uses.7 (3993B) [raw]
1 .Dd September 14, 2021 2 .Dt USES 7 3 .Os 4 .Sh NAME 5 .Nm uses 6 .Nd list of software/hardware I use 7 .Sh DESCRIPTION 8 I really enjoy a good "uses" post. 9 I think the first I ever stumbled across was Wes Bos', 10 back when I was learning web-development. 11 As someone fascinated by developer tooling, 12 I loved hearing what other programmers use in their day-to-day lives. 13 .Pp 14 I try to keep this page up to date, 15 both for my future nostalgia 16 as well as for anyone else out there who enjoys the "genre". 17 .Sh SOFTWARE 18 .Ss Editor 19 I got hooked on 20 .Xr vim 1 21 mid-college (~2017) and never looked back. 22 It's first on this list (with a dedicated section!) 23 because it was the "gateway program" 24 that got me interested in developer tooling in the first place! 25 If not my most important tool, 26 it's definitely the most impactful. 27 .Pp 28 Other editors I use: 29 .Pp 30 .Bl -bullet -compact 31 .It 32 .Xr vi 1 33 for system configs (super snappy on OpenBSD) 34 .It 35 .Xr ed 1 36 for fun and for slow/serial connections (yes, really!) 37 .El 38 .Pp 39 I try emacs every once and a while because I think Lisp is awesome 40 (and far superior to VimScript), 41 but I don't really dig the "run everything in emacs" approach. 42 .Ss Operating System 43 I've been passionate about running free and open source (FOSS) 44 operating systems 45 since ~2019 when I first started using Linux seriously at work. 46 At some point in ~2020, I discovered OpenBSD and 47 slowly started putting it on all of my personal machines. 48 I'm currently running: 49 .Pp 50 .Bl -compact -bullet 51 .It 52 OpenBSD for my laptop, desktop, 53 server (hosting this site \(em see 54 .Xr self-hosted 7 ) , 55 and home router/firewall 56 .It 57 Arch Linux for work 58 (needed a cutting edge kernel for newer work laptop) 59 .El 60 .Pp 61 In the past I've also used Alpine Linux on my laptop and Debian 62 on my desktop. 63 .Ss Other Tools 64 I'm a huge fan of command line tools for their composability and 65 keyboard-centric UI. Some of my favorites include: 66 .Pp 67 .Bl -compact -bullet 68 .It 69 .Xr git 1 70 for all things plaintext: notes, code, config backups, etc 71 .It 72 .Xr tmux 1 73 for terminal scrollback, searching, copy/paste buffers, multiplexing, 74 persistent sessions over dropped 75 .Xr ssh 1 76 connections... really a necessity! 77 .It 78 .Xr mutt 1 79 for personal email (great for mailing lists!) 80 .It 81 .Xr pass 1 82 for password/secret management 83 .It 84 .Xr sh 1 85 for glueing it all together, of course! 86 .El 87 .Sh HARDWARE 88 .Ss Keyboard 89 After years of mushy laptop keyboards, 90 I discovered mechanical keyboards through a coworker and 91 I've been clicking and clacking happily ever since! 92 .Pp 93 I started off with an Ultimate Hacking Keyboard 94 with Kailh browns (had to be quiet in a shared office), 95 but I've been using a Keyboardio Atreus for about a year. 96 I switched in a (successful!) attempt to reduce finger movement 97 and strain. 98 Plus, I'm a remote worker now, 99 and I get to clack away at Kailh white switches, 100 which is awesome. 101 .Ss Laptop 102 When I started really getting into Linux at work and home ~2019, 103 I installed Arch on my old macbook and suffered at the hands of 104 NVIDIA and poor hardware support until I ditched my macbook for 105 a ThinkPad X220 (2011, i7, 2GB RAM) that I bought used for ~$130 off Ebay. 106 A simple upgrade to a SSD and it runs great! 107 .Pp 108 I use the laptop for casual browsing and hobby coding 109 (I try to ensure my hobby projects all run on old hardware!), 110 but its CPU age really shows on big websites or compilations. 111 .Ss Desktop 112 I built my first desktop (a long standing nerd goal of mine) at the 113 start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when it became clear I'd be 114 working from home and my 2GB of laptop RAM wouldn't cut it. 115 .Pp 116 I tried (and failed) to keep the parts entirely FOSS-friendly, 117 but I ended up getting a GPU that needed the AMDGPU firmware blobs 118 (hard to find a fully free graphics card these days it seems). 119 With a high-end CPU (AMD Ryzen 7 3700X) 120 but a low-end GPU (Radeon RX 560), 121 it was a reasonable price. 122 And with 16GB of RAM, it handles my work environment well. 123 .Sh SEE ALSO 124 .Bl -bullet -compact 125 .It 126 .Xr blog 7 127 .It 128 .Lk https://wesbos.com/uses Wes Bos' uses page 129 .El