What is your home set-up?

ghostanon

Active Member
Joined
Jul 2, 2023
Messages
120
Reaction score
56
Credits
1,189
Something that has always interested me was the different set-ups that people have, especially gamers. I always wonder when I read posts, "is this person sitting on the couch with a laptop, are they working from home and just commenting from time to time, so on and so on. I was hoping maybe some people would share a pic of their home set ups. I'm sure some of you have quite an investment of time and money and would like to do a little bragging. So if your interested, maybe a pic or two, what your primary use is and a brief description of your system and which distro you use. I'll go first. So mine is what you see in my signature plus there's a 32" t.v. I use for keeping up on news and events when I'm working from home. The laptop goes with me everywhere along an array of peripheral devices such as a raspberry pi, a rooted google pixel loaded with a custom OS and various cord and batteries. That's my first desktop computer and I love it because it gives me the ability to do alot from home. And yes, I sit right there and talk to you jokers and watch youtube and occasionally fall asleep.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot_2023-08-31_02_58_41.png
    Screenshot_2023-08-31_02_58_41.png
    2.3 MB · Views: 392


I am 72, I grew up having a life, and so have absolutely no interest in hiding away gaming. I do have an HD 24 " gaming monitor, but this is because of age related eyesight.
 
I don't have pictures but I can describe my 2 environments: desktop and laptop

I don't play games as much as I make software or digital art so I'm not very demanding in terms of hardware specs and peripherals, with a few exceptions like monitors, headsets and mice.

Also my OS is NixOS and I use KDE Plasma

Desktop
  • I don't have a strong preference on desks, as long as the desk lets me cross my legs and has good build quality and design.
  • I use a gaming chair, although I really really need to eventually replace it with a high quality office chair for better comfort and mobility. My back can easily hurt if I'm sitting in a bad chair (college).
  • I use a 27" monitor (Asus ProArt PA278QV). I have a strong preference on monitors with good and accurate colors and I like the 27" size. Despite being a monitor more intended to be used in art and multimedia, this monitor has a low input delay, freesync support and a refresh rate of 75Hz. It's an amazing monitor I love it. There's also a 1920x1200 24" variant that is around 100€ cheaper which is really nice if you don't mind the 24" size.
  • I also have a secondary 21.5" 1920x1080 IPS monitor but I don't use it much nowadays.
  • I use a linear switch mechanical keyboard and a gaming mouse. Good mouse sensor latency, accuracy and resolution are important even for non-gaming tasks. The mechanical keyboard is a nice extra, although I wouldn't mine going back to membrane, since I mostly don't mind my laptop's keyboard.
  • CPU is as of now a Core i5 9600K. I wouldn't mind replacing it for a newer and higher tier CPU since I do CPU-intensive tasks.
  • GPU is the GTX 1060 3GB. It just works and it runs everything I need it to run very well, so I don't intend on replacing it so soon. I just wish it wasn't nvidia so I wouldn't have to deal with the nvidia hassles.

Laptop
  • Simple setup, I just sit on a very comfortable chair in the living room and use the laptop on my lap. The laptop's screen isn't as great (lower color gamut and a bit lower contrast ratio), but it's still fine. I never forget to limit the battery charging to 50% for a longer lifespan.
  • I use the Intel Iris Xe GPU for gaming. It's on the high end of integrated gpus but it's still integrated, so it's not very powerful. It runs most of my games just fine at 1920x1080. I have a dedicated GPU on this laptop but I took effort to fully disable that GPU on boot because nvidia optimus gives me a horrible laptop experience and the dedicated GPU on idle is a power hog.
  • I use the same mouse as on the desktop nowadays.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Over time, I have 'collected' a number of old computers, but my present setup is a 24" monitor connected (via HDMI) to a HP G2 i3 2GHz with 8GB DDR4 running Devuan/XFCE, this is sitting on a small computer desk - next to this is my secondary set up, a 21.5" monitor (using DP) attached, at various times, to various HP T520 thin clients, some with just 2GB DDR3, others with 4GB, & differing O/S, (present one has PC-BSD 10 on it; an old O/S that I'm looking at).

