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.
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!!!
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.
Granted, they sell desktops in France, and you could technically put one in a van, but the experience of taking off for a month-long road trip to get some work done is a definite perk.
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.
Worked on a desktop for years ... You're right, you can get monster cpu's, Ram, and Video cards to run 3 screen displays but what I hated was having to switch between the laptop and my desktop often (As a Rails freelancer, I work from a multitude of locations).
Often I'd get a file or install some software on my desktop and forget that I hadn't done so on my laptop, then I'd have to go find the file again or reinstall and setup the software.
Ergonomics: For 6'4" me, quite a ways off most ergonomics charts (in theory not, in practice yes), the best position I've found at home is in a reclining chair with the computer on my lap. It isn't recommended anywhere that I can see, but with the position I hold my computer in, all the actual ergonomic factors that you are supposed to seek out are in play: I'm usually partially reclined so it's more like I'm in a chaise longue, which I've seen mentioned as one ergonomic optimum in a few places (and I agree). My wrists are very straight and unpressured. I don't use the trackpad a lot anyhow and it's in easy reach. I can go all day like this no problem. (Yes, I am aware that I shouldn't even so and in practice don't. My point is that I can.) Very few desktop setups have been able to match this.
Also, Dvorak on my laptop keyboards has proved sufficient for me. YMMV.
Display Space: My laptop is at 1600x900 (yes, exactly). I'm in Linux running compviz, and with a single keystroke I can switch virtual desktops arbitrarily quickly. (With compviz now it can be literally a single frame on the display if you like; I find I prefer a bit more animation so my poor primitive lizard brain, already struggling with this whole "computer screen" thing, doesn't get completely disoriented.) I still like my dual-monitor display at work but I can't say it's critical.
In Windows, I would scream. Even Windows 7 is still too multi-desktop hostile for this to work.
Computational power: Usually my compilation is actually offloaded to fast VMs anyhow, so that's less of a problem. You shouldn't buy the cheapest laptop you can get, but anything above about $600 should scream for most dev tasks, even modestly-disk-intensive loads, because everything comes with such obscene amounts of RAM nowadays that a lot of stuff is hitting cache anyhow. With a full desktop Linux and two VMs generously allocated with RAM, I'm just barely using all 4GBs, including disk cache. (Without it, I'm at 1.8GB free RAM. Obscene, I tell you.) Anything else and laptops are fine. Admittedly, you may have to run Linux.
And this laptop is now coming up on a year old now, and there's been advancements even then. Just about the only thing I do now that shows any sort of delay is starting up Firefox, and, well, I'm still waiting to see the system that doesn't take visible time to do that :)
The last desktop advantage for dev is IO and I expect SSDs to end that disparity. (Leaving behind only 3D graphics, but unless you're developing a 3D game that shouldn't matter for dev.)
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.
The problem with desktops (for me) is that I need a laptop to be mobile, I would love to have a mac pro or imac at home but keeping them both in sync is too much of an effort!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I'm on an Asus EeePC 1000H and I adore it. I used to have another machine for gaming and other stuff but after I went about a year without turning it on I got rid of it. I like to plug mine into a larger external display and my wireless kb+mouse if I'm at my desk.
As far as my OS, yesterday it was a pretty heavily tweaked install of XP, today I'm trying out Ubuntu 10.04. Oh, and learning how to use Vim.
EDIT: I've also got a 1tb external drive for long term storage, and slightly smaller USB powered external for those other occasions.
The only important user-facing software on my machine: Emacs, Firefox, Pidgin, VLC. I installed Stumpwm (http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/), but went back to Gnome until I have the time to learn, and am less ego-depleted.
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.
You can see my setup here: 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.)
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] jasonkester|15 years ago|reply
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!!!
[+] [-] cytzol|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jasonkester|15 years ago|reply
http://photos1.blogger.com/photoInclude/x/blogger/5478/1688/...
and this:
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/04/west-coast-mob...
Granted, they sell desktops in France, and you could technically put one in a van, but the experience of taking off for a month-long road trip to get some work done is a definite perk.
