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Debian on Old Hardware
Saturday, December 20, 2025
I recently revived an old laptop with an Intel i3, 4 GB RAM, and a standard disk drive by installing Debian. The motivation was simple: Windows had become unbearably slow on this machine, and I wanted to see how a modern Linux distribution would perform on limited hardware. From Windows to Xubuntu—and Beyond Initially, I replaced Windows with Xubuntu. The experience did improve, but not enough for my son to actually start using the laptop. After checking the hardware, I found that upgrading the RAM to 8 GB and replacing the hard drive with an SSD would cost under PKR 10,000. That seemed reasonable. …
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From Madina to Margallas: A Coffee Contemplation in Karachi
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Back in 2011, on a journey from Madina to Mecca, I had a sensory experience that stuck with me. After the last prayer, someone was distributing “chai” and “khawa.” I asked for khawa. I am not a coffee fanatic per se, but that specific taste stayed with me the whole journey. I know enough to distinguish instant granules from freshly ground beans, but that cup was something else. Now, as we enter the few fleeting months in Karachi where the weather allows us to enjoy coffee without worrying about the heat, I’ve started reading God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest For the Perfect Coffee by Michaele Weissman. It was part of a Humble Bundle I bought ages ago—I don’t even remember what the bundle was for—but the book sat in my library waiting for this specific winter. …
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My Religion Story
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Let me take you down memory lane and share some observations. From birth until now, I have lived in three different localities, progressing from a neglected neighborhood to a somewhat clean one, and finally to a relatively safe and maintained area. Interestingly, in comparison, the neglected locality from 35 years ago was at that time safer than the “relatively safe” one today. You might be wondering why I am talking about localities in Karachi when the title is about religion. My observation is that the majority of people follow the religion of their family, which is expected. However, the specific variant of religion they adhere to often depends on the Masjid they goto—unless they have a strict version handed down from their family. This has been the case with my own religious journey, I will discount the first locality because i did not go to the Masjid except for some lessons, which were specifically for reading Quran. The 2nd Masjid were of Deobandi and the 3rd is of Tanzeem e Islami, they too are predominately Deobandi but quite liberal in excepting other schools especially Ahl-i Hadith and Barelvi. But they are openly critical of things which they do not agree with like asking for help for anyone other then Allah, or using weak Hadith for preaching, in fact they argue that peaching should be done with Quran as a base. …
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Cricket Feburary 2025
Sunday, February 23, 2025
My wife asked to check when the match would start. I googled and found that 2 overs were already up, and there was a “Watch it Live” button! It took me to a Pakistani streaming service. I had already heard its name but didn’t know what else they offered. Unfortunately, other than the match, everything was buffering and losing quality. They probably dedicated all the resources they had to the match, which makes sense, and I am not much of an entertainment consumer anyway. Normally my feed consists of technical YouTube channels. I think the last thing I watched on Netflix was Money Heist, and that too was because my wife was addicted to it. I used to peek between scenes and had to figure out the whole sequence. …