tulip's digital diary

computer collection - spring 2025

there's been a few changes and additions to my collection since the last time i wrote about this. figured it was about time for an update!

main laptop

a desktop background featuring Megurine Luka, a woman with long, pink hair, with many flowers in her hair. there is a terminal window with various hardware statistics listed inside. the windows themselves are a dark, muted grey-brown

at the moment, i use my laptop more than i use my desktop. it's a bit of a shame - i really did love building my own PC - but most of the time, it's just more comfortable for me. i can use it in bed or on a couch, or take it with me when i desperately need a change of scenery, etc.

i'm not too attached to the laptop model itself. it's an HP Aero-whatever. i got it on sale in 2022, and it fits my needs fine enough. it's very lightweight, so it's not a huge strain on my body to carry it around. it has a 16:10 screen with a decent color range. (16:9 just feels too short and squished to me!)

this thing initially shipped with Windows 11, which i tolerated for a year and a half. but even after optimizing it as much as i could, it still felt sluggish. so i took a big leap and switched to Linux Mint in 2023. it was my first time running Linux as my main operating system, and i liked it a lot more than i thought i would! turns out Linux offers a lot more support for digital art than it did in like, 2009.

in 2025, i switched operating systems again: this time, i went with Kubuntu. i just really love KDE... i like to tweak and customize my desktop environment juuuust right!!

now, i have my complaints about this thing. the case is already pretty beat up. one of the corners has cracked from falling off the couch once, which i repaired with epoxy putty, but it's still kind of fragile. the rubbery strips underneath the laptop have peeled away, so i had to clean off the gunky, gluey residue left behind. and the bottom edge of the laptop is really scuffed: the outer coating on the plastic has flaked off quite a bit, and it's currently covered up with clear packing tape. also i suspect that the CPU thermal paste isn't holding up well anymore because it overheats kind of easily!!

so... i have my eye on upgrading to either a Framework 12 or 13 laptop sometime in the future. don't get me wrong, this laptop still works. the hardware itself is perfectly fine, save for the CPU heating issue. but in the back of my mind, i'm slowly saving up for a laptop i can actually... you know, take apart and repair.

main desktop PC

a desktop background, featuring Alucard, a vampire with long, platinum blonde hair, standing pensively next to a sword. a terminal window with various system statistics is open, and the overall color scheme is dark, muted and slightly rose-tinted

my first ever PC build, assembled in 2021. i wanted to build a PC for a very long time - ever since the late 00s, probably - but the stars didn't quite align then. around 2021, my faithful, beloved late 2013 MacBook Pro was begging to be retired. so, i set out to build a desktop.

a lot of people at the time told me to "just wait for prices to go down", especially for GPUs. but uh, i couldn't wait much longer. thankfully, i was in luck! my 1050 Ti was a hand-me-down gift from my sibling. it still works just fine for my needs. i don't really play modern games, or work with 3D/video production. it's never given me any issues, so i don't see a reason to throw down a ton of money for an upgrade.

anyway, i ran Windows 10 for a few years. it was a weird adjustment at first. i hadn't used Windows in nearly a decade, so all the modern Microsoft jank was incredibly jarring and unfamiliar to me. currently, i dual-boot Fedora KDE alongside Windows 10. i only really switch to Windows if i really need to use a Windows-specific application.

wallpaper featuring Alucard again, as he clutches his sword close to his body, while sitting in a coffin filled with blood red roses

despite all the love i put into building it, this is currently my "secondary" computer. i am much more comfortable reclining than i am sitting upright at a desk. but, when my body allows it, it's quite nice to sit at my desk. the extra monitor space is appreciated, especially for working on non-drawing-related projects. and i love my keyboard and mouse. i use a Nuphy Air96 with their tactile Wisteria switches, with a set of pink and black low profile keycaps that i got off Amazon a while back. my mouse is a Logitech Ergo Lift in light pink, which is a lovely vertical mouse that is well suited for my slightly small hands.

iPad Pro (2nd gen)

wallpaper featuring Megurine Luka, surrounded by lots of colorful pastel flowers

for the past 10 years, i remained a skeptic of the iPad + Apple Pencil combination. "it's so expensive," i grumbled. "i'd rather spend that money on a dedicated computer, and buy a tablet to plug into it. unless one magically falls into my lap one day, i'll probably never use one."

then one day, out of the blue, i received a text from my sibling. "hey, do you want my wife's old iPad Pro + Apple Pencil?"

oh. well. i mean, sure. i'll try it. why not, right?

...anyway, guess what i exclusively use for digital art now. turns out: it's really nice!! i'm regretting my words and deeds!! ARGH

here's the thing. it's so much easier for my executive dysfunction. even with my XP-Pen Artist 16 tablet, i still gotta lug the thing out of a case, plug it in, make sure my drivers are behaving, reposition my laptop to get situated where i'm seated, futz around with window management across two monitors, etc... i'm no stranger to fiddling and dealing with jank. but every time i sit down to draw, there's a good 15-20 minutes of grumbling and setting up before i actually start drawing.

meanwhile, with an iPad... i just open it up, tap on Procreate, and i'm ready to draw. even though i have to deal with the 1st gen Apple Pencil's dumb charging quirks! i just bought a little converter dongle that clips onto a Lightning cable. it's fine.

oh, but there's still caveats. going straight from Linux to iPadOS is a lot of whiplash, for one. the filesystems are vague and restrictive, and it bothers me how many apps are subscription-based. i'm happy to spend money on a one-time purchase on an app i will use, and i know devs deserve to be paid for their hard work, but i just cannot commit to so many damn monthly subscriptions.

