Slashdot Asks: What's Your Computer Set-Up Look Like?

I thought it'd be fun to ask Slashdot readers one of the same questions we asked Larry Wall: What's your computer set-up look like? Slashdot reader LichtSpektren had asked: Can you give us a glimpse into what your main work computer looks like? What's the hardware and OS, your preferred editor and browser, and any crucial software you want to give a shout-out to?
Larry Wall is running Linux Mint (Cinnamon edition), and he surfs the web with Firefox (and Chrome on his phone) -- "but I'm not a browser wonk. Maybe I'll have more opinions on that after our JS backend is done for Perl 6..." And for a text editor, he's currently ensconced in the vi/vim camp, though "I've used lots of them, so I have no strong religious feelings."

So leave your answers in the comments. What's your OS, hardware, preferred editor, browser, "and any crucial software you want to give a shout-out to?" What does your computer set-up look like?

Comments

Um... OKay?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen a teenage dick-measuring contest on Slashdot in a while...

Re:Um... OKay?

[Big Hairy Ian]

I've got a black box with a monitor, keyboard & mouse. You can't get the beige ones anymore :(

Re:Um... OKay?

[Krakadoom]

I don't understand how anyone would find that question interesting. At least not without pictures for possible inspiration from the rare exceptional setup. From experience it's one of those things people love telling other people about, yet noone cares to hear about. Like your dreams. Or your kids.

Re:Um... OKay?

[BarbaraHudson]

I haven't seen a teenage dick-measuring contest on Slashdot in a while...

That's because most computers, like most dicks, are now "good enough" so what's the point?

Re: Um... OKay?

[thundercattt]

Exactly! We all know that 1 guy who buys a new setup every 6 months then proceeds to tell you about every part he selected and why it is superior.

Re:Um... OKay?

[Jawnn]

No mod points today, and it's a damn shame, dude, 'cause you get first post and best fucking post of the week right out of the gate.

Re:Um... OKay?

[stasike]

Nobody uses vi/vim without "strong religious feelings" !

*I* use [g]Vim without any religious feelings.
It is just an editor that I happen to like, with features such as very strong regular expressions support and a commandline where I can do interesting things with text objects.

Re:Um... OKay?

[angel'o'sphere]

I have no religious feelings.
And certainly not towards tech.

Probably my most beautiful lover gives me a god like feeling when doing tantra ... but that is not the same as worshipping a god :D

Re:Um... OKay?

[DEN_GUY]

I actually take pride in the inverse (old computer, not small dick). I have an AMD dual core 1.8 GHZ that I keep upgrading with new vid cards (ATI 7600 Series) and I have 1TB USB Drive, and two 24" monitors. I bought it originally HP Pavilion 6500e back in 2006 and have only now started to build my next one. Originally coast me $600. I have probably put another $400 into it over the years. Runs Linux Mint like a champ, and lets me do everything I need to do, including developing Java applications.

Re:Um... OKay?

[noahm]

I haven't seen a teenage dick-measuring contest on Slashdot in a while...

It's nice to see slashdot getting back to its roots after years of corporate drudgery.

My main setup is a ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It runs Debian, relatively recently converted from stable to testing in order to keep up with more recent stuff happening in the development community. My window manage is awesome, with a minimal KDE session running underneath it. Mostly I use KDE for its interfaces to network configuration and removable media. My editing sessions alternate between a long-lived emacs session and shorter vim sessions. Both editors have been accumulating configurations and customizations over the past decade+, and I'd be awfully sad if I ever lost those. For browsing, Firefox is the main browser, with Chrome/Chromium used for work and/or random other stuff.

Hardware-wise, I like the X1 Carbon, except for this awful keyboard on the 2nd generation models. It was so bad that Lenovo reverted the redesign for gen 3. It's great for battery life (I get a day pretty easily, even as it's approaching two years old) The resolution is decent (still works ok for things that don't fully support HiDPI while still providing a decent amount of screen real-estate), and it's reasonably well supported by Debian.

Computer?

[110010001000]

What is a "Computer" Daddy?
It is like an iPad, son. Except it was used in the 21st century for things like pirating movies and games and committing terrorist acts. That is why we were assigned iPads by our local corpo-government association.
Thats really interesting Dad.

Re: Computer?

[saloomy]

An iPad, an iPhone, they are computers. They are mobile computers. Desktop: Mac Mini w/ 2 27 inch thunderbolt displays, Apple TV for collaboration in my office as well. For my laptop, I use a 2012 rMBP with 16GB ram, 768GB disks. Served me for 4 years and it's still going strong. I use Safari for personal browsing since it integrates with my key chain, and chrome for developing. I use BBEdit for a text editor, or vi/vim when in a shell. VurtualBox for dev environments, and Apple Mail for... Mail.

Re: Computer?

[Lumpy]

They are computers that limit your access to protect you from yourself.

Sadly the hardware is also designed to protect the hardware from you as well. Very Very few tablets or mobile system allow you to have full control over them and install whatever Operating system you want.

Yes little billy, at one time we had real freedom where you owned the hardwware you purchased, not like today. But back then the populace had more education and actually tried to learn on their own. People tinkered with electronics and built things.

That was before the "restore consumer pride act of 2022" where making things yourself was deemed illegal. I remember when your grandmother actually made her own sweater, and I actually repaired a car once.

Re: Computer?

[110010001000]

No they aren't. They are consumption devices, not general purpose computers.

Re: Computer?

[110010001000]

That reminds me of the song: Red Barchetta by Rush. We are headed down that road with computers and the Internet.

Re: Computer?

[jellomizer]

I want to make a note. There haven't been many wide scale attacks on these closed devices. While security vulnerabilities have been found no where near the wide scale attacks like we had on on our PC's. The general purpose PC's while make us happy to play with... However for the standard user it is just a risk of failure.

Re: Computer?

[110010001000]

If you are using a closed device your data is already taken by the mega-corporations.

Re: Computer?

[BarbaraHudson]

computer pride act of 2022

Gay computers? I think Apple has prior art ...

Re: Computer?

[BarbaraHudson]

No they aren't. They are consumption devices, not general purpose computers.

So are most laptops and desktops.

Re:Computer?

[Ken_g6]

I'm suddenly picturing Bill Gates holding a Surface Pro over his head, and shouting, "From my cold, dead hands!"

Re: Computer?

[spire3661]

"The general purpose PC's while make us happy to play with... However for the standard user it is just a risk of failure."

Yep and instead of forcing users to actually learn something, we gave them all the power and none of the responsibility, so now all must suffer for the ignorant masses. Great job guys....

Re: Computer?

[Lumpy]

So forcing them hard closed for everyone is the answer? give me the "click here to violate your warranty" button that unlocks the bootloader and puts all the liability on myself.

All the device makers utterly REFUSE to do this.

Re: Computer?

[macs4all]

You're a one-man Apple Pride parade.

At least someone here had the guts to admit on Slashdot that he uses Apple equipment exclusively...

Re: Computer?

[jellomizer]

Vs. Take over by the Rouge Hacker. Who it is in their best self interest to either destroy or hold hostage.

The mega-corp, having my data is troubling... However it is better them than a black market group who profit off of making us miserable.

Re:Computer?

[fahrbot-bot]

I'm suddenly picturing Bill Gates holding a Surface Pro over his head, ...

Standing outside Ione Skye's bedroom window at dawn, streaming, "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel.

Re: Computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they aren't. They are consumption devices, not general purpose computers.

So are most laptops and desktops.

Are you tall enough for this ride? Do not confuse defective users with defective hardware.

Re: Computer?

[Oligonicella]

Difference is, you can choose. I can scrub my machine and switch OS's.

Re: Computer?

[mcgrew]

No they're not. Apples maybe, but not Androids. Installing a program in an android device is as simple as using a file manager (available in Google Play) and clicking an APK file. I discovered this recently when I bought a tablet and wanted Winamp, which had been pulled from the repository after someone else bought the company.

At any rate I was able to find the APK and it was actually an easier installation than installing a Windows program.

I was going to mod you "offtopic" for being completely wrong, but decided to correct you instead. You do NOT have to jailbreak an Android, and in fact if you're not careful when you plug it into a Windows machine with a USB cable you can brick it to the point of needing an OS reinstall. Windows won't be able to read the OS's partition, stupidly and arrogantly (as Windows always does) asks you if you want to reformat the drive. Click "yes" and your device is toast.

Re: Computer?

[mcgrew]

Your "Rouge Hacker" typo made me grin.

Re: Computer?

[mcgrew]

That's because as easy as it is to install an Android program not in Google Play, most people don't believe you can do it without "jailbreaking".

APK isn't just the user name of a slashdot troll, it's an Android installation file similar to a Linux tarball and easier to install than a Windows program.

Re: Computer?

[saloomy]

So what if I use Apple equipment exclusively? I like the aesthetic, and I like OS X. For high end hardware, i know it will be supported for years. My rMBP will be able to run Sierra. Fast. None of the keys are pulled off. None of the use shows. My laptop could sell on EBay for $1000. I have needed to service one of my thunderbolt displays, as the power supply went out; but that only cost me $90 and Apple themselves did the repair. Fantastic hardware. Oh and the operating system? It's really the best in the world for the desktop. Hands down. Oh and I administer full-stack Windows solutions for some companies. AD, Exchange, share point, etc.... I also develope in Linux most of my projects (LAMP or Node.js). For a developer, Apple hardware can't be beat, and the software can't either. The stuff for me, like using iMessage to carry on my conversations whatever I'm using, like using airdrop to transfer large files between my macs, it all works really really well. And there is NOTHING on Windows that can compare to terminal app for Mac. Putty is shit compared to it.Mac combines the best of both worlds. Most of the apps that run in Windows run in OS X, and if I need to split a file every 25,000 lines, split -l 25000 ./somefile.txt. Or any other Linux utility I might need like Ed to netcat.

Oh and not having Tim Cook watch what I do on a Mac while squeezing every penny he can by pawning my info out to the highest bidder? Priceless.

Re: Computer?

[mcgrew]

Funny, that song is taken from A Nice Morning Drive, a SF story by some guy named Richard Foster. The original story was a protest against the newer safety features in early 1970s cars, like seat belts and padded dashes. Obviously, Mr. Foster was as young as you guys who eschew safety.

Re: Computer?

[macs4all]

For a developer, Apple hardware can't be beat, and the software can't either.

You'll get no argument from me.

I just wish more Slashdotters would "come clean" about the fact that they use and/or admire Macs and OS X.

Because a lot of them do. But like masturbation or peeking into a friend's medicine cabinet, many do it, but few like to talk about it...

Re: Computer?

[angel'o'sphere]

I mostly use Apple at home, too.

What is the point of your hate? Why should I use an inferiour OS for my daily work?

At the time I bought my 30" Apple display, there existed no affordable other displays in that size.

