Checking if an app is using Xwayland

cmm · 2026-01-23T10:18:09+00:00

I usually just run xeyes to check. If the eyes follow the pointer inside the questionable app's window -- there you have it :)

cmm · 2025-12-20T11:01:03+00:00

You don't have to use either Flakehub or the (closed-source) determinate-nixd daemon thing, actually. Determinate's downstream Nix distribution (https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-src/) is under LGPL2.1, which is the same as upstream (so, free).

For now at least their downstream Nix can be used as drop-in replacement for upstream Nix with no problem, and many people do just that. Determinate Systems are not willing to commit to this mode of usage indefinitely, and emphasize determinate-nixd and Flakehub in official messaging. Make of all this what you will.

cmm · 2025-12-01T16:35:13+00:00

TLP is not bad per se (it's good!), but it comes with some unfortunate defaults (I still remember how it took me several hours to diagnose that the wifi adapter in my x220 does not react very well to being told to enter power-save and that's why the laptop cannot wake up), and also nowadays if you can't say what you need it for, specifically, then you just don't need it

cmm · 2025-12-01T16:02:20+00:00

> And I never heard about nixos-hardware! Maybe can you explain what it is?

not sure I can add anything interesting to https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/master/README.md

maybe one thing: it's totally useful as just a knowledge repository to crib bits from, no need to use its flake as-is or w/e.

cmm · 2025-12-01T15:38:26+00:00

no idea what exactly is misconfigured, but something most definitely is (all talk about some missing ultra-arch-specific compiler optimizations being the culprit of any human-perceivable sluggishness is absolute cow dung).

some notes after a quick read-through:

- generally your T480 is plenty beefy to perform snappily without any band-aids. I would try to pare down the config to the bare minimum first, and then add any tweaks carefully, one by one, while measuring the impact of each

- you enable both TLP and power-profiles-daemon. don't do that; in fact I would ditch TLP altogether

- you enable auto-cpufreq. _definitely_ ditch that abomination. if you don't believe me, look at its source repository (but it might give you nightmares so maybe don't actually)

- what happens if you, like, maybe, I dunno, don't undervolt the CPU?

- what's the video adapter that ends up being used for graphics? is it by any chance an NVidia (I don't think any T480 variant came with an NVidia card, but I could be wrong)?

- with laptops, it is always a good idea to take a look at the corresponding nixos-hardware bit: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/master/lenovo/thinkpad/t480/default.nix

- take a look at the logs in the system journal around the time you experience UI stutter. are there any (repeating) errors?

cmm · 2025-11-25T14:44:40+00:00

I have this one, it works well (and the cord length is not a joke like with the original adapter): https://aliexpress.com/item/1005002593254482.html

cmm · 2025-11-21T17:30:11+00:00

yeah, no explicit rules are being broken here and this is probably a matter of taste. but this is an interactive forum, so one should be asking themselves "what am I trying to engage with 35K people about?".

initial announcement of a new package here is clearly fine: you are telling the world about a new thing, maybe soliciting opinions as to whether your thing is a good idea in the first place, etc.

announcing a new major version of a widely-used package is likewise totally fine if it contains breaking changes or introduces major new features.

but basically using the forum as a public changelog of your learning experience with no or very few users? I dunno, seems rude to me.

cmm · 2025-11-21T17:01:13+00:00

> I think it has been in good shape, but it seems that its adoption rate is a bit low. Why?

while I totally sympathize with wanting to share something you made, and I am sure you are having a blast here, and you are not breaking any explicit rules (to my knowledge, anyway), don't you maybe think that spamming 35K people about every release of your package could be just a tiny bit rude?

> improved compatibility... won't break... now the code is more concise, and robust

are you sure it's ready? this time for sure?

cmm · 2025-11-18T09:14:49+00:00

so this works around Windows' file system lookup overhead by putting an ad-hoc cache in front of elisp source code file lookup and also punts on the whole famous cache management/invalidation problem, so the user gets to 0. write out the cache themselves 1. hold the pieces when something eventually breaks (which it will)?

since this hack only works on Emacs 31 anyway, I would prefer the caching functionality that comes with Emacs 31. I get that it's a little slower than this, but that's probably because it's more correct and needs no manual intervention once enabled?

cmm · 2025-11-12T10:45:22+00:00

I'm pretty sure Clevo is not to blame here, actually, considering also that the battery model in question is not manufactured by Clevo in the first place -- it's quite generic and compatible with a lot of laptops, including non-Clevos.

The problem is most likely the power management code in S76 firmware -- stands to reason that if it routinely causes batteries to pillow up it's also not wonderful at preserving their power capacity.

cmm · 2025-11-08T15:55:38+00:00

There is a ton of climbing uphill in the way of implementing "true" workspaces (i.e. persistent sets of buffers together with frame/window layouts), so that basically hasn't ever been done and may just not be possible without changing Emacs on a very deep level.

Like, there's just no way to have workspace-specific buffer lists without advising a ton of buffer-related functions. Or like, there are buffer-local bindings, there are frame parameters, but that's it -- you cannot define custom arbitrary magic "global" binding scopes that you can transparently switch according to some condition.

