2024-04-21 from the editor of ~insom
------------------------------------------------------------
I have rearranged my office and more importantly; my
computing. Again.
Back in early 2020 I got a new laptop and an eGPU and my
wife got the same model laptop and this was all based on the
fact she was going to-and-from work, I'd like to compute
from different places and we could both just have a little
dock with a monitor and plug in our Thinkpads and have
access to decent graphics for games.
Then the pandemic happened and I basically didn't leave my
house for 18 months, and even after: my job went fully
remote, so my laptop mostly stayed in one place. If I had a
do-over, I'd have bought a more powerful desktop, as the
laptop involved several compromises. (Later on: I did. I
bought a machine specifically for Rust development, although
I use it for more than just that. Tells you something about
the toolchain for the language.)
For my birthday, a couple of years ago, I bought a gaming
PC, with an RTX 3060 video card etc. and even then I didn't
really push it: I just wanted enough CPU and GPU to not need
to think if a game was going to work properly on my
computer. It's been my primary Windows machine since, but I
never probably justified the purchase, given the hours I
play and also the kinds of games I play (rarely AAA, or at
least, not AAA of the 2020's).
I got a Steamdeck last year and it's been amazing. I now do
almost all of my gaming on it. It makes having a gaming PC
seem even more of a farce.
So: I got to thinking: _what_ is my Windows PC for?
Basically, most of the time, I use it because it has a
comfortable chair in front of it and a nice screen. I use my
Debian-Thinkpad for "productive" things, including most
programming, and I had a little standing desk thing I mostly
use when I'm at home: but I've learned that I like to stand
for reading and learning, but sit for writing or creating.
Oh, did I mention the gaming PC is obnoxiously loud? It's
probably actually quiet by gaming PC standards, but as I am
not gaming on it, it's pretty loud for some Firefox and some
VSCode (and occasional CAD).
Today I have taken a spare Thinkcenter and put Windows 10 on
it. The main thing this will be for is for running Fusion
360 (I wish I had a better cheap or FOSS alternative to
this, but I don't). It's silent! I also run music-creation
software under Windows, but tbh I do so little of this that
perhaps giving up the ability to do that for a while will
nudge me into using other devices for making music. The new
machine is comparatively slow, only having an Intel GPU and
a several generation old CPU, but that's a feature. It runs
Fusion well enough (surprisingly), but not web browsing. I
expect to even use the machine rarely.
I've hooked up one of those USB3<>HDMI-and-ports dock things
to the monitor and keyboard on my desk, and I can now dock
my laptop or dock my Steamdeck, giving me the "gaming PC
experience" with my portable (although, again, not on fancy
games) and also giving me a pleasant big screen / nice
keyboard / comfy chair for the laptop.
We'll see how long this lasts, but the dockability of things
feels really great. I can pick up either game or work or
whatever and do it somewhere else, but I am also not trapped
with a small screen or using an onscreen keyboard instead of
a real one etc.
