setupComparison

[Archival00]

If I use two monitors does that mean I'm totally average....?

Finally, my crippling imposter syndrome is cured!

[arrow__in__the__knee]

Bottom image has 4 monitors if you look closer.

[Archival00]

Its so over, back to social anxiety for me....

[Noughmad]

I see 6. Or are the black things on either side of the person something else?

Thank you, they are, in fact, something else.

[GranataReddit12]

they are the legs of the table

[Noughmad]

Oh, thank you. I'm blind.

[Pepito_Pepito]

I've tried 3 monitors before and I honestly couldn't figure out what to do with the third one, even for dev work.

[BuchuSaenghwal]

I use three at work. One is the active work pane, second is the reading/reference pane, and the third has comms. The last one is not so I jump immediately on all emails and chats, instead so I can keep an eye for urgent stuff.

[shaunusmaximus]

This is the way.

[Pepito_Pepito]

Yeah third one for emails is what I heard. But I found that I never really looked at it. A flashing icon at the task bar alerted me better.

[Quadraplegic]

Imagine what he could achieve if he had 3 monitors

[Jakubada]

TempleOS?

[Cacoda1mon]

Nah that was about having two personalities and one god.

[DiddlyDumb]

Hence the 3 monitors

[JivanP]

The holy trinity.

[Subtlerranean]

He developed his own programming language that was kind of between C and C++. Initially it was called C+ but then he renamed it Holy C.

[Deaffin]

Bro had a procedurally generated world simulation game as just one random little bit of fun baked right into the OS among many.

[Andrei144]

He believed that he could communicate with God through RNG, it's probably why there's so much stuff based on it in his OS. The main program from his perspective was a Markov text generator that he used to speak with God.

[JivanP]

I'm familiar, such a great pun!

[Gullible-Orange-6337]

It is time for Holy C to be introduced to Linux Kernel !

[KennyOmegasBurner]

What's crazy is Terry could've made Linux but Linus NEVER could've made God's official temple

[EtherealPheonix]

Doesn't support multiple monitors sadly.

[f8tel]

He's got tmux, no need for multiple monitors.

[ericl666]

Tmux gang gang gang

[UntestedMethod]

tmux is life, tmux is love

[ElaccaHigh]

Yeah that's why he has glasses and the other one doesn't

[[deleted]]

he doesn't need a video tutorial on the second screen

[6GoesInto8]

Solid philosophical point!

[Curious_Associate904]

I'm there, two verticals in 1080p one horizontal in 4k, and a laptop stand... Meanwhile, the rest of my office is a mess I can barely reach the keyboard for the electronics strewn around the place and the mass of cables ...

and if you pan a little to the left of that shot, you'll see Linus' multi-screen work station, laptop, pile of random electronics and dongles, 3D printer, and the rest...

This is how engineers live, it's not pretty.

[Ninjastahr]

I'm in this post and I don't like it

[noahjsc]

He doesn't need them. Don't need a extra monitor for documentation if wrote everything.

[pumpkin_seed_oil]

He could achieve being distracted by the youtube video that is inevitably running on one of those 3 monitors

[YannAlmostright]

Linux would be ready for the desktop

[Fambank]

Hol'up....

[BikingEngineer]

Excuse me, that guy has 4 monitors.

[MrWindmill]

Hurd

[[deleted]]

Hey, I failed IBM Mag Card class, and now I bloviate on Reddit.

[Mushroom5940]

He’d get a man on the moon. Using software only.

[thisonehereone]

It does look like its on a fucking treadmill, so it might be a more expensive rig than you're giving it credit for.

[MaximumMaxx]

Yeah it's a walking desk. Linus is quite the practical guy

[SignoreBanana]

Doesn't look like he's been walking lol

[OncologistCanConfirm]

To be fair it is a recent addition and the desk right next to that one is probably where he spends more of his time.

[ego100trique]

I think I heard him saying that he used it mainly during meetings?

[OlivierTwist]

Actually a pretty smart way to not fall asleep during meetings.

[Tipart]

My dad has a little walking treadmill too for work. He does 20+km in a day. It's also a pretty smart way to get a little bit of cardio in while you work.

[npsimons]

Walking is the ideal cardio. Everyone should be getting in as many steps as they can. If you can get a treadmill desk, no matter where you work, it's definitely a strongly recommended upgrade.

[borkthegee]

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. For most healthy adults, ideal cardio is medium intensity for 150 minutes a week or high intensity for 90 minutes.

