
My 2020 desk setup - secure
https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-05-23-desk-setup/
======
illuminated
"I found that using only one monitor allows me to focus more on what I’m
doing, and I don’t miss anything about a multi-monitor setup."

This.

I had the same realization maybe 7 or 8 years ago and it is true for me. With
multiple monitors it's like moving your hands away from the keyboard all the
time and looking for the mouse. Same happens for me while looking for anything
across the 2 or 3 monitor setup. It just weakens your focus... If I'm on a
laptop (and I usually am), I just use the laptop's screen. Getting used to a
different screen size while working with my laptop setup would also slightly
slow me down when I'm bound to use only the laptop.

~~~
lmilcin
Except you have huge monitor and you lay stuff in multiple side by side
windows which makes the whole argument very moot. And when you use laptop you
are kind of forced to use single screen because multiple screens is
inconvenient at best.

When I started development 15" monitors were standard and 17" were a luxury.
Setting multiple monitors was a must or you would have to constantly switch
between editor, terminal and documentation.

If you look at the setup that's exactly what is happening. On a single screen
there is browser with documentation (presumably), and there is four (!)
IDE/editor/terminal windows.

It's not about how many monitors you have but rather what you are doing with
them. You can put Netflix as one of the windows and still get distracted on a
single monitor setup or you can have bad sight like me and require two 27"
monitors side by side so that I can magnify fonts and have documentation, IDE
and terminal at the same time with no strain.

~~~
StavrosK
I have three monitors, but I only use one (a 24" one, the second is for when I
want to watch some show or movie while doing stuff on the main one, and the
third I basically never use). I have my apps always maximized/fullscreen in
the main monitor and I alt-tab between them. I never could get into having
multiple apps on-screen at the same time, since I can only focus on one.

Writing this comment, though, I realize that a better alt-tab switcher would
be a godsend. I keep getting confused with window order sometimes and I'm not
sure why, maybe I should write a better switcher.

~~~
zeven7
A better alt+tab switcher would be great! Why isn't that a thing? I'm
imagining something where you could use alt+f1, alt+f2, alt+f3, etc. to switch
to specific windows rather than just rotating between everything.

~~~
layer8
On Windows, you can effectively use Win+1-9 for that by pinning the
applications to the taskbar. I use that all the time.

------
ZekeSulastin
The WH-1000XM3 are just about the only recommended bluetooth headphone anymore
that makes switching devices that much of a pain. Most will either
automatically switch between a few active devices or allow you to switch by
just initiating the connection from the target device.

Have you looked at installing the patched pulseaudio-bluetooth modules to gain
LDAC support? :)

~~~
secure
Have not looked at any fancy pulseaudio setups. I don’t want to maintain them
on my machines over time, as I use these headphones with 4 different devices
:)

~~~
ZekeSulastin
Fair enough! For other people coming across the thread, the repo for the
modules is here (sorry for not posting this in the original post:
[https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-
bt](https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt))

Good news is that there's some more activity towards upstreaming them; at
least in my experience, they Just Worked(TM) as far as the system
automatically selecting LDAP or AAC as needed.

------
ajross
"Probably another macbook setup" "Oh, nope, lots of terminals." "Hey, is that
i3?" Then I realized who the author was.

Honestly: I tried i3 and it wasn't for me. The psychology of slightly
overlapping windows (i.e. "just put this over here, out of the way but still
visible" as a way of making a physical reminder for myself) is just too much
part of my mental model to give up.

~~~
secure
Have you tried stacking mode? The title bar will still be visible, while the
window is out of the way. See it in action if you zoom into my monitor on
[https://michael.stapelberg.ch/Bilder/2020-05-22-desk-
setup.j...](https://michael.stapelberg.ch/Bilder/2020-05-22-desk-setup.jpg)

That works for me, but I understand it’s not for everyone :)

~~~
virtualwhys
Thanks for creating i3, have been using it for years -- stacked tabs are
indeed great, as is basically everything else in this wondrous WM.

i3 is solidly in the "pry it from cold, dead hands" category.

------
throwaway_pdp09
His monitor resolution is unnecessary AFAICS.

