At the end of the year, mainly to shamelessly fill slow news around the holidays, OSNews usually asks the readers to share with all the other readers something about their computer setup. Since OSNews can be quite diverse when it comes to computing environments, these threads can often be quite interesting. This year, please chime in with the setup you use to read OSNews – computer, OS, software and maybe even provide screenshots or photos of your proud workspace. Has it changed a lot this year? Maybe switched browser, maybe switched OS even? Let everybody know!
I wasn’t really paying attention to my computer setup until this article came up, as most of the time I live in some SSH sessions to remote machines. But, at home – modest dual core E5300 with 4GB ram, Windows 7 and FF as browser. At work – quad core Xeon X 2.3GHz (I think so), 6GB ram, Opensuse with KDE 3.5.10 – I hate KDE 4. But like I said, the PC setup doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s not too slow and it’s reliable
and no laptops, I hate those fragile little uncomfortable machines that I have to charge quite too often.
My desk with dual screen PC and AmigaOne (os4.1)
http://i46.tinypic.com/34g965f.jpg
The Amiga is in a Commodore Gaming case:
http://i44.tinypic.com/2rxtx1w.jpg
Specs are PPC G4, 933mhz, 1 gig ram, Radeon 9250
Current Workbench grab:
http://i48.tinypic.com/drb9g4.jpg
The PC runs Win 7.
I also have a Macbook Pro 13″ with Snow Leopard.
Niiiiiiiiiice. I was discussing PC cases with Thom and how there’s not many notable PC cases these days (bar Sun boxes) but that C= cases is sweet!
Yeah got sick of my Amiga looking like a generic PC
I use a Core Duo MacBook, 2GB, 60GB, Snow Leopard. 20″ Dell monitor, 1TB MyBook external drive, Firefox, M-Audio KeyStudio 49 for my occasional forays into learning piano.
This year, I upgraded from a 2.0 GHz Pentium M / 1 GB RAM / 40 GB HD / Intel integrated graphics / 12 inch screen tablet PC with Windows XP to a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 / 1 GB RAM / 60 GB HD / NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 / 17 inch LCD screen desktop with Windows XP. The specs are look similar, but the desktop is notably faster and I really appreciate the extra 5 inches of screen space. I wiped XP off my old system and have OpenSUSE on there now, but I might reinstall XP as I am soon going to have to go back to the old one as my main home system.
I hope to upgrade to a much newer system next year once I start working.
Most used software: Opera, Crimson Editor, Visual Studio
Edited 2009-12-27 02:16 UTC
switched from server 2003 to server 2008r2. Cemented Opera as my primary browser once again. Didn’t upgrade from KDE 3.5, though it is getting increasingly obsolete. Could happen soon
How well does Win2K8 work (compared with Win2K3)? And are you using it as a workstation OS as well?
System 1 : Mac mini 1.66 Ghz Core Duo, OS 10.6 w/ 22″ Viewsonic LCD
System 2: Dell 8600 iaptop, Windows XP ( mainly for work and some school )
System 3: Sheevaplug Development Kit, 1.2 Ghz ARM processor. running Tonido software, proftp, lighttpd, etc …
Mac Mini Modded to a C2D 2.16Ghz with 2GB RAM and 350GB WD Blue HDD and OSX 10.6.2. Video compression and conversion.
AMD 64X2 Gaming rig with XP SP3 2GB RAM 10K WD Raptor ATI X1950.
Dell GX270 Workstation with XP SP3 4GB Dual Channel RAM for some video work.
iBook G4 1.33 with 10.5.8. Use it when I need a notebook away from the house.
iMac G5 iSight 20″ 2.5GB RAM 10.5.8. Most of my everyday computing.
Compaq AMD 64 Bit Notebook with Vista Ultimate. 2GB RAM and 160GB HDD. Network service calls and whenever I need a portable with Windows. Soon to get Windows 7.
Acer Aspire 8.9″ Netbook. 1.5GB RAM 160GB HDD. Windows 7 and Haiku Alpha.
Old IBM Thinkpad 600x with Ubuntu Linux. Runs new versions of Ubuntu quite well for it’s age. VERY useable.
