11 ms·

My 2020 desk setup

170 points by secure 6y ago

zerr 6y ago
Why Kinesis doesn't produce higher quality build variant of its keyboard? One that doesn't feel like a flimsy/cheap plastic. It seems they are charging premium just for the layout and PCB.
- mech422 6y ago
  I got one of their 'freestyle' keyboards years ago.. complete crap - I swear its rubber dome switches :-P I got an ErgoDox EZ last year, put some nice heavy kaihl box switches in it...now I just gotta find time to learn it (and dvorak/colemak). Currently using a Vortex Cypher with the split spacebar, I tore down and rebuild - new switches, added leds (south facing mounts so they're useless but I figured I'd try). and new keycaps.
  - antigirl 6y ago
    I got ergodox few months ago. Still getting used to it. I feel like this other ken keyboard promotes typing with your hands rested. ASFAIK this can be a culprit for RSI
  - packetslave 6y ago
    There's a HUGE difference between the Kinesis Advantage and the Freestyle line. The Advantage2 uses MX Browns. I tried to love my Ergodox, but I've spent way too many years with the scooped keybed of the Kinesis.
    - mech422 6y ago
      Yeah - People really seem to like the Advantage. I just wasn't sure if I could get used to the scoop... In hindsight, I should have just tried it. The ergo will be something new for me ... New layout and my first ortho-linear.
    - mech422 6y ago
      btw - have you seen/tried anything like the 'tractyl' [0] or ultimate hacking keyboard[1] ? I used to use a trackball full-time, and I'm wondering how well a lil 'thumball' works... [0]https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/dk9b34/tractyl_split_keyboard_with_trackball/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/dk9b34... [1] https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/
      - packetslave 6y ago
        Tractyl looks pretty neat, but I think I'd miss my thumb keys too much. I looked pretty closely at the UHH, but I think it would be the same issue as the Ergodox -- I'm too used to the scooped keybed of the Kinesis, which makes the reach between e.g. K and 8 short enough that I notice when it's not there on a flat keybed.
        mech422 6y ago
        You could have the trackball on one thumb and the thumb cluster on the other... I have a couple of crooked fingers from breaks that didn't heal completely straight, and I think I'm getting arthritis. So I'm trying to maximize usage of my 'strong' fingers. I should really try a kinesis sometime. Everyone that has one seems to love them...
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  I don’t think the advantage feels flimsy. Certainly I wouldn’t want to be hit around the head with one (but maybe this is a bad metric for “flimsy”). I think the premium is largely for the difficulty of putting all those keys in that 3d layout. I think the old advantage 1 had dome switches and was quite a similar price to the cherry-switch advantage 2. The maltron which also has a bowl shaped layout is also expensive. But also the only bit of the body of the keyboard you interact with is the rest for the heel of your hand and often people put something on these anyway (e.g. gel pads, tape to reduce slipping, ...) so it seems bad to optimise for it.
ajross 6y ago
"Probably another macbook setup" "Oh, nope, lots of terminals." "Hey, is that i3?" Then I realized who the author was. Honestly: I tried i3 and it wasn't for me. The psychology of slightly overlapping windows (i.e. "just put this over here, out of the way but still visible" as a way of making a physical reminder for myself) is just too much part of my mental model to give up.
- secure 6y ago
  Have you tried stacking mode? The title bar will still be visible, while the window is out of the way. See it in action if you zoom into my monitor on https://michael.stapelberg.ch/Bilder/2020-05-22-desk-setup.jpg https://michael.stapelberg.ch/Bilder/2020-05-22-desk-setup.j... That works for me, but I understand it’s not for everyone :)
  - virtualwhys 6y ago
    Thanks for creating i3, have been using it for years -- stacked tabs are indeed great, as is basically everything else in this wondrous WM. i3 is solidly in the "pry it from cold, dead hands" category.
  - tincholio 6y ago
    Just another big thanks for i3, it has significantly changed my workflow for the better!
  - soccerdave 6y ago
    Also want to give you a big thank you for creating i3. After using it for a long time I can’t imagine going back to a setup without it. I almost always need 2 windows side by side and it makes that workflow so effortless.
kensai 6y ago
Love these threads, it is always nice to see the setups of productive persons.
- retSava 6y ago
  Absolutely! Every now and then you pick up some methods or tools you hadn't thought of, that make yourself better. You just have to remind yourself to bring the critical eye so that you don't start wearing black turtlenecks believing it'll make you a business genius :)
kwerk 6y ago
Interesting about switching from the 3900x back to Intel. I recently built a desktop around the 3900x. I’m happy with the performance but coming from a decade on MacBooks. Feeling the FOMO about my choice now :)
war1025 6y ago
The hardware section makes it sound like he's rebuilding his computer multiple times a year. Do people really find upgrading that often is worth the cost and the bother? What sorts of workloads do people deal with that having top of the line hardware even matters?
- secure 6y ago
  I rebuild once a year on average, but not every year (planning to skip this year, for example). In general, yes, I find it worthwhile to invest money and effort into a faster experience, but I’m very sensitive to latency, so YMMV :)
  - zaroth 6y ago
    There's a sweet spot somewhere in there. I recently re-built my i7-3770 w/ SATA3 SSD into an Ryzen 3700x with NVMe and build times are just remarkably faster. I waited far too long.
- devonkim 6y ago
  Some folks like having shiny hardware and it’s partly a hobby rather than a need in almost certainty barring specific niche professional needs. I upgrade my workstation setup quite rarely because my work provided laptop is what I use 90%+ of the time. Top of the line is one thing (Xeons and Threadrippers or EPYC) but pretty powerful cost effective CPUs like a 3900X or 9900k are another. Even though I do ML stuff occasionally I still do it as a useless hobby and it’s not worth bumping up to a Threadripper or a crazy GPU, especially when I can use a cloud machine for a fraction of the price and as a bonus force myself to make it somewhat repeatable and deployable for someone else. If one’s been building machines in the past year or so, we’ve just had the biggest performance gains in CPUs in literally 10 years with the latest AMD CPUs. I went a long time with an E3-1230 but got really bored honestly after 5 years and built an i7-4790k ITX machine which wasn’t as big of a change as going from 8GB of RAM to 16 GB or to my first SSD. I got a 3900X this past year and the substantial performance gains are not a big enough reason for me to upgrade yet again compared to something like the new Ampere GPUs for even hobby machine learning purposes like mine. In the future a bigger reason for me to build again would be based around space efficiency reasons where a small case could fit on top of my desk and drive 4K AAA games, encode HEVC video day and night, and all with a 600w SFX PSU.