When I logon on my computer, I want to play, watch a movie, or do serious work. I don't want to tinker or to figure why the internet settings miraculously have set themselves into a non working state. Or why the Windows PC does not boot because it likes to search 45 minutes for a domain controller (Hint: it never had one! And a day before it booted just fine. As it died the years before.)

Re: Computer?

[BarbaraHudson]

No they aren't. They are consumption devices, not general purpose computers.

So are most laptops and desktops.

Are you tall enough for this ride? Do not confuse defective users with defective hardware.

Do you not understand that the classification of any hardware (whether it's a computer or a truck) is dependent on it's use?

For example, use a van as a commercial vehicle (commercial plates, logo on the side, etc) and there are many residential zones you can't park it overnight, whereas the same van for individual use is perfectly fine.

The same computer can be used as a media streaming device by one owner, and as a workstation by another. Stupid ACs.

Re: Computer?

[BarbaraHudson]

So can people who use their laptops/desktops solely for media consumption. You can even install FreeBSD, linux or Windows (and probably FreeDOS if al you need is a cnc controller to run old dos programs) on the latest Chromebook

Re: Computer?

[macs4all]

What is the point of your hate? Why should I use an inferiour OS for my daily work?

I'm not "hating" at all. I was just anticipating a whole bunch of the typical Slashtard "Apple Bad!" comments directed to anyone who DARED "admit" that they have Apple stuff in their setup. Sorry if I wasn't clear in my feelings.

However, I am not sure which the "inferiour" OS was you were talking about? OS X? Or another OS? Because I certainly don't think that OS X/macOS is inferior. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Re: Computer?

[angel'o'sphere]

I'm a Mac user, obviously all other OSes are inferiour ;D

Re: Computer?

[110010001000]

It is the same concept: computers need to be more "safe". Thus general purpose computers will be banned and only approved devices will be allowed.

Re: Computer?

[SharpFang]

Oh, you just didn't hear about them.

There haven't been many *LOUD* wide-scale attacks on these devices.

Their malware tends to stay under the radar and do its thing without drawing attention. It's quite ubiquitous though.

There are apps that run bitcoin mining on your Android phone.

There are apps that cheat on ad revenue, loading ads en masse (and not displaying them, or you'd long uninstall them).

There are quite a few spyware apps.

Due to the lockdown, traditional "viral" spread is limited. In most cases, "trojan horse" technique is employed. Legal, useful apps in the app store, that have a second, clandestine function. Since getting rid of the malware is pretty easy, and malware that can't make its way into some official store will never reach broader victim base, they just stay under the radar, doing their thing without alerting the users to their presence and without being *overly* harmful.

Re: Computer?

[SharpFang]

They have a turing-complete CPU. They have memory and storage. They have input and output devices.

That pretty much sets them as general purpose computers.

Oh, that's not their intended purpose - not what they are marketed at. Overcoming the lockdown may take some work. But you CAN run arbitrary computation on them, even with the lockdown.

Even on IPad, where they paid close attention to disable general computing to a degree where Commodore 64 emulator was banned because it runs Commodore BASIC, you can still load a page that contains:

<textarea id=x></textarea> <input type="button" onclick="eval(document.getElementById('x').value)"/>

and type away your general computation in Javascript.

Note, by the same virtue, a Postscript printer is also a general purpose computer. But yeah, using the right Postscript, people were playing chess against Postscript printer/scanner devices - the printer would print the chessboard with the pieces, the player would draw the move with an arrow, then scan it in, the printer would recognize the move, calculate a response and print it out. So, yeah, that's general purpose computers for you.

Re: Computer?

[mcgrew]

Being safe from annoyance has little connection to being safe from death and serious injury. The worst thing that can happen on a computer (outside the medical and industrial fields) is you have to buy a new one. You're far more likely to drop and break your tablet than have it ruined by a hacker. Hell, a computer won't even give you a paper cut.

As to "safe" computers, almost everyone (including me until recently) thinks you can't install a program on any tablet of phone without "jailbreaking" it. The fact is, that's only true of Apple products.

I discovered this after buying a tablet and discovering Winamp was no longer in Google Play. Searching for the "why" it turns out that Winamp was sold to another company and will be back up. I also learned what the /. troll "APK" was named for; its an installation file for Android, similar in structure to a Linux tarball. Installing Winamp on the tablet consisted of downloading the APK to my computer and clicking in it with my file manager. Easier to install than a Windows program.

Everyone's favourites.

[richy freeway]

Windows 10 and Google Chrome all the way. Notepad++ for text editing.

Essential software, I dunno. I use Lastpass a lot. VLC for media stuff.

Re:Everyone's favourites.

[110010001000]

Why do you use Lastpass? If you use Chrome and Windows 10 the hackers already have your passwords anyway.

Re:Everyone's favourites.

[richy freeway]

It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Re:Everyone's favourites.

[Barny]

Duh, it is so HE has his passwords too.

I prefer keepass for this. Chrome + Firefox on windows 10 (chrome is only for youtube/netflix on my TV), firefox runs noscript.

Code editing is notepad++, text editing is via google docs, text writing is from LibreOffice.

Essential other software? The aforementioned keepass, steam, skype.

What it 'looks' like? Two 24" screens with a 24" TV in a quarter circle, my computer itself has its rear facing my keyboard in winter, facing the window in summer.

Re:Everyone's favourites.

[Overzeetop]

Well, sure, the hackers have them - but it's not like I can go and ask *them* for my password every time I want to log in somewhere.

Re:Everyone's favourites.

[GuB-42]

Chrome and Windows 10 are actually pretty secure as far as modern browsers and Windows OS go.
Sure, Google and Microsoft want to know everything about you but they don't want to share.

Re:Everyone's favourites.

[mcgrew]

Had Windows 10 on this laptop all of 45 minutes before going back to 7. 10 was fugly and it made this old laptop really slow.

I write in Open Office and then copy and paste it into Word to send to the magazines. I HATE Word. I have kubuntu dual-boot on this box, but KDE fucked up the interface so I'm shopping for a new Linux distro.

The bigger, laptop is also running 7. Have an old Kyocera edge phone that I don't have to be worried about getting caught in a downpour, since it's waterproof. Tablet's a Samsung Galaxy 3 I bought in a pawn shop last month. Firefox keeps crashing on it.

There's also an old Dell workstation running XP that is no longer in use, and an early '90s Apple tower someone gave me. Also works but is not used.

Computer setup?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm whistling 300 BAUD into the mouthpiece of my landline telephone you insensitive cloh'/fIFYNUOb;/9' NO CARRIER

Re:Computer setup?

[DimeCadmium]

Why, in my day, we had to whistle no faster than 299 baud! And it was uphill both ways!

Re:Computer setup?

[RevRagnarok]

+++ATH0

Re:Computer setup?

[dublin]

OK, we know you weren't there or you'd have written 110 baud - and no, both ways meant full duplex, which was big medicine back then.

I do have a 300 baud acoustically coupled modem and an ADM 3a out in the garage that I can't bear to part with, even though the 3a's CRT is suffering from quite a bit of internal bubble rot. Man I loved that keyboard, but *waiting* for a screen of text to render (even at the fast speeds) got pretty old, and the fonts were seriously butt-ugly, since lower case was an afterthought/upgrade. I last used it setting up high performance storage gear 15 years ago: (~6 GB of spinning disk in my study, back then, that meant extension cords running to circuits all over the downstairs and no way the A/C could keep up in the summer...)

I'll take the Surface Pro 4 for $1200, Alec. It's literally beyond the dreams of science fiction when that modem/terminal setup was new...

Re:Computer setup?

[dublin]

Oh, and I'll switch from Linux VMs to Ubuntu on Windows when Win10 Redstone comes out in a couple of weeks. Really seems like it might be the best of both worlds.

It's way more than bash on Windows - it runs almost any command line program that doesn't need Dbus now, and there are even (currently hackish) workarounds for that and X already.

wrong bookmark

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, facebook looks different today

Home / work

[kav2k]

At home: a competent gaming + VR (Vive, DK2) machine running Win10. At work: top-spec Dell Optiplex running Ubuntu (not that I need top spec for all the LaTeXing I do).
I prefer Sublime Text and Chrome. Vim when GUI is unavailable.

Home

[markdavis]

Main system at home: Mageia Linux 5, KDE, but use Pluma as editor, Firefox, LibreOffice, Audacity, Audacious, Claws, vlc, Pidgin, Hexchat, ssh, etc.

Several-year-old homemade computer with a really nice Asus board and a 6 core 3.2Ghz AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, Antec 750W PS with huge, quiet fan. Centurion super tower case with 5x5.25" external bays, 1x3.5" external bays, and a lot of internal ones. Huge, quiet case fan, fanless Nvidia GeForce GT 730, 8GB RAM, several SATA hard drives in removable bays plus main drive is a Sandisk SSD, LG Bluray burner. Brother MFC-L2740DW all-in-one. LG ultrawide 29" LCD monitor (2560x1080). Cyberpower UPS, ASUS RT-AC68U router running Linux (of course). Ancient Microsoft Natural keyboard.

Re:Home

[Nunya666]

+1 for Mageia 5.

I run Mageia 5 on my work laptop, with Win7 in a VirtualBox VM. The biggest issue with running Linux at work is connecting to overhead projectors during meetings. XRANDR takes care of that rather nicely.

Re:Home

[markdavis]

>"8 GB RAM? Aww, Grandpa!!"

This is and always has run Linux.... it is pretty efficient. Several years ago when I built it, 8GB was a lot. Just so happens it still works fine, so I never bothered to add more!

Since I'm at work...

[RevRagnarok]

CentOS 7 with 4 virtual desktops. On Desktop 1 I keep my work stuff with Firefox, on D2 is my personal with Chrome to keep the logins separate. 3 and 4 are misc workspaces, like if we are running a training session I'll have ClusterSSH windows on D3 for the week.

My monitors are Dell 24" with the left one horizontal (good for most browsing and looking at waveforms) and the right one vertical (good for coding).

There's a physical and virtual gap between them which has a banana stand holding my headphones for when my coworkers are too distracting. ;) Screenshots look very weird.

For work, I moved from Windows to Linux before UltraEdit was ported, so honestly I just use Kate.

(nvidia control panel settings: Left: +0+275, Right: +2790+0 Rotate Left. That's on a sticky note because it never stays across reboots.)

OS X, Linux

[angel'o'sphere]

Laptop with OS X, most of the time with an external 30" monitor. And no, I don't have any program on fullscreen there ... unless it is a game.
As I'm mainly programming in Java, Groovy, Scala I use an IDE (mostly Eclipse, but often IDEA IntelliJ).
Usually I have a VM running Linux (VirtualBox), sometimes one running an old Windows (like windows 2000, to run a CASE System like "Sparcs Enterprise Architect").

On both OS X and Linux I use bash and vi/vim. IDEs or dump editors make no sense if you are on the console and mainly do shell scripts. Emacs I simply can not use as I can not memorize its key short cuts. They make no sense to me.

