Software
- Operating System
- I’m currently on openSUSE Tumbleweed, as its sysadmin-centric orientation fits really well with what I expect from a proper OS. I wanted Arch’s rolling release model, but with a pathway to enterprise, and SUSE’s ecosystem won me over RedHat’s. For the random non-Linux tool, I keep a handy separate Windows 10 drive / partition.
- Automation
- I frequently nuke my desktop / laptop installations, to enforce myself to treat them as cattle rather than pets. To that end, I use Ansible to bootstrap not just my desktop / laptops , but even my libvirt-based Vagrant VMs as well. You can find my playbooks here.
- Terminal
- I use the terminal for everything. My current toolset consists of: alacritty, tmux, zsh and asdf, with lf and lazydocker as some of my go-to terminal UIs. I manage my config files with chezmoi, and you can find my dotfiles here.
- Editor
- vim is the editor that keeps on giving, and I have yet to reach the ceiling of both my skill in it, and of the things that it allows me to do. Find my .vimrc here.
- Notes
- vimwiki has revolutionized my notetaking by making it as simple as possible, and the HTML output is the cherry on top. pandoc lets me use a single markdown input file and convert it to HTML, PDF and DOCX, which I have used in small sites and in my resume here to great success (source here).
- Accounting
- I’ve been very satisfied with hledger, and it has allowed me track finances sanely: it’s file-based (so I can put it on version control), has a terminal UI, a web UI, proper budgeting / forecasting and multiple commodity support. I will happily recommend it to anyone comfortable in the terminal.
Hardware
- Security
- I use a couple of Yubikey NFCs for hardware-based U2F / OATH. They also contain my pgp subkeys for git, ssh, and encryption, which I heavily rely on. You can find my public key in my keyoxide profile here.
- Keyboard
- I built a low-profile Corne keyboard, which is a very portable and highly customizable split ergonomic keyboard. QMK’s layer keys allow me to access numpad keys, system function keys (volume, brightness), and mouse control keys without even moving my wrist: coding-induced wrist and shoulder pain has never plagued me since. You can find my keymaps here.
- Mouse
- The Elecom Deft Pro is my first trackball mouse, and while I have yet to try others, I’m already content. This, together with my Corne keyboard, has allowed me to minimize wrist movement and get rid of RSI symptoms altogether.
- PC Stick
- I always carry a PC stick with me, which right now is an Intel Compute Stick, just in case an emergency arises and I need a system to work in. Fits in my Corne keyboard case.
- Laptop
- Currently rocking a Thinkpad T450. For the last decade, whenever I find myself in need of a laptop, I’ve stabilized with: getting the best-priced 4-year-old Thinkpad in the secondhand market, and upgrading / repairing it myself (4 years usually mark the end of corporate contracts, and so a lot of companies offload their used laptops in the secondhand market at this point, and the competition drives the price down. This plan ends up with me only spending 200-300 USD for a competitive machine). Thinkpads are sturdy, upgradeable, and most of all, well-supported by Linux drivers, and thus my top choice unless dethroned.
- Desktop
- My main machine is a Ryzen 1600 AF with RX 580 in a SilverStone Sugo SG13, which fits inside my carry-on whenever I travel somewhere for more than a month.