Broadly what I am talking about is the ergonomics and human friendliness of computing environments whether it be your desk setup at home, work station, or laptop on the couch. I think this is something not talked about or considered enough even though we are spending more and more time every day on our computers. In this article I’d like to roughly walk through all of the choices and considerations I’ve made when choosing hardware and software configurations for my computing environment both at home on my desk and on the go with my laptop. By no means is this a guide for everyone to follow. The idea is to give you a bit of an idea as to how I made these choices such that you can personalize and tailor your computing environment to your own needs. I’ll be walking through hardware choices first, then software.

Monitor

Your computer monitor is arguably the most important thing you can invest in for your setup as it is literally what you are staring at for 8 hours a day. Here are my recommendations/preferred specs:

• A 27 inch monitor with highest resolution possible (I have a 4k)
• Keep a distance of about 50-80cm between your eyes and your display
• The top of your monitor should be level or slightly above your eye line (this is to keep you looking straight or slightly upwards)

Pixels per inch (PPI) is what you should be optimizing for when choosing a monitor. Your eyes can see every single LED and are irritated by every single LED.

Keyboard+Mouse

Keyboards are a very personal option so I can only explain the reasoning behind my choices. I think the obvious first step is to switch to a split keyboard. Having a natural straight line from your shoulder to your finger tips (along your wrist) is important over long periods of typing. On a normal keyboard, your wrists have to be bent outwards while your arms are actually bending inwards so that both hands can use the keyboard at the same time. This has been shown to cause carpal tunnel syndrome and will being making it extremely painful to continue using your computer. Your main goal is to basically remove the outward bend in your wrists. Make sure that the distance between each side of your split keyboard ensures that your forearms are parallel with each other. I use a Zsa Voyager.

As I have a mostly keyboard driven workflow, I just use an old Logitech mouse that I’ve had for ages. If you do a lot of work with the mouse I would recommend a vertical one like this. I’ve tried trackball mice like this as well, but don’t find them very ergonomic.

Desk

This largely personal taste. I prefer a very large desk that is deep enough such that I can rest my forearms on it while typing. This means I also have to set it to roughly the correct height such that my arms form 90 degree angles at the elbow. Having a well lit desktop is also important. I have a lamp on the left side of my desk as I am right handed (this is best when writing on paper so that your hand doesn’t cast a shadow on what you are writing).

Chair

I actually think this doesn’t matter. You should be able to sit straight up on any kind of chair for long periods of time; it’s simply just a matter of practice/training. That being said I actually switch between a wooden kitchen table chair and an amazon basics office chair throughout the day. In the morning I use the wooden chair as I have the most amount of energy. In the afternoon/evening I use the office chair as I can lean back in it in a bit more of a relaxed way. Just don’t slouch!

My Hardware

• Desk: Some standard Ikea desk
• Monitor: Some Dell 4k 27” monitor
• Laptop: ThinkPad t14s Gen 3 (AMD Ryzen 7 Pro, 32Gb RAM)
• Charger: Anker Nano 2 + Anker 240W 2m cable
• SSD: Samsung T7 (1Tb)
• Pen: Rotring 600 (with Schmidt P 900 F)
• Clock: Braun Classic Analog Alarm Clock
• Audio: AirPods Pro Gen 2
• Mouse: Logitech M705 Marathon
• Mouse pad: Steel series
• Keyboard: ZSA Voyager

Color Schemes

Depending on your surrounding environments light, you want to switch between using dark and light modes. I’ve actually become a pretty big fan of light mode in the last couple weeks and now prefer to work on much more well lit environments with light mode on. I feel its just a more natural way to read and write (dark text on a light background). I personally have a light/dark mode toggling keybind so that I can quickly switch between what feels right in a given environment. In my text editor and terminal I use the modus color scheme when in light mode and the gruber darker color scheme when in dark mode.

I’ve also recently been experimenting with using a gray scale mode when performing tasks like reading papers or doing light research. I can’t give a full conclusion yet as I haven’t been doing this for a while, but in general so far I would say it increases my focus a bit on the task at hand and allows me to focus more easily. I would assume this is because my brain doesn’t have to process any more colors and such, but I couldn’t give you a scientific reason.

