Buy an old ThinkPad, learn Emacs and forget the rest
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Old laptop
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You don't need a new laptop when you are using an open source
operating system, like Linux or, even better, one of the BSD's.
The BSD's, like FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD are great operating
systems for older hardware. They perform well, except of course
when you want to do compute-heavy things like video editing or
running a web browser like Chrome or Firefox.
There are plenty alternatives for Chrome and Firefox, that are
better for your privacy and don't require that much resources.
Using an old laptop and keeping an old laptop in use is good
for the environment. The production of a laptop requires a lot
of materials, water, power, and so on. Adding a laptop to the
electronic waste is a burden on the environment. So, we should
try to keep laptops in use as long as possible.
Old Thinkpad
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Older Thinkpads are a joy to use. The keyboard of older
ThinkPads are the best laptop keyboards. No other laptop
keyboard beats the older ThinkPad keyboards.
Older ThinkPads are build like a tank. They are very
robust. Also the are easy to repair or enhance. Many parts are
easy to replace or exchange.
ThinkPads come with a TrackPoint, that red little thingy in the
middle of the keyboard. TrackPoints are gewoenungsbeduerftig,
the great German word for things you really have to get used
to. When you have never used a TrackPoint before, you must get
yourself acquainted to the use of it.
But when you are used to using a TrackPoint, you won't want to
it any other way. The TrackPoint is smack in the center of the
keyboard, so you won't have to remove your fingers from the
home row. Unlike TrackPads or desktop mouses, you can steer
with the TrackPoin the mouse from one corner of the screen to
the opposite corner, just in one go.
Seasoned open source operating system users try to use the
mouse as less as possible, using tiling window managers and
keyboard-centric applications. But there are moments you
still have to move the mouse, and the TrackPoint is the best
and most efficient way for that.
Learn Emacs
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Learn to use Emacs, and you will wonder how you could have done
so long without it. Emacs is a wonderful platform. It is a kind
of lisp machine, that runs a lot of (e)lisp applications. all
within your Emacs windows.
Emacs is old and goes back to the time before Microsoft Windows
and Apple operating systems. It uses a lot of key bindings that
for current computer users seem weird. This mean you have to
spent time just to learn the user interface, and the most
common keybindings.
Learning Emacs is a good investment of your time and you won't
regret it. There are two ways to approach this, you can learn
the vanilla key bindings or you can learn the Doom key
bindings. Doom is a third party Emacs configuration that
mimics the Vim key bindings, with space as the leader key.
You have to think hard about this choice. Once you go the
vanilla way, it will be hard to switch to the Doom way, and
vice versa. The problem is, you have to make this choice while
still being an Emacs novice. So, you can only make an educated
guess at best.
Doom is very large. New Emacs modes (Emacs-speak for plug-ins)
will always support the vanilla key bindings. So, I choose the
go the vanilla way. After being a Vim user for two decades this
was not easy. But it is very much doable.
You just have to make the choice and commit to it. Set aside
time to learn the basics. Start using Emacs as much as
possible. The rest will follow while using Emacs.
My promise: you won't regret the time spent learning Emacs!