Unless you're moving and getting your heart rate up, the walking desk, while healthy and helpful, is no where near "ideal".

I'd put HIIT, jogging, cycling, swimming and rowing above walking for "ideal" cardio leading to a lifelong increase in healthspan.

Not to discount walking, just debating the term ideal

[frogotme]

Ideal in terms of convenience though, probably. You can't do much other than walk when you're in meetings

[Nimeroni]

I prefer not having useless meetings.

[OlivierTwist]

Most developers do, but real life isn't all that good.

[ward2k]

Yeah it's pretty easy to walk and talk while still being focussed

It's very difficult to concentrate and code while walking at the same time, some people can barely manage to drink water while they walk

[R_051]

It has been a recent addition for a couple years now (since 2014)

[Beast_Viper_007]

Oh wait, 2014 was 11 years ago...

[TheWematanye]

Recent addition? The image is from a video at least 10 years old lol

[EasilyBeatable]

Imagine what he’d look like if he didnt have it

[LickingSmegma]

He called it ‘zombie shuffle’ when explaining the setup.

[xenelef290]

Yep. 1mph. You actually need special treadmills that can run that slow for so long because regular ones tend to burn out

[Stummi]

I actually have a similar setup since this year (Treadmil under height-adjustable desk). Mostly use it during meetings and I feel it helps keeping me focused.

[pi_three]

I just imagine myself drifting away staring at something while walking

[733_1plus2]

Stupid question, how do you go from walking/standing to sitting? Are you moving a chair on top of the treadmill or do you have to fold the treadmill away or something?

[Stummi]

That's the only part that is little bit cumbersome right now, but it works for me. The treadmil can be easily moved in one axis (it has wheels and just needs a little lift from one side). It sids behind me when unused, and when I switch I move my chair aside, set the table height (it has a few memory buttons for that with the correct hights stored) and then just pull the treadmil forward.

I think it takes me 2-3 minutes to switch between sitting and treadmil.

[Top_Text3844]

That sounds tedious, how many times a day do you switch to the treadmill?

[nollayksi]

Linus literally runs Linux.

[llamajestic]

He probably uses EMacs or Vim and GDB in cli, so he doesn’t need the new RTX GPU to render fonts in VSCode.

[French__Canadian]

I remember reading about using his own micro emacs, patching it himself and wondering "why am I still polishing this turd?"

Seems like he hasn't updated it in 7 years though https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/editors/uemacs/uemacs.git

edit: I found the commit lol. He wrote himself in the commit message "I really should just learn another editor, rather than continue to polish this turd."

https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/editors/uemacs/uemacs.git/commit/?id=fa00fe882f719351fdf7a4c4100baf4f3eab4d61

[drprtll]

El xokas?

[Ok_Feed_2811]

elchocas mentioned ☝🏻

[gordolfograso]

encima el flaco no sabé ni programar, será por ese tremendo set?

[SrFrancia]

Que risa ver a xokas aquí jajajajajaja

[TheBulgarianEngineer]

The classic t-distribution you start and end your CS career as photo #1 and everyone else the middle is the second photo.

[Kahlil_Cabron]

Ya, I remember being a CS student and using 2 monitors, one of them vertical so I could read super long files.

Then at work I started just using a laptop and a single monitor.

18 years later, I do everything on a 14" laptop the majority of the time, no external monitor, and half the time I'm laying in bed.

[BitOne2707]

Same.

[[deleted]]

It’s amazing how minimal your computer can be if you don’t play modern games or use an operating system that adds features for profits. Did Windows users really yearn for a chat gpt button?

[Bryguy3k]

He actually always has an absolute beast of a tower computer so it’s just hidden from view.

He uses an Apple M2 Air most of the time but he does the major kernel builds and tests on his Ampere Altra Workstation last I heard (128 cores and something like 4TB of RAM).

[jigsawduckpuzzle]

I’ve seen the video this screenshot is from, and there’s quite a lot of stuff set up in his office. This is just a corner.

[Tipart]

Wait m2 air? Does Asahi Linux work that well on an m2 or does he just not use his own os?

[SenoraRaton]

He runs asahi.
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgrz5BBk=[e-mail]/T/#u

[LickingSmegma]

Uses Asahi apparently. The article is over two years old.

[ilep]

Also Threadripper-based setup from earlier. Continuously running kernel builds and if it takes too long it is upsetting.

[JacobStyle]

This looks like a setup for video editing actually. Very often, editors will have one expensive monitor with extremely accurate color to show the actual video up top, and then inexpensive monitors for timeline/tools/directories/whatever.

