The Linux Setup - Lee Hachadoorian, Geographer
It’s kind of surprising to realize this, but Lee Hachadoorian is the first The Linux Setup interviewee I’ve met face-to-face. We were both on a panel that actually didn’t have much to do with Linux, but once I saw what Lee was doing with it, I knew he’d be perfect here.
Lee does a great job outlining an academic Linux setup. His love of Freeplane is also worth noting. It seems like an intriguing way to organize complex work.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Lee Hachadoorian. I am a geographer who recently completed a PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center. My focus is on using geographic information systems (GIS) and other geospatial tools for urban analysis. My dissertation was on the relationship between metropolitan fragmentation and spatial inequality/segregation. I currently teach GIS at NYU-Poly and work as a Research Assistant at CUNY Center for Urban Research. I’m a backpacker, yogi, and gamer. I use games in my teaching. Last week I had my students do a treasure hunt in downtown Brooklyn and import their GPS tracks into a GIS software.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
Ubuntu 10.04 with the GNOME desktop, but if you ask me in another week or two, the answer will be Ubuntu 12.04 (I stick to the LTSes). I don’t see anything compelling about Unity, so I will probably continue to use GNOME. I run the same distro on my home desktop, my laptop, and a VM on my work computer (which is Windows). For that matter, I also run it on my daughter’s laptop (a six or seven year old Dell), my father’s laptop (after Windows XP completely self-destructed), and an old laptop which my mother keeps as a secondary (her primary laptop is still Windows).
When I switched to Linux four years ago, I didn’t know anyone who was using Linux for personal computing (i.e., not on a server or development machine). So, honestly, I went with Ubuntu because message boards and distrowatch.com pegged it as the most popular. I mean, if you’ve never hiked solo before, you should probably stay where you’re likely to run into other hikers, at least until you know what you’re doing. Since then, even though I’ve been curious about the other distros out there, I haven’t ever been dissatisfied with Ubuntu. I’ve made some half-hearted forays, particularly in trying some LXDE variants (Linux Mint LXDE, Lubuntu, and Ubuntu with the LXDE metapackage installed) on older hardware, but it’s easier for me in my role of family tech support to keep everyone on the same distro, and even on the older hardware Ubuntu performs tolerably well.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
I’m going to start with the software you don’t know you need: Freeplane is a mind-mapping software that is absolutely amazing. Mind-mapping is a brainstorming tool, but it can be used for almost anything. I’ve used Freeplane for project planning, procedure documentation, general note-taking, and writing. In fact, I started my dissertation in a word processor but switched to Freeplane (it can export to many formats including ODT), because I could see the detail and the overall structure of my dissertation at the same time, which helped me keep my thoughts organized. Some people also use mind-mapping for to-do lists and task management (I’ve been less successful in this regard).
Freeplane and most of the tools I use are cross-platform. Where possible, I try to find cross-platform tools, both because my work computer is Windows, and because when I discover a great application, I want to be able to recommend it to the whole world! So assume the applications I mention are cross-platform, except where otherwise noted.
Productivity: OpenOffice, Freeplane, Getting Things GNOME! (Linux only), PDF-Shuffler, calibre (ebook library management, I use it with my Kindle).
Data: PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Sqliteman (SQLite GUI), gmdb (MDB Viewer, allows you to browse and export data from MS Access databases).
Entertainment: Clementine Music Player (fork of the popular Amarok 1.4). I have a Bluetooth music bridge that pipes the output to the stereo, so the computer is our primary music player.
GIS: This is not on everyone’s list of must-have software, but is central to my work. I use Quantum GIS which is great, and getting even better at a rapid pace due to its easy extensibility and strong developer community. Also, the aforementioned PostGIS.
Statistics: R, RStudio. R is taking the world by storm. It has an incredibly active user community, and rich ecosystem of add-ons. RStudio is an amazing IDE for R, which makes R coding much easier.
