Three weeks with the DevTerm

Well, as the title states, i am now using the DevTerm for

about three weeks for nearly all of my mobile computing

needs. So, how does this odd little thing works out as

a potential replacement of my Thinkpad R60?

The good

It sits in this sweet spot where it is small enough to be

ultra portable and light enough to be carried around all

day without noticing, but on the other hand big enough to

have way more screen real-estate than for example an

smarthone (as long as you don't count 'Phablets'), it also

has the additional bonus of an -in my opinion- quiet decent

keyboard. An absolutely great thing in my eyes are the use

of standard 18650 batteries. On my system a charge lasts

about 6 hours and the batteries are hot swappable, so with

a couple of additional batteries in your pocket the runtime

is quiet extendible.

Its slow... way slower than anyone who has lived through the

time when 1 GB RAM and a 1 Ghz Processor was what the cool

kids had would anticipate. But, alas, most of todays software

tend to be on the supersized side of things and back in the

late 90s / early 00s nobody would have thought that an browser

may need more then a couple of MB RAM, but i digress...

... the trackball! Its an absolute abomination that is hardly

usable and should only be used in the case of an absolute

emergency. ANY form of the crappiest, cheapest USB rodent one

might have pulled out of an dumpster is way better than this

tiny plastic ball of torture.

Sooo... am i happy with the DevTerm?

Well... yes, absolutely! On the one hand its a nice little

retro futuristic looking "toy", but on the other hand it is

very good at what it claims to be: An Development Terminal.

Running it with a bunch of tools out of the suckless space

the speed limitation is nearly gone, using dillo as a web

browser offers a very fast and lightweight option to browse

the smol web and for everything one might need more power it

is easy to simply ssh / vnc into bigger iron one might have

at hand. So, in a way this thing has some potential as a

kind of Chromebook for people who like text based interfaces

and the more unixey way to get things done. Yes indeed, i am

quiet happy with this thing.