Entered: in emacs on gpd pocket x7 | Date: 20220624
So after some offers on ebay fell through, I decided to just find a buy it now. It was delivered while I was in Texas on my last trip.
I was very pleased to find out that the Linux Kernel now fully supports the weirdness of Intel Atom CPUs. No more ISO Respins, no more outdated Linux installs married to a device. I was very disapointed that Manjaro BSPWM edition is no longer a thing. I went ahead and installed Manjaro i3 edition. The reason for this is I want the OS to just work and it has been my experience in the past that Manjaro edition releases are nicely styled and details are cleverly paid attention to.
This device feels like quality. It is made of metal. The screen is nice and full HD. It includes a trackpoint, my all time favorite pointing device. It has a roomy 128gb SSD, and a spacious 8gb of RAM. I am excited to use this thing.
When I unboxed it, I experienced my first current Windows 10 personal install. It was horrid. Full screen start menu like the second coming of Windows 8, and a heaping helping of the OS trying to save me from myself. I got rid of it just as soon as etcher and the manjaro ISO downloaded and the image transferred to a USB stick. Why is this OS experience tollerated by most of humanity?
Thanks to the AUR having Dropbox and the GPD Pocket having an AMD64 architecture all of my config for emacs and other software came right over. The ammount of software I have access to install on a device with this arcitecture was the decision point for me to purchase this machine.