11 ms·

Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

49 points by lukeqsee 16y ago

Personally I have a self-built AMD dual-core, 4gb ram, archlinux & gnome/openbox (looking into using awesome wm, any suggestions?), a 17" and a 19" monitor. What do you hack on?

sami_b 16y ago
An old laptop (not working at the moment) and an old desktop both running Ubuntu 10.04. When I say old, I mean 3+ years old. Planning to buy a new one some time soon, probably with the low-med spec range. Don't need much really. Also nice to see this many Ubuntu users.
boris 16y ago
Office hardware: Dual Nehalem Xeon 2.4Ghz with 12GB RAM and two RAID'ed Cheetah SAS drives, all in Supermicro chassis. make -j 16 all the way! Travel hardware: ThinkPad T61 Software on both: 64-bit Debian unstable with xorg/sawfish wm (no Gnome or KDE), emacs, screen, g++, make, etc.
jaddison 16y ago
Lenovo W500, 4GB, 15", Windows 7 x64. Laptop screen size doesn't matter as I have two 24" Samsung 2433BW LCD monitors mounted on an Ergotron Dual Side by Side LX adjustable arm kit. The second monitor is hooked up via Lenovo's USB DisplayLink adapter, which works quite well. I can't recommend the Ergotron mounting kit enough. One of my LCDs is rotated to a vertical position for web browsing, documenting and coding.
fijter 16y ago
a 13.3" Aluminium MacBook with Snow Leopard, 4GB ram, 24" Philips TFT, Magic Mouse and a Logitech DiNovo keyboard in combination with a Webfaction account and a Linode VPS.
joshfinnie 16y ago
This is an interesting question after reading your box. I started off with my computer infatuation with a setup very much like yours. But lately, I am so much more interested in portability that I have gotten rid of everything except for a HP dv4 (ADM dual-core, 4GB RAM) that I run Ubuntu on th ssh into my webfaction hosting account and writing my thesis in latex. The size can't be beat, and it does everything I need it to without being the size of a house (granted I don't game on it...) Maybe if I had more space than a 600sqft apt, I would still have a mini-supercomputer, but laptops are amazing lately.
lrm242 16y ago
Desktop: Quad Core 2.5Ghz, 8GB ram, 6TB raid-5, arch linux running xmonad. "Old" laptop: Macbook Pro, 4GB ram "New" laptop: Asus EeePc 1201N running arch linux.
binarymax 16y ago
Corei7 930, 12G Ram, RAID mirror 2x 140GB 15K rpm drives + 1TB storage, NVidia GTS 250 (Bought pre-fermi will update to a tesla soon), 24" Synchmaster
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thomas11 16y ago
My only machine is an 11.6" Acer Aspire AS1410. It's a great machine, especially for it's very low price. Plus an external 27" display and a few 2.5" hard disks that's all I need. My DE is Gnome, at home and at work. I live mostly in Emacs & chromium anyway.
cristianca 16y ago
13.3 MacBook Pro, 4GB ram with Snow Leopard
forcetenhen 16y ago
Quad core 2.8Ghz, 8GB RAM, 2TB internal, further 2.5TB in rats nest of external disks. 2 x 19" monitors. Running W7 and Snow Leopard via VM for iDev, Plus a crappy old laptop I had to upgrade to 1.5GB RAM after it came with 512MB and Vista. Used only in cases of extreme laziness.
jasoncartwright 16y ago
2.66GHz i7 15" Macbook Pro, 4Gb RAM, 24" monitors at home and work. Mac keyboards, MS mice, a few TB of external HDs, wireless headphones. Used to be into self-built machines, but prefer stuff with a combined warranty that 'just works' nowadays.
- stewiecat 16y ago
  Another MS mouse mac user! I absolutely love MS mice and have two identical models at home and work. Their OS and office software may suck but the mice are awesome.
draegtun 16y ago
Since January I've been using an Apple iMac 27inch, 2.8GHz quad-core Intel core i7, 8GB ram, 1TB hard disk, Apple GB keyboard (not wireless) & Magic mouse running on Snow Leopard (Mac OSX 10.6). Before January it was an original Intel iMac 24inch running Tiger (Mac OSX 10.4) which I'd been using for over 3 years: http://transfixedbutnotdead.com/2006/12/14/my-workspace-with-my-shiny-new-apple-imac/ http://transfixedbutnotdead.com/2006/12/14/my-workspace-with...
rufugee 16y ago
Work: custom-built dual quad core Xeon E5520@2.27GHz, 12 GB RAM, dual 22" dell monitors (Ubuntu Lucid) Home: * custom-built quad core AMD Phenom (Ubuntu Lucid), 8 GB ram, single 22" monitor * Lenovo T400s (Ubuntu Lucid) * Macbook Pro (rarely used, bought during period of irrational exuberance on potential app store sales)
jasonlotito 16y ago
i7 920, Windows 7 64 bit 12G RAM nVidia 275 (Almost 2G of RAM) 22" Monitor ATM, as the wife is using the other one) 320G primary Drive, 1TB slave, 1.5 TB backup Plantronics Wireless Headphones 3 Printers. Yes, 3. 1 Canon Jet, 1 B/W laser w/fax/scanner, 1 laser color. Really, don't ask. Blame my wife for them. The most difficult thing at the moment is the single monitor at only 22". Really looking to invest in a nice 27", but with so many other things needing doing, I really can't justify it at the moment. It's a nice system. Before this, I was usually a generation behind. This was the "let's really splurge and go all out" system. =) Encouraged very much by the wife. And yes, I do end up using the system and it's resources quite heavily at times for video rendering while still using the computer. It's a funny story how I got this system. See, my wife is a Mac Geek. And she's not some clueless Mac Geek. She was installing and running Debian back in the 90s. She knows her networking, hardware, and computers. Her Mac love came about when she went back to school for compute graphics. Anyways, she's a Mac Geek, so for several years now, our home has been a Mac v.s. PC environment. Good forbid something happens with my PC (or her Mac), as the other won't waste any time before coming up with some snarky comment. She's really good at this. Anyways, when I saw the new iMacs, the 27" i7 version caught my eye. With the constant struggle of getting a Mac and PC to work together, I finally informed my wife that I would be getting a Mac, selling my PC, and moving to Apple. She rejoiced. We made plans, but with me starting a new job, and with wanting to wait until after the new year to give them time to fix any potential first-run defects, we planned to get one in January. However, come December 25th,I learned she decided to buy me Windows 7 (which I had yet to pick up, mostly because I'd just been too lazy to do it). This resulted in me deciding that I should upgrade my computer, and that, as we say, is that. She had her chance. Anyways, sorry for the long post, and the rambling. >_<
- Qz 16y ago
  I've decided that the splurge method is the way to go. I spent almost $3000 on this machine 2 years ago, and it has yet to even flinch at any of the new games or software I throw at it. Much better than buying a new $1000 system every year that makes you want to buy something new only a few months in.
javert 16y ago
I use awesome wm on archliux, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Definitely go for it. You can pretty much do everything very efficiently from the keyboard, which just "feels right" to me (not to mention being way more convenient). You can also manage way more windows in an efficient way. The previous two sentences could probably be said about a lot of "tiling" window managers, honestly, but I think awesome is a great choice.
- lukeqsee 16y ago
  Any specific tweaks/hacks/configs I should look at? Otherwise I'll just dive in ... and hope for the best. =)
  - javert 16y ago
    I'd say, just dive in. Be sure to read man awesome. You'll want to customize things a bit, most likely... rc.lua (the config file) is very hackable.
pcestrada 16y ago
Desktop: Intel i7 980x 6 core cpu, 6GB ram, Nvidia 480gtx, Intel 160 GB SSD drive + 2x1TB HDD running Windows 7 64-bit with a 30" Monitor flanked by a pair of 20" Monitors in portrait mode (4960x1600 screen space).
- proee 16y ago
  This is my exact setup! (minus the 2x1TB HDD) http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5986/imag0011w.jpg http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5986/imag0011w.jpg
Hovertruck 16y ago
Work: Dual-Core Power Mac, 5GB RAM, Snow Leopard, 24" Dell Monitor Home: 13in Macbook Pro, 4GB RAM, Snow Leopard, 24" Dell Monitor. Before I bought the Macbook it was a 15" Ubuntu/Win7 Gateway Laptop with 3GB RAM.
hackermom 16y ago
13.3" MacBook Pro, running OS X 10.6. I gave up stationary computers almost 6 years ago, and haven't looked back once.
zck 16y ago
Self-built computer: AMD 2.8 GHz quad-core, 4 gig ram, running Ubuntu 10.04 . Keyboard: black Unicomp SpaceSaver (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html). Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder gaming mouse (http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming-Mouse/dp/B000TTQFIS/ref=sr_1_cc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1278943278&sr=1-3-catcorr http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming-...). 2x 21.5" emachines 1920x1080 monitor (http://emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=E211H_bmd http://emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=E211H_bmd). The only important user-facing software on my machine: Emacs, Firefox, Pidgin, VLC. I installed Stumpwm (http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/ http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/), but went back to Gnome until I have the time to learn, and am less ego-depleted.
petercooper 16y ago
I basically buy everything Apple releases. So I've got an 8 core Mac Pro loaded to the hilt and.. it's sat in my shed unused for the past 9 months! Once the new 27" iMac came out, that was it. Perfect form factor, "fast enough", a far better screen than my 30" ACD.. so it turns out a machine half the price of my Mac Pro set up totally replaced it. And as there's no market for used Mac Pros, it seems, I now have a full Mac Pro + 30" setup sitting around entirely unused (and a 17" MBP - once I realized I don't really like or need a notebook).
- draegtun 16y ago
  I came to same conclusion because originally budgeted for a Mac Pro + 30inch screen but instead went for the iMac 27inch (and used money saved on extra external HD's, Drobo & software and still walked away with large pocketful of money!).
- bmelton 16y ago
  If you're looking for a home for it, feel free to shoot me an email.
- izak30 16y ago
  You could always just plug it in and use it for folding@home or something. Also, the 27" iMac works as an input diplay, and it will also take that second monitor nicely (if you can deal with tons of space)
- ashleyw 16y ago
  Surely somebody would give you a good price for it! How much are you asking?
  - petercooper 16y ago
    I like to find successful eBay auctions to gauge value but they're highly variable since it's not commonly sold kit and I've upgraded it to 8GB of memory, more hard drives, and what not. For an 8 core 2.8GHz Mac Pro with 8GB memory, I've seen everything from £1500ish to £2200 (which is more than it cost new!! - I suspect it's because the older 8 core Xeons are faster than the current 4 core ones that replaced them). Given that, I'd take £1500 for it. On the 30" ACD front, it's as-new, little used over the last year, no dead pixels, the same as the current £1199 one basically. I think I'd take £700 for it just because it's taking up a lot of space. On the 17" MBP, I haven't done my research yet - it's a stock 17" 2.66GHz unibody MBP with 4GB RAM, no dead pixels, heathly battery. Cost £1799 new, I think. No good auctions to watch on eBay it seems, someone has the same machine for £1439 BIN. If I had to stab in the dark, though, it's probably worth £1300.
r00k 16y ago
For god's sake man, upgrade those monitors! You don't actually do development on 17" screen do you?
- lukeqsee 16y ago
  whoops... meant 17" and 19".
dmm 16y ago
Asus Eee PC 1000HD * 1.6Ghz Atom * 1 GiB ram * 10" 1024x600 display * OpenBSD (recent snapshot) * StumpWM is the window manager * emacs is the editor I use it as terminal to login to my ps3 running Debian sid for cell processor development. I use profont to let me fit a lot of code on the small screen.
- cytzol 16y ago
  I've heard some people say that only being able to see a small amount of code at a time forces good programming practices, compared to what you'd be able to do with a large monitor. Do you think that having such a small screen helps in this way?
  - patrickk 16y ago
    I would say that's bullshit. Tried using a netbook to do some web development, and the small screen, keyboard and lethargic hardware made it very frustrating. Horrible compared to using a big monitor and powerful desktop.
    - billswift 16y ago
      I bought an Asus Eee several years ago for writing away from home, but discovered too late that the keyboard is much too small for me to type comfortably.
      - dmm 16y ago
        Was it the 10" model? I found the keyboard on the 7" to be too small to touch type but the 10" is just large enough after some adjustment.
      - patrickk 16y ago
        I got a Dell Mini 10v and turned it into a hackintosh for Rails development...unfortunately it's useless apart from browsing the web and reading PDFs. The small keyboard can be worked around by plugging in a proper Apple keyboard....but that's not very portable :-(
dan_sim 16y ago
a fast-enough computer with ubuntu 10.04... that's all I need.
- postfuturist 16y ago
  Yeah, I've got a cheap-ass Compaq laptop, that cost like $400 a year ago with Ubuntu 10.04 on it. 2 GB ram and a dual-core 64 bit AMD processor is plenty to get work done efficiently, especially with Vim + Bash as my primary work environment. I can run Windows XP in a virtualbox instance without issue for IE testing.
ErrantX 16y ago