Occasionally I do some AppleScript stuff, even more occasionally I use Automator.

I have no essential Apps, but an App I like, albeit not using it often anymore is "Omni Outliner".

Browsers: everything except FireFox (Safari, mostly Opera, sometimes Chrome and the new Vivaldi browser). FireFox auto upgraded itself to often into an unusable state.

Sadly

[FrozenGeek]

my development desktop machine died (seriously dead) late last year, so I'm using my laptop for now: - MSI gaming laptop - I7, 8GB RAM, 1TB HD - Windows 10 (hey, it's better than 8) - Visual Studio 2015 Since I am planning a new desktop development rig, let me throw the question back to y'all. What do you recommend for Windows development in terms of HW? I want to be able to run multiple VMs simultaneously, so I'm aiming for 32GB of RAM. AMD or Intel? I5 or I7? I want lots of screen space. Would a 4k TV (say, 40 - 50 inch) be preferable to 3 or 4 1K monitors?

Re:Sadly

[Curunir_wolf]

Would a 4k TV (say, 40 - 50 inch) be preferable to 3 or 4 1K monitors?

No.

Re:Sadly

[BarbaraHudson]

Windows 10 (hey, it's better than 8)

... for some values of "better", maybe. Looking forward to renting your next OS?

Re: Sadly

[Euphorinaut]

As far as the vm's and Intel vs amd. I think I remember having more physical cores working better than virtual cores for vm's. Might want to look into that, because if so it would make amd the better choice.

Re: Sadly

[FrozenGeek]

As far as the vm's and Intel vs amd. I think I remember having more physical cores working better than virtual cores for vm's. Might want to look into that, because if so it would make amd the better choice.

That's sort of what I was thinking. I've not used an AMD processor since I started using VMs.

Re:Sadly

[FrozenGeek]

Windows 10 (hey, it's better than 8)

... for some values of "better", maybe. Looking forward to renting your next OS?

Not in the least. Unfortunately, my target audience, at least for the time being, is mostly Windows-based, so I'm stuck using some form of Windows for now. When I review my comment, I consider it very sad that the best I can say about Windows 10 is that it's better than Windows 8. Am I the only one who feels that our OSes have not progressed, over the past 30 years or so, to the same extent as our hardware has?

Re:Sadly

[BarbaraHudson]

8.1 got rid of the 8 fugliness - configurable out of the box to always default to the desktop view without using any add-ons.

Re:Sadly

[angel'o'sphere]

Am I the only one who feels that our OSes have not progressed, over the past 30 years or so, to the same extent as our hardware has?

Actually the degrade. Stuff that once was easy now needs a manual to figure.
The majour OSes are converting towards the minimum denominator (e.g. tripple clicking no longer working).

Re:Sadly

[dublin]

Actually, if you have a Surface Pro, Win 10 is heading in a great direction, if not quite done yet. Once you've lived with (and used) great multitouch and pen apps (and there are far too few of them, now), it will forever change the way you work with computers.

Heck, Sketchbook Pro alone on the SP4 is enough reason for me to doggedly put up with all the other pains of WIndows (and they are legion, but Win 10 really is getting better, and may have grabbed the crown of "getting better faster than any other OS" from Linux...)

Re:Sadly

[BarbaraHudson]

Microsoft has encouraged the rental of Windows since 2010. And businesses can lease Windows 10 through suppliers.

Also, Microsoft has said that Windows 10 is the last one you'll ever buy. So what happens when it ends mainstream support in 2020 and extended support in 2025? You really believe they're just going to fold up their tent instead of pushing everything to a lease in the cloud model?

Homemade

[hcs_$reboot]

Gigabyte MB, 8 GB RAM, i5, 2 SSD (one for sys, Ubuntu 14.04 only, soon to become 16.04, one for home+data). A big monitor matte style with no super contrast that kills the eyes. Net via RJ45. Built in 2009 and still fast enough. Testing 16.04, it appears it's even faster!

Re:Homemade

[aliquis]

with no super contrast that kills the eyes

If this wasn't Slashdot I'd ask you how you handled the real world.

Re:Homemade

[omnichad]

Unless you only care about looking at plain text, most "special" contrast settings kill the color accuracy.

Re:Homemade

[aliquis]

Unless you only care about looking at plain text, most "special" contrast settings kill the color accuracy.

I didn't even consider dynamic contrast. I assume I wouldn't use it. I can't really know what he mean with "super contrast."

Normal IPS and TN panels top out at around 1000:1 contrast and the VA ones on 3000:1. Out in the real world the difference is much much much much larger than that. The contrast on the displays is shit relative the real world and the eyes can handle that pretty well.

You're correct in that for a calibrated IPS screen the contrast usually ends up being more in the 700-800:1 range rather than the 1000:1 one. Even worse relative reality when it comes to contrast and I can't see how his eyes wouldn't be able to handle that. Maybe he speak about inaccurate colors in some mode which maximizes contrast as you suggest (and as such maybe it wasn't about dynamic contrast either but just about maximum contrast value at the cost of color accuracy.)

Personally I would have wanted to have the more correct colors I guess and would have had to live with 800:1 contrast which would be low and poor but it is what those screens can deliver.

Surface Pro time

[Overzeetop]

One tablet to rule them all...

SP4 (i5) docking with 2 x 4k 42" IPS monitors (Mango Wasabi)

Work time: AutoCAD Building Design Suite, Bentley/RAM Elements
Play time: Reaper, CS 2016
Browser: Chrome (=email,cal,tasks in app windows)

Utilities I can't live without:
Image adjustment: Irfanview
Text editor: Notepad++
PDF: Bluebeam

I love when architects (esp. mac-based) come around and drool over the monitors with space for two (nearly) full D-sized PDF prints up at the same time, plus a pen-sketch on the tablet screen. I love it more when I tell them that the tablet is running the entire setup, and I can just pop the dock connector and take all of my work into the field.

Re:Surface Pro time

[angel'o'sphere]

I love it more when I tell them that the tablet is running the entire setup, and I can just pop the dock connector and take all of my work into the field.
And what exactly is the difference to a Mac in that regard, except ... a Mac does not need a docking station?

Re:Surface Pro time

[dublin]

I'm no MS fanboi, for sure, but Overzeetop has it right here - the docking station is one of the best features of the Surface Pro line. Combined with the pen which allows a whole new kind of computer interaction, it truly changes the way you work with computers.

Macs are fine computers, but there is no Mac that can even approach the kind of power and utility you can get with the Surface Pro 3 or 4 or Surface Book. The SP4 is more powerful and far more useful than the MacBook Air, and the the SB is likewise superior to the MacBook Pros. I bought an SP3 when it came out, and it absolutely changed the kinds of things I could do (and more importantly, wanted to do) with a computer.

If you haven't tried living with one (especially with docking stations at home and work), then you really just don't get it. There is no laptop I'd trade for. I want all my computers to work this way - the SP4 is as far beyond a regular laptop as the first thin and powerful laptops were beyond clunky old desktops.

Don't underestimate the power of moving the context of all your work to wherever you are, and getting a way better experience when you're docked. It's really amazing. While Win10 still has some pretty ugly seams showing where they lashed the UWP apps onto the desktop OS, it does produce an experience you just can't get anywhere else.

I'm really looking forward to the updates coming in a couple of weeks, which should also enable Ubuntu on Windows for everyone with Developer access enabled, not just those on the Fast Ring of the Preview program.

Re:Surface Pro time

[angel'o'sphere]

I did not realize he was talking about a "Surface" device.

Point is: a (modern) Mac does not need a docking station to attach several displays as Macs use thunderbolt.

The rest is likely a matter of taste. As a Surface (no idea how the windows on it is exactly called) runs no Unix like OS, it is pointless to me to discuss about it.

EM simulation

[rfengr]

2x 8 core Xeon, 128 GB, 2x Tesla K20, Windows 7, 2 TB RAID, 3x 24" On order: 2x 8 core, 512 GB, 4x Tesla K40, 9T B SSD RAID, 3x 28" 4k

Re:EM simulation

[FrozenGeek]

I now have a serious case of computer envy.

15-inch Macbook Pro Retina with Debian Sid

[cobbaut]

Laugh all you want, but at the time of release the 15-inch retina Macbook Pro was not that expensive.

I prefer 16:10 displays to 16:9 !
After three years, it still runs 8+ hours on its battery.

root@retinad:~# lshw -short (EDITED)
/0/0 memory 7895MiB System memory
/0/1 processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4750HQ CPU @ 2.00GHz
/0/100 bridge Crystal Well DRAM Controller
/0/100/1 bridge Crystal Well PCI Express x16 Controller
/0/2/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 251GB APPLE SSD SM0256
root@retinad:~# uname -a
Linux retinad 4.6.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.6.2-2 (2016-06-25) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Re:15-inch Macbook Pro Retina with Debian Sid

[macs4all]

Laugh all you want, but at the time of release the 15-inch retina Macbook Pro was not that expensive.

Fuck you

Wow! Over his PERSONAL choice of computing platforms?

Like a tornado came through a messy child’s

[Theovon]

My computer set up is a disheveled pile of books, monitors, laptops, opened mail, unopened mail, notepads, trash, and other assorted items. Sometimes I’m lucky to find my power adaptor and phone charging cable under the mess. I have a scanner under there somewhere, but I can’t find it. The only reason I can find my printer is because it’s down in the basement, although it too is piled up with printouts I haven’t organized yet (and probably never will).

Sometimes I wish my house were like a TARDIS inside. I could pick up the stuff I use and move to another room every time I crap up the one I’m using.

Don’t judge me. Your office is just as messy and you have fewer excuses.

My systems

[varag]

Most of my machines have ended up being Thinkpads (T61, X220, T440p, et al.). I also have a XMG P406.

All machines run Arch Linux with a choice of Gnome, KDE, IceWM, OpenBox, Fluxbox. The machine is use daily also has Deepin, WindowMaker, Awesome, i3 and Blackbox.

My preferred text editor is Kate and browser is Firefox or Seamonkey.

Re:My systems

[BarbaraHudson]

Most of my machines have ended up being Thinkpads

Interesting. What did they start out as?

Re:My systems

[varag]

Most of my machines have ended up being Thinkpads

Interesting. What did they start out as?

Desktops.

My setup

[Pegasuce]

Main computer:
MacBook Air 11" with 2 Thunderbolt displays. Use Safari to browse, Eclipse to edit java code, Omnigraffle to do diagram, VmWare to run VM.

Game Computer:
PC with AMD-FX 8350, radeon HD-7970 32 Gigs RAM. 27" Samsung monitor (2660x1440). Play all games well even it still 3 years old.

Server:
Mac Mini + 2x Drobo storage.

Pissing contest

[Ed Avis]

Ah, good, I think it's about time to have a meaningless pissing contest. My work setup is three Dell UP2715K monitors in portrait orientation, giving a total screen resolution of 8640x5120, or 44 megapixels. If anyone can beat that, I will take you on in a stage-2 match of who has the lowest Slashdot user id.