illuminated 6y ago
"I found that using only one monitor allows me to focus more on what I’m doing, and I don’t miss anything about a multi-monitor setup." This. I had the same realization maybe 7 or 8 years ago and it is true for me. With multiple monitors it's like moving your hands away from the keyboard all the time and looking for the mouse. Same happens for me while looking for anything across the 2 or 3 monitor setup. It just weakens your focus... If I'm on a laptop (and I usually am), I just use the laptop's screen. Getting used to a different screen size while working with my laptop setup would also slightly slow me down when I'm bound to use only the laptop.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Except you have huge monitor and you lay stuff in multiple side by side windows which makes the whole argument very moot. And when you use laptop you are kind of forced to use single screen because multiple screens is inconvenient at best. When I started development 15" monitors were standard and 17" were a luxury. Setting multiple monitors was a must or you would have to constantly switch between editor, terminal and documentation. If you look at the setup that's exactly what is happening. On a single screen there is browser with documentation (presumably), and there is four (!) IDE/editor/terminal windows. It's not about how many monitors you have but rather what you are doing with them. You can put Netflix as one of the windows and still get distracted on a single monitor setup or you can have bad sight like me and require two 27" monitors side by side so that I can magnify fonts and have documentation, IDE and terminal at the same time with no strain.
  - secure 6y ago
    > If you look at the setup that's exactly what is happening. On a single screen there is browser with documentation (presumably), and there is four (!) IDE/editor/terminal windows. Just to clarify: there are two i3 containers side by side (each using 50%). The left one’s active window is a browser, the right one’s active window is Emacs, in which I have two buffers side by side at the top, and compilation mode and magit status side by side at the bottom.
  - illuminated 6y ago
purplezooey 6y ago
A bunch of crap strewn across an old IKEA desk. Why is this interesting.
- jtms 6y ago
  for me, it is the most interesting thing on the front page right now.
- eeh 6y ago
  If it's not interesting, move on. I'll answer it literally: seeing what equipment other engineers use can give ideas for one's own serup. stapelberg is an effective engineer, so I'm glad he shared it.
- evaneykelen 6y ago
  It’s interesting because the author is a software artisan, like many of the people who are responding in this thread. Personally I love reading about the tools used by other people in the same trade. The choice of tools highly influences ones productivity, which is probably why I find it fascinating to read about his choices.
- t0astbread 6y ago
  How is this comment not dead/flagged?
bluedino 6y ago
8K monitor sounded ridiculous until I realized that's basically Retina @ 32-34"
- secure 6y ago
  Yes, exactly! You get a lot of retina screen real estate that way :)
- whatever1 6y ago
  It is so sad that for us not in the Apple Ecosystem it is impossible to find a desktop HiDPI display. We are stuck in 4k for the past 5 years. This Dell is the only "option", but I don't know how many of us can afford spending $5k on a monitor with a lifetime of ~ 3 years that has not shown great reliability. Meanwhile, Linux has made the lives of 4k display owners unlivable due to the lack of non-integer scaling. A 5k display with 200% scaling at 27" would help the situation, but we don't have that option. Many times I have considered jumping on to the MacOS boat, just for the high dpi display availability & scaling support advantage.
  - secure 6y ago
    The Dell P2415Q would be my runner-up recommendation: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-hd-4k-monitor-p2415q/apd/210-agnk/monitors-monitor-accessories https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-hd-4k-mon... I used one of them for a few years. A colleague of mine uses 2 HP Z27q 5K displays and is happy with them: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04591534 https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04591534
    - whatever1 6y ago
      HP and Dell made 5k monitors back in 2014, but they were both discontinued pretty fast.
  - bluedino 6y ago
    Is there no way to use an LG 5K? The bad thing about the 8K is needing a $500 video card which also means it's not an option for laptop users (I guess you could with an eGPU
ohelabs 6y ago
“ For redundancy, I am backing up my computers to 2 separate network storage devices.” Hopefully he understands that this is not a true backup....he’s basically created a more complex RAID 1 running two NAS... For example a flood, a House fire, theft, or a power surge is probably going to lose/fry both then everything is gone. This is a perfect example of thinking you have something backed up but if you store it in the same place you just created a more complex RAID 1... If you want a backup you need to store a copy in a different location preferably a different region because if you put it at your friends house down the road they are also likely to be hit by the same disaster (i.e flood, tornado, hurricane, war, etc.) as you are.
- secure 6y ago
  Yes, I understand. I have an off-site backup for that reason, in a different part of the city: https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2018-01-13-offsite-backup-apu2c4/ https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2018-01-13-offsite-backu... The redundancy is just for home, because I don’t want to wait for replacement hardware for my setup to work.
  - ohelabs 6y ago
    That’s definitely an improvement and a cheap solution. I always have to remind people of offsite backups... I had to learn the hard way and I’ve now migrated to Backblaze for one of my backup copies for my cold data .
- eeh 6y ago
  TFA explains why he didn't use RAID1: "I put in one hard disk per device for maximum redundancy: any hardware component can fail and I can just use the other device.". If the motherboard dies on one device, he still has a working device. A backup to one computer is better than none. A backup to two computers is better than one. A backup to four computers in two geographic regions is better than two local. There's no end to how good a person's backup can be. Everyone has their limit.
brootstrap 6y ago
Cool thanks for sharing. My work from home setup has a legal marijuano vaporizer within reaching distance to help deal with the bullshit from managers & other bumbos in our digital corp.
akudha 6y ago
That keyboard looks weird - maybe its because I haven't used it myself. Anyone used it? Can you share your experience?
- mech422 6y ago
  My buddy has one he's used for ages..5-10 years at least. He swears by it. Definitely a learning curve though.
- amarshall 6y ago
  I’ve used a Kinesis Advantage at work for 7 years now. Started after I began to get wrist discomfort once I started programming full-time. It’s been wonderful, and removal of the discomfort and pain is worth the $300 several times over. I bought one for home shortly after. It does take a bit to get used to typing on. It took a few days to get from 6 wpm to ~35 wpm, and about two weeks total to get to ~80 wpm. I can usually type a bit faster on a “standard” laptop keyboard, but 80 wpm is still plenty fast. I’m a Vim user, so I mapped the End key to Esc (keyboard has hardware mapping built-in). I do experience the stuck-key issue referenced (annoying, but easily worked-around and infrequent), going to look into swapping the PCB as linked.
