I use my older Linux laptop with Rustdesk to remotely control my ‘good’ one. Works nicely, and they’ve fixed the Windows key / alt tab issues as well.

A smart switch that turns off the power when the battery hits 80% and turns it on at 78%? Dunno if that would actually work.

It’ll probably work. Biggest issue will be recovery after power failure as laptops generally stay off.

Next most likely is CPU fan failure, exacerbated if CPU usage causes the fans to run high and nobody is there to blow the dust out.

Other than that I’ve had multiple laptops that run as servers over the years and generally they’re fine. Streaming audio for our community radio station, or shoved behind wall mounted TV’s for updateable PowerPoint displays.

The PWAs for Firefox extension does a good job most of the time. Just frustrating when it gets broken.

Had it set up on both Windows and Fedora / Debian without issues.

I guess really all I want is the option to have a task bar icon for each ‘website’ - I’ve doubled them up in the screenshot as half are broken at the moment. Each Gmail session is tied to a separate address, so could technically just be a ‘bookmark’ but it’s nice that they act as their own window, analagous to being an app. That doesn’t really have to be a PWA I guess, but a separate window.

ddrescue (or gddrescue) is a great version if you have a sick drive. It’ll try to copy the good areas first then go back to hammer on the sick areas.

Not perfect as it doesn’t know about the file system so it tries to copy the entire surface, but generally a good tool.

Might be a touch screen issue? Try a drawing or paint app and see if there are any anomalies while colouring in the screen.

Righto :)

I was thinking of usb3 hard drives. No need for internal storage if using spinning rust.

On older laptops with optical drives you can sometimes replace the drive with a sata tray and add a second drive that way.

But yes, a server that looks like a server and can recover after power loss is useful.

A cheap laptop might also be worth considering? Built in UPS that way, and sometimes UPSes have a large standby power usage. Would support a couple of bus powered drives as well.

Main drawback is no recovery if the battery drains fully.

Rustdesk, so I can remote into my main computer and the others I manage.

PWAs For Firefox.

And that’s about it.

I use Debian BTW. (Was on Fedora but killed it when there were sound issues, turned out to Rustdesk at fault. Can’t do Mint as it boots to black screen.)

Chrome OS Flex seems OK. Not sure how it manages printers.

Testing.

Not directly as Voyager uses its own menu system. The nearest option is to select ‘Share’ from the menu, then select the Translate app.

That’ll translate the article, which is useful. What I was hoping for was a translation in the feed itself so you would know if the article is interesting.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Fedora.

Most of the others either booted to a black screen after install, or the track pad was somewhat uncontrollable when scrolling. Older Asus laptop with separate GPU.

LOG

Does your system have two graphics processors? One of my laptops won’t work with many distros as they boot to blank screens after install. Fedora was one that does work in my case.

It’s a laptop with two GPUs.

Gnome.

With NoMachine to my Windows Host, hot keys go to the host as intended.

Rustdesk can’t do it in any config and they don’t care at this stage.

Hehe.

It will of course be degraded, but I’m only sending it to my tech limited relatives who don’t use any apps other than WhatsApp.

I use the screen recorder on my phone.

I blame Ian Dury.

Possibly NSFW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kFnHPHBcb4