2026-01-13 05:00:18
Over the decades the number of Linux distributions has effectively exploded, from a handful in the late ’90s to quite literally hundreds today, not counting minor variations. There lately seems to be a counter-movement brewing in response to this fragmentation, with Project Bluefin’s Distroless project being the latest addition here. Also notable are KDE’s efforts, with KDE Linux as its own top-down KDE-based distro, but now with a switch to BuildStream from Arch likely as a distroless move.
It should be clear that there is no obvious course here yet, and that opinions are very much divided. The idea of ‘Linux’ becoming a more singular OS appeals to some, while to others it’s the antithesis of what ‘Linux’ is about. This much becomes clear in [Brodie Robertson]’s exploration of this topic as well.
The way to think about ‘distroless’ is that there is a common base using the Freedesktop SDK on which the customization layer is applied, such as Bluefin, KDE or Gnome’s environments. You could think of this base as the common runtime, using the Freedesktop standards for interoperability for a user-selected layer that’s installed on top. This way the idea of basing a distro on a specific distro is tossed out in favor of something that’s vaguely reminiscent of the Linux Standard Base attempt at standardization.
It’ll be fascinating to see how things will move from here, as there are definite arguments to be made in favor of less fragmentation and resultingly less duplicated effort. In many ways this would bring Linux closer to for example FreeBSD, which avoids the Linux Chaos Vortex problem by having a singular codebase. FreeBSD ‘distros’ like GhostBSD and NomadBSD are therefore essentially just specialized customizations that target a sub-group of FreeBSD users.
Of course, when we start talking about package managers and other base-distro specific features, we may very well risk igniting the same problems that tore apart the LSB so many years ago. Will we also standardize on RPM over DEB package files and kin, or something else?
2026-01-13 03:30:50
We suspect there are three kinds of people in the world. People who have access to a Michelson Interferometer and are glad, those who don’t have one and don’t know what one is, and a very small number of people who want one but don’t have one. But since [Longest Path Search] built one using 3D printing, maybe the third group will dwindle down to nothing.
If you are in the second camp, a Michelson interferometer is a device for measuring very small changes in the length of optical paths (oversimplifying, a distance). It does this by splitting a laser into two parts. One part reflects off a mirror at a fixed distance from the splitter. The other reflects off another, often movable, mirror. The beam splitter also recombines the two beams when they reflect back, producing an interference pattern that varies with differences in the path length between the splitter and the mirror. For example, if the air between the splitter and one mirror changes temperature, the change in the refraction index will cause a minute difference in the beam, which will show up using this instrument.
The device has been used to detect gravitational waves, study the sun and the upper atmosphere, and also helped disprove the theory that light is transmitted through a medium known as luminiferous aether.
The tolerances for such a device are tight, but within the capability of modern 3D printers. The CAD files are online. The key was the mirror mounts, which use springs and thumbscrews. So you do need some hardware and, oh yeah, a laser, although that’s not as hard to obtain as it once was. You obviously can’t 3D print the mirrors or the beam splitter either.
The post claims the device is cheap because the bill of materials was roughly $3, although that didn’t include the beamsplitter, which would bring the cost up to maybe $20. The device, in theory, could detect distance changes as small as one wavelength of the laser, which is around 650nm. Not bad for a few bucks.
Not all Michelsons use lasers. The man behind the Michelson instrument also worked out how to do Fourier analysis with a mechanical computer.
2026-01-13 02:00:21
All right, I’ll cut to the chase: Cheap03xD is mainly so cheap because the PCB falls within a 10 x 10 cm footprint. The point was to make a very affordable keyboard — all the parts come to ~40 Euro (~$47). So it would seem that [Lander03xD_] succeeded.
Those are MMD Princess silent switches, which I wouldn’t choose, but [Lander03xD_] is taking this board to the office, so I get it. They sure are a nice shade of pink, anyway, and they go really well with the pastels of the DSA keycaps and the bezel.
One cool thing to note is that the PCBs are reversible, like the ErgoDox. This isn’t [Lander03xD_]’s first board, and it won’t be the last.
