alt Hacker NewsIt's time to talk about my writerdeck
Comments
This reads like someone with ADHD took Adderall and accidentally focused hard for a day on the wrong thing. It has happened to me.
I guess if this writerdeck works persistently for many projects then fine. But if every 2 projects the writerdeck gets revamped then it seems like a way to get a dopamine hit or distract ones self. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't seem like it's a net benefit in terms of focus.
If anyone wants to try this without the intricate setup, if you have a linux system, you most probably can just press Ctrl+Alt+F3 and drop into a tty console directly. To return, you have to press Ctrl+Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+F2. You also have multiple consoles, up until F12 probably.
I used to use this a lot when trying for a less distracting desktop, just like in the original post.
The way people are coping with the current hellscape that is 2026 is interesting to me. Somehow, it always seems to be internalization. Like, if only I can lock in using this distraction free method, if only I start buying more physical media, if only I use a dumb phone and an mp3 player for my music, etc. etc., somehow that will resolve the intractable shitstorm happening right now. And none of that is even going to be a drop in the ocean in terms of making your life better. Only collective action has the potential to do that at this stage.
I'm desperately awaiting the perfect eink device for this.
I've got a great writing setup on Obsidian that really works for me, a royal kludge mechanical keyboard...just waiting on the next gen of eink
The Boox One Note Max was sooo close, but they almost immediately discontinued the product and probably won't be supporting it long.
Suggestions are welcome
This article reminded me of something I've been thinking a lot these past few months, that is having my computer split in 2 modes:
1. work, having everything available in a desktop OS
2. personal, a console-only mode with a few basic functionalities I consider not time wasting: ebook reader, weather forecast, next sport events, 1 TV show episode per day, calculator, calendar, timer, etc
Since I use the extremely configurable awesomewm window manager, this switch would not be hard to implement and have me locked (somehow) based on day of the week or time on work days.
LE: actually, the console-only mode would be more of a menu-only one with something like rofi desktop [1]. Something very minimal and easy to use.
HN deletes certain words at the beginnings of submitted titles: could we add "It's time to talk about" and potentially also "my"?
> I had to set my syncthing web GUI to be listening on all addresses instead of just 127.0.0.1. I don't love this approach, but again, this thing has nothing private on it.
OP mentions SOCKS proxy but you can also just port-forward the one web ui port instead:
ssh -nNT writerdeck -L 8484:localhost:8384
> I'm trying to be more intentional with my tech choices. I want devices that do one thing really well, and that when I'm done with that one thing, I can put them away, and do something else. I don't want everything to follow me around everywhere.
Sign me up.
I would like an audio device which can play mp3, podcasts, internet radio. Bonus points if it supports some kind of cartridge system, size between credit card and audio cassette. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I had a similar setup in 2023, but the computer was reformatted after I moved. I wrote a HN comment about the setup before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37792204
I liked it and intend to use a similar setup in the future. There were quite a few "rough edges", unfortunately. In retrospect, a tiling window manager would have been a better choice.
I found Midnight Command to be great for this, with its integrated file manager, file viewer (mcview), editor (mcedit), and diff (mcdiff).
I didn't realize how much I relied on a unified clipboard until I didn't have one any longer. mcedit's clipboard was a file (or one of them was?), so I had to adjust some workflows.
The biggest problem came from my need to view a lot of PDF files. I had a framebuffer PDF viewer that was pretty clunky. It did not work with tmux and PDF files could not be opened directly from Midnight Commander as I recall. This specifically is why I'm thinking about a tiling window manager as I won't have to pick a clunky PDF viewer and the remainder will just work.
Consider wordgrinder, a console word processor, as distinct from a text editor. https://github.com/davidgiven/wordgrinder
Has me thinking about laser-focused task alternatives.
WorldDeck : 3D art / game development
GengoDeck : Japanese Immersion / Studying
TuneDeck : Making music.
SteamDeck : A deck for... oh I think this idea is taken.
Hmm. No i think I'll get back to working... for now.
Why not just use DOS? e.g.:
https://github.com/lproven/usb-dos
At least the laptops that can still run DOS natively tend to have fairly good keyboards...
I've wanted to do this for a while. Thanks for detailing your setup! I hope one day I find the time to try it.
I've also always yearned for more usability from just the command line.
There's no tui spotify client, is there? Maybe I should break out my mp3 collection again... I'm trying to think of what else I'd really need to not need a GUI machine for my day to day. Maybe email?
Lynx and other tui browsers are not usable on today's web. Maybe there's a subculture to find somewhere that also appreciates reader-mode / lack of javascript?
If so anyone please lead me to the promise land!
I’m working on one! It’s early stage, but it’s relatively low latency e paper writing tool with my writing tool Ensō.
I’m calling it Writer’s Block. (I love carpentry and want it to look a bit like a wooden pencil case.) the prototype will be a literal log of wood (guess the name). It makes sense because the larger form factor allows for faster prototyping!
I don't think I could go this far, because I'd have too many devices to switch between.
But I like the overall idea.
It also fits in well with something I used to think about a lot: Computers and the internet have caused a major shift toward hiding a lot of things that used to be much more apparent.
