orobica
Orobica is my desktop workstation. It serves as the primary place where I do my work.
Assembled at the end of 2016, Orobica is not a performance powerhouse, nor was it in 2016. Fortunately, it has remained usable as my interests have changed around it. Orobica has received minimal upgrades since its construction.
Orobica runs Windows 10 Professional with Debian running under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
Why a desktop?
I want my computer to be a "place" where I "do things". Portable computing is cool, but I don't want to manage multiple machines. Consolidating down to a single desktop made me appreciate it more as a workspace. Think back before computers were everywhere at all times: using the computer was an occasion. I want to recapture a little bit of that.
Why Windows?
I don't dislike Linux, but I got tired of having to find workarounds and fixes for little issues. Windows is far from perfect, but I've never really had an issue with it. I did take the time to get rid of things like Cortana and the web search in the start menu to make Windows more tolerable, though.
(Not just that, but I'm way too prone to distro-hopping and creating more distractions for myself when using Linux!)
I also was getting tired of maintaining 2 operating systems on the same machine (Orobica dual-booted Linux Mint for a while). I had trouble remembering to keep shared files on a shared partition, so I ended up with duplicated files or I'd have to switch operating systems to try and find a file.
WSL
WSL2 running Debian 11 (bullseye)
Administration
Back up WSL installation
Close all WSL terminal instances. Open PowerShell and run:
wsl --export Debian debian.tar
This will create a .tar archive of the Debian installation in the current directory.
Virtual machines
Linux Mint
As nice as WSL can be, it's not perfect, especially if I want to do anything involving graphics/native UIs. That's where this VM comes in.
Plan 9 (9front)
I'm experimenting with using [[plan9]] (specifically 9front) as an alternative OS. At some point I'd like to get familiar enough with it and run it on some low-power portable hardware (MNT Pocket Reform?).
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