The 2nd movie in The Hobbit trilogy, The Desolation of Smaug picks up where An Unexpected Journey leaves off. This one is more or less the group getting bailed out repeatedly by Bilbo until they finally make it to the Lonely Mountain. Even though I do think this is one of the better trilogies, as far as each movie being good, this one still ends on a cliff hanger. It's not quite as bad as the typical trilogy filler 2nd movie, but I feel like Bard should have got his big scene in this movie, instead of the next one. It is nice to pick up some new characters along the way and the changes of scenery in this one keep it from getting as boring as I felt The Two Towers felt in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We see Sauron for the first time, but it's on one of Gandalf's side quests, which kind of feels forced, just a little, to have it in the movie. This movie is slightly shorter than the first movie and that helps a little. Overall, it's a must watch if you want to watch the trilogy ;)
Stargate (1994) is one of those movies that I just have to watch once in a while. Growing up in the 90's, it was something so new and different. I remember hoping they would make a new Stargate movie every year. This movie had a lot going for it. A new concept that could be expanded upon, great visual effects, a good story, good actors, it just had it all. On top of that, there was a big shift in franchises at the time. We had just had the last season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was building up, but didn't hit the same. The Star Trek movies were winding down. Star Wars was getting old and dated, with nothing new in sight. Stargate was a fresh idea and a new direction.
Stargate is about a team of soldiers (technically, airmen, because they were Air Force!), accompanied by a scientist, that travels through a stargate to another planet. The stargate was discovered in Egypt and people had spent their entire lives trying to unlock its secrets. A scientist is brought onto the team to help decipher the language and discovers it is a portal to another place. The team travels there and learns the secrets of Ra, ancient Egypt, and finds themselves facing a far more advanced foe, with only a primitive native people to aid them.
It's been years since I watched all of the Stargate franchise, but I think I'll revisit and write about them. Something funny...I actually had a flat top haircut, inspired by this movie and, when I look back, was probably one of the things that made me want to join the Air Force. I did join the Air Force, and served 20 years, but I never got to see a stargate :)
Halo (2022-2024) is a TV show, based loosely on story from the Halo: Combat Evolved video game. I do mean loosely. It has Master Chief, Cortana, and the Convenant. Beyond that, it's kind of it's own story. It's a good show, don't get me wrong, especially the 2nd season, which pretty much everyone agrees was better than the 1st. Unfortunately, it was cancelled, just when it was starting to get good, so there is no 3rd season. It's still worth a watch, if you just want to watch a good sci-fi action show, that isn't too long. I'd watch it again and even watched it after it was cancelled, so I knew what I was getting into. Overall, I can appreciate alternate story lines that reveal "untold" beginning stories and new characters, even if this one may have went a little overboard on additional characters - along with their side quests. Maybe it'll get another season one day to give it an ending.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) is the first of The Hobbit trilogy, which is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings (LofR) and based on the book titled The Hobbit (1937) by J.R.R Tolkien. The trilogy is about a group of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins, and Gandalf traveling to Erebor, or the Lonely Mountain, to recapture the home of the dwarves from Smaug, the dragon. This movie is the first leg of their journey and introduces several prominent characters from the LotR's. It mostly focuses on Bilbo's character development, from a home loving hobbit to a selfless adventurer. We learn how Bilbo comes to possess the One Ring and how darkness has already began descending upon middle earth. I feel like this trilogy is actually broken up properly, so all 3 movies are good on their own, unlike pretty much any other trilogy ever made. This movie is good enough to make you want to watch the 2nd one, but also good enough if you don't have time to watch a trilogy all at the same time. Overall, I'll watch it again I'm sure.
Springsteen - Deliver Me From Nowhere (2025) is a movie about a young Bruce Springsteen, creating his album Nebraska (1982) after his first widely successful album and tour. I recently watched this movie, it's on Disney+, so it's fresh on my mind. It's not what I was expecting, but I think a lot of people should watch a movie like this and take it to heart. Just because someone is successful, doesn't mean they have everything figured out. It normally just means they figured one thing out, really well. Nebraska was Springsteen's way of figuring himself out. Everyone around him questioned what he was doing, but he had to take a journey from where he came from, to where he was, or he wasn't going anywhere. That's how he felt about it.