What do you hack on? Today; our biggest distributed cluster (several thousand machines, 4 heads). Which is very fun :) Usually I hack on various computers; either a water cooled Amd Opteron [the older ones that overclocked like stink] or Intel Core 2 Duo based machines. OS is usually Feodra core 11/Ubuntu (at work) or Mint (at home). Synced with Dropbox, shared KB/Mouse using Synergy.
- grammaton 16y ago
  I think you officially win the thread....
abyssknight 16y ago
Sheesh. Okay, here we go: Hackerspace Kit ASUS 1000HA 2gb RAM upgrade BT4 / Windows Dual Boot Arduino Diecimella Freelance / Personal Kit MacBook Pro 2,2 2gb RAM ATI Radeon x1600 Boot Camp / VMWare Fusion XP Dual Boot Gaming Kit Custom Built i7 Rig i7 920 6gb RAM Nvidia GTX 260 Dual 19" WS Monitors from Dell Dell Docking Station Work Kit Dell D830 Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz 3.5gb RAM Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M Win XP Dual 19" 4:3 Dell Monitors Dell Docking Station
- giantfuzzypanda 16y ago
  Try harder.
  - abyssknight 16y ago
    Not sure I understand what you're saying. It sounds snarky, but that doesn't fit the HN modus operandi, so I'm hoping I missed something. :)
    - wglb 16y ago
      I think maybe he is impressed.
martin 16y ago
27" i7 iMac with 8GB RAM, attached to a 30" Dell display (3007WFP). I switched about a month ago from a MacBook Pro (attached to the same Dell display), and it's phenomenal. It's the first setup I've ever had that actually feels fast enough to run everything I need (iTunes, Word, Excel, and Windows running in VirtualBox, along with a few instances each of iTerm, Chrome and Textmate) without skipping a beat.
culturestate 16y ago
At work, dual 27" iMacs (one with the Core i7 option + 16GB of RAM, and the other a base 27" model in Target Display Mode) as my workstation, and several XServes and custom Fedora boxes in 3 racks. At home, a first-generation 15" unibody MacBook Pro (2.2ghz C2D, 4GB RAM) hooked to the 24" LED Cinema Display. I also use a last-generation Mac Mini (pre-unibody) as an HTPC.
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dfox 16y ago
Desktop: Core 2 Quad + 8GB RAM with 22" and 24" monitors IBM Model M keyborad + Sun Type 7 mouse (previously I had Type 7 keyboard) Laptop: ThinkPad T60 with Core Duo and 2.5GB RAM
falsestprophet 16y ago
A Macbook Pro. That is all.
- JarekS 16y ago
  A Macbook Pro 13". That is all.
  - brandonkm 16y ago
    This. + Magic Mouse and Lacie firewire speakers. May get the cinema display sometime soon.
    - JarekS 16y ago
      Yes - Cinema display or other nice external monitor. Should boost productivity (although I'm not sure how much).
  - stefanobernardi 16y ago
    That's more than enough. I have a MacBook 13" in the office, and when I bring it home I plug it into a 26" Samsung display with mac keyboard and magic mouse, plus various external HDs.
  - technomancy 16y ago
    I was really surprised by the weight of this machine. It's also very low-resolution. But the build quality is much-improved over precedessors. If Apple started to compete based on weight and resolution I might consider them, but who knows--maybe they're trying to avoid impinging on the lower-level ipad market.
    - swah 16y ago
      2kg? Positively or negatively? My sister bought this dell (http://www1.la.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/vostro-v13?c=br&l=pt&s=bsd&cs=brbsdt1 http://www1.la.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx...) and its 1.6kg. Everyone loves the weight.
ja27 16y ago
Work: Dell Precision M6400 - Core 2 Duo T9900, 8g RAM, 250g SSD, 1920x1200 17", Win7 64bit Dell 20" LCD Lab full of systems: VMWare ESX, Solaris, Linux, AIX, and more Personal: Asus 1201N - Atom 330 (1.6GHz dual-core), 2g RAM, ION + HDMI, 1366x768 12.1", Win7 32bit
pclark 16y ago
i7 15" (HR) MacBook Pro with SSD. Most expensive, albeit best, thing I've ever bought.
jasonkester 16y ago
I bought a little 12" Lenovo X60 off eBay to take with me on the road. It was the top of the line executive machine a few years back, and they're coming off lease and being refurbished now so you can get one for like $300. Add $100 for a big fast drive, 4GB memory and a new battery and suddenly it's a crazy fast dev machine that you can use on a chicken bus and not sweat too bad when it gets stolen by those Jamaican pickpockets from the American Express commercial (cause hey, it least it wasn't my $2k dev box). The plan was to give it to the girlfriend now that we're home, but I'm finding it hard to go back to my big ol' Dell Latitude. It's tiny, it's fast, it logs me in by reading my fingerprint. She can't haves it. It's mine!!!
davidw 16y ago
Dell Latitude with Ubuntu. Fairly high res display (1920x1200) is the only real distinguishing feature, other than that, it's a pretty average machine. I don't think you need anything that fancy for most programming work these days. More memory is always good, of course.
grammaton 16y ago
Until last week's unfortunate beer spilling incident, I was using a macbook, along with a long standing server instance running Gentoo on RackSpace, with further instances spun up and then disposed of as needed. I have to say I find it kind of amusing how many people on HackerNews use Apple gear.
- mitchellhislop 16y ago
  Using the Gentoo instance like a VM?
  - grammaton 16y ago
    Nope, just SSH into it, treating it as if it where a plain old hosted box.
    - mitchellhislop 16y ago
      I see i see. I love having boxes to do that with. Never tried Gentoo-whats the draw to that?
      - semanticist 16y ago
        I used Gentoo four/five years ago, and the draw was the amount of optimisation available. Everything's compiled from source with optimisation flags for your specific hardware rather than the generic 'works pretty much everywhere' options that are used for pre-built binaries with most distros. The down-side is that it was - at that time, at least - a huge nightmare to maintain and do major upgrades. Almost as bad as CentOS. Waiting for things to compile every time you install something also got boring pretty quickly. I moved to Ubuntu, and I'm now considering moving to just Debian for future VMs I build.
pyronicide 16y ago
Okay, after reading through this thread, there seems to be an interesting trend. Almost everyone has beefy processors and lots of memory .... but it is all hooked up to a 19" monitor. Sure, there are people with the 27" iMacs and 30" monitors, but they sure seem a lot less than I would have guessed. For those of you still using laptop screens, 19" monitors or even 22" monitors, have you tried something bigger? The difference in my productivity between a 30" or 2x24" monitors and the screen on my laptop is palatable. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that given all the cloud computing these days, I'd take a slow system without much memory as my local box if I could get a bigger monitor for it.
- robryan 16y ago
  I'm the other way, 24 and 22inch monitors with a relatively average machine these days.
  - tudorw 16y ago
    Definitely one of my most productive upgrades has been more monitors, I run a 24" in portrait to my left, great for text editing and reading, centre I run a 24" in landscape, to the right I have a 20" attached to a different system and a 8 inch mimo under the center screen to throw media onto, the whole lot rigged to a powered sit/stand workstation :) Downside is power consumption, upside is I don't have to use the light switch as it never goes dark in here... Here's a bit from m$ on the benefits of multi-screen; http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx I remember reading somewhere else that the results of m$'s study into the productivity benefits of larger or more screens did not hit an upper limit. I also design websites now and again and it's great to just drag a page around and preview it on different screen sizes in 'reality', mapping the 'visible' window on a larger monitor is not quite the same thing.
modoc 16y ago
17" MBP (8GB RAM, 256 Corsair SSD) running OS X 1.6, laptop stand, 30" Apple display, keyboard, mouse, speakers, Phillips color LED for bias lighting.
vollmond 16y ago
Personal: Stock Dell Mini 9 (originally planned to go Hackintosh route, but never got around to it. UNR 9.04, use VIm for most everything) Older freecycled Dell Inspiron desktop (~2.0 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu) Work: Lenovo Thinkpad (Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, WinXP) 2x Dell Optiplex desktops (ditto, one has a 17" display, other is dual 17s)
mistermann 16y ago
i7-920 (overclocked to 3.8Ghz), 12GB RAM, 160 GB Intel SSD boot + 2TB Hitachi for storage, 2 x 24" Samsung monitors, Windows 7 Ultimate 64. 4TB HP windows home server for storage and backup. Dell XPS M1330 laptop for the road. (Time for an upgrade)
Zak 16y ago
Primary: Thinkpad W500. Core2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz, 6M cache), 4GB memory, 15" 1680x1050, Ubuntu 10.04. I only have a couple complaints about this machine. The big one is that the screen can't compare to the 1600x1200 IPS panel of my old T60p. Yes, I did prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. The audio ports being located on the front is also annoying. Secondary: Mac Pro (borrowed). Two dual-core Xeon 5150s, 5GB memory, headless most of the time. I use this machine to do the heavy lifting for my text classification work. My experimental data set fits in memory on my laptop, but leaves uncomfortably little free space. It also makes my lap warm. The Mac being about 50% faster in practice than my laptop is a nice perk.
cageface 16y ago
Homebrew i7/24" LCD running Ubuntu 10.04 Dell XPS1530 Running Ubuntu 10.04
futuremint 16y ago
ZaReason Strata Pro 13" w/Core 2 & SSD. Just fast enough for my needs, a ULV processor so I can feel good about not sucking too much energy (the SSD makes up for the lack of CPU power, it still feels 'fast'), and Ubuntu FTW. Eminently portable (3.5lbs), decent resolution on the screen and a nice keyboard (on par if not a little better than my old MacBook Pro's keyboard). I love it as it has just enough of everything I need and not too much.
eel 16y ago
Noisy HP laptop, Core 2 Duo T5550, 3 GB RAM, dual Win 7/Ubuntu. Speaking of computer setups, if anyone is interested in helping my friend obtain one (her old laptop broke), you can read more at http://www.philipfund.com http://www.philipfund.com
GVRV 16y ago
HP Pavilion dv6000 running Windows Vista (gaming) and Ubuntu 10.04 Would love to get more boxes to play around with, but as a broke student, VMs help.
cytzol 16y ago
Before I list my setup, I'd like to ask: What's with all the laptops? I worked off a 15-inch laptop for several years, but after using a desktop, I've completely converted. Laptops give you less screen space and less computational power, and in general I've never liked their keyboards. They're also more expensive (I think?) and trickier to self-build. The only advantage I see is portability, which is understandable, but I think it's more that they're becoming the new default computer type for everyone, rather than having people choose between them and desktops. Anyway, mine: I put together the desktop a couple months back: AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.6GHz, 4GB RAM, and an SSD for the OS and programs. I decided to future-proof myself, after living off that laptop for too long. It's connected to two Acer monitors - one 24-inch, one 23.6-inch, leaving a difference that's enough to irritate me every time I try to align things perfectly. It runs Windows 7 for general use and a virtualised Arch Linux machine for development work. I've tried setting up Windows the way I like it, but when Linux is available I don't think it's worth the effort. The VM does nothing but run Emacs in seamless mode, so everything still works together, and I don't have to worry about window managers. I type in dvorak on a Kinesis Advantage (the black one). I've never had recurring hand problems, but the keyboard setup feels so much nicer to use, I stick with it. That, and a Logitech mouse that I'm ambivalent about. My phone is an HTC Dream (aka the G1), running Cyanogen 2.1. It's been outclassed several times by today's standard of phones, but I'm waiting until it fully breaks down before replacing it. Not sure what with yet, which is a shame, because I like the design, even if the hardware space bar is already starting to go. All in all, I'm happy with what I have.
- jaxn 16y ago
  I have been using laptops ever since the Pentium 1 days (it was a 133Mhz Thinkpad 310 ED). I have had a few desktops as secondary computers, but having my computer with me has been a way of life for over a decade. That is changing some now that I have an iPad.
- epochwolf 16y ago
  > What's with all the laptops? I have a 15" Macbook Pro (version just before the aluminum ones) I love being mobile. I'm never at a desk. I'm always at a table or couch somewhere. (I love coffee shops. I'm at one drinking an iced tea right now.) One use case I never envisioned for my laptop was hooking it up to a friend's TV to watch videos. I can store an entire anime series on my laptop. (or loads of rifftrax[1]) When some friends and I want to watch some stuff I just bring my handy case of cables and hook up to their TV and fire up Front Row. (or MPlayer) OSX is pretty good at handling this, my desktop icons stay where I put them when unplug from the TV. [1]: http://rifftrax.com http://rifftrax.com
zackham 16y ago
Fast enough quad-core proc, 8 gb ram, 24" monitor, xmonad on ubuntu. Will probably end up with another monitor here soon, just haven't decided if I should get another 24 or something smaller that I can run vertically.
jaxn 16y ago
