# PSA: Linux and open source software recs

2021-07-11

I usually groan when I see these "What I use" blog posts about Linux software. It's so nerdy, like even nerdier than the nerd I already am. Okay, forget that. Here's some recommendations of the software that I use every day. All of it, minus bandcamp, is open source. Here's what I prioritize: fast, navigable with vim/keyboard, good defaults, and supports my life coding, making art and teaching.

### Fish shell

Autocompletion, syntax highlighting, auto-suggestions, sane scripting, friendly questions and answers on stackoverflow, straightforward documentation. Need I say more? It's my default shell and I've been using it 6ish years.

### Pyradio

Command-line drop-dead simple stream listening app. I have been using this for at least 5 years and I love it. I am literally listening to internet radio every day for much of the day and this is a simple, easy-to-use and ultra-fast app. Mute, navigate, play, edit. 

=> http://www.coderholic.com/pyradio/ Pyradio

### Cryptpad 

Drop-in Google Docs replacement but it's private. Has docs, spreadsheets, whiteboard, presentations, forms and I think a few others. You can make an account and sign in to save to your 'drive', or not. You can self-host or use the Tildeverse one.

=> https://pad.tildeverse.org/ Tildeverse-hosted cryptpad instance

### Krita 

I always hated Photoshop. Krita is my preferred Photoshop alternative for image editing. Yes, there is GIMP as well but Krita is elegant and photoshop-like with less cruft and you don't need to read a manual to just jump in.

=> https://krita.org/en/ Krita

### Darktable

My drop-in photo editing / organizing app.

=> https://www.darktable.org/ Darktable

### Neovim (Vim)

Yes, I'm addicted to modal editing. I prefer vi-keys navigation in all my apps and have vi-keys set up in my fish shell for command prompt line editing. I use this for all offline text editing.

I do my code editing and grant writing, website editing, etc all in this. I have a simple config, but the two plugins I use the most are Goyo ("zen" writing - centers and simplifies the editor), and MarkdownPreview which launches my default firefox browser and displays my markdown as an html page on a local server instance.

### Youtube-dl (including to play my Bandcamp music!)

I do use Youtube-dl to download videos and especially audio from YouTube. For instance, there are creative commons-licensed talks, performances and more from my gallery that I needed to store locally. But in addition, I also use this to play bandcamp music. Yes, I use this even for albums I own.

Here's the fish shell function I set up. It's very simple.

```
function bandcamp --description 'stream bandcamp tracks of an album url'
	echo "usage: bandcamp full-album-url"
	echo "Navigate tracks with PgUp / PgDown"
        mplayer (youtube-dl -g $argv)
end
```

### Amfora gemini client

Amfora gemini client is fast, has vim-keys, and is consistent. I've written about this previously on my gemlog. I use it on my computer and on the tilde community ctrl-c.club when I ssh in (for example when browsing via iSH / Alpine Linux on my phone or ipad). I contributed the "slimey" theme.

=> gemini://makeworld.space

### Tildegit

Drop-in Github/Gitlab replacement, but better! No cruft. No terrible politics. Not a corporation.. Available to all members of tilde communities.

=> tildegit.org Tildegit

### Tilda terminal emulator

I literally found this one when I was reading one of those "22 best Terminal Emulator Applications on Linux" articles on opensource.com or something like that. This one is dead-fast, simple, but not quite as minimal as st. It has a few profiles that look good out of the box. Never had any problems. Never hangs.

### Vimwiki

I have some 250+ pages on my personal wiki. I've been using this for a few years now and it's (yes) fast, simple, vim-navigable. I use this pretty much every day for note-taking, bookmarking, planning, task lists, etc, basically as my own version of the beloved emacs org-mode.

### fmpeg

For trimming down or converting videos between formats or concat'ing multiple videos together.

### imagemagick

For converting between formats.

### rogue and brogue

I've been playing these roguelikes for years. I've never even come close to beating either of them.

### Mastodon

I love the merveilles.town community and the wider community of folks I chat with in the Fediverse. I tend to use this through the web client but sometimes I also use the toot CLI client, particularly running it in toot tui mode.

### tldr

Despite using the command line most of the time, and despite using fish shell with auto-complete, I am often forgetting the best way to use lots of CLI software. In steps tldr, which usually has my back. These are user-contributed suggested recipes for the most common ways of using command line programs. I've also contributed my first pull requests to tldr a few years ago, for programs that were missing.

=> https://tldr.sh/

I use other software as well but I think this is my core toolkit.

=> ./ back to index

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Comments can be emailed to lettuce@ctrl-c.club
