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Comment by DerekBickerton | Hacker News Reader

I looked at this person's homepage: https://pqvst.com/

Looks like they use their Mac a lot judging by all the projects they're working on.

I have a strategy that is common to all hackers / nerds / technophiles and that is: having multiple devices for different things.

It's common to see in hacker circles: This laptop is for gaming. This other laptop is for freelancing & business. My other laptop is for toying / tinkering etc

You can extend that list to probably 10 devices if you're serious enough about compartmenting your digital life. I have long since used a single device for everything that I work on.

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Yes. My laptop is where I do all my work. Since I work remote a lot, I try to stick to as few devices as possible. Having a MacBook where I can also run Windows and Linux as VMs when I need to, has been a huge benefit.

https://pqvst.com/2021/08/24/my-macbook-pro/#2019-03-23---ex...

Were you using an Apple adapter when this happened?

I don't want to yuck anyone's yum but the thought of maintaining, keeping charged, finding room for and managing data on so many computers sounds like a nightmare to me.

the most I manage for machines right now is:

1 work-provided laptop

1 personal laptop

1 gaming desktop

1 backup laptop (old, like 10 years old)

1 closet server desktop (also old, but runs terraria servers just fine)

On my desk, I use 2 HDMI switches and a USB 3.0 switch to use the same peripherals and monitors for both my work laptop and gaming desktop. At the end of the day, I just hit the buttons on the switches to toggle to my desktop.

I have a USB-C dock that the work laptop plugs into. If i ever want to do work for my side project, I can unplug my work-provided laptop and plug in my personal laptop, and have the same setup as before -- just with a different machine.

It's very interesting to read about other setups and how people use them. For me, it's simply a MBA and logitech mx master 3 mouse.

I love /r/battlestations and /r/averagebattlestations for exactly that reason. Really cool to see what other people have for a setup.

Even just keeping software updates, backups, and your personal data up to date on both a laptop and a desktop can be frustrating. Two Macs could be doable because of the level of syncing that iCloud provides, but I'd probably still need Screen Sharing every once in a while!

I have a gaming desktop, personal laptop(which I almost never use), and a work laptop. Why would anyone have 10 devices? That is craziness.

Do you have a machine for SQL? Machine for mobile? Machine for web?

I have:

* Personal workstation/gaming machine

* Employer provided work laptop (MBP)

* Surface Go Tablet used for reading around the house, light travel, etc.

* Personal Dell laptop used for longer travel

* Old desktop converted to a server for running services I always need up.

* A rpi 3b used for running services I want to physically separate from the internet accessible main server.

I've considered repurposing some old hardware I have laying around into a htpc type thing for gaming/emulation on my TV, but that's on hold right now due to GPU pricing.

So I'm not far off 7. Other tech-heavy users may have seperate devices for their spouse/kids, or dedicated devices for specific OSes (my main workstation is a dual boot, my laptop is linux only and the tablet is windows only). So I can see a path to 10 for others.

Similar here- work provides MB Pro and Dell Laptop and workstation and iPhone/iPad. Personal iPhone/iPad Pro, self built gaming PC, Linux Xeon lab server, a couple Pis, M1 and Intel Mac Minis, random assortment of laptop/iMacs/iPads/self built PCs for other family member use.

Most devs with a computer use their device 8-10 hours per day, don't you think?

I use multiple devices, mostly desktops with varying specs. They run off the same Ubuntu master image, primarily use network storage, and are managed with Landscape for updates and so forth. Now there are times when I will need to use my GPU workstation, and others times where an old C2Q would suffice for web browsing. In general though, I can sit down on any machine and start working right away in a consistent enviroment.

Those machines are getting old, and I've been considering upgrading my server and using a VDI solution instead. Or maybe it's time to switch to a more mobile option...

Yeah, you described my computing approach. Including a couple tiny PCs like Raspberry Pi, etc. there are currently 12 computers in the room I'm sitting in (only 3 are powered on), and this is just my "office" -- not the "computer museum" I have in another room which probably has 30+ computers of varying sorts. Each has a different purpose, different OS, different architecture, made in a different decade, etc. :)

>having multiple devices for different things.

That's my take, although I don't own $1000 worth of computers all added together.

I'm always surprised when people use laptops for professional work as I've always had great honkin' company-supplied desktop machines. Generally, if something breaks (which is super rare) the main cost is the time to rebuild an environment.

> You can extend that list to probably 10 devices if you're serious enough about compartmenting your digital life.

If you're actually serious about it, consider Qubes OS [0]. This should be much more secure and convenient than handling ten devices.

[0] https://qubes-os.org

> I have a strategy [...]: having multiple devices for different things.

> I have long since used a single device [...]

I'm not sure which you're suggesting then?

I understand the desire to compartmentalise... I just think real life's too blurry, and then it gets annoying at the edges - oh I had this problem on my other one, how did I solve it again? etc.

I definitely agree with this strategy, but try to limit it to mainly 2 primary systems, and maybe a couple older repurposed systems. Basically I have one for my professional life, one for my personal life, and an old laptop dedicated as a tv streamer.

But I don't travel much, and if I did I would probably only have one primary system.

Do you... regularly carry around like six laptops, then? Even carrying two sounds like a hassle, my husband had to do that for a while due to a single stupid time clock app installed on a corporate laptop that was too locked down to get the rest of his work done on.

I've used a single MacBook Pro for all my work for the last 10 or so years with no problems. I highly doubt this is the reason. Plus, if you have 3 devices and extend their lifetime by 3x, it's the same as having 1 device which gets replaced more often ;)

Ah, the Mythical Macbook Month.

I would rather do everything on a remote server, really, with a different environment for each project.

But that starts breaking down when working on mobile or hardware projects.

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