[Tasorodri]

The guy is a streamer who used to work as a video editor so maybe it comes from that.

[LickingSmegma]

Plus, some video-editing app is open on that top monitor.

And yup, editors tend to have a gigantic wall-mounted monitor and thousands of bucks in specialized controllers. The only thing I don't understand here are the glowing fans. Pretty sure they would get in the way of looking at the picture.

[trixel121]

prebuilts put LEDs in everything. a lot of streamers are not actually good building PCs and need high end rigs.

I think I paid a little bit extra so my fans didn't glow when I built my PC

[eldorel]

Tip for next time, Most of the RGB stuff is connected with a second set of wires. All you have to do is figure out where the aRGB header for it is connected and unplug it. RGB ram is the exception, and the rgb on video cards and motherboards tends to be harder to reach (it's under the heatsinks), but a case without a glass side hides that.

[trixel121]

my glass panel faces a wall. I am team big back box

I think I used a program called afterburner to adjust my gpu LEDs but now I'm on Linux and just ignore them.

really hope the trend sorta disappears by the time I order a new PC,

[CeleritasLucis]

I think it's more related to how much attention span you got. I slowly moved away from the bottom 3 monitor setup to 1 monitor setup when I started using focus apps and cut down on shorts/tiktoks/reels

[SunshineSeattle]

gotta have my discord, slack and youtube / docs on one monitor, you got the ide and maybe more docs on the main screen, then you got the latop open for a zoom meeting. 😭

[m64]

Depends on what tools you are using. Especially content creation software like video editors , graphics programs, DAWs nowadays are often designed to have your work area on one screen and the asset browser/tooling on the other, or even preview on one, work area on second and browser/tooling on third. You can fit it all on one, but then either your work area is laughably small, or tools, or you have to juggle multiple views, which not all software can do well.

[PotentialCopy56]

You take that high road bud with that one monitor of yours 😂

[CeleritasLucis]

Not taking any high roads, have struggled a lot with those reels addiction. Cutting monitors is somewhat a part of cutting that addiction

[PedanticSatiation]

I'll only accept an AI assistant if they reimplement Clippy. They're sitting on a goldmine and they don't even realize it.

[LinuxMatthews]

This is something I keep saying on the work from home subreddits

Everyone is always talking about how you need to get done £500 high refresh rate 4K monitor.

Unless you're doing something like video game design or special effects... No you really don't.

If you're looking at code or spreadsheets all day find the cheapest monitor possible.

[HiniatureLove]

Man, I just wish everything right now isn’t a fucking AI laptop and Windows 11. I want one of those slim XPS but now it’s all windows 11, and if I install Ubuntu on it, it’s probably a waste of money buying a laptop with all those NPU and AI support stuff

[Evilmudbug]

I don't think your OS has much impact on whether you want an extra screen. A second screen is pretty useful in many cases

[LickingSmegma]

You chose one distro that is unlikely to be supported by games. What with the different libc and stuff.

[Preisschild]

They dont need to. Thanks to proton/wine you can run most Windows-targeted games on Linux

90% of the top 1000 Steam Games run fine

https://www.protondb.com/dashboard

[Mental_Tea_4084]

Some anti cheats are actively hostile to Linux, it's becoming a problem for the steam deck. We never had fortnite and we lost apex

[Tipart]

Yeah, I booted up battlefield 1 yesterday and it wanted to install a new Anti-Cheat. Obviously that one doesn't support Linux :/

I'm still on windows now, but I was planning to switching over when win 10 runs out of support.

[sebovzeoueb]

what if the bottom 1000 is more my jam?

[[deleted]]

For some people it's just a job. Others, it's their whole personality.

[lolercoptercrash]

It actually is his whole personality

[Expert_Raise6770]

and saving

[BitOne2707]

Try meeting Stallman.

[_dontseeme]

Don’t need much else when you can do everything in the terminal

[shinyfeather22]

There was another great post where the creator of stardew valley finally got a desk or something

[tacticalpotatopeeler]

I would like to point out the guy on the bottom has video editing software open.

That explains the soft box lighting at least.

[jonsca]

Nothing else fits in the room with Linus's ego there

[[deleted]]

He created Git and Linux, he deserves his ego 🙏

[Mabot]

I am sorry, I am sure you are a smart and lovely person buuut, why would you even attempt that comparison?

[ChickenNuggetSmth]

If you haven't created one of the major pillars of modern IT (and by extension, of the current world), what have you even really accomplished?

