The Setup

Who am I, and what do I do?

I’m Abhay Rana, more popularly known as Nemo. I am a hacker, web developer, writer, and a UX enthusiast.

I used to do tech and security related things at Razorpay.

I build endoflife.date, HackerCouch, and several other projects around open-data and security.

What hardware do I use?

My slightly older home setup

Most of my work is done on my ASUS AMD Mini PC. I use a Macbook M2 Air with Asahi Linux while travelling.

My primary phone is a iPhone 13 Mini1. For research, I have a Samsung Galaxy A32 running rooted stock firmware along with my old iPhone SE (1st Gen). I own a Kindle Paperwhite and a Remarkable 2 for reading and taking notes. As you’ll notice, I have too many devices running mainline linux.

My primary keyboard is a [Akko 507S][akko] mechanical keyboard (Durock Koala switches, [GMK NAutilus keycaps][gmk-nautilus]). I have a dual-monitor setup at home. I mostly game on the Steam Deck, which also doubles up as my HTPC now with the dock.

At home, I run a PC/HomeServer, with lots of tiny services, which are proxied over to the internet with a Digital Ocean droplet in the BLR1 region. I wrote about it in detail.

In my shelf of underused hardware is a Moto G4+, a OnePlus6 running PostmarketOS, a Flipper Zero, a Steam Deck, and several Raspberry Pis.

I’m also a speedcuber; my primary cube is a stickerless Gans 356 R (Magnetic). I also own several other twisty puzzles, including a Axis Cube and a Megaminx.

Homeserver

I self-host a lot of things, and my homeserver runs ArchLinux with lots of disks on RAID1. Total usable space is currently around 12TB, and I use it for all sort of things. Hardware details are at /setup/homeserver/. I used it as a HTPC, but it is now a headless server since I bought the deck.

And what software?

(audio warning - click to play)

My distro for the last 8 years is Arch Linux with Sway as the window manager. My most used tools include: Neovim, Sublime Text 3, Firefox, and Git. I game using Steam, and purchase DRM free games via Humble Bundle whenever possible. The above animated wallpaper runs via spectrumyzer.

Most of my work is done in editors, command line, and the browser. A few essential extensions on my browser include: Refined GitHub, Better Twitter, uBlock Origin. I manage my passwords using pass.

I am a Hacker News addict, and have even written an application for it. Most used webapps would be: Slack, GitHub. I use Navidrome/play:sub for listening to music on the go, and Clementine on the desktop. My security setup (passwords/2FA etc) is documented here.

I run lots of tiny services on my homeserver, including Gitea, OpenVPN, Emby, and Grafana, and my own Mastodon Server. I use KOReader on both my (jailbroken) Kindle and the Remarkable to read fiction. I also run Home Assistant for some basic privacy-friendly home automation. For audiobooks, I use Audible and then strip the DRM using a script.

What would be my dream setup?

A lightweight laptop with tons of battery life, 13” display, official Linux support, and lots of ports. My M2 Air / Asahi Linux comes very close to this, with a little peripheral support missing.

If we’re talking super-crazy, I’d love to have a thought-dictation feature. That would help a lot with my writing.

  1. I don’t like being in the Apple Walled garden, but Apple is the only manufacturer making small phones that are supported beyond 5 years.