13" MacBook Pro + iPad + Bose speakers + iomega backup drive. I will eventually buy a new monitor or two and use a keyboard and mouse at the office.
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phunel 16y ago
Sorry if this is a bit OT, but does anyone have any experience using panasonic toughbooks? I travel fairly extensively and my MBP is basically in tatters (I have enjoyed it immensely, but the hardware has been subpar - battery exploded, screen went dead, power plug nearly caught on fire, HD failure, etc. I've noticed the new ultralight toughbook is out, and thought this loaded with Linux might be an ideal solution. I have no problem paying premiums for tools that work (my assumption with the MBP) but also obviously don't want to buy something that doesn't return the appropriate value. Anyone with any experience with these tools?
- mitchellhislop 16y ago
  I have used a few different toughbooks, and have been pleased with all of them.
- NateLawson 16y ago
  I am a big fan of the Panasonic business series. They were originally called "Lets Note" in japan but rebranded with "toughbook" in the US as the business ultralight series. I have a Y4 currently. It is somewhat rugged, but the most important part is that it has every attribute I want: 3.5 lbs, 14" screen at 1400x1050, built-in DVD/RW, 5-7 hour battery life. The keyboard is quite nice also. Basically, I had a Macbook Air with more features in 2006. http://rdist.root.org/2008/02/07/panasonic-cf-y4-laptop-disassembly/ http://rdist.root.org/2008/02/07/panasonic-cf-y4-laptop-disa... If you want to replace the hard drive, you have to disassemble the whole thing. RAM upgrades don't require that though. I'm quite familiar with the BIOS and it's one of the better ones. It works fine with Linux and FreeBSD. They stopped making the Y series with the Y7. The replacement (F8 and F9) annoys me a little because they went to widescreen. I hate widescreen. What you want as a programmer is as many vertical rows as possible, not horizontal. The F9 is 1440x900. You gain 40 horizontal pixels but lost 150 vertical! It also has that weird handle thing but you can ignore it. I'm still happy enough with my Y4 that I haven't replaced it. It's such a good combination of build quality and firmware quality that I'm afraid of anything else.
- waivej 16y ago
  I know a New York Times photographer that had an unhealthy love of hers. It was so old to be laughable...but it kept going and going. It's cool to have a computer so tough you don't use a case. (and years later to be debating replacing it because new machines are faster, not because it's broken.)
ygd 16y ago
I have a Toshiba Satellite (Dual-Core 1.6 GHz) with Ubuntu 10.04 extended on an external monitor (19") and an old Compaq desktop (Dual-Core 2.0 GHz) with Windows XP on a 26" monitor.
chanux 16y ago
HP mini note 2133
d0nk 16y ago
Primary non-development machine (gaming/entertainment): i7 920 @ 2.8ghz, 6gb ddr3 1600, XFX Radeon HD 5770, Win7 Pro Laptop (most of my dev and schoolwork is done on this): Thinkpad SL500 (2.0ghz Core2duo, 2gb ram) Dualboot ArchLinux (main/default) w/ Awesome/Xmonad and Win7 (for visual studio and dj software). Netbook (eeepc 900A): ArchLinux, mostly used for IRC/web when on the run. Much of my web and non-gui programming is done via ssh to my server in vim, so OS doesnt really matter to me.
JangoSteve 16y ago
A Macbook (black) with a triple-monitor display (internal display + 2 x 24" Acer 1080p monitors on either side). I'm using the EVGA UV Plus+16, which is a USB-to-DVI adapter for the second external monitor, which is really nice, but it only allows the one monitor to go up to 1680x1050, so I just use that monitor for email, IM, IRC, etc, where it doesn't really matter.
- mitchellhislop 16y ago
  Are you happy with the EVGA adapter? I have been looking for a solution to do exactly what you are doing.
  - JangoSteve 16y ago
    Yes, it works exactly as advertised, and my humble little macbook doesn't seem to have any problems processing with it. The text is a little fuzzy, though, because the UV16 only goes up to 1680x1050 in widescreen format, while my monitor is 1080p. But apparently EVGA recently came out with the UV19 which says it supports 1920x1200, and Buy.com has it cheaper than I paid for the UV16, so I'm strongly considering upgrading.
    - mitchellhislop 16y ago
      Thanks a ton. Do you find that two externals really help?
      - JangoSteve 16y ago
        That seems like a loaded question ;-) It helps tremendously for me, but everyone is different.
vascoconde 16y ago
13.3" MacBook Pro (2010) and a 23" external display (1080p)
misterbwong 16y ago
For ASP/Windows Dev: An AMD quad core cobbled together from spare parts. Cost about $300 and works like a charm. For iPhone and Android programming: MBP 13.3"
mcknz 16y ago
Seriously, no one has a Commodore? I figured there had to be at least one....
tbrownaw 16y ago
At work: slightly old Centrino Duo laptop with I think 2GB ram (due to be upgraded very soon), 1280x800 screen plus 2x 1280x1024 external screens. Runs XP SP2 (SP3 failed to install for some reason, maybe I'll try again in safe mode...). At home: Athlon II x4 with 8GB ram (I usually seem to use around 4GB of that), SSD (one of the Indilinx Barefoot ones) plus large platter drive, 2x 2048x1180 screens. Runs Debian Testing/Unstable, plus occasional VirtualBox instances. I also have an almost-netbook running XP SP3, which is too underpowered to do much local development on or watch high-res youtube movies but makes a nice web+ssh terminal for lighter tasks or travel. It's fairly small, and has about 7 hours of battery life (getting decent CPU power with similar size and life would have been way out of my budget, especially since that's what the desktop is for).
Qz 16y ago
Custom-built: * Intel Core2 E8600 @3.33Ghz * 1 GB ram (so behind I know) * Vista but soon to be Win7 (tried linux but it was disappointing) * Two 22inch Samsung monitors @ 1650x1080 * Crazy video card that is louder than the rest of my computer (when the fan starts up) It's almost 2 years old now, but still fast enough to run all the latest games on max settings without flinching. I don't play as many games though lately. I've also got some crappy gateway laptop with a buggy touchpad driver that I only use when my desktop is on the fritz.
there 16y ago
http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2010/03/28/the_setup/ http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2010/03/28/the_setup/ i think it would be neat if _the setup_ (http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/) had a version where anyone could submit their responses and people could vote them up. a lot of the people they "interview" are really uninteresting and i'm sure there's a lot more unique setups out there being used by people that aren't famous.
- swah 16y ago
  usesthat.com! lets do it
- technomancy 16y ago
  > i think it would be neat if _the setup_ (http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/) had a version where anyone could submit their responses The nice thing about the Web is that it's distributed: http://technomancy.us/137 http://technomancy.us/137 Spoiler: Thinkpad X200s, standing desk, vertical-orientation external display, custom keyboard setup attached to my pants.
  - there 16y ago
    i created a setups subreddit to post them to, but for some reason it got banned. i'm trying to get a reddit moderator to help. http://reddit.com/r/setups/ http://reddit.com/r/setups/
    - there 16y ago
      it's been unbanned, post away.
mitchellhislop 16y ago
Main: 13" MacBook, with snow leopard, and VM's for Ubuntu and Windows. This gets hooked up to externals wherever I am (Office, home, coworking). This gets paired with a Magic Mouse (best groomsman gift ever), and it has been a solid laptop since I got it. At home, I also have my girlfriends old Dell E1505 laptop that I am converting to a torrent and media center, which will live under the flatscreen. Not noticing too many people using a laptop stand. I have a cheap one from Ikea, which really works well.
HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
Refurb HP 2.6 GHz machine with XP that I got cheap from TigerDirect a couple years ago. There's also a server on the network running FC5, but I don't remember its particulars. Hanging off the HP are a single 19" monitor, original IBM 5150 keyboard, B&W laser printer, Atmel AVR In Circuit Emulator, AVR ISP programmer, serial cable for whatever hardware I need to talk to at the moment and a Bluetooth Class 2 dongle for my Bluetooth-enabled hardware projects. I keep meaning to build a USB-controlled desk lamp, but never have the time...
kxs 16y ago
e8400, 4GB Ram, 9800GT, Windows 7 x64, 22" Dell 2209WA, happy hacking keyboard <3, razer diamondback But I'm hoping to be able to replace that machine in the near future with a `smarttop', preferably something like the marvell ebox or similar spec-wise (hopefully cortex a9) My wm of choice has always been 'pekwm'
jseliger 16y ago
You can see my setup here: http://jseliger.com/2010/05/02/writing-space-2010 http://jseliger.com/2010/05/02/writing-space-2010 . You can see a 24" iMac (the screen space is, to my mind, more valuable than the processor speed) with an external monitor and a Kinesis Advantage). [EDIT: Note also the desk -- a Maxon 1000 series with a Humanscale keyboard tray. It's a good combination because you can adjust the tray to keep your arms at a 90 degree angle and the desk is really solid.) My family's space is here: http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the-trade%E2%80%94what-a-grant-writer-should-have/ http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the-trade%E2%80%... .
- gprisament 16y ago
  +1 for the Kinesis, great keyboard, fixed my wrist pain!
  - jseliger 16y ago
    I'm a fan too; you can see from this review: http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/ http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/ that I was initially somewhat ambivalent... until I switched back to a normal keyboard, at which point I realized just how nice the Advantage is.
tezza 16y ago
Quad core Q5550 , 8GB ram, Vista x64 cygwin with extensive use of mintty Eclipse for everything 2 * 24" Monitors Microsoft X6 Keyboard Taskflash LED readout [I make this ;) ] Velociraptor 300GB + ~3TB of sundry disk space LTO-2 tape drive (unf, requires SCSCI card too) VMWare used extensively for linux dev Linode for internet accessible hosts Virgin Media 50Mbit cable internet -- Also a Thinkpad W500 with an Intel X-25M for when my baby comes along in October and I'm kicked out of my home office
harshpotatoes 16y ago
My main is an old desktop, amd athlon xp 2400, nvidia nforce2 motherboard, and nvidia fx 7600 graphics card, dual 17in monitors, running win7. 5 years old, still does everything i need like a champ. My laptop is a 6year old off brand celeron 1.7ghz processor, running debian stable. Still works fine, albeit a little big. I will upgrade when things break.
known 16y ago
Mine is SOTEC laptop I bought at Nakano, Tokyo.
mambodog 16y ago
1. Macbook Pro 13". I prefer it to the 15" I used to have, as the most important factor for me is portability. The 13" is effortless to tote, and fits comfortably into even small bags. 2. Core i7-860 based hackintosh, Samsung 24" monitor. It's essentially a cheap Mac Pro. It has all the power and screen real-estate I need to complement the laptop, especially for 3D work (Silo, Maya), and music production (Logic). I write music that is heavy on complex effects chains, and I like to keep it all realtime, so I definitely appreciate the extra power, which I wouldn't be able to afford in a real Mac desktop. Speaking of music production, I use a Focusrite Saffire soundcard, for its nice-sounding mic preamps, and KRK Rokit 8 studio monitors, which sound pretty decent. I've got some M-Audio MIDI controllers which are of decent quality and not too pricey. Also, a friend gave me his unused Apple Keyboard, which I use with my desktop. I know, it's a small crappy keyboard, but that's the best part, it is a much more dynamic element of my desk space than a big, bulky keyboard would be. Also, I like the fact the layout is identical to that of the Macbook keyboard.
dchest 16y ago
I have 3 MacBooks (Pro, Air and unibody white), and use as a primary machine the one that works (i.e. not in repair) -- currently, MacBook Air. I had to underclock it with CoolBook to 800 MHz so that it could work without overheating. I can't believe I spent more than $7500 for something like this.
Random_Person 16y ago
Three things actually: 2.33 GHz Dual Core Dell with 2gb RAM and Win 7 1.6 Core 2 Duo Systemax laptop (15.4 widescreen) with 4GB ram and Win 7/Zenwalk Linux Dell Mini9 with 2GB and Zenwalk Linux
elHeffe 16y ago
Work: Dell Optiplex 960 x3 on a KVM. Room(Afghanistan): Dell Mini 10v Hackintosh / Asus EEE Box PC running Win 7 / Ubunutu 10.04 Home: iMac 20" from a couple of years ago / PowerBook G4 12" The worst of them all is the freakin Dell Optiplex's at work, but what can I do? I love the portability of the Hackintosh and am thinking of installing Ubuntu on it as well, but I do love my Mac OS X.
dalenkruse 16y ago
Self-built desktop with a Q9550 CPU and 4GB RAM running Kubuntu. Dual 23" LCD montitors. I can dual-boot into Windows XP when I get gaming or flight-sim urges. I also have a Dell E1505 laptop (also running Kubuntu) that I use when I need to be mobile.
PStamatiou 16y ago
17-inch MacBook Pro with RAID 0 Intel SSDs: http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-apple-macbook-pro-raid-0-array-with-2-intel-x25-m-ssds http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-apple-macbook-pro-raid-0-arr... and a small Asus EEE PC (1005HA) with Ubuntu 10.04 for commuting/etc, usually tethered to my Nexus One with froyo. http://paul.posterous.com/reading-and-taking-notes-on-abookapart http://paul.posterous.com/reading-and-taking-notes-on-abooka...