Virtualization: VirtualBox. I still have to run some Windows software, and VirtualBox lets me do so. I also use it to try out other Linux distros (for example, I’m using it right now to preview Ubuntu 12.04), including some specialized distros like OSGeo-Live, a Xubuntu-based distro that is packed with open source geospatial software.
Communication: Thunderbird, Skype. I know everything is about webmail these days, and I do use Gmail as my primary email, but I still much prefer using a desktop email client, for functionality, data ownership, backup, and offline access/composition.
Backup: The line between software and service is blurring. Obviously, you wouldn’t run SpiderOak without the associated cloud-based backup service. But everyone should be running a backup software and for me this is the one. Cross-platform, built-in sync (I have my home Ubuntu setup and my work Windows setup synced via SpiderOak). 2 GB for free, 100 GB for $100 annualy, $50 for those of you with .edu email addresses!
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
My desktop is a Dell Inspiron 530s Pentium E2140, 6 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD + 500 GB HDD. The SSD was added about a year ago, and it really has noticeably increased performance, particularly boot-up time and application launch times. I also added an NVIDIA GeForce 7200GS graphics card which is connected to our TV to watch Hulu, Amazon Instant Videos, etc.
This was a pretty low-powered machine even when I bought it four years ago, but I’m amazed at how well it performs running Ubuntu. Even when I retire it for day-to-day computing (which is not in the near future), I think it will probably survive indefinitely as an entertainment system.
My laptop is a Lenovo Y560p i7, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD. The keyboard recently started acting like it was demon-possessed. This YouTube video diagnosed the problem and showed me how to fix it by opening up the laptop and shielding the keyboard cable with a square cut from an anti-static sheet.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
You mean my current setup isn’t my ideal?
Seriously, my ideal setup evolves incrementally from my current setup to satisfy changing needs and desires. One thing that is not part of my ideal setup is a lot of eye candy. I played around with a lot of the Compiz stuff, but quickly went back to the basic no-visual-effects desktop environment. I found that all those moving mini-windows that pop up when you Alt+Tab for switching applications were difficult to visually process, and actually slowed down my work.
One thing that my ideal setup would have is brainless video support. I know there’s a lot of open source tools out there that are extremely powerful and will let you do pretty much anything you want, but I have no patience for it. I can spend hours working with GIS or stats, but when I copy a video of my daughter from my cellphone to my computer and find out that it’s sideways, the last thing in the world that I want to do is to spend a lot of time figuring out how to rotate it 90°.
- Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Interview conducted April 28, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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The Linux Setup - Scott Merrill, Systems Engineer/Tech Writer
Scott came to my attention when I saw a great interview he did with Linus Torvalds for TechCrunch. I was very excited Scott agreed to share his setup, and as you read it, you’ll see some sharp commentary. Like Scott, I find myself doing less and less customization. Scott attributes it to the work it takes to restore personalizations, but I wonder if it’s because interfaces like Unity and GNOME 3 are getting better and because more and more work takes place in the browser, with both factors diminishing the need to mess with the desktop too much. As you read through, you’ll see a number of interesting points from Scott.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m Scott Merrill. I’m a full-time Linux systems engineer focusing on build automation for a large US insurance firm. I’m a Red Hat Certified Engineer, and have been using Linux exclusively since about 1999.
In my free time, I write for TechCrunch where I cover Linux and free and open source software. I also occasionally post to my personal blog at skippy.net.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
At home, I use Ubuntu. I track the latest stable releases pretty closely. I’m using Unity, and on the whole I don’t mind it much.
