August 28, 2011

Getting Comfortable

So I physically built the computer and now I've been using it a while, configuring stuff and getting used to my new screens. I think they're about three times wide as my old laptop and now I have this one huge vertical space which is absolutely wonderful for surfing forums and reading code. Damn I love coding on it! When I go back to the laptop I feel cramped..

And while we're at dissing the old - I can never ever like another keyboard again! Well, at least not another rubber dome or scissor switch one.

Rubber dome and scissor switch

No this day forward I'm a mechanical keyboard fantast. You might think I'm crazy but the difference is pretty huge, before my fingers got tired but now they don't and it's even fun to type again!

If that got you interested you need to read this geekhack post, it's nice to say the least.

Back to my screen setup again - yes everything with my new computer is either the monitors or the keyboard - I wanted to use xmonad without relying on xfce this time. I like xfce as a truly lightweight window manager but a tiling window manager is just vastly superior, and the xfce statusbar is pretty ugly..

I set up a nice looking statusbar and some stuff on the desktop with conky. I've been wanting to set up a todo list and while I was at it I put up my assignment due dates and my schedule too. And never forget the ever so important manga updates!

My dual screen setup, click to enlarge

A nice little feature I added down on the right is the time in various timezones, they adjust to summer time on their own dates and they change the abbreviations too - from CEST to CET and so on.

Something that didn't go smooth at all is the gaming - I couldn't ever get any games to work with wine! After a while I found out that an older driver solved the problem, but most games still don't work with dual screen. So I kinda have to switch between two config files, but that works too I guess.

All my config files are up on github as well if you're interested.

August 21, 2011

New Computer!

I briefly mentioned my new computer in the last post and I thought I'd make a post about it, as it's awesome (as all new computers are).

Firstly, the specs:

GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 550Ti OC 1GB
CPU: Intel core i5 2500K
CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS-9900NT
Motherboard: MSI P67A-C45 REV B3
Ram: Corsair 4GB (2x2048MB) CL9 1600Mhz XMS
Harddrive: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ
PSU: FSP Aurum 400W 80+ Gold
Displays: 2 x Dell U2211H ultrasharp 21,5" widescreen
Keyboard: Das Keyboard - Ultimate Model S Silent
DVD burner: Samsung DVD±R/RW/RAM
Case: Fractal Design Define R3, Black

Secondly, the look:

I wanted the computer to be fast and silent and I had to have two screens. I had a budget of 12,000 SEK and almost managed it too.

The screens I chose are two fairly large widescreen IPL screens, very solid, but they quickly ate up about a third of my budget... In hindsight it was a good investment, they're absolutely wonderful!

The processor was fairly straightforward to choose - the i5 2500K is a beast for it's price. I don't really need 8GB ram, I think I've used 2GB max before so I just stuck with 4 this time. The motherboard is nothing special but I don't need it to be either.

I've got about 4TB of storage laying around here so I don't need any more really, but I chose a relatively fast and silent 1TB disk. I'd love to get a SSD but I couldn't squeeze that into the budget.

Although you can say you don't need a DVD reader/burner in this era of usb sticks it's still nice to have, especially since I've got a few installation disks I'd like to use. A small fee that saves time I'd say. Floppies are dead for me though.

I also wanted it to be quiet and according to some who probably knows better than me by far the biggest noise source is the stock CPU silencer - so I threw down one which looked good. In hindsight it works great too.

The case looks good and it was also solid, no qualms there. But the one big issue I had was the graphics card, oh how hard it was! I wanted something silent, something from Nvidia (Ati drivers used to suck on linux, but maybe not anymore), something that's reasonably powerful and also cheap. Not a bad combination I say! I think I chose something reasonably good - the fan is very silent, it's a good chipset and it wasn't all too expensive. However I haven't gotten any games to work with it on linux but that's probably a configuration issue, annoying anyway.

Keyboard, Das Keyboard

The keyboard, oh the keyboard! I got it in my head that I had to have a mechanical keyboard, they're supposed to be a lot better than the "regular" ones. And oh yeah it's absolutely wonderful, it's a joy to type in and I'm already irking when I have to go back typing on another keyboard. But it is a tad too load according to Veronica, and it was oh so expensive.

My workspace!

Overall I'm very happy and I don't think I would've done anything different if I were to buy it today, except maybe try an Ati card, some say the drivers aren't bad at all anymore.

Finally some more pictures:

August 18, 2011

Resurrection

Aah what a nice summer!

It was nice to be back in Övertorneå, doing nothing in particular. Just not having to make lunch and dinner every day is such a relief, and if you do slip up food with grandma or Veronica's parents is only a phone call away. I watched TV, played rollercoaster 2 and simcity 4 and just killed time in front of my beloved (PC).

The only real work I did was clean the house a time or two and made food for my little brother Filip and did some exercises with him when my parents worked. But it was a pretty small price to pay as my mum helped me invest in a new computer! Of course dad couldn't find out but that wasn't so hard - I do live about 1400 km away from home anyway.

But now things are moving back to the way things were before the summer break; I'm back in Linköping cooking (lunch, dinner and breakfast), trying to remember watering our plants and generally enjoying life. Everything is almost set for Veronica's return so I need to take it easy a bit before she storms into my life again tomorrow...

There's a lot of stuff I need to reboot again; studying obviously but I also want to make more games and program a bit which I completely neglected the last months and taekwon-do is starting again! My first practice went to hell though, I almost managed to get a blackout as I didn't drink nearly enough but oh well.

But the first step is to write a bit more here, I hear that's a useful skill to have. Instead of taking a boring class I can just write stuff here I guess.