Now, let’s talk batteries. [Saixos] pointed out that the design doesn’t appear to include a protection circuit. In case you can’t tell from where you’re sitting, those are nice!nano clones that [Lander03xD_] is using, and they expect a protection circuit.
[Lander03xD_] is going to look through the docs and see what’s what. The goal is not to have any daughter boards, so this may take some rethinking.
Via reddit
So Arc Raiders is this cool-looking, stripe-logoed, multiplayer extraction shooter that just came out a couple of months ago for all the platforms. It’s not something I could personally play as it’s way too immersive (read: time-consuming), but it definitely looks good, much like this keyboard that [RunRunAndyRun] designed to play it.
No matter; just make a new one. Why not? This rustic beauty runs on the Waveshare RP2040 Zero. The case was 3D printed on a Prusa Mk4, which you’d never know unless you blew up the picture. And then [RunRunAndyRun] gave it that nice patina using Panduro hobby acrylics and a bit of weathering powder.
For now, it’s working pretty well, though [RunRunAndyRun] is still perfecting the keymap. If you’d like to build one yourself, the STLs are available here, and the firmware is on GitHub.
Thanks for the tip, [John]!
Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!
This spartan beauty was named after the state in which it was made, Pennsylvania. Manufactured between 1898 and 1903, the Keystone was invented by William Prehn Quentell.
Quentell was living in Kansas City, MO when he first applied for a patent, and later moved to the east coast. At the time, the machine was nameless. The patent looks nothing like the finished product pictured here, but the genesis of the key feature of this “poor man’s Hammond” is there — the swinging type sector.
What this means is that the Keystone has its type on a half wagon wheel, which is evident in the patent drawing. The glyphs are molded around the outside edge of the wheel, which gets rotated into the correct position with each keystroke. This type wheel could be easily changed out for different fonts.
To imprint the paper, a spring-driven hammer strikes from behind, pushing the paper and ribbon against the type wheel. The paper is loaded into a cylindrical holder in the rear, and unfurls as one types.
So, why was it a poor man’s Hammond? Well, for one, the patent image looks like a Hammond. But the poor part is felt the hardest in the makeup of the typewriter.
In the early Keystone examples, the carriage rails were made of pig iron. Why? It’s a simple case of lateral integration. The factory that was retrofitted to manufacture the machine had previously been the Lochiel iron mill, a producer of pig iron. They were just using up old stock, I imagine.
The Keystone featured two Shift keys on the left, one for Caps and one for Figures. It was a comparatively inexpensive at $40, and then later, $35 (around $1,200 today).
Production was supposed to begin in May of 1898. But by June of ’99, “the company has been unable to fill the orders which are piling up at the works.” Sounds like your average Kickstarter. Quentell was already working on his next project by 1902, the Postal typewriter.
So this article mainly centers on the new little Blackberry-esque number from Clicks which might just be my next phone, except that it doesn’t actually telephone. Clicks is meant to be your second phone, the one you use for emailing and such. You can pre-order it for $399 if you put a $199 deposit down before February 27th. If you decide to drop the full four hundo as an early bird, you’ll get two additional back covers, which slightly change the look of the phone.
But I’d like to talk about the add-on Power Keyboard for smart phones that Clicks is also dropping at CES this year. Do you miss your Sidekick? Well, here’s a sliding keyboard with multiple positions for differently-sized smart phones, tablets, and even smart TVs. (Because forget typing with the remote control.)
It uses a 2,150 mAh battery and attaches via MagSafe or Qi2, but it also can be used with the case on. When paired with a smart TV, you just use it by itself. Honestly, it looks kind of hard to type on without the phone for support. But I don’t use the smart features of my TV, so whatever.
Honestly, I will probably start by getting the keyboard, which is $79 for early birds through their site, and $109 later on. Pre-orders started a week ago, so I guess I should get on that.
Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.
2026-01-13 00:30:41
One of the most widely recognised product brands in the world is probably Coca-Cola, and its formula is famously kept a secret through precautions that probably rival those of many nation states. There are other colas, and there are many amateurs who have tried to copy Coke’s flavour, but in well over a century, nobody has managed it. Why does [LabCoatz] think his attempt will be successful where others failed? He has friends with their own mass spectrometers.