I have one, also 31.5" which is 3840 x 2160, without any scaling, and the text
is sharp as fuck. Given my experience the only thing I'd do if I bought
another monitor given what I know now is to buy one same res but larger
because 3840 x 2160 is _a lot_ of pixels in a small space. A single black
pixel on a white background from 60cm away is very, very close to invisible
(just tried it).

~~~
LeonM
I guess it's one of those things that you need to use for a while to 'get it'.

Just like switching from FHD to 4K (on a laptop). You won't be blown away
immediately when you first use it, until you go back to FHD and suddenly you
realize how much nicer the 4K screen was.

I run a 43" 4K display for work an I wish it was 8K, because when switching
from my 15" 4K laptop to the 43" 4K desktop setup suddenly the desktop monitor
doesn't look that crisp anymore.

------
bluedino
8K monitor sounded ridiculous until I realized that's basically Retina @
32-34"

~~~
whatever1
It is so sad that for us not in the Apple Ecosystem it is impossible to find a
desktop HiDPI display. We are stuck in 4k for the past 5 years. This Dell is
the only "option", but I don't know how many of us can afford spending $5k on
a monitor with a lifetime of ~ 3 years that has not shown great reliability.

Meanwhile, Linux has made the lives of 4k display owners unlivable due to the
lack of non-integer scaling. A 5k display with 200% scaling at 27" would help
the situation, but we don't have that option.

Many times I have considered jumping on to the MacOS boat, just for the high
dpi display availability & scaling support advantage.

~~~
bluedino
Is there no way to use an LG 5K?

The bad thing about the 8K is needing a $500 video card which also means it's
not an option for laptop users (I guess you could with an eGPU

~~~
hocuspocus
The blog author is using a GTX 1060, that's a $400 video card that came out
nearly 4 years ago.

Today a <$200 GTX 1650 can output 7680x4320@120Hz, or 60Hz over a single DP
link.

And I don't see why a laptop with a proper GPU and TB3 dock couldn't drive it
either.

~~~
bradlys
He states he uses a 2070 now.

------
mhd
That's a lot of money between screen and GPU just to get crisper fonts (as the
rest of the GUI is scaled x3 and thus you don't get that much more screen real
estate). Is this really worth it for you? I regularly switch between a 5k iMac
and regular 1920x1200 display, and sure, I can see pixels, but I don't find
myself caring that much.

~~~
jseliger
Considering how many hours a day he likely uses his machine, it may work out
to something like the difference between a few cents and 10 cents an hour.

~~~
bradlys
That's only going to be true if the $4000 extra they spent is used for 40,000+
hours. It's likely closer to be a dollar an hour more for slightly crisper
text. (Assuming they use it full time for 2 years)

~~~
valuearb
The monitor/GPU have a lot more than 2 year lifespan. Depreciation is likely
less than 50% in 2 years.

And he didn't pay for slightly crisper text, he paid for higher productivity.
At $100/hour that 25 to 50 cents is trivial to make up. Which is why devs
should never, ever skimp on hardware.

~~~
mhd
Okay, first of all let me say that I don't want to poo-poo anyone's choice of
environment. If it "sparks joy" for hours every day, it's probably a good
personal investment.

On the other hand, it does require additional resources being wasted, both for
producing the items -- monitors/GPUs indeed do have a long lifespan, which
means that the previous ones would still work -- and increased energy used per
hour. So saying that any $ spent on hardware can't be wasted for devs...

And whether it will actually result in increased productivity is a good
question. Readability, eye strain, enjoyment all factor in. Plenty of studies
that only focus on one aspect, so easy to cherry pick a conclusion...

Again, I don't believe this is more wasteful than a few spa days or a
vacation, so good for the OP. My initial post was about how that works out for
them (or others chiming in). I find myself not too affected by this, i.e. my
last big jump was from a 21 CRT to a 24 inch Dell, especially when it comes to
the simple shapes of monochrome fonts.

------
i3winner
Is he me? Same CPU, CPU fan, SSD, monitor, RAM, case, WM, linux distro..
Except I never made the switch to vim from emacs.

In all seriousness, I have great respect for Stapelberg and I thank him for
posting this. I love seeing other dev's setups and learned a few things in his
post.

------
ohelabs
“ For redundancy, I am backing up my computers to 2 separate network storage
devices.”

Hopefully he understands that this is not a true backup....he’s basically
created a more complex RAID 1 running two NAS...

For example a flood, a House fire, theft, or a power surge is probably going
to lose/fry both then everything is gone. This is a perfect example of
thinking you have something backed up but if you store it in the same place
you just created a more complex RAID 1...

If you want a backup you need to store a copy in a different location
preferably a different region because if you put it at your friends house down
the road they are also likely to be hit by the same disaster (i.e flood,
tornado, hurricane, war, etc.) as you are.