Nebraska was the first DIY album, recorded in Springsteen's home on a tape recording system. It went platinum. The movie is really good, but it's not like most movies about artists. Springsteen also isn't like most artists. He doesn't see himself as larger than life. He's never been checked into rehab, but he's had a therapist most of his life. The movie does a good job of portraying this darker side of the man known for electric performances. Most people can probably relate and if not, it wouldn't hurt to see that you never know what someone else is going through. To me, Nebraska just shows that you can't always give people what they want, sometimes you just have to do something for yourself. Sometimes you just have to deliver yourself from nowhere, to get where you are going.
A Complete Unknown (2024) is a movie about the life of a young Bob Dylan, played by Timothee Chalamet. It begins just before Dylan rises to stardom and his transition from folk singer to rock & roll. Chalamet is a good actor anyway, but he transforms into Dylan nicely. I've always been a Dylan fan, so I was skeptical, but I have a hard time thinking of anyone who could have played him better. Overall, this was a good movie, maybe not great, but a good biographical. I'd watch it again, it just wouldn't be my first choice when picking between movies about famous singer/song writers, but it would be in contention.
11.22.63 (2016) is a mini-series, based on the Stephen King novel. It stars James Franco, who uses a time rift to go back in time to 1960, with the intent of stopping the JFK assassination. It initially released on Hulu, but I watched it recently on Netflix, where it has held a top 10 spot of TV shows. He can use the time rift as many times as he wants, but the caveat is it resets time from 1960 every time he enters it. He also has to live in the past for 3 years to get to 1963, without changing too many other things.
I liked this show and would watch it again. I've always been interested in learning about the JFK assassination, because it's my birthday (not the same year of course). Also interesting tidbit, I was once ID'ed at a gas station and the guy behind the counter did a double take at my ID. It turns out his birthday is the same as Lee Harvey Oswald's murder, on November 24. Was cool at first, but quickly became awkward, haha.
The show wasn't as predictable as I thought it would be, with some twists and turns, but it ended pretty much as I expected. I'm decent at predicting what will happen in movies and shows, so that doesn't necessarily mean I was disappointed. I would have done some things differently, but it's not my book or show either. Overall, if you like history and action/drama, it's a good watch to binge on a cold weekend.
The Beauty (2026) is a new show by FX, I watched it on Hulu. It currently has 3 episodes, all released 21 January, of a total 11 episodes slated for Season 1. Episodes will begin releasing weekly beginning 28 January. The show is based on a comic by the same name, The Beauty, by Jeremy Huan and Jason A. Hurley. I've never read the comic. The show is about a new drug that makes people beautiful, and is described as the fountain of youth, which can be transmitted from person to person. The corporation behind the drug is trying to stop it's spread, which will cut into their revenue. There is also a side effect, which is gruesome and deadly, but the show hasn't revealed the cause of the side effect yet.
I'm not big on horror and gore, but the sci-fi side of the show is interesting to keep me interested. I like it, enough, so far to continue watching it. I don't want to provide any spoilers, so I wont go into too many details. It has a decently star heavy cast and so far I think the acting may be carrying the writing/directing, somewhat. My theory is the "drug" requires a booster to prevent the side effect, but it's possible a person to person transmission expedites the effect. At this stage (through episode 3), it is almost like 2 shows running in parallel, with few explanations, other than the overlaps. One is law enforcement, investigating the deaths, which occur from the theorized side effect. The other is the corporation trying to contain the spread.
Overall, it's interesting enough to keep me watching, for now. I can't think of another show similar enough to compare it to, but it feels like a prequel to some dystopian stories, where a corporation makes you dependent on it and you have to keep going back to it to live. It also has some Alien: Earth similarities, very thinly, but you'll probably see where that thought comes from if you watch it.
Quantum Leap (2022 - 2024) is a sequel TV show to the original series from 1989. There are several tie-ins and references to the original show and it's pretty much a modern version, but thankfully not a remake. I liked the original, it was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I also like the new one, but it unfortunately doesn't have a finale, as the show was cancelled after the 2nd season. The show has a recurring role starred by Eliza Taylor (from The 100), which made for an interesting twist or two. Overall, I like it a lot and wish it had continued, but it's similar to the original in it feels repetitive and kind of the same types of scenarios over and over. One thing I do like more than the original is how it has a story line in the present, so there are more characters in this show. It's another show that had a lot of promise, but killed off too soon.