‘The video below the break is a nearly half-hour exploration into food chemistry and the flavour profile of the well-known soft drink. It’s easy to name many of the ingredients, but some, such as acetic acid, are unexpected. Replicating the contribution from Coke’s de-cocainised coca leaf extract requires the purchase of some of the constituent chemicals in pure form. Its value lies in showing us how flavour profiles are built up, and the analytical methods used in their decoding.
He makes the point that Coke has never patented the formula because to do so would reveal it, but perhaps in that lies the real point. The value in a secret formula for brands such as Coke lies not in the secret itself, as it’s not difficult to make a refreshing cola drink. Instead, it’s the mystique of their product having a secret recipe that matters. Since this isn’t the recipe itself but something that’s supposed to taste a lot like it, that mystique stays intact. He’s not positioning his Lab-Cola as the real thing, so while we might have used a different label colour and font just to make sure, we’re guessing he’s safe from the lawyers. If you’re interested in the legal grey areas surrounding perceived infringement, though, it’s a topic we’ve looked at before.
Thanks [Hans] for the tip!
2026-01-12 23:00:16
The line between a Linux user and a Linux power user is a bit gray, and a bit wide. Most people who install Linux already have more computer literacy than average, and the platform has long encouraged experimentation and construction in a way macOS and Windows generally aren’t designed for. Traditional Linux distributions often ask more of their users as well, requiring at least a passing familiarity with the terminal and the operating system’s internals especially once something inevitably breaks.
In recent years, however, a different design philosophy has been gaining ground. Immutable Linux distributions like Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE MicroOS, and NixOS dramatically reduce the chances an installation behaves erratically by making direct changes to the underlying system either impossible or irrelevant.
SteamOS fits squarely into this category as well. While it’s best known for its console-like gaming mode it also includes a fully featured Linux desktop, which is a major part of its appeal and the reason I bought a Steam Deck in the first place. For someone coming from Windows or macOS, this desktop provides a familiar, fully functional environment: web browsing, media playback, and other basic tools all work out of the box.
As a Linux power user encountering an immutable desktop for the first time, though, that desktop mode wasn’t quite what I expected. It handles these everyday tasks exceptionally well, but performing the home sysadmin chores that are second nature to me on a Debian system takes a very different mindset and a bit of effort.
I’ve owned my Deck for about a year now. Beyond gaming, the desktop mode has proven its value: it uses what essentially amounts to laptop hardware in a much smaller form factor, and is arguably more portable as a result. It easily plugs in to my existing workstation docks, so it’s easy to tote around, plug in, and start using. With a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse along with something to prop it up on, it makes an acceptable laptop substitute in certain situations as well. It’s also much more powerful than most of my other laptops with the possible exception of my M1 Macbook Air.
However, none of the reviews I watched or read circa 2023-2024 fully explained what an immutable OS was and how it’s different than something like Ubuntu or Fedora. Most of what I heard was that it runs “a modified version of Arch” with a “full Linux desktop” and little detail other than that, presumably to appeal to a wider audience that would be used to a fairly standard Windows PC otherwise. As a long-time Linux user the reviews I read led me to believe I’d probably just boot it up, open a terminal, and run pacman -S for all of the tools and software I’d normally install on any of my Debian machines.
Anyone familiar with immutable operating systems at this point will likely be laughing at my hubris and folly, although it’s not the first time I jumped into a project without a full understanding of what I would be doing. Again, having essentially no experience with immutable operating systems beyond having seen these words written together on a page, I was baffled at what was happening once I got my hands on my Deck and booted it into the desktop mode. I couldn’t install anything the way I was used to, and it took an embarrassing amount of time before I realized even basic things like Firefox and LibreOffice had to be installed with Flatpaks. These are self-contained Linux applications that bundle most of their own dependencies and run inside a sandbox, rather than relying on the host system’s libraries. In SteamOS they are installed in the home directory, which is important because any system updates from Valve will rewrite the entire installation except the home directory. They’re also installed from an app store of sorts, which also took some getting used to as I’ve been spoiled by about 20 years of apt having everything I could ever need.