~~~
secure
Yes, I understand. I have an off-site backup for that reason, in a different
part of the city: [https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2018-01-13-offsite-
backu...](https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2018-01-13-offsite-backup-
apu2c4/)

The redundancy is just for home, because I don’t want to wait for replacement
hardware for my setup to work.

~~~
ohelabs
That’s definitely an improvement and a cheap solution. I always have to remind
people of offsite backups... I had to learn the hard way and I’ve now migrated
to Backblaze for one of my backup copies for my cold data .

------
wiredfool
I’m a couple of weeks into using a single giant (32”) monitor at macOS’s 3k
resolution, and I’m finding it works pretty well with a 3x2 set of windows for
code, terminal and docs. The center third is usually a single emacs window
with two frames, web browser on the left, and inspect window or terminals on
the right.

I’m also really liking the usb-c power delivery, so it’s one cable to the work
laptop, and from there, it’s got a usb hub for the kB/mouse.

The killer feature is the built in KVM switch, so by switching the input to
hdmi, I can switch the keyboard/moose to my mini and use it when I’m not at
$day_job.

~~~
dijit
What monitor do you have?

~~~
wiredfool
Dell U3219q.

------
kensai
Love these threads, it is always nice to see the setups of productive persons.

~~~
retSava
Absolutely! Every now and then you pick up some methods or tools you hadn't
thought of, that make yourself better.

You just have to remind yourself to bring the critical eye so that you don't
start wearing black turtlenecks believing it'll make you a business genius :)

------
zerr
Why Kinesis doesn't produce higher quality build variant of its keyboard? One
that doesn't feel like a flimsy/cheap plastic. It seems they are charging
premium just for the layout and PCB.

~~~
mech422
I got one of their 'freestyle' keyboards years ago.. complete crap - I swear
its rubber dome switches :-P

I got an ErgoDox EZ last year, put some nice heavy kaihl box switches in
it...now I just gotta find time to learn it (and dvorak/colemak).

Currently using a Vortex Cypher with the split spacebar, I tore down and
rebuild - new switches, added leds (south facing mounts so they're useless but
I figured I'd try).

and new keycaps.

~~~
packetslave
There's a HUGE difference between the Kinesis Advantage and the Freestyle
line. The Advantage2 uses MX Browns.

I tried to love my Ergodox, but I've spent way too many years with the scooped
keybed of the Kinesis.

~~~
mech422
btw - have you seen/tried anything like the 'tractyl' [0] or ultimate hacking
keyboard[1] ? I used to use a trackball full-time, and I'm wondering how well
a lil 'thumball' works...

[0][https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/dk9b34...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/dk9b34/tractyl_split_keyboard_with_trackball/)

[1]
[https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/](https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/)

~~~
packetslave
Tractyl looks pretty neat, but I think I'd miss my thumb keys too much.

I looked pretty closely at the UHH, but I think it would be the same issue as
the Ergodox -- I'm too used to the scooped keybed of the Kinesis, which makes
the reach between e.g. K and 8 short enough that I notice when it's not there
on a flat keybed.

~~~
mech422
You could have the trackball on one thumb and the thumb cluster on the
other... I have a couple of crooked fingers from breaks that didn't heal
completely straight, and I think I'm getting arthritis. So I'm trying to
maximize usage of my 'strong' fingers.

I should really try a kinesis sometime. Everyone that has one seems to love
them...

------
analog31
What's the Raspberry Pi for? You put a Raspberry Pi in the picture and you
don't tell us what it's for. That's like total cruelty. ;-)

~~~
secure
I use that for porting [https://gokrazy.org/](https://gokrazy.org/) to the
Raspberry Pi 4 (right now) and doing other Raspberry Pi development in general
:)

