a
CEO, it's $50 by the way, I have to say their
name on every video. So that's web23 .com. So
I just wanted to share out there. I'm also going
to add the credits here. I'm going to leave a
link to your video, to your YouTube channel in
the video description and everything, Matt. Really
appreciate the help. Any final words, anything
you want to say at the end? No, this has been
very fun. We covered the gamut of a lot of things.
The next time I'm on, my challenge will be to
get you to switch off from Mac OS and switch
to Linux. I will come prepared. better next time,
and I will try to turn you into a Linux nerd.
I'll even send you a hat if you successfully
use Linux full -time for two years. You're going
to join the challenge, man. I'm married to Mac,
man. I have the iPhone. I have everything. You
can still do those things without the computer.
You don't have to have the computer. It's not
like you have to plug into iTunes anymore, man.
It's not the 90s. We'll see. Everyone keeps telling
me to switch to Linux, but... I don't know. I
don't know if I'll give up eventually or not,
but we'll see. All right. All right, man. Thank
you, man. Have a good day.