Hardware: I'll get started. I have three Macs: a Mac Pro, a MacBook Pro, and a MacBook Air. I also have an iPhone. The MacPro and the Air were bought by my company, the MacBook Pro is my personal machine.

I find myself using the MacBook Air a lot. I can take it anywhere with me. When I'm not using it, I'm using the iPhone. If the Air had a SIM card slot I'd probably use it even more.

On the MacPro I have a 24" Samsung monitor. All the other machines I use with their native screens. I also have a Kindle.

Software: I use emacs for writing and coding. I use a mixture of Firefox and Chrome for most everything else since so much of my computer life is in the cloud. Bits of software I love are: Dropbox, Notifo, Evernote and TweetDeck.

On servers, mostly FreeBSD 8.0 (a few boxes are still 7.x), along with djbdns, qmail, ezmlm, apache, stunnel, and tarsnap.

On my android phone: Twidroid, ConnectBot, NetCounter.

For work I use an XPS M1530 with Windows 7, VMWare and a collection of images with different OSes for various purposes. Notepad++ for editing, Eclipse + PyDev for development, Ollydbg and Immunity Debugger for vulnerability research, too many tools to list for penetration testing, OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets, Google Talk, Thunderbird for mail and TSK and Responder for Disk and Memory forensics.

We have some servers at work, mostly Mac Mini and Linux (to host VMWare, various images from Beos to Sco Unixware), Solaris Sparc box and an old Vaxstation running VMS.

At home I use a 9 year old Vaio SRX-51P/B with a P3 850, 256mb of RAM and Arch Linux. I mostly use Mutt, Chromium, Irssi, centerim, Vim, MC and snownews.

At home I use an Ubuntu 8.04 server mostly for media, printing, DNS (was using djbdns but switched to dnsmasq after a rebuild) and backups and a separate Arch Linux desktop as a MythTV Front/Backend.

Actually, I rather dislike the M1530, at least compared with my previous laptop, a D600. The M1530 tends to get very hot.

[EDIT]

Here is an older picture of the setup:

http://imgur.com/iAqED.jpg

[/EDIT]

Software: use Window's box for dev work - Notepad++ for editing, FF/Chrome for browser, and Mac for communications - Adium for IM (AIM and internal Jabber) and Colloquy for irc (wmassdevs on freenode) and FF for gmail/google apps/co-op/basecamp/etc.

If I had more desk space I'd have more monitors. I'm moving soon and may end up either attaching monitor arms to the walls or building a shelf for the second set of monitors.

Software-wise, I usually run either Eclipse when I'm at work doing Java development or Intellij Idea 9 when I'm on the Mac at home doing Grails development for side projects. I usually keep an instance of VirtualBox open when I'm at work so I can run Windows XP and Microsoft Outlook since Evolution on Linux is a POS. At home I use Mail since I can check both my work Exchange account and GMail account and it just works. I bought Snow Leopard for just that reason.

http://www.twitpic.com/19sc7e

The terminal app on a jailbroken iPhone is remarkably good at inputing complex emacs keyboard shortcuts once you map the gestures right and it becomes second nature. Can't wait to jailbreak the 3G iPad. If that works out exactly like it does on the iPhone it could become my primary hardware.

Computer 2: Dell 1520 running Windows 7. I also run Haiku in a VM. Software: Emacs, Launchy, Firefox, XChat, Pidgin, PowerShell and (praise be upon its sweet soul) Winamp.

Web applications: GMail and Etherpad. I'm not big on webapps.

I think there's a pattern here :)

Software: RubyMine, Sequel Pro, Dropbox, Adobe Photoshop & Google Chrome. And GMail.

T61, [22"]*2, Ubuntu, Emacs, Chrome + Firefox.

But of course the real secret is in how you apply just the right swirl.

I always end up with half my hair like its been dipped in honey, and the other half dry as a bone when I use anything. I'm probably making some n00b error though :/

And don't use so much.

I'd have thought this was a joke if it was published a couple months ago, but I'm pretty sure March 2009 was before the iSlate rumors ever started. Good call, pg.

HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1089512

I wonder if he wears a digital watch, owns a TV, drives a car, uses a printer etc etc. All of which have closed source software within.

If you look at the isolated incident of RMS insisting on only using machines where the software is free (as in freedom) it doesn't make mucha of a difference as you say.

But if you look at the greater picture where RMS is one of the premier advocates for free software it makes a huge difference. He gains credibility by the bucketloads by refusing to use nonfree software, and he can't be called a hypocrite - he actually acts as he preaches. Look at Jgrahamc's comment above for an example. Whether or not it gives him personal freedom I don't know.