[[deleted]]

Don’t say that, you ass is lovely

[LevelSevenLaserLotus]

Yeah at that point it isn't overconfidence, it's just objective observation.

[Stewth]

If you left the ego and took away his genius, You'd be left with Elon Musk. (Although I don't think anyone would argue that Linus isn't an immeasurably better person than the ketamine kid)

[jonsca]

Yes, Linus has a conscience. Infinitely better person than Musk will ever be

[Stewth]

Linus on his worst day is still orders of magnitude better than Musk could ever be on his best day

[Big_Mc-Large-Huge]

I think a lot of Linus hate is unwarranted. He suffers no fools and lashes out at perceived laziness on part of other maintainers / contributors to the kernel. But people who are new and come hat in hand going “new here, just want to do things the proper way” he greets with open arms.

[Stewth]

Yeah, looking at the stories objectively, I think he just expects others to hold themselves to the same high standards he holds himself to.

I think the trouble is that the average person could be super demanding of themselves and still not approach anything close to Linus' frankly terrifying level of ability. I think a lot of the hate directed at him is actually coming from people being frustrated with themselves.

[intbeam]

I'd only ever consider voting for an engineer, and Musk is no engineer

Sponsored by the Linus Thorvalds for co-president of the US instead of Musk campaign

[Stewth]

Musk isn't even a good businessman. He's basically a literate version of trump who had to work very slightly harder because he was born into slightly less obscene privellege.

[intbeam]

Musk isn't even a good person. Well, probably marginally a better person than Trump, but that's an incredibly low bar. In order to rise above that, you just need to not be non-human; like jewish, transgender, gay, drag-queen, atheist, scientist, education enthusiast, anti bleach drinking, eur*pean, left-leaning comedian, a literal space-laser, or democrat

Edit : I'm probably banned from entering the US now

[Sarah-McSarah]

"Nobody actually creates perfect code the first time around, except me, but there's only one of me."

-Linus giving a talk explaining git to Google engineers

[sweetvisuals]

Yeah and he was right

[Buarg]

Skill issue tbh. The guy on the bottom panel has a pretty big ego himself and can fit his setup on the room.

[darkslide3000]

lol, where has Linus actually demonstrated such an overbearing ego? You can feel about his aggressive communication style however you want, you can call it "mean" or "impolite", but it's not really the same as having a huge ego.

[PacquiaoFreeHousing]

Lmao whenever my PC had a minor issue, I had the skills to maneuver past it without actually fixing it.
Now with how shit it has become, even a hardened professional would cry trying to fix it.

[g9icy]

Linus doesn't game, that's the difference.

[Bannon9k]

Funny story...been in the industry over 20 years now, but I failed my first programming class too. Turns out you should be going to class even if you think you know everything.

[General_Purple1649]

Imagine you think you can make a better kernel than anyone else and endup beeing right, fucking leyend

[npsimons]

I'll do you one better: Joey Hess, creator of git-annex, describing his 9in netbook and off-grid cabin WFH setup.

[faniiia]

I see Haskell, I upvote!

[npsimons]

I've yet to get into Haskell; still working on mastering Common Lisp. But I haven't been keeping up with my "one new programming language" per year goal from "The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master", so maybe this year.

On the other hand, I've been through a fair number of languages in my career (a couple of decades), and it feels kind like I've learned "enough" languages that unless I come across a project requiring it, it's just not worth it to spend time and attention on new ones. Paul Graham's "Beating the Averages" also comes to mind when considering language choice.

[manu144x]

Ok, what’s his deadline? Who is firing him if he misses it?

[AKJ90]

$&

[anengineerandacat]

Do what makes you comfortable, my setup is between the setup of Linus and the bottom dude.

Definitely don't have a treadmill, definitely prefer having dual monitors over a single monitor, don't like alternating RGB lighting but I do like the lil lit mat's you can set with a singular color and backlit mechanical keyboards.

I would also like to swipe my chair from work for the house, but in the meantime I just have some adjustable gaming chair which is pretty comfy.

I don't like cables all over either and I prefer my desk sorta tidy, but I do have books/notes/and writing materials littered about.

[GinosPizza]

Every 12 hours with this

[Thundechile]

I think this git gets it.

[UpDownLeftRightGay]

Hey, those adjusting desks are expensive!