Re: Pissing contest

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one detail: dick size scales inversely with display resolution. I'm glad I still use Mode X for everything.

Re:Pissing contest

[beh]

Well - getting you on the UID is the easy part, oh young one! ;-)

With my displays - nah - my plain 30" 2560x1600 is still fine by me. At work I only have two (portrait mode) 24" full HD screens - also "only" 2400x1920...

As for the development tools - it always depends on what I work on - Java development - I still use eclipse (I have to use some plugins to interface with systems that aren't available for other IDEs... That said - I still think eclipse is decent enough to work with),
For anything non-Java, I still use emacs -- sooo old, but it just works fine; and everything can be easily controlled by keyboard -- the mouse/touchpad is only a "last resort" tool. ...as for emails - still remember pine (or - alpine, as it was called in the last few iterations) - still the best tool for my imap space... :-)

Re:Pissing contest

[Gunfighter]

Well - getting you on the UID is the easy part, oh young one! ;-)

Sure is. ;)

Re:Pissing contest

[Ed Avis]

I have Outlook full-screen on one monitor, PuTTY (usually showing emacs) in another, Firefox (Cyberfox) in a third. I set Windows to 200% font scaling so things aren't tiny.

Re:Pissing contest

[Blade]

Well - getting you on the UID is the easy part, oh young one! ;-)

Sure is. ;)

Yep. I agree.

Re:Pissing contest

[coats]

E5-1660 v4 (8 cores, 20M Cache, 3.2-3.8 GHz.
64GB RAM
Screen: 1xDell 27" 2560x1440; 10 KDE workspaces @ 3200x2256 virtual (==72 megapixels)
512GB SSD, 20GB RAID5 + 12GB RAID0
Mandriva 2015
Compilers by Intel, Sun, PathScale, GNU

Re:Pissing contest

[Rhyas]

It's somewhat impressive that there are still people with these super low UID's still lurking on /. after all these years. (:

Re:Pissing contest

[Blade]

We're just here so we can shout 'get off my lawn' every now and then.

I'm off to find a blanket for my knees.

Re:Pissing contest

[war4peace]

Your RAID disks are smaller than your RAM?

Re:Pissing contest

[goarilla]

That's 7.2 Mpixels.

Re:Pissing contest

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, these guys are all recent signups that have taken
advantage of a little-known modulus divide-by-11 rounding bug
that occurs in certain versions of Javascript running any Intel processor
on Sunday afternoon.

CAP === 'garnered'

Re:Pissing contest

[Azaril]

Only 3 screens? Awww http://i.imgur.com/slP7Eje.jpg

Re:Pissing contest

[jimbo]

Sometimes the dinosaurs are awakened, briefly.

Re:Pissing contest

[yourpusher]

This warms my black little heart.

Re:Pissing contest

[thinkwaitfast]

I was here long before ID's existed and held out during the registration controversy, but eventually got one in the 60-thousands. I rarely use it, not worth it anymore.

Re:Pissing contest

[PCM2]

Don't be too impressed, I'm actually not who I say I am.

Re:Pissing contest

[Rob Riggs]

At home, dual IPS 1600x1200 displays that are over a decade old. Home-brew Intel i5 4690. 32GB RAM. 250GB SSD. 2TB spinning rust (4TB mirrored). Nvidia GTX 970 graphics. Fedora 24 w/Cinnamon desktop. Primarily used to run Eclipse, KiCAD, Chrome.

At work, 8-core Xeon E5 running RHEL7/Cinnamon, 32GB RAM, 250GB SSD, no spinning rust, and three 1920x1200 IPS displays, plus 3 other headless E5 boxes with same RAM and SSD.

On the go, a 2013 Macbook Pro running El Capitan with 8GB RAM and 250GB SSD. Often found running Windows 10 under Virtual Box, Simplify3D, Eclipse, and KiCAD.

On the sofa, a Google Nexus 10 running Lollipop because those bastards dropped support for the best tablet ever made.

Now, please excuse me while I get off your lawn, old man.

Re:Pissing contest

[swillden]

Ah, good, I think it's about time to have a meaningless pissing contest. My work setup is three Dell UP2715K monitors in portrait orientation, giving a total screen resolution of 8640x5120, or 44 megapixels. If anyone can beat that, I will take you on in a stage-2 match of who has the lowest Slashdot user id.

No, no, no. Screen resolution is stage 2. Stage 1 is computing horsepower. My desktop has 40 cores@2.8 Ghz. Total bogomips: 223515.2. If you can beat that, you've got me on the screen resolution. I have three monitors, but they're low res (e.g. 2560x1600). And the UID... I lurked for a long time before getting an account.

Re: Pissing contest

[darpo]

You've got me beat on pixels, but my Slashdot user ID edges you out by a few. I propose a stage 3 match where we implement a chess engine in less than 1 KB of JavaScript.

Re:Pissing contest

[Dins]

Don't be too impressed, I'm actually not who I say I am.

You mean your given name isn't PCM2? I'm shocked, shocked, I say...

Re:Pissing contest

[Metabolife]

I've been using RamDisk Backup for hours already.. what could possibly g

Re:Pissing contest

[dublin]

I was another holdout from registration, more as opposition to creeping accountism than privacy - Heck, I used to sign most of my /. posts with my email address. Probably wouldn't have beaten Blade's number, though...(Yeah, them wuz the olden days, when spam was rare, and the net was a mostly friendly place just off of AUPs. I've got one email address that I've had since 1991, and it still gets spam in languages I don't read...)

Slashdot was cool because *something* had to replace the NCSA What's New page!

On the other hand, a pair of 4K monitors plus the SP4's native display doesn't seem so impressive now...

Re:Pissing contest

[thinkwaitfast]

mostly friendly

Yeah, I miss those days. It got really nasty about 8-9 years ago imo. Sigh. There was real "nerd news" back then too. I was reading some old (30 year) computer magazines the other day. A similar had a similar fate. Maybe the medium exhausted its run and there was nothing left to say.

Re:Pissing contest

[Wolfrider]

--You what now? ;-)

--At work, we have 6x1080p network/environment monitors that can be linked with Synergy spanning software.

/ Amidoinitrite? :b

Re:Pissing contest

[Ed Avis]

I used to have up to five screens (there were some Dell 4k monitors and old IBM T221s in the mix) but I got neck problems from turning my head to the side too much. So I have limited myself to screens more or less straight in front.

Re: Pissing contest

[tigersha]

256 TB SSD?!!?

Your wife must be real disappointed

Re:Pissing contest

[Blaskowicz]

Looks like 1080p screens? (with that stupid 16:9 and 1080 width, but that's still a decent compromise)
Could be cheapie monitors, 21.5" non-TN. It would be only a slight exageration to pretend that you can get the whole set up, everything for $1K.
Well, with something like a dual core CPU and two Radeon 360 in crossfire (and running Windows for the support) and praying for a low end game to run at 10 megapixels on that you might barely get it quite affordable.

Re:Pissing contest

[ChristophWeber]

We almost match that at Slashdot headquarters: Dual Dell UP2715K monitors in either orientation, MBP Pro 13", external keyboard and mouse is our standard setup. Devs run the OS of their choice, most stick with OSX, but some choose a Linux distro instead. Obviously we can beat you on uid if we want to. ;-)

Re:Pissing contest

[ghostgrave]

Sometimes the dinosaurs are awakened, briefly.

Very briefly upon getting a slashdot email with this article in it.

Re:Pissing contest

[noahm]

Indeed.

Re:Pissing contest

[synaptik]

Can we start with the latter?

Re:Pissing contest

[synaptik]

Get off my lawn.

Re:Pissing contest

[Ed Avis]

How do you connect the two UP2715K screens to the Macbook Pro? Since each of them requires two DisplayPort 1.2 outputs to work at full resolution and refresh rate. Does the Macbook really have four DisplayPort outputs?

Current rig

[rkhalloran]

Desktop: i7-4790K, 32Gb, Asrock Z97 Extreme 6, Samsung 850 EVO 250 Gb + 2x HGST 4Gb, Fedora Linux/Cinnamon UI + KVM for sandboxing other OS'

Tablet: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10/32 Gb, Android Marshmallow

NAS: Synology DS212, 2x HGST 4Gb

Connectivity : Just got in AT&T Gigapower (showing 940 Mb symmetric).

At work and at home.

[Noryungi]

Work:

MacBook Pro with one additonal 19" screen. Firefox + MacVim, except when I use PyCharm (with the vim plugin).

Most of my work is spent in iTerm2 and tmux anyway, since I have anywhere from 2 to 20+ SSH sessions opened. Also: pkgsrc.

Home:

MacBook Air 11", no additional screen. Otherwise, pretty much identical. Lots and lots and lots of USB3 external HDD.

Heterogenous

[_merlin]

Dell PowerEdge R730 running VMware ESXi with VMs running CentOS 7 and OpenBSD.

Dell Precision T3610 running Windows 7 with Fedora 20 and CentOS 7 VMs. 31.5" wide gamut (Adobe RGB) at 3840x2160 resolution. Sanwa compact JIS keyboard, Wacom Intuos 5 pen and touch tablet, Logitech G502 mouse.

MacBook Pro (2010), 17" matte 1920x1200 resolution display, running OS X 10.6.8.

Re:Heterogenous

[_merlin]

Text editors are vim most of the time, and TextWrangler or Notepad++ if I decide I want a GUI. My compilers are gcc and clang.

I use Firefox and Safari as web browsers, also have Opera and IE11 for testing against other rendering engines. I'm still using ageing Apple Mail, iCal and Address Book. I don't like their new versions in the later OS X versions.

I use GNU Lilypond for typesetting music. I occasionally use GarageBand for basic sequencing and mixing, but nothing particularly serious.

I use Adobe Lightroom for processing my photos, and I wouldn't want to be without it. I have Photoshop as well but I barely use it.

My web/mail server runs CentOS 7 with Apache, dovecot, postfix, Horde and MySQL.

I don't actually use much more software than that. I occasionally fire up Visual Studio to look for bugs using iterator debugging. Oh I have VLC and Quicktime for media, and Steam for games, but I don't play with them very often.

My PC...

[Shadow99_1]

My primary machine is a I5 6600k, 16 GB of DDR4 ram, Asus Z170A mb, Radeon R9 390 gpu, EVGA 850W psu, Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD, 5 sata HDDs, a Blueray/DVD-RW drive... It runs windows 10, because I support windows systems more than anything else. Chrome with Ghostery and Adblock for the browser, though as Edge runs like hot shit on this system (for strange unknown reasons), Opera is my backup. LibreOffice, Notepad++, and google docs as editors depending on what I'm working with.

My Computer

[aster_ken]

Windows 10 Pro 64-bit on Core i7-4790, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Founder's Edition, Samsung 840 EVO 512GB SSD

I used Notepad++ for most of my editing, and I use Google Chrome for my browser (with LastPass, AdBlock, and Google Personal Blocklist as my extensions).