But after that major hiccup of learning what my operating system was actually doing, it was fairly easy to get it working well enough to browse the internet, write Hackaday articles, and do anything else I could do with any other average laptop. This is the design intent of the Steam Deck, after all. It’s not meant for Linux power users, it’s meant as a computer where the operating system gets out of the way and lets its user play games or easily work in a recognizable desktop environment without needing extensive background Linux knowledge. That doesn’t mean that power users can’t get in and tinker, though; in fact tinkering is almost encouraged on this device. It just means that if they’re used to Debian, like I am, they have to learn a completely new way of working than they’re used to.
To start, I use a few tools on my home network that make it easier for me to move from computer to computer without interrupting any of my workflows. The first is Syncthing, which is essentially a self-hosted and decentralized Dropbox replacement that lets me sync files and folders automatically across various computers. Installing Syncthing is straightforward with a Flatpak but getting things to run at boot is not as easy. I did eventually get it working seamlessly by following this guide, though. This was my first learning experience on how to start system processes outside of a simple systemd command. Syncthing is a non-negotiable for me at this point as well and is essentially load-bearing in my workflow, and is actually the main reason I switched my Gentoo install from openRC to systemd since openRC couldn’t easily run a task at boot time as a non-root user.
I’m also a fan of NFS for network file sharing (as the name implies) and avoid Samba to stay away from any potential Windows baggage, although it’s generally a more supported file sharing protocol. Nonetheless, my media libraries all stream over my LAN using NFS, and my TrueNAS virtual machine on my Proxmox server also uses this protocol, so it was essential to get this working on my Deck as well.
Arguably Samba would be easier but we are nothing without our principles, however frivolous. On a Debian machine I would just edit /etc/fstab with the NFS share and mount points and be done, but consistently mounting my network shares at boot in SteamOS has been a bit elusive. Part of the problem is how SteamOS abstracts away root access in ways that are different from a traditional Linux installation, so things that need to be done at boot by root are not as easy to figure out. I have a workaround where I run a script to mount them quickly when I need them and it’s been working well enough that I haven’t figured out a true solution to this problem yet, but generally SteamOS doesn’t seem to be designed for persistent system-level configuration like this.
The only other major piece of infrastructure I run on all of my machines is Tailscale, which lets me easily configure a VPN for all of my devices so I can access them from anywhere with a network connection, not just when directly connected to my LAN. This was one of the easier things to figure out, as the Tailscale devs maintain an install script which automates the process and keeps the user from needing to do anything overly dramatic. This Reddit post goes into some Steam Deck-specific details that are helpful as well.
There were a few minor niggles for me even after sorting these major issues out. The Deck is actually quite capable of running virtual machines with its relatively powerful hardware, but the only virtualization software I’ve found as a Flatpak is Boxes, which is a bit limiting for those used to something like VMWare Workstation or KVM. Still, it works well enough that I’ve been able to experiment running other Linux operating systems easily on the Deck, and even tried out an old Windows XP image I have which I keep mostly so I can play my original copy of Starcraft without having to fuss with Wine.
Other than that, the default username “deck” trips me up in the terminal because I often forget it’s not the same username that I use for the the other machines on my network. The KDE Plasma desktop is also running X11 by default, and since I’ve converted all of my other machines to Wayland in an attempt to modernize, the Deck’s desktop feels a bit dated to me in that respect. My only other gripe is cosmetic in nature: I do prefer GNOME, and although SteamOS uses KDE as its default desktop environment I don’t care so deeply that I’ve tried to make any dramatic changes.
There have been a number of surprising side effects of running a system like this as well. Notably, the combination of Tailscale and Syncthing running at boot, even in gaming mode, lets me sync save states from non-Steam games, including emulators, so I can have a seamless experience moving from gaming on my Steam Deck to gaming on my desktop. (I’m still running this hardware for my desktop with the IME disabled.)
I’d actually go as far as recommend this software combination to anyone gaming across multiple machines based on how well it works. Beyond that major upside, I’ll also point out that running Filezilla as a Flatpak that gets automatically updated makes it much less annoying about reminding the user that there’s an update available, which has always been a little irksome to me otherwise.
