I’m not an author, I have not ambition to be one and don’t intend on publishing the next great novel, screenplay, opinion, news article, or clickbait. I’m a Linux user and a fan of e-ink devices.
A few months ago I purchased a new, first generation, currently the only generation, Freewrite Traveler directly from Astrohaus. I absolutely love this device but it hasn’t replaced my drafting process, it augmented it. I prefer to write my first draft on paper and still do. However, instead of next jumping into a word processor and edit as I go, I now type up my draft on the Freewrite Traveler. Form written text and notes to wordprocessor, to Grammarly, to final published piece. For the purpose of this post I opted to publish this review without any edits, typos and all.
Yep, it’s more steps, but each step is quicker and depending on the product I could go from Freewrite to blog post.
The Freewrite is a Drafting Tool
The Freewrite Traveler is a drafting device similar to writing in Nano, Notepad, Mousepad (XFCE), or any plain text document. There’s no generative AI, no spellcheck, grammar check, or predictive text suggestions or automatic replacement, looking at you Android and iOS.
“What is ducking wrong with you people? I’m a people person! I deal with the ducking customers so the shift-head developers don’t have to!”
If you’ve ever sent a rant in a text or email to be autocorrected to “whatever” this device might be for you.
How does it work with Linux?
I’m happy to write that unlike most e-ink devices that force digital rights management or some random attempt at security. The Freewrite Traveler mounted as read-only, to my desktop, PeppermintOS without issue. I copied and pasted my three months of drafts instantly, all 81kb to a local folder on my desktop for an offline backup.
Admittedly, if the device sits for days without use it has difficulty reconnecting to WiFi, turning WiFi off and on again tends to solve the problem.
[This text posted to my blog without edit.]
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