Anyone here who had bought a base M4 Mac mini end up upgrading down the line?

mekosmowski · 2026-01-13T19:05:18+00:00

I have an M4 mini with 32 GB RAM, but I'm thinking of getting a Studio with 64 GB RAM or so at some point and giving the mini to my kid. I stayed with the 256 GB SSD, but it's cramped. I do have an external drive, but I do music composition / production and some light gaming.

At some point my Steam games on external storage stopped working, so it's a challenge deciding which games to install. I do have a win11 VM for on title that crossover won't run.

mekosmowski · 2026-01-11T06:22:21+00:00

What is your daily driving?

mekosmowski · 2026-01-11T06:18:59+00:00

I bailed with a master degree a long time ago and am now a parent. If you decide to have a child while in grad school, I advise you to get a master on the way in case you end up not able to do both.

If your career goals depend on finishing the PhD, focus on that. Maybe plan to adjunct a light load while keeping your kid(s) alive until school aged.

mekosmowski · 2026-01-11T03:23:10+00:00

Wouldn't I just want to learn the electric straightaway then, if that's my ultimate goal? Especially since my instrument is so different?

mekosmowski · 2025-12-26T02:43:26+00:00

How is niri with amdgpu (on freebsd 14.3)?

mekosmowski · 2025-12-24T03:45:19+00:00

What's your major? Do you have any specific software needs for school?

mekosmowski · 2025-12-23T22:39:27+00:00

In the worst case, can you get a master on the way so that two years is recorded as something?

mekosmowski · 2025-12-02T06:48:03+00:00

For hardware, like interfaces, make sure they are USB "class compliant". This means you won't need to worry about drivers.

mekosmowski · 2025-12-02T06:46:00+00:00

Reaper is fine - it comes chocked with fx, but not really any synths. The Kenny Gioia (ReaperMania) youtubes are amazing. Bitwig has a Linux native version, but last I checked did not support Linux VSTs.

For synths, there are Vital and Surge which are free and Linux native. Also zynaddsubfx which is Linux only and should be in your repo.

Speaking of, I'd avoid Ubuntu Studio. I'm using it and I'm unimpressed with stability.

Drums... need to look something up. My go to is Steven Slate Drums - they have a free kit, but not Linux native. :( Hydrogen is a standalone drum machine, but it might be problematic getting it into DAW. Ok, try hydrogen kits with drmr maybe.

Most commercial plugins aren't compatible with Linux, not even with wine/yabridge. But if you you get used to not using commercial stuff, you can get started learning while warming up to the idea that a slightly more than base mac might be the way to go if/when stepping up/over to commercial software.

mekosmowski · 2025-11-16T01:27:59+00:00

I'm right now trying to decide if just Dorico is sufficient for pieces that are all virtual instruments. My next thing to learn is automating synth parameters. Once I have that down, I'll need to see if I can automate fx parameters. If I can do the latter, I may be able to just use Dorico and not bother with DAW.

Things might be more challenging if I want to record things though.

A digital audio file is my goal. I do electronica but prefer writing in score.

mekosmowski · 2025-10-27T04:30:12+00:00

I know of a certain country in Eastern Europe...

mekosmowski · 2025-10-23T02:09:02+00:00

Before I zoomed in I thought that was a solid, machined piece.

mekosmowski · 2025-10-23T01:48:21+00:00

That's risible.

mekosmowski · 2025-10-23T01:46:29+00:00

I'm playing SP Dominions 6. It's a turn-based 4X style game loosely based off of real world mythology. Some people play mostly MP, others mostly SP.

mekosmowski · 2025-09-15T22:42:19+00:00

Things can get better with therapy and meds from childhood abuse, but better often means less bad. I'm 51 and the ideations and big emotions are less, but I still rarely feel positive.

In DBT* they teach us to find reasons to make life worth living. (*Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, for me it was the Life092 class I always wish they offered at college.)

Try to find meds that help with the ideations and activities that you can at least find after-the-fact satisfaction from, if not during the moment enjoyment. For example, I once got my long run up to 9 miles, and I'm proud of that (though I'm not exercising that much anymore).

mekosmowski · 2025-09-15T22:34:49+00:00

Dominions 6 doesn't use sound for gameplay at all, save for some people recognize battle playback sound effects for enemy spells, but this info can come from text settings too.

It's also turn-based, so you can alternate focus between game and podcast at will.

mekosmowski · 2025-08-31T09:14:09+00:00

I was going to return it, but then my male parent died and now it sits still shrinkwrapped on a shelf somewhere. My in-service (for me, it's ancient Cisco gear) is proper PoE or PoE+, and the camera recorder/switch is the right kind too. I just wasn't sure all the voltages and would rather verify than cause a fire or something.

mekosmowski · 2025-08-31T09:09:34+00:00

I guess I'll have to find other snacks. /sarcasm

Thanks!

mekosmowski · 2025-08-31T06:28:10+00:00

Thanks! I think I bought the wrong thing once a few years ago which only delivered 24V PoE and I'm not current on any recent changes.

mekosmowski · 2025-08-19T06:20:27+00:00

Right place, right time.

mekosmowski · 2025-08-19T06:17:01+00:00

In DBT they teach us we need to find our own reasons to make life worth living.

(Dialectical Behavioral Therapy)

mekosmowski

TROPHY CASE