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What is your most useful Linux app which others might not know about (please don't just give the name but a link and why it is good for you) ? (feddit.org)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml
161 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Why software do you use in your day-to-day computing which might not be well-known?

For me, there are ~~two~~ three things for personal information management:

  • for shopping receipts, notes and such, I write them down using vim on a small Gemini PDA with a keyboard. I transfer them via scp to a Raspberry Pi home server on from there to my main PC. Because it runs on Sailfish OS, it also runs calendar (via CalDav) and mail nicely - and without any FAANG server.

  • for things like manuals and stuff that is needed every few months ("what was just the number of our gas meter?" "what is the process to clean the dishwasher?") , I have a Gollum Wiki which I have running on my Laptop and the home Raspi server. This is a very simple web wiki which supports several markup languages (like Markdown, MediaWiki, reStructuredText, and Creole), and stores them via git. For me, it is perfect to organize personal information around the home.

  • for work, I use Zim wiki. It is very nice for collecting and organizing snippets of information.

  • oh, and I love Inkscape(a powerful vector drawing program), Xournal (a program you can write with a tablet on and annotate PDFs), and Shotwell (a simple photo manager). The great thing about Shotwell is that it supports nicely to filter your photos by quality - and doing that again and again with a critical eye makes you a better photographer.

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[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 60 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Aside from ones listed here:

System Tools

  • WinApps - Run Windows applications seamlessly integrated into your Linux desktop environment, like native including Adobe products.
  • Waydroid - Run Android applications in a container on Linux with full hardware access.
  • Topgrade - Upgrade all your system packages and dependencies in one command.
  • AM (AppImage Manager) - Easy AppImage management for installing, updating, and organizing portable applications.
  • Starship - Fast, customizable cross-platform shell prompt with Git integration and status indicators.
  • InShellisense - IDE-style IntelliSense autocomplete and suggestions for your terminal.
  • Tabby - Modern terminal emulator with tabs, split panes, and extensive customization options.
  • Zeit - Qt GUI frontend for scheduling tasks using at and crontab utilities.
  • KWin Minimize2Tray - KDE extension that allows minimizing windows to the system tray instead of taskbar.
  • Flameshot - Feature-rich screenshot tool with built-in annotation and editing capabilities.
  • CopyQ - Advanced clipboard manager with searchable history and custom scripting support.
  • Safing Portmaster - Free open-source application firewall with per-app network control, DNS-over-TLS, and system-wide ad/tracker blocking.

Productivity Tools

  • DSNote - Offline speech-to-text, text-to-speech and translation app for note-taking.
  • NAPS2 - User-friendly document scanning application with OCR and PDF creation capabilities.
  • Morphosis - Simple document converter supporting PDF, Markdown, HTML, DOCX and more formats.
  • Obsidian - Powerful knowledge management app with bidirectional linking and graph visualization.
  • BeeRef - Minimalist reference image viewer designed for artists and designers.

Media & Entertainment

  • Popcorn Time - Stream movies and TV shows via torrent with built-in media player.
  • Nicotine+ - Modern Soulseek P2P client for sharing and discovering music files.
  • XnView - Versatile image viewer, organizer, and converter supporting hundreds of formats.

Happy to list out the self hosted stuff too if there is interest.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 7 points 21 hours ago

I invented WinApps. http://nowsci.com/winapps

I had a conversation started with the org fr their takeover and they just dropped off. If anyone from there is reading this, please reach out.

[–] Gelik@feddit.dk 3 points 1 day ago

Morphosis & DSNote

Thanks, upvoting for those two.

[–] GFGJewbacca@midwest.social 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'd love your list of selfhosted stuff. I'm running a little server with TrueNAS Scale and it's working really well.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You could give a try to running a gemini server like agate. It is text + file serving protocol similar to gopher.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)

https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi

https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini

It is really good for organizing and distributing text, media and files like with gopher. And I think due to its simplicity, it is perfect for using it in a home or lab network.

[–] madjo@feddit.nl 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

What is the use case for it?

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Gemini is kinda a modernized version to the old Gopher protocol. Its purpose is to share hyper-linked text documents and files over a network - in the simplest way possible. It uses a simple markup language to create text documents with links, headings etc.

Here is a FAQ

Main differences with similar technologies are:

  • It is much, much easier to write hyper-linked documents than in HTML

  • a server is much much smaller and easier to set up than a web server serving HTML. It can easily and securely run on a small Raspberry Pi without special knowledge on server security.

  • in difference to gopher, it supports modern things like MIME and Unicode

  • There are clients for every platform including Android and iOS

  • also, there are Web gateways which allow to view stuff in a normal web browser

  • unlike Wikis, it is only concerned about distributing content, not modifying files. This means that the way to store and modify content can be matched to the use case: Write access to content can be via an NFS or Samba server, or via an SFTP client like WinSCP or Emacs.

  • the above means that it does not need user authentication

  • the protocol is text-centric and allows for distraction-free reading, which makes it ideal for self-hosted blogs or microblogs.

Practically, for example, I use it to share vacation photos with family.

Two more use cases that come first to my mind:

  • When I did my masters thesis, our lab with about 40 people had a HTTP page hosted on a file server that listed tools, data resources, software, and contact persons. That would be easier to do with Gemini because the markup is simpler. Also, today it would not be feasible to give every student write access to a wen server's content because of the complexity of web servers, and the resulting security implications.

  • One time at work, we had a situation with a file server with many dozens of folders, and hundreds of documents. And because all the stuff had been growing kinda organically over many years, specific information was hard to find. A gemini server would have made it easy to organize and browse the content as collaboratively edited hypertext which serves as an index.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Media & Content Management

  • FreshRSS - Self-hosted RSS feed aggregator with multi-user support, mobile API, and custom tags.
  • AudioBookShelf - Self-hosted audiobook and podcast server with mobile apps and progress syncing across devices.
  • PhotoPrism - AI-powered photo management platform with facial recognition, geo-tagging, and automatic organization.
  • Jellyfin - Free media server for streaming movies, TV shows, music, and photos with no licensing restrictions.
  • Karakeep - Personal data backup and synchronization tool for maintaining local copies of online content. AI tagging, lists, easy to use interface. Really good stuff, especially combined with a browser plugin.

Productivity, Documents & Task Management

  • Vikunja - Task management app with Kanban boards, Gantt charts, multiple views, and team collaboration features.
  • Memos - Self-hosted memo hub for capturing and sharing thoughts with markdown support.
  • Docker Obsidian - Containerized version of Obsidian knowledge management app for browser access.
  • Stirling PDF - Comprehensive PDF manipulation tool with 50+ operations including merge, split, convert, and OCR.
  • Paperless-ngx - Document management system with OCR, tagging, and full-text search capabilities.
  • LanguageTool - Grammar and spell checking service with support for multiple languages and integration APIs.

Good Deeds

  • Archive Team Warrior - Docker container for contributing computing power to internet archiving projects.
[–] Kangy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I currently use Immich for photo backup and whatnot. Would you say PhotoPrism is better than Immich?

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was using it for auto tagging of categories. I haven't tried immich but I just moved my photos to my snapraid, so I might give it a shot. It looks like it's come far since I looked last.

[–] Kangy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

It does work really well. Backs up everything, the mobile app works. Though I am having trouble with it auto switching URL dependant on local or remote but I think that's a me thing

[–] GFGJewbacca@midwest.social 7 points 1 day ago

I have been running Jellyfin for a while now with great success, and prefer Immich over Photoprism. The rest look real interesting, especially Sterling PDF.