This page covers what electronic devices, equipment and software I’m running right now.
Time since last update: 6 months.
What’s New?
- I went down a bit of a rabbit hole on DAPs - Digital Audio Players - earlier in the year. I’d been looking for a straight music player to lessen reasons to have my phone out, and I ended up with two lower end players, and they’ve turned out to be even more useful than I expected. I even converted the HifiWalker to the open source Rockbox firmware, which was a great decision, especially with the minimalist theme I chose.
- I have migrated the nanikore.net blog from WordPress to Hugo. I’m doing a write up which goes into the reasoning, and the effort required, some of which might simply have been me mucking about.
- Upgraded the desktop GPU to a Sapphire AMD Pulse 9060 XT 16GB. This was due to an upgrade on someone else’s machine with the old RTX 4060 I bought 3 years ago. The AMD plays nicer with Linux apparently, but getting some tools to work with OpenCL and ROCm or compute / LLM functions is a bit more fiddly on Linux that CUDO which ironically just seemed to work.
- Replaced the 13 year old 650W Antec power supply with a newer 850W unit from Corsair. The old unit was still functional, but I had a few warning posts with the new GPU, the fan has a subtle grind to it and I think 13 years is a decent return on investment. This also brings the desktop PSU up to modular cabling! Also, ATX 3.1 compliance, so a little future proofing in there.
Hardware
Desktop PC
My Frankenstein’s monster of a desktop box is mainly for gaming, audio and video editing, encoding and some work. It generally gets updated piecemeal.
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X (2025-06) with Scythe Mugen 5 cooler (2020-02)
- RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance 3200 (2019-12)
- Mobo: Gigabyte B550M DS3H (2023-02)
- Graphics: Sapphire AMD Pulse 9060 XT 16GB (2026-06)
- Sound: Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (2019-05)
- PSU: Corsair RMX850x 850W (2026-06)
- Drives: Linux Mint on a 1TB Crucial T500 (2024-12), Windows 11 on a 1TB on a Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD (2018/12), and some misc. data on a 4TB Western Digital Red drive (2018/09), family media on a 2TB Crucial T500.
- Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (2013-07) - a heavy but quiet box.
- Monitor: LG UltraWide 34WN750-B (2020-07)
- Speakers: Audio Engine A2+ (2015-01)
- Headphones: AKG K371 (2021-01)
- OS: Mint Linux (and Windows 11).
Archive Server
Another self built machine mainly used for file serving and media storage.
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500GT (2024/12) with a Scythe Choten air cooler (2020/12)
- RAM: 16GB Team DDR4 (2024/12)
- Mobo: ASRock B550 Steel Legend (2024/12)
- NIC: Kuroutoshikou 2.5Gbps NIC (Intel i225-V-S3) (2024/12)
- Graphics: On CPU (headless)
- PSU: Fractal Design ION Gold 550W (2024/01)
- PCIe SATA III Board - Area SD-PE4SA-6L (2023/01)
- Drives: Samsung 870 EVO 500GB SSD (2022/12) for OS, 2 x 6TB Seagate IronWolf (2021/07 & 2022/01) for personal data & 2 x 8TB Seagate Barracudas (2019/11 & 2019/12) and 2 x Seagate IronWolf for media backups (2022/11).
- Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (2013/11) with Scythe Flex 140 fans.
- Monitor: N/A
- Speakers: N/A
- Headphones: N/A
- OS: Debian 13.
Dell XPS 13
This is a 9360 model from mid 2018. Battery replaced in 2024-10. I’m also replacing screws when they fall out nowadays!
- CPU: Intel Core i5-8250U
- RAM: 8GB
- Graphics: UHD 620
- Drives: Silicon Power 1TB A80 NVMe (2019/12).
- Monitor: 13" 1080p
- OS: Endeavour OS.
GMKtec NucBox 5
A small form factor mini PC purchased in 2023/09. This runs my home ‘always on’ services such as Pihole, Syncthing and Tailscale. Almost silent and very small, but much quicker than the old Raspberry Pi’s it replaces, especially on the web UIs.
- CPU: Intel Celeron N5105 CPU & chipset
- RAM: 8GB
- Storage: 256GB M2 SATA SSD.
- OS: Debian 13.
Software
Backups are handled via iDrive, using a private key for a little more security, since living in a wooden house in an earthquake zone does make me think about off-site backups quite a lot. For folder sync between machines I use Syncthing, and that’s only on LAN.
Most of the things I do are text based, so I try to keep it simple, using editors like Obsidian for most general stuff, as it helps organise things too. Photo management is mainly via digiKam and sometimes DarkTable.
I keep passwords in a Bitwarden vault and sensitive documents in VeraCrypt files.
The Audio and the Visual
I have a FujiFilm X-T30 iii mirrorless camera (2025/12), a 23mm weather sealed prime, a 16-80mm travel zoom and a cheap 60mm Macro lens from 7artisans.
For an action cam, I have a DJI Osmo Action 4 along with the DJI Mic 2. I like to use the action camera on the snowboard, bicycles, motorbikes and at beaches.
In mid-2019 I indulged a long time interest in audio recording, and invested in a Rode NT1 microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 interface. I’m still loving them both.
Video editing
BlackMagic DaVinci Resolve 20.x is great for video editing, if a little overpowered for me, and I use both YouTube and Vimeo for video availability when I do put something online, though most is family videos. I use LosslessCut for hacking away unneeded footage from my video excursions.
Audio Editing
Since buying a proper microphone and audio interface, I went for Reaper 7 as a cheap but easy to understand DAW. For the small fee it’s difficult to say how much nicer, fast and easier Reaper is than other options.
Gadgets
- Digital Audio Players (DAPs): Fiio/Snowsky Echo Mini & Hifi Walker H2 running RockBox firmware (2026/03).
- Nothing Phone 3a smartphone (2025/08).
- Meta Quest 3 VR Headset (2024/12)
- Sony Playstation 5 for gaming (2023/02).
- Flexispot EQ5 Pro standing desk (2021/12).
- Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones (2020/02) - replaced the battery in 2026/04.
- Kindle PaperWhite 2015 (2015/09).
- Zoom H1 audio recorder (2012/03).
- Raspberry Pi’s of various generations (1-4) doing various things.
- Arduino Uno and other electronics kit (2013 onwards).
Hosting
This site and my email is housed on some space at Kualo.com.