  - safog 6y ago
    I wish there was a way to try this keyboard without committing to buying it for a month or so. It seems like there will be a learning curve and you might not even like it at the end of it.
    - amarshall 6y ago
      Indeed. I was fortunate enough to have a coworker who had one and let me try it while they were on vacation.
    - psanford 6y ago
      There is a way! Kinesis has a 60 day return policy if you buy directly from them. [0]: https://kinesis-ergo.com/support/returns/ https://kinesis-ergo.com/support/returns/
zaroth 6y ago
One minor benefit of TFA to me this morning is I had a 120mm case fan that has been vibrating / buzzing, but I've been delaying buying a replacement just due to not wanting to choose the wrong SKU (again). Scrolling through the size I see the recommendation of the Noctua NF-A12x25. Probably 3x what I paid for the fan that is being replaced, but it could be the only component in the case that stays during the next rebuild!
- mikelward 6y ago
  I just built a system, but the included case fans are too loud. Just ordered a Be Quiet! 140 mm Shadow Wings 2 for the front and a 120 mm for the back. From everything I've read, they're the quietest. And are cheaper. But might move less air, due to being limited to 900 rpm. https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/1625 https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/1625 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07MCHLGC5 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07MCHLGC5
ajphdiv 6y ago
Huge fan of i3. It also allowed me to reduce down to one monitor. I use a MSI Optix 34” curved monitor. I like your idea with the USB hub to switch between computers — I will probably adopt that.
i3winner 6y ago
Is he me? Same CPU, CPU fan, SSD, monitor, RAM, case, WM, linux distro.. Except I never made the switch to vim from emacs. In all seriousness, I have great respect for Stapelberg and I thank him for posting this. I love seeing other dev's setups and learned a few things in his post.
Youden 6y ago
How much performance are you able to get out of your router7 setup? If it's unable to saturate the gigabit, do you know where the bottleneck is?
- secure 6y ago
  It effortlessly satisfies a full gigabit, otherwise I wouldn’t stick with it :)
  - phreeza 6y ago
    Do you have any experience with using it on "Crossover7" which I think is somehow the slightly less preferred offer from fiber7 that I have?
    - secure 6y ago
      I do not have any experience with it. My expectation would be that the IP network quality itself is good (provided by init7), and hopefully the underlying platform is stable and well-provisioned enough.
dilandau 6y ago
He fell for literally every meme. Consumer blogspam.
raveenb 6y ago
I prefer the multi monitor setup and use at least one in portrait/vertical mode. Fits with my ide and jupyter notebooks
- safog 6y ago
  Similar setup - I just throw my terminal full screen on a vertical monitor (w/ GNU Screen) and don't find it distracting in any way.
mhd 6y ago
That's a lot of money between screen and GPU just to get crisper fonts (as the rest of the GUI is scaled x3 and thus you don't get that much more screen real estate). Is this really worth it for you? I regularly switch between a 5k iMac and regular 1920x1200 display, and sure, I can see pixels, but I don't find myself caring that much.
- jseliger 6y ago
  Considering how many hours a day he likely uses his machine, it may work out to something like the difference between a few cents and 10 cents an hour.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    That's only going to be true if the $4000 extra they spent is used for 40,000+ hours. It's likely closer to be a dollar an hour more for slightly crisper text. (Assuming they use it full time for 2 years)
    - valuearb 6y ago
      The monitor/GPU have a lot more than 2 year lifespan. Depreciation is likely less than 50% in 2 years. And he didn't pay for slightly crisper text, he paid for higher productivity. At $100/hour that 25 to 50 cents is trivial to make up. Which is why devs should never, ever skimp on hardware.
      - mhd 6y ago
        Okay, first of all let me say that I don't want to poo-poo anyone's choice of environment. If it "sparks joy" for hours every day, it's probably a good personal investment. On the other hand, it does require additional resources being wasted, both for producing the items -- monitors/GPUs indeed do have a long lifespan, which means that the previous ones would still work -- and increased energy used per hour. So saying that any $ spent on hardware can't be wasted for devs... And whether it will actually result in increased productivity is a good question. Readability, eye strain, enjoyment all factor in. Plenty of studies that only focus on one aspect, so easy to cherry pick a conclusion... Again, I don't believe this is more wasteful than a few spa days or a vacation, so good for the OP. My initial post was about how that works out for them (or others chiming in). I find myself not too affected by this, i.e. my last big jump was from a 21 CRT to a 24 inch Dell, especially when it comes to the simple shapes of monochrome fonts.
anotheryou 6y ago
yay, a neo user. If you have a keyboard programmable with QMK you can make the upper layers work in hardware too though (you still need to decide to which OS layout you want to map it)
- secure 6y ago
  Yeah, I wanted to look into QMK for a while now, it’s on my list :) Will add this detail as one thing to check out, thanks!
iaskwhy 6y ago
On switching peripherals between both work and home computers, I've been using for a few years now a UGREEN USB Switch. It's around £21 for the USB 2 version at the moment in the UK. So it's basically what the author uses but you connect both machines there and click a button to toggle between machines. On mine there's 4 ports only but maybe that's enough for most people - I'm only using half.
ZekeSulastin 6y ago
The WH-1000XM3 are just about the only recommended bluetooth headphone anymore that makes switching devices that much of a pain. Most will either automatically switch between a few active devices or allow you to switch by just initiating the connection from the target device. Have you looked at installing the patched pulseaudio-bluetooth modules to gain LDAC support? :)
- mikelward 6y ago
  I use NFC pairing when it's available. Unfortunately most audio sources don't support it. Has anybody looked into how you'd make a DIY NFC tag for this?
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    I don't know the specifics here but you can buy blank NFC tags and I used NFC Tools PRO for writing tags with my android phone, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wakdev.nfctools.pro https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wakdev.nfc... .
    - mikelward 6y ago
      Thanks. As far as I can tell making a tag that announces speakers is straightforward. I'm trying to go the other direction, where the laptop/PC/tablet doesn't support NFC pairing.
- secure 6y ago
  Have not looked at any fancy pulseaudio setups. I don’t want to maintain them on my machines over time, as I use these headphones with 4 different devices :)
