2025-08-18 -- Permacomputing looks interesting
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My laptop is my youngest main machine and it's over 10 years old now, as
I  just  realized.  I bought it in March 2015. My tower PC is from 2013.
Both are still running fine. I've long left the "upgrade treadmill", be-
cause I don't do gaming anymore, at least not like I  used  to.  And  in
general,  computers don't get that much faster anymore. This has clearly
slowed down.

This brings up the question: Do I even need to upgrade *at all*?

I should probably add a USB 3 controller soon. But other than that?

As I understand it, permacomputing is about much more than  not  upgrad-
ing.  Among  other  things,  it's also about repairing existing hardware
and, when buying new stuff, chosing things that you actually can repair.
I guess that would be difficult with  the  equipment  that  I  currently
have.  I  can certainly replace some items, but if there was some actual
damage that required soldering, then oof, that would be  tough.  Finding
the  culprit in the first place and then finding the correct information
on what to replace it *with*...

Another example would be my current monitor. There is some pretty signi-
ficating ghost imagery after a while, burn-ins. It always goes away  the
next  day.  I  have  no idea how one would go about "repairing" that. If
this keeps getting worse, I might not have another  choice  but  to  buy
something new.

But  I can still try to use my current hardware for as long as possible.
I can make that explicitly my mission. Given that my oldest PC is almost
30 years old, I might get another 20-30 years out of my current boxes.

At some point, I'm going to have to switch operating systems.  I'm  cur-
rently  running  Arch Linux and they'll be too bleeding edge eventually.
I'm guessing one of the BSDs will be a logical choice as a replacement.

The whole thing certainly sounds appealing.