Programming setup

`5:07:05`

than me would ever care about. And then I got out of the Apple bubble and suddenly I had to find everything again. I had to find a new mouse, I had to find a new keyboard, I had to find everything. And I thought like, all right, let me give mechanical keyboards a try. And I gave quite a few of them a try. The Keychron is one of the big brands in that I didn't like that at all. I tried a bunch of other keyboards and then I finally found this keyboard and I just went like, angels are singing. Where have you been my whole life? We spent as programmers so much of our time interacting with those keys. It really kind of matters in a way I didn't fully appreciate. I used to defend the Apple Magic Keyboard, like hey, it's great. It's actually a great keyboard. And I think for what it is, this ultra-low profile, ultra low travel is actually a really nice keyboard. But once you've tried a longer travel mechanical keyboard, there's no going back. — You do have to remember in many ways, both on the software side and the hardware side, that you do spend a lot of hour behind the computer. It's worth... — It's worth investing in. — And also worth exploring

`5:08:05`

until you find the thing where the angels starts singing, whatever. — That's exactly right. And I actually do regret that a little bit, especially with this damn keyboard. I mean, I could have been listening to these beautiful thocky keys for years and years, but sometimes you have to get really off before you open your eyes and see that something else exists. I feel the same way about Linux. So I've been using Linux on the server since late '90s, probably. We ran servers on Linux back then. I never seriously considered it as a desktop option. I never ran Linux before, directly myself. I always thought, you know what? I wanna focus on programming. I don't have time for all these configuration files and all this setup bullshit and whatnot. And Apple is close enough. It's built on Unix underpinnings. Why do I need to bother with Linux? And again, it was one of those things. I needed to try new things and try something else to realize that there is other things other than Apple.

`5:09:08`

And again, it's not 'cause I hate Apple. I think they still make good computers. I think a lot of the software is still also pretty okay. But I have come to realize that as a web developer, Linux is just better. Linux is just better. It's closer to what I deploy on. The tooling is actually phenomenal. And if you spend a bit of time setting it up, you can record a reproducible environment that I've now done with this Omakub concept or project that I've done, that I can set up a new Linux machine in less than 30 minutes. And it's perfect. It's not pretty good. It's not like I still need to spend two hours on. It's perfect because you can code all aspects of the development environment into this. And I didn't know. I didn't even know, to be fair, that Linux could look as good as it can. If you look at a stock Ubuntu or Fedora boot, I mean, not that it's ugly, but I'd pick the Mac any day of the week. You look at Omakub, I mean, I'm biased here, of course, 'cause I built it with my own sensibilities.

`5:10:09`

But I look at that and go like, this is better. This is beautiful. And then you look at some of those true Linux rising setups where people go nuts with everything and you go, oh yeah, I remember when computers used to be fun in this way, when there was this individuality and this setup. And it wasn't just all planned the sameness. And I think that's the flip side sometimes of something like Apple, where they have really strong opinions and they have really good opinions, they have very good taste. And it looks very nice and it also looks totally the same. And Linux has far more variety and far more texture and flavor. Sometimes also annoyances and bugs and whatever. But I run Linux now. It's Ubuntu-based with the Omakub stuff on top. The low free keyboard. I use a Logitech, what's it called? The MX 3 mouse, which I love how it feels in my hand. I don't love how it looks. I actually was a Magic Mouse stan for the longest time. I thought it was genius that Apple integrated the track pad into a mouse,

`5:11:12`

and I used that. And I always thought it was ridiculous that people would slag it just because you had to charge it by flipping it over. 'Cause the battery would last for three months and then you'd charge it for half an hour. I thought like, that's a perfect compatibility with my sensibilities. I don't mind giving up a little inconvenience if something is beautiful, and that Magic Mouse is beautiful. But it wasn't gonna work on Linux. So I found something else. The S3 is nice, but I sometimes do wish like the Magic Mouse. That's pretty good. — Yeah, Linux is really great for customizing everything, for tiling, for macros, for all of that. And I also do the same in Windows with AutoHotKey or just customize the whole thing to your preferences. — If you're a developer, you should learn how to control your environment with the keyboard. It's faster, it's more fluid. I think one of those silly things I've come to truly appreciate about my Omakub setup is that I can, in whatever time it takes to refresh the screen, probably five milliseconds switch from one virtual desktop to another.