At work, I have a desktop running Fedora 16. I’m using GNOME 3, and on the whole I don’t mind it much, either. [With both interfaces,] I’m able to launch my apps with relative ease. I don’t find [either] interface really slowing me down or getting in my way at all.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
At home, I rely almost exclusively on Chrome. Occasionally I use GIMP to take and manipulate screenshots. I’ve recently started using Shotwell to organize my photos, but that’s not a task to which I’m very committed. I also recently switched from XChat to irssi for my IRC needs. I have irssi running in a screen session on a rooted Pogoplug. I ssh into the Pogoplug and reattach the screen session as needed. I’ve dabbled with web-based IRC clients but have been mostly unsatisfied with them (Subway may change my opinion on that score, though: https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway).
At work, I rely almost exclusively on a shell prompt. I’ve just recently started using tmux to streamline my shell manipulations, and thus far I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been a casual screen user for some time, but I often find myself launching multiple shell windows so that I can see things side-by-side a little easier. tmux makes that even easier for me. (Work email uses Lotus Notes, for which I used to use a Windows laptop. I’ve recently been allocated a MacBook Air, so I’ll likely soon retire the Fedora desktop; all the POSIX tools I need are on — or available for — the Mac, and it can run Notes to boot.)
Over the years, I’ve tried to actively minimize the number of personalizations I make to my computers. Every hard disk failure or upgrade or distribution switch brings non-trivial costs in terms of time and effort to restore my personalizations, so I’ve just given up. I use vi(m) exclusively for text editing because it was the common denominator on the distributions I used originally; it didn’t require a special installation. I don’t currently maintain a .vimrc, I just use the default configuration. For most of what I do, it’s more than sufficient. This is also why I’m using Unity on Ubuntu and GNOME 3 on Fedora: it’s the path of least resistance for me, and to be honest, neither interface actively impairs my productivity.
A side effect of my abandonment of personalization is that I can pretty comfortably use just about anybody’s machine in a pinch to do something productive. Unless, you know, they’re using something crazy like Gentoo. ;)
(The MacBook, obviously, changes that equation. I’ve installed MacVim, tmux — via Homebrew — and iTerm2. A native OSX environment just doesn’t give me the same functionality as what I’ve come to expect from Linux. It’s close, but sufficiently different as to cause friction.)
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
My personal laptop is a Hewlett Packard 8510w Mobile Workstation.
My work desktop is(/was) a Lenovo ThinkCentre with 4GB RAM.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
More and more, I’m of the opinion that my ideal Linux setup would be a ChromeBook. I don’t need local apps for the majority of stuff I do at home. For TechCrunch, I usually take notes in a Google Docs document or (*gasp*) with a pen and paper. I compose all my posts online in WordPress, and rely on that to manage saving my drafts and revisions for me. I could pretty easily use something like picmonkey.com in place of GIMP for the rare image manipulation I need to do.
I manage Linux systems all day long, and have been doing so professionally for quite a few years now. It’s no longer something I’m really keen to do in my free time. I’d be happy to avoid the entirety of an operating system for the stuff I do at home now.
If I were in the market for new hardware, I’d likely consider an Ultrabook or MacBook Air of some sort. I’ve never really looked into the details, though. I’d have to do some research to ensure that all the pieces function as expected.
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
My laptop is literally the default Ubuntu desktop, with the addition of Chrome to the sidebar.
Interview conducted April 20, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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The Linux Setup - Scott, Everything Linux
I know Scott through Tumblr, so I was glad he was able to participate. I know from his blog that he’s a distro hopper, but of course, he has some strong ideas about what he likes and doesn’t like.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Scott, I run a Tumblr blog called Everything Linux, and I am a freelance programmer, mostly for a friend when he needs something done that he doesn’t have time to do. I’m also working on my own project which I won’t really go into because it’s still in the making.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
I have a desktop and an Acer Aspire One netbook. On the desktop, I’m running Gentoo, and on the netbook I’m running Funtoo. Which is just essentially Gentoo with a different Portage tree.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
There’s nothing really I would say I depend on, seeing as Gentoo is built basically from the ground up. The things I always install though are Irssi for IRC, Pidgin to handle Facebook chat and MSN, Chromium as my web browser, Rhythmbox for music, BloGTK2 to run my WordPress blog and my editor of choice is nano. I also like to have VirtualBox, as I do help out a lot on Freenode’s IRC in #sabayon under the nick ‘anak1n’. Sometimes I need to have a [virtual instance] of Sabayon running to help people out with certain issues.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
On the desktop:
I have an AMD dual core processor, which makes compile time take a while, 3 GB of DDR3 RAM, Nvidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 for a graphics card, 500 GB HDD, 19” HP monitor, and a Razer DeathAdder mouse.On the netbook:
Intel dual core processor, 1.5 GB of DDR2 RAM, Intel integrated graphics card, and an 8 GB SSD.What is your ideal Linux setup?
