My first SFF build

Preamble

After a decade of having macOS as my one and only OS for all of my home computing needs, I decided that it was time for me to tinker a bit with GNU/Linux too.

The decision was also influenced by the fact that after joining the fruit company, the amount of work that I do on GNU/Linux systems has dropped considerably (as one can imagine), but there is a part of me that deeply enjoys hacking around Linux systems, or as someone would say,

[..] exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness [..]

Full build

Here are some hardware specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-124000F 12th Gen (Later updated to a Intel Core i7-14700: 28 cores, 5.3GHz)

• RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x16GB (later updated to 2x32GB)

• GPU: Originally a ASUS Phoenix GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, replaced with a MSI GeForce RTX 3050 so I could reach above 20 fps in Age of Empires 4 (and then with a Radeon RX 6600 XT because I was tired of waiting PopOS to update to the latest NVidia drivers since I was having issues and Houdini 20.5 was loading without Vulkan support)

• Hard Disk: 1TB SSD, Crucial P3 Plus: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/chzhP6/crucial-p3-plus-1-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-ct1000p3pssd8

• PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 650GM 650W : https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/Fq8j4D/evga-supernova-650-gm-650-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-sfx-power-supply-123-gm-0650-y1

• Motherboard: ASRock Z690M-ITX https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/2PYmP6/asrock-z690m-itxax-mini-itx-lga1700-motherboard-z690m-itxax

• Case: Fractal Design Ridge (Black) https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/y2t9TW/fractal-design-ridge-mini-itx-tower-case-fd-c-rid1n-01

OS

screenfetch:

                   -`
                  .o+`
                 `ooo/                 OS: Arch Linux 
                `+oooo:                Kernel: x86_64 Linux 6.4.2-arch1-1
               `+oooooo:               Uptime: 4d 9h 43m
               -+oooooo+:              Packages: 1462
             `/:-:++oooo+:             Shell: bash 5.1.16
            `/++++/+++++++:            Resolution: 2560x1080
           `/++++++++++++++:           DE: KDE 5.107.0 / Plasma 5.27.6
          `/+++ooooooooooooo/`         WM: KWin
         ./ooosssso++osssssso+`        GTK Theme: Breeze [GTK2/3]
        .oossssso-````/ossssss+`       Icon Theme: Mondrian
       -osssssso.      :ssssssso.      Disk: 265G / 926G (31%)
      :osssssss/        osssso+++.     CPU: 12th Gen Intel Core i5-12400F @ 12x 5.6GHz [41.0°C]
     /ossssssss/        +ssssooo/-     GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050
   `/ossssso+/:-        -:/+osssso+-   RAM: 17988MiB / 31930MiB
  `+sso+:-`                 `.-/+oso: 
 `++:.                           `-/+/
 .`                                 `/

Notes: Yes, I tried i3 as a window manager, but my impression was that it only works fine for when I'm doing dev tasks that only require a terminal a browser; if I am doing anything that requires a floating window (like using Houdini or other DCCs) then it starts to be confusing instead of helping.

First boot:

2025 update

This machine was converted to run PopOS since it was easier to run Maya on it (see Setting up sway on a new machine).

Updated screenfetch:

neofetch
             /////////////                [redacted] 
         /////////////////////            ------------
      ///////*767////////////////         OS: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS x86_64
    //////7676767676*//////////////       Host: Z690M-ITX/ax
   /////76767//7676767//////////////      Kernel: 6.12.10-76061203-generic
  /////767676///*76767///////////////     Uptime: 8 mins
 ///////767676///76767.///7676*///////    Packages: 2719 (dpkg), 43 (flatpak)
/////////767676//76767///767676////////   Shell: bash 5.1.16
//////////76767676767////76767/////////   Resolution: 3440x1440
///////////76767676//////7676//////////   DE: GNOME 42.9
////////////,7676,///////767///////////   WM: Mutter
/////////////*7676///////76////////////   WM Theme: Pop
///////////////7676////////////////////   Theme: Pop-dark [GTK2/3]
 ///////////////7676///767////////////    Icons: Pop [GTK2/3]
  //////////////////////'////////////     Terminal: WezTerm
   //////.7676767676767676767,//////      CPU: Intel i7-14700 (28) @ 5.300GHz
    /////767676767676767676767/////       GPU: AMD ATI Radeon RX 6600/6600 XT/6
      ///////////////////////////         Memory: 4873MiB / 64054MiB
         /////////////////////
             /////////////

I still find Arch an incredible distro for development, but for content creation PopOS can be a bit more user friendly. I now use Arch mostly on my Framework laptop :)