Monthly Archives: January 2023

Building a PC for Plan9front #0

Hello, dear reader! In this series of posts, I will be documenting my journey building and using a PC for Plan9front. In this first post, I will be detailing the hardware I purchased and the initial steps I took to get it up and running.

Hardware List

I bought the following components in one lot from a seller for $18 USD

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L
CPU: Core 2 Quad q8400
RAM: 8GB DDR-2 600 Mhz

The seller was quite slow and it took a few days for the components to be shipped.

And

GPU: Nvidia 8600GT from EVGA

For $9.48 USD.

Testing & Troubleshooting

I already had a case, PSU, and HDD, so I assembled everything and it worked! However, when I tried to boot Plan9front (or anything else) from a USB drive, it didn’t work and I kept getting an error message saying “No O/S”. I then tried to boot from a CD using my only available OS, Windows XP, but even after using it to write Plan9front to another CD, it still didn’t work.

The next day, I had an idea to use my old 32GB SSD and transfer the Plan9front ISO onto it using my ThinkPad. To my surprise, it worked and I was able to successfully install Plan9front.

Problems

Unfortunately, the PSU stopped working. I suspect it was an issue with the cables as it’s quite an old PSU. Sometimes when I touched the cables, it would start working again, but it would stop after a few minutes (not always, sometimes it could work for an hour or more). I will need to purchase a new PSU.

Additionally, I use the case to hide some cables and as a stand for a power strip. Every time I remove the case (to work on something inside), it ruins the cables and I have to start from scratch. So, I disassembled the PC yesterday, removed the motherboard, HDD, CDROM, card reader and PSU.

I plan to buy a new PSU and an old case, so stay tuned for the next post where I will document the progress.

How is Plan9front running?

It’s working, but for some reason I can’t set the resolution to “1600×1080”. The wiki suggests using “1600×1200” but that doesn’t work either. I’m confident I will be able to fix it later, but the broken PSU is preventing me from doing so at the moment.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next post in a few days!

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About War in Ukraine

Hello, dear reader! Today, I want to talk about the war in Ukraine a bit and answer some questions people ask me.

Are you still in Ukraine or have you evacuated? If not, why?

Yes, I am still in Ukraine. Unfortunately, I am unable to leave Ukraine. My family and I have no support or connections in other countries.

What do you think about the war overall?

It is disgusting, any war for any reason. I hate wars, weapons, and militarism.

How is living in a country at war?

Obviously, there is nothing good about it. Of course, there are problems that we have/had, and I will tell you about them.

Currently, one of the biggest problems is power outages. They happen very often, sometimes disabling power for a few hours at a time, or even longer. For example, one time we only had electricity from 4 AM to 8 AM for two days. When the power outages first began, I would try to find places with power and internet, like a hypermarket. But now, internet is not as important to me and I just stay at home during outages. If my laptop runs out of power, I use an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to charge it a bit. If the UPS also runs out of power, I just relax or do something else.

On holidays, we did not have any power outages. I assume the government did this for the holidays. Recently, a few days ago, the outages have started again, but I am used to it now.

Also, for those wondering, we have no problems with food and water supply, all is fine there.

When the war started

It was evening (or night, I don’t remember), I was lying with my laptop,
I don’t remember what I was doing exactly.
My parent called me and told me about the war.

What was my reaction to that?

To be honest, my reaction was strange, and I was a very bad person at that time. Please don’t hate me for my reaction,
I didn’t know what I was saying, I was stupid. I said: “Ok, and?”, and thought something like “Oh, finally something interesting, not just nothing,”
I don’t know why I thought that, to be honest, and also I didn’t realize at that time how bad the war could be, and how much worse it would get.

When the war started, I was reading the news all the time and telling my parents and other people I was talking to about them.

What happened after?

Medicines. Many pharmacies closed completely, and it was very hard to buy medicines.
Also, there were very long lines. Did that do anything bad to me? Directly to me – no, but..
We couldn’t buy morphine for my parent (to reduce pain), she wanted to get a prescription so much,
and when we finally got one, we couldn’t buy any.. She had really strong pain..
She died a few days later.. April 2. Fuck cancer. I cried while writing that :(

Everyone, please, appreciate your parents while you have them,
if you’re in bad relationships with your parents, try to fix that, if you did something bad to your parents,
please, apologize to them, while it’s not too late, you will never forgive yourself later.
I was a very bad person at that time, and I will never forgive myself. Don’t repeat my mistakes, please.

Okay, let’s continue..

Food. There were big problems, especially with bread, first time, it wasn’t possible to buy bread at all,
also many stores were almost empty, and there was no bottled water, but we don’t use bottled water (and you shouldn’t!), so that wasn’t a problem.

Thankfully, we had food supply at home (like, potatoes, onions, and other stuff).
Then, after some time we found where to buy bread, it was hard, very long queues, and not much bread for selling (people buy all quickly),
parent was purchasing a few loaves of bread, and we were putting them in the freezer, you can put bread in the freezer and then defrost it,
and this bread will be fine, that’s good if it’s hard to buy bread and you need to save for later.

