Software Recommendations

October 3, 2021

This article contains the software I use and recommend. Most of it requires little to no elite knowledge of GNU/Linux or software in general; not to say learning is bad…

Operating systems

I prefer to run UNIX-like operating systems.

Of course for the most part I run GNU/Linux systems; Operating systems based off the GNU core utilities and the Linux kernel that some people call “distros”. My Linux distro of choice is Arch Linux, mostly because it has a phenomenal wiki and a fast package manager with a large-enough pool of updated software, all the configuration and software is kept as simple as possible making maintenance a breeze, and the Arch User Repository (AUR) offers an excellent way to install packages outside of the relatively small vanilla repos. The AUR makes Arch (probably) the single distro with most software available for it.

(Other) Operating Systems

There is the issue of systemd, the innit system of choice for Arch Linux. Systemd does not follow the UNIX philosophy of being a small, simple, one-purpose program that’s easy to understand; Just like the Linux kernel, it is large and overgrowing, and mostly monolithic. I choose to use systemd and Arch Linux merely out of necessity and convenience; A distribution such as Artix, Arch Linux without systemd, may ship more broken or incomplete packages. There are also some packages I use that rely on systemd. If you are willing to live with these slight flaws, then Artix or Devuan is for you.

Gnu/Linux isn’t the only option when looking for a free and open-source software (FOSS) operating systems. The BSD family of operating systems is a sold option and in my opinion is more far superior to Linux. Yet, software availability isn’t as good as Linux, not to say that it lacks in this department. Plenty if not all popular open source software projects on Linux are ported to the BSDs, specifically FreeBSD; check the FreshPorts website for an updated list. If you are looking for a solid all around BSD operating system, look no further than FreeBSD. It’s the Arch Linux + Debian combo of the BSDs; Stable with best software availability. For the elitists out there, OpenBSD is the way to go; it emphasizes portability, standardization, correctness, proactive security and integrated cryptography.

Terminal Emulator

Being on GNU/Linux the terminal is arguably on of the most important peices of software. Two terminals emulators I recommend Alacritty and Suckless’ st. Alacritty is a full featured terminal out of the box with plenty of potions and customization to do in the config file. On the other hand, st is really minimal removing all the “bloat” and unused features found in most terminal emulators. I argue its unusable out of the box, lacking many important features. If you decide on going the Suckless route, I recommend trying out Luke smith’s fork; basically, st with sain defaults.

Shell

I normally have multiple shells installed on my system at once; dash and zsh. I have zsh set to my user shell due to its convenient autocomplete plugin and memory functions along with wonderful colorscheme compared to boring ‘ol Bash. However, I still keep Dash installed and run it occasionally to run more complex one-liner commands.

Text Editing

My choice of text editor is often vim; it offers a lot of complex and powerful functionality while also being usable by anyone who can open and type in a terminal. If you’re not ready to get your feet wet with vim just yet, try micro; a modern and intuitive terminal-based text editor with syntax highlighting and mouse support, far superior to nano in my opinion. However, while I mostly use vim to write I understand why people may wish to use a more “user friendly” option such as a graphical text editor. For this I recommend Notepadqq.

Desktop Environment

I personally prefer using the Dynamic Window Manager - DWM from Suckless as I find it to be the single one that most easily gets out of my way and puts emphasis on what I really care about: The actual programs I run on my machine. I also keep xfce on my system for the “traditional” desktop experience.

Web Browser

My web browser of choice is LibreWolf. This is a fork of Mozilla’s Firefox, but with all Mozilla telemetry and bloat removed. It also includes uBlock Origin out of the box, as a bonus. I chose to use this web browser simply because it’s the one with the least evil of them all. I combine LibreWolf with the Qutebrowser, one on the best “minimal” web browsers that doesn’t sacrifice functionality and performance. For the ultimate “Suckless” experience, look no further that Suckless’ surf.

A similar web browser is ungoogled-chromium; essentially Chrome, but with all Google spyware and bloat removed. You get the performance and wide support of Google Chrome, without any of the privacy concerns. Then there’s also the Brave Browser, which blocks ads and shows you more “privacy respecting” ads, paying you in their crypto, BAT. I find it to be a bit bloated and not exactly my thing, but I don’t hate it or oppose people using it.

Misc

Living mostly in the terminal, I found minimal yet powerful TUI replacements for all the major GUI applications. To start with lf is my file manager of choice; it’s basically a Ranger clone written in go. Being a terminal application, it lacks the drag-and-drop functionality, which convenient to have. You can have this functionality back by pairing lf with dragon. For any media consumption, I use mpv, a minimal media player that does the job done. It’s true power is in the shear amount of customizeability and personalization. My RSS/Atom feed reader of choice is Newsboat, which is terminal based. For those who prefer a GUI application, Newsflash is a solid choice. For casual pdf viewing, I use Zathura, a highly customizable and minimal pdf viewer. SXIV as an image viewer and dmenu as an application menu.

configs to all the programs I mentioned in this article and more are hosted on my GitHub page