Designated Survivor (2016-19) was a TV show, starring Kiefer Sutherland and decently loaded cast, originally on ABC and then on Netflix. It ran for 3 seasons and was cancelled without a finale. I enjoyed the show, which was about a terrorist attack on the US government, during the State of the Union address. When the presidential succession is all together at once, a designated survivor is selected to carry on succession. Tom Kirkman is the selectee and becomes president with basically no legislative government. The show is fast paced, with constant problems and conflicts for the new president to fix. I've only watched it once - I watched it all in 2019 when it moved to Netflix - but I'd possibly watch it again, even without an ending.
The 100 (2014 - 2020) is a TV show that ran for 7 seasons - with a finale. The earth has had a global nuclear war and is believed to be uninhabitable by the survivors who have lived their entire lives aboard the Ark, a space station. An aging Ark forces the leaders to test the survivability of earth, by sending 100 young prisoners to the earth. The cast is great, but you can sense some inexperience with either the writing, the directing, or the acting in the earlier episodes, maybe all of the above. This show takes some patience, but the longer it runs the better it gets.
I've watched this show all the way through a few times. There are some seasons that are better than others, but the story evolves nicely as it goes along and the different settings of the seasons add some intrigue and mystery. It has some cool concepts, which are revealed over time (including time specifically in some cases). If you just read overviews of the seasons and episodes, they can seem sporadic, but everything does connect in one way or another. This is one of my favorite shows to watch, if I have to pick a show to re-watch. It has great music and the central characters are interesting enough to keep you watching. The finale is an actual finale too, which is rarer these days than it should be.
Brightburn (2019) is a Sci-Fi / Horror movie set in Brightburn, Kansas. The story is about a couple, who struggled to have children, then finds a baby after a spacecraft crashes. Being in the horror genre, you can probably imagine this is pretty much an inverse of Super Man. Elizabeth Banks (the mother) and Jackson A. Dunn (the boy) are great casting, but the casting overall is probably above average and isn't held back by the acting so much as the story. Unfortunately, the story develops slowly and becomes increasingly predictable as it goes on. The writers likely thought they had a sequel to build upon with, but instead we are just stuck with what should have been a small piece of a story covering many more years with an actual conclusion. It's not the worst Sci-Fi / Horror movie I've ever seen, but not one I'm really looking forward to watching again (unless it's the sequel).
I watched The Bad Batch (2016) on Netflix, just on a whim. It has a good cast: Keanu Reeves, Jason Momoa, Jim Carrey, Suki Waterhouse. The setting is a Texas wasteland, where outcasts are thrown out of society. Unfortunately, the story was, more or less, also a wasteland. It's more of a shocker than a horror and would have probably been unwatchable with a lesser cast. It's not something I'd likely watch again, but it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen. Visually, it has some cult classic opportunities, it just doesn't deliver in any other way.
Darkest Hour is a movie set at the onset of World War II. The story follows Winston Churchill, played by Gary Oldman, as he is thrust into power as Prime Minister of Great Britain. I really enjoyed this one, being a history buff, and a lover of old war stories. The movie does a good job of demonstrating the turmoil within Britain and the world around it, as Churchill has to prepare his nation for a war, while it's leaders are in denial. Gary Oldman is one of my favorite actors and he transforms into Churchill like I never thought possible. I appreciated how the movie showed the many sides of Churchill and how an unlikely, even inconvenient, leader can sometimes rise to be the leader you need in that moment, against all odds. It's a movie I could watch again, I've seen it twice now.