Procreate is a really nice application, though. i can see why it's so popular. i'm still trying to figure out what kind of techniques and brushes i feel comfortable with, but so far, i'm enjoying it. i could also use Clip Studio again, which i loved for many years until i switched to Linux, but i'd have to decide if i want to pay for an annual subscription or not.

Surface Pro 2

wallpaper of Megurine Luka, wearing a pastel pink kimono with colorful fireworks behind her. there is a terminal window with system stats in it

guess what: it's another hand-me-down! hey, what can i say, i love giving a new home to older devices. running modern-day Windows on it renders the poor thing unusable, so... with the power of linux-surface , i decided to try running Linux on it. fun fact: this was actually my first time in 13 years trying to install Linux! i got my hands on this thing long before i built my PC and got my current laptop. and boy, i sure picked a slightly strange device to experiment on.

the custom linux-surface kernel makes touch/pen support work pretty well, actually. now, whether the operating systems make the user experience of touch functions usable, that's a different story... i've tried out a few different OSes to figure out which desktop environments work best for this lil guy.

Ubuntu with GNOME: meh. ehhhhh. but, i just don't like GNOME. even with Touchégg installed, which helps with touch gestures, it can be a little clunky to use. it frustrates me how much GNOME hides basic user interface functions. and on a touchscreen, you gotta be pretty precise with selecting things, even with a tablet pen.

elementary OS: i liked a lot of things about this OS, actually. the interface felt a little more touch-friendly than GNOME was. and the Mac OS-like design language feels cozy to me, since i used a MacBook for so many years. (plus i think it's funny to use a Mac-flavored OS on a Microsoft system.) but... i really did not like the way the windowing system works. there's no minimize button on windows. and i obsessively minimize windows. ^_^;;

Ubuntu with KDE: at this point, i don't think anyone is surprised to hear that i gave up and installed Kubuntu on this thing. what can i say except: stan Konqi. but for real, the touch & pen support on KDE is nice. no real complaints here.

iMac G3 (early 2001, Indigo)

wallpaper of a woman with pinkish brown hair tied up in a ponytail, listening to music. a tear is rolling down her cheek. the About This Computer display proudly states that it runs Mac OS 9.2

i LOVE my iMac G3. her name is "Blueberry Dreams", a nod to The Cheat's tangerine iMac G3 in Homestar Runner, nicknamed "Tangerine Dreams". i bought this in summer 2022, i think, from a local computer resale shop. it was only $50, fully tested, just had a bad RAM slot. owning an iMac G3 was one of my dreams ever since i was a kid, seeing them at school and at libraries... and i didn't know when i'd ever see one in such nice condition for such a good price again.

admittedly, the indigo variant wasn't my first color choice - i still pine after the Flower Power variant - but it's absolutely lovely. i'm smitten. my dad got me matching accessories for it as a Christmas present that year, which was very sweet of him.

right now, i mostly use it for poking at late 90s/early 00s digital art software, and occasionally some older games. at some point, i'd love to get a contemporary tablet (a Wacom Intuos2 6x8 would be nice...) so i can make art on it more often without giving myself an RSI.

ThinkPad T61

wallpaper of Sakura Miku, a girl with long, light pink hair tied up in pigtails, smiling around lots of cherry blossoms. a system properties window is open and there is a custom tulip logo on display

bought this in June 2023, because i wanted a solid XP machine. it was about $80 or so, which... honestly, for a well-built ThinkPad that had already been cleaned up and restored by the seller with a fresh install of XP on an SSD? i'll take it. i had tried restoring my own XP-era laptops, but i was running into a lot of issues that were proving to be outside of my skillset. it just seemed smarter to me to get one that was already functional and ready to go.

aye, she's a lovely machine, though. i'm quite fond of her. quite heavy, but solid. the keyboard feels pretty nice to type on, and it's a joy to work with. i've been happy with how easy it is to swap hard drives - just a screw or two on the front, and a drive bay cage pops out! how nice. i used a spare HDD to install Vista Business using official restoration discs, because i hadn't touched Vista since it was new, and i was morbidly curious. i should...get back to that project at some point.

for making art on it: i usually use an old 2008 Wacom Bamboo tablet and Photoshop 7. which was the exact combination of tools i used when i started drawing digital art seriously! though on Vista, i installed CS2 instead, since that felt more era-appropriate. PS7 will always have a place in my heart, though. i know it like the back of my hand. oh, sometimes i'll doodle in openCanvas 1.1. that's "classics of free art program" to me. hehe!

#computers #tulip tech toys