Edited 2009-12-27 07:31 UTC
Distribution = Kubuntu Lucid Alpha 1 (updated)
Desktop = KDE 4.4. beta 2 (aka KDE 4.3.85)
Kernel = 2.6.32-7-generic
CPU = AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+
Graphics = RV610 video device [Radeon HD 2400 PRO]
(Ubuntu’s 2.6.32-9 kernel is also installed, but that version doesn’t seem to work with the ATI 3D open source graphics drivers)
Right now, Kwin (and associated desktop effects) is working correctly with the 3D radeon open source drivers and kernel 2.6.32-7-generic.
As you can see, it isn’t a stable desktop software system, but it does work. Blazingly fast too. A preview of what is to come in April next year.
Edited 2009-12-27 14:20 UTC
Belay that. After several false starts, the 2.6.32-9 kernel is also now working for me.
Not nearly as well as the earlier 2.6.32-7 kernel, but at least it runs.
More than year on Arch Linux. I’m happy to feel the full power and simplicity of system management at the time. I don’t have reboots, don’t have pre-installed “fat” software. I i’m not googling for manuals – just wiki.archlinux.org contains all needed information.
I don’t need sophisticated desktop environment, so I’m pleased by lightweight window managers: Openbox at the past and Awesome for now.
I migrated to Arch from OpenSuSE, which was too slow for me. And I migrated to OpenSuSE from Windows, which was a true nightmare with plenty of reboots, unusable configuration tools and so on.
I’m using Pcmanfm as file manager, Firefox as browser, xterm as terminal, mpd for music, mplayer(no gui) for video.
The full history of my desktop adventure is here:
http://zhuravlik26.deviantart.com/gallery/#_browse
And most notable:
Windows more than one year before:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/117251753/Windows_Again_by_zhura…
Some Arch/Openbox screens:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/118187687/ArchLinux_Rocks_by_zhu…
http://www.deviantart.com/download/123660583/Current_ArchLinux_by_z…
Latest Arch/Awesome screens:
http://www.deviantart.com/download/146099349/8_12_09_by_zhuravlik26…
http://www.deviantart.com/download/147533011/22_12_09_by_zhuravlik2…
The latest is a screen of my current desktop.
For me, this has been the year of the Linux desktop. I’ve finally found a Linux distro and related apps and utilities that allow me to live in a Windows world and maintain my productivity.
My systems are as follows:
Desktop: Dual boot Crunchbang 9.04.01 x86; Windows 7 Ultimate x64 for games. Windows get booted very rarely and I find it frustrating that every time I try to use it, it wants to restart for updates. I’m not about to move to KDE/Gnome as I love the ultra-lightness of Openbox.
Work Thinkpad: Crunchbang 9.04.01 x86 with VirtualBox and Crossover Office for MS Office 2003. I’m using GSTM to manage my SSH Tunnels and GnomeRDP for RDP sessions.
Macbook Pro: Fresh install of Snow Leopard done on the day of release.
Dell Mini 10v: Also on Snow Leopard and used mostly for Googling stuff in front of TV. I’ve tried Crunchbang, but the girlfriend prefers OS X.
In 1994 my father bought a Highscreen Vobis Colani Tower Pentium 60 (the buggy one), and I upgraded it over the time, piece by piece. I can recall by memory most of the parts I’ve bought and replaced since then. In its actual configuration, it sports a an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (3 GHz, 12 MB cache), 8 GB of RAM, a GeForce 9800GT 512 MB, and it runs Windows 7 Professional x64 on two Seagate Cheetah 74 GB 15k rpm Ultra320 SCSI disks; plus, there’s an old 250 GB Seagate IDE HD wich always gets repartitioned and reformatted for other OSes. Sadly, nowadays I mostly use it to play World of Warcraft.
My real “personal” computer is a 13″ MacBook Aluminium I got at 20% discount because it had just been replaced by the “Pro” version. I maxed it out with 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB 7200 rpm disk. Yes, I like my computers to be fast
I also bought a 10″ MSI Wind U100+. One of the crappiest machines I ever bought, but I wanted something light to use from time to time on the train rides. Going to sell it with the new year.
In the basement, I’ve got a dual P3 machine to play with BeOS, Zeta and Windows 98; a Thinkpad 365XD sporting an awesome Pentium 133 from 1996 still running the factory installation of Windows 95 (never formatted in 13 years); a Mac Quadra 950 with System 7; and a dusty but in perfect working order Commodore 64. And I hope to find a working Olivetti PCS 286, the same model on which I learned programming.