  - ZekeSulastin 6y ago
    Fair enough! For other people coming across the thread, the repo for the modules is here (sorry for not posting this in the original post: https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt) Good news is that there's some more activity towards upstreaming them; at least in my experience, they Just Worked(TM) as far as the system automatically selecting LDAP or AAC as needed.
wiredfool 6y ago
I’m a couple of weeks into using a single giant (32”) monitor at macOS’s 3k resolution, and I’m finding it works pretty well with a 3x2 set of windows for code, terminal and docs. The center third is usually a single emacs window with two frames, web browser on the left, and inspect window or terminals on the right. I’m also really liking the usb-c power delivery, so it’s one cable to the work laptop, and from there, it’s got a usb hub for the kB/mouse. The killer feature is the built in KVM switch, so by switching the input to hdmi, I can switch the keyboard/moose to my mini and use it when I’m not at $day_job.
- dijit 6y ago
  What monitor do you have?
  - wiredfool 6y ago
    Dell U3219q.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
His monitor resolution is unnecessary AFAICS. I have one, also 31.5" which is 3840 x 2160, without any scaling, and the text is sharp as fuck. Given my experience the only thing I'd do if I bought another monitor given what I know now is to buy one same res but larger because 3840 x 2160 is a lot of pixels in a small space. A single black pixel on a white background from 60cm away is very, very close to invisible (just tried it).
- LeonM 6y ago
  I guess it's one of those things that you need to use for a while to 'get it'. Just like switching from FHD to 4K (on a laptop). You won't be blown away immediately when you first use it, until you go back to FHD and suddenly you realize how much nicer the 4K screen was. I run a 43" 4K display for work an I wish it was 8K, because when switching from my 15" 4K laptop to the 43" 4K desktop setup suddenly the desktop monitor doesn't look that crisp anymore.
analog31 6y ago
What's the Raspberry Pi for? You put a Raspberry Pi in the picture and you don't tell us what it's for. That's like total cruelty. ;-)
- secure 6y ago
  I use that for porting https://gokrazy.org/ https://gokrazy.org/ to the Raspberry Pi 4 (right now) and doing other Raspberry Pi development in general :)
ariofrio 6y ago
I read this as “Steven Spielberg uses this: my 2020 desk setup” before I clicked through. I was so amazed that Spielberg used a tiling window manager before I went back and figured out my mistake!
DevKoala 6y ago
I am also of the opinion of needing only one monitor because I can only focus on one thing at once. Whatever is not the work I am doing when I focus, goes into another desktop space. I am also a power user of an OSX window manager called Spectacle. The tools and practices that help me focus are key.
sunstone 6y ago
I second the Logitech MX Ergo "thumb ball mouse". Once you're transferred your mouse motor skills to this (takes about two hours) you'll never go back to a moving mouse. Especially, if you've got a sore shoulder, or elbow or wrist do yourself a favor and try one of these. (Full Disclosure I own no stock in Logitech, just a very happy customer of this product.)
- dividuum 6y ago
  Thirded :). I've switched (to its predecessor) over 10 years ago and never looked back. I even works perfectly well with hectic games after a bit of practice. Additionally I'm using keyboards without numpad to further reduce the distance reaching the "mouse".
- anotheryou 6y ago
  My thumb is glad to get rest from the phone I think :) I only need relieve from clicking if I do it a lot (and than map it to the keyboard for my other hand for a week or so).
11235813213455 6y ago
My 2020 desk setup: a cushion, an empty book block and a board both in wood as support for my laptop. Haven't used a chair or a desk since ages
alexellisuk 6y ago
I often get asked about my equipment too and wrote up my bill of materials. Surprised you're not using LED lights. Try them, you'll enjoy the upgrade. https://medium.com/p/bill-of-materials-for-my-home-office-f7f417dfbf0 https://medium.com/p/bill-of-materials-for-my-home-office-f7...
xenihn 6y ago
Given that this is the closest thing to a monitor discussion thread I've seen on HN, I'd like to ask if anyone has a recommendation for what I should upgrade to next. My progression has been the 2560x1440 Thunderbolt display to the Dell P2715Q, which has been my main monitor at work and home for the past 5 years. I've tried to upgrade from the P2715Q three times now, and always end up going back to it because I'm dissatisfied by the quality of the other panels in comparison. I want a larger screen that can support 4K, or even 5K, with comparable panel quality. I avoided the LG 5K display sold by Apple because I heard bad things about it, but never actually tried one. It's 27" as well, so I think it would still be too small, even if the panel quality and resolution are better. I'm starting to think I should just get a TV and use that as my display, but I don't know which would best suit my needs for writing software. One nice thing about a TV is that it would be much easier to do returns/swaps if I need to play the panel lottery for something that will make me happy. I have never done this with a previous display, since I always bought second-hand from people who had already done that for me. The original owner of my P2715Q apparently returned theirs three times before they were satisfied. I've toyed with the idea of getting an Apple Pro display, but I really don't want to spend more than $2000 on a monitor. The UP3218K described in the article seems like it would be a good upgrade, but it definitely exceeds my price range. I would be open to spending that much on a monitor if I knew I wouldn't be replacing it for at least five years, but I can't know that for sure. Although funnily enough, that's what has happened with my P2715Q. It's the only piece of computing equipment I haven't replaced since I first started using it.
- raihansaputra 6y ago
  Rtings has comprehensive reviews for TV as monitors: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/pc-monitor https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/pc-monitor
lwhsiao 6y ago
I've always been curious about higher-end USB microphones (the Rode is ~$230) compared with a potentially more upgradable XLR setup like: - Behringer UM2 USB Audio Interface - Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 Dynamic Cardioid mic This would give the upgradability of an XLR audio interface and a seemingly decent mic for about $125. I imagine once everything is plugged together, it similarly comes down to just plugging in a USB, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't plug-n-play on Linux. I don't know how well the audio quality would compare, though. I'd be interested to hear more about the challenges of getting a working setup with XLR audio gear that are alluded to in the post.
WilliamKen64 6y ago
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AjwadJaved 6y ago
About the slow package managers complaint, you should try out Void Linux! Xbps is god speed compared to apt or pacman
- secure 6y ago
  Thanks, I’m aware. Unfortunately, Void Linux runs runit as init system, and I want systemd.