The Main Box

[The-Forge]

My main box is a couple of years old on the CPU at this point but it still cranks pretty fast. It helps that I upgrade GPUs every 2 years usually.

Core i7-4770K
16GB RAM
GeForce GTX 970
1 LG 34" 21:9
2 Acer 27" 16:9
Samsung 850 PRO 512GB SSD for boot and core apps
2x WD 2TB HDD (RAID 1) for everything else
Windows 10

With 4 versions of Visual Studio (2008, 2010, 2013, 2015) and the rest of the 10+ apps in startup, my time from power on to usable desktop is about 75 seconds. (yay SSD)

Manjaro Linux / Firefox / KDE / Zsh / NeoVim

[jouassou]

The title says it all. I have basically the same setup on my workstation and laptop, which both have an Intel Core i7 and 16gb ram.

everyday work laptop

[networkzombie]

HP i7 16GB RAM 256 SSD Win10 Laptop
Seamonkey w/ adblock and no script
nirsoft_package
windump
putty
nmap
notepad++
Keepass
Acronis
WinRAR, 7zip
truecrypt 7.1a
LogMeIn
EMET 5.5
MS Office & Visio 2013
Virtualbox w/ pfSense and CentOS
Sumatra
Imgburn
Filezilla
OpenVPN, Cisco VPN, NetExtender
XVI32
AD Info
Cisco_usbconsole_driver
Desktop is very similar but with games and a lot more storage. Desktop is a Lian Li case w/ Gigabyte MB.

Only one?

[chmod a x mojo]

Meh,why not.

Main workstation / gaming:

i5 4590, 32GB RAM, reference GTX980, 128GB OS drive, 8TB ( currently, some disks are down and haven't been replaced yet ) of spinning rust storage. All run on a Server2k12R2 workstation. Razer Mech keyboard.

Also running 3+ Linux VMs and one FreeBSD VM at all times. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom almost always running.
Hooked up to a Sony Bravia 40" 1920x1080 color corrected TV for display

Mobile workstation:

Lenovo with an i5 and 16GB RAM, hooked up to who knows what display since laptop displays generally suck. Still running Windows 8.1.
2x 1TB spinning rust drives.

Highly mobile laptop for Word / excel / taking Photoshop / Lightroom along:

2014 Retina Macbook Pro with 4GB RAM and an i5. Usually has some type of external storage hanging out of it since the internal drive is only 128GB. Fuck El Capitan, still running Yosemite.

Screens, screens, screens

[houghi]

2 x 4K screen + 1 HD + 1x1920*1200
HD is connected to qn HDMI splitter so I have 3 screens zith the same outpu, so I use that for movies and video.

There are 2 keyboards, a mouse and a trackball connected.. One pair on my dersk, the other is for my tv setting.

Desktop is XFCE. Seperated screens and no Xinerama either.

Programs I use are liferea, mostly for the RSS feed of the several hundred Youtube channels I folow. Open the tab and click on a script to go to a website. (code is at http://houghi.org/v/?code and written in gvim)
Also XBMC, mutt, gvim, roundcube and all that belongs to it. mpd as music server.

For the making and posting of wallpapers I still use Usenet, so several scripts for that. My knowledge stops with Bash, so no real coding.
Geeqee for looking at and sorting of images.

But again, the main thing is screen real estate. My last Windows version was 95 and at that moment dual screen was not that easy and multiple desktops was unpossible. I have 5 on each monitor and each has a specific set of programs open.

The major pain I have is with Firefox. I have seperated monitors, screens and desktops and I must have 4 different instances of Firefox running if I want to have them on each screen.

I have two SSD drives where one is a backup of the other. Main data (like movies, pictures and music) is on a 4 port NAS. A second NAS does the backup for that data.

As a physicist...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Cray XC and will soon get a Shasta - yes, we'll paint it orange. Suck it losers!

Budget AMD/nVidia Windows/Linux

[drinkypoo]

Main PC: FX-8350, 2x Zotac GTX 950 AMP! (one was a RMA upgrade), 990FX-Gaming G1, Samsung 850 Evo, LG supermulti, NZXT Source 220, Win7x64

Secondary PC: 1045T, 1x Asus GTS 450 OC, GA-MA770T-UD3P, Intel SSD, another LG optical drive. Currently running Ubuntu, but I switch it up periodically.

NAS: Pogoplug v4 running Debian, MyBook 3TB

Router: WRT1200AC running OpenWRT

Printer: HPLJ2300DN +128MB DIMM

Total cost under 2k with monitors (currently using Samsung Syncmaster 2693HM)

Total standby power under 30W (even if PCs are in sleep mode), TDP around 550W not counting printing, I have a hard time even getting my PC up to 300W in spite of SLI.

Things change year-to-year

[Not-a-Neg]

This year it's:
-AMD APU in 2 out of 3 machines, intel Pentium (G3225?) in the 3rd for shits and giggles
-Windows 10 on everything, great OS, runs so much faster and more reliably than Windows 7, auto-reboot updates are annoying
-Chrome browser, it has some performance problems but it's the only browser I know of to offer free remote desktop over the Internet (Chrome Remote Desktop)
-VLC, #1 essential on every computer
-MakeMKV, for backing up DVD and Blu-rays discs
-One 27" LED Monitor @1080P, same for each system other than HTPC which is hooked up to 42" Plasma @1080P
-HP 10-key-less compact keyboard (shame they stopped making them)
-Logitech mouse (the really good one that's 7 years old now, MX something?)

I fix computers for a living so no need for special software, I just consume media and games with my own computers. The only thing special I have are a good set of tools and anti-static mat/band gear. Everything else is in my brain from decades of experience.

Boring

[snookerdoodle]

Main box: Current Ubuntu. Firefox. 22" VGA LCD (with DVI adapter). Some quad core thing. 3 tb, also runs a Plex server with music I actually purchased, all lossless, many of it higher def (96 or 192 khz, 24 or 48 bit).

Other box (via KVM): Win 10. Also some quad core cpu. Almost exclusively used to VPN into work.

Our network is neater. We have an extra WAP wired in, so we have a pretty large area with a pretty strong signal. No, our refrigerator isn't networked.

No beige

[Dr_Barnowl]

• Core i7-2600k
• Geforce 980 Ti (recent upgrade for the HTC Vive)
• 16GB RAM (upgraded some years ago for some heavy Java work)
• 512GB SSD for operating systems
• 2TB spinning rust for games and home folders
• Obutto r3volution desk with 3x 24" 1920x1080 monitors mounted on it
• HTC Vive
• IBM Model M

All home-build from parts, I've had the same case for over a decade.

Dual-booting Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 ; Ubuntu is where it spends most of it's time, as this is my work OS. I no longer attempt to be productive on Windows (and haven't done for around 7 years), it contains only games. If I need Windows for work purposes, I have a Windows 7 VM I use for that.

For work, Eclipse, a bunch of text editors (usually ones with a vi emulation... or vim), normal Unix tools like VPN clients, secure shell, etc.

When I got a job that was mostly working at home, I also upgraded from an external USB drive to a RAID-0 NAS box, which has 4TB of RAID-0 in it. It's an x86 box rather than one of the ARM ones, so I can run normal Linux stuff on it in the potted Linux the vendor supplies.

Wireless router is an Asus RT16N flashed with OpenWRT (chosen specifically for compatibility).

My laptop is a Thinkpad 460s - slim and light but upgradeable enough to take over from my desktop for development if need be.

Notepad

[jfdavis668]

Since I am at work: Windows 7, Internet Explorer and Windows Notepad.

All Thinkpads, all the time

[faillogic]

T60 running Ubuntu Mate. 4GB Ram 90GB HDD. Firefox because Chome 32bit is no more. This computer is in my woodworking shop and generally covered in sawdust. Still fast as hell for an old computer. T420 running Ubuntu Mate. 8BG Ram 250GB SSD. Chrome. Used primarily as recording station with Ardour. Also a Plex media server. Always on. T430s running Kali and Linux mint cinnamon 17.2. 8GB Ram 250 GB SSD. Chrome. It's my all around, do whatever the hell I want computer. Only one I travel with when on tour with my band Caspian. I'm the only PC guy in a van full of Mac dudes. Raspberry Pi2 running Ubuntu Mate. Mostly used for screwing around with python and small electronics projects.

Old laptop running Ubuntu and Xfce

[duckintheface]

I use a 4 year old Toshiba with 6 GB ram and a spinning disc for storage. Isn't that quaint? I stick with the latest Ubuntu LTS version because it has the most reliable support (security updates). Other spinoff versions like Mint are downstream from Canonical Ubuntu and don't react as fast (or as well) to hacks. Cinnamon is pretty but lacks the basic desktop features I want .... user defined launchers for URLs, programs, and files.... and the ability to dock those launchers in a user defined panel.

I use Xfce as desktop although Mate is a close second. Mate is pretty but slow. Mate is legacy code so it is unlikely to get faster. Xfce is fast and might get prettier, but I'm not holding my breath.

Nothing spectacular

[Holi]

2010 Mac Pro 2.8 ghz 4-core running Windows 7 with some hardrives of various sizes, 16gb ram and an HD7950, 24 inch Monitor 1080p a Dell XPS 13 l321x running Linux Mint a Surface Pro 2 (my mobile entertainment device) a 2011 Macbook Pro running the latest Mac OS attached to my Yamaha P155 (I prefer the Braunschweig samples from Imperfect Samples) As for text editors Nano on Linux and Notepad++ on Windows. Browsers? Whatever works best for the page I am viewing, I really have no preference.

Re:Nothing spectacular

[Holi]

I hate slashdot's inability to keep formatting

Re:Nothing spectacular

[Holi]

So to fix it.

2010 Mac Pro 2.8 ghz 4-core running Windows 7 with some hardrives of various sizes, 16gb ram and an HD7950, 24 inch Monitor 1080p
a Dell XPS 13 l321x running Linux Mint
a Surface Pro 2 (my mobile entertainment device) a 2011 Macbook Pro running the latest Mac OS attached to my Yamaha P155 (I prefer the Braunschweig samples from Imperfect Samples)

As for text editors Nano on Linux and Notepad++ on Windows.

Browsers? Whatever works best for the page I am viewing, I really have no preference.

Re:Nothing spectacular

[Holi]

Oh god dammit, just forget it.

Re:Nothing spectacular

[spire3661]

It does, you just have to use the proper formatting tags.

To sit... or to stand...

[zarmanto]

My home computers are pretty uncomplicated; an iMac at a conventional desk in the office and a Mac Mini at a standing workstation in the home theater, attached to the projector -- but my office setup is arguably where I've put the most effort and thought. I have five computers at my desk, serving various purposes. (Some are on a stand-alone development network, one is a version control server, one is my internet box... etc.) So needless to say, a KVM was one of the first necessities, there.

