LinuxSBC

Why do you say it's "not really" immutable? It is immutable with an A/B partitioning system using ABRoot.

It's really confusing. USB-C is a physical connector that can carry the USB protocol, as well as power over the USB-PD standard, PCIe over the Thunderbolt protocol, DisplayPort over Alt-mode, and probably more that I'm not thinking of. The versions of USB that you're seeing are just for speed of file transfer, nothing else, except USB4 which adds support for USB-PD, Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, and everything else. The ports on your laptop are all Thunderbolt, which is equivalent to USB4.

If all you want is power, you need the cable to support USB-PD, which every cable that I know of does. Any cable should work. However, if you want to charge at more than 65W (which you probably don't because your laptop is small), you'll need a cable with an "e-marker" chip—just get a cable that is rated for whatever wattage you need.

If you need to transfer lots of data (which it doesn't sound like you do), you'll probably want something like USB3.1 (also known as USB3.2 Gen 2 and USB3 10Gbps) or USB3.2 Gen 2x2 (USB3 20Gbps) cable (yes, their naming scheme is horrible). If not, USB3.0 (also known as USB3.2 Gen 1 and USB3 5Gbps) or even USB2.0 should be fine.

To summarize, almost anything will work for your needs, but anything extra would require you to buy a cable that has explicit support. To make it easier for you, it looks like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07T19KQYF has support for everything that you might need and much more: full power delivery up to 100W, more than twice what you need; 20Gbps Thunderbolt data transfer and 10Gbps (USB3.2 Gen 2) USB data transfer, many times more than you need; and displays connected to it, even though you don't need it. I'm not sure if it has full Thunderbolt PCIe support, but that shouldn't matter to you, and the price is pretty good.

Yes. I'm on Fedora 38 with GNOME on Wayland.

Correct. What you'd need in that case is a reverse proxy like ngrok, which is a bit more difficult to set up.

I have almost the same experience. I live in a small town in the Midwest, and the only ISP that goes to my house is Comcast/Xfinity. There's a 1.2TB cap no matter what level you pay for, though they give you the option of paying an extra $30/month for unlimited. I'm really growing to appreciate our local ISP, which provides symmetrical FTTH, unlimited data, a static (or at least rarely changing) IP, and generally non-predatory business practices, all for a lower price than Xfinity. Unfortunately, my house is on the fringe of the town, so they don't reach all the way here and I'm stuck with Xfinity.

Something is wrong with your system. That's not normal.

They have a bunch of Macs acting like iMessage servers that you connect to.

I use a ratcheting screwdriver in my job at a computer repair shop. For smaller screws, I use a precision screwdriver, in which I do just spin the shaft with the top of the screwdriver in my palm, but I sometimes need the larger screwdriver for more force.

1. Often true, and I often do that on my ratcheting screwdriver. However, it's faster still to use two hands, one on the handle and one on the shaft, and alternate them. While the handle is ratcheting back, the shaft continues turning, so it ends up screwing or unscrewing twice as fast (or at least faster; I know that moving your hand is pretty fast). Also, when working on a screw that requires more force, the ratchet allows me to apply that force without repositioning my hand frequently, again making it faster.
2. Again, I totally agree. This is especially important on small screws or when screwing into plastic, which I work with often. That's a good point about how low back drag (thanks for the name) makes it more difficult. I was thinking that it would make it easier when screwing into certain materials that change their resistance as I screw, but maybe the back drag I have on my current screwdriver is a good amount.

Yeah, if you don't like ratcheting screwdrivers, you definitely won't like the LTT screwdriver. That's fair. I think they make me faster, but it's up to personal preference.

Good point, but I see it as simply another option. I would rather have an expensive option that is overall similar but has certain advantages, such as a low ratchet force, than not have that option, even if I won't buy something that expensive. At worst, some people for whom money is no object might find it useful, or other companies might be encouraged to improve their designs to better compete. It's good for customers to have more options, even if the option doesn't suit everyone.

Beeper adds more polish, meaning that you don't need to manually configure bridges or maintain the Synapse server. It also gives you better indications of what bridge a room is from than Element does. If you know how to set up a Matrix server, you probably don't need it, but it's nice to have the option.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought that Matrix was a protocol, while mautrix was a client framework for the Matrix protocol written in Golang. Mautrix bridges are bridges for Matrix based on the mautrix framework. Beeper uses the Matrix protocol with some bridges (and maybe other components) based on mautrix; it's basically a proprietary commercial fork of Synapse and Element with better-integrated bridges. I have several mautrix bridges on my Matrix server, and every mautrix bridge I see (including gmessages) says it's for Matrix.

Yes. "Beeper adding support" is really them making a new Matrix bridge, and they open source all of their bridges, so just use theirs. It's here: https://github.com/mautrix/gmessages/tree/main