My 2020 desk setup

170 points by secure 6y ago

zerr 6y ago

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

mech422 6y ago
I got one of their 'freestyle' keyboards years ago.. complete crap - I swear its rubber dome switches :-P I got an ErgoDox EZ last year, put some nice heavy kaihl box switches in it...now I just gotta find time to learn it (and dvorak/colemak). Currently using a Vortex Cypher with the split spacebar, I tore down and rebuild - new switches, added leds (south facing mounts so they're useless but I figured I'd try). and new keycaps.
- antigirl 6y ago
  I got ergodox few months ago. Still getting used to it. I feel like this other ken keyboard promotes typing with your hands rested. ASFAIK this can be a culprit for RSI
- packetslave 6y ago
  There's a HUGE difference between the Kinesis Advantage and the Freestyle line. The Advantage2 uses MX Browns. I tried to love my Ergodox, but I've spent way too many years with the scooped keybed of the Kinesis.
  - mech422 6y ago
    Yeah - People really seem to like the Advantage. I just wasn't sure if I could get used to the scoop... In hindsight, I should have just tried it. The ergo will be something new for me ... New layout and my first ortho-linear.
  - mech422 6y ago
    btw - have you seen/tried anything like the 'tractyl' [0] or ultimate hacking keyboard[1] ? I used to use a trackball full-time, and I'm wondering how well a lil 'thumball' works... [0]https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/dk9b34/tractyl_split_keyboard_with_trackball/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/dk9b34... [1] https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/ https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/
    - packetslave 6y ago
      Tractyl looks pretty neat, but I think I'd miss my thumb keys too much. I looked pretty closely at the UHH, but I think it would be the same issue as the Ergodox -- I'm too used to the scooped keybed of the Kinesis, which makes the reach between e.g. K and 8 short enough that I notice when it's not there on a flat keybed.
      - mech422 6y ago
        You could have the trackball on one thumb and the thumb cluster on the other... I have a couple of crooked fingers from breaks that didn't heal completely straight, and I think I'm getting arthritis. So I'm trying to maximize usage of my 'strong' fingers. I should really try a kinesis sometime. Everyone that has one seems to love them...
dan-robertson 6y ago
I don’t think the advantage feels flimsy. Certainly I wouldn’t want to be hit around the head with one (but maybe this is a bad metric for “flimsy”). I think the premium is largely for the difficulty of putting all those keys in that 3d layout. I think the old advantage 1 had dome switches and was quite a similar price to the cherry-switch advantage 2. The maltron which also has a bowl shaped layout is also expensive. But also the only bit of the body of the keyboard you interact with is the rest for the heel of your hand and often people put something on these anyway (e.g. gel pads, tape to reduce slipping, ...) so it seems bad to optimise for it.

ajross 6y ago

"Probably another macbook setup" "Oh, nope, lots of terminals." "Hey, is that i3?" Then I realized who the author was. Honestly: I tried i3 and it wasn't for me. The psychology of slightly overlapping windows (i.e. "just put this over here, out of the way but still visible" as a way of making a physical reminder for myself) is just too much part of my mental model to give up.

secure 6y ago
Have you tried stacking mode? The title bar will still be visible, while the window is out of the way. See it in action if you zoom into my monitor on https://michael.stapelberg.ch/Bilder/2020-05-22-desk-setup.jpg https://michael.stapelberg.ch/Bilder/2020-05-22-desk-setup.j... That works for me, but I understand it’s not for everyone :)
- virtualwhys 6y ago
  Thanks for creating i3, have been using it for years -- stacked tabs are indeed great, as is basically everything else in this wondrous WM. i3 is solidly in the "pry it from cold, dead hands" category.
- tincholio 6y ago
  Just another big thanks for i3, it has significantly changed my workflow for the better!
- soccerdave 6y ago
  Also want to give you a big thank you for creating i3. After using it for a long time I can’t imagine going back to a setup without it. I almost always need 2 windows side by side and it makes that workflow so effortless.

