Thinking About Computing Needs

minimal computer setup

After spending days trying to optimise my setup and thinking about the perfect use of my current hardware and also trying to get rid of stuff I don’t use, I came to the conclusion I need more hardware. This is kinda concerning, considering the initial problem I had before all this was that I have too much stuff around.

This might have been influenced by watching The Minimalists – Less is Now or John Hammond’s video for his one laptop setup for teaching cybersecurity.

Regardless of the reason, some order is needed in my life. The goal is really to reduce the extra time used with fiddling around and focus on things that are really important and I’m passionate about, while also trying to reduce and stop spending money on unnecessary things.

Inventory

To start things up, let’s see what I have around the house:

  • macbook pro 2018
  • dell optiplex desktop 16gb of ram
  • microsoft surface 3 tablet
  • raspberry pi 4 8gb ram
  • pi zero
  • 2 monitors
  • xbox series x
  • PS4 pro

The next step would be to consider what computing needs I have:

  • studying for OU cybersecurity degree
  • learning linux
  • writing blogposts
  • playing video games from time to time
  • streaming movies locally on my tve
  • backing up locally and sync with onedrive

Linux only, MacOS only system vs Dual-boot Linux/Windows

At the moment I am using a Macbook Pro 2018 and while I am not a bit fan of the touchbar, using it while connected to 2 other screens, makes the experience quite pleasant. It’s snappy and responsive and gets the job done efficiently.

The problem is that macOS is not Linux. Over the last few years since I was using Linux on my main computer on and off, I have become quite a big fan of the customizability and flexibility of this fantastic OS.

On the other hand, while Linux has gotten very good lately, there are still some programs that work best on windows. For example, playing video games is really great and about to become better with Linux, Windows is still king for video games. Also outside the web interface, Microsoft Office has no proper Linux native application.

Conclusion

The best solution I can came up with is to use Proxmox as a hypervisor on the Dell Optiplex and install some VMs on it:

  • a Windows VM with GPU passthrough for an occasional game
  • an image of a Linux distribution
  • use the Proxmox server as a NAS

The MacBook is still awesome for daily use and I can connect it to the Proxmox to learn cybersecurity on a Linux VM.

I have gathered quite a bit of a games collection on the Xbox and Play Station platforms, so those are not going to be sold in a hurry.

While I still have quite a bit of stuff lying around and gathering dust, I might be able to use some of it for some fun projects.

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