[+] [-] epochwolf|15 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] awolf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trustfundbaby|15 years ago|reply
Often I'd get a file or install some software on my desktop and forget that I hadn't done so on my laptop, then I'd have to go find the file again or reinstall and setup the software.
It just got annoying after a while.
[+] [-] jerf|15 years ago|reply
I've gone all laptop for a few reasons.
Ergonomics: For 6'4" me, quite a ways off most ergonomics charts (in theory not, in practice yes), the best position I've found at home is in a reclining chair with the computer on my lap. It isn't recommended anywhere that I can see, but with the position I hold my computer in, all the actual ergonomic factors that you are supposed to seek out are in play: I'm usually partially reclined so it's more like I'm in a chaise longue, which I've seen mentioned as one ergonomic optimum in a few places (and I agree). My wrists are very straight and unpressured. I don't use the trackpad a lot anyhow and it's in easy reach. I can go all day like this no problem. (Yes, I am aware that I shouldn't even so and in practice don't. My point is that I can.) Very few desktop setups have been able to match this.
Also, Dvorak on my laptop keyboards has proved sufficient for me. YMMV.
Display Space: My laptop is at 1600x900 (yes, exactly). I'm in Linux running compviz, and with a single keystroke I can switch virtual desktops arbitrarily quickly. (With compviz now it can be literally a single frame on the display if you like; I find I prefer a bit more animation so my poor primitive lizard brain, already struggling with this whole "computer screen" thing, doesn't get completely disoriented.) I still like my dual-monitor display at work but I can't say it's critical.
In Windows, I would scream. Even Windows 7 is still too multi-desktop hostile for this to work.
Computational power: Usually my compilation is actually offloaded to fast VMs anyhow, so that's less of a problem. You shouldn't buy the cheapest laptop you can get, but anything above about $600 should scream for most dev tasks, even modestly-disk-intensive loads, because everything comes with such obscene amounts of RAM nowadays that a lot of stuff is hitting cache anyhow. With a full desktop Linux and two VMs generously allocated with RAM, I'm just barely using all 4GBs, including disk cache. (Without it, I'm at 1.8GB free RAM. Obscene, I tell you.) Anything else and laptops are fine. Admittedly, you may have to run Linux.
And this laptop is now coming up on a year old now, and there's been advancements even then. Just about the only thing I do now that shows any sort of delay is starting up Firefox, and, well, I'm still waiting to see the system that doesn't take visible time to do that :)
The last desktop advantage for dev is IO and I expect SSDs to end that disparity. (Leaving behind only 3D graphics, but unless you're developing a 3D game that shouldn't matter for dev.)
[+] [-] jaxn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jseliger|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benofsky|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swah|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abyssknight|15 years ago|reply
Hackerspace Kit
Freelance / Personal Kit Gaming Kit Work Kit[+] [-] giantfuzzypanda|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] falsestprophet|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mitchellhislop|15 years ago|reply
It is really interesting to see how many people use a laptop as a main dev box. I figured that more hackers would have a desktop and a laptop
[+] [-] JarekS|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damienfir|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javert|15 years ago|reply
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|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jarek|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pyronicide|15 years ago|reply
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|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErrantX|15 years ago|reply
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|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cytzol|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluemetal|15 years ago|reply
As far as my OS, yesterday it was a pretty heavily tweaked install of XP, today I'm trying out Ubuntu 10.04. Oh, and learning how to use Vim.
EDIT: I've also got a 1tb external drive for long term storage, and slightly smaller USB powered external for those other occasions.
[+] [-] zck|15 years ago|reply
Keyboard: black Unicomp SpaceSaver (http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html).
Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder gaming mouse (http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming-...). 2x 21.5" emachines 1920x1080 monitor (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/), but went back to Gnome until I have the time to learn, and am less ego-depleted.
[+] [-] wglb|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jseliger|15 years ago|reply
My family's space is here: http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the-trade%E2%80%... .
[+] [-] gprisament|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zak|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pcestrada|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] proee|15 years ago|reply
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5986/imag0011w.jpg
[+] [-] dan_sim|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] postfuturist|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] draegtun|15 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] mambodog|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jaddison|15 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] futuremint|15 years ago|reply
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.