waratuman 16y ago
Intel Core i7 930, Archlinux + openbox, 13" Macbook
swah 16y ago
What would you buy today, a Macbook Pro 13" or 15" ? I ask because the processor is very different (Core 2 Duo vs I5/7)... Also, can a 13" drive an 30" cinema display?
defdac 16y ago
Home couch-hacking: Dell XPS M1530, T8300 (2*2.4 GHz), 4 GB ram, 15" 1920p screen, 7200 rpm disk, Vista 32-bit (so yea, only 3,5 GB ram..). Work: HP with about the same specs but with external keyboard and 24" monitor and slower disk.
macvijay1985 16y ago
A dell vostro 13 with Ubuntu 10
jfager 16y ago
13" MacBook (first unibody model) driving a 24" Dell U2410. Microsoft Natural 4000 Ergonomic Keyboard. I just started trying to go mostly mouseless using Optimal Layout and vimperator, which together cover about 85% of what I ever need one for.
convel 16y ago
2 notebooks, 2 desktop pc
dualboot 16y ago
Laptop : MacBook 13" Unibody (late 2009) 2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB Seagate "Hybrid" (4GB NAND). Desktop #1 : Win7-64 - 23" LCD 2048x1152 Core i5-750(Quad 2.5Ghz), 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5770 1GB, 1TB Seagate System drive, 1.5TB Seagate Storage Desktop #2 : MacOS 10.6.4 (Hackintosh) - 23" LCD 2048x1152 Intel Q6600(Quad 2.4Ghz) 8GB RAM, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB, 1TB System Drive, 1.5TB Storage Fileserver : Windows Home Server 1.4Ghz AMD Geode 1GB RAM 160gb System drive 8TB of total storage space. My two desktops have my 23" LCD's side by side and I control both with one keyboard/mouse (Win7-64 machine is the server) via Synergy+ with an SSH tunnel. I'm really happy with this setup.
shareme 16y ago
HP AMD 64 dual core 4gm ram 400 gig hd 19" LCD Logitech Mouse and Keyboard OS; Ubuntu 10.04 My next workstation, I am building myself.
buro9 16y ago
HP Z800 with 2 x X5560 Quad core CPU, 24GB ECC RAM coupled with an NEC 2690WUXi2 26" monitor. That's for home hacking. The work one is a Mac Pro with similar spec. The home system is dual-booted to Windows Server 2008 and Ubuntu. I do this so that I have a work mode and a play mode... play being Ubuntu. Firing up Windows means I only do SharePoint work and since rebooting isn't instant I keep working. I realise I could just install Ubuntu in a Hyper-V but I purposefully don't do that so that I get things done.
bch 16y ago
I'm surprised there are only two references to BSD so far. NetBSD -current on ThinkPad T410, dwm, Xemacs, xterm I probably could suffer to build a desktop for farming-out builds to, etc., but I haven't. Always want portability, though :)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mahmud 16y ago
Thinkpad R51 with 1GB of RAM, 1.5GHz single-core processor and 40GB storage. It's running Windows XP. An external WD disk and an external laptop mouse for when I am editing images. I have the most spartan setup out among all the programmers that I know, but I have made wonderful things with it. My fiancee jokes it's a piece of junk, but I tell her that we made $1020 for every dollar we spent on the laptop, used ;-)
pstinnett 16y ago
15" Macbook Pro i5 and 24" iMac Core 2 Duo
RK 16y ago
Home: (Coming today) AMD 2.8 GHz 6 core, 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 10.04. 23" and 15" monitors Mobile: Asus EeePC 900 with EasyPeasy Work: some Intel quad core, 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 10.04, 21" monitor On the way: AMD 48 core machine
joshkaufman 16y ago
MacBook Pro 15" with i7 processor and 8GB RAM, 24" Apple Cinema Display at a standing desk, Logitech Nano mouse, Rode Podcaster USB condenser mic, Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, and Canon Vixia HV40 straight into Quicktime via firewire for video.
Portnull 16y ago
Trusty little white MacBook 2.1GHz/4GB running Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid. I have an external full sized Apple keyboard, mighty mouse and Raindesign MStand, and I swapped out the 120GB drive for a faster 500GB one - and that's it. I'm looking for a good 1920x1200 screen, that's the most my MB will take, but there's no hurry.
ElliotH 16y ago
Hardware: - Core i7 920 - 6gb DDR3 RAM - ATi 5970 for graphics - currently RMA'd - 19" HP Display awaiting upgrade. Software: - Ubuntu for working (GNOME) - Arch for hacking (GNOME) - Windows 7 for games Portable: - Dell Mini 10v base model with Ubuntu - College issue Core 2 laptop with Arch
shade 16y ago
At home, I have a Core i5 desktop with 4GB of RAM and dual 22" monitors running Windows 7, and also a 13" unibody MacBook which I bought back in October 2008 -- on the day they were released, actually. In the past I used the desktop for quite a bit of gaming as well as remoting in to my work PC with Remote Desktop. These days I find I don't really game very much anymore, and I can connect to my work VPN/RDP through the Mac anyway if I need to work from home. Consequently, I'm on the MacBook almost 100% of the time. I'm actually considering getting a Mac Mini, moving the big HDDs out of the desktop into external enclosures attached to that, then getting rid of the Windows box and the older 22" display. I suppose I could also just get a NAS, but I like knowing I have a spare machine around in case my MacBook dies. Work is a Q6600 with 3GB of RAM running Vista Business, since I'm currently working with mostly with .NET.
kuzux 16y ago
I have a 15" Dell Inspiron 6400, given by my school for free 3 years ago. 1.6 GHz Centrino Duo 2gb ram ubuntu 10.04 gnome+xmonad as window manager internal hard disk space is absurdly low(80gb, I think), I have a 500gb external drive, though.
- lanstein 16y ago
  free with paid admission, that is ;)
jarek 16y ago
Time and again I find myself getting back to my Thinkpad X31. It's 2004 vintage, past its five-year extended warranty, and has an Intel processor from back when their top of the line was still branded as a Pentium. It's the size of a university notebook and weighs 1.6 kg. It's as good as I can expect from the form factor. I have a Thinkpad T60p with a gorgeous UXGA IPS I'm looking to sell because it's too much computer. I have a Thinkpad R50p with a gorgeous UXGA IPS screen I'm going to use instead, but haven't gotten around to setting it up properly yet. I have a desktop with some low-end AMD dual-core, 4 GB of RAM, and a 23" Samsung 16:9 TN screen I've been trying to use as a VM and file server, but the process isn't quite done yet either. Yes, there is a pattern. I have a couple of Nokia tablets (N800 and N810) I use when travelling. The N810 with Opera Mobile comes decently close to duplicating how I use my X31 (after obvious allowances for size difference), but it's been going through some software and perhaps hardware difficulties lately. Still, I was impressed — it got me through two weeks without an x86 machine pretty well. I'm currently considering removing Windows 7 from the X31 (aided by its efforts to implode and steal my files) and replacing it with a basic Linux-based OS like easypeasy. 7 is pretty great when it isn't breaking, but it's almost too much OS for my use. One of these days I'll build my laptop for the ages: a X61s loaded up with 4 or 8 GB of RAM, a nice SSD, and a 1400x1050 IPS screen swapped in. Not yet.
slowpoison 16y ago
I use a Dell Latitude D630 as my primary/only machine. It has a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel, with 4GB of memory. Serves my needs well - which include a lot of Chrome tabs open (around 30), development in Eclipse with some decent size projects. I also develop using vim/gcc, but that's generally lighter-weight relative to Eclipse. I like having only one system to do all my work. I don't have to sync across multiple machines. I do take backups every week and use external keyboard/monitor to round it off ergonomically.
cmelbye 16y ago
15" Macbook Pro
weaksauce 16y ago
15" MBP(2.8GHz core 2, 8GB ram, 500GB 7200RPM seagate) w/ 30" Dell Ultrasharp. Magicmouse with magicprefs to allow for the middle mouse click. USB adapter to PS/2 Natural Keyboard. Sizeup and cinch for keyboard window management. (makes me feel like a robot, but in a good way.) xGestures for mouse gesture support. I cannot live without this utility. This is by far the best setup I have ever worked on.
nico_h 16y ago
A Macbook Air (Gen 2) with the SSD. Sometimes connected to a screen + bluetooth magic mouse & keyboard. I sold my more powerful 15" MacBook Pro because it was too heavy. The Air is powerful enough for what the java dev and iphone + web app tinkering that I do. I really love the freedom afforded by the light weight. It makes it much easier to program and procrastinate away from the desk (in bed, armchair ...). I just wish it didn't overheat so easily, especially in bed, but flashblock and click2flash help a lot. I am trying to use a fixed height stand up desk, but I don't feel I have the correct height yet.
semanticist 16y ago
I'm writing this on a current-gen MacBook Pro 13", which replaced a Samsung NC10 Hackintosh, which I absolutely loved and really wish Apple had made so that it would work properly. Despite being almost the same spec-wise, apart from the much smaller screen, it's almost entirely replaced my 24" iMac pretty much solely because I can hack from the sofa which is a bit more social and also a lot more comfortable. I recently replaced my colocated server with a Dell R210, which I think might be my new favourite rack server. It's so tiny and cute - and draws hardly any power. Sure, it's only a single-socket board with four DIMM slots, but that's just enough for me. And who would have expected TWO internal USB ports and an eSATA port? Nice little touches, there.
Pinckney 16y ago
A 7 year old (do I win?) IBM R31. 384MB RAM, ~1GHz single core. Debian + XP (for gaming only). I'm planning to switch to xmonad once I finish learning Haskell.
jacquesm 16y ago
I don't hack nearly as much as I would like to so that wasn't the deciding factor in choosing a box to work on, this machine is as big as it is mostly because of my browsing habits. Hundreds of tabs open is not rare at all when I dig in to a subject and I've seen the browser top 10G resident. Amazing how much memory it will eat up. And when I do program (especially if it is in java) the IDE will use what the browser doesn't.
hga 16y ago
Amusingly enough, I too have a self-built AMD dual-core but with 8GB ram, Debian stable lenny (using the stock gnome) and a 24" WUXGA (1920×1200) monitor.
sjs382 16y ago
My main machine for the last 6 months has been a EeePC 1000HE netbook. I keep an Athlon 64 3200+ in the basement thaat has extra storage and a larger monitor for design work, but it rarely gets used anymore. My at work machine is a Pentium D with 2 23" screens in landscape.
dsantos 16y ago
my setup http://www.flickr.com/photos/ioctl/4566368145/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ioctl/4566368145/
maco 16y ago
ZaReason UltraLap SR (c. 2008) 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 250GB hard disk iwl4965 802.11n wifi Intel 965 graphics (yay open drivers!) 13" 1280x800 screen best laptop keyboard there is (clicky! like a Model M! *heaven*)
wowik 16y ago
15' Macbook Pro with 27' Dell monitor for work. Would love to stick 4 additional gigs of RAM and SSD into macbook :) Previous Mac Mini with Time Capsule, Creative EMU USB soundcard and 37' samsung full hd display for home and media content. PS3 for gaming, Kindle for reading.
serichsen 16y ago
Dual-core Acer notebook, Gentoo, stumpwm, Emacs.
wglb 16y ago
Well, the day job has a 13" aluminum macbook pro. Very nice, outfitted with everything ruby, blackbag, clojure, sbcl, external kenisis keyboard. Home has another white 13" macbook used for time on the train with one of them there usb cellular thingies. Big development system is 8 gigs two core 400gig asus MB driving a samsung 204bw, running ubuntu next-to-latest, intel gig nic. Second montior driven by a 900mhz amd with 200gig drive, running ubuntu latest on another 204bw. The windows box is a 64bit gigabyte MB running 32 bit w2k with bunches of scsi drives and a scsi DAT tape drive. In the basement are six $300 systems (asus mn2k or such) with dual or single core, 2 gigs (one with 4 gigs), dual intel gig nics, one inboard nic each, ubuntu latest or next to latest. And there is a cluster driven by a caos 2gig 3-nic box, with 7 diskless work nodes with 2 gig ram, 2 nics each. With something like $400, proximity to Tiger Direct, a monitor, keyboard and a mouse, you can build a very respectable development system the next day with one hour of assembly time. Then there are the recycled bunch, two running openbsd for firewalls. These are two generations ago, castoff from friends who bought their kids new boxes. One bsd box that used to run the church website, a FIT pc running latest ubuntu that I thought might be useful (might be using it for day job if it weren't for VM Fusion--load it up with backtrack 4). Then there are two recycled "media" pcs, 32bits, one of which drives the TV, and the other that, well, i think it is running ntp, and maybe a website for some friends. With all this, you would think I am a system administrator, but the closest to being an SA was when I wrote the first version of the Mark Williams Coherent Administrator's Guide. If Erin were to check my homework, I would certainly flunk. What is fun at parties is to fire up the 40 inch TV with the media PC behind it and ask your dinner guests' address, and show them the bird's-eye-view of their house. Oh, and be cautious about pulling it up with zillow. That could get to be a not-so-positive experience at dinner time.

