From e13356da0f7f4ecdf74c35f9cbd5dabd9f71b381 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Neale Pickett Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2016 16:43:20 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Update The Setup --- papers/setup.mdwn | 110 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 79 insertions(+), 31 deletions(-) diff --git a/papers/setup.mdwn b/papers/setup.mdwn index 4dfafa5..2ad94fe 100644 --- a/papers/setup.mdwn +++ b/papers/setup.mdwn @@ -9,11 +9,12 @@ I thought it might be interesting to write up my own. Who are you, and what do you do? -------------------------------- -I am a system administrater at Canonical (the people who make Ubuntu). +I am a system programmer and computer forensics researcher at Los +Alamos National Laboratory. Mostly I hack around the periphery of free software projects, occasionally tossing patches to projects that capture my interest. -A partial portfolio is on my [source code page](src/). +A partial portfolio is on my [source code page](http://woozle.org/neale/src/). I also do computer security training for middle and high school kids, college students, and professionals. @@ -21,45 +22,86 @@ You can read about that at [dirtbags](http://dirtbags.net/). My hobbies include being a (laid back) disc jockey, and fiddling around with microcontrollers. +I'm active in the local maker community. + +I try to minimize energy use, +and to minimize how many mysterious devices are in the house. +These goals used to be at odds with one another, +but recently the two seem to go hand in hand. -Hardware +My Home Computer -------- -I've decided to be very energy conscious. -This means my hardware is low-power and not high-performance. +I use a Thinkpad X220 that is usually hooked up to a docking station +and external monitor. Connected to the dock is a Happy Hacking Lite 2 +keyboard and Logitech M310 mouse, a Logitech webcam, some old +Sennheiser headphones, and a pair of inexpensive Amazon speakers. -I use a Thinkpad X220. -My wife uses a Chromebook from 2011, which she loves, -and my daughter has an X220 that she doesn't turn on much. - -We have a brother printer that connects wirelessly and speakes Google Cloud Print. -I can no longer print natively from Linux, -which has mattered exactly once in the last two years. - -The family shares a Nexus 7 tablet, -my wife and daughter have Nexus 5x phones, -and I have a Nexus 6. - -We also have a Chromecast that's mostly used for Netflix, -and a Wii. - - -Software --------- - -I run Ubuntu with the Gnome 3 desktop, +I run Arch Linux with the Gnome 3 desktop, which is the first Linux desktop environment I actually like. I think this is mostly because it doesn't try to do many tricks. -Inside Emacs I run Gnus for work email, -and a comint-mode derivative I created for bouncing around work machines with SSH. -I don't run any sort of terminal emulator: +I use emacs shell-mode for most command-line work, and +a comint-mode derivative I created for SSH. +I don't usually run any sort of terminal emulator: everything is `TERM=dumb` inside my emacs SSH sessions. -My other main program is Google Chrome. +My other main program is Google Chrome, +with the Flash plugin disabled. +Occasionally I will run Gimp, Inkscape, or Mixxx. + + +The Family's Computers +----------------- + +My wife uses a Chromebook from 2016, which she loves, and my daughter +mostly uses her mobile phone and our 7-inch tablet. There's a 2011 +Chromebook in the house that gets used occasionally, too, +mostly for Google Docs. + +Sometimes my wife logs into my laptop, to run Chrome on a bigger screen. + +My daughter has an X220 that she used to play Minecraft on, +but it doesn't get much use since Minecraft PE added most of the features she liked. + + +Other Home Network-Connected Devices +------------------- + +I brought in a Google OnHub wireless router in an effort to demystify +the router for my family. It worked. + +We also got a couple of Nest thermostats to test the claim that they +pay for themselves. This would probably be true if we had air +conditioning in the house, but we haven't saved enough on heating yet. +But it is handy that they turn the heat off when you leave the house, +and several times we have twiddled the temperature while out of town, +usually to pre-heat the house when we're arriving late on a cold night. + +We have a Brother laser printer that connects wirelessly and speakes Google Cloud Print. +I can no longer print natively from Linux, +but it turns out I don't really want to print things from Linux much anymore. +Google Cloud Print lets you submit a PDF through a web form, +so it's not a big problem. + +We also have a Chromecast that's mostly used for Netflix, +and a hacked Wii with a few movies on a connect USB hard drive. +Our television is *not* a "smart TV" and I really hope we can avoid ever having to bring such a thing in to the house, they seem slow and buggy, not to mention the ads. + +Our car is an all-electric Tesla Model S, which is offset by a small +solar array on the roof. The car has an ext4-formatted USB flash +drive plugged in, with our entire music collection. + + +Mobile Computing +----------------------- + +The family shares a Nexus 7 tablet. +My wife and daughter use Nexus 5x phones, +and I use a Nexus 6. +My wife and I wear Pebble smartwatches. -Occasionally I will run Gimp and Inkscape, too. What would be your dream setup? @@ -68,10 +110,16 @@ What would be your dream setup? I'm pretty happy with what I have now, although I wish I had time to get Acme working for me as nicely as Emacs, since I am not an Emacs fan. +The thing holding me back is Acme's reliance on special fonts that have not kept pace with Unicode's expansion, +although I need to take another look at the "use system fonts" setup it can do. It bothers me that X11 is such a horrible mess, but now that I'm not maintaining my own window manager, -it's less of an issue. +it's less of a concern. +I'm looking forward to Gnome working under Wayland: +Wayland's compositing architecture is the Right Thing, +especially in light of the fact that modern desktops like Gnome +already hack around X11 to get (slow) compositing. I'd like to get my daughter off her X220 and onto a Chromebook, because I feel like desktop system administration is a skill she will never need as an adult.