------
sunstone
I second the Logitech MX Ergo "thumb ball mouse". Once you're transferred your
mouse motor skills to this (takes about two hours) you'll never go back to a
moving mouse. Especially, if you've got a sore shoulder, or elbow or wrist do
yourself a favor and try one of these. (Full Disclosure I own no stock in
Logitech, just a very happy customer of this product.)

~~~
dividuum
Thirded :). I've switched (to its predecessor) over 10 years ago and never
looked back. I even works perfectly well with hectic games after a bit of
practice. Additionally I'm using keyboards without numpad to further reduce
the distance reaching the "mouse".

------
xenihn
Given that this is the closest thing to a monitor discussion thread I've seen
on HN, I'd like to ask if anyone has a recommendation for what I should
upgrade to next.

My progression has been the 2560x1440 Thunderbolt display to the Dell P2715Q,
which has been my main monitor at work and home for the past 5 years.

I've tried to upgrade from the P2715Q three times now, and always end up going
back to it because I'm dissatisfied by the quality of the other panels in
comparison.

I want a larger screen that can support 4K, or even 5K, with comparable panel
quality. I avoided the LG 5K display sold by Apple because I heard bad things
about it, but never actually tried one. It's 27" as well, so I think it would
still be too small, even if the panel quality and resolution are better.

I'm starting to think I should just get a TV and use that as my display, but I
don't know which would best suit my needs for writing software. One nice thing
about a TV is that it would be much easier to do returns/swaps if I need to
play the panel lottery for something that will make me happy. I have never
done this with a previous display, since I always bought second-hand from
people who had already done that for me. The original owner of my P2715Q
apparently returned theirs three times before they were satisfied.

I've toyed with the idea of getting an Apple Pro display, but I really don't
want to spend more than $2000 on a monitor.

The UP3218K described in the article seems like it would be a good upgrade,
but it definitely exceeds my price range. I would be open to spending that
much on a monitor if I knew I wouldn't be replacing it for at least five
years, but I can't know that for sure. Although funnily enough, that's what
has happened with my P2715Q. It's the only piece of computing equipment I
haven't replaced since I first started using it.

~~~
raihansaputra
Rtings has comprehensive reviews for TV as monitors:
[https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/pc-
monitor](https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/pc-monitor)

------
raveenb
I prefer the multi monitor setup and use at least one in portrait/vertical
mode. Fits with my ide and jupyter notebooks

~~~
safog
Similar setup - I just throw my terminal full screen on a vertical monitor (w/
GNU Screen) and don't find it distracting in any way.

------
DevKoala
I am also of the opinion of needing only one monitor because I can only focus
on one thing at once. Whatever is not the work I am doing when I focus, goes
into another desktop space. I am also a power user of an OSX window manager
called Spectacle. The tools and practices that help me focus are key.

------
lwhsiao
I've always been curious about higher-end USB microphones (the Rode is ~$230)
compared with a potentially more upgradable XLR setup like:

\- Behringer UM2 USB Audio Interface

\- Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 Dynamic Cardioid mic

This would give the upgradability of an XLR audio interface and a seemingly
decent mic for about $125. I imagine once everything is plugged together, it
similarly comes down to just plugging in a USB, and I'd be surprised if it
wasn't plug-n-play on Linux. I don't know how well the audio quality would
compare, though. I'd be interested to hear more about the challenges of
getting a working setup with XLR audio gear that are alluded to in the post.

------
iaskwhy
On switching peripherals between both work and home computers, I've been using
for a few years now a UGREEN USB Switch. It's around £21 for the USB 2 version
at the moment in the UK. So it's basically what the author uses but you
connect both machines there and click a button to toggle between machines. On
mine there's 4 ports only but maybe that's enough for most people - I'm only
using half.

------
zaroth
One minor benefit of TFA to me this morning is I had a 120mm case fan that has
been vibrating / buzzing, but I've been delaying buying a replacement just due
to not wanting to choose the wrong SKU (again).

Scrolling through the size I see the recommendation of the Noctua NF-A12x25.
Probably 3x what I paid for the fan that is being replaced, but it could be
the only component in the case that stays during the next rebuild!

~~~
mikelward
I just built a system, but the included case fans are too loud.

Just ordered a Be Quiet! 140 mm Shadow Wings 2 for the front and a 120 mm for
the back.

From everything I've read, they're the quietest. And are cheaper. But might
move less air, due to being limited to 900 rpm.

