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What I Use (as of 2026)

I thought it'd be a good idea to document the hardware/software I use as of right now. This is going to be a static document; I'm not going to update it as I want to treat it as a sort of "snapshot" of my current preferences. Maybe in the future I'll make a follow-up post updating the software I use and comparing it with this page.

Hardware

Desktop

Right now, I'm using a micro Dell Optiplex 9020M with an Intel i3-4160T and 8GB of memory. It seems to be powerful enough for my usecases, which is primarily programming and browsing the internet. Some "modern" sites that use a bunch of bloated web-crap are noticeably slow, but I tend to avoid those websites anyway so it is not too much of a big deal. There are also some sites that use Anubis with a particularly demanding configuration that can take minutes to load, but thankfully none of the sites I regularly visit use such configurations. Outside of web browsing, I rarely notice performance issues.

I haven't done much tinkering with the Optiplex itself other than swapping out of WiFi card for an Atheros AR9565 one, as it does not require proprietary firmware.

Gaming PC

I have a gaming PC hooked up to my TV in my living room that basically acts as a game console. It runs ChimeraOS. I tried SteamOS and Bazzite but those did not work. It has an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G for the CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT for the GPU.

Phone

iPhone :-(.

I'd like to get a more free phone, but I have not done much research into the market.

Software

Programming Languages

Mainly C, Perl, and POSIX shell. C for stuff where performance is particularly important or when it has access to libraries I need to use. Shell for scripts that largely involve glueing programs together. Perl for everything else.

I also like using Lua as an embedded language.

I know some Go and Python. I don't like Go because I don't feel comfortable with the level of control Google has over the language. Python feels confusing and unergonomic as a scripting language to me, as someone who is used to Perl.

I am not interested in learning C++, Rust, Ruby, Java, or Haskell.

I have also recently been learning Guile Scheme. I've been enjoying it, I may use it for some of my future projects.

OS

Debian 13 GNU/Linux-libre. Non-free repositories disabled. Linux-libre installed via extrepo. I like Debian because it's stable, has a wide variety packages, fairly unopinionated, and for the most part free. apt is a good package manager. systemd is bleh, but non-systemd distros (besides Guix) don't seem to appealing to me.

I have been considering switching to another distro, but I have not looked too much into if it'd be worth it. The distros I've been considering are GNU Guix and Trisquel GNU/Linux, both fully-free GNU/Linux distros. GNU Guix has a lot of cool ideas, but I do not know if I would enjoy the amount tinkering and configuring I'd have to do to get a satisfactory setup. Trisquel seems more appealing as the more pragmatic option, but I do not know how much more it offers compared to Debian other than a firm stance on the exclusion of non-free software.

Text Editor

My development environment is basically tmux + nvi. One large pane is dedicated my text editor, the other two are dedicated towards file system navigation, viewing documentation, compiling, etc.

I have recently been hopping between different text editors a lot, but I've stuck on nvi as of now. For the longest time I've used vim, but had recently encountered issues. One is the prevalance of LLM slop in the upstream code base. The other is the fact that it is just far too bloated for my usecase. I don't really use any of its fancy features. My .vimrc has almost always grown only because I install vim on a new system only for it to act differently than what I was used to on the last system, so I configure to act as it had before. That's another one of my issues with vim, it always changes when I install it on a new system. I've tried out some other text editors, like vis, nano, and emacs with evil and viper mode, but I did not enjoy them much. I'm also aware of vim-classic; although it removes LLM slop from vim's codebase, it still suffers from the complexity of original vim. My favorite aspect of nvi in comparison to other text editiors is the simplicity of its configuration; you do not have to learn an editor's specific configuration language to extend your editor, nor do you have to worry about your editor's behavior randomly changing between different versions or installs.

Despite my praises, nvi does have a couple issues:

I've used tmux ever since I became a serious GNU/Linux developer. I am also aware of GNU screen, but I have not done enough research comparing its feature sets with tmux to know if it'd be worth switching over to.

As for the terminal, I usually just use the one that comes with my desktop. Right now that's xfce4-terminal.

Desktop

Xfce. Not terribly bloated, but not too spartan either. Extensible and easy to configure.

I have used MATE in the past, and I also enjoyed it, but I enjoyed Xfce more. I have also tried KDE, but found it was too bloated. GNOME is garbage. I have not tried other desktops.

I don't have as much experience with plain window managers. The one I have the most experience with is ctwm, which was the default under NetBSD. I liked it, but I'd still need to take some more time to configure it to my liking.

Web Browser

LibreWolf with uBlock and GNU LibreJS. LibreWolf is available for Debian via extrepo. I use DuckDuckGo as my search engine.

Mail

Gmail and its web interface :-(.

In the future, I'd like to migrate over to posteo. I do not think my mind is powerful enough that I could handle self-hosting.

Shell

GNU bash. Haven't really found a reason to use anything else. Other POSIX shells don't seem to offer any substantial improvements over bash. I have used ksh in the past on BSD systems, and I liked it. But bash still works just fine. Non-POSIX shells seem to be more trouble than their worth.

Conclusion

So that's what I use as of right now. It will probably change in the future. Such is life.

Last Modified: 2026-10-18