Another important factor is using some sort of a red shift on your display come night fall. If your using Linux, Gnome and KDE come this built in. You can also use programs like redshift and set custom configs for on/off times as well as the exact color shift you want. I usually stick to 3000 Kelvin at night and just have it auto enable as soon as it gets dark outside. Some people also prefer blue light blocking glasses which produce the same outcome, but that’s up to you (I don’t want to wear glasses).

Font & Text Size

I use iosevka and sometimes Terminus (TTF). Use what feels most comfortable for you. The important part is only that you use an extremely large font size when reading and editing text. You want to reduce as much strain on your eyes as possible. The worst thing you can be doing is squinting at your computer display. I usually have between 30 and 50 terminal text rows visible at once.

Keyboard Driven Software

Learn and use vim keybinds everywhere. Choose to use software that supports keyboard shortcuts, learn those keyboard shortcuts, and then use those keyboard shortcuts. I cannot stress this enough. There is no reason to move your hand over to your mouse to perform a task you’ve repeated thousands of times already. If you more than just an internet browser and a terminal in your daily workflow, use a tilting window manager and bind your most used applications/actions to keys.

My Software

• Operating system: Arch Linux
• Window manager: dwm
  • With systray and actual fullscreen patches.
  • I used to use dwm, then switched to default Gnome for about 1.5 yrs and now recently just switched back to dwm. Its pretty much my ideal workflow.
• Terminal emulator: Ghostty
• Terminal multiplexer: Tmux
• Text editor: Neovim
• Browser: Brave
• Pdf viewer: FireFox and sometimes Zathura (for viewing pdfs in dark mode)
  • I use FireFox because I want a tabbed pdf reader that I can also close and reopen all the files I had previously opened. This is extremely important to me as I often have many pdf’s open at once. FireFox because I want it separated from my main browser (Brave).
• Image viewer: sxiv
• Video player: mpv

Slight update: I’m using my MacBook Air M3 at the moment. My browser, terminal, editor, etc. has not changed though.

I prefer my window manager and graphical things to be very small and out of the way while the text that I’m reading/editing (either in my browser or terminal) to be very large. I usually sit around ~80cm (estimated) from my monitor and having to only read huge font text on top of that just makes my computing experience that much more pleasant and easier to sit at for longer periods of time.

Important/Common Concepts and Equations

Shannon Entropy

• Measures the uncertainty or information of a random variable X
• Measured in bits
• Intuition:
  • If X is totally predictable -> H(X) = 0 bits
  • If X is uniform over n values -> H(X) = \log{n} bits

H(X) = -\sum_x{p(x) \log_2{p(x)}}

Mutual Information

• Measures how much information is shared between X and Y
• Intuition:
  • I(X;Y) = 0 -> X and Y are independent
  • Larger I(X;Y) -> knowing X tells you more about Y
  • For I(X;Y), this means that if we know Y, we can save an average of I(X;Y) bits when encoding X
  • MI is symmetric meaning I(X;Y) = I(Y;X)

I(X;Y) = \sum_{x,y}{p(x,y) \log_2{\frac{p(x,y)}{p(x)p(y)}}}

I(X;Y) = H(X) - H(X | Y)

Kullback-Leibler (KL) Divergence

• Measures how different two discrete probability distributions P and Q are
• Intuition:
  • KL Divergence is 0 if P = Q
  • Not symmetric so D_{KL}( P || Q ) \neq D_{KL}( Q || P )
  • Extra bits required to encode P using a code optimized for Q

D_{KL}(P||Q) = \sum_x{P(x) \log_2{\frac{P(x)}{Q(x)}}}

Multivariate Gaussian

• A multidimensional bell curve where \sum controls the shape/spread

p(x) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{(2\pi)^k |\sum|}} \exp(- \frac{1}{2} (x - \mu)^T \sum^{-1}(x - \mu))

Expectation (E)

• Average value of f(X) if X is drawn according to P
• Weighted average of f(X) over the probability of X

\mathbb{E}_{P(X)}[f(X)] = \int P(x)f(x) dx

Markov Chain

A Markov chain is simply a set of discrete random processes that happen one after another in which each next process is only dependent on the current process. This can be viewed from the perspective of a neural network in which each layers outputs only depends on the previous layers outputs.

