paritybit.ca

What I Use

Last Updated: 2024-10-20

The software and hardware I use. Now with 10% more snark!

This is an updated page detailing what I use now, which has significantly diverged from the style of system I used to run before. If you’re curious what my setup used to be like, see the old uses page.

Software

I’ve used a wide variety of operating systems (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, 9Front, many Linux distributions, MacOS, Windows, etc.), but these days I’m just running Ubuntu everywhere except on my mail/webserver (OpenBSD is still the best tool for the job there).

A screenshot of an Ubuntu 24.04 desktop with nothing open. The desktop is in dark mode.
The Ubuntu 24.04 desktop.
A screenshot of an open Sublime Merge window showing a change just made to my Fenen Feed Reader project. Behind this window is the Sublime Text window, and you can see several other open applications in the dock such as Thunderbird, Firefox, and KeepassXC.
Doing work on my computer instead of working on my computer.

Why Ubuntu in particular? Well, I like the Ubuntu desktop more than any of the other desktops currently available and the system is put together quite well such that everything Just Works™.

I got tired of having a workstation that required a lot of plumbing; where things often just didn’t work well at all or without putting in a lot of effort. I don’t want to choose every little bit of my desktop environment anymore, I don’t want to have to spend tons of time configuring every little thing of every little program, and I just want stuff to be pleasant to use instead of making me feel like I’m forcibly contorting myself to fit some weird standard of software minimalism or “computing purity”. While I used to find that sort of thing fun, these days I just want stuff to Just Work™ so I can get on with the actual work I want to use the computer for, rather than succumbing to the distraction of re-making my Vim configuration for the 10th time or comparing program launcher applications.

That being said, I still do some configuration, which you can find in my Dotfiles repository that I use for easy deployment and updating. There really isn’t much there anymore, but you can check the OpenBSD branch if you want to see configuration for the system I used to use.

Shell

I use the fish shell for its superior tab completion and autosuggestion capabilities. It has a pretty decent scripting language syntax and doesn’t require any configuration to be very usable out of the box.

Text Editor

Right now I’m trying out Sublime Text along with Sublime Merge as an alternative to Neovim, which I used quite heavily before getting kind of tired of its incongruities and quirks. If this sticks, expect a blog post about it in the future.

Web Browser

Despite my many misgivings and grievances with Mozilla,Firefox is still my main web browser. I only have the uBlock Origin extension installed and I make the following about:config changes:

E-Mail Client

My email client is Thunderbird because it Just Works™ for everything I need with no extra configuration needed.

RSS Client

My RSS client is fenen which is a terminal-based reader with a mail(1)-like interface that I wrote myself to fit my needs. Surprise, it also requires no configuration to be usable!

Password Manager

My password manager is KeepassXC because I wanted something fully offline but with a decent GUI.

Miscellaneous

Everything else (image viewer, video player, music player, file manager, whatever) is whatever is provided by a regular Ubuntu installation. They all work well enough.

Main Computer

I recently switched from my Dell XPS 13 9380 to a much more modern HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 that I purchased second-hand with the following specifications:

This laptop fit my requirements for a laptop and comes with the added bonus of the fingerprint reader actually working under Linux!

For the past few years I’ve desired simplifying my general purpose computing setup from a beefy desktop computer plus a portable laptop down to just a laptop that I can use with a dock. Not having to worry about file synchronization and being able to just take my computer anywhere with me while maintaining my open windows and running programs is super convenient.

I also don’t need all that much power for the things I do except when it comes to video games, and integrated graphics have gotten really good over the past years such that I can play almost anything I want as long as I mind the settings. Having this much more power-efficient setup compared to using my desktop is also nice for my wallet.

I previously used a Thinkpad T440s followed by a T420s, but, after then using a 2009 MacBook Pro and then an old 12” Toshiba netbook, I really can’t see myself going back to bigger screens and bulkier form factors.

Peripherals

For an external display when docked, I use an LG Gram +view 16” portable monitor, mounted on a monitor arm via a VIVO Mount-UVM02 tablet holder. This display is compact, well-built, power-efficient, and has a crisp 2560x1600 (16:10) resolution, which is a combination of specifications that’s exceedingly difficult to find in a normal desktop monitor.

My keyboard is an HHKB Professional 2 (Black) and I use a Logitech MX Ergo wireless trackball mouse. I connect the mouse to my computer via a Logitech Unifying Receiver plugged into the back of the keyboard so that it’s easy to switch the peripherals to my desktop computer using a USB switch.

My headphones are Logitech Zone Vibe 100 Bluetooth headphones. I previously used wired “Hi-Fi” headphones (Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro 250 Ohm) and they do indeed have better sound quality, but the convenience of a wireless setup is a trade-off I’m willing to make. I also sometimes use a Bose SoundLink Mini II as a speaker.

