My main desktop computer has an Intel Core i5-4690K, 16GB of DDR3 RAM @ 1600MHz, GTX 980 4GB GDDR5 GPU, and a 1TB SATA SSD for the boot drive. I have a 1TB HDD that I stole out of an old DirecTV box for archives and 2x 2TB HDDs that I use for extra storage. All of the hard drives I have are 10+ years old so I will need to upgrade them sooner than later. I do have a couple partial backups of the most important data though. I use a Thermaltake Versa H21 case because it has plenty of room for expansion, although the built-in motherboard standoffs don't allow me to screw the screws in tight. It's a decent enough case but I may consider getting something better the next time I build a new PC. It's hard to find PC cases that have 5 1/4' expansion bays and such nowadays. My main PC is not ideal spec-wise but it gets the job done. I use Linux Mint xfce on my main desktop.
I have a PC in the living room that is used purely for gaming. I built it using free/cheap parts. It has an Intel Core i5-4590, 8GB of DDR3 RAM @ 1600MHz, GTX 1650 4GB GDDR6 GPU, and a 2TB SATA SSD. The CPU, SSD, RAM, and GPU were all obtained for free. The CPU and RAM were from a broken OEM desktop and the SSD and GPU were from a family member who didn't need them anymore. The case is some cheap Amazon case that my mom got for a project. She didn't need it anymore so I repurposed it for this PC. I put an optical drive in the build just in case I wanted to watch a DVD in the living room on the TV using this PC. I play mostly Xbox 360 era games which this PC can handle perfectly fine. Windows 10 is installed on it because I hate Windows 11 and Linux doesn't support some games still. I may try SteamOS at some point but I literally only use this PC to play video games so it doesn't really matter. I just have it boot up in Steam's "big picture mode".
There are a couple other computers I have that I don't use as often. I built a Windows XP computer for around $120 that I like to mess around with sometimes. I have a Dell Optiplex 9020 that I don't really have a use for at the moment. I have a Dell Dimension that I found in a trash pile on my cousins farm that doesn't get much use. My main goal was to just get that computer working again which I did.
The main laptop I use is a ThinkPad X280. I got it used on eBay for $100. It has a 7th gen i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB NVMe SSD, USB-C charging, decent port selection, and good enough battery life. The screen is 1366x768, which isn't a deal breaker for me, but something worth noting. There's basically zero upgradability with this laptop. It lacks an ethernet port which is annoying. The X280 is pretty snappy thanks to the fairly modern processor and it can handle all the things I do on a laptop. I'd recommend getting the T480 instead of the X280 because it has a higher screen resolution, replaceable battery, and an ethernet port. This laptop is quiet most of the time. The fan only spins up if you have too much stuff open at once (several tabs in a couple different browsers + a couple other programs open). For the price, I'm happy with the ThinkPad X280. I have Linux Mint installed on my laptop.
I have a couple other laptops that I don't use very often. I have a ThinkPad X61 that I got in either late 2023 or early 2024 after my ThinkPad T420 broke. I just needed a cheap laptop that could function. The X61 was surprisingly capable considering its age. I used it for a few months until I could afford a newer ThinkPad (that being the X280 that I am currently using). I also have some HP Elitebook that a family member gave to me when they upgraded. I like to install random operating systems on it sometimes. I believe it has a fourth gen i5 and 8GB of RAM.
I currently have a Google Pixel 7. I would not own this phone if I didn't get it for free. It's alright. I cannot flash my own custom rom on it due to the phone being OEM locked, which is annoying. It also doesn't have a headphone jack. I don't really use my phone enough to care about the cons. That said, I'd get some cheap android phone that I can put a custom rom onto if I didn't get this phone for free. If you're going to buy a Google Pixel, buy one that is OEM unlocked and buy the "a" series of Google Pixel phones. They are much cheaper without sacrificing anything.
I used to use iPhones from 2015-2022. I switched to a Google Pixel 4a in 2022 which made me realize what I had been missing out on. Android phones do collect more information about you by default but you actually have the ability to reduce that. Apple completely locks you down. Regardless, Apple has been implementing better privacy features in recent versions of iOS which is good to see.