kensai 6y ago

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

retSava 6y ago
Absolutely! Every now and then you pick up some methods or tools you hadn't thought of, that make yourself better. You just have to remind yourself to bring the critical eye so that you don't start wearing black turtlenecks believing it'll make you a business genius :)

kwerk 6y ago

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

war1025 6y ago

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

secure 6y ago
I rebuild once a year on average, but not every year (planning to skip this year, for example). In general, yes, I find it worthwhile to invest money and effort into a faster experience, but I’m very sensitive to latency, so YMMV :)
- zaroth 6y ago
  There's a sweet spot somewhere in there. I recently re-built my i7-3770 w/ SATA3 SSD into an Ryzen 3700x with NVMe and build times are just remarkably faster. I waited far too long.
devonkim 6y ago
Some folks like having shiny hardware and it’s partly a hobby rather than a need in almost certainty barring specific niche professional needs. I upgrade my workstation setup quite rarely because my work provided laptop is what I use 90%+ of the time. Top of the line is one thing (Xeons and Threadrippers or EPYC) but pretty powerful cost effective CPUs like a 3900X or 9900k are another. Even though I do ML stuff occasionally I still do it as a useless hobby and it’s not worth bumping up to a Threadripper or a crazy GPU, especially when I can use a cloud machine for a fraction of the price and as a bonus force myself to make it somewhat repeatable and deployable for someone else. If one’s been building machines in the past year or so, we’ve just had the biggest performance gains in CPUs in literally 10 years with the latest AMD CPUs. I went a long time with an E3-1230 but got really bored honestly after 5 years and built an i7-4790k ITX machine which wasn’t as big of a change as going from 8GB of RAM to 16 GB or to my first SSD. I got a 3900X this past year and the substantial performance gains are not a big enough reason for me to upgrade yet again compared to something like the new Ampere GPUs for even hobby machine learning purposes like mine. In the future a bigger reason for me to build again would be based around space efficiency reasons where a small case could fit on top of my desk and drive 4K AAA games, encode HEVC video day and night, and all with a 600w SFX PSU.

illuminated 6y ago

"I found that using only one monitor allows me to focus more on what I’m doing, and I don’t miss anything about a multi-monitor setup." This. I had the same realization maybe 7 or 8 years ago and it is true for me. With multiple monitors it's like moving your hands away from the keyboard all the time and looking for the mouse. Same happens for me while looking for anything across the 2 or 3 monitor setup. It just weakens your focus... If I'm on a laptop (and I usually am), I just use the laptop's screen. Getting used to a different screen size while working with my laptop setup would also slightly slow me down when I'm bound to use only the laptop.

lmilcin 6y ago
Except you have huge monitor and you lay stuff in multiple side by side windows which makes the whole argument very moot. And when you use laptop you are kind of forced to use single screen because multiple screens is inconvenient at best. When I started development 15" monitors were standard and 17" were a luxury. Setting multiple monitors was a must or you would have to constantly switch between editor, terminal and documentation. If you look at the setup that's exactly what is happening. On a single screen there is browser with documentation (presumably), and there is four (!) IDE/editor/terminal windows. It's not about how many monitors you have but rather what you are doing with them. You can put Netflix as one of the windows and still get distracted on a single monitor setup or you can have bad sight like me and require two 27" monitors side by side so that I can magnify fonts and have documentation, IDE and terminal at the same time with no strain.
- secure 6y ago
  > If you look at the setup that's exactly what is happening. On a single screen there is browser with documentation (presumably), and there is four (!) IDE/editor/terminal windows. Just to clarify: there are two i3 containers side by side (each using 50%). The left one’s active window is a browser, the right one’s active window is Emacs, in which I have two buffers side by side at the top, and compilation mode and magit status side by side at the bottom.
- illuminated 6y ago

purplezooey 6y ago

A bunch of crap strewn across an old IKEA desk. Why is this interesting.

jtms 6y ago
for me, it is the most interesting thing on the front page right now.
eeh 6y ago
If it's not interesting, move on. I'll answer it literally: seeing what equipment other engineers use can give ideas for one's own serup. stapelberg is an effective engineer, so I'm glad he shared it.
evaneykelen 6y ago
It’s interesting because the author is a software artisan, like many of the people who are responding in this thread. Personally I love reading about the tools used by other people in the same trade. The choice of tools highly influences ones productivity, which is probably why I find it fascinating to read about his choices.
t0astbread 6y ago
How is this comment not dead/flagged?

bluedino 6y ago

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

secure 6y ago
Yes, exactly! You get a lot of retina screen real estate that way :)
whatever1 6y ago
It is so sad that for us not in the Apple Ecosystem it is impossible to find a desktop HiDPI display. We are stuck in 4k for the past 5 years. This Dell is the only "option", but I don't know how many of us can afford spending $5k on a monitor with a lifetime of ~ 3 years that has not shown great reliability. Meanwhile, Linux has made the lives of 4k display owners unlivable due to the lack of non-integer scaling. A 5k display with 200% scaling at 27" would help the situation, but we don't have that option. Many times I have considered jumping on to the MacOS boat, just for the high dpi display availability & scaling support advantage.
- secure 6y ago
  The Dell P2415Q would be my runner-up recommendation: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-hd-4k-monitor-p2415q/apd/210-agnk/monitors-monitor-accessories https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-24-ultra-hd-4k-mon... I used one of them for a few years. A colleague of mine uses 2 HP Z27q 5K displays and is happy with them: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04591534 https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04591534
  - whatever1 6y ago
    HP and Dell made 5k monitors back in 2014, but they were both discontinued pretty fast.
- bluedino 6y ago
  Is there no way to use an LG 5K? The bad thing about the 8K is needing a $500 video card which also means it's not an option for laptop users (I guess you could with an eGPU

ohelabs 6y ago

“ For redundancy, I am backing up my computers to 2 separate network storage devices.” Hopefully he understands that this is not a true backup....he’s basically created a more complex RAID 1 running two NAS... For example a flood, a House fire, theft, or a power surge is probably going to lose/fry both then everything is gone. This is a perfect example of thinking you have something backed up but if you store it in the same place you just created a more complex RAID 1... If you want a backup you need to store a copy in a different location preferably a different region because if you put it at your friends house down the road they are also likely to be hit by the same disaster (i.e flood, tornado, hurricane, war, etc.) as you are.

