I like the idea of two different computers. Knowing the kinds of people who read PG essays and frequent HN, the "work" computer would invariably be some flavor

I like the idea of two different computers. Knowing the kinds of people who read PG essays and frequent HN, the "work" computer would invariably be some flavor of Unix. Perhaps you could get rid of X and just run in console mode. This would mean even fewer distractions.