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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the pretend-you're-Larry-Wall dept.

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?

28 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Um... OKay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Um... OKay? by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    2. Re:Um... OKay? by Krakadoom · · Score: 2

      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.

  2. Computer? by 110010001000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re: Computer? by saloomy · · Score: 2

      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.

    2. Re: Computer? by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re: Computer? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

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

    4. Re:Computer? by Ken_g6 · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --
      (T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
    5. Re: Computer? by spire3661 · · Score: 2

      "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....

      --
      Good-bye
    6. Re: Computer? by Lumpy · · Score: 3

      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.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  3. Computer setup? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    1. Re:Computer setup? by DimeCadmium · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  4. Home by markdavis · · Score: 2

    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.

  5. Homemade by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    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!

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:Homemade by aliquis · · Score: 2

      with no super contrast that kills the eyes

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

  6. Re:Everyone's favourites. by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  7. 15-inch Macbook Pro Retina with Debian Sid by cobbaut · · Score: 2

    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

    --
    European Linux user, living in Antwerp
  8. Pissing contest by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    1. Re: Pissing contest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    2. Re:Pissing contest by beh · · Score: 3, Funny

      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... :-)

    3. Re:Pissing contest by Gunfighter · · Score: 4, Funny

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

      Sure is. ;)

      --
      -- Stu

      /. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
    4. Re:Pissing contest by Blade · · Score: 4, Funny

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

      Sure is. ;)

      Yep. I agree.

    5. Re:Pissing contest by Blade · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

    6. Re:Pissing contest by jimbo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sometimes the dinosaurs are awakened, briefly.

    7. Re:Pissing contest by dublin · · Score: 2

      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...

      --
      "The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post
    8. Re:Pissing contest by Wolfrider · · Score: 2

      --You what now? ;-)

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

      / Amidoinitrite? :b

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
    9. Re:Pissing contest by ChristophWeber · · Score: 2

      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. ;-)

  9. You might be a Redneck if... by guises · · Score: 3, Interesting

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