X \rightarrow Z \rightarrow Y

Data Processing Inequality (DPI)

The data processing inequality simply states that for any Markov chain, the mutual information between two stochastic processes in said chain can only decrease.

\text{For Markov chain } X \rightarrow Z \rightarrow Y \text{ : } I(X;Z) \geq I(X;Y)

Reparameterization Invariance [1]

For two invertable functions, \phi and \psi, the mutual information still holds:

I(X;Y) = I(\phi(X);\psi(Y)).

For deep neural networks, this simply means that shuffling the weights of a given layer does not change the mutual information between that layer and all the others. This is important when considering computational complexity as done in the V-Information paper because the mutual information between the two random variables does not change, but the computational complexity can increase heavily depending on how hard the functions \phi, \psi are to invert. The paper introduces a new type of information that takes computational constraints into consideration in this case.

Economics is simply just applied human psychology.

Trade \iff Trust

• Two things needed for a trade (basically just trust):
  1. (Nash equilibrium) At every stage of the agreed course of actions, it would be in the interest of each party to plan to keep their word if all others were to plan to keep their word.
  2. At every stage of the agreed course of actions, each party believes that all others would keep their word.
• Enforced punishment for betrayal increases trust (think robbing a store lands you in jail, so store owners feel more comfortable leaving a stand of post cards outside of their store)
• As soon as 65% do something, everybody does it. This is known as critical mass (meaning 50% is usually not enough)

Human Prosperity

• There are three needs
• Knowledge is a public good par excellence.
• T.H. Marshall’s three-way classification of freedom can be read as saying that the enjoyment of civil liberties, the ability to participate int he political sphere, and access to commodities (food, clothing, shelter, health care, education - more generally, wealth) are necessary if people are to flourish.
• In 125 years, the world population grew by over 5 times its size in the beginning of the 20th century from 1.6B to 8.25B.
• Things like insurance simply remove a human dependence on luck for things like survival.
• Science embodies a set of cultural values in need of constant protection from the thread posed by its rival, Technology. That threat has proved to be so real, that in recent decades the two institutions have begun to blur into each other. Scientists increasingly behave like technologists, while technologists enjoy both the pecuniary rewards of Technology and the medals and scrolls that Science has to offer.
  • Institutional innovations in Science and Technology took place in Europe and emerged during the period historians refer to as the Age of Enlightenment.
• Intellectuals and commentators use the term ‘globalization’ to imply that location per se doesn’t matter. This optimistic view emphasizes the potential of capital accumulation and technological improvements to compensate for environmental degradation.

A Nations Fertility Rates

• Fertility rates:
  • Reproductive behaviour is conformist.
  • Demographers have noted that educated women are among the first to make moves towards smaller families.
  • A possibly even stronger pathway is the influence newspapers, radio, television, and the internet exert by transmitting information about lifestyles elsewhere.

The Role of the Government

• One way to interpret the need for fiscal and monetary policies during severe slumps (taxes and subsidies, public investment, interest rates, credit facilities) is that they help to change the expectations the people hold about the future.
• The outcome of a decision depends on the order in which pairs of alternatives are presented to voters: the agenda matters. (very real)

Some Good-to-Know/Interesting Facts

• A country’s GDP is the value of all final goods produced by it’s residents in a single year
  • GDP is a flow (ex. Dollar per year), where as wealth (dollars - period) is a stock
• Human capitol consists of education and health.
• If the personal benefits from betraying one’s conscience are large enough, almost all of us would betray it.
• The EU’s GDP expenditure is roughly 37%. wow!
• A government is an agency of its nation’s citizens.
• The world not working on reducing human induced climate change is simply an economic problem.
• A durable commodity: the stream of resources it is expected to provide over time.

export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/.config"
export XDG_CACHE_HOME="$HOME/.cache"
export XDG_DATA_HOME="$HOME/.local/share"
export XDG_STATE_HOME="$HOME/.local/state"

To call out some programs that do not adhere to these specifications: Firefox, Thunderbird, any chrome based application, VS Code, etc. The list goes on and on, but to make a point; So many of the most used applications on Unix-based systems do not follow these rules and they cause unnecessary home directory clutter.

Reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory

Update 03.04.2026

Wow. Basically all the new things don’t care about this. All the new cli ai apps etc.

creating a bootable usb drive

The first step to installing Arch Linux onto your computer is downloading the Arch Linux iso file and then booting it onto a usb drive. In order to do this download the Arch Linux iso file from the Arch Linux website (archlinux.org) and then opening a terminal and navigating to the directory were the iso file is located. After inserting the usb drive into your computer, confirm the id of the drive and then run this command: dd if='name of arch Linux iso file' of='location of drive, /dev/sdb/ for example' status="progress". Be careful that you do not make the of variable the drive on which you have current os installed on because it will delete everything and replace it with just the iso file.

booting from the usb drive

After installing the iso file to your usb drive reboot your computer and enter it’s boot settings. Choose to boot from the usb drive you just created and then enter the console. From here you will begin installing Arch Linux to your computer.

internet connection

Before beginning the installation make sure that your computer has an internet connection. Connecting you computer via Ethernet is the easiest route although connecting via wifi is also possible. Make sure that you have an internet connection by using ip a to check your ip. You can also ping to check for an internet connection.

setting keyboard layout

To list available keyboard layouts navigate through /usr/share/kbd/keymaps/ to find the keyboard layout the you use. After finding your keyboard layout, using loadkeys you can load that keyboard layout.

system clock

To make sure that your system clock is accurate use timedatectl set-ntp true

partitioning your disk

The easiest tool to partition your disk is to use cfdisk. Using the command fdisk -l, you can find the location of the disk that you want to install Arch Linux onto. (Example: /dev/sdb) Once you have found your disk, you can use cfdisk 'drive location' to edit the partition table. Create your first partition with the size that you want your main storage to have and then give it the Linux type and mark it as bootable. If you choose to, you can also make a swap partition or any other partition here. Once you have to chosen to make all of the changes to the disk make sure to write and exit properly.

formatting the partitions

To format your main partition with the ext4 file system, use mkfs.ext4 'path to main partition, example: /dev/sda1'. If you created a swap partition make sure to format that as well with mkswap /dev/'swap partition'.

mounting your partitions and file systems

The traditional directory in which you mount file systems to your system is /mnt. To mount your newly created file systems, use the command mount /dev/'root partition' /mnt and if you created a swap partition, mount that as well with swapon /dev/'swap parition'.

installing the base system

To install the base essential packages use the command pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware.

configuring your installed system

Using the command genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab you can set the partitions that you want to be auto mounted when your system boots. After this, you can access your system through chroot using the command arch-chroot /mnt. This will bring you into a new terminal that is your newly installed system.

To set the timezone, use the command ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/'region'/'city' /etc/localtime and run hwclock --systohc to generate /etc/adjtime.

To set your local, edit /etc/locale.gen and uncomment your preferred local and other locals that you need. Example: en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8. After this, use the command locale-gen to save your edits.

Additionally, you will need to create /etc/locale.conf and add your proffered lang value to it. Example: LANG=en_US.UTF-8.

You will also need to edit /etc/vconsole.conf and add your preferred keymap. Example: KEYMAP=de-latin1

network configuration

Firstly edit /etc/hostname with your preferred name for your system.

Next edit /etc/hosts and add this:

127.0.0.1 localhost

::1 localhost

127.0.1.1 'your host name'.localdomain' your host name'

Use pacman -S networkmanager to install the network manager for your system and run systemctl enable NetworkManager.service to enable it.

boot loader

To install the grub boot loader, use the command, pacman -S grub. To install the grub boot loader to your system, use the command grub-install /dev/sdx, sdx being your drive. After that you have to create the grub configuration file with grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

finishing

Use the passwd to give your root user a password. Then use the exit command to exit your current chroot session and unmount the arch partition by using umount /mnt. After this you can reboot and boot into your newly installed Arch Linux system.

links

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/installation_guide