Across from these, is my third set up, an old 17" SXGA connected via DVI-D to a Dell/Wyse thin client, modified with 8GB DDR3, & a 240GB M2 SSD in a SATA case, attached via a SATA cable, internally. This is running OpenBSD.

Downstairs in the living room, I have my quick access to the internet, an old Toshiba Chrome book (2GB DDR3/16GB eMMC), upgraded to using Devuan/XFCE.

Then, in storage, I have some more thin clients, a HP G62 15.6 laptop, & a couple of tiny desktop computers, plus a couple of Raspberry Pi, a 4GB RPi4, & a RPi400.

No, I'm not rich, most have been aquired pre used! :)
 
My collection is a pile of Raspberries. A 3, three 4's, and a box full of Zeros too numerous to count. My baliwick is controlling things, which these days is best done with a Pi and the GPIO. And maybe with an Arduino attached. But, that list also includes my pride and joy, a 1976 Altair 8800, although I have to admit that the insides are no longer totally vintage. i.e, rather than a row of 8kb memory cards (running almost red hot), I use a much more modern pair of static ram chips of 32k each and four virtual floppies. (SSD floppies, might they be called??? Hmmmm.)

My other Linux machines are a Ryzen 3 tower and a Ryzen 5 tall tower. Unfortunately, the fans in both give the impression of a 737 on a takeoff roll, even with the processors at idle. They have done programming tasks for years, replacing earlier Intel stuff over the couple of decades. But... They are seldom used now for one reason - Apple.

I bought a used M1 Studio in a deal that was too good to pass up, but only used it for net browsing and such. I hate Xcode and Objective C, so there was no chance of me programming on the box. That changed when I tried UTM as a virtual manager. Debian (my distro of choice) loaded without having to make a single search for problems. What I discovered was that I now had a programming system for my Perl, Python, C, C++ and 8080 assembler that was totally silent, cool, and so fast that the Ryzen 5 now seems to be a mechanical adding machine.

So now I boot up the Mac, start my Debian session(s) in UTM, and program away. The Pi's easily connect via WiFi or a USB/Serial cable.
 
I have devices all over the house. I even have a desktop system set up (on a desk, of course) in my bedroom. (Yes, it fits just fine.) I put that in there after the wreck. I also have a study, which is where I do a lot of work.

Most of the time, I use a single monitor. In my study, I had two monitors set up, one in portrait mode. At one point, I even had three monitors on that desk. I'm now just rocking one monitor. It's an Acer something or other, curved, and I want to say it's just 36".

A lot of articles are written on a laptop. I keep three of them maintained, plus the missus has a couple - but she's good at maintaining her own stuff. There's even a tablet in my bathroom upstairs (we both have our own bathrooms off the bedroom) and a tablet in a bathroom downstairs.

Umm... I sometimes browse or play cribbage on said tablets. It has been a long time since I read the label on a shampoo bottle!

I have another small laptop in my man-purse (a messenger bag from LL Bean) but I never remember to charge it and I doubt it has been updated in the past six months. I should probably charge it and update it.

For the most part, I can pick up any device and it's similar enough to use immediately. My files are stored on a networked device and I work on them directly - if I need to.
 
I have a 24" Monitor connected to my 10 year old Tower that now has a new Motherboard...CPU...16GB of DDR4 Ram...a 500GB SSD a Graphics Card and is UEFI.

A 13 year old Laptop 64bit...i5 CPU and 4GB of Ram...a 500GB SSD...heaps of Flash Drives and some External HDDs for storage...99% of the time I'm using my Tower...not a Laptop person.
m1213.gif
 
...
99% of the time I'm using my Tower...not a Laptop person.
m1213.gif
I have a laptop (well, half a laptop!) that I just pretend is a tower.
 