I also have three monitors across my desk. The KVM connects to the center 20" display, while the flanking 24" widescreen displays act as secondary displays on one or more computers. None of my computers actually support all three monitors, mind you... but most of them support at least two. Just for fun, I've also copied the same collection of panorama desktop backgrounds to each workstation, so that I can view a contiguous background image across all three displays, regardless of which machines are currently active.

Over time, I started thinking about the idea of having a standing workstation in the office, because I kind'a like the one I have at home, and because everyone has always lauded the health benefits of standing more and sitting less... but getting the Powers That Be to sign off on an expensive new adjustable height desk would be nigh impossible. So I designed my own "poor man's" standing desk. It's still the same desk I've always had, but now there are three stacks of old software engineering books (which nobody cares about) under the monitors, elevating them to standing height. I also used a bookshelf supported by some steel paper organizers (again, which nobody cares about... because who organizes hard copy papers anymore?) to elevate a keyboard and mouse appropriately. As an added element, I connected up a secondary keyboard and mouse on the desk under that bookshelf, so that I can sit down when my legs grow tired.

And they do. I don't think I'll go to all this effort again, when I finally leave this job behind me. Maybe I'll just hit the gym more often, instead...

very simple these days

[trybywrench]

in the late 90s I had very elaborate setups and multiple computers but these days things are much simpler. I have a MBP with a fast external harddrive for timemachine backups, a github and bitbucket account, and about a dozen servers at linode. I guess I should also include by Samsung S5 Active since it has JuiceSSH on it and I use it for taking care of the linodes when I'm out and about without my laptop.

The wet one above my shoulders

[davidwr]

My main computer looks like a brain, well, because that's what it is.

My two "main" auxiliary computers look like a smart-phone and a laptop because, well, that's what they are.

Contrast

[emmamai]

Main PC: Lenovo Y700 (i7-6700HQ, 8GiB DDR4 2133MHz, 256GiBSM951 SSD, 1TiB HDD)
OS: Arch Linux
Environment: XFCE4, Numix theme with numix-circle icons. Taskbar on top. Docky on bottom.
Editor: Sublime Text 3 Dev (registered). Nano on command line.
Browser: Google Chrome.
Email: Claws mail.
I run Virtualbox on this with a number of different versions of Windows, Linux, and Haiku.

Secondary PC: Toshiba Libretto 110ct (Pentium MMX 233MHz, 64Mb EDO RAM, 4.3GiB HDD)
OS: Alpine Linux
Environment: Command line / Openbox / Windowmaker (I switch as I see fit)
Editor: Nano
Browser: Suckless Surf, Dillo
This machine is used for development and testing, and as proof that modern tasks can be reasonably achieved with ancient hardware.

Several

[LateArthurDent]

At work, Windows 8.1 (ugh) i7 5820k, 16gb ram, 500gb ssd. Dual monitor setup, because I code.

Personal laptop, asus zenbook ux31a, dual-booting windows 10 and ubuntu. Recently upgraded the ssd on it to 1tb after the 256gb that came with it failed. Other than that, fantastic laptop.

Home gaming machine, Dual booting Windows 10 and Steam OS. Same as the work machine, except 1 tb platter hard-drive (I need to get an ssd for it) and a geforce gtx 970.

Home file storage / media server. Atom processor d510, 4gb ram, running ubuntu server. Storage drives running a zfs pool raidz setup.

I have an old mac mini in the office that doesn't get turned on very much, except when I want to try my hand at some iOS development.

Frankenputer

[ihtoit]

AMD FX4300 quad core overclocked from 3.8 to 6.3GHz
8GB RAM
500GB 1st Gen + 250GB 2nd Gen SATA drives
Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 to a 21.5" monitor@1080p

Fast enough for EVE Online at max everything fullscreen and Kerbal Space Program at native resolution and all the pretties on. Also great for video editing when I plug in a 1440x900 second monitor which is usually plugged in as a second screen on my laptop.

A project I have in mind is an ATX frame with mounts for up to a dozen 2.5" drives in a standard flight case. Just because.

Work/Home

[swillden]

Main system: Dual-CPU Xeon E5-2680v2 (10 cores per CPU, so 20 cores total, 40 w/hyperthreading), 128 GiB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 1 TB spinning disk, Quadro K2000 GPU, three monitors (2 24", in portrait mode, 1 30" in landscape), running Ubuntu 14.04 (upgrading to 16.04 soon). Desktop is the AwesomeWM tiling window manager w/10 virtual screens on each monitor.

Why so much horsepower? I work on the Android OS and a clean build takes an hour even on this beast of a machine and with make -j60. Why three monitors? Because I haven't gotten around to adding more. Duh.

And, yes, I'm posting this to brag, and making Tim the Toolman grunts while doing it. :P

Oh, and EMACS is the One True Editor. Nothing else compares.

Re:Work/Home

[ickpoo]

If done properly, one frame per screen. The landscape one split vertically, and the portraits split horizontally. Emacs handles multiple monitors better than any editor I've found, by far; all the same Emacs, just spread across all the screens.

Re:Work/Home

[swillden]

If done properly, one frame per screen. The landscape one split vertically, and the portraits split horizontally. Emacs handles multiple monitors better than any editor I've found, by far; all the same Emacs, just spread across all the screens.

I put one frame with four windows on my 30" screen. The 24" portrait mode screens are mostly for browsers (portrait mode works great for browsers, since web pages are typically narrow and long). Given that all of my e-mail, calendaring, code reviews, bug tracking, music playing and lots, lots, more is all in browser tabs, I need lots of browser space.

home: Games

[netsavior]

Home computer is set up for games, which unless you are in denial means Windows and Steam.
My "laptop" is a 2 in 1 tablet running windows 10 and set up for writing (I write shitty novels as a hobby)
My work computer runs Mint, but the real magic happens in all the Docker images that let me run and debug a mini copy of our production system.

Costco bargain

[ebh]

Dell XPS8700 from Costco (they sell XPS8900s now). Two actually; my son saved his money and bought one too. I found that I could only save about $100 doing my own build with the same components, and it was worth that to me to have a warranty and place to take it back to in case it broke.

i7-3770; not a 3770K, but this is an appliance, not a gaming rig, so no overclocking needed. 12GB RAM, 250GB SSD main drive, three 1TB secondary drives, one for Windows, one for Linux (Mint 18 Cinnamon under VMware), and one for backups.

Two-port KVM for this and my work computer, since I work from home. ("I got yer open plan RIGHT HERE, pal!")

Watch the prices in your Costco ads, and when the machines go on sale, which they do a few times a year, grab one.

One PC to Rule All (my stuff)

[Fieryphoenix]

My computer sits in the original CoolerMaster Stacker case with the side cover off, in a 3x5 cabinet built into the attic of my 1/2 story second floor. 8" window fans (one now broken) ventilate it from the attic side on days when heat becomes an issue. The internals are a Skylake 6500K, 16 GB RAM, an EVGA 1080 FTW, a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro M.2 boot drive, a Samsung 850 EVO 512 GB SATA, and a Soundblaster Z. It runs Windows 10 Pro and occasionally other guest OSes to play with. I am looking forward to dinking around with Ubuntu desktop on it, but not enough to install the fast ring. I browse on Firefox with ABP, Media Player Classic for media, PDF X-change for PDFs, Office 2007 with macros etc disabled (only because my wife owns a Home and Student copy and I almost exclusively work with only basic files of my own creation, otherwise it would be Libre Office) Search Everything because I can't be arsed to do chores while waiting for searches. This feeds to my sit/stand/treadmill desk which I made out of a DIY Uplift motorized base and a recycled interior door as the table top, with leftover laminate flooring as the top surface. On the desk are an Acer XB270HU IPS 1440p G-Sync 27"' monitor as primary, and, for now, a BenQ XL2410TX in portrait mode. It was previously my main monitor and replaced a SOYO Topaz S that exhibited ever more frequent image corruption. I use a CM Storm Quickfire Rapid tenkeyless keyboard, a $15 gaming mouse that tracks exactly as I expect, and an Oculus Rift with a Razer Hydra that I bought years and years ago on Woot for around $80. Also, no money to buy VR games because I blew this year's discretionary funds on this system.

iPad Pro

[shunnicutt]

My day-to-day computing needs are satisfied by an iPad Pro.

• I use Pythonista for Python scripting. Pythonista is a very capable Python IDE, and I don't use even a tenth of what it can do.
• I use Textastic for general text editing and for web app development. Textastic allows me to install web apps on the iPad's home screen, which I love. It's the closest I can come to developing and installing my own apps on the iPad.
• I use Apple's notes app for note-taking and quick sketches. I work for a small games company, so these quick sketches are often what I start with when designing a new game. The Apple Pencil works very well.
• For more refined sketches, I use Procreate. I also use Procreate for my personal art projects.
• For illustration, I use Autodesk Graphic
• I use Keynote for simple prototypes. For more complex prototypes, I'll mock up something in Textastic.
• For spreadsheets and word processing, I prefer Pages and Numbers, but I keep Excel and Word on the device for work stuff. I also use Google's offerings for collaborative stuff with the co-workers who don't like the Microsoft stuff.
• OminiGraffle, for doing flow charts of the apps we're working on.
• Netflix, Amazon Video, Amazon Music, Apple's Music, Kindle, iBooks, etc., for media consumption

At the office, I use a MacBook Pro a lot, but the iPad Pro is very useful. At home, I use the iPad Pro almost exclusively. This is what works for me. Please don't tell me that the iPad can't be used for "real work". I've been using my iPads to help out with my professional work for the past six years. The iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil is the best one so far.

Re:iPad Pro

[Chewbacon]

Are you -trying- to get flamed today?

Re:iPad Pro

[shunnicutt]

I have stuff spread out all over the place. For photos, I use iCloud, because it synchronizes between my tablet, phone, and laptop.

For other documents, I usually leave them parked in the app that created them and let iOS back them up to my iCloud account. I have some of stuff parked in Dropbox.

I use a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard that syncs with three devices. I take it with me to the office each day so that I can easily switch between the MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro.

With my earlier iPads, i was using a keyboard case, but they just felt like they added too much to the tablet. I've decided that I like the separate keyboard.

Luddite

[scotts13]

I have plenty of computers in the house, but "my" computer is a 2009 iMac running OSX 10.6.8. Notable feature is several multi-terabyte FireWire external hard drives. I have newer ones, but I don't like the later OS revs. My Windows machines are the same; I actually use Windows 7, despite having newer revs.

i5 Optiplex 790 from Goodwill

[Two99Point80]

With upgraded RAM and (of course) graphics, and SSDs. Works for me...

My setup

[kbahey]

Operating system: Kubuntu 14.04.

Desktop Environment: KDE.

Browser: Firefox, with Classic Theme Restorer, uBlock Origin, NoScript, Cookie Monster and Session Manager with auto save every few hours. I also have Chromium for when Firefox proves to be too restrictive for some sites. I also use Opera and rekonq occasionally.