Honestly, I’m not much for going all out. What I really want (need) is a new laptop, with at least 4-6 GB of RAM, maybe an i5-i7 processor, at least a 250 GB HDD, and a decent graphics card (Nvidia, ATI, or Intel), running either Gentoo, Funtoo or Sabayon. I like having the two computers so I can work on different things at the same time on two different machines. With my [current] project, it would work out better to use it on both architectures (x86 and x64).
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Of course. I made this wallpaper myself, as I can never find one online that I can actually tolerate.
Interview conducted April 1, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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The Linux Setup - Ruji Chapnik, Artist
I noticed Ruji in the March 2012 edition of Linux Journal, where she wrote a cool article about playing and managing music from the console. Having interviewed her, I can say my instinct that she would be interesting was spot-on—Ruji runs Sabayon Xfce, a setup I myself enjoyed for a while.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m Ruji Chapnik. I’m a freelancer and Linux hobbyist. As far as what I “do” goes, I suppose you could call me an artist; I have a bachelor’s degree in art, anyway. Lately I’ve been posting satirical comics at dondepresso.tumblr.com. You can find out more about me at rujic.net.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
I have two laptops, a 13” MacBook Pro and a Lenovo G770. Both are running Sabayon Linux. Both are also set up to dual-boot, but I rarely use Windows on my Lenovo. I do use Mac OS X for Final Cut Pro, which is my go-to nonlinear video editing program.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
I’ve played with different desktop environments and have settled with Xfce on both systems. I used Gnome 2 in the past and switched to KDE for a long while last year, but later I wanted something zippier.
Some of the software I find essential for daily use
- Terminator: The best terminal emulator in the world. I’m addicted to making little boxes inside it.
- GIMP: Needs no introduction.
- gedit: I use it for all my notes. Sometimes I use different highlight modes to organize my thoughts; for instance, in C++ mode, my numbered lists show up in color. I don’t actually edit code in gedit.
- DeaDBeeF: I just started using this music player when I was getting annoyed with Amarok’s interface. I customized the colors of the GUI and made it look all psychedelic and crazy and stuff.
- Xfrun4: Yep, that’s right. The popup “run” dialog. I’ve customized my keyboard shortcuts so that hitting CTRL+SPACE opens Xfrun4. This saves me a lot of time when opening applications.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
MacBook Pro 5,5 (13”) with 4GB RAM and 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Lenovo G770 (17.3”) with 8GB RAM and 2.50 GHz Intel Core i5-2450M processor.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
The most comfortable setup I’ve had was a year or two ago, when I was running Sabayon Linux on my MacBook Pro with Gnome 2. I used Compiz Fusion as my window manager, which was awesome. I set it up to do all kinds of neat 3D tricks when I moved windows or switched workplaces.
Running Linux on a Mac can be a pain in the ass when it comes to using the iSight camera and playing audio; Mac hardware often doesn’t play nicely with Linux. I haven’t had these problems with Linux on my Lenovo. It was such a relief that I didn’t have to tweak the hell out of my ALSA settings to get the audio working.
The setup on my Lenovo is pretty close to ideal, but I miss some things about Gnome 2. I don’t want to use an obsolete desktop environment, though, and I don’t care much for Gnome 3—so the best thing seems to be Xfce. At some point when I’m not feeling lazy, I’ll install CairoDock, which I prefer to Xfce’s built-in toolbars.