49 points by lukeqsee 16y ago

Personally I have a self-built AMD dual-core, 4gb ram, archlinux & gnome/openbox (looking into using awesome wm, any suggestions?), a 17" and a 19" monitor. What do you hack on?

sami_b 16y ago

An old laptop (not working at the moment) and an old desktop both running Ubuntu 10.04. When I say old, I mean 3+ years old. Planning to buy a new one some time soon, probably with the low-med spec range. Don't need much really. Also nice to see this many Ubuntu users.

boris 16y ago

Office hardware: Dual Nehalem Xeon 2.4Ghz with 12GB RAM and two RAID'ed Cheetah SAS drives, all in Supermicro chassis. make -j 16 all the way! Travel hardware: ThinkPad T61 Software on both: 64-bit Debian unstable with xorg/sawfish wm (no Gnome or KDE), emacs, screen, g++, make, etc.

jaddison 16y ago

Lenovo W500, 4GB, 15", Windows 7 x64. Laptop screen size doesn't matter as I have two 24" Samsung 2433BW LCD monitors mounted on an Ergotron Dual Side by Side LX adjustable arm kit. The second monitor is hooked up via Lenovo's USB DisplayLink adapter, which works quite well. I can't recommend the Ergotron mounting kit enough. One of my LCDs is rotated to a vertical position for web browsing, documenting and coding.

fijter 16y ago

a 13.3" Aluminium MacBook with Snow Leopard, 4GB ram, 24" Philips TFT, Magic Mouse and a Logitech DiNovo keyboard in combination with a Webfaction account and a Linode VPS.

joshfinnie 16y ago

This is an interesting question after reading your box. I started off with my computer infatuation with a setup very much like yours. But lately, I am so much more interested in portability that I have gotten rid of everything except for a HP dv4 (ADM dual-core, 4GB RAM) that I run Ubuntu on th ssh into my webfaction hosting account and writing my thesis in latex. The size can't be beat, and it does everything I need it to without being the size of a house (granted I don't game on it...) Maybe if I had more space than a 600sqft apt, I would still have a mini-supercomputer, but laptops are amazing lately.

lrm242 16y ago

Desktop: Quad Core 2.5Ghz, 8GB ram, 6TB raid-5, arch linux running xmonad. "Old" laptop: Macbook Pro, 4GB ram "New" laptop: Asus EeePc 1201N running arch linux.

binarymax 16y ago

Corei7 930, 12G Ram, RAID mirror 2x 140GB 15K rpm drives + 1TB storage, NVidia GTS 250 (Bought pre-fermi will update to a tesla soon), 24" Synchmaster

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

thomas11 16y ago

My only machine is an 11.6" Acer Aspire AS1410. It's a great machine, especially for it's very low price. Plus an external 27" display and a few 2.5" hard disks that's all I need. My DE is Gnome, at home and at work. I live mostly in Emacs & chromium anyway.

cristianca 16y ago

13.3 MacBook Pro, 4GB ram with Snow Leopard

forcetenhen 16y ago

Quad core 2.8Ghz, 8GB RAM, 2TB internal, further 2.5TB in rats nest of external disks. 2 x 19" monitors. Running W7 and Snow Leopard via VM for iDev, Plus a crappy old laptop I had to upgrade to 1.5GB RAM after it came with 512MB and Vista. Used only in cases of extreme laziness.

jasoncartwright 16y ago

2.66GHz i7 15" Macbook Pro, 4Gb RAM, 24" monitors at home and work. Mac keyboards, MS mice, a few TB of external HDs, wireless headphones. Used to be into self-built machines, but prefer stuff with a combined warranty that 'just works' nowadays.

stewiecat 16y ago
Another MS mouse mac user! I absolutely love MS mice and have two identical models at home and work. Their OS and office software may suck but the mice are awesome.

draegtun 16y ago

Since January I've been using an Apple iMac 27inch, 2.8GHz quad-core Intel core i7, 8GB ram, 1TB hard disk, Apple GB keyboard (not wireless) & Magic mouse running on Snow Leopard (Mac OSX 10.6). Before January it was an original Intel iMac 24inch running Tiger (Mac OSX 10.4) which I'd been using for over 3 years: http://transfixedbutnotdead.com/2006/12/14/my-workspace-with-my-shiny-new-apple-imac/ http://transfixedbutnotdead.com/2006/12/14/my-workspace-with...

rufugee 16y ago

Work: custom-built dual quad core Xeon E5520@2.27GHz, 12 GB RAM, dual 22" dell monitors (Ubuntu Lucid) Home: * custom-built quad core AMD Phenom (Ubuntu Lucid), 8 GB ram, single 22" monitor * Lenovo T400s (Ubuntu Lucid) * Macbook Pro (rarely used, bought during period of irrational exuberance on potential app store sales)

jasonlotito 16y ago

i7 920, Windows 7 64 bit 12G RAM nVidia 275 (Almost 2G of RAM) 22" Monitor ATM, as the wife is using the other one) 320G primary Drive, 1TB slave, 1.5 TB backup Plantronics Wireless Headphones 3 Printers. Yes, 3. 1 Canon Jet, 1 B/W laser w/fax/scanner, 1 laser color. Really, don't ask. Blame my wife for them. The most difficult thing at the moment is the single monitor at only 22". Really looking to invest in a nice 27", but with so many other things needing doing, I really can't justify it at the moment. It's a nice system. Before this, I was usually a generation behind. This was the "let's really splurge and go all out" system. =) Encouraged very much by the wife. And yes, I do end up using the system and it's resources quite heavily at times for video rendering while still using the computer. It's a funny story how I got this system. See, my wife is a Mac Geek. And she's not some clueless Mac Geek. She was installing and running Debian back in the 90s. She knows her networking, hardware, and computers. Her Mac love came about when she went back to school for compute graphics. Anyways, she's a Mac Geek, so for several years now, our home has been a Mac v.s. PC environment. Good forbid something happens with my PC (or her Mac), as the other won't waste any time before coming up with some snarky comment. She's really good at this. Anyways, when I saw the new iMacs, the 27" i7 version caught my eye. With the constant struggle of getting a Mac and PC to work together, I finally informed my wife that I would be getting a Mac, selling my PC, and moving to Apple. She rejoiced. We made plans, but with me starting a new job, and with wanting to wait until after the new year to give them time to fix any potential first-run defects, we planned to get one in January. However, come December 25th,I learned she decided to buy me Windows 7 (which I had yet to pick up, mostly because I'd just been too lazy to do it). This resulted in me deciding that I should upgrade my computer, and that, as we say, is that. She had her chance. Anyways, sorry for the long post, and the rambling. >_<

Qz 16y ago
I've decided that the splurge method is the way to go. I spent almost $3000 on this machine 2 years ago, and it has yet to even flinch at any of the new games or software I throw at it. Much better than buying a new $1000 system every year that makes you want to buy something new only a few months in.

javert 16y ago

I use awesome wm on archliux, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Definitely go for it. You can pretty much do everything very efficiently from the keyboard, which just "feels right" to me (not to mention being way more convenient). You can also manage way more windows in an efficient way. The previous two sentences could probably be said about a lot of "tiling" window managers, honestly, but I think awesome is a great choice.

lukeqsee 16y ago
Any specific tweaks/hacks/configs I should look at? Otherwise I'll just dive in ... and hope for the best. =)
- javert 16y ago
  I'd say, just dive in. Be sure to read man awesome. You'll want to customize things a bit, most likely... rc.lua (the config file) is very hackable.

pcestrada 16y ago

Desktop: Intel i7 980x 6 core cpu, 6GB ram, Nvidia 480gtx, Intel 160 GB SSD drive + 2x1TB HDD running Windows 7 64-bit with a 30" Monitor flanked by a pair of 20" Monitors in portrait mode (4960x1600 screen space).

proee 16y ago
This is my exact setup! (minus the 2x1TB HDD) http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5986/imag0011w.jpg http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5986/imag0011w.jpg

Hovertruck 16y ago

Work: Dual-Core Power Mac, 5GB RAM, Snow Leopard, 24" Dell Monitor Home: 13in Macbook Pro, 4GB RAM, Snow Leopard, 24" Dell Monitor. Before I bought the Macbook it was a 15" Ubuntu/Win7 Gateway Laptop with 3GB RAM.

hackermom 16y ago

13.3" MacBook Pro, running OS X 10.6. I gave up stationary computers almost 6 years ago, and haven't looked back once.

zck 16y ago

Self-built computer: AMD 2.8 GHz quad-core, 4 gig ram, running Ubuntu 10.04 . Keyboard: black Unicomp SpaceSaver (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html). Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder gaming mouse (http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming-Mouse/dp/B000TTQFIS/ref=sr_1_cc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1278943278&sr=1-3-catcorr http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming-...). 2x 21.5" emachines 1920x1080 monitor (http://emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=E211H_bmd http://emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=E211H_bmd). The only important user-facing software on my machine: Emacs, Firefox, Pidgin, VLC. I installed Stumpwm (http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/ http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/), but went back to Gnome until I have the time to learn, and am less ego-depleted.

petercooper 16y ago

I basically buy everything Apple releases. So I've got an 8 core Mac Pro loaded to the hilt and.. it's sat in my shed unused for the past 9 months! Once the new 27" iMac came out, that was it. Perfect form factor, "fast enough", a far better screen than my 30" ACD.. so it turns out a machine half the price of my Mac Pro set up totally replaced it. And as there's no market for used Mac Pros, it seems, I now have a full Mac Pro + 30" setup sitting around entirely unused (and a 17" MBP - once I realized I don't really like or need a notebook).

draegtun 16y ago
I came to same conclusion because originally budgeted for a Mac Pro + 30inch screen but instead went for the iMac 27inch (and used money saved on extra external HD's, Drobo & software and still walked away with large pocketful of money!).
bmelton 16y ago
If you're looking for a home for it, feel free to shoot me an email.
izak30 16y ago
You could always just plug it in and use it for folding@home or something. Also, the 27" iMac works as an input diplay, and it will also take that second monitor nicely (if you can deal with tons of space)
ashleyw 16y ago
Surely somebody would give you a good price for it! How much are you asking?
- petercooper 16y ago
  I like to find successful eBay auctions to gauge value but they're highly variable since it's not commonly sold kit and I've upgraded it to 8GB of memory, more hard drives, and what not. For an 8 core 2.8GHz Mac Pro with 8GB memory, I've seen everything from £1500ish to £2200 (which is more than it cost new!! - I suspect it's because the older 8 core Xeons are faster than the current 4 core ones that replaced them). Given that, I'd take £1500 for it. On the 30" ACD front, it's as-new, little used over the last year, no dead pixels, the same as the current £1199 one basically. I think I'd take £700 for it just because it's taking up a lot of space. On the 17" MBP, I haven't done my research yet - it's a stock 17" 2.66GHz unibody MBP with 4GB RAM, no dead pixels, heathly battery. Cost £1799 new, I think. No good auctions to watch on eBay it seems, someone has the same machine for £1439 BIN. If I had to stab in the dark, though, it's probably worth £1300.

r00k 16y ago

For god's sake man, upgrade those monitors! You don't actually do development on 17" screen do you?

lukeqsee 16y ago
whoops... meant 17" and 19".

dmm 16y ago

Asus Eee PC 1000HD * 1.6Ghz Atom * 1 GiB ram * 10" 1024x600 display * OpenBSD (recent snapshot) * StumpWM is the window manager * emacs is the editor I use it as terminal to login to my ps3 running Debian sid for cell processor development. I use profont to let me fit a lot of code on the small screen.

cytzol 16y ago
I've heard some people say that only being able to see a small amount of code at a time forces good programming practices, compared to what you'd be able to do with a large monitor. Do you think that having such a small screen helps in this way?
- patrickk 16y ago
  I would say that's bullshit. Tried using a netbook to do some web development, and the small screen, keyboard and lethargic hardware made it very frustrating. Horrible compared to using a big monitor and powerful desktop.
  - billswift 16y ago
    I bought an Asus Eee several years ago for writing away from home, but discovered too late that the keyboard is much too small for me to type comfortably.
    - dmm 16y ago
      Was it the 10" model? I found the keyboard on the 7" to be too small to touch type but the 10" is just large enough after some adjustment.
    - patrickk 16y ago
      I got a Dell Mini 10v and turned it into a hackintosh for Rails development...unfortunately it's useless apart from browsing the web and reading PDFs. The small keyboard can be worked around by plugging in a proper Apple keyboard....but that's not very portable :-(

dan_sim 16y ago

a fast-enough computer with ubuntu 10.04... that's all I need.

postfuturist 16y ago
Yeah, I've got a cheap-ass Compaq laptop, that cost like $400 a year ago with Ubuntu 10.04 on it. 2 GB ram and a dual-core 64 bit AMD processor is plenty to get work done efficiently, especially with Vim + Bash as my primary work environment. I can run Windows XP in a virtualbox instance without issue for IE testing.

