My Setup

I always love reading about how other people use their computers and desks. Sites like UsesThis and Simple Desks (R.I.P.) have taken many hours of my life, and I have taken inspiration from them many times. This page will serve as a perpetually-updated reference for how I'm currently using my computer.


Dell XPS 13 9380 open on a desk beside a small desk plant.

After several years and various laptops and operating systems, I have finally landed on a maxed-out Dell XPS 13 (9380). It's plenty fast, thin and light, has a fantastic screen, great WiFi performance, and a rather comfortable keyboard with keys that actually move. It's a fair departure from my Thinkpad lineage, but I quite like it.

At home, I use a Dell U2415 24" 1200p Monitor, a Filco Majestouch 2 Ninja mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches and a third-party set of PBT keycaps, and a Logitech MX Master (V1) mouse.

On the go, I usually carry a foldable laptop stand (it's a generic Chinese knock-off of the "Roost"), and a Logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard. This combination means I can have a ergonomic setup at coworking spaces, cafes, or wherever I need to get work done. Yes, I know the K380 isn't mechanical. It's nothing special, but it's not disgusting to type on.

I also have a Thinkpad T460p with one the high-watt mobile CPU SKUs. This laptop has been very disappointing. This was, and probably will continue to be, the last Thinkpad I used. Lenovo has soiled the holy name of Thinkpad.


Probably the most accurate and detailed information about my software setup is my dotfiles and the Ansible playbooks that I use to provision my workstations.

On most machines, I tend to stick to the latest Fedora Workstation release. On some occasions, I may also use the latest Ubuntu Desktop LTS depending on my mood or the machine's role.

I spend a significant amount of time in Firefox and vim. My shell of choice is zsh though for many years I used and still have a strong respect for bash. Depending on my mood, I might use Sublime Text 3, which is also an excellent editor.

I exclusively use a local music library, all of which I have purchased and built up over many years. On macOS I'm still unfortunately stuck using iTunes because apparently no one has made one decent music library application for that platform. On Linux, I use and love Lollypop.