This post is related and in some part a repetition of my other topic on how to buy a laptop for Linux.

Because I'm in Brazil, many brands and stores that do not ship to my country are out of the question, and even the ones that ship usually cost more than I can pay due to currency exchange rate and shipping costs themselves. What are some universal stores, brands and models that I can probably find on my location, that won't give me much trouble running Linux?

I don't require playing games or top performance (8GB RAM and i5 processor would be the minimum requirements). And SSD would be nice, but, for my budget, it's a plus.

I just need something that is durable and works reliably under Linux, especially when it comes to audio and HDMI output, video graphics adapter support, booting from USB, hibernating, sleeping and power management.

Thanks!

Traditionally I've used dark themes for everything I could on all of my devices, as I found it easier on the eyes when I'd usually use my computer (evening - night). Recently, I made the switch back to light stuff as I've been using my computer more for notes and assignments I'd normally hand-write, and I find I get drowsy less and have an easier time using the computer in a bright room than before - I just switched my theme on a whim one morning, so I wasn't expecting that at all!

So now I'm rethinking all my previous bias about dark themes being 'better' regardless of the situation, and I'm curious if anyone here had any thoughts and/or could point me to some reading on the subject (the subject being the effects of light/dark colours in work or concentration). It's something I realize now might be fairly important, as I'm looking at my screen for most of the day, but never really gave much thought before outside of tracking down the 'Dark' theme switch.

I wouldn't really consider it a hobby, but couldn't think of where else to try and have this discussion.

How many of you have ever heard of, or even considered the idea of alternative keyboard layouts!? As unanimous as it is, why are the letters of the alphabet even placed that way on our keyboards anyway? Alternative keyboard layouts attempt to optimize the layout by placing letters in such a way as to make typing more ergonomic. Often ideas include focusing on the home row, rolling fingers, alternating hands, high frequency letters on index and middle etc.

Some examples to look into if you've never heard of the concept:

• Dvorak, the most well known alternative keyboard layout. Prioritizes alternating hands by separating vowels and consonants by hand.

• Colemak. As opposed to Dvorak, prioritizes rolling the fingers rather than alternating hands and attempts to limit same-finger bigrams.

• BÉPO, a layout optimized for the French language!

• Others include Carpalx, Workman, MTGAP, Norman and many, many more. Creating rather than using layouts has sort of become a hobby for some...

So what do you think? Supposed ergonomics vs standardization. Would you ever consider switching or do you think it's a bunch of hocus pocus? Perhaps you have switched or tried to switch and would like to share your experience.