[porcoda]

I was a big fan of my RM2, but found the move to the subscription service a couple years ago to be off putting. Sure, I can turn off WiFi, or just use the network to ssh into it, but it felt less than great. I recently got a Supernote to replace it and so far love it. The company seems a bit more open and less likely to try to push me to some kind of subscription/cloud thing. They promote the “works great offline, no subscriptions” stuff right up front. Plus their pens are great - the one I got feels like a real pen.

[squarefoot]

>... but found the move to the subscription service a couple years ago to be off putting

This is so common these days. I'm still waiting for the PineNote to become stable enough to be usable by non developers. It's FOSS, so it would be immune from the subscription service plague, but they're progressing really slowly.

https://pine64.com/product/pinenote-developer-edition/

[crabmusket]

I'm exactly the same. I'd really like a large format e-ink reader for papers, notes etc. But at that point I don't want to pay for a closed-off locked-down device I can't control.

[jsmith99]

It’s almost as if there is a connection between subscription revenue and development progress.

[imiric]

Undeniably so. But charging a subscription for what is essentially a product feels like extortion to the consumer.

If using a device incurs you maintenance costs, whether those are servers or engineers, then by all means, charge a subscription, and I'll happily pay for it if it's priced appropriately. If, on the other hand, my usage doesn't depend on a service you provide, but I'm paying for R&D of your next product, then politely bugger off.

Companies love the subscription model because it's mostly fixed recurring revenue, but this trend of making everything a subscription needs to stop.

[joshspankit]

I’ve come to the opinion that the classic “make a product, sell it once, make the next product” model has always been kind of a lie. History is littered with companies who made a great product, sold it, then went out of business because the next product couldn’t make enough money fast enough to sustain them.

Especially in tech, every “evergreen” product needs to have at least basic security updates over it’s lifetime, and most likely needs code updates to continue to work across generations. I also think recurring payments can be done in a way that respects user rights and without the draconian licensing that we are rightfully cautious of.

As an example: I have paid for a parcel tracking app on iOS for a few years now. It’s solid and reliable and does not chase features or try to be something flashy. It just works. In order to keep it working they need to spend money on servers to run the interfaces with the delivery companies, dev time updating those interfaces when the delivery companies change their apis/websites, dev time to keep the app in line with Apple’s expectations for each iOS version, and the yearly Apple fee. I pay $3 per year and I’m happy to pay it. I feel confident that the money goes towards those costs while also providing the reliability necessary to let the dev(s) stay focused on making the best most effective product.

[BHSPitMonkey]

If you have somewhere you can run a Docker container, just spin up an rmfakecloud server and ditch the company's network altogether. Works really well.

[novalistener]

I’m really excited for the upcoming Supernote A5X2. So many smart and community-friendly decisions in the design and software. My reMarkable 2 is still holding up, but I’ll be giving it a close look when the time comes for a replacement.

[jadbox]

When is the A5x2 coming and what exactly are you excited about it?

[novalistener]

End of Q1 2024, according to the Supernote website. Presumably it’s going to be very similar to the recently released A6X2, just larger. The specs are great (300dpi display and performance bumped SOC), the design is expandable and repairable (SD slot, replaceable battery, easy teardown), and the OS is based on Android (so you can install the Kindle app and more if you want).

[TheFreim]

I have never tried a RM product, but when I was originally searching for an e-paper tablet I passed over them in favor of the Supernote A5X and it has been great. The software has been continually improved since I got it, I don't regret the purchase at all. Once the A5X2 comes out I might upgrade, especially because, if my memory serves me, it should have a user-replaceable battery.

[whatisyour]

For this exact reason, I decided to instead buy Surface Pro 9 and installed Ubuntu Linux on it. It works amazingly well. Moreover, all my notes are automatically converted to PDF and syned to my gitlab.

[diffeomorphism]

How is the support nowadays? It used to be that you needed custom kernels and some fiddling (e.g. see reddit's r/surfacelinux).

What software do you use for the note taking? On Windows there seemed to be OneNote (and nothing else) and on Linux xournal++.

Sorry for all the questions, but I am currently looking for a new laptop/tablet and thought I'd ask for experiences of others.

[whatisyour]

Apart from camera, almost everything is working correctly. Camera doesn't work at all.

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

I use this kernel, you can use this with most operating systems. Once things are setup, everything is extremely smooth.

I use xournal++ for note writing, and using GNOME is necessary. KDE doesn't have support for screen rotation etc. When you use GNOME, make sure to disable gestures and screen edge detection, because that might occasionally cause interfere with writing.

So, the workflow is quite simple with xournal++, you run a `inotify` based watched which automatically compiles and pushes stuff on every save. I of course assume that only `xournal++` on tab can change those handwritten notes. You can get some fancier git logic if needed. By putting the baselink as `https://gitlab.com/user/repo/-/jobs/artifacts/main/raw`, you can get the list of PDFs directly on readme of your git repo. pretty nifty for referring to later.

    while inotifywait -e modify,create,delete,move $INPUT;
    do
       publish.script --input $INPUT --output $OUTPUT
    done


    # publish.script
    pushd $INPUT
      pushd $INPUT

      printf "# Handwritten Notes\n\n" > readme.md

      printf "|  Index  | Date | Title |\n" >> readme.md
      printf "|   ---   |  --- |  ---  |\n" >> readme.md


      INDEX=0
 
      for i in $(ls -r *.xopp); do
        BASENAME=$(basename $i .xopp)
        PDFNAME=$BASENAME.pdf
        xournalpp --create-pdf=$OUTPUT/$PDFNAME $i

        BASENAME=$(basename $i .xopp)
        PDFNAME=$BASENAME.pdf
        LINK=$BASELINK/$PDFNAME$SUFFIX

        INDEX=$(( INDEX + 1))
        DATE=$(echo ${BASENAME:0:10})

        printf "| %d | %s | [%s](%s) |\n" $INDEX $DATE $BASENAME $LINK >> readme.md

      done

      if [[ $(git diff --stat) != '' ]]; then
        git add .
        git commit -m "$(date)"
        git push
      fi


    popd

You can run the inotify as a `systemd` service

    [Unit]
    Description=Starts Sync Service

    [Service]
    Type=simple
    ExecStart=%%%SYNC_BIN%%% --input %%%INPUT_DIR%%% --output %%%OUTPUT_DIR%%%
    ExecReload=/usr/bin/kill -HUP $MAINPID
    KillMode=process
    TimeoutSec=180
    Restart=on-failure
    RestartSec=5s

    [Install]
    WantedBy=default.target

[Robotbeat]

ooo, tell me more. what is your workflow like on the surface to enable this?

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

Since I am a happy user, I will mention rcu[1]. It is paid, but it makes remarkable more what it should have been ( no subs stuff ). To be fair, I never tried Supernote.

[1]http://www.davisr.me/projects/rcu/