It's been a little while, since the last update, so I want to share how components work in Davaux.This is an example page, which is just plug and play in the Davaux server. You don't have to add any routes, it automatically detects pages and routes accordingly. This is just a typical GET request with server side component composition (2 different types of components) rendered within a single JSML page component.
import { createProvider, renderPage } from "@davaux/core";
import { Container } from "@davaux/ui";
import { Btn } from "@davaux/ui/oml";
export async function GET({ query: { name }}) {
return renderPage(
ExamplePage,
{ name },
{
title: "Test Page Example",
},
);
}
const ExamplePage = ({ name }) => {
const provider = createProvider();
provider.use({ Btn, Container });
return provider.html`
<Container fluid>
<h1>Hello ${name}</h1>
<Btn size="sm" variant="primary">Click Me</Btn>
</Container>
`;
};@davaux/ui is one of the newer packages I've worked on and it's been refactored quite a bit, so disregard the import paths, those are subject to change. First of all, I only mixed the component types here for testing and this is an actual working test case, not just theoretical code. There are 2 types of components in Davaux core: OML (Object Markup Language) and JSML (JavaScript Markup Language). These are my terms, so if you've heard of those before, this is something different. In this example Container is JSML, which is nearly identical to JSX, except it runs purely server side and doesn't require any kind of compiler or bundling. Also in this example, Btn is OML, which other than the different import paths, you can't see a difference here, they use the same provider and are even used within the same component (ExamplePage is also JSML). The difference, though, is Btn is simply an object, which is transformed into an HTML button tag, but used exactly like a JSX (or JSML) tag in practice.
OML, like JSML, builds onto what a lot of JS frameworks do behind the scenes. The difference is how easily OML components can be built and extended. They are just simple wrappers that compose HTML in the end, which is what a lot of React components are anyway. The difference is it only has to be an object, which means you can do some interesting things concerning how that object is derived. It could be a class that is extended and then tailored to many different uses. It could just be a block of HTML and CSS that you use in a lot of places, like the Container component I decided to demonstrate as JSML instead. There are no real rules; you could have a JSML Grid component that uses OML Row and Column components. They all could be OML, which seems to be the recurring answer, but it's just based on how you need to declare the component. OML is basically static (with optionally dynamic attributes), while JSML is basically dynamic and supports more logic.
This is all server side rendered, nothing is bundled or compiled, and once this code is ran it will become pure HTML. I know what you may be thinking, "OK, but SSR is slow!" Well, first of all, it's not always slow. This site uses SSR and it's fairly quick to be on very limited hardware. Also, I've tested comparable page compositions (approximately equal amounts of rendered HTML markup) between Remix (what I use here) and Davaux, running locally on the same computer. Remix is fast...Davaux is ridiculously fast, like double digit times faster, even with browser caching turned off.
Now that SSR discussion is out of the way, Davaux has had quite a few architectural changes lately. Mostly in regard to the markup, but I've also been working on making it modular and allowing it to be used as needed. You should be able to use the Davaux server without using the templating (JSML and OML - included in Davaux core) for example. As far as Davaux server, you can definitely use it as just an API server, which the file based routing is really nice in that regard. You should also be able to use the templating on something other than Davaux server. Davaux UI can definitely be used without anything else from Davaux, as just a CSS framework. These are all self contained packages. Even though this article is to preview my markup, you don't actually have to use it. You can also pick a different CSS framework or just use your own CSS.
So that's one of the secrets of Davaux: its templating is JSX-like, without any need to compile anything. My next step is to build the documentation site and release an alpha version. As long as I don't have to refactor too much more, the next post should be announcing those :)
It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted about Davaux. It's been an interesting and exciting couple of weeks. The last time I wrote about it, Davaux was basically a web server that could serve web pages, static files, or an API from a file-based routing system. I intended to keep the server simple, code-wise, but it felt too restrained. The more things I tried to build with it, the more I realized it needed to be somewhat complex, but I needed to build it in a way that kept it as simple as possible to use.
Middleware
Davaux has most types of middleware you may need built-in. You can easily choose from various types of presets to set a default middleware configuration, using app.config(). By default, most middleware is turned off, even when using app.config alone, you have to choose a preset to turn on most of them or you can turn them on (or off) and configure them individually within app.config.
Routing
I really loved the file-based routing, as it was conceived, but I realized middleware could become an issue with this approach, when also using it as an API server or the other possible uses. I expanded routing to have route initialization, where you can set the middleware for that specific route, if wanted. This means Davaux has the typical app.route and app.[method] functions to declare routes. Each route can have a different middleware configuration, including using a preset or the manual overrides. Routes can also be extended with a special routing extension provided by a middleware; if you want to handle SSE routes specifically, you can enable the SSE middleware and then set a route using app.sse, for instance. This then only enables the necessary HTTP Methods for that route to perform SSE, which can also be manually overridden.