E.g. your important papers would be in a physical file. Your books would be on the shelves. Your art on the walls. Visitors and family members could see them. Quite a few things I have in common with my late dad were a result of finding his books on the shelves as physical objects.
Now most of the books I've bought (and a couple I've written) over the last couple of decades are on my phone or my computer, and not visible to anyone who doesn't know where to look.
I've tried to be deliberate about showing my son the books I think he'll like, but those of my dads books, and manuscripts he wrote, that I ended up picking up and reading were only partially those he showed me - many more were books he had no inkling I'd like, or didn't think were age appropriate, that I stumbled on over the years.
Moving all of those things into files on general purpose devices, away from physical objects, feels like it is unmooring us from parts of our immediate surroundings.
Doogie Howser M.D. vibes.
This is a really interesting system. I find that I end up using an iPad with all my PDFs as reference materials when I'm writing, it would be nice to attach an external monitor in 'portrait' mode which exclusively hosted a single application that could let me select PDFs from my collection and display them on the screen. Then with one unit I'd have what I needed in one place.
Reminds me of word processing on DOS back in the 80s and early 90s. Pre-WYSIWYG.
"Writerdeck' or simple word processor? They were first sold in the 1960s or 70s. Why? Buy, not build I'm thinking.
I use the same Mac to write that I use for everything else. But I find it’s more useful to disconnect from multiple screens and just use the laptop on my desk if I need to focus.
Those idle screens taunt me with a desire to use them for Slack or Hacker News when I’m trying to work.
1) Cool! Only think I can recommend is using use a taller 4:3-ish screen (like a Framework) for this. You could maybe have two columns of text available.
2) More broadly, one tip I've found to reduce phone engagement is to set the phone to black & white only. It's significantly less interesting and prone to sucking you in. (You can do this on iOS & Android.)
Great to see Veronica at the top of HN. She's a great creator, highly recommend her content.
I've accidentally made one of these; I broke X on an old thinkpad with Arch and never bothered to fix it.
The problem for me is getting myself to actually use it. Most of the time, it sits there gathering dust. If anyone has tips for this I'd love to hear them.
If anyone is considering using a computer like this, I'd recommend OpenBSD for it which genuinely has one of the prettiest console fonts.
It just ... Looks nicer..
Yes, I'm sure you can configure the others to look nice too but shrug OOTB is pretty nice.
Very interesting! But how do you display images?
The stress relief of a plain old Linux terminal should not be underestimated.
Not only for writing, but for shell sessions too.
I love my Raspberry Pi for that.
Can I tangent to some love for the Debian TUI installer? Just seeing it evokes such pleasing thoughts. I don't think it's changed a whole lot in at least 10 years, maybe more. I think it's pretty well designed in terms of UX.
I have never seen it crash or bug out.
Even the graphical version is excellent. They've resisted using a web view, thank god (giving you the side eye, Fedora)
A lot of respect and love for Debian!
the key goal here seems to be to remove temptation. for me just switching to a virtual console and firing up vim there would be enough because switching back to the gui would involve typing a long password which i believe for me would be deterrent enough to not keep switching on a whim. if you are not as easily tempted then running a terminal in fullscreen might just be enough.
I would love a KingJim Pomera DM 250 but I can’t have it shipped easily and it is hard to find in a physical store.
Good idea
X-Windows and it's ilk are awesome software.
For a single purpose machine it is unnecessary
I've been doing the same thing in different domains
This is what Lao Tzu writer studio will be once the hardware version drops. A specialized writing deck akin to a modern type writer but feature rich and sleeeeeek
I like the idea of the setup and the philosophy behind it but I don’t like the implementation as much.
If I’m spending a lot of time with text I’d really like the text and editor to have a much better aesthetic appearance than what I’m seeing here.
I also think having something with graphical capability is nice to have but I know that’s a preference thing. For me, a mouse is a valuable tool in a text editor even if that usage is occasional.
I also think there is a lot of manual setup of things like keyboard brightness controls and battery status that are already built in to every mainstream Linux distro imaginable.
I would have gone about it in some other way like:
1. Install Fedora/Linux Mint/whatever
2. Make a login script that opens Obsidian or an editor of choice upon login and puts it in full screen mode.
3. Hide the KDE taskbar and/or just choose a highly minimal window manager.
4. Done.
Jesus christ I cannot believe it took this article for me to realize after so many years that leaving the root password empty would set my user up for sudo. Every single installation, the first thing I'd do is log in and lock root and give my user sudo!
No more of that! Thanks, this article!
Awesome machine. Missing Doom though.
It looks like a chromebook running vim in a 50 point font. I can't wait to read 50 pages of how to do that!
This is an awesome setup. I like it, good job.
That said, I do think there's a bit of irony to solving your "paying attention to writing" problem by setting up your OS from scratch, choosing to swap out the default networking stack, installing a novel flavor of your preferred text editor because you're "trying to get to know it a bit more," customizing your battery readouts, tweaking the login sequence, and then, after all that effort to make sure you'd have the perfect environment for uninterrupted writing sessions, installing tmux so that you'll be able to do multiple things at a time.