For speaking, I have a Blue Snowball Ice USB microphone which I got sometime in 2017, before I knew anything about audio. It will be replaced with something better when it breaks or when I decide the world needs another podcast.

My webcam, for the rare occasions that I need one, is a Logitech C920. It’s cheap and cheerful and does the job well enough.

Desktop Computer / “Gaming Console”

My previously-main-computer-turned-gaming-console is a custom-built PC with the following specs:

PCPartPicker build list.

When this was my primary computer, it ran ElementaryOS. Now it’s running Bazzite and stays powered off most of the time.

I use the same peripherals with this computer as with my laptop. The display is connected to my desktop’s GPU using a surplus Dell DP alt mode PCIe card. I also have a Sennheiser BTD600 Bluetooth USB Dongle for my headphones.

My Ideal Hardware

I have reached my ideal hardware setup. A laptop as my only general purpose computer with a more powerful system for gaming plus a very pleasant set of peripherals is really all I need. I wanted my computing setup to be as relatively uncomplicated as possible, and I think I've just about reached that goal.

Now that I've acquired a convertable laptop, I can also use my laptop for comfortably reading long-form content. Thanks to its pen support it's also really easy to make notes too.

Phone

I have an iPhone 12 mini with 64GB of storage which I purchased second-hand for 361€. I like small phones.

Also, my phone is just an appliance to me. It takes good pictures, it holds a digital copy of my train tickets, it lets me look things up, communicate with friends and family, navigate while on the go, and it opens DHL Packstations for me. I’m not a power user and I don’t keep anything important or valuable on it.

I also use the greyscale screen filter at about 50%; not for reducing screen addiction, but rather because I prefer the aesthetic and find the normal display a bit too stimulating.

I previously had an iPhone X that was given to me for free by a family member but it developed an issue with phantom touch screen input making the phone intermittently and unpredictably unusable. It needed to be replaced.

Prior to the iPhone X I had an iPhone 6 that was given to me for free by a family friend which is still usable except for a lack of app compatibility (specifically public transit and messaging apps).

Before that I had an ASUS Zenfone 2 Laser that I purchased new for C$300 in 2015. It was (stuck) running LineageOS with Android 8.1 and I primarily replaced it because its original battery failed and then the replacement battery I bought for it failed within a year. Turns out, I like iOS more anyways.

My Ideal Phone

Honestly my ideal phone would be no phone. I would switch to using a physical TAN generator for authorising bank transfers and use a physical TOTP token generator for two-factor authentication. I would print my train tickets out and call my family using a W48.

Unfortunately there's just a lot of convenience in having a smartphone in modern society. Not like "oh it's so convenient that I can keep up with my friends at all times or send and receive emails from anywhere", but more like being able to buy a train ticket as I'm stepping onto a train or having a map of the whole world in my pocket so I can figure out where I am in a foreign city or being able to redirect packages to a no-contact pickup station so that I don't have to be home to receive a package and can pick it up at any time.

My only issue, really, is that I cannot stand the size of modern smartphones. I have no idea what I'll get when my current phone breaks and the last iPhone mini goes out of support. I have no interest in FOSS phone jank, and nobody seems to be interested in making a stripped-down-yet-still-functional mini phone so I have no clue. Hopefully enough people (especially those pesky influencers) complain about the death of the small phone enough for someone to come around and make something worth buying.

E-Reader

My Kobo Clara HD eReader lying on my desk displaying the Crafting Interpreters homepage in its built-in web browser.
Kobo Clara HD E-Reader

I use a Kobo Clara HD with the SleepCover which I purchased refurbished in February, 2021 for a total of C$175.

I use it with its stock interface (I tried koreader but didn’t like it) and I’ve come to really enjoy this little device.

Overall it serves my needs very well. It’s lightweight and compact—the screen size is really a perfect size for reading books and long-form webpages (though it struggles a bit with PDFs)—it’s easy to dump books onto and get highlights off of, and it can also browse text-heavy websites decently well.

Servers & Homelab

My email server and website are hosted on a VM at OpenBSD Amsterdam with 1 vCPU, 1GB RAM, and a 50GB HDD. It costs 69€/yr (5,75€/mo) with 15€ (1,25€/mo) of that donated to the OpenBSD project directly. It’s a pretty good deal in my opinion, and a clever way to support OpenBSD development.

As a Homelab (for running non-production stuff I want to experiment with such as rrdtool, Docker, or Owncast), I have a Minisforum UN100L with the following specifications:

It gets the job done nicely, quietly, and draws something like 2-3W in total at idle (which is where it spends most of its time). I got it on pre-sale for 229€, which was not much more expensive than the recent generations of used Dell or HP Micro machines with comparable idle power draw but much worse efficiency under load.