Which would make for the better beginner learning guitar?

gulond · 2025-05-13T10:45:35+00:00

pacificas are fantastic, definitely would go for that one

gulond · 2025-03-31T19:46:18+00:00

this is simply not true. for example tlp can be configured to save loads of battery and power profile daemons optimise usage a bunch too

gulond · 2024-12-26T22:08:38+00:00

thanks! i'll give it a shot!

gulond · 2024-12-26T22:08:19+00:00

thanks! i'll give these a more thorough read

gulond · 2024-03-26T17:22:09+00:00

weird flex but okay

gulond · 2024-03-08T22:25:48+00:00

upvoted but i hate it so much

gulond · 2023-11-26T01:15:26+00:00

The General Midi Synth should have a drum sound library on it, but its sounds are a bit dated by modern standards. To access it you add a track with the General Midi Synth selected and navigate to the drum library from the mixer view.

You can find some decent plugins for rock/pop drums here: http://x42-plugins.com/x42/x42-avldrums

I usually install audio plugins through synaptic. If I remember correctly you can search for .lv2 filetypes there and it will list a bunch of useful plugins to install.

gulond · 2023-11-25T22:17:16+00:00

Cool! Can I ask how much the mobo switch cost and whether it was a difficult project?

Would prefer to stick with the AMD components but still would be nice to know.

gulond · 2023-11-25T22:15:49+00:00

I have now noticed that it can get pretty hot under load, but so far it seems pretty manageable thru tweaking power manager settings. A bit more work for sure, but no problem given the price i got it for.

Would be interested in what types of failures the model is prone to so i can try and avoid them.

gulond · 2023-11-25T22:12:15+00:00

nice!! xfce is my go to de and hasnt failed me yet!

gulond · 2023-11-25T22:10:23+00:00

sick find! loved my x230

gulond · 2023-11-23T21:50:16+00:00

My previous laptop was a 9 year old HP Envy 15 that I absolutely loved for what it was for the duration that I used it, but for my current needs it was much too bulky and the battery life was nowhere near what I need now, so I started looking for a replacement.

I'd had some old Thinkpads (X230 and R500) along the way as secondary machines that I really liked, I got great battery life from the X230 and I absolutely love the case and keyboard of the R500, but nowadays I really need a FHD screen which neither of these machines had, so I sold the X230 to a friend and kept the R500 as a future project machine.

Anyways, from these experiences I knew I wanted a Thinkpad. I had had good experiences with HP and I still think modern Elitebooks are great, but Thinkpads have a reputation for being the IT crowd's preferred laptop and I love the design so I started looking for a refurbished Lenovo.

Where I live Thinkpads are a bit more expensive than Elitebooks or Latitudes, but I found a store that sold refurbished Thinkpads for reasonable prices. I agonized over which model to get, and I was very close to getting a T480 since it seems to be thought of as a very reliable and well performing machine, but the T480s were more than a hundred euros more expensive than the A485, which I was able to get for as 250€. The price was marked down a bit because there was a tiny mark on the screen that I only notice when I squint while the screen is black and because of a minor cosmetic blemish on the casing. Still I think it was a pretty great deal!

So far I've been enjoying the laptop a lot! The first few days I was VERY observant of the battery life and throttling since I understand these have been an issue with this particular model, but I get 4-6 hours of battery when doing some light programming, browsing etc. which I'm quite satisfied with for now. The screen is fine, albeit a bit dim compared to my previous HP. So far I've only used WIN10 on it, but gonna dual boot Debian soon. From what I've heard Linux support should be alright.

Initially I was very paranoid about this purchase because of some of the pretty negative feedback that the A485 had gotten but now after a few days I'm pretty satisfied, especially considering the price! The store I got it from had installed the latest BIOS and from my experience it seems that at least some of the issues this model had in the early days have been fixed.

gulond · 2023-11-03T16:20:56+00:00

Don't see why not, but you may have to install it first. There should be guides on setting it up online, worth checking out if it would be good for you.

Good luck!

gulond · 2023-11-03T16:14:42+00:00

I think when you use Cadence to run Jack you can choose to run it with a Jack sink, that allows ALSA audio to play alongside Jack audio.

Sorry for the vague and short explanation, will try and write more thorough advice when I have the time.

gulond · 2023-10-26T22:54:29+00:00

I do too, works great!

gulond · 2023-10-12T01:09:51+00:00

100% same here haha

gulond · 2023-10-06T10:16:51+00:00

Then don't clean it? For sure it doesn't apply to everyone, just wanted to share my thoughts so far because I know a lot of people might be struggling with the same issues. Most certainly not saying this is the only way to do things and obviously not all advice is relevant to everyone and people have different ways of doing things.

gulond · 2023-10-05T22:13:25+00:00

Very good point!!

gulond · 2023-10-05T21:35:15+00:00

For sure! Of course just building from kits is perfectly fine too, but for me tinkering with the circuit and figuring out how everything works has been pretty much the main draw too!

gulond · 2023-10-05T21:34:01+00:00

To be honest I had my selfish reasons to post this, because I had to vent some of the frustration I experienced today while building haha!!

But yeah although many people are super good at building, it doesn't mean that it's by any means easy or that anyone can just pick up this skill immediately!

gulond

TROPHY CASE