[https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/1625](https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/1625)
[https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07MCHLGC5](https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07MCHLGC5)

------
11235813213455
My 2020 desk setup: a cushion, an empty book block and a board both in wood as
support for my laptop. Haven't used a chair or a desk since ages

------
Youden
How much performance are you able to get out of your router7 setup? If it's
unable to saturate the gigabit, do you know where the bottleneck is?

~~~
secure
It effortlessly satisfies a full gigabit, otherwise I wouldn’t stick with it
:)

~~~
phreeza
Do you have any experience with using it on "Crossover7" which I think is
somehow the slightly less preferred offer from fiber7 that I have?

~~~
secure
I do not have any experience with it. My expectation would be that the IP
network quality itself is good (provided by init7), and hopefully the
underlying platform is stable and well-provisioned enough.

------
alexellisuk
I often get asked about my equipment too and wrote up my bill of materials.
Surprised you're not using LED lights. Try them, you'll enjoy the upgrade.
[https://medium.com/p/bill-of-materials-for-my-home-
office-f7...](https://medium.com/p/bill-of-materials-for-my-home-
office-f7f417dfbf0)

------
war1025
The hardware section makes it sound like he's rebuilding his computer multiple
times a year. Do people really find upgrading that often is worth the cost and
the bother? What sorts of workloads do people deal with that having top of the
line hardware even matters?

~~~
secure
I rebuild once a year on average, but not every year (planning to skip this
year, for example).

In general, yes, I find it worthwhile to invest money and effort into a faster
experience, but I’m very sensitive to latency, so YMMV :)

~~~
zaroth
There's a sweet spot somewhere in there.

I recently re-built my i7-3770 w/ SATA3 SSD into an Ryzen 3700x with NVMe and
build times are just remarkably faster. I waited far too long.

------
kwerk
Interesting about switching from the 3900x back to Intel.

I recently built a desktop around the 3900x. I’m happy with the performance
but coming from a decade on MacBooks. Feeling the FOMO about my choice now :)

------
brootstrap
Cool thanks for sharing. My work from home setup has a legal marijuano
vaporizer within reaching distance to help deal with the bullshit from
managers & other bumbos in our digital corp.

------
ajphdiv
Huge fan of i3. It also allowed me to reduce down to one monitor. I use a MSI
Optix 34” curved monitor.

I like your idea with the USB hub to switch between computers — I will
probably adopt that.

------
akudha
That keyboard looks weird - maybe its because I haven't used it myself. Anyone
used it? Can you share your experience?

~~~
amarshall
I’ve used a Kinesis Advantage at work for 7 years now. Started after I began
to get wrist discomfort once I started programming full-time. It’s been
wonderful, and removal of the discomfort and pain is worth the $300 several
times over. I bought one for home shortly after. It does take a bit to get
used to typing on. It took a few days to get from 6 wpm to ~35 wpm, and about
two weeks total to get to ~80 wpm. I can usually type a bit faster on a
“standard” laptop keyboard, but 80 wpm is still plenty fast. I’m a Vim user,
so I mapped the End key to Esc (keyboard has hardware mapping built-in).

I do experience the stuck-key issue referenced (annoying, but easily worked-
around and infrequent), going to look into swapping the PCB as linked.

~~~
safog
I wish there was a way to try this keyboard without committing to buying it
for a month or so. It seems like there will be a learning curve and you might
not even like it at the end of it.

~~~
psanford
There is a way! Kinesis has a 60 day return policy if you buy directly from
them.

[0]: [https://kinesis-ergo.com/support/returns/](https://kinesis-
ergo.com/support/returns/)

------
AjwadJaved
About the slow package managers complaint, you should try out Void Linux! Xbps
is god speed compared to apt or pacman

~~~
secure
Thanks, I’m aware. Unfortunately, Void Linux runs runit as init system, and I
want systemd.

------
anotheryou
yay, a neo user.

If you have a keyboard programmable with QMK you can make the upper layers
work in hardware too though (you still need to decide to which OS layout you
want to map it)

~~~
secure
Yeah, I wanted to look into QMK for a while now, it’s on my list :)

Will add this detail as one thing to check out, thanks!

------
ariofrio
I read this as “Steven Spielberg uses this: my 2020 desk setup” before I
clicked through. I was so amazed that Spielberg used a tiling window manager
before I went back and figured out my mistake!