Layouts & Pages
Davaux features a fully functional Layout System, which overlays a Page System. By default, a /layout folder serves your layouts and a /pages folder serves your pages - these are in your app and can be configured. A layout path matching a page's path will override the default layout for that page. An HTTP method being requested on the root route will attempt to match an HTTP method function, such as GET or POST in the corresponding page file.
Components
Davaux is a reactive web server by default. It doesn't use React or any other framework for reactivity. It simply uses Signals to store and manage state. Components are rendered into plain HTML and Javascript and served to the client, there is no bundling or building, it just serves as a route. Any GET function in a page component file can be served as a page, which is handled by the file-based routing in the root route. Components also have some really cool options for how they are called or used, which are quite unique to Davaux.
UI
Davaux isn't like any other web framework, as far as I know, so it needed to have it's own UI framework. The good news is it's not an overly unique UI framework, on the surface. It's mostly just CSS, which uses naming much like other popular CSS frameworks. Under the surface, it does have a few secrets that make it entirely unique and necessary. Honestly, if I could have avoided building a UI package, I would have, so I've kept it fairly simple and not overly opinionated. One good feature, though, is it supports multiple color schemes and multiple color modes. This means you could have a Gruvbox theme that is dark, darker, or darkest. The modes are easily toggled without reloading the page.
Development Server
There is a dev package, which offers a development server to use with Davaux. The development server uses more relaxed middleware settings and features Hot reloads, as well as extensive debug logging for routes and middleware. It has some other interesting features, but I wont get into that yet.
Static Site Generator
While Davaux is a server-side rendering server by default, it also offers an ssg package to act as a Static Site Generator. The pages generated are exactly like they would be served from Davaux, so you don't lose any functionality by serving static files, compared to server side render pages. There are helper functions included that allow you to generate pages with fetched data, to make the pages dynamic by utilizing an API server (served from the same code base you generated from), or to render different types of markup. To me, the greatest part of Davaux's SSG functionality is you can have a single app and render it with SSG or serve it server side, there's no real difference between the two. You could start out with a simple SSG site, grow it into a full blown server-rendered site with various APIs and never have to rebuild anything.
Create Davaux Application
I've started on a create-davaux-app CLI tool, but it isn't finished yet. I do plan to build several different templates to have as starting points. I also plan on having a user registry for templates, as there are so many potential use cases.
With all of these features, there has to be a drawback, right? Well, the drawback is it's something completely new. It's also very easy to use and very fast. I'm sure there are some drawbacks somewhere, but I plan to find them and fix them.
Davaux has begun to mature somewhat. It is now a full featured web server, with built-in support for middleware such as CORS, cookies, JWT, sessions, authentication, and others. It's still possible to run it with no configuration, as it adjusts middleware settings based on the environment, but you can also choose presets for different deployment types and security levels. Currently, you can even build an app and just run the Davaux server package directly from npm to run the server, you don't even have to import it anyway.
It still doesn't require compiling anything, is runs as ESM on the server, and it has no dependencies, outside of it's own packages. It serves browser-ready HTML, CSS, and Javascript, with built-in reactivity, there's no bundling or large file transfers. This means it is responsive on any device and can run on any server that can run node.js. In my tests, even pages with a heavy load of reactivity, the total served file sizes are just under 50K.
It has a full featured router for serving any request type and built in layout handling that supports the same nesting as routes. You simply add a Javascript file in the pages folder, or within a deeper folder, and that's your first route. If it contains a GET function, it serves a page, if it has a POST function, it serves an API, if it has both it does both. No additional configuring of routes is necessary, it just works. Layouts work the same way, except they go in a layouts folder and return a template.
My focus recently was getting the middleware built-in and working by default. I've also taken care to make it all work as simple as possible. If you know Javascript, HTML, and CSS, you already know how to use it. Now that I'm happy with that, I'll be working toward full stack territory. I want to be able to server MPAs (what it does currently), SPAs, APIs (also currently), and generate Static sites, with or without built-in API support. It sounds like a lot, but I've put careful thought into the architecture in an attempt to easily make anything possible. I'll actually be focusing on the Static site generation next, as I think that is likely a market in need.