secure 6y ago
Yes, I understand. I have an off-site backup for that reason, in a different part of the city: https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2018-01-13-offsite-backup-apu2c4/ https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2018-01-13-offsite-backu... The redundancy is just for home, because I don’t want to wait for replacement hardware for my setup to work.
- ohelabs 6y ago
  That’s definitely an improvement and a cheap solution. I always have to remind people of offsite backups... I had to learn the hard way and I’ve now migrated to Backblaze for one of my backup copies for my cold data .
eeh 6y ago
TFA explains why he didn't use RAID1: "I put in one hard disk per device for maximum redundancy: any hardware component can fail and I can just use the other device.". If the motherboard dies on one device, he still has a working device. A backup to one computer is better than none. A backup to two computers is better than one. A backup to four computers in two geographic regions is better than two local. There's no end to how good a person's backup can be. Everyone has their limit.

brootstrap 6y ago

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

akudha 6y ago

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

mech422 6y ago
My buddy has one he's used for ages..5-10 years at least. He swears by it. Definitely a learning curve though.
amarshall 6y ago
I’ve used a Kinesis Advantage at work for 7 years now. Started after I began to get wrist discomfort once I started programming full-time. It’s been wonderful, and removal of the discomfort and pain is worth the $300 several times over. I bought one for home shortly after. It does take a bit to get used to typing on. It took a few days to get from 6 wpm to ~35 wpm, and about two weeks total to get to ~80 wpm. I can usually type a bit faster on a “standard” laptop keyboard, but 80 wpm is still plenty fast. I’m a Vim user, so I mapped the End key to Esc (keyboard has hardware mapping built-in). I do experience the stuck-key issue referenced (annoying, but easily worked-around and infrequent), going to look into swapping the PCB as linked.
- safog 6y ago
  I wish there was a way to try this keyboard without committing to buying it for a month or so. It seems like there will be a learning curve and you might not even like it at the end of it.
  - amarshall 6y ago
    Indeed. I was fortunate enough to have a coworker who had one and let me try it while they were on vacation.
  - psanford 6y ago
    There is a way! Kinesis has a 60 day return policy if you buy directly from them. [0]: https://kinesis-ergo.com/support/returns/ https://kinesis-ergo.com/support/returns/

zaroth 6y ago

One minor benefit of TFA to me this morning is I had a 120mm case fan that has been vibrating / buzzing, but I've been delaying buying a replacement just due to not wanting to choose the wrong SKU (again). Scrolling through the size I see the recommendation of the Noctua NF-A12x25. Probably 3x what I paid for the fan that is being replaced, but it could be the only component in the case that stays during the next rebuild!

mikelward 6y ago
I just built a system, but the included case fans are too loud. Just ordered a Be Quiet! 140 mm Shadow Wings 2 for the front and a 120 mm for the back. From everything I've read, they're the quietest. And are cheaper. But might move less air, due to being limited to 900 rpm. https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/1625 https://www.bequiet.com/en/casefans/1625 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07MCHLGC5 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07MCHLGC5

ajphdiv 6y ago

Huge fan of i3. It also allowed me to reduce down to one monitor. I use a MSI Optix 34” curved monitor. I like your idea with the USB hub to switch between computers — I will probably adopt that.

i3winner 6y ago

Is he me? Same CPU, CPU fan, SSD, monitor, RAM, case, WM, linux distro.. Except I never made the switch to vim from emacs. In all seriousness, I have great respect for Stapelberg and I thank him for posting this. I love seeing other dev's setups and learned a few things in his post.

Youden 6y ago

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

secure 6y ago
It effortlessly satisfies a full gigabit, otherwise I wouldn’t stick with it :)
- phreeza 6y ago
  Do you have any experience with using it on "Crossover7" which I think is somehow the slightly less preferred offer from fiber7 that I have?
  - secure 6y ago
    I do not have any experience with it. My expectation would be that the IP network quality itself is good (provided by init7), and hopefully the underlying platform is stable and well-provisioned enough.

dilandau 6y ago

He fell for literally every meme. Consumer blogspam.

raveenb 6y ago

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

safog 6y ago
Similar setup - I just throw my terminal full screen on a vertical monitor (w/ GNU Screen) and don't find it distracting in any way.

mhd 6y ago

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

jseliger 6y ago
Considering how many hours a day he likely uses his machine, it may work out to something like the difference between a few cents and 10 cents an hour.
- bradlys 6y ago
  That's only going to be true if the $4000 extra they spent is used for 40,000+ hours. It's likely closer to be a dollar an hour more for slightly crisper text. (Assuming they use it full time for 2 years)
  - valuearb 6y ago
    The monitor/GPU have a lot more than 2 year lifespan. Depreciation is likely less than 50% in 2 years. And he didn't pay for slightly crisper text, he paid for higher productivity. At $100/hour that 25 to 50 cents is trivial to make up. Which is why devs should never, ever skimp on hardware.
    - mhd 6y ago
      Okay, first of all let me say that I don't want to poo-poo anyone's choice of environment. If it "sparks joy" for hours every day, it's probably a good personal investment. On the other hand, it does require additional resources being wasted, both for producing the items -- monitors/GPUs indeed do have a long lifespan, which means that the previous ones would still work -- and increased energy used per hour. So saying that any $ spent on hardware can't be wasted for devs... And whether it will actually result in increased productivity is a good question. Readability, eye strain, enjoyment all factor in. Plenty of studies that only focus on one aspect, so easy to cherry pick a conclusion... Again, I don't believe this is more wasteful than a few spa days or a vacation, so good for the OP. My initial post was about how that works out for them (or others chiming in). I find myself not too affected by this, i.e. my last big jump was from a 21 CRT to a 24 inch Dell, especially when it comes to the simple shapes of monochrome fonts.

