Author: Naomi Roberts
Date Posted: 3/12/2025
An overview of the tech I used in 2025!
My setup didn't really change much this year, and the machines I use are still mostly identical to last year!
This is still my main computer, however I have made an upgrade since last year - I upgraded my old RTX 3060 to a RX 7900 XT, which has so far been a very good investment. I have also switched over to NixOS as my main OS, which has been the best decision I have made for myself.
CPU: i5 12400f
GPU: RX 7900 XT
RAM: 32gb@3200mhz DDR4
OS: NixOS with nixpkgs-unstable and latest Linux kernel
The switch to NixOS has improved my Linux desktop and development experience so much. I honestly could not see myself being able to go back to using any other distro for my computer. Having everything in a central location and knowing that my computer would basically always work has been such a breath of fresh air this year.
Another thing that has changed is my window manager - I have switched from Hyprland to Niri, a scrollable window manager. This choice was made after hopping between various different WMs and DEs for a while, including KDE and LabWC. Niri was the most recent one I tried, and it really stuck with me. The ability to block certain windows from being captured by screenshots, screenshares and recordings has been amazing while talking to my friends, or blocking out certain windows while running my D&D sessions.
If you want to know more about Niri, there are some very good videos on YouTube by Brodie Robertson that showcases it fairly well. I would also reccomend just tryingit out yourself to get the feel, as I don't think a video can quite do it justice.
This is still my ROG Ally, which I continue to use for travelling between home and university. It has been switched over to Bazzite Linux, an immutable Fedora-based distro made to emulate the SteamOS experience on other devices. I no longer play any Windows-only games, so it didn't make sense to keep Windows on it. I'm currently replaying Tomb Raider (2013) on it, trying to 100% the game. Performance is still great, and I'm still surprised at how well these little handhelds perform.
Still my shitty old laptop, which has actually been dead for most of the year. It's been sitting in a bucket round my parent's house since the start of summer, waiting for someone to fix it. As of today (2nd December 2025), it has been fixed! My Dad walked into my bedroom about 2 hours ago and handed it to me - very kind of him to fix it for me! It's still running Windows 10, but I do plan to see if NixOS will be able to run on it without the weird flickering issues I had last time I tried any Linux distro on it.
CPU: Ryzen 3 2200u
GPU: Radeon Vega 3
RAM: 8gb@2400mhz DDR4
OS: Windows 10 (for now)
As I mentioned earlier, I hopped about different window managers and desktop environments this year on my main PC, after finally settling on Niri.
Zed (fully moved over to Zed from VSCode now)
Helix (still my main terminal-based editor)
IntelliJ IDEA (still for Java/Kotlin)
Foot (main terminal emulator)
Alacritty (used on Barbatos)
NixOS (Now my main OS on Calibarn, I managed to figure out the Nix language and it suddenly clicked.)
Bazzite (nice handheld distro, I dislike the focus on Flatpaks but I mostly just use it for gaming anyway)
Windows 10 (on Barbatos for now, might switch to NixOS soon)
I touched a lot less languages this year, focusing mainly on my Minecraft mods and Gleam projects.
Gleam (still my favourite language a year later)
Java (Minecraft modding)
Kotlin (Minecraft modding, but better!)
C++ (used for university assignments, Unreal Engine 5 sadly)
Nix (for NixOS configuration - does this even count?)
I have barely touched Git this year, mainly using Jujutsu for everything. The inter-compatibility with Git repos is fantastic, and jj just feels so much more in tune with how I program.
I have also switched my Git forge around a bit, trying to reduce my reliance on GitHub as much as possible. This time last year I was using Codeberg for most of my projects (a great hosted Forgejo instance), but I have since started to use Tangled for all my personal projects. Tangled is a new forge built on top of the AT Protocol, which is cool as fuck and you can read more about it on their blog.