Main Machine:
AMD Phenom 9550X4
4GB DDR-2
64GB SSD / 250GB HDD Mirror
Win 7 Pro
Various other OS’s in VM’s
Netbook:
Acer Aspire One 9″
Win 7 Pro/ Win XP Home
Living Room Media Center:
AMD Athlon X2 4800+ (939)
2GB DDR
2x 500GB HDD
Win 7 Ultimate
Wife’s Laptop:
Acer Aspire 15″ Notebook
Celeron 2.2Ghz
2GB DDR2
160GB
Vista Basic
Son (13):
Dell XPS
Core 2 Duo
4GB RAM
500Gb HDD
Win 7 (Still running the RC)
Daughter (9):
Toshiba Satellite
P4 2.0
1GB RAM
60GB HDD
Win XP Home
Son (4):
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
1GB RAM
250GB HDD
Ubuntu 9.10 w/ Edubuntu
Son (2):
Panasonic Toughbook (Awesome for a 2 Year Old)
P3-600Mhz
128MB PC-100 RAM
40GB HDD
Windows 2000 (Couldn’t get the touchscreen to work in Linux)
Server:
Dell Poweredge 1600SC
Dual Xeon 2.0 Ghz (Single Core)
2GB RAM
100GB RAID5 ARRAY SCSI U320
Win 2008 Server Std.
DansGuardian Box (All the kids’s machines connect through this):
Sun Cobalt Raq4
AMD K6-2 350Mhz CPU
256MB RAM
80GB HDD
CentOS4 (Strongbolt)
Firewall:
SFF Compaq Desktop
Amd K6-2 400 CPU
128MB RAM
8MB CF Card
M0n0wall (FreeBSD Firewall Distro)
I think that’s everything. Oh wait, Palm Pre.
Some changes at our house this year:
My wife and I both upgraded when we retired at the begining of this year.
– I bought a Dell XPS w/a 13″ screen, 4gm ram and 360mb disk back in February and recently bumped it up to W7. I must say I do like this system quite a bit and W7 is very nice to work with and stable.
– My “desktop” is an HP Pavilion w/1gb of ram and 120gb of disk just upgraded to SUSE Linux 11.2 and SoftMaker Office 2008. (Can’t say enough nice things about SoftMaker)
– Our home server is a Dell Poweredge SC430 w/4gb ram and 2tb of disk running Server 2003. It got an additional 1.5tb drive this year. (This system is 2.5 years old)
– My wife has a MSI Wind Netbook running XP which we bought back in January. She really likes it a lot!
– There is still a “Den” computer, an old Dell Opti w/1gb of RAM running XP that has largely been replaced by the laptops.
– And although it doesn’t get much use anymore, (it was the house server for a long time) we still have the venerable old DEC Alpha 1000 w/30gb of raided StorageWorks disk runing Hobbyist OpenVMS 8.2 and SAMBA.
This year should be pretty quiet computer wise. We have no plans to do any upgrades other than the normal “dot” version OS and application upgrades.
Desktop:
Dual Boot – Debian Squeeze (Openbox) + Ubuntu Studio (Gnome)
Core 2 Quad 2.66Ghz
8GB DDR-2 RAM
64GB OCZ SSD
500GB HDD
Nvidia Geforce 9400GT
Laptop:
ThinkPad R400
Dual Boot – Debian Sid (Openbox) + Arch (IceWM)
Core 2 Duo 2.10GHz
3GB DDR-2 RAM
160GB HDD
Intel Graphics
Netbook:
Dual Boot – CrunchBang (Openbox) + Slitaz (Openbox)
Lenovo S10-2
Atom 1.66GHz (N280)
2GB DDR-2 RAM
64GB OCZ SSD
Netbook screenshots (#!)
http://omploader.org/vMzNwaw
http://omploader.org/vMzNwbA
Will post desktop screenshots later (if I remember)
Intel Core 2 Quad, 3.0 GHz
4Gb RAM
Asus Rampage Extreme MB
Windows 2000 Advanced Server
Asus EAH4890 TOP (using BlackwingCat’s drivers)
Monitor: Dell 3007WFP
It runs pretty well and fast. I also run SmoothText to give myself something like ClearType(tm) on Win2k as well as desktop skinning. I haven’t decided what to do in July when security updates stop. Maybe I’ll wait a bit to see if anyone back-ports XP fixes to Win2k.