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Interview conducted March 25, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about thechrir Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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The Linux Setup - Jon “maddog” Hall, Linux International
Jon “maddog” Hall is a bit of a legend in the Linux community, so it’s truly an honor to have his participation here. Jon makes a number of interesting (and, of course, provactive points). For instance, he chooses his distribution based upon his client, rather than choosing what he personally prefers. And he gravitates toward software that offers the most functionality, rather than the easiest, which is an interesting counterpoint to the many in the “choose the simplest tool for the job” camp.
Jon’s passion comes through in his answers and it’s a real treat to get the perspective of someone who’s pretty much been using Linux since the beginning.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
Those are good questions. I am Jon “maddog” Hall, and for the past seventeen years I have been the Executive Director of Linux International. That fact and 350 USD will get you a cup of coffee at most Starbucks…..
I have also been in the computer industry since 1969 and worked on all sorts of computers including mainframes that had less than one-quarter megabyte of core memory and micros that had less than 1K bytes of semi-conductor memory. I have stored data on paper tape at the rate of 10 bytes per linear inch, and actually programmed computers for a living that could not store their own programs in memory…they were controlled by wiring a plug board. Yes, this makes me old….
Along the way I have been a programmer, systems administrator, college educator, product manager, technical marketing manager, author and trouble-maker.
Since 1977 I have been exclusively Unix or Unix-based systems, and when I met Linus Torvalds in 1994 I started promoting Linux more or less full time, and since 1999 I have been going around the world promoting Free and Open Source Software, helping companies and governments either make or save money with FOSS.
I also work with a company called Futura Networks who produces an event world-wide called Campus Party (www.campus-party.org) and I am working on a project called Project Cauã (www.projectcaua.org) that has the potential of creating millions of high-tech jobs around the world.
Finally, I do various consulting jobs for various companies.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
Whatever Linux distributions my customer wants me to run.
Recently I did a job for Red Hat Software. While doing that job I ran Fedora, since most of the engineers at Red Hat run Fedora on their desktops and notebooks.
If I was going to do a job for Canonical, I would probably run Ubuntu.
For the past 17 years people have been asking me what I run on my notebook, and I tell them it does not make any difference what *I* run.
What they should be running is the best distribution for them, not me.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
Again, this question is not going to have a satisfying answer for you….
I use software more by “criteria” than “name”.
First of all, I use whatever software my customer needs me to use.
Next, I do not use software just because it is “easier to use”, I tend to use software that has the greatest capabilities. I would rather spend more time learning software that has the greatest capabilities rather than be halfway through learning a new piece of software and find that it has features lacking that I really need.
Next, I look for software with a vibrant user and developer community. This is mostly to protect my customers rather than me.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
O.K. you asked about my main notebook…..
It is a Lenovo Thinkpad W510 with an Intel I7 chipset, 16GB of main memory, USB 3.0, 802.11n built in and a 17” LED backlit screen. It has one TB of disk space, broken out into two 500GB disks.
I named it “Smaug” after the fire-breathing dragon of Tolkien’s Hobbit, since once it really starts up the hot-air vent sears your skin off and the fans (although quiet) blow air like there is no tomorrow.
Under light editing and/or web browsing, “Smaug sleeps”.
I bought it because I can do simulations of multiple virtual machines without slowing down the processor too much. This is part of Project Cauã, and I knew that I would be doing these simulations sooner or later on my notebook as a demonstration.
It was also the first notebook I could find that had USB 3.0 and an LED backlit screen, both of which I felt were necessary for multimedia work, which I do from time to time.
And I had been using ThinkPads for some time, enjoyed their ruggedness and the fact that most things (including the built-in webcam and fingerprint scanner) worked “out of the box.”