Additionally, later on, there were places where you could get some food, etc, for free.
Of course, with long queues but I am not complaining, of course.
My parent obtained so much oil (for cooking) there, that we still use this oil and don’t need to purchase more.

A little history related to that:
Someone decided to help people and bought lots of chicken eggs and was giving them away for free,
like, “take as much as you need”, a good person.
But some people took lots of eggs from him, and then later were selling them, seriously..
Our society can be that bad sometimes, yeah.
He stopped helping after that.

Milk and how we walked 10 kilometers to get milk.
We couldn’t find milk at all for some time, and then we decided to go to a market that was far away from us (5 kilometers),
obviously, there was no transport. So, we walked to this market, bought food, bread, and of course milk.
We found great milk from Poland, and honestly, it was the best milk I ever tried.

Another history:
Some bad people were selling food that should be for the military.
Which is illegal, of course.

…

Most of the time, we heard explosions, shots, etc.
There was really so much when the war started.
By the way, that time, we had only one power outage, unlike now.

And what now?

And now, after more than a year,
there aren’t many explosions around.
There are no tanks, and few soldiers around.
There are no food or water problems at all, all is fine.

We have food, water, and heating, but as you can read above, we have problems with power.
Also, now, every market, coffee shop, etc has their own generator,
and people can buy what they need, or in some places, charge their devices and use the internet.

Recently, the government opened hundreds of points with heating, electricity (using generators), internet (fiber, Starlink), and free tea and cookies!
I’m glad they did. I’ve heard that people come to such places to work or just to charge their devices.
Personally, I’ve never visited such points, and all that is written above is what I’ve heard from the news and from people.
I’ve only seen one point and it was closed, but it was around 9 PM so maybe that’s why.
I just hope these points work and help people. If you’re from Ukraine and know something more, I would be glad to receive an email from you.

If you want to know anything else, feel free to email me.
Maybe I’ll write a second part of this post later.

Thank you for reading.

Stay safe.

Written by Alexa Hattori on January 14th, 2023.

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Why I don’t use Cell Phones

Hello, dear reader!

Today, I want to write about why I don’t use cell phones and why I dislike smartphones.

A brief history

I grew up in a village without internet, and we only used phones for calls and only rarely. To be honest, it was great in some ways. If you wanted to talk to someone (or schedule a meeting, etc.), you had to walk to their house, knock on the door, or call them. Then, you would go somewhere and talk to each other, discussing various topics. Meeting in person was quite common, and it was really great.

Also, I would visit my grandma in another village every summer. As you can imagine, we had no cell phones at all. We would play outside, come up with games, and have a lot of fun! Sometimes, we would play card games or board games like Monopoly. But, after a few years, we all started to have smartphones. And, this all ended up with sitting indoors most of the time, playing games on our phones…

And what now? Many people communicate with each other using their phones and the internet, without meeting in person. Instead of meeting in person, walking outside, etc, people spend their days staring at their phones, watching short videos, scrolling through Instagram, or messaging others.

If you look at kids outside, there are many of them playing with their phones while sitting somewhere outside. Or, one kid will be playing a game while a few others stand or sit around, watching them play. It’s so pointless.

Of course, I am not talking about everyone, but there are really many people like this. I would write more, but most likely, you already know how smartphones have changed our society. Just look around.

Reasons why I don’t use cell phones

My reasons include:

Distraction: Smartphones are designed to be highly engaging and can easily distract people from their surroundings, making it difficult to focus on important tasks or engage in meaningful conversations with others.
Addiction: The constant access to social media, games, and other apps can lead to addiction, making it hard for people to put their phones down and engage in other activities
Isolation: Constant use of smartphones can lead to social isolation as people spend more time interacting with their screens than with other people.
Lack of privacy: Smartphones collect a lot of personal data and can be used to track users’ locations and activities, leading to a loss of privacy.
Sleep disruption: The blue light emitted from smartphone screens can disrupt sleep patterns, leading to fatigue and other health problems.
Mental health: Studies have shown that excessive smartphone use can be linked to poor mental health, including depression, anxiety, and stress.
Lack of physical activity: Smartphones can lead to a sedentary lifestyle, as people spend more time sitting and staring at screens instead of engaging in physical activities.
Decreased creativity: Smartphones can lead to a decrease in creativity, as people spend more time consuming information rather than generating new ideas.
Most smartphones are created to make money, not for the benefit of the user. Companies only care about making money.
And more.

If I need to call someone (which may happen once a year), I ask someone else to make the call. Phones are good for quickly taking photos, but I don’t use them because of many reasons. If I really need to take a photo, I would ask someone else to do that. I want to buy a digital camera for taking photos of nature and other interesting things I come across, to post on my site.

Also, you can read more about why cell phones are harmful on these sites:

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How and Why I use a ThinkPad X200s

Hello, dear reader!

