Building a distraction-free writerdeck from an old laptop
By
hggh
8d ago· 12 min readen
100/100
Golden Brown
Bagelometer↗
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Score100Typehow-toSentimentpositive
Summary
The author describes converting an old laptop into a dedicated "writerdeck" — a distraction-free writing device running console-only Debian Linux. They detail their technical setup including tmux, neovim, vim-vimwiki, and other tools, while reflecting on their attention problems and the appeal of a minimalist, offline writing environment. The article is a personal narrative about building and using a focused writing machine.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledI have an attention problem.
I decided to convert my old laptop into a writerdeck, a dedicated writing device free from the distractions of the modern internet.
I used what I had: a six-year-old laptop which still runs great, has plenty of power, but isn't getting much use anymore.
Crucially, this laptop has an excellent keyboard, and a matte screen, which makes it awesome to type on
tldr:
* I installed console-only Debian on an old laptop (no desktop OS at all)
* I added some packages to make it work better for writing:
* network-manager for connecting to hotspots while I'm away
* kmscon for custom fonts and more than 16