ErrantX 16y ago

What do you hack on? Today; our biggest distributed cluster (several thousand machines, 4 heads). Which is very fun :) Usually I hack on various computers; either a water cooled Amd Opteron [the older ones that overclocked like stink] or Intel Core 2 Duo based machines. OS is usually Feodra core 11/Ubuntu (at work) or Mint (at home). Synced with Dropbox, shared KB/Mouse using Synergy.

grammaton 16y ago
I think you officially win the thread....

abyssknight 16y ago

Sheesh. Okay, here we go: Hackerspace Kit ASUS 1000HA 2gb RAM upgrade BT4 / Windows Dual Boot Arduino Diecimella Freelance / Personal Kit MacBook Pro 2,2 2gb RAM ATI Radeon x1600 Boot Camp / VMWare Fusion XP Dual Boot Gaming Kit Custom Built i7 Rig i7 920 6gb RAM Nvidia GTX 260 Dual 19" WS Monitors from Dell Dell Docking Station Work Kit Dell D830 Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz 3.5gb RAM Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M Win XP Dual 19" 4:3 Dell Monitors Dell Docking Station

giantfuzzypanda 16y ago
Try harder.
- abyssknight 16y ago
  Not sure I understand what you're saying. It sounds snarky, but that doesn't fit the HN modus operandi, so I'm hoping I missed something. :)
  - wglb 16y ago
    I think maybe he is impressed.

martin 16y ago

27" i7 iMac with 8GB RAM, attached to a 30" Dell display (3007WFP). I switched about a month ago from a MacBook Pro (attached to the same Dell display), and it's phenomenal. It's the first setup I've ever had that actually feels fast enough to run everything I need (iTunes, Word, Excel, and Windows running in VirtualBox, along with a few instances each of iTerm, Chrome and Textmate) without skipping a beat.

culturestate 16y ago

At work, dual 27" iMacs (one with the Core i7 option + 16GB of RAM, and the other a base 27" model in Target Display Mode) as my workstation, and several XServes and custom Fedora boxes in 3 racks. At home, a first-generation 15" unibody MacBook Pro (2.2ghz C2D, 4GB RAM) hooked to the 24" LED Cinema Display. I also use a last-generation Mac Mini (pre-unibody) as an HTPC.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

dfox 16y ago

Desktop: Core 2 Quad + 8GB RAM with 22" and 24" monitors IBM Model M keyborad + Sun Type 7 mouse (previously I had Type 7 keyboard) Laptop: ThinkPad T60 with Core Duo and 2.5GB RAM

falsestprophet 16y ago

A Macbook Pro. That is all.

JarekS 16y ago
A Macbook Pro 13". That is all.
- brandonkm 16y ago
  This. + Magic Mouse and Lacie firewire speakers. May get the cinema display sometime soon.
  - JarekS 16y ago
    Yes - Cinema display or other nice external monitor. Should boost productivity (although I'm not sure how much).
- stefanobernardi 16y ago
  That's more than enough. I have a MacBook 13" in the office, and when I bring it home I plug it into a 26" Samsung display with mac keyboard and magic mouse, plus various external HDs.
- technomancy 16y ago
  I was really surprised by the weight of this machine. It's also very low-resolution. But the build quality is much-improved over precedessors. If Apple started to compete based on weight and resolution I might consider them, but who knows--maybe they're trying to avoid impinging on the lower-level ipad market.
  - swah 16y ago
    2kg? Positively or negatively? My sister bought this dell (http://www1.la.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/vostro-v13?c=br&l=pt&s=bsd&cs=brbsdt1 http://www1.la.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx...) and its 1.6kg. Everyone loves the weight.

ja27 16y ago

Work: Dell Precision M6400 - Core 2 Duo T9900, 8g RAM, 250g SSD, 1920x1200 17", Win7 64bit Dell 20" LCD Lab full of systems: VMWare ESX, Solaris, Linux, AIX, and more Personal: Asus 1201N - Atom 330 (1.6GHz dual-core), 2g RAM, ION + HDMI, 1366x768 12.1", Win7 32bit

pclark 16y ago

i7 15" (HR) MacBook Pro with SSD. Most expensive, albeit best, thing I've ever bought.

jasonkester 16y ago

I bought a little 12" Lenovo X60 off eBay to take with me on the road. It was the top of the line executive machine a few years back, and they're coming off lease and being refurbished now so you can get one for like $300. Add $100 for a big fast drive, 4GB memory and a new battery and suddenly it's a crazy fast dev machine that you can use on a chicken bus and not sweat too bad when it gets stolen by those Jamaican pickpockets from the American Express commercial (cause hey, it least it wasn't my $2k dev box). The plan was to give it to the girlfriend now that we're home, but I'm finding it hard to go back to my big ol' Dell Latitude. It's tiny, it's fast, it logs me in by reading my fingerprint. She can't haves it. It's mine!!!

davidw 16y ago

Dell Latitude with Ubuntu. Fairly high res display (1920x1200) is the only real distinguishing feature, other than that, it's a pretty average machine. I don't think you need anything that fancy for most programming work these days. More memory is always good, of course.

grammaton 16y ago

Until last week's unfortunate beer spilling incident, I was using a macbook, along with a long standing server instance running Gentoo on RackSpace, with further instances spun up and then disposed of as needed. I have to say I find it kind of amusing how many people on HackerNews use Apple gear.

mitchellhislop 16y ago
Using the Gentoo instance like a VM?
- grammaton 16y ago
  Nope, just SSH into it, treating it as if it where a plain old hosted box.
  - mitchellhislop 16y ago
    I see i see. I love having boxes to do that with. Never tried Gentoo-whats the draw to that?
    - semanticist 16y ago
      I used Gentoo four/five years ago, and the draw was the amount of optimisation available. Everything's compiled from source with optimisation flags for your specific hardware rather than the generic 'works pretty much everywhere' options that are used for pre-built binaries with most distros. The down-side is that it was - at that time, at least - a huge nightmare to maintain and do major upgrades. Almost as bad as CentOS. Waiting for things to compile every time you install something also got boring pretty quickly. I moved to Ubuntu, and I'm now considering moving to just Debian for future VMs I build.

pyronicide 16y ago

Okay, after reading through this thread, there seems to be an interesting trend. Almost everyone has beefy processors and lots of memory .... but it is all hooked up to a 19" monitor. Sure, there are people with the 27" iMacs and 30" monitors, but they sure seem a lot less than I would have guessed. For those of you still using laptop screens, 19" monitors or even 22" monitors, have you tried something bigger? The difference in my productivity between a 30" or 2x24" monitors and the screen on my laptop is palatable. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that given all the cloud computing these days, I'd take a slow system without much memory as my local box if I could get a bigger monitor for it.

robryan 16y ago
I'm the other way, 24 and 22inch monitors with a relatively average machine these days.
- tudorw 16y ago
  Definitely one of my most productive upgrades has been more monitors, I run a 24" in portrait to my left, great for text editing and reading, centre I run a 24" in landscape, to the right I have a 20" attached to a different system and a 8 inch mimo under the center screen to throw media onto, the whole lot rigged to a powered sit/stand workstation :) Downside is power consumption, upside is I don't have to use the light switch as it never goes dark in here... Here's a bit from m$ on the benefits of multi-screen; http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx I remember reading somewhere else that the results of m$'s study into the productivity benefits of larger or more screens did not hit an upper limit. I also design websites now and again and it's great to just drag a page around and preview it on different screen sizes in 'reality', mapping the 'visible' window on a larger monitor is not quite the same thing.

modoc 16y ago

17" MBP (8GB RAM, 256 Corsair SSD) running OS X 1.6, laptop stand, 30" Apple display, keyboard, mouse, speakers, Phillips color LED for bias lighting.

vollmond 16y ago

Personal: Stock Dell Mini 9 (originally planned to go Hackintosh route, but never got around to it. UNR 9.04, use VIm for most everything) Older freecycled Dell Inspiron desktop (~2.0 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu) Work: Lenovo Thinkpad (Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, WinXP) 2x Dell Optiplex desktops (ditto, one has a 17" display, other is dual 17s)

mistermann 16y ago

i7-920 (overclocked to 3.8Ghz), 12GB RAM, 160 GB Intel SSD boot + 2TB Hitachi for storage, 2 x 24" Samsung monitors, Windows 7 Ultimate 64. 4TB HP windows home server for storage and backup. Dell XPS M1330 laptop for the road. (Time for an upgrade)

Zak 16y ago

Primary: Thinkpad W500. Core2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz, 6M cache), 4GB memory, 15" 1680x1050, Ubuntu 10.04. I only have a couple complaints about this machine. The big one is that the screen can't compare to the 1600x1200 IPS panel of my old T60p. Yes, I did prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. The audio ports being located on the front is also annoying. Secondary: Mac Pro (borrowed). Two dual-core Xeon 5150s, 5GB memory, headless most of the time. I use this machine to do the heavy lifting for my text classification work. My experimental data set fits in memory on my laptop, but leaves uncomfortably little free space. It also makes my lap warm. The Mac being about 50% faster in practice than my laptop is a nice perk.

cageface 16y ago

Homebrew i7/24" LCD running Ubuntu 10.04 Dell XPS1530 Running Ubuntu 10.04

futuremint 16y ago

ZaReason Strata Pro 13" w/Core 2 & SSD. Just fast enough for my needs, a ULV processor so I can feel good about not sucking too much energy (the SSD makes up for the lack of CPU power, it still feels 'fast'), and Ubuntu FTW. Eminently portable (3.5lbs), decent resolution on the screen and a nice keyboard (on par if not a little better than my old MacBook Pro's keyboard). I love it as it has just enough of everything I need and not too much.

eel 16y ago

Noisy HP laptop, Core 2 Duo T5550, 3 GB RAM, dual Win 7/Ubuntu. Speaking of computer setups, if anyone is interested in helping my friend obtain one (her old laptop broke), you can read more at http://www.philipfund.com http://www.philipfund.com

GVRV 16y ago

HP Pavilion dv6000 running Windows Vista (gaming) and Ubuntu 10.04 Would love to get more boxes to play around with, but as a broke student, VMs help.

cytzol 16y ago

Before I list my setup, I'd like to ask: What's with all the laptops? I worked off a 15-inch laptop for several years, but after using a desktop, I've completely converted. Laptops give you less screen space and less computational power, and in general I've never liked their keyboards. They're also more expensive (I think?) and trickier to self-build. The only advantage I see is portability, which is understandable, but I think it's more that they're becoming the new default computer type for everyone, rather than having people choose between them and desktops. Anyway, mine: I put together the desktop a couple months back: AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.6GHz, 4GB RAM, and an SSD for the OS and programs. I decided to future-proof myself, after living off that laptop for too long. It's connected to two Acer monitors - one 24-inch, one 23.6-inch, leaving a difference that's enough to irritate me every time I try to align things perfectly. It runs Windows 7 for general use and a virtualised Arch Linux machine for development work. I've tried setting up Windows the way I like it, but when Linux is available I don't think it's worth the effort. The VM does nothing but run Emacs in seamless mode, so everything still works together, and I don't have to worry about window managers. I type in dvorak on a Kinesis Advantage (the black one). I've never had recurring hand problems, but the keyboard setup feels so much nicer to use, I stick with it. That, and a Logitech mouse that I'm ambivalent about. My phone is an HTC Dream (aka the G1), running Cyanogen 2.1. It's been outclassed several times by today's standard of phones, but I'm waiting until it fully breaks down before replacing it. Not sure what with yet, which is a shame, because I like the design, even if the hardware space bar is already starting to go. All in all, I'm happy with what I have.

jaxn 16y ago
I have been using laptops ever since the Pentium 1 days (it was a 133Mhz Thinkpad 310 ED). I have had a few desktops as secondary computers, but having my computer with me has been a way of life for over a decade. That is changing some now that I have an iPad.
epochwolf 16y ago
> What's with all the laptops? I have a 15" Macbook Pro (version just before the aluminum ones) I love being mobile. I'm never at a desk. I'm always at a table or couch somewhere. (I love coffee shops. I'm at one drinking an iced tea right now.) One use case I never envisioned for my laptop was hooking it up to a friend's TV to watch videos. I can store an entire anime series on my laptop. (or loads of rifftrax[1]) When some friends and I want to watch some stuff I just bring my handy case of cables and hook up to their TV and fire up Front Row. (or MPlayer) OSX is pretty good at handling this, my desktop icons stay where I put them when unplug from the TV. [1]: http://rifftrax.com http://rifftrax.com

zackham 16y ago

Fast enough quad-core proc, 8 gb ram, 24" monitor, xmonad on ubuntu. Will probably end up with another monitor here soon, just haven't decided if I should get another 24 or something smaller that I can run vertically.

