

ASK HN: What's your setup? - brserc

What do you hack on? Are you do 13&quot; Air guy who uses nothing else and hacks around coffee shops or do you have three 27&quot; screens on your desk? What is your computer&#x27;s configurations, which OS do you use?
======
dshep
Retina MacBook Pro 15" 16GB/512GB SSD. Which I like mainly for the screen, use
it at the simulated 1920x1200 res. It sucks that it can barely play flash or
do other cpu intensive things without it getting fucking hot and loud. Its a
shame because the GPU is pretty fast. Wish Apple could make a fucking decent
thermal design.

Thinkpad X220 16GB/256GB SSD, Win7 Pro. I love it for its small size, long
battery life, and ruggedness. Although I should warn you the plastic doesn't
get on well with mosquito repellant, I learned that in Costa Rica last year.
Also the trackpoint, 3 mouse buttons, and keyboard. It actually has a bigger
keyboard than the rMBP despite being classified as a 12" laptop. Oh and a
3-year warranty where a guy comes to your house to fix whatever is wrong that
only cost $100 or so. The screen is painfully tiny at 1366x768 though.

I guess I couldn't decide on one laptop, there are both good for different
things. At home I sometimes plug into a 24" Dell 1920x1200 LCD and use a
Kinesys Freestyle Pro keyboard and Logitech Anywhere MX mouse. That is nice
for extended computer work.

My phone is a HTC First. Yeah the Facebook phone. Its a reasonable size, looks
nice, you can uninstall all the facebook junk, and the battery lasts me 3
days. And I only paid $170 for it because no one wants them. Oh and the GPS
and 3G work unlike my previous Galaxy Nexus.

Software-wise, I mainly use Debian under VMWare for work. And Firefox for
browsing natively. The builtin sync feature is good. mutt and notmuch for
email. I run irssi and bitlbee for jabber on a server, which I connect to with
mosh.

------
Andrenid
\- 27" iMac (i5, 16GB RAM, 1TB) (dev + browsing)

\- Win 7 PC (i7, 32GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 4TB storage), 2 x 29" (dev + some
gaming)

\- Win 8 PC (i7, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 8TB storage), 30" (mostly for
entertainment)

\- MacBook Air 11" (dev while travelling)

\- Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 as my primary mobile devices.

\- iPhone4, Lumia 900, a few random Android phones, for playing around.

------
pataprogramming
Primary hardware: Dual 24", 1920x1200 monitors; IBM Model M keyboard
(manufactured in 1990) still clicking strong; computer is a 4-year-old 2.67
GHz Core i7 920 (which is plenty adequate now that it has 24 GB RAM). Laptop
is a 3-year-old Sony, purchased because it was the only model available at the
time that was at the intersection of relatively small size (14" screen),
highish resolution (1600x900), and Core i5.

Operating environment for both is Ubuntu 12.10 using xmonad as the WM; most
hacking right now is in Clojure via Emacs.

Pretty happy with this setup, though I'd like a buckling-spring keyboard with
a few more buckybits; I'm also contemplating a switch back to a Kinesis
Contoured keyboard. The laptop will probably be looking at replacement
sometime soon; Linux support for it has never gelled (power management and
external monitors) though it's been generally adequate.

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pallandt
Asus G55VW, classified as a gaming laptop. I do not game.

\- 15.6 inch screen on 1920 x 1080, 16GB of RAM, excellent cooling and noise
control.

\- Windows 8/Ubuntu.

The only regret so far is not getting the 17 inch model.

How about you share your configuration as well since you started the
discussion? :)

~~~
sejje
This is almost exactly me, except I have the 17-inch model.

Also dual-boot Ubuntu/Win8, though Win8 is just for games they don't have for
linux. I'm a developer and 95% of time is spent in linux.

I find my 17-inch model is a little too large sometimes--barely fits in a
backpack. But it's worth it when I sit down to code.

~~~
pallandt
I think portability is the reason why I opted for the 15-inch model
originally, but in the end it seems that I don't carry it outside that much.
However, I can assure you that you made the right decision if you're using it
for work/programming, it was a bit difficult at first to get used to such a
high resolution on a 15-inch screen.

------
replax
Thinkpad x220, 8gb RAM, i7, 2xSSD and run ArchLinux on it with Awesome WM,
which is a really really great tiling window manager. At home I plug into a
23in screen, mouse and keyboard, which works really well.

~~~
veesahni
How'd you squeeze 2 SSDs in there?

