I Like My Setups Like My Circuits - Grounded and Well-Connected

The first time I had my own computer I was still in 3rd grade, it was a cheap-ish little laptop from a local German electronics Brand and it was just about good enough to play Minecraft on it.
When I was a little older (must have been around 13/14) I got a tower PC so I could finally actually play games. I’ve had that tower in one variation or another for nearly 6/7 years. I upgraded both CPU and GPU at a point, got more storage and so on. But the case stayed the same. I still have the case, it is however empty.

Back when Covid hit and I basically had school from home for a year I, like most other people whore are sensible and could afford it, got a tablet. And even after we went back in person that barrier was broken. At the end of 10th grade maybe 2 people in our entire grade of 80 people were working digitally, by the end of 11th it must have been closer to 50%. At the end of 12th grade I switched to a convertible laptop. I much prefer writing on a keyboard to by hand as long as I’m not actively solving/working on a math problem or similar.

I’ve now started Uni, well “now” (nearly 5 months ago), and at the beginning made a conscious choice to switch away from having a Desktop and a Laptop to just having a Laptop, and it’s a decision I could not be happier about.

I’m currently, and have been for nearly a year now, running NixOS with an older version of my config being available here (I should really update that). I love the modularity, configurability, and reproducibility. My config is now quite large and I have also added several quality of life script, services, and modules. I am currently running the Cosmic DE Alpha and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted out of a Desktop-Environment/Tiling-Window-Manager. I’ll make something about my Linux Setup in the near future .

I ultimately decided to move away from a tower do to the annoyance of having to handle multiple systems and since I don’t play basically any games anymore anyway. The rare occasions I do want to I still have the iGPU in my laptop which is quite adequate in my opinion. When selling my old tower I however kept my RTX 3060 Ti which will hopefully soon find a new place in an external enclosure, I just haven’t had the time to deal with that yet.

I usually have my Laptop docked when I’m at home with two further monitors.

I’ve been using my Pixel 7 for nearly two years now and I’m still quite happy with it. My contract is running out soon so I have the option of getting a new phone, however I might just stick with this for a little longer. I must say I’m not particularly excited by anything the current smartphone market has to offer.

I bought a cheap (like 125€ cheap) Lenovo M11 on Kleinanzeigen, which is similar to Facebook Marketplace etc., when I started Uni. I have no complaints, it opens my handwritten notes app and lets me write. That’s about as much as I have to say about that.

My watch, a Samsung Watch 5 (I think?) also does everything I need it to do, more actually, but it’s slowly giving up. I like smartwatches since they keep me away from turning on my phone just to check notifications but I’ll definitely just buy a cheaper one when the battery of this one finally totally kicks the bucket. It’s however a really nice watch and has been serving me well for every day now for over two years.

I always carry around some things with me, a Titan 2 security key for auth, a USB-Stick with Ventoy on it, some backups and useful things, and a USB-C to USB-A adapter, those are all on my key-chain.

I own a Nintendo switch which I do not use that much anymore and I really hope to get a Steam-Deck when I have some spare cash to burn.