commit 15941201268f8f08aab1154beeb775ec0e070756
parent f578fe8c8c6a8b615b13e28c75ab4e09d34da2b6
Author: regexghost <dev@regexghost.com>
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2026 16:25:43 +0100
blog posts late July
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2 files changed, 43 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
diff --git a/blog/2026/july/prices-that-never-go-down.md b/blog/2026/july/prices-that-never-go-down.md
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+title = "Prices That Never Go Down"
+datePublished = 2026-07-26
+template = "blog-page.html"
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+
+I really don't like prices that seem to never come down/products you can't ever get cheaper equivalents to, even many years later. Some products don't actually get cheaper over time, they just get "better" while remaining the same price. If you want a decent, well built laptop, you are paying £800+. Doesn't matter that you could buy a M1 MacBook Pro for £1k, 6 years ago, if you want one now, you are still paying that price. Sure they are more powerful, but for 99% of people that doesn't actually matter. It's annoying that you can't buy a (new) MacBook, equivalent to a 2020 one, for £300. You could buy one used, but that has it's own issues.
+
+Not all products are like this. Graphics cards either stay the same, or increase in price, relative to last years equivalent model, but the performance trickles down, so a £1200 graphics card from 5 years ago might be equivalent to a £400 graphics card today. There is a limit to this, you can't buy a new graphics card for £100 (ignoring the basically e-waste models), but generally graphics cards, with regards to performance, do come down in price.
+
+PSUs are another example of this, buying a decent PSU is £60+, the same price it was 10 years ago when I first built a PC. Are they better now? Probably, but it's annoying I can't buy a 2016-quality one for £30, instead all the £30 are basically e-waste/a fire hazard.
diff --git a/blog/2026/july/the-real-distros.md b/blog/2026/july/the-real-distros.md
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+title = "The Real Distros"
+datePublished = 2026-07-19
+template = "blog-page.html"
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+
+Distros are fake. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
+
+Seriously though, most "distro choices" are pointless. For 99% of people, there are 3 (4) real distros. Debian, Ubuntu, Arch (and Fedora).
+
+If you are going to use Ubuntu, you'll pick whichever re-skin contains your preferred desktop environment. For MATE, Linux Mint, for GNOME, Ubuntu, for Xfce, Xubuntu, for KDE, Kubuntu etc.
+
+If you are using Debian, you're probably just using the plain Debian image for whichever is the latest release.
+
+Arch is simple, it's just Arch.
+
+And for Fedora I don't know as I've never used it (apart from Uni PCs).
+
+When people talk about "distros" they are often just arguing over how much fluff they want to be preinstalled on-top of the actual OS. Arguably Ubuntu is also a case of this, a you can just use Debian and install whatever DE you want, without the annoyance of snap packages being pre-installed.
+
+There are more niche distros, like Void, Alpine, Puppy etc, but if you are using one of those you've probably come to the conclusion that distros are a meme already.
+
+## For Beginners
+
+For super-beginners I'd recommend just using a version of Ubuntu, that matches whatever you were on previously:
+* Windows -> Kubuntu (KDE)
+* Old Windows/you have a slow computer -> Xubuntu (Xfce)
+* MacOS -> Ubuntu (GNOME)
+
+For advanced users, unless you need some of the unique feature of niche distros like Alpine or Void, either use Arch, or plain Debian.
+
+I use Arch on my laptop, as its much newer hardware so up to date firmware etc is more important. Otherwise I use Debian (Trixie). I'd like to switch to Alpine but that's a project for another day...