Editor: vim and has been for decades, even before vim was invented (yes, plain vi on UNIX System V).

FreeBSD on self-built Xeon workstation

[GrumpyOldMan]

I built my current computer a bit more than a year ago. It runs FreeBSD-10 stable. The hardware is:

- Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40GHz (8 cores, 16 threads)
- Supermicro X10SRA motherboard
- Phillips BDM4065UC 40" 4K monitor
- Nvidia GeForce GTX 750
- 32 GB ECC 2133MHz DDR4
- 4x Seagate 5TB enterprise disks
- 1x Samsung 850 Pro 250GB

I'm running ZFS, and the SSD acts as an L2 ARC

Which one?

[Lumpy]

my work desk at home has a Windows PC and a iMac. For video editing, the Digital Audio Workstation, and CGI/ Graphics work. Two LG Ultrawides on the Windows machine and a pair of portrait 22" monitors flanking the 27" imac. There is also a stack of used mac minis set up for a render farm running 64gig SSD's that makes Reaper and Final Cut render like a screaming ape.

At work work... the one that pays me a weekly wage I have a windows laptop, an OSX laptop and a Linux workstation. The laptop is a "Meh" class 2016 Lenovo 17" that is slower than the 2012 Macbook pro. the Linux box is technically a server as it's a 16 core sun server repourposed for running assorted VM's for differnt projects and hardware simulations.

Re:Like a tornado came through a messy child&rsquo

[goarilla]

Maybe that's a better slahdot survey, what's your primary workplace ?
- A chaotic mancave
- A lonely couch
- A glass designer desk with accompaning feng-shui room
- A toilet.
Me, I can't decide between option one or two.

wide tall tall

[epine]

Three displays: a 22" in landscape (fits my desk better), and a pair of 24" displays in portrait.

I'm running PC-BSD on my desktop, so my hardware choices are conservative.

Lately the 8 GB limit of my aging desktop box (though extremely quiet and reliable) is proving problematic, so I'm in the process of flipping my ZFS server box (Sandy Bridge Xeon with 32 GB ECC) to become my new desktop. The server itself will downgrade slightly to a second-hand box I picked up recently, a quad core Xeon with 24 GB of ECC.

I expect to use DTrace fairly heavily under Bhyve once 11 comes out, and I've heard rumours that this is only 99.99% stable, so I don't intend to use my server for this purpose, and only one of my two Xeons has the nested page table extensions required by Bhyve, so the fancier machine becomes my new desktop per force, not that my greedy side is complaining much.

Now that I've suffered through the PC-BSD / TrueOS transition all around (not painful, but not exactly free either) you'll pry boot environments out of my cold, dead hands.

But the simplest summary is this: wide + tall + tall + ZFS + boot environments.

My desktop is running a ZFS mirror with two 500 GB drives (both with five years power-on time) and just a couple of weeks ago ZFS started to autocorrect a block or two from one of the drives on each scrub. Nothing shows up in Smartmon, except the age.

No sudden rush to finish this transition project. I've got backups, and early warning, and verified live data.

Re:wide tall tall

[Wolfrider]

--5 years power on time? You're pushing it. zpool set autoexpand=on + autoreplace=on for your pool; zpool replace the drives one at a time with 1TB ( ~$61 WD RED ) or 2TB ( ~$79 SG ) NAS** drives before they fail, you can *easily double* (or more) your available disk space by buying them on Amazon these days.

** TLER FTW ;-)

--Seriously, ZFS online disk replacement is the easiest way I know of, no downtime and much better than trying to do hours of recovery if both happen to fail at once. It's worth it just for the peace of mind.

HTH :-)

Re:OpenSuse

[praedictus]

i7 3770 8gb ram gtx 950 128 gb ssd 250 gb ssd 1tb spinny disk thang heavily modified slackware-current thousands of dust bunnies lurking in the nooks and crannys

Hey, that's me

[LichtSpektren]

I was surprised to get on Slashdot this morning and see my question to Larry Wall inspired an article. So, uh, thanks for the shoutout Slashdot, couldn't've made it here without you...?

I work for a translator company, where I am a technical assistant. Because of legacy Win32 programs, I have to use Windows 7 on some standard HP desktop. I try to make the best of it with LibreOffice (N.B. I check all of my .DOCs with both LibreOffice and MSOffice to make sure there's no weird formatting compatibility problems; 99% of the time it's MSOffice that causes it, by the way), Notepad++, Cygwin, Thunderbird, Firefox (I'm using Nightly because e10s is great), GWX Control Panel so I don't get molested by the "free" "upgrade", PeerBlock (I don't trust the Windows firewall), and some other nifty tools.

At home I recently bought a beautiful 27" 4K monitor, which looks amazing, and everything runs perfectly smooth on my i5-4590 quad core, GeForce GTX950, 16 GB RAM, SSD set-up. On this computer I have vanilla Ubuntu 16.04. I'm not a programmer, so all I use to edit with is nano because it's simple and light, and I don't need all the nifty features of emacs or vim.

Some shoutouts to things I like:
- Signal, an encrypted messaging app on my Android phone that is endorsed by Edward Snowden.
- KeePass X, where I save all my passwords.
- ownCloud, which I use to sync my encrypted files over the Swiss provider Woelkli (again for privacy & security reasons).

My modest system

[mandark1967]

Corsair Obsidian 800D Case
Corsair H100i AIO Cooler
Corsair HX1200i PSU
(8) Ugly-as-sin beige Noctua 120mm/140mm fans
(2) Original Generation NVidia Titans
Intel 4770K
Asus Maximus Hero VI mobo
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 RAM
(4) 4TB Seagate Mechanical HDDs
(3) 512GB Crucial SSDs
(1) Asus BD/DVD+-RW
DasBoot Keyboard
Kensington Slimblade Trackball
43" LG 4096x2160 TV/Monitor
Windows 8.1 x64

I used to game a bit...

Re:My modest system

[Chewbacon]

I dumped the cash in that Obsidian case and within months, fans started going out. After a year, a USB port broke. Really disappointed in Corsair with them being all the rage.

Re:My modest system

[mandark1967]

Concur on the case.

I lived with the OEM fans for 2 days then sunk $219 into the Noctuas (~$22 per fan at the time and I got a total of 10) and now the thing is whisper quiet, even with 8 fans going.

Also, The hot-swap drive bay door had a hinge pin break off and, when I initially contacted them about a replacement, they wanted to sell me the whole front panel for $175!!!

Have never been "happy" with the case but it does do its job so I haven't replaced it yet.

Well...

[downright]

I used to build my own desktops and servers to save a buck, but ever since I figured out how to make my time worth something I just buy macs and prebuilt servers.

Gaming and Productivity

[Early Six Digit UID]

I'll list my two "main" systems:

Gaming:
CPU: Intel Core i7 4790k
Memory: 32GB DDR3
GPUs: NVidia GeForce 980Ti and Quadro K1200
Storage: 480GB Samsung 950 NVMe + 120GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD + 800GB Western Digital Hard Disk
OS: Windows 10 Pro
Displays: 2x 3440x1440 + 2x 1600x2560 (portrait mode)

Productivity:
CPU: Intel Core i5 6600k
Memory: 32GB DDR4
GPU: NVidia Quadro K1200
Storage: 2x 250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD + 2TB Western Digital Hard Disk
OS: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Display: 1x 3440x1440

I'm moving this week and I'm going to move more monitors over to the Productivity system. I really do love that 3440x1440 form factor.

I'm using VMs more and more

[Shadow IT Ninja]

My main machine is a Mac Pro running El Capitan but I don't actually use the El Capitan environment much. I keep it very locked down. I have a virtual machine (actually a clone of my old machine) running Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6) which is now dedicated to email, calendar and social networking. The reason is that Apple dropped functionality, involving the interaction of mail and iCal (yes that's iCal, not Calendar), which was important to me and you can't run the old stuff on the new OS. A second VM is dedicated for financial and medical transactions. In other words, on line banking, stock brokerage, IRA accounts and making medical appointments through my providers web site and storing information related to these activities. This one is running Debian 8 and is set up with full disk encyrption within the VM. While shut down, the info is locked up tight and I can continue to use the machine for other purposes. A third VM, also running Debian 8, is for general web surfing where I don't know where I'll end up. I have a Windows XP VM which I rarely use anymore. I thought about upgrading to Win 7 but I just don't tolerate that Microsoft #@&&$%+~ as much as I used to. Maybe Windows 11 will be okay... I have a private cloud calendar server (DAViCal) running on FreeBSD. I mostly just sync devices while connected to my local LAN but another, very locked down, FreeBSD VM serves as an SSH tunneling gateway to my internal network.

You might be a Redneck if...

[guises]

I use a functioning laptop, sitting on top of another non-functioning laptop.

Re:You might be a Redneck if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you thought about just putting the working laptop up on tiny cinder blocks? That non-working laptop could be used as a doorstop, cutting board, or spittoon holder if it has a cd/dvd tray (but I recommend no more than two of those at the same time).

Dell Optiplex 7010

[FudRucker]

its got Linux :)

This could have been interesting

[nw_rad]

I would have liked seeing how many developers like me work with laptops and dock to real keyboards and multiple monitors at the office. I have a dell Inspiron laptop. At the office I have an old Microsoft ergonomic keyboard and two 1920x1200 Dell monitors.

OS X / Ubuntu / Windows 7

[cashman73]

My primary desktop system in the office is a 2015 Retina Macbook Pro 15" (El Capitan), with dual 17" external displays connected (total of 3 displays counting the onboard screen). I also have a separate Windows 7 Lenovo Thinkpad that I use for teaching (since it has the stylus and touch screen that Apple does not support). I also administer a small computing laboratory consisting of five Dell Optiplex workstations running Ubuntu 14. At home, I have a 27" iMac running El Capitan, with about 10 TB of external disk storage.

Home computer

[Oligonicella]

Mine is a XXXXXXX monitor.

Re:Home computer

[Oligonicella]

Seriously though. As someone else said, this is just a meat measuring contest and won't mean a thing pretty much next year even.

Re:One 16:9 monitor, One 5:4 monitor.

[Fruit]

You may like the Eizo EV2730Q.

An mess of tangled wires on the floor and hanging

[thinkwaitfast]

from the monitor cable from when the breadboard slid off the desk. I've been too lazy to clean it up and afraid I'll short something of I touch it. Uptime over two months.

Ask the NSA

[jasper160]

I am sure they have a copy of it.

My computer is better than yours

[GuB-42]

- Beowulf cluster of PS2s
- Dual floppy drive RAID-0 system
- 52x/8x/4x/2x/8x/32x/16x BD/CD/DVD+/-R(W) combo writer
- SXGA+ multisync 20" with green/color/amber mode switch
- IBM model "M" keyboard with sound reinforcement system
- Monster cables, chaotic evil, always stay tangled

i5 Debian Wheezy

[PedroReina]

I have more than ten computers, but my primary workstation currently has an i5 4690K with 8 GB of RAM, one 32 GB SSD for programs and a 2 TB magnetic drive for data.

