Uses

The Uses⤴ web site aggregates everybodyʼs uses of computer technology. This is my entry.

Hardware Pile

Compute

• Lenovo ThinkPad T460⤴^PDF
  • Intel 6300U
  • 3.0 GHz
  • 2×2 threads
  • 16GB RAM
  • 3.6TB NVME

  My workhorse, use it at the desk, take it with me everywhere I go. The only thing I actually type at; my window on the digital world. Wouldnʼt ever be without it.

• Dell Latitude 7490⤴^PDF
  • Intel 8650U
  • 4.2 GHz
  • 4×2 threads
  • 16GB RAM
  • 1TB NVME

  The home server, Guix build machine, and media and backup server with 4TB of doubly-redundant external spinning-rust storage—Iʼve been burned enough with disk drive failures that Iʼm by now paranoid about backups. The machine is actually massively underused, and probably a waste of electricity. I would have this as my main machine, but it wonʼt take a battery so is stuck at home.

• Microsoft Surface Pro 4⤴
  • Intel m3-6Y30
  • 2.2 GHz
  • 2×2 threads
  • 4GB RAM
  • 120GB NVME

  Tablet with stylus. Always by my side on the desk, used whenever I want to scruff out some maths, comfortably peruse PDF documents. Also card games.

• Cloud: QCOW2 machine image
  • AMD Epyc Rome
  • 2 GHz
  • 1 thread
  • 2GB RAM
  • 22GB SSD

  Hosting khleedril.org, the machine you are looking at. My gateway to, and presence on, the Internet. Pure Guix\nginx fronting web services (including this blog!) hand-written by myself in Rust. The current hosting is indigenous to a nice country a long way from the United States!

• Lenovo Yoga 80S9⤴
  • AMD A9-9410
  • 2.9 GHz
  • 2 threads
  • 8GB RAM
  • 250GB SSD

  360° hinge, touchscreen. Spare machine. Old workhorse, donʼt know why I havenʼt sold it.

Video

• Philips 273V⤴
  • 27"
  • 1920 × 1080
  • 75Hz

  Used for watching movies and Star Trek episodes on.

Audio

• Philips SHB3060 Bluetooth headphones⤴
• Grundig TR2500-BT Bluetooth DAB radio.⤴^(German)

  Yes, itʼs a radio, but it is also a damn good speaker with bass port.

Keyboards

Iʼve gotten used to the feel of the keyboard on the ThinkPad so much that it is my preferred thing to type on. I do need to have others lying around for ad hoc use, and these are in my drawer.

• Happy Hackers Keyboard Lite 2⤴

  Had this years, still love it.

• Cherry ML4100⤴

  Slightly superfluous, but a great keyboard to have around.

• Tecknet TK-KB035⤴^PDF

  Folding Bluetooth keyboard, for when I need a real keyboard to use with the Surface tablet, even away from the desk.

Personal

• Samsung Galaxy S20 phone⤴

  Running Nova⤴/LineageOS⤴/Magisk⤴. Signal⤴ is the only communicator I use with confidence, but begrudgingly also put up with having WhatsApp⤴ and even SMS texting on my phone.

• Samsung Galaxy Watch 4⤴

  No phone integration, but functions very nicely as a watch with convenient vibrate alarms and timers. Counts and measures my steps, sleeps, swims, cycle rides.

Software Stack

Iʼve had a PC in the house since sometime in 1993, and never once suffered Microsoft operating systems; every machine I get in, the first act is to wipe the disk. It has been Linux all the way.

Historically, the distributions I have gone through are Slackware⤴, DIY (based off of Linux From Scratch⤴), Ubuntu⤴, Debian⤴, and now Guix⤴.

Nowadays everything is pure Guix, except the two laptops and tablet which are Debian with Guix installed as a foreign distribution. All the other machines run disklessly, PXEing Guix from the home server machine.

The desktop is AwesomeWM⤴: a tiling window manager that keeps one from faffing with the mouse to deal with overlapping windows.

I spend my time inevitably surfing the Internet with librewolf⤴, and writing Rust⤴ and some Guile⤴ (Scheme) in the context of Guix. My development environment consists of emacs⤴, emacsʼ rustic⤴ mode, gdb⤴.

When I need to get creative with graphics, I turn invariably to Gimp⤴ for raster and Inkscape⤴ for vector, with Blender⤴ very occasionally used for video production/editing. Most video processing I do at the command line with ffmpeg⤴.