WriterDeckOS Review

I’ve been interested in the concept of writer decks for years, since I first discovered that some people use old AlphaSmart devices in that way. People who use writer decks find it helpful to write on a device with no distractions.

When I’m writing my books, I refer to my sources and notes (stored on a computer) a lot. If I used a writer deck to write, I’d still need a computer close by for reference, so I don’t want a writer deck for my main writing. But I’m still fascinated by the idea. I recently discovered WriterDeckOS, and decided to try it out on an old laptop.

Installation

Installation from a USB key was straightforward. It’s completely automatic, with no questions to answer or decisions to make. The one thing I didn’t like is that when the installation is finished, the computer reboots and the USB key has to be removed after the device stops but before it restarts. I’d prefer that the computer shut down after install, so that the installation media can be removed at leisure.

Usage

When the computer boots, there is no log in — it launches straight into the tilde text editor. On my laptop, the battery charge state was displayed at the top right of the screen, which was a pleasant surprise.

I’ve not used it before, but I found tilde simple to use. WriterDeckOS sets up the keyboard with a US layout by default, but I have a UK keyboard. The instructions for changing the keyboard layout didn’t work for me, which is a shame. Since I was just trying it, I didn’t spend much time on that, but I’d need to change the layout if I were going to use it properly.

I wrote the initial draft of this blog post on WriterDeckOS. I saved the file to a USB stick, which I later copied onto my main laptop for further editing and uploading. It all worked well, and was straightforward to use.

Conclusion

I won’t be using WriterDeckOS to write my books, but I hadn’t expected to. The laptop I tried it on is large and bulky. If I had one that was smaller and lighter, I might set that up as a writer deck and use it for other writing, such as these blog posts.

My main writing involves a log of referring to research on a computer, so a writer deck isn’t suitable for me. But if you’re looking for a writer deck, an old laptop running WriterDeckOS is a good choice.