2009 was the year that I finally went all Linux & BSD at home.
* Desktop – Quad Core AMD Phenom 9750/8GB RAM/Nvidia 9500GT/Fedora 12 x86_64
* Directory Server – Intel Pentum IIIM /256MB RAM/Fedora 12 i386
* Storage Server – Dual Core AMD Athlon64 4850e/4GB RAM/Fedora 12 x86_64
* Virtualization Server -Quad Core AMD Opteron 1356 /8GB RAM/RHEL5.4 x86_64
* Firewall – Intel Celeron /768MB RAM/OpenBSD4.5 i386
* HTPC1 -Dual Core AMD Athlon64 5400/4GB RAM/Nvidia 9800GT/Fedora 12 x86_64
* HTPC2 -Dual Core AMD Athlon64 3800/2GB RAM/Nvidia 6600LE/Fedora 13 x86_64
* WAP -Linksys WRT54GL/Tomato Firmware 1.25
Screenies from my primary desktop:
http://outsidaz.org/images/Desktop_Screenshot_Clean_14_Jul_09.png
http://outsidaz.org/images/Desktop_Screenshot_Dirty_14_Jul_09.png
Work laptop is running Ubuntu 9.04 32-bit.
Using GNOME and Metacity with Devilspie to maximize all windows and hide title bars.
Recently switched to left-handed mouse and Dvorak keyboard as my right hand was becoming sore, I suspect from the mouse.
Would like to find a mouseless setup, but a lot of programs need a mouse, specifically Firefox, Evolution, NetworkManager, and GNOME Control Panel. Evaluting vimperator or uzbl for browsing and various mouseless window managers including wmii, ion, ratpoison, awesome, and xmonad.
Home PC was upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7; I was reasonably happy with Vista, 7 doesn’t seem any better. Wouldn’t recommend upgrading if you already have Vista (but would if you’re still using XP or older).
Finally, I’m looking for a netbook that comes with 3G mobile broadband, but I haven’t been able to find any for sale in Australia other than the Dell Mini 9 and Samsung NC10 as part of a long-term mobile broadband plan that I don’t want. The HP Mini is supposed to have an optional broadband module, but HP can’t tell me how or where to get it.
Edited 2009-12-29 00:35 UTC
I’m running the same e16 setup I’ve been using for 10 years. E16, 32 desktops in my pager in the corner, gkrellm always visible on the right.
I’m running the same Firefox I’ve been running since I switched from Mozilla, which I was running since I switched from Galeon, which I was running since I switched from netscape4. All of this was years ago, of course.
I did flirt with kde4 for a little while this year. Fun, but so heavy (and still not done!) Makes me pine for file picker integration on all apps.
I bought my wife a new MacBook Pro and inherited her Sony SZ140. So I went from a single-core 1.6 Ghz Pentium M in a 12.1 inch Averatec to a 2 Ghz dual core Centrino in a 13.3 inch Sony. The biggest upgrade was the screen, however. The new one is gorgeous compared to the old one.
It was already maxed out at 2 GB of RAM, so the only upgrade was to go from a 320 GB 7200 RPM drive to a 64 GB SSD (OCZ Vertex). It is much faster. Feels like a CPU upgrade.
After my usual distro hopping (had to try out new distros on the new machine) I’m back to Slackware. I gave KDE4 a serious look, and it ran well on the faster hardware, but I’m back to Fluxbox with my usual staples: firefox, rox-filer, gkrellm, aterm, mousepad, etc. I have OpenOffice and use it occasionally, but have mostly gone to the cloud with Google. I don’t even bother to install an e-mail client anymore. Tried Chrome, but until it gets better font handling and more extensions it’s not ready for prime time.
I’m still dual-booting despite the small SSD, but only boot into Windows to update the software. Occasionally I travel somewhere and Windows is necessary to log in to hotel wifi or something. But by this time next year that will be gone, too.
Nothing special in terms of hardware upgrades for me this year, not that it matters now anyway, unless you’re gaming, or Windozing…
At work, I’ve moved my desktop twice this year, from Fedora 9, to Fedora 10, and finally to Gentoo linux.
Gotta say that I am extremely delighted with my choice.
Installed Windoze 7 in VirtualBox… pretty I gotta say, but in terms of usability it will never beat my linux