Hardware
- For my laptop, I use a ThinkPad P15 gen 2. Yes, modern ThinkPads are still based. The build quality is great, an they’re also available at reasonable prices online if you buy used or refurbished. However, they’re not as upgradable as they once were, so keep that in mind.
Software
- For my operating system, I use Arch Linux (btw). It’s the only Linux distribution that gets out of my way and just lets me do my work. It’s very minimal and easy-to-use after you get over the initial learning curve, but it’s definitely worth the investment.
- DWM is my laptop window manager. For my workflow, a tiling window manager is essential (especially for laptops) once you get over the learning curve, currently I’m usings Luke Smith’s build of DWM which I modified for my needs, however I do plan on creating my own build from scratch in the future, or switch to a wayland based TWM when Xorg is finally depricated.
- KDE is the desktop I run on my main PC, it can be heavily customizable to fit for my needs. I like using “traditional” desktop enviroments on a keyboard and mouse setup.
- Alacritty is the terminal I use. It’s very customizable but still very fast. For my shell, I use zsh with plugins for syntax highlighting and auto-complete.
- For my web browser, I use Brave. I’ve tried every other browser and Brave, despite its flaws, remains the best.
Services
- For email, I use ProtonMail. Despite the haters, it’s still the best privacy-respecting email service out there for most people. I pay for custom domain email, and it’s the best email experience I’ve had to date. If you use the webmail, you get all the modern niceties of something like Gmail without the creepy tracking.
- Bitwarden is the best password manager. It does everything you could need a password manager to do, and the premium subscription if you want a few more features is dirt-cheap.
- I use NameCheap to purchase my domains. Great prices and customer support make this one a no-brainer for me. I’ve been using them for years with no complaints. Whatever you do, do not use GoDaddy.
Applications
- I use neovim for all of my writing. vim notoriously has a steep learning curve, but as with most things, I think the payoff is worth it.
- VSCodium is my preferred code editor for when I’m working on larger projects. VSCodium is VS Code, just without the Microsoft telemetry.
- I use the terminal file manager lf. It’s very fast and customizable and supports image previews with a custom script.
- For email, I use Thunderbird. I have my annoyances with it, but it’s the best email client there is on Linux.
This Website
- This site is built with Hugo, a static site generator that just outputs HTML and CSS instead of the bloated mess that is most of the modern web.