Ashley Jones suggested I talk about my VCRs so I suppose I'll do that. My main VCR is a Funai VCR which was considered the cheapo brand in the 90s/2000s. Fun fact: Funai was responsible for releasing the last VCR ever in 2016. Anyway, the Funai VCR that I have does the job fine. I got it on eBay for around $30. I paid too much for it but it works perfectly at the very least. I use it to digitize VHS tapes (which, now that I think about it, I may write an article about). You can find a VCR at a thrift store for very cheap so avoid buying one on eBay if you can. I found a Panasonic VCR from 1993 at a local thrift store for just $5.99. It works great. I found a Sanyo VCR at the same time which was half the price of the Panasonic. It currently has a minor issue with it (thanks to Ashley Jones for informing me of what the issue is) which I'll get around to fixing one of these days. You can find a picture of my VCRs here.
I have a few memories of using VCRs when I was younger but it wasn't a huge part of my childhood. There are a few reasons why I like VHS over other formats. Movies released during the VHS era were actually good for the most part. Nowadays everything sucks. VHS is quite durable as well. Sure the quality degrades each decade but you don't have to worry about a little scratch like you do with DVD. Even if the tape is physically damaged it may still play fine. I was digitizing some old family videos and one tape was quite damaged. It still played fine despite the physical damage to it. VHS is very cheap because nobody cares about it anymore. Almost every tape I own was purchased for less than a dollar at various different thrift stores. I'm not one to care about quality too deeply so that's not much of an issue for me.
Typically I try to use FOSS software as much as possible. The software I use might not be perfect but it works for me.
For school I use the Brave browser. It's basically Google Chrome, just without all the Google spyware. I don't really have any issues with it as of now. For everything else I use Librewolf. I don't really have any major issues with it either but I wouldn't recommend it to normies. It's great for privacy-oriented people. Most web browsers suck but I've found that Librewolf and Brave are the most tolerable.
I've used several Linux distibutions the past few years. I've settled on Linux Mint. It "just works" for me right out of the box. I don't have to do any major customization after re-installing my OS. I started using Ubuntu in 2022, and Mint later that year. I did try out a few other distro's but kept coming back to Mint. Really any Linux distro is fine, just find one you like.
qBittorrent. I tried using Transmission. It sucks. qBittorrent is great.
I recently started using Mullvad VPN. It only costs ~$5 USD/mo. You can pay using cryptocurrency which is very nice (You even get a 10% discount for paying with crypto). You don't have to give them your email or anything, you're just given an account number when you create an account. If someone somehow finds your account number, you're in trouble. Mullvad is great but do your own research when choosing a VPN. I route pretty much all of my Internet traffic through a VPN. I trust some random VPN company more than an American ISP.
I just use VLC for almost everything. It does the job. Rhythmbox comes pre-installed with Linux Mint so I use that as my music player. It's pretty good.
HandBrake - Great piece of software that allows you to compress video files.
K3b - FOSS CD/DVD burning software. I have nothing else to say about K3b. It works great for burning stuff to optical media if you need to do that on Linux. Nuff' said.
Steam - Popular digital video game distribution service. Most games work great on Linux nowadays, although I'd avoid using Steam if possible. It is the best out of any other video game distribution service though.
OBS Studio - A FOSS way to record or stream. You've probably heard of OBS before so I'm not going to shill it too hard. It gets more and more bloated with each new update which is very annoying.
YT-DLP - A great tool primarily used to download YouTube videos, although a lot of other websites work with YT-DLP. One of the best pieces of software out there.
Stacher7 - A frontend GUI for YT-DLP. Easily allows you to choose which quality you want to download a video in, if you'd like to use cookies from your browser, etc. If the command line scares you, Stacher7 is fantastic.
Tor browser - Good for privacy schizos. Bad for seething feds.
LibreOffice - The FOSS alternative to Microsoft office. It does the job.
Minetest - An open-source version of Minecraft. If you're a complete autist and you want to play Minecraft but you refuse to use software that isn't FOSS, this is a decent enough alternative.
Monero GUI Wallet - Monero (XMR) is truly a privacy-oriented cryptocurrency. The Monero GUI Wallet has plenty of features and even allows you to mine XMR directly from the wallet if you enable advanced features. You can also use the Monero GUI Wallet to send me Monero haha. That would be funny I think haha. You can find my Monero address here haha.
Rosalie's Mupen GUI - An N64 emulator made by a tranny. It's one of the best N64 emulators out right now. Big thanks to the autism of trannies for providing us with great software such as this. Since it was made by a tranny, you can bet it's very compatible with Linux (and it's FOSS).