~~~
replax
you have one normal drive bay for a 2.5inch ssd/hd and then you also have a
msata connection below the keyboard next to the wifi card. it doubles as a
pcie bus in which you could put a mobile broadband card or a msata ssd such as
this one:

[http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT480M50...](http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT480M500SSD3)

~~~
veesahni
TIL they make msata ssd's .. very cool :)

------
ceeK
15" Mid 2009 MBP and two 24" Benq screens (unfortunately TN panels). One
screen is dedicated to a Windows 7 tower for more intensive processes (Q6600,
4GB ram). Apple Keyboard (with keypad) for programming, Das Keyboard for other
things. Razer Deathadder mouse for both; I prefer gaming mice for everyday
use. I use Synergy to share mouse and keyboard between Mac and Windows. 2TB
network drive for sharing files and making backups.

It's pretty dated if I'm honest! Problems of a poor student.

~~~
Donny32
Your idea of a poor student and mine are somewhat different!

~~~
ceeK
Hahah reading it back I suppose it is quite a lot! I suppose I see people on
here and Twitter with 27" Thunderbolt screens and MBP retinas and seem to
adjust myself towards the poor end when in fact it's not the case with regards
to my fellow students.

------
zachlatta
I initially got the 13" Macbook Air (maxed out) planning to only use it while
on the go, but it's started to replace my desktop. It's a beast of a machine
when plugged into an external monitor.

Most of my development is either done on OS X or in a Linux (generally Debian)
VM through VMWare Fusion with Vagrant. For iOS development I use both Appcode
and Xcode. Anything else is done in a Tmux/vim/zsh session.

------
TheHydroImpulse
\- Macbook Pro 13" (128GB solid, 8GB RAM), magic mouse (I almost exclusively
use the trackpad). \- 2 year old custom built gaming rig (i7K @4Ghz, 16GB of
Ram, GTX 580, 256GB Solid, 750GB secondary, 27" Samsung Monitor, Shitty
logitech gaming keyboard, shitty cyborg 7 mouse)

I almost never use my pc other than as a media center and occasionally some
hardcore games. All my work is done on my mac.

~~~
TheHydroImpulse
Forgot to mention it's the retina version.

------
grumps
Lenovo w520 w/ 8gb of RAM and i7. After a USB drive update from lenovo stopped
Windows from booting completely switched to Debain Sid. It has a NVIDIA
Optimus, but I think its turned off ATM. I also have the built in color
calibration too but it doesn't work.

I also have a Logitech trackman and hope to someday live in a place bigger
than a shoebox so I can use a damn monitor.

------
lazyjones
Win 7 PC (i5, 8GB RAM, SSD, very quiet), 27" Dell TFT display (U2711). HP
washable keyboard, Logitech G3 mouse. Most of the work is done in PuTTY
windows on remote servers.

I'd love to use the 24" iMac and the 13" Air more, but the (german) keyboard
sucks for programming ({[]}@ etc.), even after remapping.

I miss my ThinkPad 720C, best laptop keyboard ever...

------
jizue_-f
Lenovo Thinkpad T420, Mint 14, intel core i5, 16gb ram, nvidia nvs 4200m,60gb
ocz ssd, and is regularly hooked up to a 22inch acer monitor.

------
CyberFonic
2 x 24" LCD in landscape and 1 x 19" LCD in portrait mode. Connected to home
built Core2 Duo 3.2GHz with 4G RAM. Running Ubuntu 13.04. Use a Samsung
ChromeBook on the road.

This is sufficient since most of the real work happens on AWS with multiple
instances and clients' AIX & HPUX clusters.

------
bgar
MacBook Air 2013 13"/8Gb/i7/128

Lenovo z580 15"/8Gb/750 with Arch Linux, i3wm

Sometimes I plug in a spare monitor if I need the extra screen space but I
really prefer a portable setup.

~~~
brserc
Have you got any wireless connectivity issues with the Macbook Air?

~~~
bgar
No I haven't, it's been working fine for me so far.

------
csense
Linux Mint 14 Nadia (upgrading to Mint 15 in the near future) on an Asus
laptop with nvidia GPU and external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I use the
pre-installed Windows for games that don't play nicely with Wine.

------
dsschnau
Asus Zenbook prime 13" 1080p with an i5, 128gb ssd. Runs Fedora 19. Have a 23"
1080p monitor and cheap keyboard/mouse but I barely have it docked.

------
sachin0235
Thinkpad T430 (8GB RAM, i5 and Windows 8) and 1 lenovo wireless mouse. This is
sufficient to take care of my coding needs

------
msoad
MacBook Air an external monitor (24 inch) Apple Keyboard Logitech Mouse

~~~
alexshenoy
Me too! Except I use an Apple Trackpad.

~~~
Rami114
Is the extra portability worth it with the Air? I still have a chunky 15" MBP
with 16GB RAM (despite supposedly being limited to 8) but it's relatively
heavy in the backpack.

~~~
bgar
I'd say compared to the a 13" Pro, the Air is noticeably lighter but not
enough to be a deal-breaker if you value the Retina. For me personally, I was
sold on the 2013 Air because of the battery life mostly. There's rumors of
major changes to the Air in 2014, seeing as it hasn't changed in appearance
since its release, so if you're willing to wait a bit longer it might be worth
it.

