freebsdgirl
// notes from someone who builds hardware, breaks it creatively, and writes it all down before the smoke clears
Welcome to the Chaos
This is a place for stories about gaming rigs that almost take you down with them, keyboards that refuse to die gracefully, and the strange logic that justifies spending far too much on hardware you absolutely need. I’m a tinkerer who builds her own machines, breaks them in creative ways, and documents the aftermath in detail. Not an engineer, not calm around sparking PSUs, but very good at panicking with style.
What You’ll Find Here
Desktop Builds
Long-winded stories about hardware failures, the emotional spirals that follow, and what it actually takes to get a build running right.
On the rare evening when the rig behaves and nothing is on fire, I’ve been known to unwind with a well-known online slot instead of staring at another benchmark chart.
Peripherals & Gear
Opinions on keyboards, mice, and headphones, and why the cheap ones never seem to last as long as you hoped.
Upgrade Philosophy
Thoughts on budgets, upgrade cycles, and why the newest thing on the chart rarely matters as much as the marketing claims.
My Philosophy on Hardware
Buy the best you can reasonably justify, then leave it alone for as long as humanly possible. Benchmarks are seductive, charts are pretty, but most incremental upgrades don’t matter as much as advertised. I’d rather spend once, spend well, and spend rarely. Peripherals, though, matter more than people give them credit for — a good mouse and a keyboard that won’t quit can change your whole relationship with a machine.
About Lawrance Perez
I’m Lawrance Perez, the person behind freebsdgirl — not the most graceful around hardware, prone to dramatic overreactions, but ultimately just trying to keep the system alive. If you want the full case for why I can justify absolutely any purchase, there’s a whole page dedicated to it.
Say Hello
There’s always another story about a computer trying to end my life, another peripheral worth obsessing over, and another excuse for an upgrade I didn’t need. If you’ve got a question, a story of your own, or just want to argue about keyboards, get in touch.
Latest Articles
- Boot Environments Saved My Upgrade Weekend (And Yours Should Too)
A rundown of how I use ZFS boot environments to make FreeBSD upgrades boring again, including the one time I forgot to snapshot and paid for it. - Boot Environments Saved My Upgrade Day (And They Can Save Yours)
A rundown of how I use ZFS boot environments to make FreeBSD upgrades reversible, plus the one time they bailed me out of a genuinely bad afternoon. - Ditching sudo for doas: a smaller hammer for a smaller job
sudo works fine on FreeBSD, but it’s a lot of software for a job that’s usually “let me run this one command as root.” Here’s why and how I switched to doas.