It's all about the signal: that's how discussions and politics follow. I have a friend who is strictly vegetarian because of the reactions and discussions that follow, even though he believes otherwise that we sometimes do more harm to our environment in subtle indirect ways (like a fruit company which would contribute to regimes in third world countries).

There are plenty of examples of this from Jesus to Nelson Mandela. It's not about being a martyr or experiencing personal pain, it's about holding true to your values no matter what. It's a very hard thing to do, but that is how you change the world.

Also I disagree about being able to change the world best from extremist positions. The world isn't perfect. You have to be willing to compromise, and accept that you won't get everything you want (At least in one go).

Sure, extremists are sort of to be admired in how strongly they believe in their cause, and how they're often willing to die for it (Or put up with using a 9" computer), but I think far more is accomplished by moderate, compromising people who work toward their goals step by step.

For one thing, he's lost a potential audience - most people will simply write him off as a mad extremist hippy, and not listen to anything he says.

And how much difference has the whole 'free software movement' made when the whole of HN is salivating over perhaps the most closed device ever created with the iPad.

I'd never seen a pic of RMS before the above link, but given how he looks like a cross between a hippy, a geek and a caveman, I'd say highly unlikely.

(btw, not trying to put the man down, I admire his work!)

I don't laugh at RMS anymore. I feel pity for him. Sure he's written some programs that are used by a lot of people but he wants to appropriate the word freedom for his own purposes. Anyone that doesn't do things that fit his definition of freedom is not allowed to use terms like 'Free' and when it comes to that he can be a bit of a troll and in some ways self-parodying, but don't ask me, just talk to anyone using an MIT or BSD licence who's crossed swords with him.

No, I'm not, you could simply exchange "Sikh with turban" with "guy with a female swimsuit in Manhattan financial district", anyway, sorry for that, my english is awful for non-technical purposes.

For the second paragraph, I do agree with you, but I still think we must not laugh at him or at anyone using a esoteric hardware combination for whatever reason there is in their heads, justified or not, one more information, I saw Stallman at a presentation in the past and he had a HP laptop back in 2002.

That's a crime shared by about anyone with political opinions in the US.

http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/coyotes-pulitzer-an...

That being said, who cares what anyone's setup is? It's not like, "Set up like this guy and you will perform like this guy." There is about zero correlation between setup and performance. A better post would be, "What dhh does and why he does it."

As for me, I have a single monitor with 2 sessions, one with lime green code on a black background in textpad and the other a test session in a browser. Both are full screen. Alt-tab is my friend. I prefer an underpowered box. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere.

Is this the secret to my success? Of course not. Put 10 programmers in a room and get 11 different setups.

Use whatever setup works best for you. If you want to find out what makes someone else successful, dig a little below the surface for the wisdom waiting to be extracted by those not so obsessed with the superficial.

"As for me, I have a single monitor with 2 sessions, one with lime green code on a black background in textpad and the other a test session in a browser. Both are full screen. Alt-tab is my friend. I prefer an underpowered box. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere."

That too, is be kind of interesting to read, especially the ending. I will not go on and imitate your setup now, since i got my own, but the underpowered-box stuff is good enough to remember.

     20 MacBook Pro
     20 Firefox
     18 Safari
     16 iTunes
     15 iPhone
     14 Mac Pro
     13 Tweetie
     13 Mail
     12 TextMate
     10 Twitterrific
     10 Photoshop
     10 iChat
     10 iCal
     10 Gmail
     10 Dropbox
      9 Twitter
      9 Time Machine
      9 Terminal
      9 MacBook
      9 Google Reader
      8 Xcode
      8 Things
      8 iMac
      7 Quicksilver
      7 NetNewsWire
      7 LaunchBar
      7 Flickr
      7 Coda
      7 Adium
      6 Transmit
      6 Instapaper
      6 Illustrator
      6 Google Chrome
      6 Evernote

http://why.usesthis.com/

Wait - what?!

7200 rpm external drive:

eSATA - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A...

FW800 - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A...

SSD external drive:

eSATA - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/eSATA.p...

FW800 - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/fw800.p...

Summary: Via eSATA, the 7200rpm drive tops out around 100MB/sec while the SSD drive hits > 200MB/sec. Via FW800 both drives only max out around 80MB/sec which is the approximate upper limit of FW800 I believe.

DHH, if you're reading perhaps you can provide a more subjective take on the real-world performance? I'm curious as I have a 27" iMac and would love to be able to get the SSD speed boost without taking off the glass and voiding warranties.