💾 Archived View for freeside.wntrmute.net › log › 2020 › 20201124-cyberdeck.gmi captured on 2021-12-05 at 23:47:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Now playing: Meteor - White Crows - Parallel Lives
After looking at the devterm (which I, foolishly probably, preordered), I decided to start experimenting with building cyberdecks. The goals for a cyberdeck are in line with my semi-solarpunk goals, primarily the idea of being very usable off-grid. The grid in this case includes power and network, so battery power is a must. I'm also very interested in alternate network stacks - hence gemini, but also revisiting cjdns and checking out yggdrasil.
Right now, I have the start of two decks. Importantly, right now, I don't have access to a 3D printer. I _might_ be able to convince a friend of mine to help me out here, but that's not a guarantee.
The first deck is based on the official touchscreen. Turns out the hinges are gopro mount compatible, so I ordered some extensions to make it more useful (won't be here until Friday or Saturday, though), and I've flipped the base around to make a stand that extends out toward the user. The keyboard I have for this now is the rapsberry pi official keyboard, but a 60% mech is on the way. The question here is whether to mount/fit an enclosure to the bottom of the keyboard to hold some stuff. This one I'll call the 'alpha deck' - the bigger screen means it has my highest interest.
The 'beta deck' is based on a touchscreen hat/cape/shield/whatever the pi tops are called. It's built into a case, so I'd have to finangle a bendy mount to attach it to a keyboard. The screen is small, so I'm less keen on it.
Both will be powered by USB powerpacks, which can then be charged via a solar panel (e.g. my yeti 505X). I need to investigate how to go lower-power with these. Also need to scrounge up a hot glue gun to stick stuff to other stuff, as one does.
The next question is the OS: arch is on the alpha deck right now, and raspbian on the beta deck. Both will probably run i3, but maybe I'll switch to dwm and get away from having a status bar that will be too small to be useful.
More to come...
