Ask HN: What's your computer setup? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#81

Post by Qz » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:01 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #13

i7 920, Windows 7 64 bit 12G RAM nVidia 275 (Almost 2G of RAM) 22" Monitor ATM, as the wife is using the other one) 320G primary Drive, 1TB slave, 1.5 TB backup Plantronics Wireless Headphones 3 Printers. Yes, 3. 1 Canon Jet, 1 B/W laser w/fax/scanner, 1 laser color. Really, don't ask. Blame my wife for them. The most difficult thing at the moment is the single monitor at only 22". Really looking to invest in a nice…

I've decided that the splurge method is the way to go. I spent almost $3000 on this machine 2 years ago, and it has yet to even flinch at any of the new games or software I throw at it. Much better than buying a new $1000 system every year that makes you want to buy something new only a few months in.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#82

Post by mitchellhislop » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:01 PM UTC

Main: 13" MacBook, with snow leopard, and VM's for Ubuntu and Windows. This gets hooked up to externals wherever I am (Office, home, coworking). This gets paired with a Magic Mouse (best groomsman gift ever), and it has been a solid laptop since I got it.

At home, I also have my girlfriends old Dell E1505 laptop that I am converting to a torrent and media center, which will live under the flatscreen.

Not noticing too many people using a laptop stand. I have a cheap one from Ikea, which really works well.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#83

Post by mitchellhislop » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:02 PM UTC

grammaton wrote: post #41

Until last week's unfortunate beer spilling incident, I was using a macbook, along with a long standing server instance running Gentoo on RackSpace, with further instances spun up and then disposed of as needed. I have to say I find it kind of amusing how many people on HackerNews use Apple gear.

Using the Gentoo instance like a VM?

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#84

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:02 PM UTC

Refurb HP 2.6 GHz machine with XP that I got cheap from TigerDirect a couple years ago. There's also a server on the network running FC5, but I don't remember its particulars.

Hanging off the HP are a single 19" monitor, original IBM 5150 keyboard, B&W laser printer, Atmel AVR In Circuit Emulator, AVR ISP programmer, serial cable for whatever hardware I need to talk to at the moment and a Bluetooth Class 2 dongle for my Bluetooth-enabled hardware projects.

I keep meaning to build a USB-controlled desk lamp, but never have the time...

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#85

Post by boris » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:04 PM UTC

Office hardware: Dual Nehalem Xeon 2.4Ghz with 12GB RAM and two RAID'ed Cheetah SAS drives, all in Supermicro chassis. make -j 16 all the way!

Travel hardware: ThinkPad T61

Software on both: 64-bit Debian unstable with xorg/sawfish wm (no Gnome or KDE), emacs, screen, g++, make, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#86

Post by jaddison » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:08 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#87

Post by sami_b » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:13 PM UTC

An old laptop (not working at the moment) and an old desktop both running Ubuntu 10.04. When I say old, I mean 3+ years old. Planning to buy a new one some time soon, probably with the low-med spec range. Don't need much really.

Also nice to see this many Ubuntu users.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#88

Post by tudorw » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:14 PM UTC

robryan wrote: post #46

pyronicide wrote: post #42

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 di…

I'm the other way, 24 and 22inch monitors with a relatively average machine these days.

Definitely one of my most productive upgrades has been more monitors, I run a 24" in portrait to my left, great for text editing and reading, centre I run a 24" in landscape, to the right I have a 20" attached to a different system and a 8 inch mimo under the center screen to throw media onto, the whole lot rigged to a powered sit/stand workstation :)

Downside is power consumption, upside is I don't have to use the light switch as it never goes dark in here...

Here's a bit from m$ on the benefits of multi-screen; http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx

I remember reading somewhere else that the results of m$'s study into the productivity benefits of larger or more screens did not hit an upper limit.

I also design websites now and again and it's great to just drag a page around and preview it on different screen sizes in 'reality', mapping the 'visible' window on a larger monitor is not quite the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#89

Post by damienfir » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:15 PM UTC

falsestprophet wrote: post #34

A Macbook Pro. That is all.

Same, with a 30'' Cinema Display.

Re: Ask HN: What's your computer setup?

#90

Post by kxs » Mon, Jul 12, 2010, 4:15 PM UTC

e8400, 4GB Ram, 9800GT, Windows 7 x64, 22" Dell 2209WA, happy hacking keyboard But I'm hoping to be able to replace that machine in the near future with a `smarttop', preferably something like the marvell ebox or similar spec-wise (hopefully cortex a9)

My wm of choice has always been 'pekwm'