What's your dev setup like at home?
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I fall under the business owner/self-employed crowd, so my setup is also my primary setup. I am also the primary decision maker on what to spend company funds on, and everything is tax deductible so my setup is a bit more advanced than most and literally always in flux.
If anyone is that interested I can do a quick diagram, but I will do my best to explain in words. My office is in the basement of our home (that we are quickly outgrowing). When we bought, one of the primary factors was that the home we bought needed an unfinished basement so I would have a blank slate to work with. Part of that became my office. It is laid out in a "double L arrangement with the L's meeting at their corners due to a jog in the basement wall that I took advantage of to lay out the office.
Primary Windows rig is a AMD rig running an FX-8370 and 32GB of RAM along with 3 SSDs (two 512GB and one 240GB) along with a AMD R7 card that was the cheapest that would run 3 display (two via DVI, one via HDMI). This machine runs Win10 Pro and has Visual Studio, Sublime Text and Atom for the primary development environments. The first 512GB SSD runs the OS and applications, the 240GB holds dependencies and includes and the second 512GB holds VMs. This machine runs VMWare Workstation to host various VMs for various reasons. VMWare Workstation was chosen as it can span all three monitors and be completely immersive, like a native install. Great piece of software.
Monitors on this machine are three 24" ASUS 1080 monitors with the thin bezels. All of the monitors are on a custom monitor riser that I built in my woodshop from birch plywood and maple scraps to cover the ply endgrain and the painted black. All of my workstations have such risers and they are all built with cubbyholes to hold various stuff and they all have a cubby in the center to slide the keyboard in to when I need to clear up desk space.
Peripherals for the Windows machine are a MS Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard with a Logitech M705 mouse. The case is housed in a cabinet to my right with extension cables for everything so that is can be kept enclosed and keep the sound level down to a bare minimum. Speakers for this setup are an old set of Logitech 2.1 speakers that are supposedly THX certified. I also have a set of Bluetooth headphones that I share among all of the setups.
Moving to the left is a 2014 27" iMac that is fully upgraded with a 512GB SSD and 32GB of RAM (RAM is cheap, I tend to max it out). It has the 3.2ghz i5. It is flanked by two 27" ASUS monitors that match its resolution of 2560x1440, they also have the thin bezel. Speakers are the iMac speakers and I use a Magic Trackpad (which is pretty freaking awesome) and a Logitech K750 keyboard. This also sits up on a special built monitor riser stand with cubbies, etc.
Third machine is a repurposed Dell machine. I could look at the model number if anyone is interested, but is an XPS model with an i7, 24GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD along with a NVidia graphics card pushing three Dell D2311H monitors. This machine runs Debian and has a hot swap so that it can also run Kubuntu. It is rarely used, TBH. A few hours a week at most. Same monitor risers, etc. One of the monitors has the add-on speakers. I have another set of the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 and M705 mouse as is on my Windows machine. I only have it because I had an extra machine and extra parts laying around. The monitors are hand me downs from the Windows machine.
All of this is laid out on a desk that I custom built that is made from Grizzly Industrial maple workbench tops. All of the work surfaces are 30" deep and placed on heavy-duty shelf brackets lagged in to every other stud. There are three circuits that feed my office and multiple 3-gang electrical boxes under the desk so that each one has an outlet hooked to each of the three feeds. There are three outlet strips under each desk. (massive overkill) The desk surface has multiple brush grommets cut in to it to allow cable passthroughs.
Over all of the work surfaces are custom built cabinets to hold various things close at hand. Under the cabinets are Ikea LED under cabinet lighting to illuminate the work areas. Also in the office is an antique pine table that is used as auxiliary work surface. Over it is an electrial outlet with a twist-lock plugin for a drop that can power stuff at the table. Inelegant, but it works for the purpose and no cords running over the floor.
There is a wifi access point on the ceiling in my office. In addition, as I was building out the space I ran entirely too many network cable drops back to the server rack. I would have to count them to be certain, but there are close to 24 in total.
In the inside of the "L" where the Mac and Windows machines meet is where my office phone is. Underneath of that is the dead spot of the L is a built in shelf that holds the UPS's and such, things I never need to get to. To the right of my Windows machine is where the All-In-One color laser machine is. To the right of that is a long bank of cabinets that is general storage and where my Windows machine is along with a coffee maker and a mini fridge for bottled water, etc.
Also in my office is a bank of bookshelves, a leather couch (picked up for cheap off of Craigslist) and a leather recliner. In the opposite corner of the basement (where I cannot hear it) is an APC server rack that handles all of the switches, dev a test environments, various Xenserver hosts, and just shit I like to play around with. It also handles the PDC, two Drobos to play around with, etc.
The desk was built to have no vertical supports, and everything under it is mobile, but it doesn't need to be. When I built everything, I thought that it would be nice to be able to reconfigure things. I never do. The primary things I use are file cabinet/drawer cabinet that I picked up from a friend. The bottom is a file drawer for shit I use regularly, above that is two drawers for office supplies (paper clips, rubber bands, stapler, hole punch, calculator, etc.) Other than that, in the dead spot of the "L", there is also a trash can. Nothing ever gets moved. It is nice however to be able to move around without anything to bump in to.