I tend to buy “top of the line”, but keep that for a number of years, upgrading the disk as they increase in capacity. I buy a warranty on the hardware that has come in useful from time to time…things do wear out. Lenovo’s service has been spectacular.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
I do not do any gaming….I never got into it.
My favorite game was “Adventure” (“you are now in a maze of twisty-turny passages” and “zyzzy” for those of you who remember) played on a PDP-8 that had all of 4K 12-bit words of memory. That was in 1969.
I do admit to playing a rousing game of solitaire when I am really tired at night….
I do some multimedia work, and a few years ago set up a “multimedia desk-side computer” that cost me about four thousand dollars. Four years later you could get that same functionality for less than one thousand dollars.
In my basement I have about one-half million dollars of equipment that it would now cost me about three hundred dollars to dispose of….
At the age of sixty-one I have failing ears, failing eyesight and failing reflexes, so to invest in vastly expensive hardware for anything is probably not going to happen. A good sound card, and reasonable 3D capability is probably all I need for most of my work, and these are reasonable in price.
This is not 1969, when a single transistor often cost $1.50, and that was when $1.50 would get you into a movie AND buy popcorn!
On the other hand my software is constantly changing….
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
No.
First of all, I have a lot of folders on my desktop that indicate various projects that I am doing for various companies. The names of the folders are illustrative the work I am doing for them and their privacy could be violated. When I do presentations I am careful not to show my main desktop.
Secondly, it would be boring. I do not spend much time “tailoring” my desktop, since I keep changing distributions.
I have no “favorite software” other than vim, and that is a love gained over more than a quarter century of “ed” to “ex” to “vi” to “vim”. I was using a “dot-editor” even before there were “line editors”, much less “full-screen” editors.
Before “ed” it was punched cards and paper tape.
Interview conducted March 11, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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The Linux Setup - Keith Milner, Telecom Engineer
I found Keith after he commented on my Linux music post. As you’ll see, though, Keith does way more than music on his Linux machines. Plus, he’s a Mandriva user (for now, as you’ll read).
I also appreciate that Keith doesn’t upgrade his OS just for the sake of upgrading it. I’m trying to be more mindful about my distro upgrading and Keith is now serving as a positive role model for me.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Keith Milner and I am a telecommunications engineer. I run my own company providing engineering consulting to fixed-line and mobile telecommunications service providers and their suppliers. I’ve worked in the telecommunications industry for over 20 years, and have worked on almost every technical system involved including service development, billing, network design, and network and service monitoring and management system architectures. I have been running my own company since 2003, and in that time I have worked on a range of projects for customers including T-Mobile, Cable & Wireless, Orange, Portugal Telecom, Telekom Malaysia, Eircom, and multiple projects for BT.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
I’m currently running Mandriva 2011 on both my desktop and my laptop. Depending on the project I’m on I can either be working at home for extended periods (as I am currently) or on the customer site. I recently spent a few months on a customer site in Malaysia, and in that case my laptop becomes my main system.
I’ve previously dabbled with Redhat, Suse, Ubuntu and others, but I have generally been very happy with Mandriva. I have always preferred the KDE environment over GNOME. In the early days when KDE2 came out (and I was running Redhat) I used to compile the latest KDE releases to use on my system. These days things are more mission-critical and I prefer to have a supported, packaged system. Whether I change this in the future depends on Mandriva’s future.
My laptop is actually a triple boot setup, and also has Windows XP on it. I often do a lot of hands-on work on customer’s systems and for this I find Linux simply much more productive and powerful than Windows. The only time I use Windows is when a customer project mandates the use of a particular piece of software. In practice I find this doesn’t happen often, but having WIndows allows me to support this when it does.