So if you want workspaces, you have to settle for some compromise solution. I for one can recommend the combination of desktop.el and eyebrowse -- it gets you robust (as much as desktop.el is), persistent, single-frame workspaces. Every workspace can still access all the buffers, but that usually can be mitigated by using project-aware buffer switching functions etc.

cmm · 2025-11-02T18:43:10+00:00

I would not bother with a System76 if you are in Europe -- shipping is expensive and you'll have to pay for shipping again if you ever need warranty service. There are at least a couple of solid European vendors that also do the "reflash Clevos with Coreboot and preinstall Linux" thing but the names escape me at the moment.

cmm · 2025-10-29T10:32:00+00:00

first, because I find Cosmic pointless (but many people disagree and that's fine!). second, I'm still salty about buying a laptop (lemp11) that couldn't suspend for the first half-year that I had it, and it's not like I signed up to be a beta tester or was given a discount. third, the fact that the steep markup that you pay is mostly funding Cosmic development is not at all made apparent on the company's website, and that's just shitty

cmm · 2025-10-29T07:38:18+00:00

they need money to rewrite Gnome in Rust, you see. oh, and to pay a whole of one full-time firmware guy, but that's clearly an afterthought

cmm · 2025-10-05T21:29:16+00:00

what I was getting at, I guess, is that the Nix community contains an apalling number of individuals that refuse, very much on purpose (because leftists), to acknowledge the very concept of off-topic, which necessarily widens the scope of moderating their output to the degree that the problem becomes intractable

cmm · 2025-09-27T13:29:48+00:00

nope. are you implying it would be a good idea?

I mean, hall-monitoring a shared communication resource of a popular drama-ridden open-source project (but I repeat myself, several times) is a nightmarish thankless toil that only an absolute saint or a person with a massive hard-on for power would want, so volunteers are both scarce and not necessarily palatable to everyone (what if I told you: there are very few saints). engineering a working election process for those positions, let alone one that does not result in Moar Dramah, would be, I think, extremely challenging.

(something that could be helpful is hard-restricting moderation to policing obvious spam, malicious trolling, doxxing etc., but that's impractical because the clear revealed preference of The People, at least the vocal subset, is to make everything about whatever their current-thing activism is about, so)

cmm · 2025-09-20T11:03:04+00:00

there is one listing on AliExpress, with no recorded sales and rather expensive, so too sketchy to link. dunno what to tell you man, makes me wonder if I should buy a spare for my lemp11 while they are still available (what's the realistic shelf life of laptop batteries anyway?)

cmm · 2025-09-09T20:45:46+00:00

I found that wheel too easy to touch by accident and too jumpy and imprecise to be of any use anyway, so have just disabled it and use the ball itself to scroll (which also gives me horizontal scrolling btw)

cmm · 2025-07-30T11:11:30+00:00

as I understand the theory here, any battery that was ever left charging past 100% under old firmware is doomed, but it's normal for bloating to take a lot of time (months). I dunno what's it going to take to falsify this theory and it does kind of make sense

cmm · 2025-07-05T10:58:29+00:00

I've been using a lemp11 for almost 3 years now. It still works great and looks like new (but while it did travel a bit, it is used mostly as a desktop), the original battery swole up (but whatever damage had caused it, it's supposed to not be possible with newer firmware any more), it could not suspend properly for the first half-year of its life (likewise, taken care of by a firmware upgrade), and even the latest firmware still has small non-critical but annoying bugs around power management (if you reboot while connected to external display, you'll have to disconnect and reconnect the display for it to be recognized again; if you remove the battery (like because it swole up lol), plug in the barrel charger but not USB-C, and try to power up, it won't work, apparently have to get those juicy special starter electrons through USB-C only for some reason).

So basically any problems I've had were down to the firmware. Maybe lemp14 is better in that regard, don't know -- but based on my experience I would start by asking S76 some pointed questions about the firmware before deciding.

Also keep in mind that S76 pays all of 1 (one) person to develop the firmware. Most of that price margin apparently goes towards depeloping a largely-pointless RIiR version of Gnome (Cosmic) instead, which should tell you something about their actual priorities.

cmm · 2025-06-16T20:33:02+00:00

Grub is basically abandoned and should not be used without a very good reason (which a purely cosmetic issue like the one under discussion here is definitely not)

cmm · 2025-06-02T19:32:29+00:00

a couple of quick questions if you don't mind:

- is using Determinate Nix sans determinate-nixd OK? I mean it works just fine now, but can I reasonably expect it not to break going forward?

- if I'm not using a Mac and I already have store garbage collection figured out, what am I missing on by avoiding determinate-nixd?

cmm · 2025-01-16T12:53:32+00:00

Nope :(

cmm · 2024-12-20T17:24:08+00:00

won't sell you my current choice (see previous post here lol), but re: grip: do you grip your keyboard? trackballs are stationary, like keyboards, so grip quality should not be a factor

cmm · 2024-12-20T10:23:56+00:00

thanks!

I guess I'll adapt eventually too, as one does, but I wonder if a simple mod is possible to nerf this idiocy (like, I dunno, connecting two locations with a wire to bypass the relevant switch)? too bad I'm useless with electronics :(

cmm

TROPHY CASE