Hmmmmm, that is about all I can think of right now. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.
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Holy sheet man. Just dayum!
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I have a question.
How is it possible to type that much about that little? Goddamned, that post is like TheDailyWTF version of Tristram Shandy. Except not at all funny.
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How is it possible to type that much about that little?
Clearly he was just dumbing down a picture....
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Holy sheet man. Just dayum!
I geek out on a lot of things. Technology is one of them, building/construction/making is another. Also, I try to operate as efficiently as possible. And, due to the nature of my business, the tech portion of it did not cost me nearly what you might think.
Hell, the monitors that are now on the Debian rig I got for free, same for the laser printer. The iMac I got for super cheap and then upgraded. Prior to that I was using a C2D Mac Mini with two monitors.
I have always been efficiency minded. I try to always think about how I can cut time from what I do, or use dead space (which is why the UPS's are on a shelf in the dead spot on the inside of the "L", etc). I like to have things close at hand, and multi-functional whenever possible. The table that is in my office has the outlet overhead so that it can be setup as a makeshift workstation for two when people come over to collaborate. I keep extra monitors and such for those occasions.
All that being said, there is a lot that I did wrong. For our next house, my office will be on the second floor so I have more natural lighting. I will also abandon the concept of things under the desk being on wheels. Too much effort for zero payback. The next iteration they will just be on nylon levelers/sliders for the once a year occasion I need to move something around.
Mounting the work surface to the wall is great though. I can slide my chair anywhere without hitting anything (except for the trash can). The risers are great also. Being able to tuck away the keyboards and such and have a full work surface is great. It is also great for storing deposit envelopes, notepads, snacks, etc.
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I have a question.
How is it possible to type that much about that little?
Well, it is not really that little. A lot of planning and work went in to my office, and I wrote detail as I thought others might be able to take something from it.
If you don't like it, don't read it. Problem solved.
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@Polygeekery wins the thread.
Of course, you know what comes next. Pics or it didn't happen.
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Of course, you know what comes next. Pics or it didn't happen.
Then it didn't happen. I value my privacy more than winning that debate. ;)
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Then it didn't happen. I value my privacy more than winning that debate.
Got it. I'll just imagine you using your sister's second-hand Macbook (with a bunch of Justin Bieber stickers over it) in your mom's basement.
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My new build, hopefully arriving next week
I'll be reusing my existing 256GB SSD and a 750GB hard drive I have kicking around, as well as my Radeon 5800. The old PC will go down to its integrated graphics, a 1TB drive that's on its last legs and either be sold or I'll find a use for it
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Got it. I'll just imagine you using your sister's second-hand Macbook (with a bunch of Justin Bieber stickers over it) in your mom's basement.
This seems toooo specific.
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Got it. I'll just imagine you using your sister's second-hand Macbook (with a bunch of Justin Bieber stickers over it) in your mom's basement.
Who told you about my setup?
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At the end of 2014 I built a new desktop pc, which I use for gaming, development, photo editing (Lightroom) as well as general use. At that time I decided to sink some money into it so that I'd be good for the years to come. Here are the specs:
# Product 1 CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K Boxed 1 Motherboard: Asus Z97M-PLUS 1 Graphics: MSI GeForce GTX 660 Gaming 1 Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 1 Storage: WD Red SATA 6 Gb/s WD20EFRX, 2TB 1 Case: Cooler Master Silencio 352 2 Display: Dell Ultrasharp U2414H 1 CPU fan: Noctua NH-U9B SE2 1 Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00CEU (2x 8GB) 1 PSU: Cooler Master V550 Semi-Modular And here's a picture of my work spot:
It's a bit messy, I've just moved houses so I'm still in the process of getting settled. The laptop situated to the left is client supplied hardware, it's an HP EliteBook 8470p (which I would happily defenestrate).
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At home, my "main" computer is a Lenovo W510 (i5) + 1080p monitor, MS Natural keyboard, Kensington Pro fullsize mouse. I also have a Yoga and Yogo Pro2 for when I sit in front of the TV (TV is not in the office) or travel. And a Home Server (server2003-based) sitting on the self. And a cheap lenovo for use at dog shows (when I'm secretary). And a MacPro to test my open source code. And an old 10.5 MacBook that hasn't been turned on for a while. And a couple other old ones that are useful to test on or when a friend needs a loaner.
Work is a Lenovo Y50 (i7, 4k screen) + 1920x1200 monitor, ms natural keyboard, ms sculpt comfort mouse. And an HP from last year's build that runs Insider builds (fast-track).
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Current set up at home is a gaming laptop, since my desktop died. It's a ASUS G73-jh, and about 6 years old now. It's pretty beefy despite its age: 17.3" 1920x1080 screen, Core i7-720QM processor, 8GB ram, RadeonHD 5870 video card (the mobile version, obviously) with 1GB video ram, 2x 500GB spinny hard drives.
It also looks pretty nice:
It's big enough that the keyboard has dedicated numpad keys. I generally have the desktop's 28" 1920x1200 monitor hooked too.