The Steam Deck as a platform has also gotten a few of my old friends back into gaming after years of life getting in the way of building new desktop computers. It’s a painless way of getting a capable gaming rig, with the Steam Machine set to improve Valve’s offerings in this arena as well. So being able to reconnect with some of my older friends over a game of Split Fiction or Deep Rock Galactic has been a pleasant perk as well, although the Deck’s cultural cachet in this regard is a bit outside of our scope here.
I’ll also point out that this isn’t the only way of using the Deck as a generic Linux PC, either. I’ve mostly been trying to stick within the intended use of SteamOS as immutable Linux installation, but it’s possible to ignore this guiderail somewhat. The read-only filesystem that’s core to the OS’s immutability can be made writable with a simple command, and from there it behaves essentially like any other Arch installation.
Programs can be installed via pacman and, once everything is configured to one’s liking, the read-only state can be re-enabled. The only downside of this method is that a system update from Valve will wipe all of these changes. System updates don’t happen incredibly often, though, and keeping track of installed packages in a script that can be run after any updates will quickly get the system back to its pre-update condition. Going even farther than that, though, it’s also possible to install any operating system to a microSD card and use the Deck as you might any other laptop or PC, but for me this misses the point of learning a new tool and experiencing a different environment for its own sake, and also seems like a bit of overkill when there’s already a fully functional Linux install built into the machine.
Although my first experience with an immutable Linux distribution was a bit rough around the edges, it felt a lot like the first time I tried Linux back in 2005, right down to not entirely understanding how software was supposed to be installed at first. I was working with something new without fully grasping what I’d signed up for, and moments like using a software repository for the first time were genuinely eye-opening. Back then, not having to hunt down sketchy .exe files on the Internet just to get basic functionality on my computer felt revelatory; today, immutable distributions offer a similar shift, trading some initial confusion on my part for a system that’s more reliable and far harder to break. Even after years of using mainstream Linux distributions, there’s still plenty to learn, and that process of figuring things out remains part of the fun.
There’s never been a better time to get into Linux, either. Hardware prices keep climbing as a result of the AI bubble, all while Microsoft continues to treat perfectly functional PCs as e-waste and tightens the screws on their spyware-based ecosystem that users have vanishingly little control over. Against that backdrop, immutable Linux distributions like SteamOS, Bazzite, Fedora Silverblue, or even the old standbys like Mint, Debian, and Arch offer a way to keep using capable hardware without spending any money.
Even for longtime Debian system administrators and power users, immutable distributions are a new tool genuinely worth learning, with the caveat that there will likely be lots of issues like mine that crop up but which aren’t insurmountable. These tools represent a different way of thinking about what an operating system should be, though, and it’s exciting to see what that shift could mean for the future of PCs and gaming outside the increasingly hostile Microsoft–Apple duopoly.
2026-01-12 20:00:32
Living without standard utility hookups like electricity, Internet, water, and sewer comes with a whole host of challenges, all of which are most commonly solved by spending lots of money. For electricity, a solar array or a generator is fairly common. The Internet can similarly be accessed via a satellite link if wires aren’t available. For water, most people will drill a well, but that gets similarly expensive. [Cranktown City] recently bought an off-grid home and needed a way to get water to it on a budget, so he built this water trailer instead.
The trailer started off as a standard single-axle utility trailer. The weight rating was probably around 3,500 pounds or 1588 kg. A few support structures were welded in. The supports serve double duty as a frame for two IBC totes, which can hold about 550 gallons or 2082 liters of water. The trailer also got upgraded wiring, including some extra wires to support a backup camera. The two totes were then plumbed together with a ball valve for an outlet. That valve was mated to a motor that can be remotely activated from within a truck to dump the water out into a cistern.
On the cistern side, [Cranktown City] welded up a door with a linear actuator and a remote control. When he’s ready to dump the water into the cistern, he can easily back up the trailer using the backup camera, open the door to the cistern remotely, and then activate the ball valve on the trailer to start filling the reservoir. It’s a clever solution to bringing water to his off-grid property at a fraction of the cost of a drilled well. We’ve seen some other unique ways to live off-grid as well, like this hydroelectric generator, which might offset the cost of an expensive solar array.
