Making computers, your own

In the past few months, I’ve started tinkering a bit more with Linux, and more recently with a Pebble watch.

It reminded me of my old PSP-modding, Android, and Linux days, when I must have flashed no less than a thousand ROMs (probably 10x that).

I’ve spent the last decade using the Apple ecosystem, and at that point in my life, no longer being able to customize everything was actually somewhat of a positive experience. I had spent way too much time writing automations in Tasker, had my fair share of time as a Vim and Emacs user, and lost countless hours to AwesomeWM, i3, and many other incredibly fun time sinks.

So, leaving all of this behind when moving to Mac, those limitations became a sort of self-protection mechanism that helped me focus more on building things and learning software engineering. I still think that was a good call.

What I’m noticing now, though, is how I grew to dismiss the value that kind of customization had. It wasn’t just about productivity gains, but about working in an environment that brings you joy. I had completely forgotten what that felt like until recently.

I started playing with Omarchy, and touching a Linux desktop again after too many years brought back all the memories of making computers adapt to you, rather than adapting yourself to what someone else decided was the best way to use them.

And now, with AI agents, I can adapt the OS to any weird and silly desire or experiment in minutes instead of days. It’s very fun.

And I remembered that the marginal productivity gain was never really the important part. What mattered was enjoying your workspace: how much more willing it makes you to stay at your desk, create, express yourself, experiment, and have fun.

I’m feeling the same way with my new Pebble. I feel like I have full control, and it’s pretty addictive (in a good way) to build things that work exactly how I want them to. At this point, that might actually make the difference between using something or not—like my perfect focus timer, or other little things like that.

Using something tailor-made is great.

Almost all the wow effect of Omarchy comes from Quickshell, a toolkit to make os UI, and with agents it is absolutely dead easy to customize everything

I only have one regret: all the years I spent building, learning, breaking, and repairing things without sharing the journey.

I can’t fix the past, but having a place to write something like this—even if only a handful of people will probably read it—makes me genuinely happy.

Have fun with your computers!