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2014-09-18 12:12:56 -06:00
Title: The Setup / Neale Pickett
After reading [Russ Cox's setup](http://russ.cox.usesthis.com/)
I thought it might be interesting to write up my own.
September 18, 2014
Who are you, and what do you do?
--------------------------------
I write software.
Mostly I hack around the periphery of free software projects,
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occasionally tossing patches to projects that capture my interest.
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A partial portfolio is on my [source code page](src/).
I also do computer security training for middle and high school kids,
college students, and professionals.
You can read about that at [dirtbags](http://dirtbags.net/).
My hobbies include being a (laid back) disc jockey,
and fiddling around with microcontrollers.
Hardware
--------
I've decided to be very energy conscious.
This means my hardware is low-power and not high-performance.
At home, I have a Thinkpad X200.
My wife uses a Chromebook, and we have a FitPC that gets turned on
when we need to print on our HP LaserJet CM2320.
My pre-teen daughter has a Nexus 7 tablet,
and my wife and I both use Nexus 4 phones.
We also have a Chromecast that's mostly used for Netflix,
and a Wii.
At work, I use an Intel NUC.
Software
--------
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I run Arch Linux, with a shell script PID 1 that I maintain because I enjoy tinkering with early userspace.
It uses runit from busybox to manage starting and stopping daemons.
Runit is a lot like systemd or upstart at core: daemons don't do the double-fork trick, and log to stdout.
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On the desktop, I run Google Chrome, xterm, and acme from plan9port.
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My window manager varies a lot.
Most times it's Openbox plus tint2, but sometimes I go back to 9wm (which I maintain).
I'm starting to make overtures at Wayland.
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Occasionally I kick up inkscape or gimp, and mixxx for my DJ work.
Most of my non-work computer use is through Chrome, which ties me strongly
to Linux, for better or worse.
My non-development stuff is almost entirely in the cloud.
It's very frustrating to have to go to work where people are still emailing
Excel spreadsheets and hand-merging edits.
My FitPC print server runs Ubuntu and some kind of Chromium Cloud Print server thing.
All my home printing is through Google Cloud Print.
What would be your dream setup?
-------------------------------
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I'm actually not too far away right now.
I like working in the cloud, and for my development stuff,
acme is pretty great.
I spend a lot of time fretting about window managers.
Hopefully I can move to Wayland soon, and port 9wm to it.
Or maybe I can get Chrome to expose its window manager.
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I kind of wish I didn't need a gazillion packages in order to run my 3 main programs
(chrome, acme, and xterm).
But I don't know how I can fix that, and I'm not sure I really even want to.
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I would also like to do away with the FitPC print server.
I'd love to be able to buy a little box that will hop on our wireless network
and connect our printer to Google Cloud Print.