In this post, I want to explain why I decided to not buy any new laptops or computers and why I chose an old ThinkPad X200s. But before I give my small review and specs, I want to tell you a short history of how I bought the X200s and then how I broke it.

History

I bought a used ThinkPad X200s with 4GB of RAM. It wasn’t in the best condition, but it was still fine. It had a good battery life, but it had two problems: the TrackPoint worked poorly, the middle mouse button didn’t work at all, and the other mouse buttons worked only sometimes. Despite this, I still liked it.

It was love at first sight for me. The great quality, amazing keyboard, and convenient typing experience all won me over. Plus, it’s not heavy and is very easy to carry. The seller even gave me a USB mouse as a gift :3

WiFi card, Libreboot, and Breaking the ThinkPad

I prefer to use free software, and the WiFi card that came with the ThinkPad had no free firmware, so I couldn’t use WiFi. I mostly use Ethernet, and it works great, but sometimes I like to use the laptop while lying in bed. I found a WiFi card that works with free firmware and bought it. I easily replaced the WiFi card, but when I tried to power it on, I got an error message: “Unauthorized WiFi Card Detected”. I had forgotten that manufacturers make whitelists for hardware, and there was no “easy” solution. I decided to install Libreboot and, as you can guess, it was a mistake.

I ordered a clip, and decided to use my Raspberry Pi 4B as a programmer. I had no enough experience, and I tried to connect the clip to the BIOS chip while the Raspberry Pi was on, which resulted in the BIOS chip stopping working.

It was a big mistake, and I regret trying to do that. It would have been better to just use an external WiFi adapter. After realizing that I killed it, I found another ThinkPad, and decided to buy and use it as is.

Thankfully, old ThinkPads are pretty cheap. I found another one, a bit more expensive than my previous one. I texted the seller, and they were in my city, so to save time, we decided to meet in person. We met, I checked if it worked and checked the charger, and I bought it. I brought it home, put the SSD from my previous ThinkPad in it, and it was really great. The condition was much better than my previous one, the TrackPoint and all buttons worked! I am writing this post from this ThinkPad while having no electricity.

Review and Specs

First of all, here are the specifications:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo L9300 1.6 GHz
GPU: Intel Mobile 4 Series Chipset
Screen: TN, 1280×800
Storage: SATA3 HDD or SSD. It also has a card reader. Some people say it’s possible to use NVMe there, but I am not sure yet. I will write about this later if I find out for sure.

You might think that this CPU is old and can’t do much, but you’d be wrong. It works well and can handle:

Simple tasks like web browsing, email, etc.
Note about web browsing: Not all sites work well, some new sites with heavy JS code don’t work well.
Playing 720p videos without any problems. Videos tested online using Invidious.

Even if you think it’s bad, keep in mind that it costs only $70-80 USD, and for that price, it’s a great laptop. In the USA, it can even be found for as cheap as $30-50 USD.

How I use it

I use two systems on it: Trisquel GNU/Linux and Plan9 (9front). I use it for:

Email, IRC
SSH to other machines
Web browsing
Playing videos
Sometimes, for music

As for Plan9, I use it when I am relaxing and chatting on IRC. I like Plan9 and its RIO interface. I will write more about my experience with Plan9 later.

Why

After my bad experience with the ThinkPad X240 and MacBook Pro 2014, I decided that I have had enough of new laptops. I also don’t want to pay for power that I don’t use at all. The Core 2 Duo is enough for all of my tasks, and there’s no sense for me to buy something new. Lenovo has destroyed the ThinkPad brand with newer models like the X240, which have worse quality and fragile keyboards. They were also hot and loud, and a bit heavy for me.

What about the MacBook?

After my bad experience with the X240, I sold it and bought a MacBook, and it was a big mistake. I will outline the good and bad sides:

Pros:

Screen
Keyboard
Trackpad
Case
EFI. It’s very fast, really fast. 1-1.5 seconds and you’re loading OS.

Cons:

Price, $300 USD for this… (The hardware is much older than in X240, which cost $150 USD). All MacBooks are overpriced.
Very bad cooling, in simple tasks like videos, it could get very hot: 70-80C, mostly 100C.
GNU/Linux works poorly on it:
Ethical distros don’t even boot.
Laggy, unstable, and for some reason it loads the CPU a lot, just running Mate it could get load 30-40C (and yes, it gets hot 80-100C).
Because all is bad with GNU/Linux, you’re forced to use macOS and it have its own problems, of course:
Non-free software
You’re forced to use Apple ID if you want to use their App Store, and Apple ID requires a cell phone number to register it.
Very closed system, no customization, you can’t change DE, there’s no virtual terminals even.
And more.
Expensive hardware:
New battery costs $150+ USD.
New SSD costs $100-200 USD (depending on capacity).

This is why I decided to get rid of it.

But why X200s?

It’s cheap, and it does everything I need.