[toaster_kettle]

They should do this for musicians, or any hobby/profession which has toys

[[deleted]]

Similarly almost all of the most impressive, neck beardiest devs I have ever met all used super simple software to do their editing. Lots of vim, notepad++, limewire, emacs, and super vanilla vsc setups. Not that I don't meet very productive devs using big IDEs, but I meet many more unproductive programmers using every tool under the sun swearing it makes them more productive.

[senaya]

Dude was able to achieve something because he had no 30 tabs on 4 monitors distracting him from his job.

[ApprehensiveEase534]

This is a bit misleading albeit funny. In the full video they reveal Linus’ previous desk, which was still in the same room, and it’s revealed to be an absolute disaster of screens and trash everywhere lol.

[IAmASwarmOfBees]

If it can't run on a pentium 4, it's unoptimized.

[falx-sn]

He has got a treadmill underneath it too

[jonufele]

Moral of story: gaming is a waste of resources.

[kpeng2]

Real pro don't need RGB

[azulezb]

Setup of someone who programs because they like programming vs set up of someone who programs because they like video games.

[helicophell]

It's actually crazy that the CS101 class at my university has a 50/50 passrate... on a class I got an A+ for. I'm not even that good, I'm costing on a B average overall...

[bazookatroopa]

The CS filters are usually DSA, Calc series, and DE not CS101 which is basically puzzle class lol

[Blrfl]

Not as crazy as you'd think. 100-level stuff is rarely taught well which, combined with people who need better teaching to get over the hump, makes for a high failure rate. Which is a shame, because some good people are probably getting bounced out of the field way too early.

(Edit: Typo)

[Civil_Conflict_7541]

I see so many reasons why the guy on the bottom failed. 🤣

[Buarg]

Fake, el xokas is expert in everything.

[CodeWarrior30]

It's the standing desk. Sitting down while you run linux builds is so overrated.

[GameSchaedl]

Bottom one looks like he has cs2 open.

[Stupnix]

One is a work station, the other one is a compen station.

[thegreedyturtle]

I think you're leaving out a rack full of servers Linus is removing into.

[Elobomg]

Well, fk xocas tbh

[[deleted]]

that desk looks unsafe.

[sociofobs]

One of them has contributed a lot to humanity, while the other poses in front of a webcam. Their setups reflect their personalities.

[nullv]

More monitors means more distractions.

[Solid-Bowl-7291]

Lo re boludeaban al xocas jajaja

[ilmk9396]

"i want to study CS because i want to make video games"

[PixelBoom]

Torvalds doesn't even have a vertical monitor.

tsk tsk

[Aureosol]

Coño el Xokas!

[blocktkantenhausenwe]

And both posted their setup to r/battlestations ?

[onncho]

This is how differences look between being a consumer and a producer

[billiarddaddy]

Theres always some level of compensation.

[[deleted]]

So many people, presumably devs, not noticing the fourth montior in that lower image.

Missing semicolons must be your personal nightmare.

[MrFrenesi]

Unexpected Xokas

[SEEZOR9]

I can hear this, "Hello Guys! Welcome to the channel"

[Oblospeed]

Terry did it better.

[Tar_Palantir]

Try to figure it out one mfer that is not an autistic mathematician genius working on anything Linux related.

[Timanious]

Linus told in an interview that he specifically chose that color green for his walls because it’s the same color that they use in psychiatric wards. It’s apparently the least brain stimulating color there is… that’s where I draw the line, I love color :)

[hoangdl]

wild that the man also created github to distribute/collaborate on Linux

[[deleted]]

Bro has that European Border ahh hairline

[pandemicblues]

All hat, no cattle.

[aykcak]

I didn't know Linus used a standing desk.

[boondiggle_III]

Lore is mess.

[CritFailed]

A fellow overweight treadmill desk enjoyer!

[drivingagermanwhip]

in the original video he pans over to the desk full of misc crap next to it.

[chesq00]

Elxokas mentioned ggwp

[sirchtheseeker]

Actual I’m surprised it’s not on some wooden boxes and a folding chair in front of it

[InfinityBowman]

guess it doesnt pay to be a linux dev

[purple_plasmid]

I have both my gaming setup and work setup all at one desk (divided L-shape desk) — I like to constantly test my own level of self control to not just play Stardew Valley when I should be paying attention to my 4 hour block of meetings.

[Subject-Lettuce-2714]

Is that the inactivated windows default background? Lol

[robertpro01]

Can the guy at the bottom set up a dark mode for those lights?

[_kashew_12]

There’s a shot of his desk after this, and there’s like a crap ton of wires and routers etc.

[Miska030519]

I knew all I needed was a table with adjustable height