jaxn 16y ago

13" MacBook Pro + iPad + Bose speakers + iomega backup drive. I will eventually buy a new monitor or two and use a keyboard and mouse at the office.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

phunel 16y ago

Sorry if this is a bit OT, but does anyone have any experience using panasonic toughbooks? I travel fairly extensively and my MBP is basically in tatters (I have enjoyed it immensely, but the hardware has been subpar - battery exploded, screen went dead, power plug nearly caught on fire, HD failure, etc. I've noticed the new ultralight toughbook is out, and thought this loaded with Linux might be an ideal solution. I have no problem paying premiums for tools that work (my assumption with the MBP) but also obviously don't want to buy something that doesn't return the appropriate value. Anyone with any experience with these tools?

mitchellhislop 16y ago
I have used a few different toughbooks, and have been pleased with all of them.
NateLawson 16y ago
I am a big fan of the Panasonic business series. They were originally called "Lets Note" in japan but rebranded with "toughbook" in the US as the business ultralight series. I have a Y4 currently. It is somewhat rugged, but the most important part is that it has every attribute I want: 3.5 lbs, 14" screen at 1400x1050, built-in DVD/RW, 5-7 hour battery life. The keyboard is quite nice also. Basically, I had a Macbook Air with more features in 2006. http://rdist.root.org/2008/02/07/panasonic-cf-y4-laptop-disassembly/ http://rdist.root.org/2008/02/07/panasonic-cf-y4-laptop-disa... If you want to replace the hard drive, you have to disassemble the whole thing. RAM upgrades don't require that though. I'm quite familiar with the BIOS and it's one of the better ones. It works fine with Linux and FreeBSD. They stopped making the Y series with the Y7. The replacement (F8 and F9) annoys me a little because they went to widescreen. I hate widescreen. What you want as a programmer is as many vertical rows as possible, not horizontal. The F9 is 1440x900. You gain 40 horizontal pixels but lost 150 vertical! It also has that weird handle thing but you can ignore it. I'm still happy enough with my Y4 that I haven't replaced it. It's such a good combination of build quality and firmware quality that I'm afraid of anything else.
waivej 16y ago
I know a New York Times photographer that had an unhealthy love of hers. It was so old to be laughable...but it kept going and going. It's cool to have a computer so tough you don't use a case. (and years later to be debating replacing it because new machines are faster, not because it's broken.)

ygd 16y ago

I have a Toshiba Satellite (Dual-Core 1.6 GHz) with Ubuntu 10.04 extended on an external monitor (19") and an old Compaq desktop (Dual-Core 2.0 GHz) with Windows XP on a 26" monitor.

chanux 16y ago

HP mini note 2133

d0nk 16y ago

Primary non-development machine (gaming/entertainment): i7 920 @ 2.8ghz, 6gb ddr3 1600, XFX Radeon HD 5770, Win7 Pro Laptop (most of my dev and schoolwork is done on this): Thinkpad SL500 (2.0ghz Core2duo, 2gb ram) Dualboot ArchLinux (main/default) w/ Awesome/Xmonad and Win7 (for visual studio and dj software). Netbook (eeepc 900A): ArchLinux, mostly used for IRC/web when on the run. Much of my web and non-gui programming is done via ssh to my server in vim, so OS doesnt really matter to me.

JangoSteve 16y ago

A Macbook (black) with a triple-monitor display (internal display + 2 x 24" Acer 1080p monitors on either side). I'm using the EVGA UV Plus+16, which is a USB-to-DVI adapter for the second external monitor, which is really nice, but it only allows the one monitor to go up to 1680x1050, so I just use that monitor for email, IM, IRC, etc, where it doesn't really matter.

mitchellhislop 16y ago
Are you happy with the EVGA adapter? I have been looking for a solution to do exactly what you are doing.
- JangoSteve 16y ago
  Yes, it works exactly as advertised, and my humble little macbook doesn't seem to have any problems processing with it. The text is a little fuzzy, though, because the UV16 only goes up to 1680x1050 in widescreen format, while my monitor is 1080p. But apparently EVGA recently came out with the UV19 which says it supports 1920x1200, and Buy.com has it cheaper than I paid for the UV16, so I'm strongly considering upgrading.
  - mitchellhislop 16y ago
    Thanks a ton. Do you find that two externals really help?
    - JangoSteve 16y ago
      That seems like a loaded question ;-) It helps tremendously for me, but everyone is different.

vascoconde 16y ago

13.3" MacBook Pro (2010) and a 23" external display (1080p)

misterbwong 16y ago

For ASP/Windows Dev: An AMD quad core cobbled together from spare parts. Cost about $300 and works like a charm. For iPhone and Android programming: MBP 13.3"

mcknz 16y ago

Seriously, no one has a Commodore? I figured there had to be at least one....

tbrownaw 16y ago

At work: slightly old Centrino Duo laptop with I think 2GB ram (due to be upgraded very soon), 1280x800 screen plus 2x 1280x1024 external screens. Runs XP SP2 (SP3 failed to install for some reason, maybe I'll try again in safe mode...). At home: Athlon II x4 with 8GB ram (I usually seem to use around 4GB of that), SSD (one of the Indilinx Barefoot ones) plus large platter drive, 2x 2048x1180 screens. Runs Debian Testing/Unstable, plus occasional VirtualBox instances. I also have an almost-netbook running XP SP3, which is too underpowered to do much local development on or watch high-res youtube movies but makes a nice web+ssh terminal for lighter tasks or travel. It's fairly small, and has about 7 hours of battery life (getting decent CPU power with similar size and life would have been way out of my budget, especially since that's what the desktop is for).

Qz 16y ago

Custom-built: * Intel Core2 E8600 @3.33Ghz * 1 GB ram (so behind I know) * Vista but soon to be Win7 (tried linux but it was disappointing) * Two 22inch Samsung monitors @ 1650x1080 * Crazy video card that is louder than the rest of my computer (when the fan starts up) It's almost 2 years old now, but still fast enough to run all the latest games on max settings without flinching. I don't play as many games though lately. I've also got some crappy gateway laptop with a buggy touchpad driver that I only use when my desktop is on the fritz.

there 16y ago

http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2010/03/28/the_setup/ http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2010/03/28/the_setup/ i think it would be neat if _the setup_ (http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/) had a version where anyone could submit their responses and people could vote them up. a lot of the people they "interview" are really uninteresting and i'm sure there's a lot more unique setups out there being used by people that aren't famous.

swah 16y ago
usesthat.com! lets do it
technomancy 16y ago
> i think it would be neat if _the setup_ (http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/) had a version where anyone could submit their responses The nice thing about the Web is that it's distributed: http://technomancy.us/137 http://technomancy.us/137 Spoiler: Thinkpad X200s, standing desk, vertical-orientation external display, custom keyboard setup attached to my pants.
- there 16y ago
  i created a setups subreddit to post them to, but for some reason it got banned. i'm trying to get a reddit moderator to help. http://reddit.com/r/setups/ http://reddit.com/r/setups/
  - there 16y ago
    it's been unbanned, post away.

mitchellhislop 16y ago

Main: 13" MacBook, with snow leopard, and VM's for Ubuntu and Windows. This gets hooked up to externals wherever I am (Office, home, coworking). This gets paired with a Magic Mouse (best groomsman gift ever), and it has been a solid laptop since I got it. At home, I also have my girlfriends old Dell E1505 laptop that I am converting to a torrent and media center, which will live under the flatscreen. Not noticing too many people using a laptop stand. I have a cheap one from Ikea, which really works well.

HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago

Refurb HP 2.6 GHz machine with XP that I got cheap from TigerDirect a couple years ago. There's also a server on the network running FC5, but I don't remember its particulars. Hanging off the HP are a single 19" monitor, original IBM 5150 keyboard, B&W laser printer, Atmel AVR In Circuit Emulator, AVR ISP programmer, serial cable for whatever hardware I need to talk to at the moment and a Bluetooth Class 2 dongle for my Bluetooth-enabled hardware projects. I keep meaning to build a USB-controlled desk lamp, but never have the time...

kxs 16y ago

e8400, 4GB Ram, 9800GT, Windows 7 x64, 22" Dell 2209WA, happy hacking keyboard <3, razer diamondback But I'm hoping to be able to replace that machine in the near future with a `smarttop', preferably something like the marvell ebox or similar spec-wise (hopefully cortex a9) My wm of choice has always been 'pekwm'

jseliger 16y ago

You can see my setup here: http://jseliger.com/2010/05/02/writing-space-2010 http://jseliger.com/2010/05/02/writing-space-2010 . You can see a 24" iMac (the screen space is, to my mind, more valuable than the processor speed) with an external monitor and a Kinesis Advantage). [EDIT: Note also the desk -- a Maxon 1000 series with a Humanscale keyboard tray. It's a good combination because you can adjust the tray to keep your arms at a 90 degree angle and the desk is really solid.) My family's space is here: http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the-trade%E2%80%94what-a-grant-writer-should-have/ http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the-trade%E2%80%... .

gprisament 16y ago
+1 for the Kinesis, great keyboard, fixed my wrist pain!
- jseliger 16y ago
  I'm a fan too; you can see from this review: http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/ http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/ that I was initially somewhat ambivalent... until I switched back to a normal keyboard, at which point I realized just how nice the Advantage is.

tezza 16y ago

Quad core Q5550 , 8GB ram, Vista x64 cygwin with extensive use of mintty Eclipse for everything 2 * 24" Monitors Microsoft X6 Keyboard Taskflash LED readout [I make this ;) ] Velociraptor 300GB + ~3TB of sundry disk space LTO-2 tape drive (unf, requires SCSCI card too) VMWare used extensively for linux dev Linode for internet accessible hosts Virgin Media 50Mbit cable internet -- Also a Thinkpad W500 with an Intel X-25M for when my baby comes along in October and I'm kicked out of my home office

harshpotatoes 16y ago

My main is an old desktop, amd athlon xp 2400, nvidia nforce2 motherboard, and nvidia fx 7600 graphics card, dual 17in monitors, running win7. 5 years old, still does everything i need like a champ. My laptop is a 6year old off brand celeron 1.7ghz processor, running debian stable. Still works fine, albeit a little big. I will upgrade when things break.

known 16y ago

Mine is SOTEC laptop I bought at Nakano, Tokyo.

mambodog 16y ago

1. Macbook Pro 13". I prefer it to the 15" I used to have, as the most important factor for me is portability. The 13" is effortless to tote, and fits comfortably into even small bags. 2. Core i7-860 based hackintosh, Samsung 24" monitor. It's essentially a cheap Mac Pro. It has all the power and screen real-estate I need to complement the laptop, especially for 3D work (Silo, Maya), and music production (Logic). I write music that is heavy on complex effects chains, and I like to keep it all realtime, so I definitely appreciate the extra power, which I wouldn't be able to afford in a real Mac desktop. Speaking of music production, I use a Focusrite Saffire soundcard, for its nice-sounding mic preamps, and KRK Rokit 8 studio monitors, which sound pretty decent. I've got some M-Audio MIDI controllers which are of decent quality and not too pricey. Also, a friend gave me his unused Apple Keyboard, which I use with my desktop. I know, it's a small crappy keyboard, but that's the best part, it is a much more dynamic element of my desk space than a big, bulky keyboard would be. Also, I like the fact the layout is identical to that of the Macbook keyboard.

dchest 16y ago

I have 3 MacBooks (Pro, Air and unibody white), and use as a primary machine the one that works (i.e. not in repair) -- currently, MacBook Air. I had to underclock it with CoolBook to 800 MHz so that it could work without overheating. I can't believe I spent more than $7500 for something like this.

Random_Person 16y ago

Three things actually: 2.33 GHz Dual Core Dell with 2gb RAM and Win 7 1.6 Core 2 Duo Systemax laptop (15.4 widescreen) with 4GB ram and Win 7/Zenwalk Linux Dell Mini9 with 2GB and Zenwalk Linux

elHeffe 16y ago

Work: Dell Optiplex 960 x3 on a KVM. Room(Afghanistan): Dell Mini 10v Hackintosh / Asus EEE Box PC running Win 7 / Ubunutu 10.04 Home: iMac 20" from a couple of years ago / PowerBook G4 12" The worst of them all is the freakin Dell Optiplex's at work, but what can I do? I love the portability of the Hackintosh and am thinking of installing Ubuntu on it as well, but I do love my Mac OS X.

dalenkruse 16y ago

Self-built desktop with a Q9550 CPU and 4GB RAM running Kubuntu. Dual 23" LCD montitors. I can dual-boot into Windows XP when I get gaming or flight-sim urges. I also have a Dell E1505 laptop (also running Kubuntu) that I use when I need to be mobile.