This is all going to be open source, I just haven't released anything yet. I want it to be as perfect as possible and I want to have the Davaux website/documentation online before anyone else uses it. It's about keeping it simple and letting developers focus on building and deploying, not tooling.
PKA is a Node.js CLI tool that was created by Claude AI to generate the Project Knowledge files for Claude to use in projects chats.
Install in with NPM: npm install -g @davaux/pka
Then run it for the folder you want to generate Project Knowledge files for: npx davaux-pka .
See the NPM package or the Github repository for more info.
I've gone around in circles for years trying to piece together the perfect platform with React. I was happy with Remix, but then they gradually de-bundled their stack. I tried to emulate it with Zulu, but the stack became too heavy. I may go back to that one day, but I'm thinking I may never need to.
Davaux is something new I'm working on that doesn't use React or much of anything else at all. It is ES6, so no compiling is required at all. There will be an optional TypeScript version, which would need to be compiled with tsc, but otherwise you just write the code and run the server. There is no configuration required by Davaux, if there's anything to configure it's because you added it. You write a component for a route, serve it, and Davaux takes care of all of the client side reactivity, it's just HTML and Javascript.
In my initial tests, which did include a full page layout and several different types of reactivity, the page sizes were around 34kb, including my added components' code/styling and the client side library served by Davaux - and that's the dev server, before stripping out dev tools for production. That did not include an UI framework, like Bootstrap or anything like that, that would of course add some overhead.
It all seems too simple, so I've scoured the web looking for anything remotely close. There's not anything I can find. It feels like everything overthinks it, while I just keep turning left and try to make it as simple as possible. It's time to turn web development back into checkers and leave the chess to the content creators.
I installed CachyOS yesterday and it went extremely well. Having been a longtime openSUSE Tumbleweed user, I wanted to set it up with Snapper and bootable snapshots in Grub. The first part of that is extremely easy. From the CachyOS Hello window on the desktop, just click "Apps/Tweaks" then click "Install Snapper Support". The prerequisite is you have to be using the default Btrfs file system. Clicking that single button will add Snapper support, which means if there is ever an issue with something you install or a system upgrade, there will be a Pre snapshot created to allow you to roll back to the moment before it was broken.
There is only one slight issue though, if you chose Grub as your bootloader. It doesn't install Snapper support for Grub automatically. According to the forums, this is because it is not easily determined which bootloader you are using. I wasn't aware of this earlier today, so when I was having boot issues, I was surprised to not find the Snapper entries available to boot from. Luckily, the issue mysteriously solved itself, after a couple of tries, and I was able to boot.
To enable Snapper support in Grub, you need to install the grub-btrfs-support package. I used Octopi to install it, but you can install from the terminal if you prefer. This package will configure everything else you need to be able to boot from Grub into Snapper snapshots, from which you can then run snapper rollback in a terminal to restore from that snapshot.
Just for an extra sense of security, I also installed the Cachy LTS kernel and the Arch LTS kernel using the Kernel Manager. Those will also show up in the Grub bootloader, so you, potentially, have more options than just rolling back if something goes wrong.
I decided I needed to go ahead and write about it while it's fresh in my memory. Overall, there is a slightly noticeable stability difference between playing Splitgate 2 using CachyOS versus playing using Tumbleweed. On Tumbleweed, there are seemingly random times when FPS drops suddenly and takes some time to recover, along with some short FPS dips here and there. It doesn't even happen in every match, but it's happened at least once every time I've played the game with Tumbleweed. I had none of that tonight on CachyOS, zero issues whatsoever. The FPS wasn't always constant, but it was steady enough that the overall game play felt more stable.
I'm not using any launch options with the game, so far. This is just CachyOS and Cachy Proton, that's the only difference. I'm running the Cachy kernel and Steam (Native) from the Cachy repos, but no manual optimizations. There are some other slight differences too. My fans aren't roaring quite as loud, my temps are a little lower, and CPU usage seems to be steadier, maybe even a little lower CPU usage.