I have a pair of 32" Samsung monitors. In between the two sits a lidless laptop (mid range gaming rig from 2015 or so) that serves as a very nice little desktop (quiet, cool, low-power) connected to the right hand monitor, wired network and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. Dual core intel cpu, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, 1TB HD. It runs Windows 10 to play music, check email and serve as a terminal. Does not have WSL but does have Cygwin with X. It reminds me that I haven't yet completely escaped Microsoft.

To the left of the left-hand monitor, and connected to it, sits an HP thin client - 2 cores, 4 GB RAM, 16 GB SSD. I'm ignoring the SSD (with some kind of MS Windows on it) and booting Tiny Core 14.0 64 bitfrom a USB stick. Any programming I do (mostly scripting, these days), and most of my web browsing happens here.

Further to the left is a 13 year old box running Windows 7 32 that has MS office installed. This system is usually powered down due to heat/noise/power considerations.

Even further to the left is a storage/backup server running Tiny Core12.0 on a refurbed Dell Optiplex with 4 intel cores, 16 GB RAM, a 250GB HD and a 4TB HD.

Since none of the above have working wifi, the whole mess is tied together with a Belkin RT3200 (aka Linksys E8450) running OpenWRT with its wifi set up as a DHCP client on the WAN side to provide internet access via the ISP-provided wifi router at the other end of the house.

In the picture, the left-hand monitor shows a handful of application windows (*) open on my "desktop" of choice: jwm with a slightly tweaked "tray" at the top of the screen. You'd have to look closely to see the muted "conky" display on the right-hand side of the screen. You'd have to look even more closely (or mouse over it) to see the even more muted application "dock" (wbar) on the left-hand edge of the screen.


*) There's a firefox window with seven tabs open, three terminal windows, two text editors, the mnttool widget and the usual daemons running... using just under 1.5 GB of RAM. The root filesystem is in that RAM, too. If I wanted to doom scroll facebook, I'd probably haveto enable some swap.
 

Attachments

  • farquaad_desktop.jpg
    farquaad_desktop.jpg
    4 MB · Views: 401
Code:
                                             |\_ 
                                      ...... |  \__
                                      ...... |@--__)
                                      ...... | _/||
   +-------------------------------------+   |/  ||
   | [flip@flop]$ \(-                    |       \\
   | bash: (-: command not found         |        \\
   |                                     |         ||
   |                                     |         ||
   |                                     |         ||
   |                                     |         ||
   |                                     |         ||
   |                                     |__       ||
   |                                     |  )      //
   +-------------------------------------+  |     //
     _/                               \_    |    //
        +-----------------+                 |    ||
        | `1234567890--=  |________________ |    ||
        |  qwertyuiop[]\  |     +========+ )|    ||
        |  asdfghjkl;'[]  |     | ------ | ||    ||
        |  zxcvbnm,./ []  |     | |____| | ||  .//\\.
        | [] [____] [] [] |     |        | ||   |  |
        +-----------------+     |        | ||   |  |
                                | O      |_)|   |  |
                                |        |__)   |  |
                                |        |____  |  |
                                |        |    ) |  |
                                |        |   /  |  |
                               ===========  /   |  |
             ()-().----.                   /    |  |
              \"/` ___  ;_________________/     |  |
               ` ^^   ^^                        |  |
                                               .//\\.
                                          _ ___/====\_____
                                        (_________________)
 
Last edited:
I guess I have my own little office space in my basement. There are 7 computers in the first picture.
My main daily driver is the glass sided tower in the second picture. I have 4 monitors, but I prefer a single
monitor setup.