PStamatiou 16y ago

17-inch MacBook Pro with RAID 0 Intel SSDs: http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-apple-macbook-pro-raid-0-array-with-2-intel-x25-m-ssds http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-apple-macbook-pro-raid-0-arr... and a small Asus EEE PC (1005HA) with Ubuntu 10.04 for commuting/etc, usually tethered to my Nexus One with froyo. http://paul.posterous.com/reading-and-taking-notes-on-abookapart http://paul.posterous.com/reading-and-taking-notes-on-abooka...

waratuman 16y ago

Intel Core i7 930, Archlinux + openbox, 13" Macbook

swah 16y ago

What would you buy today, a Macbook Pro 13" or 15" ? I ask because the processor is very different (Core 2 Duo vs I5/7)... Also, can a 13" drive an 30" cinema display?

defdac 16y ago

Home couch-hacking: Dell XPS M1530, T8300 (2*2.4 GHz), 4 GB ram, 15" 1920p screen, 7200 rpm disk, Vista 32-bit (so yea, only 3,5 GB ram..). Work: HP with about the same specs but with external keyboard and 24" monitor and slower disk.

macvijay1985 16y ago

A dell vostro 13 with Ubuntu 10

jfager 16y ago

13" MacBook (first unibody model) driving a 24" Dell U2410. Microsoft Natural 4000 Ergonomic Keyboard. I just started trying to go mostly mouseless using Optimal Layout and vimperator, which together cover about 85% of what I ever need one for.

convel 16y ago

2 notebooks, 2 desktop pc

dualboot 16y ago

Laptop : MacBook 13" Unibody (late 2009) 2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB Seagate "Hybrid" (4GB NAND). Desktop #1 : Win7-64 - 23" LCD 2048x1152 Core i5-750(Quad 2.5Ghz), 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5770 1GB, 1TB Seagate System drive, 1.5TB Seagate Storage Desktop #2 : MacOS 10.6.4 (Hackintosh) - 23" LCD 2048x1152 Intel Q6600(Quad 2.4Ghz) 8GB RAM, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB, 1TB System Drive, 1.5TB Storage Fileserver : Windows Home Server 1.4Ghz AMD Geode 1GB RAM 160gb System drive 8TB of total storage space. My two desktops have my 23" LCD's side by side and I control both with one keyboard/mouse (Win7-64 machine is the server) via Synergy+ with an SSH tunnel. I'm really happy with this setup.

shareme 16y ago

HP AMD 64 dual core 4gm ram 400 gig hd 19" LCD Logitech Mouse and Keyboard OS; Ubuntu 10.04 My next workstation, I am building myself.

buro9 16y ago

HP Z800 with 2 x X5560 Quad core CPU, 24GB ECC RAM coupled with an NEC 2690WUXi2 26" monitor. That's for home hacking. The work one is a Mac Pro with similar spec. The home system is dual-booted to Windows Server 2008 and Ubuntu. I do this so that I have a work mode and a play mode... play being Ubuntu. Firing up Windows means I only do SharePoint work and since rebooting isn't instant I keep working. I realise I could just install Ubuntu in a Hyper-V but I purposefully don't do that so that I get things done.

bch 16y ago

I'm surprised there are only two references to BSD so far. NetBSD -current on ThinkPad T410, dwm, Xemacs, xterm I probably could suffer to build a desktop for farming-out builds to, etc., but I haven't. Always want portability, though :)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mahmud 16y ago

Thinkpad R51 with 1GB of RAM, 1.5GHz single-core processor and 40GB storage. It's running Windows XP. An external WD disk and an external laptop mouse for when I am editing images. I have the most spartan setup out among all the programmers that I know, but I have made wonderful things with it. My fiancee jokes it's a piece of junk, but I tell her that we made $1020 for every dollar we spent on the laptop, used ;-)

pstinnett 16y ago

15" Macbook Pro i5 and 24" iMac Core 2 Duo

RK 16y ago

Home: (Coming today) AMD 2.8 GHz 6 core, 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 10.04. 23" and 15" monitors Mobile: Asus EeePC 900 with EasyPeasy Work: some Intel quad core, 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 10.04, 21" monitor On the way: AMD 48 core machine

joshkaufman 16y ago

MacBook Pro 15" with i7 processor and 8GB RAM, 24" Apple Cinema Display at a standing desk, Logitech Nano mouse, Rode Podcaster USB condenser mic, Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, and Canon Vixia HV40 straight into Quicktime via firewire for video.

Portnull 16y ago

Trusty little white MacBook 2.1GHz/4GB running Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid. I have an external full sized Apple keyboard, mighty mouse and Raindesign MStand, and I swapped out the 120GB drive for a faster 500GB one - and that's it. I'm looking for a good 1920x1200 screen, that's the most my MB will take, but there's no hurry.

ElliotH 16y ago

Hardware: - Core i7 920 - 6gb DDR3 RAM - ATi 5970 for graphics - currently RMA'd - 19" HP Display awaiting upgrade. Software: - Ubuntu for working (GNOME) - Arch for hacking (GNOME) - Windows 7 for games Portable: - Dell Mini 10v base model with Ubuntu - College issue Core 2 laptop with Arch

shade 16y ago

At home, I have a Core i5 desktop with 4GB of RAM and dual 22" monitors running Windows 7, and also a 13" unibody MacBook which I bought back in October 2008 -- on the day they were released, actually. In the past I used the desktop for quite a bit of gaming as well as remoting in to my work PC with Remote Desktop. These days I find I don't really game very much anymore, and I can connect to my work VPN/RDP through the Mac anyway if I need to work from home. Consequently, I'm on the MacBook almost 100% of the time. I'm actually considering getting a Mac Mini, moving the big HDDs out of the desktop into external enclosures attached to that, then getting rid of the Windows box and the older 22" display. I suppose I could also just get a NAS, but I like knowing I have a spare machine around in case my MacBook dies. Work is a Q6600 with 3GB of RAM running Vista Business, since I'm currently working with mostly with .NET.

kuzux 16y ago

I have a 15" Dell Inspiron 6400, given by my school for free 3 years ago. 1.6 GHz Centrino Duo 2gb ram ubuntu 10.04 gnome+xmonad as window manager internal hard disk space is absurdly low(80gb, I think), I have a 500gb external drive, though.

lanstein 16y ago
free with paid admission, that is ;)

jarek 16y ago

Time and again I find myself getting back to my Thinkpad X31. It's 2004 vintage, past its five-year extended warranty, and has an Intel processor from back when their top of the line was still branded as a Pentium. It's the size of a university notebook and weighs 1.6 kg. It's as good as I can expect from the form factor. I have a Thinkpad T60p with a gorgeous UXGA IPS I'm looking to sell because it's too much computer. I have a Thinkpad R50p with a gorgeous UXGA IPS screen I'm going to use instead, but haven't gotten around to setting it up properly yet. I have a desktop with some low-end AMD dual-core, 4 GB of RAM, and a 23" Samsung 16:9 TN screen I've been trying to use as a VM and file server, but the process isn't quite done yet either. Yes, there is a pattern. I have a couple of Nokia tablets (N800 and N810) I use when travelling. The N810 with Opera Mobile comes decently close to duplicating how I use my X31 (after obvious allowances for size difference), but it's been going through some software and perhaps hardware difficulties lately. Still, I was impressed — it got me through two weeks without an x86 machine pretty well. I'm currently considering removing Windows 7 from the X31 (aided by its efforts to implode and steal my files) and replacing it with a basic Linux-based OS like easypeasy. 7 is pretty great when it isn't breaking, but it's almost too much OS for my use. One of these days I'll build my laptop for the ages: a X61s loaded up with 4 or 8 GB of RAM, a nice SSD, and a 1400x1050 IPS screen swapped in. Not yet.

slowpoison 16y ago

I use a Dell Latitude D630 as my primary/only machine. It has a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel, with 4GB of memory. Serves my needs well - which include a lot of Chrome tabs open (around 30), development in Eclipse with some decent size projects. I also develop using vim/gcc, but that's generally lighter-weight relative to Eclipse. I like having only one system to do all my work. I don't have to sync across multiple machines. I do take backups every week and use external keyboard/monitor to round it off ergonomically.

cmelbye 16y ago

15" Macbook Pro

weaksauce 16y ago

15" MBP(2.8GHz core 2, 8GB ram, 500GB 7200RPM seagate) w/ 30" Dell Ultrasharp. Magicmouse with magicprefs to allow for the middle mouse click. USB adapter to PS/2 Natural Keyboard. Sizeup and cinch for keyboard window management. (makes me feel like a robot, but in a good way.) xGestures for mouse gesture support. I cannot live without this utility. This is by far the best setup I have ever worked on.

nico_h 16y ago

A Macbook Air (Gen 2) with the SSD. Sometimes connected to a screen + bluetooth magic mouse & keyboard. I sold my more powerful 15" MacBook Pro because it was too heavy. The Air is powerful enough for what the java dev and iphone + web app tinkering that I do. I really love the freedom afforded by the light weight. It makes it much easier to program and procrastinate away from the desk (in bed, armchair ...). I just wish it didn't overheat so easily, especially in bed, but flashblock and click2flash help a lot. I am trying to use a fixed height stand up desk, but I don't feel I have the correct height yet.

semanticist 16y ago

I'm writing this on a current-gen MacBook Pro 13", which replaced a Samsung NC10 Hackintosh, which I absolutely loved and really wish Apple had made so that it would work properly. Despite being almost the same spec-wise, apart from the much smaller screen, it's almost entirely replaced my 24" iMac pretty much solely because I can hack from the sofa which is a bit more social and also a lot more comfortable. I recently replaced my colocated server with a Dell R210, which I think might be my new favourite rack server. It's so tiny and cute - and draws hardly any power. Sure, it's only a single-socket board with four DIMM slots, but that's just enough for me. And who would have expected TWO internal USB ports and an eSATA port? Nice little touches, there.

Pinckney 16y ago

A 7 year old (do I win?) IBM R31. 384MB RAM, ~1GHz single core. Debian + XP (for gaming only). I'm planning to switch to xmonad once I finish learning Haskell.

jacquesm 16y ago

I don't hack nearly as much as I would like to so that wasn't the deciding factor in choosing a box to work on, this machine is as big as it is mostly because of my browsing habits. Hundreds of tabs open is not rare at all when I dig in to a subject and I've seen the browser top 10G resident. Amazing how much memory it will eat up. And when I do program (especially if it is in java) the IDE will use what the browser doesn't.

hga 16y ago

Amusingly enough, I too have a self-built AMD dual-core but with 8GB ram, Debian stable lenny (using the stock gnome) and a 24" WUXGA (1920×1200) monitor.

sjs382 16y ago

My main machine for the last 6 months has been a EeePC 1000HE netbook. I keep an Athlon 64 3200+ in the basement thaat has extra storage and a larger monitor for design work, but it rarely gets used anymore. My at work machine is a Pentium D with 2 23" screens in landscape.

dsantos 16y ago

my setup http://www.flickr.com/photos/ioctl/4566368145/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ioctl/4566368145/

maco 16y ago

ZaReason UltraLap SR (c. 2008) 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo 4GB RAM 250GB hard disk iwl4965 802.11n wifi Intel 965 graphics (yay open drivers!) 13" 1280x800 screen best laptop keyboard there is (clicky! like a Model M! *heaven*)

wowik 16y ago

15' Macbook Pro with 27' Dell monitor for work. Would love to stick 4 additional gigs of RAM and SSD into macbook :) Previous Mac Mini with Time Capsule, Creative EMU USB soundcard and 37' samsung full hd display for home and media content. PS3 for gaming, Kindle for reading.

serichsen 16y ago

Dual-core Acer notebook, Gentoo, stumpwm, Emacs.

wglb 16y ago

Well, the day job has a 13" aluminum macbook pro. Very nice, outfitted with everything ruby, blackbag, clojure, sbcl, external kenisis keyboard. Home has another white 13" macbook used for time on the train with one of them there usb cellular thingies. Big development system is 8 gigs two core 400gig asus MB driving a samsung 204bw, running ubuntu next-to-latest, intel gig nic. Second montior driven by a 900mhz amd with 200gig drive, running ubuntu latest on another 204bw. The windows box is a 64bit gigabyte MB running 32 bit w2k with bunches of scsi drives and a scsi DAT tape drive. In the basement are six $300 systems (asus mn2k or such) with dual or single core, 2 gigs (one with 4 gigs), dual intel gig nics, one inboard nic each, ubuntu latest or next to latest. And there is a cluster driven by a caos 2gig 3-nic box, with 7 diskless work nodes with 2 gig ram, 2 nics each. With something like $400, proximity to Tiger Direct, a monitor, keyboard and a mouse, you can build a very respectable development system the next day with one hour of assembly time. Then there are the recycled bunch, two running openbsd for firewalls. These are two generations ago, castoff from friends who bought their kids new boxes. One bsd box that used to run the church website, a FIT pc running latest ubuntu that I thought might be useful (might be using it for day job if it weren't for VM Fusion--load it up with backtrack 4). Then there are two recycled "media" pcs, 32bits, one of which drives the TV, and the other that, well, i think it is running ntp, and maybe a website for some friends. With all this, you would think I am a system administrator, but the closest to being an SA was when I wrote the first version of the Mark Williams Coherent Administrator's Guide. If Erin were to check my homework, I would certainly flunk. What is fun at parties is to fire up the 40 inch TV with the media PC behind it and ask your dinner guests' address, and show them the bird's-eye-view of their house. Oh, and be cautious about pulling it up with zillow. That could get to be a not-so-positive experience at dinner time.