Jonathan Bossenger

Uses

I’ve been building PCs since high school, even though back then they were made up of whatever I could find in bargain bins or second-hand. Computers are the tools I use to earn a living, support my family and pay for my hobbies, two of which also involve computers. This page lists what my current setups are.

Laptop – 14-inch MacBook Pro (Apple M1 chip)

Since I joined Automattic, my new daily driver is a company-sponsored 14-inch MacBook Pro, with the new Apple M1 chip. This laptop is a beast, and while I still don’t like macOS, the new Apple hardware is impressive.

  • Apple M1 Pro chip with 10-core CPU & 16 core GPU
  • 32GB unified memory
  • 1TB SSD

Office Workstation

Custom-built as a new workstation in Dec 2020. I don’t use this as my daily driver anymore, but I still have it hooked up in my office if I ever need to access Ubuntu, Windows, or for gaming. During the course of 2022 I doubled the RAM to 32GB and in Jan 2023 I upgraded the graphics to an RTX 3060.

  • AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
  • Asus TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS (WIFI) Motherboard
  • 32GB 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR 4 RAM
  • Palit GeForce RTX 3060 12GB Graphics Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC 6GB
  • Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB NVMe SSD
  • 2 x WD Blue 1TB 3.5″ SATA Storage Drives
  • Cooler Master MWE GOLD 650W ATX PSU
  • Cooler Master Masterbox K500L ATX case

Home PC

Ex office workstation, this was a 2018 “workstation” upgrade for my previous PC, which I’d custom-built in 2010. Now that I have the MacBook Pro, I’m probably going to turn this into a media center for the home, to replace the old Lenovo I have for that purpose. I had originally planned to turn this into a media centre, but it doubles as an Ubuntu workstation when I need one at home, and for home gaming. In Jan 2023 I migrated the GTX 1660 Ti graphics card to this PC when I upgraded the office workstation.

  • AMD Ryzen 5 2600x CPU
  • MSI x470 Gaming Plus Motherboard
  • 16GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4 RAM
  • Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Ti OC 6GB Zotac Geforce GTX 1060 3GB Graphics Card
  • 128 GB m.2 SSD – Ubuntu
  • 128 GB Transcend 2.5″ SSD – Windows
  • WD Blue 1TB 3.5″ SATA Storage Drive
  • Samsung 1TB 3.5″ SATA Storage Drive

Latest Posts

  • Switch MySQL 8 Authentication Mode to native_password

    modern computer placed near server racks

    This past weekend, I was fiddling with some “devopsy” things, and I had to figure out how to switch the default MySQL 8 authentication method from auth_socket to native_password. One of the big changes to MySQL in version 8 is the default authentication method. In older MySQL versions, when you installed the mysql-server package, it […]

  • What Is the Best Local Web Development Environment for macOS?

    And why is it (currently) Laravel Valet? One of the main reasons I switched from Windows to Ubuntu for my development workstation back in 2006 was that I was tired of complicated setups for managing local development environments. Because Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, spent a lot of time making Linux, Apache, and MySQL […]

  • Belief

    japanese lucky coin cat

    #ClickPublish When I was young, I believed I was allergic to mac and cheese! I won’t go into the details of why, but that belief was so strong that once at a pre-grade 8 summer camp, I refused to eat dinner one night because it was mac and cheese. To this day, I still don’t […]

  • 10 Things I Hate About Ubuntu

    I generally consider myself someone to be open to new experiences and prepared to consider both sides in any given discussion. This does sometimes mean that I may express opinions that are not popular. As Morten once reminded me so well, “The devil’s advocate advocates for the devil”, and he’s not wrong. After I posted […]

  • Route 44

    If you live close to Cape Town, in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, you’ve probably heard of the R44. It’s the road that runs from Gordons Bay, along the coast past places like Betty’s Bay, Pringle Bay, and Kleinmond, and connects back to the R43 at Arabella Country Estate. On the other side […]

  • Using a MacBook As a Long-time Ubuntu User – The Week of Mac

    Macbook

    This post summarizes my (almost) week of using a Mac, as a long-time Ubuntu user. You can read why I tried this experiment here. Thursday – Day 1 The first annoyance started when I connected the MacBook up to the USB type-C hub I had purchased. While the hub did its job well (more on […]

  • Using a MacBook as a Long-time Ubuntu User – Preparation

    Using a MacBook Day 0

    If you read my last post, after 30 years of using computers, I bought my first Apple laptop. I’ve long been opposed to using Apple products for various reasons. However, the combination of the new Apple silicon and a requirement for access to an Apple computer for my work means that I now own an […]

  • Apple Silicon MacBook Air – Unboxing and Initial Thoughts

    MacBook Air

    If you’ve spent any time reading this blog, you will know that my personal operating system of choice is Ubuntu. I’ve used Ubuntu since 2006, first as a local development server (a physical box hooked up my local network), and then switched to using it as my daily driver in 2008. I had short stint […]

  • Async Conf – An Asynchronous Online Conference

    brown and black wooden chairs inside room

    Ever since the world of tech conferences went to shit last year, I’ve not attended any virtual ones. They don’t appeal to me at all. The main reason is that when I attend conferences, it’s to meet up with my fellow attendees, greet old friends, meet new ones, and discuss all manner of topics. Attending […]