BlackWindBooks.com | Newsletter! | risingthumb.xyz | achtung.risingthumb.xyz | github.com/RisingThumb | site map

risingthumb.xyz The Legend of Zork!

Programs and Tools

I have listed in good detail all the Hardware and Programs I use.

Hardware

For my laptop I use a modified Thinkpad T420. I swapped out the HDD for an SSD, and I swapped the low-life battery for a good life battery. Upgrades that remain to be applied is the monitor. It could also be libre-booted if I wanted to, but that's a lot of effort. I don't currently use this much these days.

For a Desktop PC I have an RTX 3070, AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, and 32GB RAM.

For headphones I use Sony MDR-XD150. This was selected with comfort being the priority. As I have a cochlear implant, other headphones I tried were uncomfortable, so I settled on this one. Audio quality is alright. I have had 3 of these headphones over the last 8 or so years, 1 is still new in box, for when my current set breaks, because I don't expect them to remain in production.

For microphone I use a Blue Yeti. This is because it was shilled very hard by YouTubers at the time of purchase. It works well.

For keyboard I use a Unicomp Classic 101 Black Buckling Spring USB Keyboard. This is based off the old IBM Model M Buckling Spring Keyboards, and is high quality(as expected from American Manufacturing).

For mouse I use a Logitech MX Master 2S. I have heard bad things about bluetooth and Linux, but this has so far worked perfectly fine with my laptop and desktop. I have had issues with it, as sometimes connectivity struggles. I.E. With a USB-C Hub or multiple SD Cards being read, it seems to end up struggling. Possibly EMI?

My monitors are an EliteDisplay E232 in landscape and a HP Compaq LA2205wg in portrait. They're decent.

Software

Operating System

I use Arch Linux. My distro-hopping went from Windows 10, to Ubuntu, to Debian, to Solus and then to Arch Linux. I still use Debian on my VPS. I have investigated plan 9 a bit, and while I would want to use it, it has very little software support. Worst of all, Acme, the text editor for it is mouse only. If it was dual mouse and keyboard(incorporating vim-style keyboard bindings) I would use this with the 9front packages.

I intend to investigate Gentoo at some point. I just haven't gotten around to it. My init system is SystemD, and it's unlikely you'll be convincing me not to use it, as I find services extremely useful.

Video

I watch videos using mpv. I download them from YouTube using youtube-dl. I get the feeds for new videos from newsboat via RSS.

Music

I listen to music with cmus. I download them from bandcamp with bandcamp-dl or from directories. I also download them from youtube using youtube-dl with some extra scripts I have written to make tagging them as painless as possible.

Torrenting

I torrent using transmission-cli. Legally of course, I just torrent some Linux .isos

Text editing

I use neovim. The differences between vi and neovim aren't too major that I can use either without issue. I did use emacs for some time and didn't think it was worthwhile, mainly because it takes far too long to start up. The use of org-mode is rendered redundant next to plaintext and folding that plaintext appropiately. I will also use Eclipse for writing Java since that language is so verbose and syntax-heavy.

Window management/Desktop Environment

I use DWM. It just works. My configs are derived from LARBS, but I have deviated quite a lot from them. I do not like stacking window managers as they get in the way of doing what I want to do. I use X11 and Wayland, but I'm in no situation to debate which is better. I do not like pure tiling window managers, as they are inconvenient when I need to move windows. Dynamic is Dynamite baby!

Email

I use neomutt. I self-host my email server, done with email-wiz. I still use a gmail as I have too much centralised on it. C'est la vie... Some day I will sever ties to Google.

Terminal Emulator

I use suckless' st. It just works? The only other Terminal Emulators I would use is Kitty(GPU Accelerated) or Xterm(because it's frequently a default).

Font and colour scheme

I use Terminus mainly as my monospace font. My colour scheme of choice is Monokai(rather unusual, but it just looks right to me). I just use whatever the applications chooses for non-monospaced fonts.

Browser

I use Qutebrowser, Brave and Firefox. This is by order of frequency: Qutebrowser breaks a bit but the functionality is miles ahead. Brave sometimes fails for screen sharing and Firefox rarely has issues.

Menus

I use xmenu for menus. I also use dmenu for some prompts.

Images

To view images I use sxiv. To edit images I use either krita or aseprite.

Games Development

I use Godot. I am always waiting for Godot(Now where is that blasted Godot?). I also use raylib in C on occasion when I am tinkering with Shaders, as Godot has an overhead. I have used Gamemaker(dead in the water now. Godot beats it at everything on the cheap), and Unity(I prefer Godot). I am aware of Unreal and aware that a lot of people talk about time for development being longer on it... but I have no opinion myself. I have also used Bitsy game engine, and Construct 2 briefly.

VPS/Domain Registrar

Domain is from NameSilo. VPS is from Vultr. NameSilo is cheap, and hasn't been blown up with bad security like Epik. Vultr is just cheap, good, and at least not AWS or some other spawn of satan.

Documents

I write plaintext in markdown for quick documents and convert with pandoc. For the site I use gemini's flavour of markdown and convert it. For larger texts I use LaTeX. I also use libreoffice for any of microsoft's document formats.

Scripts

I script with POSIX-Compliant Shell Scripts. Sometimes I use Bash Script or Python if one of their features are important. I do this as performance differences exist between all 3.