The Design Principles Behind My Perfect Computing Setup #VoidLinux #Linux #CommonLisp #Computing #Shorts
This article is a transcript of a video that you can watch by clicking the thumbnail below. Hence, certain statements may not make sense in this text form, and watching the video instead is recommended.
Transcript
Yes, I use Void Linux (BTW), and there’s a very detailed set of steps I follow for the installation. But then, there are a few design principles I adhere to while maintaining my computing setup:
- Lean: It should contain only the software that I need, with minimal to no tolerance for bloat. There’s only one software for one thing, with exceptions, of course, and I run regular optimizations to make sure that is still the case.
- Reproducible: I should be able to reproduce the same setup on as many machines as I need to, at any point in time, as many times as I need or want, with minimal to no manual configuration.
- Composable: The elements of the setup should be interchangeable with other alternatives when a better-suited one is identified.
- Portable: The setup should be portable such that (a) it should self-contain all other assets like code libraries, multimedia files, etc., with minimal to no external dependency, and (b) it should not contain elements bound to a particular Linux distribution, potentially preventing it from working elsewhere.
- Well-Documented: The entire setup should contain sufficient documentation for my future self, because my older self has always had trouble aligning with my younger self from the past.
With Void as the base, my Common Lisp program installs and configures all the required packages and more, followed by some hardware-specific tweaks. I’ve documented it in relative detail, and you can find the link in the description if you're the curious type.
For the rest of my friends, there's always Windows 11.