Slackware was my alternative to Gentoo at the time. Gentoo was cool because it was all compiled, more efficient etc. That shit sounded good to me as a teenager. I remember one summer I had the Gentoo ISO all burnt on a CD-R and stayed up all night to watch it install and compile on my Athlon Thunderbird PC (My parents didn't spend money much on computers and I had to make do with stuff that I saved for with birthday money). I fell asleep on a bean bag and woke up finding that it failed to compile something. I had to resort to asking the main IRC channel and message board to help me fix it, but I didn't have time :) I was disappointed as a 14 year old. I then downloaded Slackware and printed off the installation guide at school. I followed it to the T and it worked. It was fun and awesome because it allowed me to understand how things worked under the hood and provided insights on how a linux system hung together. Those days in the 00s are gone but the memories are still there.
Gentoo on an IBM Thinkpad (IIRC a 900Mhz Celeron + 384MB memory) was my laptop in college. Aside from a few beasts (KDE or Gnome, for which you'd end up needing to have at least the libs to run much in X even if you didn't use those DEs, OpenOffice [holy crap, maybe the single longest compile?] and to a lesser extent Firefox) the compiling wasn't really that bad.
Only non-Apple laptop I've had where suspend-to-disk worked every time. I don't know exactly what the deal was, but the IBM firmware had some feature that took care of it for you if you added a correctly-typed, sufficiently-large partition at the right spot on the disk. It just worked.
Hah, I have similar memories about installing Gentoo for the first time. I remember printing out the installation handbook on a ton of pages because at the time the computer i was installing it on was my only access to the internet.
I am a iOS developer and I have an M1. There are some issues that need to be ironed out with some packages that I use not compiling for some reason on the arm iOS simulator, but that has diverted me to compiling on device which isn't much of a hassle.
I am not bothered as much by the 16gb of ram, it is still rather usable. What I really bought the machine for was the battery life. I've had it for a day or two and it is amazing how long I can stay away from my power socket. Also this thing runs really cool. I have not even heard the fans spin up once, even during the recent Sydney heatwave (45°C).
Ahoy! I am a developer who has had a complete iOS focus for the past 7 years. I have worked with multiple startups and have developed products used by thousands of people internationally. Although I have worked on mobile, I am willing to work on anything that you want to throw at me. If you have an idea or need an extra set of hands, feel free to reach out to me.
I'm in the same position thinking of making a pivot into the security sector (coming from a mobile developer background). I think if you're good and always on top of infosec stuff and contribute to the community, you'll always have work.
I remember in the early 2000's when I told my friend, "I got a RIM-job." He laughed. I didn't get it. I got it.
I really do hope that RIM regains some of the ground they've lost. The playing field is starting to level off. In the next 18 months, I predict (crystal ball is out) that a handful of manufacturers will have nearly equal (buzzword)ecosystems. For RIM to be successful again, they MUST shock the market; do something to competitors aren't doing. It will no longer be about hardware specs, software features & functions nor ecosystem. They need to revisit Mike L's vision for innovation.
I wouldn't worry about it, just try a little harder. In the long run it doesn't really matter what your situation is today, what matters more is how you allocate your future time and how you will deal with the opportunities that come your way.
The luck element is out of control for everybody, timing you only control so much, execution and attitude you control 100%.