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2x 500GB spinny hard drives.
You have working 6-year-old mobile spinning hard drives?
Why does everybody have good luck with HD lifetime except me. This must be my punishment from God for all those puppies I ran over that one time at the Westminster Dog Show.
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You have working 6-year-old mobile spinning hard drives?
I have working 2.5" IDE hard drives, about 7 last count (only two have bad/slow sectors), averaging between 6-9 years. They're as slow as anything, but you don't need a fast hard drive to browse the web....
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This must be my punishment from God for all those puppies I ran over that one time at the Westminster Dog Show.
It's punishment for all the puppies you didn't run over. You had a chance to END the Bichon Frise line, and you didn't.
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but you don't need a fast hard drive to browse the web....
(Discurse joke goes here)
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Most of my software development is either specifically for Unix-likes or mostly platform agnostic.
I asked about workstations on here a few weeks ago. I ended up buying an HP WX-6600 workstation, with two older-model quad core Xeons and 16GB of ram. The workstation runs Ubuntu 14.04. I run multiple virtual machines, with Ubuntu Server 14.04.
The nice thing about the virtual machines is that they're basically disposable. I use Vagrant and Salt (and Git) to keep all of the source trees in sync. Vagrant provisions a new virtual machine (with VirtualBox, which knows how to share a directory between systems), and Salt configures each virtual machine.
It's like Docker except not stupid and almost completely portable (ok, not really, since the configuration scripts are very much platform dependent). I have some virtual machines for development, some for testing, some for staging. To deploy to production (a server on its own), I just have to rsync the shared folder to production, and run Salt on it manually.
I'm going to get a single 24 (or 27 inch) monitor for it next month. For now, I ssh in from my laptop.
Simple wireless chiclet keyboard, and simple wireless mouse. I like being able to sit on an exercise ball cross-legged, with the keyboard on my lap (and the keys tilted away from me).
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You have working 6-year-old mobile spinning hard drives?
Yes. When mine have failed, it's always been in the first 6 months.
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Yes. When mine have failed, it's always been in the first 6 months.
this, or they were physically abused in some mannner.
like the one that came in from -20 degree weather and was immediately plugged in and powered on.
the noise when those platters shattered....... i nearly wet myself!
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the noise when those platters shattered....... i nearly wet myself!
I've never had a drive fail like that - had some grinding, but never a shatter...
(And I'm really liking that Zalman ZM-VE350 with a 512G SSD in it!)
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I've never had a drive fail like that
thermal shot on glass platters.
it's only happened to me once, but fuck it was terrifying!
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And I'm really liking that Zalman ZM-VE350 with a 512G SSD in it!
Never heard of it, that is pretty freaking cool. I might have to order one of those just for the virtual ODD mechanism. It would sure beat having to load an ISO on to a flash drive all the time.
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It came up in another thread. I did discover that to get the iso stuff working, I had to format the drive NTFS. The isos just never showed up in exFat. And it still took a while before the "magically" appeared - I kept wondering what I was doing wrong. But I figured for $50, it was worth a shot.
The only issue I have now - I have never been able to get an NTFS drive to unmount nicely without shutting the system down...
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The only issue I have now - I have never been able to get an NTFS drive to unmount nicely without shutting the system down...
It is probably running on Linux hardware.
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It is probably running on Linux hardware.
Butbutbut... NTFS! (more seriously, I found a posting where someone said it needed to be ntfs as that was what the firmware recognized)
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from -20 degree weather and was immediately plugged in and powered on.
Hmm. I believe this might be why my CarPC might be slowly breaking...
If it's cold enough, it tries to boot (I can see BIOS text starting and all that) but within a few seconds it hard powers off (making a rather loud "thunk" through the car's audio system).
It can really startle you in the morning....The graphics card is apparently physically damaged now as well, lovely little patterned lines being output to the screen...
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NTFS drive to unmount nicely
Yeah, that's a problem because Windows perceives it as "Non-removable". So, I just have to use the device's removal request to do it (Pull the throbber down and hold for a few seconds when idle).
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My "dev setup" (she's been sitting there for a full hour now)
I tried to do a Droste effect... didn't really work.
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It looks like she ate your mouse.
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Did you buy a monitor with a silver bezel?
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I didn't buy it, I got it for free. It's super old but still works.
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I think your cat puked on your arrow keys.
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I had a need of more screens today for research, A IRC roleplay session (that got canceled because of a scheduling SNAFU on my part), an actual Raspberry Pi, and a laptop that was getting an OS reinstall
all the time i was working i had the urge to start laughing maniacly with power.
I AM THE UBER HACKER! MWA HA HA HA HA HA AH! (not really, but it can't hurt to pretend for half an hour, can it?)
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That laptop on the right is on fire?
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That laptop on the right is on fire?
no, that's reflection from the overhead light.
it's a touchscren laptop so gloss finish on the screen instead of matte.
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*turns green*
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I AM THE UBER HACKER! MWA HA HA HA HA HA AH! (not really, but it can't hurt to pretend for half an hour, can it?)
Install HollywoodOS , and you can shout that.
