Joe's computing experience

+ +

My computing experience

+ These are the things I use in my day-to-day computing + experience at home. As I enjoy working from my computers + and tweaking them, I recommend them all. +

+ My configuration files for some of these softwares can + be found on my + dotfiles + repo on GitJoe. My wallapers can be found on + this page. +

mother

+ mother is my main computer. It's a desktop I bought + a long time ago and that I have improved over time. To the + day of writing, only the motherboard, CPU, and I guess the + box are original from the day of the purchase. Nearly + everthing else has been replaced/added over time. I like + this box, but even the motherboard and CPU are expected to + be changed at some point because it is ancient, if not + antique. +

+ Its name, mother, is a reference to the on-board + computer in the first Alien movie. It's a great film, go + take a look. +

Hardware

+ Here is the hardware specs: +

Intel i7-4790 - 3.60GHz, 8 threads
28GB RAM - DDR3, 1600MHz
500GB NVMe SSD - PCIe card
500GB SATA SSD
2TB SATA HDD
6TB SATA HDD
MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti 8G
750W - Mars Gaming MPVU750 power supply
2.5G Ethernet PCIe card - RTL8125B

Software

mars

+ mars, formerly fbsd-tp, has now become my + fallback/just-in-case machine. It used to be my main + computer over mother, my more beefier machine. + As I found myself making music and playing games more + frequently, I ditched this low-spec BSD machine over + a more high-spec Linux machine. +

Hardware

+ This computer is a ThinkPad T530 and I love it. + Unfortunately I bought it used and the previous owner + forgot to tell me there was an ugly turtle tattooed on + the rear side. This is my only complain. It's not too + visible but it's there. The deal was quick, there was + not much lighting and the seller opened the screen right + away, so I didn't see that ugly turtle until I was home + with my new computer. +

The ugly turtle

+ Here is the hardware specs: +

Intel i5-3320M - 2.60GHz, 4 threads
8GB RAM
500GB SATA SSD
1TB SATA HDD

+ I know it's not crazy good but I can do all my work and + my media consumption with it so I consider myself a + tech-happy guy. +

Software

+ Software on this computer is all about minimalism. Well, + except for GNU Emacs. +

My neofetch

+
Text editing
+ Custom configured GNU Emacs to be used + with vim key bindings. It is not the most + lightweight editor out there but I love my + config for all kind of coding or text editing. + I use the GUI version. +
+
OS
+ FreeBSD 13 is my OS of choice. I left + GNU/Linux for BSD about 1 year ago and I never + felt the need to go back! +
+
Window manager
+ dwm is my favorite tiling window manager + and the only one I use for it is very light and + highly extensible. +
+
Terminal emulator
+ st is my favorite terminal emulator. + Just like dwm, it's very light and highly + extensible. +
+
Shell
+ I use zsh as my only interactive shell. +
+
Other software
+ Here is a small list of programs I use frequently. + Most are terminal-based. +
- + web browser: Mozilla Firefox for + most web browsing. I also use w3m + and lynx quite a lot. +
- file manager: lf
- image viewer: nsxiv
- video player: mpv
- music player: mpd + ncmpc
- pdf viewer: zathura
- RSS feed reader: newsboat
- email client: neomutt running with isync and msmtp
- address book: abook
- calendar: calcurse +
- IRC client: irssi +
+
+
Games
+ I haven't played much video games in recent times + but here's what I used to play a lot: +
- + Kerbal Space Program on my Linux + machine, I loved this game! +
- + Classic DOOM and Hexen + through gzdoom, it runs very + smooth on BSD. +
+

athena

Other notable hardware

+ I have a RaspberryPi 4 I received from a friend as a + christmas gift. It runs FreeBSD of course. I use it to + learn I2C/GPIO programming with a bit of electronics. I am + looking for some projects for it. +

+ I later got into microcontrollers. I own a development + Arduino Uno and an ESP32, which is a very + interesting chip. I will share projects I have with these + things in the future if I find myself finishing a project. +

+ I have a Casio F-91W watch gifted by a friend too so + I never loose time. Adult people tend to show more respect + towards people wearing watches too, just like they do with + people with wives or kids, so there's that. I later bought + a Casio A100WEGG-1AVT and a A100WE-1AVT + because they're super cool-looking. +

+ Last piece of hardware worth noting is my keyboard: a + + Leopold + + FC900R PD with Cherry MX Brown switches. It is + so good I plan on buying maybe 5 of them in the future so I + don't need to worry and I can just use it the same model + for all my life. I might check some of the + Unicomp + Model M remakes when they are available again. +

+ +

Joe's computing experience

My computing experience

mother

Hardware

Software

mars

Hardware

Software

Text editing

OS

Window manager

Terminal emulator

Shell

Other software

Games

athena

Other notable hardware

Joe's files

Some files