This list does not mean to say that the foo app is better than the baz app, every app has its audience. Other than that, I keep this list to know what app I have to consider my self to donate.
If you spot the pattern, all started with the GUI app then I replaced them with a terminal app or Emacs extensions. I did this to make faster operation using a keyboard, fewer dependencies, and easier to re-install in another machine. Since they only rely on dotfiles configs which I fully understand and track.
Music Player #
audacious (3 years) ⇨ cmus (1 year) ⇨ mpv
I like the tabbed playlist UI from audacious, and I think this is the only music player in GNU/Linux that has a tabbed-playlist. Then I move to cmus, and now mpv.
I invoke mpv within Dired Emacs, so I can choose to play one song repeatedly, or whole songs in particular directory or a playlist defined in plain text.
Audio Editing #
audacity
This is enough for my needs.
Accounting #
LibreCalc (1 year) ⇨ hledger (2 years) ⇨ GnuCash
hledger integrated well with emacs. Sadly, I do most transactions while holding my mobile phone, not my laptop. So it is easier for me to add transaction to GNUCash Android immediately, then sync it with GNUCash on my laptop.
Chat Clients #
Quassel (2 years) ⇨ Hexchat (1 year) ⇨ Irssi (1 year) ⇨ ERC
Data Backup & Recovery #
DejaDup (past 1 year) ⇨ Borgbackup
I love how BorgBackup handle diffs, compression, pruning old archive, and mounting backup archive when I deleted a certain file by accident. I run a daily backup using a script that executed automatically using anacron.
Desktop customization #
Theme: Arc Theme
Cursor: La Capitaine Icon Theme
Icons: Papirus Icon Theme
Editors #
IDE: Geany / Kate ⇨ Emacs
Notes: Kjot ⇨ Emacs
I start using Geany and Kate as my first text editor for software development, and Kjot for taking notes. I love KJots for its ability to put a timestamp in the notes. But I need a lot of custom action for taking notes and managing them. Then I look into Emacs, a truly customizable editor.
I learn to use it back in 2016. It’s truly customizable that I have a lot of custom functions for all my daily activities. I use it for nearly everything – coding, notes, todo, playing musing, checking Github notifications, Pomodoro, and etc – now.
Email #
Mutt ⇨ Mu4e
File Manager #
Nemo (2 years) ⇨ Dolphin (2 years) ⇨ Midnight Commander (1 year) ⇨ Dired Emacs and Thunar
I use Dired Emacs all the time and Thunar occasionally. I’ve many customs functions for Dired such as opening new Tmux pane, play music in mpv, etc.
Graphic Creation #
Vector: Inkscape
Raster: GIMP
Image Viewer #
Gwenview (1 year) ⇨ feh ⇨ xsiv
feh does not support displaying GIF, so I move to xsiv.
Screen Recorder #
kazam
Screenshot #
KScrenshot (1 year) ⇨ scrot ⇨ maim and flameshot
I used to take all the screenshot using main and my custom script. I use GIMP to annotate image – put text or arrow --, turns out using flameshot is 5x faster to annotate images. Love it.
Gif #
Silentcast (2 years) ⇨ Peek
I move to Silientcast because previously Peek is so horrible. Producing a short GIF with huge Gigabyte size even for short recording. After two years I move back to Peek since it’s easier for me to start and stop, and the previous bug was fixed.
Video editor #
KDEnlive
KDEnlive pulls a huge amounts of KDE dependencies which I dislike, because I don’t use KDE. But this is the only good libre-software video editor that I find in the wild. I’ve tried other but they lack of functionalities and hung for long times on many occasions.
I’ve tried using X, the UI is simple, no KDE dependencies. But I need 2-3 hours more just to wait it hanging.
Browser #
Firefox
Love its mission.
Office #
LibreOffice
Org-mode
LaTeX
I use LibreOffice to view documents given by others or to collaborate with them. For my own documents, I use org-mode for light documents and LaTeX for complex documents.
PDF Tools #
Okular
The only reason I’m still in doubts about using it because it pulls tons of KDE dependency which I never use. Currently, I plan to try polar.
Security #
keepassX ⇨ Emacs Org with GnuPG
Terminal #
Konsole (2 years) ⇨ Uxrvt ⇨ St
I just need a super simple terminal, since it’s only become a host for my Tmux.
Utilities #
Gramps genealogy software
NCdu
Syncthing
I use Syncthing to sync ebooks and org files from my mobile phone to my laptops.
Unison
I use this to sync configs, code, files across my machine.
Dukto ⇨ Nitroshare
I use nitroshare when someone asks big files from my machine, I use it with crossover LAN cable. Dukto was slow to detect a pair, so I moved to Nitroshare.
Blog #
Octopress ⇨ Pelican
Octopress is huge and I don’t even know what certain file for. Then move to Pelican. I want to have an app that I can fully understand and control. There are many static generator apps out there. I choose Pelican mainly because I work mostly with Python.
Video #
mpv and vlc
Mostly I use mpv and vlc only for supplies.
Window Manager #
WM: i3-gaps
Bar: Py3status
There was a window manager that built with lisp so that it’s very extensible from the ground up. But I choose to stay with i3 since I don’t want to invest more time to learn new WM and port my configs. For now, i3 is enough for me.
I choose Py3status for my status bar to make it easier to write custom modules. Some of them year-progress and salaah-time.