The third boot option on my laptop is AVLinux which I use for messing around with music production. I’ve previously used Ubuntu Studio, but found AVLinux to be much better for me.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
As part of my job I often end up doing software development. I use Eclipse for almost all of this, with subversion running on a separate server. I also use OpenOffice (and now LibreOffice) for documentation, Gnucash for my invoicing and company accounts. And, of course, I also use a browser. These days I mainly use Chrome with the occasional use of Firefox. I’ve recently been using Google Hangouts a lot and I’m one of the regulars on the Tech And Coffee hangout (www.techandcoffee.info) and for this I use Webcamstudio, which I compiles from SVN. I also use Kontact as a general email/PIM system, although my use of that has declined recently since I switched my company email over to Google Apps. I also use VMWare quite a bit as it’s a good way to simulate customer production or lab setups.
On AVLinux I use Jack Connection kit, Ladish, Hydrogen, Rosegarden and Ardour as well as a bunch of other tools.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
My desktop is a Scan Computers custom configuration powered by an overclocked (4GHz) Intel I7, and with 12G of RAM.
My laptop is an old but still quite pokey Dell D620 with 4G RAM. I may upgrade this sometime this year as it’s starting to creak a little and it’s seen quite a bit of action.
I tend to buy relatively high end hardware that lasts me a few years (I bought the Dell back in 2007). I look for the “sweet spot” to get a high specification, but not the highest, where you are paying a premium.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
I think pretty much what I have. To me it’s a productivity tool and I don’t obsess too much over specs. I only tend to upgrade the OS when I find the versions of the apps I use perhaps need a refresh.
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
I run a pair of 22” HD screens in Twinview mode so the desktop is quite large.
Interview conducted February 26, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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The Linux Setup, Noah Lorang, 37signals
Noah’s on my radar because of this post he wrote about how operating systems are becoming irrelevant. The piece points out how Noah was able to effortlessly switch from OS X to Linux. I appreciated the post because it wasn’t about the politics of free and open source software. Instead, he was writing about getting to choose the best tools for the job, an idea that sometimes gets misplaced in our conversations about Linux.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m Noah Lorang (or @noahhlo on Twitter), and I’m the data analyst for a company called 37signals (37signals.com). We make web-based productivity software — project management, contact management, group chat, and things like that. We also have a few other products and a popular blog called Signal vs. Noise (37signals.com/svn), for which I occasionally write pieces.
I work on basically anything that has to do with numbers in some way - I analyze customer behavior, marketing campaigns, financial stuff, application performance, how our support team is doing, and everything else in between.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
I recently switched to using Ubuntu 11.10 for my main desktop (I also have a Macbook Air running Mac OS X, but I only use it for traveling, which I rarely do). I’m using Gnome 3, but not because I dislike Unity (as many people on the internet do) — I just never used any of the features it provided, and my system runs at a much lower load without it.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
I basically only interact with four pieces of software — Chromium for web browsing, Empathy for jabber/chat, Terminator as a terminal, and SublimeText2. I actually was a long-time Vim user who only recently switched to SublimeText — with Vintage mode, I get most of what I liked about Vim in a more polished exterior.
Those four things let me use the R statistical programming language, Pine for email, Ruby (and Rails), our soon-to-be-release project managment tool Basecamp Next (37signals.com/basecampnext/), and our web-based chat tool, Campfire. I work remotely from home, as does almost two-thirds of the company, so Campfire is our office for most purposes.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
I’m using a pretty basic home-assembled machine — Intel Core i7 processor, 32 GB RAM, SSD for applications and 3x 1TB HDs in a RAID for data, and some mid-range AMD video card I don’t remember. I’m not a gamer, so all I cared about with the video card was that it drove the 3 monitors that I use (27” Apple Cinema display, 23” Acer, 22” Samsung). I do care a lot about comfortable interactions, so I use a Filco Majestouch mechanical keyboard and an Evoluent mouse.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
I’m pretty close to it — I never have to worry about RAM, even doing pretty intensive data crunching with datasets in memory, and everything “just works.” I’ll probably put Ubuntu on my laptop pretty soon, at which point I’ll be completely satisfied.