Rather than type all the specs by hand, I'll post the output of an ansible script I have. It's in JSON, so it's
not the easiest to read, but most of the important stuff is there. Why only data from 6 computers here?
I confess the laptop on the left runs that "other" operating system. ( Win 11 ) so no specs for that one.

ok: [10.0.0.98] => {
"server_info_json": {
"cpu_cores": "4",
"cpu_model": "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7567U CPU @ 3.50GHz",
"date_time": "2023-09-01.06:51:02",
"distro": "Fedora_38",
"hostname": "ansible1",
"interface": "eno1",
"ip4_address": "10.0.0.98",
"ip4_gateway": "10.0.0.1",
"ip4_netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"ip6_address": "2601:1c1:4000:5fd0::267a",
"ip6_gateway": "fe80::e2db:d1ff:fe45:c6d3",
"ip6_prefix": "128",
"kernel": "6.4.12-200.fc38.x86_64",
"mac_address": "94:c6:91:1d:61:cb",
"memory": "15869mb",
"python_version": "3.11.4",
"selinux": "disabled",
"uptime": "up 3 days, 20 hours, 41 minutes",
"video": " Intel Corporation Iris Plus Graphics 650 (rev 06)"
}
}
ok: [10.0.0.127] => {
"server_info_json": {
"cpu_cores": "24",
"cpu_model": "AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor",
"date_time": "2023-09-01.06:51:02",
"distro": "Fedora_38",
"hostname": "abstower1.localdomain",
"interface": "enp6s0",
"ip4_address": "10.0.0.127",
"ip4_gateway": "10.0.0.1",
"ip4_netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"ip6_address": "2601:1c1:4000:5fd0::5993",
"ip6_gateway": "fe80::e2db:d1ff:fe45:c6d3",
"ip6_prefix": "128",
"kernel": "6.4.12-200.fc38.x86_64",
"mac_address": "70:85:c2:f4:33:15",
"memory": "80334mb",
"python_version": "3.11.4",
"selinux": "disabled",
"uptime": "up 3 days, 21 hours, 58 minutes",
"video": " NVIDIA Corporation TU104 [GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER] (rev a1)"
}
}
ok: [10.0.0.164] => {
"server_info_json": {
"cpu_cores": "8",
"cpu_model": "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8665U CPU @ 1.90GHz",
"date_time": "2023-09-01.06:51:02",
"distro": "Fedora_38",
"hostname": "kickstart30",
"interface": "enp0s20f0u1u4",
"ip4_address": "10.0.0.164",
"ip4_gateway": "10.0.0.1",
"ip4_netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"ip6_address": "2601:1c1:4000:5fd0::3df2",
"ip6_gateway": "fe80::e2db:d1ff:fe45:c6d3",
"ip6_prefix": "128",
"kernel": "6.4.10-200.fc38.x86_64",
"mac_address": "98:e7:43:d1:f1:c6",
"memory": "15789mb",
"python_version": "3.11.4",
"selinux": "disabled",
"uptime": "up 2 weeks, 3 days, 23 hours, 33 minutes",
"video": " Intel Corporation WhiskeyLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics 620] (rev 02)"
}
}
ok: [10.0.0.220] => {
"server_info_json": {
"cpu_cores": "4",
"cpu_model": "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7300U CPU @ 2.60GHz",
"date_time": "2023-09-01.06:51:02",
"distro": "Fedora_38",
"hostname": "prd-bktmod-lt",
"interface": "eno1",
"ip4_address": "10.0.0.220",
"ip4_gateway": "10.0.0.1",
"ip4_netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"ip6_address": "2601:1c1:4000:5fd0::93ea",
"ip6_gateway": "fe80::e2db:d1ff:fe45:c6d3",
"ip6_prefix": "128",
"kernel": "6.4.11-200.fc38.x86_64",
"mac_address": "54:b2:03:9b:e1:bd",
"memory": "7799mb",
"python_version": "3.11.4",
"selinux": "disabled",
"uptime": "up 1 week, 5 days, 18 hours, 20 minutes",
"video": " Intel Corporation HD Graphics 620 (rev 02)"
}
}
ok: [10.0.0.153] => {
"server_info_json": {
"cpu_cores": "12",
"cpu_model": "Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz",
"date_time": "2023-09-01.06:51:04",
"distro": "Fedora_38",
"hostname": "fedora",
"interface": "eno1",
"ip4_address": "10.0.0.153",
"ip4_gateway": "10.0.0.1",
"ip4_netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"ip6_address": "2601:1c1:4000:5fd0::a0bf",
"ip6_gateway": "fe80::e2db:d1ff:fe45:c6d3",
"ip6_prefix": "128",
"kernel": "6.4.11-200.fc38.x86_64",
"mac_address": "70:85:c2:d5:88:c7",
"memory": "15635mb",
"python_version": "3.11.4",
"selinux": "enabled",
"uptime": "up 1 week, 1 day, 21 hours, 34 minutes",
"video": " Intel Corporation CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630]"
}
}
ok: [10.0.0.175] => {
"server_info_json": {
"cpu_cores": "4",
"cpu_model": "Intel(R) Celeron(R) J4125 CPU @ 2.00GHz",
"date_time": "2023-09-01.06:51:05",
"distro": "Fedora_38",
"hostname": "miniPC",
"interface": "enp2s0",
"ip4_address": "10.0.0.175",
"ip4_gateway": "10.0.0.1",
"ip4_netmask": "255.255.255.0",
"ip6_address": "2601:1c1:4000:5fd0::676f",
"ip6_gateway": "fe80::e2db:d1ff:fe45:c6d3",
"ip6_prefix": "128",
"kernel": "6.4.12-200.fc38.x86_64",
"mac_address": "00:ce:39:d1:b9:44",
"memory": "7751mb",
"python_version": "3.11.4",
"selinux": "enabled",
"uptime": "up 3 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes",
"video": " Intel Corporation GeminiLake [UHD Graphics 600] (rev 06)"
}
}
 

