My domestic ultimate desktop setup looks like this.

Now try tell me it is not total superiority!

The whole summer I've been using this little box as a primary workstation. It is powered by a €200 Mini-PC whose specs are similar to the Valkyrie, a bit better in fact: the processor is Intel N150 vs Intel N100 of the UMPC, and there is 16Gb of RAM (and not the magic number of 12).

Funny, the motherboard is forever listed as "To be filled by O.E.M.", but it never caused any problems so far, neither in Win11 nor in Linux.

In all other aspects it's the same, even set up exactly the same as the Valkyrie. I've been using notes from my this very Wiki pages in order to replicate the dual-boot Win11/Ubuntu setup on the Mini-PC.

And that's it, a DIY all-in-one monoblock desktop for just 200 bucks! Well, not really. Of course one needs a monitor plus all the peripherals for it to function. But as it turns out, I had most of the stuff. In fact, I was super happy to hang every functional piece of garbage I had stored under my bed, including an LCD monitor (dated but fully operational), a Wacom tablet for handwriting, an office webcam, joystick and gaming controller for whatever occasional gaming I do.

What I had to order separately was a studio sound interface combo, so that 1) my microphone input doesn't suck at last, and 2) I can record audio sound from a synth directly into Reaper DAW. I also got a wired 60% mechanical keyboard. It was the first time for me using 60% after TCL, and once I got used I don't want to switch back.

^A strange bump in profile on the rhs of the keyboard is because I've replaced the keycaps with the ones from a "cherry profile" TCL, where utility keys differ from alphabetic ones in profile. I'm now used to it too. Call it my unique keyboard style or whatever.

Ah yes, the hostname. This time it is named after GTI Arcadia. A cozy radiant stationary base, a home-base. There's something subtle about how we as human beings sense technology; I was growing up in time when Internet had its own place at home - and I still prefer it this way.

Arcadia is quiet, responsive and rather compact. Most of the orcish tech attached to it can be stored in the office box underneath the display - and this is how I carry everything I need during seasonal climatic migrations around the house.

It runs all the batshit software I use for work and play. A bit sloggish in 3D beamtrace renderer and in Reaper after quite a while (still usable tho).

What amuses me most is that nowadays I can literally take both my main computational devices with me on a lowcost airline jet and have enough space in the backpack for clean clothes for a week.

Here's the appendix with some configuration details, in addition to those for the Valkyrie.

It often has problems in finding the coordinates to estimate sunset time. Best is to put latitude/longitude explicitly in the configuration file, located under ~/.config/redshift.conf.

  sudo apt install default-jre

And in order to fight the ugliness of fonts:

Add _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on' to your /etc/environment file.

If you are running java applications from console, add export _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on' to your .bashrc (if you run bash shell) or .zshrc (if you run Z shell).

Log out then log in again.

More and more programming systems' editing seem to perform better via Language Server Protocol instances instead of older mature solutions. E.g. pylsp for Python replaced elpy for me in emacs.

Also true for Matlab: see MATLAB-lsp implementation - official, made with node.js (installation instructions).