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Sure, but it’s utterly boring — just plain black with some screenshots that are lying around. I never see my desktop — I just look at whatever I’m editing or doing in a terminal.
Interview conducted February 24, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
You can follow us on Google+ here and subscribe to our feed here.
The Linux Setup - Terrence O’Brien, Engadget
I suspected Terrence O’Brien was a Linux user when I started noticing he seemed to be behind just about all of Engadget’s Linux coverage. It turns out I was right about Terrence. Not only that, he gets a lot of work done through his Ubuntu setup. Also, his dream setup is pretty great. I think I’m stealing it for my dream.
You can find more of The Linux Setup here.
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Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m an associate editor at Engadget and former senior contributor to Switched.com. I’m also an avid outdoorsman, nerd from birth and serial hobbyist.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
Ubuntu. My first exposure to Linux was through Red Hat, which my father brought home since he had to learn it for his job. But, let’s just say things did not go smoothly. It wasn’t until years later, when I was trying to milk the last bit of life out of my almost six-year-old ThinkPad 600X that I decided to give Linux another shot. That was back in 2005, and the new hot distro on the scene was a rather ugly thing slathered in brown with an alliterative code name. That, much like my introduction via Red Hat, was also a rough experience — but, oddly, I was hooked. Since that day Ubuntu has not only been my Linux distro of choice, but my primary OS.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
Mostly the browser. I jump back and forth between Firefox and Chrome quite often, though I primarily use Firefox for work. Otherwise I don’t use too many apps on a daily basis. I fire up Empathy for instant messaging, XChat for IRC and obsessively watch Twitter in Polly. I do most of my actual composing in Focus Writer, while GIMP, Shutter, and Phatch are the backbone of my imaging arsenal. The two most indispensable weapons in my toolbox are AutoKey and Dropbox, however. Without them my job would border on impossible. The only major gaps I’ve found in my software needs are a solid note taking app and a video editing tool. Tomboy is nice but, without a viable mobile and web client, it’s out of the running for me. And all of the Linux video editing suites I’ve tried have made me want to pull my hair out.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
I have two different machines that I split my time between. My personal laptop is a ThinkPad X200 with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 8 GB of RAM and the extended 9 cell battery that’s supposed to net me up to nine hours of use, though, In reality, it only lasts about three. That machine also boots to Windows 7 professional. My work laptop is a 13-inch MacBook Pro, which sports only 4GB of RAM, but does boast a Core i7-2620M. Four 2.7GHz cores is kind of overkill for most of my daily tasks, though they come in handy when I have to boot into Snow Leopard to edit video.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
Well, after seeing Ubuntu for Android on video it might be that. But, barring a magical phone that can accomplish all of my daily computing tasks, I’d settle for something that looks like a MacBook Air, has the keyboard of ThinkPad and can power a pair of external monitors when dropped in a docking station. On the software front I’d love to see better integration with the endless piles of top notch webapps out there. I think part of the growing interest in Linux is largely thanks to the fact that we’re spending more and more of our time inside a browser and relying less and less on desktop apps. The fact that I can’t set Gmail as my default mail client without installing an extra piece of software or some advanced tweaking is ridiculous. Oh, I also want it to be beautiful and stable.
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Of course! Not much to see here. Before the introduction of Unity I used to spend a lot of time customizing my desktop — whipping up complex Conky setups, swapping out icons, etc… But, when the new theme was introduced in Lucid Lynx I started tweaking less and less until, with the debut Unity in Natty, I started just accepting the default setup. The only real tweaks I still feel the need to make are to the shortcuts and the wallpaper. I’m a big fan of hot corners so I set the top right to initiate the window picker, while bottom right launches the workspace switcher. I also generally edit any wallpapers to match the aubergine, orange and gray color scheme of Ambiance.
Interview conducted February 22, 2012
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
You can follow us on Google+ here and subscribe to our feed here.