I'm a little stunned. None of the micro-optimizations I've ever tried have ever made any noticeable difference for me in any game, not even with the kernel. This isn't micro-optimization, it's much more intensive, but I was expecting it to be pretty much the same as Tumbleweed. Let's be honest, I'm a lot stunned. I was not expecting to be questioning if I still want to use Tumbleweed as my daily driver on the very first night of testing Cachy, it hasn't even been a full day yet lol. I will admit my gaming performance on vanilla Arch was a little better than Tumbleweed, like a minuscule amount, so I should have expected some gain, but nothing as obvious as what I've seen tonight.
Beyond Splitgate 2, there are more tests to do. I still have other games I play and want to see how they perform. I'll also use some of the settings on the Cachy wiki and try those with Splitgate 2 as well, hence this is Part 1. There are things beyond even gaming, but so far it looks like there probably wont be any show stoppers there; I use a fairly simple and standard workflow for software development. The next month or so of testing CachyOS will be interesting. I doubt I would be willing to remove Tumbleweed, but I'm already wondering if I like Cachy better.
Tumbleweed isn't difficult to maintain from a user perspective 90% of the time, it's actually quite boring, it just works and if it doesn't you rollback. The challenge I'm facing is that 10%, like if you made Tumbleweed 10% better, would it be CachyOS? No worrying about codecs, I didn't have to install a single one. No need to add 3rd party repositories to watch videos or get proprietary packages. I can't even use Snapper as a reason, Cachy has it and it worked from pressing a button. The KDE experience is really good on Cachy. Dependency management has been great. Nothing I tried didn't work or even slowed me down at all. The installer is very solid. Up until this point, 90% has been great, like they don't make a better distro than that? Right?
Recap
I'm trying out CachyOS. I'm using the same base setup that I use on Tumbleweed: KDE, Btrfs, Snapper, Grub.
I'll just be coming back and editing this over time, so sorry if it's not entirely cohesive...
Very first impression: it doesn't come with Akonadi installed! Freaking +1 for Cachy. There's also a CachyOS Hello window that actually seems to be more than just informative, so I'm going to use it to setup Snapper and...whatever else looks good.
Snapper set up took about 15 seconds, including clicking into it from CachyOS Hello > Tweaks, reading the message, and typing "y".
Decided to see if I needed to do a system update, I mean it's Arch, ya know? Nope...already up to date. Nice.
It has KDE 6.4.3, but it definitely adheres more to the Arch philosophy for defaults, it's very slim and very default. In fact, the only thing I'd consider to be a normal user application that came preinstalled is just Firefox. Everything else is just utilities, including the HP print stuff, which was an option in the installer, so I added that.
KDE may be less than default? It doesn't include the Discover store and the Settings look either configured differently or lighter than I'm used to from Tumbleweed.
I like the CachyOS Kernel Manager. It shows all kernels available, which includes quite a list. Aside from various optimized, stable, or LTS options, you can also install the RC for the next kernel, which is 6.16 at the moment. That's pretty cool. For me, it came with the
cachyos-v3/linux-cachyos 6.15.6kernel. That v3 means it's optimized specifically for my type of CPU, if I'm not mistaken, which is also cool. If none of that matters to you, there are also options for standard kernels and even the zen kernel. A wide range of options.Gaming...one of the test requirements - Part 1. The CachyOS Hello window has a button to install Gaming Packages. When you run this, you get a lot of stuff: Heroic Launcher, goverlay, mangohud, steam, wine, winetricks, and a ton of other stuff. It's 4593 MiB of stuff (installed size), 228 packages added to your fastfetch or whatever it's called these days.
Cut it off here because I scared myself. There was a download error for a package in the Gaming Packages install option, so I was copying it to save for later, just in case. Well, I assume the installer got to the end and auto-focused, I'm not sure, but I was copying out of the clipboard and pasting into a text file and konsole intercepted my CTRL + C keypress. Everything seems to have installed and CachyOS Hello seems to think so, because it wont let me run it again. Luckily, I already set up Snapper, so if there's a problem we'll get to see how well that works on CachyOS :D
I'm beginning to remember why I started getting pleasantly bored with Tumbleweed. There's so much to set up on a fresh Linux install! Yes, I may be slightly contradicting my liking of a slim OS installation, but at least I didn't have to remove a bunch of stuff.
