Top all-time · #1647
Ruben Schade
Personal blog · rubenerd.comprogramminghardwareculture
Ruben Schade writes Rubenerd, a personal blog at rubenerd.com about programming, hardware and culture. Since 2011, 44 different Hacker News readers have linked it 227 times, most often “It's worth running a FreeBSD or NetBSD desktop”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Ruben Schade's personal blog as an example of a solo developer's writing on BSD, anime and tech. Commenters mostly point to its mascot, pages and individual posts rather than judging the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
By Ruben Schade in Eora/Sydney, Australia.
Most-linked posts?
- It's worth running a FreeBSD or NetBSD desktop4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-02-07
- Using NetBSD’s pkgsrc everywhere I can3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-05-26
- Encrypted ZFS on NetBSD 9.0, for a FreeBSD guy3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-05-24
- Why aren’t you more serious?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-07-29
- An advanced case of "In Their Defence"2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-09-18
- Is stuff online worth saving?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-12-16
- Boring tech is mature, not old2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-02-11
- How to make StackExchange (and others) more fun2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-06-14
- The Promise of Semantic HTML2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-12-11
- Working in IT made me a nervous traveller2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-13
What Hacker News says?
mcedit does have save on F2 (which I guess is carried over from DOS Norton Commander): https://rubenerd.com/files/2009/3612703566_52304223da_o.png
Comment linking /files/2009/3612703566_52304223da_o.png
on “The end of the nice GTK button”Submitted Git ignores .gitignore with .gitignore in .gitignore as a story · 655 points
HN discussion[EDIT:] See https://rubenerd.com/about/#mascot and https://rubenerd.com/anime-restore-my-blog/ . Looks like a typical harmless Anime nerd to me. [/EDIT] Not just any schoolgirl, but a schoolgirl drawn in "Manga"[1] or "Anime"[2] style, AFAICS. Lots of people are Manga and/or Anime fans, and many of those perhaps to such an extent that they feel it's a major part of their identity, so they want to show it some way. A…
Comment linking /anime-restore-my-blog/
on “Git ignores .gitignore with .gitignore in .gitignore”Submitted Boring tech is mature, not old as a story · 504 points
HN discussionhttps://rubenerd.com/ is a dude from Australia who posts about BSD, anime and various tech-related stuff.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are good solo developer blogs that you enjoy reading?”Submitted My essential Firefox fixes in 2022 as a story · 461 points
HN discussion> What is the benefit of a non-OLED screen [...]? Accessibility. https://rubenerd.com/the-iphone-14/
Comment linking /the-iphone-14/
on “iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max”Submitted We need physical audio kill switches as a story · 453 points
HN discussionI also liked how the '[ok]' moved to the right after GPU drivers have been loaded :) - https://rubenerd.com/files/2024/alpine-openrc.png Of course its OpenRC related and not Alpine. IMHO it would looked more 'nice' if the '[ok]' stayed where they were - at least till 'login:' prompt - but I know that its just implemented in a way that 'write [ok] after space from right side of the screen' and as resolution increased…
Comment linking /files/2024/alpine-openrc.png
on “A BSD person tries Alpine Linux”Submitted The "email is authentication" pattern as a story · 337 points
HN discussionA while ago there was a post on HN about pkgsrc [1][2][3], which works on Mac, among other platforms. I haven't tried it, but it may be worth a shot. [1]: < https://rubenerd.com/using-netbsds-pkgsrc-everywhere-i-can/ > [2]: < https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27293108 > [3]: < http://www.pkgsrc.org/ >
Comment linking /using-netbsds-pkgsrc-everywhere-i-can/
on “Ask HN: Best Alternative to Homebrew in 2021?”Submitted Weird Al had 100 gigs of RAM as a story · 301 points
HN discussionI've thrown "home server workloads" at my Mac mini. It stays on 24/7 anyway, because idle power draw is negligible. Syncthing is a great use case. Wherever I take my laptop, the files stay in sync between the two devices; I don't need a third device to act as a server, or iCloud, or any other cloud. Miniflux. I read my RSS feeds from three devices, so I want to track read status and save bookmarks. It provides a Goo…
Comment linking /our-personal-database/
on “Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)”Submitted A BSD person tries Alpine Linux as a story · 280 points
HN discussionThe libretto was a fine machine! I'd certainly be interested in a modern-hardware version of it with the same sturdy, rugged design. (Here's a size comparison from wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/EEEPC901_... and here is one more: http://rubenerd.com/uploads/photo.libretto.jpg )
Comment linking /uploads/photo.libretto.jpg
on “The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown”Submitted My New Sony NW-A55 Walkman as a story · 275 points
HN discussionIt also creates an echo chamber effect, X is popular so we make more X. Our culture is already revolving around rehashing what's "proven". The most original and interesting ideas may come from those who oppose that trend, and these ideas are most likely to drown in the sea of slop. Also the "content" "creators" who are most likely to benefit from tracking are the giant corporations - we're just making the rich riche…
Comment linking /stop-calling-people-content-creators/
on “Automatic Content Recognition Tracking in Smart TVs”Submitted Mozilla's latest quagmire as a story · 237 points
HN discussionTrue, your mileage with Wayland will vary, depending on your HW, distro, compositor, etc. Xorg is more mature (check it), and also this just popped up in my news feed: < https://rubenerd.com/boring-tech-is-mature-not-old/ > For better or worse, Wayland is where all of the attention is right now, and there already are systems (like Asahi Linux) where Xorg is unsupported. The world will continue moving forward, sticki…
Comment linking /boring-tech-is-mature-not-old/
on “TinyX: Small Featured X Server”Submitted All web "content" is freeware as a story · 160 points
HN discussionIf you're browsing the site on a mobile phone like I was, you probably won't see the image of the mascot on the right-hand-side. Even if you click the "mascot" link, you'll just go to a text description of it. The image is here: https://rubenerd.com/rubi@1x.jpg
Comment linking /rubi@1x.jpg
on “Why aren’t you more serious?”Submitted Is stuff online worth saving? as a story · 158 points
HN discussionI want to point out Ruben Schade bookmarks page. It's quite wonderful. An OPML file that is also a webpage. https://rubenerd.com/blogroll.opml
Comment linking /blogroll.opml
on “The Small Website Discoverability Crisis”Submitted A report on exercise and sleep (2021) as a story · 123 points
HN discussionI like the anime girl that's included on every page. He explains Rubi the mascot here: https://rubenerd.com/about/#mascot
Comment linking /about/
on “Revisiting webcam covers”Submitted Why aren’t you more serious? as a story · 123 points
HN discussionI remember this heavily commented post a few years ago: Weird Al had 100 gigs of RAM https://rubenerd.com/weird-al-had-100-gb-of-ram/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32734840
Comment linking /weird-al-had-100-gb-of-ram/
on “Weird Al – It's All About the Pentiums (1999) [video]”Submitted VMware outsourcing their support as a story · 115 points
HN discussionSubmitted Got my ultimate retro KVM setup working as a story · 105 points
HN discussionSubmitted Using NetBSD’s pkgsrc everywhere I can as a story · 104 points
HN discussion