anotheryou 6y ago

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

secure 6y ago
Yeah, I wanted to look into QMK for a while now, it’s on my list :) Will add this detail as one thing to check out, thanks!

iaskwhy 6y ago

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

ZekeSulastin 6y ago

The WH-1000XM3 are just about the only recommended bluetooth headphone anymore that makes switching devices that much of a pain. Most will either automatically switch between a few active devices or allow you to switch by just initiating the connection from the target device. Have you looked at installing the patched pulseaudio-bluetooth modules to gain LDAC support? :)

mikelward 6y ago
I use NFC pairing when it's available. Unfortunately most audio sources don't support it. Has anybody looked into how you'd make a DIY NFC tag for this?
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  I don't know the specifics here but you can buy blank NFC tags and I used NFC Tools PRO for writing tags with my android phone, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wakdev.nfctools.pro https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wakdev.nfc... .
  - mikelward 6y ago
    Thanks. As far as I can tell making a tag that announces speakers is straightforward. I'm trying to go the other direction, where the laptop/PC/tablet doesn't support NFC pairing.
secure 6y ago
Have not looked at any fancy pulseaudio setups. I don’t want to maintain them on my machines over time, as I use these headphones with 4 different devices :)
- ZekeSulastin 6y ago
  Fair enough! For other people coming across the thread, the repo for the modules is here (sorry for not posting this in the original post: https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt) Good news is that there's some more activity towards upstreaming them; at least in my experience, they Just Worked(TM) as far as the system automatically selecting LDAP or AAC as needed.

wiredfool 6y ago

I’m a couple of weeks into using a single giant (32”) monitor at macOS’s 3k resolution, and I’m finding it works pretty well with a 3x2 set of windows for code, terminal and docs. The center third is usually a single emacs window with two frames, web browser on the left, and inspect window or terminals on the right. I’m also really liking the usb-c power delivery, so it’s one cable to the work laptop, and from there, it’s got a usb hub for the kB/mouse. The killer feature is the built in KVM switch, so by switching the input to hdmi, I can switch the keyboard/moose to my mini and use it when I’m not at $day_job.

dijit 6y ago
What monitor do you have?
- wiredfool 6y ago
  Dell U3219q.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

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

LeonM 6y ago
I guess it's one of those things that you need to use for a while to 'get it'. Just like switching from FHD to 4K (on a laptop). You won't be blown away immediately when you first use it, until you go back to FHD and suddenly you realize how much nicer the 4K screen was. I run a 43" 4K display for work an I wish it was 8K, because when switching from my 15" 4K laptop to the 43" 4K desktop setup suddenly the desktop monitor doesn't look that crisp anymore.

analog31 6y ago

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

secure 6y ago
I use that for porting https://gokrazy.org/ https://gokrazy.org/ to the Raspberry Pi 4 (right now) and doing other Raspberry Pi development in general :)

ariofrio 6y ago

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

DevKoala 6y ago

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

sunstone 6y ago

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

dividuum 6y ago
Thirded :). I've switched (to its predecessor) over 10 years ago and never looked back. I even works perfectly well with hectic games after a bit of practice. Additionally I'm using keyboards without numpad to further reduce the distance reaching the "mouse".
anotheryou 6y ago
My thumb is glad to get rest from the phone I think :) I only need relieve from clicking if I do it a lot (and than map it to the keyboard for my other hand for a week or so).

11235813213455 6y ago

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

alexellisuk 6y ago

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

xenihn 6y ago

Given that this is the closest thing to a monitor discussion thread I've seen on HN, I'd like to ask if anyone has a recommendation for what I should upgrade to next. My progression has been the 2560x1440 Thunderbolt display to the Dell P2715Q, which has been my main monitor at work and home for the past 5 years. I've tried to upgrade from the P2715Q three times now, and always end up going back to it because I'm dissatisfied by the quality of the other panels in comparison. I want a larger screen that can support 4K, or even 5K, with comparable panel quality. I avoided the LG 5K display sold by Apple because I heard bad things about it, but never actually tried one. It's 27" as well, so I think it would still be too small, even if the panel quality and resolution are better. I'm starting to think I should just get a TV and use that as my display, but I don't know which would best suit my needs for writing software. One nice thing about a TV is that it would be much easier to do returns/swaps if I need to play the panel lottery for something that will make me happy. I have never done this with a previous display, since I always bought second-hand from people who had already done that for me. The original owner of my P2715Q apparently returned theirs three times before they were satisfied. I've toyed with the idea of getting an Apple Pro display, but I really don't want to spend more than $2000 on a monitor. The UP3218K described in the article seems like it would be a good upgrade, but it definitely exceeds my price range. I would be open to spending that much on a monitor if I knew I wouldn't be replacing it for at least five years, but I can't know that for sure. Although funnily enough, that's what has happened with my P2715Q. It's the only piece of computing equipment I haven't replaced since I first started using it.

raihansaputra 6y ago
Rtings has comprehensive reviews for TV as monitors: https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/pc-monitor https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/best/by-usage/pc-monitor

lwhsiao 6y ago

I've always been curious about higher-end USB microphones (the Rode is ~$230) compared with a potentially more upgradable XLR setup like: - Behringer UM2 USB Audio Interface - Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 Dynamic Cardioid mic This would give the upgradability of an XLR audio interface and a seemingly decent mic for about $125. I imagine once everything is plugged together, it similarly comes down to just plugging in a USB, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't plug-n-play on Linux. I don't know how well the audio quality would compare, though. I'd be interested to hear more about the challenges of getting a working setup with XLR audio gear that are alluded to in the post.

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AjwadJaved 6y ago

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

secure 6y ago
Thanks, I’m aware. Unfortunately, Void Linux runs runit as init system, and I want systemd.