Steam is working, so I'm assuming I didn't accidentally cancel the Game Packages installation. Whew! I'm currently installing Splitgate 2 with the Cachy Proton selected for compatibility. I plan to also test it with plain Proton Experimental, just for a comparison, but I'm too curious not to try the Cachy version first.
Installed Overwatch 2, using Proton 8 (which is the same I use on Tumbleweed) in Steam. Pretty sure a newer Proton wont work, but I'll still try it later.
Installed Zed, Node.js, Discord using Octopi
Btrfs Assistant is the Snapper GUI that comes with Cachy - I confirmed it's creating Pre and Post snapshots each time I use pacman. Nice. Octopi is the Package Manager UI; it's simple, but useful.
Flatpaks seem to be discouraged for use in Cachy, which is messing with me a little. I had become accustomed to using more Flatpaks and keeping my system install simpler. It uses less space, so I'm sure my old SSD appreciates it.
I think that's enough for Day 1. I'm going to play a couple of games and see how it goes. Not using Flatpaks is making it not exactly mirror my Tumbleweed install, but that's not the end of the world. Smooth so far, other than my self jump scare. I don't want to install anything else until I have time to do some more testing and give myself room for a rollback if needed.
Honestly, if this was the only OS on my computer, I'd be pretty happy with the experience so far. We'll see how it goes playing some games...
I've been admiring CachyOS from afar for a while now. My thinking has been if I ever change distros, that would probably be the only one I'm interested in trying. I don't have any reason to change distros, so the only way I'm going to get to try it is to just install it on another drive...so that's what I'm doing. I read docs earlier, it looks impressive. I've decided to try to mirror my Tumbleweed setup, so I'm doing KDE with Btrfs, Snapper, and Grub. There are so many other options that Cachy offers, but just for this comparison, I decided to stay the same.
I like that it has a live disk with the installer, so I can write this while it installs :) Tumbleweed doesn't recommend installing from the live disk, but I haven't had to install that too many times anyway. Maybe the last live disk I ran was Garuda? Or maybe one of the 20.04 *buntu versions, when I was doing reviews on those. Possibly the last Debian. I haven't done many installs since moving to Tumbleweed.
Alright. So. It's done installing already. Since I'm dual booting, I'll probably try to work it into my work flow for a while and see how it goes. Not all at once, but over time, however long that may be. I'm not opposed to buying a new NVME just for Cachy, as I'm currently just installing it on an old 2.5" SSD (a really old one), but it has some work to do before I'd be willing to do that.
I'll try to do some blogs about it and I'll probably document my set up in a Page here, for reference. I'm looking to try it for at least a month or maybe longer and just see how well I like it. I'm curious about gaming performance, which is why I picked the same file system, overall system stability, and if it is as unbreakable as Tumbleweed. If it goes well enough, maybe I'll consider making it more permanent and giving it a better home in my system (along side Tumbleweed).
I've been working on several side projects on the weekends. I've released Surrealigrate and SurrealCTL as NPM packages. They are both on my github and I plan to create pages here for them. I'm also building a SurrealDB ORM/Generator named Axol ORM. It is already pretty good, but I need to build something with it to make sure it's good enough. In addition to the ORM/Generator functionality, I plan to have an optional application that can introspect a database an assist with generating pure surql queries from a UI.
I'd been using a predecessor to Axol ORM in the BeSquishy code base, but I haven't worked on that lately. Hopefully I can get to that sometime soon, but I have a project I need to complete that BeSquishy will use, so I've been working on that instead. This is Passage, which is a transaction server I've rebuilt several times, but I think I actually have the architecture I want this time. It's actually a very powerful real-time tool that can handle wide scale message data, whether it is for financial transactions, inventory management, chat rooms, server event and callback hooks, or something as simple as notifications.
The new approach is uses microservices that separate concerns and allows bottlenecks to be scaled as needed. Formerly, I had issues with scaling and cost efficiency, but this new approach seems to be the sweet spot. Better yet, the new approach allows it to support multiple clients, so I don't have to deploy multiple full scale instances, I can scale the edge nodes and those can then connect to dedicated services or to the wider available services.
Passage will not initially be open source, but could be one day. I plan to offer it as a pay for what you use service and potentially enterprise solutions. So that's what I've been working on other than All The Flavors stuff, which Passage will also be used for ATF as well.