Jonathan Hunt

―― jonhunt.uk ――
07 Feb 2021

My computing setup

For anyone curious what hardware and software I use, here is a list which I'll try to keep up to date:

PC hardware

Internals

Peripherals

Audio

Miscellaneous

PC software

Mobile

Future considerations

Here's some things I'm considering buying in future:

  • A lightweight fully free device
    For my day-to-day computing my current PC is overkill. Something like the EOMA68 or Beagle-V would save on bills, maintenance and energy-consumption, and its small size makes it very versatile. I've pre-ordered an EOMA68 but I'm not completely set on it in particular (Im doubting whether it'll ever be released and whether it can handle even my pretty minimal needs), but it was the best candidate I was aware of at the time (Beagle-V may be a better option, but it appears to be cancelled to be replaced to be replaced by something similar).
  • A RAID storage device
    This would allow me to stream media (movies, music, tv shows, pictures etc) across my local network. Ideally it would be fully-free, and lightweight on resources and cost. The GnuBee Personal Cloud is looking like the best candidate right now.
  • A Home theatre PC (HTPC)
    If I were to get the two devices above, this would probably just be my current PC re-purposed in a smaller and quieter case in my living room. It could be used as a regular PC when needed, but it's main purpose would be to play videogames and movies (streamed from the RAID storage) from the comfort of my sofa. Currently I use my laptop as a media server, but it's a secondhand refurbished laptop from 2008 so can only be used for streaming movies via Plex.
  • A freedom-respecting smartphone
    This will either be a specialist model like the PinePhone or Librem 5 or it could be an Android phone which is compatible with a free/secure OS, for example the Google Pixel 4a appears to be the most recent phone to be officially supported by GrapheneOS. Of course if I go for the latter option I'll get it second hand because I don't want to give Google a penny if I can help it.
  • A second smartphone, for non-free uses
    Unfortunately members of my family and my workplace have heavily integrated our communications into whatsapp, and it's unlikely I'd be able to convince them to go ditch them. Whilst not ideal, a secondary phone that's just used for WhatsApp or other non-free use might be the best solution to keep in touch whilst still minimising my use of non-free software.

Past setup

I've changed my devices quite a bit over the years, for anyone curious, below is what I've had in chronological order:

Operating sytems

  • Windows 95/98
    I was very young so I can't recall which of the two it was, but my family shared a PC with one as its OS, and I used it at school too.
  • Windows XP
    Windows XP is the OS I most asociate with Windows, as its the Windows OS I grew up using. Again it was on the family PC, but unlike the previous OS, I actually used it quite a lot.
  • Windows Vista
    My very first PC of my own (a laptop to be more specific) had Windows Vista installed on it. I remember it was criticised a lot (to the point of becoming a meme) but I personally don't recall having more issues with it than other Windows OSes.
  • Windows 7
    When the time came to replace the laptop, I replaced it with a pre-built Windows 7 PC. It was during my Windows 7 days that I started to get into PC gaming. Windows 7 is my favourite Windows Operating system and I feel it's only gone downhill since.
  • Ubuntu
    I started visiting tech forums and videos in order to learn about how to build a gaming PC. The topics and culture there must have rubbed off on me as I found myself getting curious about other technology tinkering, particularly "ricing" my desktop. I soon learned about how much more customisable Linux was, so I tried it out. Naturally I opted for Ubuntu as it was the most widely known and user-friendly option at the time. I dualbooted and spent most of my time on my Windows 7 however.
  • Xubuntu
    I didn't particularly like the UI of Ubuntu but I was too inexperienced and unconfident to know how to swap it out, so I installed Xubuntu instead, which is essentially just Ubuntu with an XFCE desktop environment pre-installed onto it.
  • Crunchbang
    Ubuntu had a stigma of being just for Linux noobs, and bloated with traning wheels that ultimately slow down people's learning. So I installed Openbox which had an easy installation process but with a more minimalistic, less newbie-friendly UI named Openbox. Openbox's UI could be edited by both clicking around the GUI, and from manually editing the config file. The fact it had both ended up sparking my understanding because I could see how the GUI options affected the config files, and vice versa by inspecting how one affected the other, with no prior understanding of the scripting language. By this time I was still dualbooting, using Windows around half of the time.
  • Windows 8 Beta
    There was an open beta test for Windows 8, so I gave it a go. I was really put off by the direction it was going, as were most people at the time. The Beta had a lot of complaints but Microsoft ended up releasing it with none of the major complaints addressed. This was a turning point for me when I first started seriously considering making Linux my primary OS, but I continued to use Windows 7 for a while after because I was too attached to my games, back when most videogames were incompatible with Linux unless you did a lot of workarounds with WINE.
  • Debian
    When I installed Linux again I went for Debian because I interpreted it as being "serious" Linux. Ubuntu started as a fork of Debian, and Crunchbang was a fork of Debian too, so it made sense to me to just use Debian directly now I felt confident enough to use an OS that's not targetting newbies as its main demographic. I ended up using it for years, and over time I used Windows less and less until not at all. Gaming was no longer the dealbreaker it once was because I learned how to get a lot of the games working through WINE, and those that I didn't, I simply stopped playing.
  • Trisquel
    For a time I decided I would try going "fully-free" to see how much I could get by without using any proprietary software. It was suprisingly not a big difference to me, but I wasn't ready to switch over completely so moved on.
  • Arch
    This is where I was until recently. Arch is meme'd as being a try-hard elitist Linux distro, but also one that has many worthwhile benefits for those willing to get past the initial learning curve. I had a lot of difficulty with the installation, requiring multiple attempts, but once I got past that the rest of the differences with Arch didn't take long to learn.
  • Guix
    I'm not sure if I'll stay with Guix but it's something I'm trying right now because in theory it's the ideal Linux distro for me. It's Lisp-based, uses no non-free software, and doesn't use SystemD. One of it's main features also is that it uses a fairly unique packaging system allowing you to roll back and forward between versions of all software you have with ease, which in theory means the system is unbreakable.

PCs

  • No idea, too young to remember. Had Windows 95/98 installed on it.
  • Prebuilt Windows XP machine with a beige and blue case. That's all I knew or cared about at the time
  • Acer Aspire 7720g Laptop with Windows Vista preinstalled: My first PC that wasn't shared
  • Packard Bell prebuilt with Windows 7 preinstalled: Can't recall the exact model or specs, but it looked like this from the outside
  • I swapped out various parts to make it suitable for more demmanding videogames. Can't remember the specs, but I put it in this gaudy case which I thought was the coolest thing ever at the time.
  • Thinkpad T420 Laptop
  • Thinkpad X220 Laptop
  • Current PC, further details above

Phones

  • Nokia 3310
  • Panasonic GD55
  • Motorola Razr V3
  • HTC Desire
  • Nokia Lumia 800
  • Samsung Galaxy S3 mini
  • Huawei P20 Lite
Tags: Tech