WriterdeckOS
27 comments
·November 8, 2025cosmic_cheese
tobyjsullivan
Not exactly this but found a similar experience recently by throwing Linux lite on an 15-year-old thinkpad with a physical wifi switch.
Was for my kid in this case. Loaded a few education-friendly games and then disabled the wifi. Now it’s a simple, focused, and relatively safe box.
Could easily do the same for writing or any other activity.
aplc0r
While I don't have a use for this, I do like the idea of purposeful modes in computing. Obviously there is a lot you can do with shortcuts and preferences, but its nice to have a limited to base to start with.
I think this is even more important with a mobile platform since for one, battery and processing power is at a premium, and two anything with notifications could take you out of your desired "mode" if you don't wrangle them properly.
Something I've always wanted in a smartphone is to be able to boot into a "camera only" mode. There have been many times where all I need my phone for is as a camera, and I don't want it wasting resources/battery doing anything else. If this mode were light enough, it could boot up in the same amount of time as a normal digital camera, allowing your the phone to be truly off while you're not taking pictures. I do often take a digital camera with me, but sometimes I don't want the bulk or maybe I didn't initially plan to take a lot of pictures.
pmarreck
Some of these options would have been way cooler than Tilde; perhaps it could provide alternate options too?
digilypse
Closing your laptop can also provide a clean, portable writing platform.
sebastianconcpt
No autosaving. That's the wrong way to try to be minimalist.
ciaranmca
Yea, that’s something that stuck out to me as well. Seems like auto save and version control could be done in a minimalist manner whist improving QOL
TeaVMFan
I like the idea of a distraction-free writing environment.
However, when I'm writing, I find I sometimes need to do research. I suppose for the best writing flow I should block time for research and time for pure writing. However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem. Of course it's a slippery slope from researching something on Wikipedia to navigating to related articles. Timed access per hour?
embedding-shape
> However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem.
When I'm in "writing mode", I forbid myself from doing quick lookups, because I can almost never stick to the "quick" part of the process, and end up chasing rabbits. Instead, I just put something like (verify) or (research to confirm yay/nay) while writing, and move on to what I can do in the moment. Then much later do I go through with a "editor" mindset and address all those things in one go, rather than in the moment.
I guess kind of like picking work into a queue rather than doing it immediately, and leaving it hanging until I can work through the entire queue in one go.
kstrauser
The old timey trick is to write “TK”, for “look this up later”. It’s not a common letter combination so it’s easy to visually or automatically scan for. Example:
> The moon is TK miles from earth.
Write away, don’t get distracted by the details, and catch up afterward when you’ve shifted to editor mode.
boplicity
The solution is simple -- switch to another device!
Our minds are hard-wired to build habits via physical association. Having a single-purpose device very much fits with how our minds work. If we want to do research, then go to a research enabled device. If we want to focus on writing, then open the writing focused device.
noir_lord
I like https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/ and have used it for years and years, you can configure the look and feel pretty extensively.
Lots of ways to skin that cat (especially if you are a linux user) but focuswriter does everything I need, very little I don't and there is a frame/mindset shift to using the same tool for a specific task.
null
teddyh
For those who prefer Emacs over tilde:
startx emacs --maximized --funcall=darkroom-modekosolam
Nice idea, however, here is a satire piece about writing and writers which I find relevant in this context: https://medium.com/@Justwritet/you-are-not-a-real-writer-if-...
jchw
This is my first time hearing of the "WriterDeck" concept, so it's very possible that I am missing some context, but... While booting to text requires less work and less packages, it seems like it has a lot of caveats. Firstly, it will likely be unreadable on any laptop that has a high resolution screen, and frankly even some old cheap laptops have one at this point, at least 1.5x~ish-scale DPI. Secondly, obviously better typography can be done in a graphical user interface, which seems like something you'd want if you're going to be writing on something. Thirdly, while the utter lack of distractions is admirable, this will also lack even the most crucial features and information. For example, I don't think you will even realize if your battery is about to die, which seems like it is a good way to accidentally lose a bunch of work. Battery state is probably the only thing that I really think it must show you.
It would definitely take a bit more work but a tiny dedicated graphical environment that functions as a basic text editor seems like it could go further. No particular need for Wayland or X11 here, either; you could get away with a simple Qt application directly on KMS/DRM.
noir_lord
https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/#download is Qt based so that'd get you most of it, last time I compiled it the deps where Qt/SDL. GPL3 licensed.
catach
> Battery state is probably the only thing that I really think it must show you.
The screenshot provided does show a battery indicator in the top right of the UI (Usage section).
dingnuts
a single fucking screenshot would go a long way to convincing me this is real. considering I lost an hour yesterday trying to use an open source library that turned out to be vibe coded non-functional slop, I have to ask for evidence that the project is real and functional be presented front and center
noir_lord
It's real but it's essentially a shell script that modifies debian to start into tilde.
https://github.com/tinkersec/writerdeckOS/blob/main/initialC...
Also I'd be semi-wary about downloading ISO files from somewhere like this and running those on hardware on my network (in fairness always should be) but especially given this https://github.com/tinkersec/TwitterAccountTakeover/tree/mas...
No guarantee what is in the ISO is the result of applying that shell script to a fresh debian ISO and repacking (no guarantee the other way but eh not taking the time to dig into it).
forgotpwd16
E.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/writerdeckOS/comments/1mu299a/
Not sure why such over-the-top presentation, marketing, and community building, for what is basically auto-logging in to a text editor.
evolve2k
Theres a screenshot here: https://writerdeckos.com/#usage
My critique as a designer is that no typographic measure has been added (eg max-width), so it’s very hard to read.
I’d suggest to them that they make a column in the middle for the text that is around 40 characters wide and Lee text flow in that.
This is used by many text editions for their distraction free mode. It’d add more typographic ‘white space’ around the outside also, contributing to the calm and focussed intentions.
matthewfcarlson
I don’t disagree but in the about they explain it’s just a Debian install that boots into the tilde editor.
dvh
Certainly! Would you like me to generate screenshots of OS optimized for writing to satisfy your creative needs?
1970-01-01
I had a good laugh. Why does anyone want this? Put Linux on your laptop and nuke the network stack. Done.
smlavine
Because then you'd have to do that.
wkjagt
You're clearly not the intended audience but that doesn't mean no one could want this.
The idea of a low-distraction laptop OS is a good one, but I'm not sure that this is necessarily the best approach.
If I mentally model such a thing myself, I end up with something that looks a lot like Classic (pre-OS-X) Mac OS. It's simplified and has just enough presence to properly host graphical applications. No taskbar, no notifications (or associated drawer), no self-populated launcher menu. File manager is spatial so it doesn't need a sidebar or navigation chrome. Multitasking is technically possible, but high-friction since the only way to switch between running apps is the little app switcher menu in the top right corner and becomes more cumbersome the more apps/windows you open. Included browser does not support tabs, only windows. Shortcuts to frequently used apps must be added intentionally (to your desktop as aliases/shortcuts or to the launcher menu).
This design strongly encourages singular focus without forcing it. If you want to have music playing in the background or need to open a browser window for research you can, but gravity is constantly pulling you back towards your task since the machine isn't pleasant to use for goofing off.