Operating system is Debian Wheezy (yes, really). KDE desktop.

Browser is Firefox 28 (if my web development runs fine in it, I hope it will run OK on newer versions).

Editor of choice is "Nice Editor", heavily customized. I use every day (every minute, really) Konsole and ssh. gFTP is very important for me too, as graphical ssh client.

Absurdly Awesome

[aleckarfonta]

Desktop: GPU: GTX 1080 Founders Edition Mobo: ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ CPU: i5 6600K OCed to 4ghz Cooler: Nzxt Kraken x61 SSD: Samsung 950 Pro HDD: 5tb Toshiba x300 Mem: 32gb Ripjaws V DDR4 PSU: 1600w BFG Sound Card: Creative Titanium X-Fi Case: Custom Lego build Fan Control: Built in Arduino with a 3.5in touch screen with custom program for temp monitoring and fan control Work Computer: 2013 Macbook Pro - CPU upgrade to i7 2.8ghz - GPU upgrade to Gt 650M 1gb - SSD upgrade to 756gb PCIe Peripherals: Keyboard: Razer Blackwidow Ultimate - Mac Mouse: Razer Deathadder Chroma, Mad Catz Rat9 Monitors: 27in 2k 144hz Asus MG279Q, 28in 4k 10-bit Asus PB287Q, 4k 55in 21ms response time Samsung UN55JU7500 Sound: Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks II, Onkyo 7.2, 2x Polk T50 floor standing speakers, 2x Polk Monitor 40s bookshelf, Polk Monitor CS2 center, Polk PSW505 12in sub, Dayton 12in sub Home Server: Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe CPU: i3-3220 3.3ghz dual GPU: GTX 430 1gb Mem: 8Gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer SSD: Samsung 850 Case: Custom Lego build Media Center: Mobo: Intel DH61AG Thin Mini-ITX CPU: G630T 3.2Ghz dual Mem: 4gb SSD: Samsung 850 Case: Custom Lego build For software my main daily use OS is Mac. I use Ubuntu for my servers and on my desktop for development. And for games the necessary evil of Windows 10 on the desktop. For an IDE I like Eclipse but have been transitioning to a custom build of Jupyter which I can't recommend enough. Always Chrome for browsing.

Re:What is this "work" you speak of?

[FrozenGeek]

Let me preface this by saying that I know I have a problem.

I make my living writing code. Have done pretty much continually since 1986. I always have at least two personal programming projects on the go at home, and I have a long, and growing, list of projects I'd like to do. If I was unemployed, aside from diligently looking for a paying job, I'd be spending even more time working on my own projects.

I did say that I know I have a problem.

MacBook

[williamyf]

MacBook air 13" Early 2015. External monitor 20"Dell 2011 pivoting. The laptopm monitor is used as a dashboard of sorts. (Activity monitor, terminal, Transmission, System Preferences, alternate browser...)

Main browser Firefox with uBlock, PrivacyBadger, NoSquint, VideoDownloadHelper, and https everywhere.

Alternate browser Chrome, with only chromecast plugins

Main productivity suite office365 (used and still have LibreOffice, but my current work needs full office compatibility, especial powerpoint).

Thunderbird ONLY to sabe email in elm format fso I can put as attachements in other emails.

Steam (of course).

seldomly used Bootcamp with Windows 10, for Project, visio, and some windows only games.

So far so standard. The intersting part is the NAS/san Synology DS1515+ . For a pure storage point of view, a drobo would have been better, but the Sylology is certified for the most importan hypervisors, and has iSCSI san capability. And in my current line of work (instructor for Huaweis Storage/Server/Clouds) being able to practice in your own lab is with this is important

Moo

[ncc74656]

At home: Core i5 4690K, 16 GB RAM, two 256GB SSDs (one boots Gentoo, the other currently boots Windows 10), 750GB spinning rust, a Blu-ray burner, and 28" 4K monitor for the main desktop. Server's an A4-3300 with 10 GB RAM, a 256GB SSD that boots Gentoo, and 7.5 TB spinning rust. A couple of Raspberry Pis with LibreELEC drive the TVs from files on the server.

At work: Core 2 Quad Q6600 (it's old, but it's still reasonably quick for most things), 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD that boots Windows 7, 750GB spinning rust, and a Radeon 6870 driving two 20ish" monitors (one at 1680x1050, the other at 1440x900). We're a charitable organization, so most of what's in my work computer is stuff that I didn't need at home any longer and donated (get to claim a tax writeoff on it). More recently, I brought in an Acer Aspire Revo 1600 that I no longer needed running a TV at home...it's now a Gentoo box with a built-in SD-card reader that mostly gets used to back up and restore the Raspberry Pis we have scattered around the building as digital signage, web kiosks, etc.

Model Ms are on all the machines I work with directly. joe is my preferred editor for Gentoo and Cygwin, though Windows installs also get Notepad++. Linux IDEs all appear to be varying degrees of hot mess, but they've not really been necessary for the things I've knocked together under it. At work, Visual Studio is what pays the bills. Whether on computers, phones, or tablets, Chrome is preferred over SJWfox.

A chair and computers and stuff

[asackett]

My work setup looks like who freaking cares. A desk and a chair and some computers and stuff. BFD. 36 years into it, even the highest zoot computers lose their new car smell on day three. GTF off my lawn.

Re:Mint Box Mini

[amRadioHed]

I just replaced a 15 year old Magia desktop with one of these too. The Magia system was mostly being used as a media system but that usage was obviated with a $30 Chromecast. I just wanted something small and silent to replace the old system. I mostly use it as a headless system, but I do have it hooked up to my tv for occasional retro gaming.

What's is a contraction of...

[Bartles]

...what and is. It can also be read as "what is". Saying "what is your computer set-up look like?" makes no sense at all. This isn't difficult, Slashdot.

Re:Like a tornado came through a messy child&rsquo

[Holi]

Sigh, It's a wonderful day when you find out you are not alone in the world.

I miss the old times.

[tuorum]

Where's my TRS-80 IV.

Dual iMacs with one acting as second monitor

[mbeckman]

I found a combo I find extremely useful, but which I've not seen replicated elsewhere. As a network engineer I have to do a lot of modeling using CPU-intensive simulation software (GNS3, Ekahau, etc). Some of this software runs on Windows only, and doesn't work well in VMware or Parallels. So I really need a second computer, but most of the time I don't need to see its screen, as the simulation software runs in the background for hours at a time.

Apple's iMac with Thunderbolt lets one iMac use another as a second display, while the second iMac remains a fully-functional system in the background. I tailor each iMac for the tasks they run -- desktop software or simulation. My primary iMac is a 5K retina 27" i5 and 16GB. The secondary iMac is an older non-retina but maxed-out with a quad core I7 and 32GB. Both have SSD main drives, with a 4TB OWC Thunderbolt RAID array.

I can boot the secondary iMac in either MacOS or Windows, and then use its screen directly to set up a simulation before swapping the screen to my primary iMac (cmd-F2) as a second monitor. To check up on simulation status, I VNC into the secondary machine using the OS X ScreenSharing utility. This lets me enjoy the desktop advantages of the retina display and a second monitor for basic tasks like CAD and presentations, without being dragged down by CPU-intensive simulations,

Here's mine (current and past).

[antdude]

past and current. ;)

Re:Adblock inferiority != success

[dave420]

Nurse! He's out of bed again!

An unusual array...

[daedalus2097]

Under my desk at home I have 4 towers, all connected to a Dell U2410 via a KVM. Two of the towers are fairly standard "PCs", one running windows 7 for my photography, gaming and some development, the other running Linux Mint for most other day-to-day things. The next tower is an AmigaOne G4 running AmigaOS 4.1, which I use for listening to music and some development. And the last is a beast: An old Amiga 1200 installed in an old AT-style PC case. It has a 68060 CPU at 66MHz with 256MB of RAM, SCSI host for the drives, PCI bus expansion fully loaded with a Voodoo 3-3000, network card, sound card and TV tuner, and various other bits and pieces added over the past 20 years or so. It's fun to see the old girl outputting Workbench at 1920x1200 and still relatively useable :)

All of the towers have two internal hard drives for backup of critical stuff (yes, there are also backups separate from the machines...)

Re:old school macbook

[TemporalBeing]

I use a Macbook A1342 upgraded to 8 GB of RAM and a 500 GB SSD. I run El Capitan for my OS. I've built gedit and use that primarily as my text editor. I can build or install most anything I want with Macports, which works quite nicely. I have a handful of other computers but that's my primary system. I've also got an old HP laptop that I use with some frequency, which has 3 GB of RAM and runs Ubuntu 14.04. But the old school Macbook is my preferred system. It more than gets the job done for me.

If you think that's old school...well, you're too young then to understand what old school is.

A Text-Based Mail User Agent

[tanner_andrews]

I have a more realistic user id. Really, you guys cannot manage to sprint for more than 4 digits. Sad.

I do, however, still use a text-based mail user agent. It's called "elm", and it has the interesting feature that it simply does not run those zip files, java files, and other mailware that gets past the filters. Also it seems to be a lot faster than the graphical mail user agents.

And yes, you will please get off my lawn.

OK - I'll play

[J053]

Home: Ancient Dell Precision 370, 2.8GHz P4, 4GB memory, 40GB boot/system disk, 1TB data disk, 2TB external backup drive - used as a file server, Kubuntu 4.04.4 LTS on it right now. The most important software on it is my Logitech Media Server for streaming my music library to work ;-). 2015 MB Air 13-in for most normal use (web, EVE, etc.). A somewhat crappy Lenovo G550 with Windows 10 for the (very few) times I need Windows. iPad2. Jide Remix mini for video streaming.

Work: Dell Precision 490, 2X Xeon 5160, 16GB, 2X Dell 20-in monitors, CentOS 7, KDE.

Plus all the damn servers and other desktops I need to support. At least we finally got rid of the last VAXstations this past year...

For software, mostly Firefox for browser although every now and then it pisses me off and I switch to Chrome (and then, after a while, Chrome pisses me off and I go back to Firefox). Emacs/XEmacs is editor-of-choice for anything big, vi or nano for quick edits. Most used software is probably Konsole. VirtualBox and/or QEMU/KVM for VMs. Whatever random software I need to support/answer questions about on any given day. X11vnc/vncviewer gets a pretty good workout.

My computer setup

[dddux]

My computer setup consists of two computers. First computer has a standard Dell 3D projector with a Intellitech mind interface and 10PB of Lentax SRS memory. Second computer is a portable one with a smaller 3D projector, Huangfei mind interface and just 1PB of Dantec SRS memory. I often use them together because I like to make music with the portable one and mix it on the bigger screen virtual environment. What year is this again?