As an old guy heading into 70, I’m beginning to deal with a decline in certain physical capabilities such as my vision. My vision has never been good; I’ve worn glasses since I was seven, and my nearsightedness is measured as 20/700 without correction. Even with correction I’m finding that it’s easier for me to read larger print than the “normal” sized print I’ve worked with for decades on a computer monitor.

As a consequence I’ve had to tweak the size of Chromebook fonts (at least in Chrome) to make them easier to read. The following tweak doesn’t work for everything, for example the WordPress web editor doesn’t seem to be affected. But Google Mail certainly responds nicely.

You get to Settings on a Chromebook just like you would with a regular Chrome browser on any other OS. Under Settings go to Appearance, and from there set the Font size to Large. This makes living with computer devices a bit easier. That, and devices with long battery life that don’t require they be permanently attached to a power brick.

I’ve become a big user of neofetch. I know it’s been out there forever it seems like, but ever since I finally paid attention to its use elsewhere I’ve installed it on all my Linux systems and use it diligently to capture key environmental statistics. Here I’ve installed and run it in my Chromebook’s Debian container.

It’s a bit interesting in my case. The older I get the more accepting I am of Linux, the more impatient I am with the flaws and outright lies of the commercial operating system vendors (Apple and Microsoft). I’m too old to believe the bullshit because I realize I’m not immortal and one day I won’t be here. So while I’m still here I’m using software that actually allows me to be as freely creative as possible. Emphasis on freedom, not free-as-in-beer.