Attachments

  • 20230901_063846.jpg
    20230901_063846.jpg
    2.8 MB · Views: 202
  • 20230901_063923.jpg
    20230901_063923.jpg
    2.6 MB · Views: 316
  • 20230901_063939.jpg
    20230901_063939.jpg
    2.5 MB · Views: 364
Two more systems, that weren't in the first set of pictures. That little thing beneath the monitor in the first picture with an ethernet cable and wifi antenna sticking up is actually a computer. It works quite well, I like it a lot. It's my "laptop". It's smaller than my cell phone so it's very portable, the gotcha is no monitor, so you have to have a monitor at the place you're going.


The other system on the nicer desk than mine, is my wife's setup. ( Yeah she uses Linux too ) She gets the 4k monitor,
( mine is only 2k, but I have 165Hz ). She gets the printer local ( the other systems can print through wifi ).
 

Attachments

  • 20230901_070140.jpg
    20230901_070140.jpg
    2.2 MB · Views: 162
  • 20230901_070210.jpg
    20230901_070210.jpg
    2.8 MB · Views: 246
It's so interesting to read through those. Everything from the sophisticated and flashy to "I have half a laptop I pretend is a tower." It doesn't take much, "all we need is a keyboard and a connection" as we used to say. It's good I think to get some insight as to who were talking to. Rather than just associate someone to an icon, it helps me at least remember that were not icons, we're people from all walks of life, all ages, races, genders and personalities all just trying to find our say through all this. Kudos to you.
 
Rather than just associate someone to an icon, it helps me at least remember that were not icons, we're people from all walks of life, all ages, races, genders and personalities all just trying to find our say through all this.

This bit of your comment made me recall a previous thread that might interest you:


(I didn't wade through the pages to see if you were already in the thread.)
 
I only joined a few weeks ago. Most of the only messaging I do is through IRC. I joined while trying figure out why my brand grahics card wasn't working properly after exhausting every other resource. My username was the first one that was available that I typed in. I think my icon speaks for itself. Although not active, still very much support those continuing the movement the right way.
 
My only two usernames that I've used back in the day were actually given to me by others. Keep in mind this is 2010 timeframe. One was ghost because I had a habit of just dropping out of chats or only being present when there was stuff to do. The other one I got later was Ronin. I developed a habit of doing alot of stuff independently. I always felt like being part of a "team" within the movement was going to lead to attracting attention. It did, 20 or so guys got pinched by the FBI some not even members, Jeremy did about 10 years and a couple other guys did some time. I was questioned after op last resort but that's it. I didn't do much after that.
 

Members online


Latest posts

Top