GNU / Linux / Free Software

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[thread@melonking ~] $ echo "hey friends!!"


I thought we should build up a general thread for people who are into GNU, Linux and free software in general to chat and share what we are working on/have discovered recently! There probably is a somewhat sizable overlap between GNU/Linux hobbyists and retro web enthusiasts simply because of the nonconformist tech aspect, so I hope we can make this a huge thread

As for me, I have been using GNU systems on a Linux kernel basis nonstop for the past years, practically since I got out of high school. For some time, I have dualbooted with Windows for gaming purposes but I was fed up with it pretty soon and switched to full time GNU/Linux.

Right now, I have the following machines:

• Laptop: ASUS Zenbook 14X OLED w/ Arch Linux, XFCE4
• Gaming Computer: Custom built w/ EndeavourOS, Budgie DE
• Retro Laptop 1: Acer Aspire 7738G w/ Arch Linux, Trinity Desktop Environment and Ratpoison WM w/ Emacs
• Retro Laptop 2: Fujitsu Lifebook E6550 from 2000(!) w/ Red Hat Linux 7.1 on it (from 2001) running KDE 2

In real life, I am also the founder of a Free Software club at my university.

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This is my current laptop setup btw!

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I strongly believe I would also opt for full-time Linux usage if I wasnt so attached to my Steam library! Dual-booting or running Wine seems like far too much trouble than its worth when considering that my desire to muck around with a game can disappear in a matter of minutes.
Your desktop looks lovely. How is it using a vertical taskbar? Ive never tried it. :smile:


While Im not well-versed in the environment of Linux, I do like to take a nosey around for convenient, free and open-source products every now and again. I'll list a couple of my top picks and some niche ones too.

Firstly, I very much enjoy using KeePass as my go-to password manager. Its free, cross-device and with some fiddling and setup can automatically fill your passwords just like any other commercial password manager on the market at the moment. I love its minimal, accessible interface and is now how I prefer my applications.

TrueNAS (Née FreeNAS) can effectively turn an unused computer connected to your network into a NAS! Used to be quite obscure, but is now very widely-used. There are a couple of purchase options but the base version is free.

Before I pirated Microsoft Office (Ill admit my wrongs(!) I simply do not want to give a large organisation more money than theyre worth) I was using LibreOffice for generic tasks that required Office-esque software - though this is the one everyone knows about, it takes a place on my list. :tongue: OpenOffice is, I believe, the floundering and dying version of Libre.

Space Engine isnt a convenient app per se, but for me its the best thing ever. Simulating the universe on your computer has never been easier before! :tongue:

Lightshot is a very lightweight Snipping Tool variant that can either take control of your Print Screen key or another key bind and snap instances of your screen. The benefit is that you dont have to start up the application (itll start itself if configured to do so)! Just tap the key, crop your screenshot and edit it how you would like. It isnt necessary to upload your screenshot, either, you can just copy it to your clipboard using the Copy button or Ctrl + C.

DesignDoll is a decent (albeit limited) 3D posing tool with customisable parts that can be a priceless tool for artists struggling to understand perspective or anatomy! Clip Studio comes with one of these built-in, but since it is proprietary (albeit quite regularly on-sale for VERY good prices) users of Krita, Paint, FireAlpaca (you name it) do also have an option for that through DesignDoll too.

Cakewalk for digital music making, mixing, recording and mastering. What used to be proprietary is no longer. Yippee!

OBS for screen recording and streaming. No watermark, easy-to-use application that isnt resource-intensive.

VLC Media Player as a replacement for generic Windows Media Player or your OS equivalent. It can play a video of almost any file type and with the use of a couple of sneaky settings you can input a YouTube video and download it completely for free without the need for a YouTube Premium subscription or the use of a dodgy conversion website.

Flightradar24, available as an app on the App Store additionally, is (when used on desktop) a web-based flight tracking application (real-time and animated) that allows you to follow aircraft across a map of the world! There are some payment tiers for additional features, and your session times out after around fifteen minutes of usage (solved by refreshing the page), but if you just want to take a peek around aircraft currently in the air for whatever reason then all the functionality you require is right there!

A Discord Data Parser for your requested Data Package. When you receive your Discord data its placed into a variety of JSON and CSV files that are very tedious to read, and this nifty little application will take your ZIP package and organise them into Direct Messages, Servers, Account Information and the like in a simple interface.

Finally, for now, Undiscord (with the addition of a browser extension allowing UserScript management) is capable of deleting all of your messages within a Channel or Direct Message pretty quickly if left alone a little while to do the work - very good for distancing yourself from the privacy hellhole that is Discord, and one I intend to use once I can convince my companions to leave it for good! Do be warned however that using it may result in account termination.

While the list isnt exhaustive they are the lovely little programs (or websites) I have stumbled across that I can think off from the top of my tired head right now. I may come back and add some more!

Quick edit: I should note that if anyone here is a Discord user, you should download your Data Package and have a comb through it. You might find that there is a lot more information there than it feels there should be, which may convince you to make that move away from the service.

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I strongly believe I would also opt for full-time Linux usage if I wasnt so attached to my Steam library! Dual-booting or running Wine seems like far too much trouble than its worth when considering that my desire to muck around with a game can disappear in a matter of minutes.

... but you literally just click play in your Steam library to run something using Proton? It's exactly the same amount of hassle as on Windows. And even the one manual fix that you need for some games (use ProtonGE instead of standard Proton) is downloading one file and dragging it into a directory, forever. You don't have to fiddle around with Wine yourself at all, Steam does everything out of the box you need.

Your desktop looks lovely. How is it using a vertical taskbar? Ive never tried it.

Not much different from using a horizontal one, really. It feels about the same. Compared to things that don't use a taskbar or desktop at all, it's extremely familiar.


Also, adding to your list of great free software:

Kdenlive is an industrial-grade video editor that is even used by many film studios, and it's entirely created by the GNU/Linux community without any corporate backing.

LMMS is a sequencer and music production program that also can easily be considered on par with other industry solutions.

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... but you literally just click play in your Steam library to run something using Proton? It's exactly the same amount of hassle as on Windows. And even the one manual fix that you need for some games (use ProtonGE instead of standard Proton) is downloading one file and dragging it into a directory, forever. You don't have to fiddle around with Wine yourself at all, Steam does everything out of the box you need.

I forgot Proton even existed! Thank you for the reminder.

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... but you literally just click play in your Steam library to run something using Proton? It's exactly the same amount of hassle as on Windows. And even the one manual fix that you need for some games (use ProtonGE instead of standard Proton) is downloading one file and dragging it into a directory, forever. You don't have to fiddle around with Wine yourself at all, Steam does everything out of the box you need.

I forgot Proton even existed! Thank you for the reminder.

Oh don't worry about it!
And if you don't want to waste your time trying to get something to work, just put in the name of the game in protondb.com first and see if it runs.

[Starstorm_X1]

My Linux usage has been very on-off. Back in my college days, I used Manjaro on an old Core 2 Toshiba Satellite, and it proved to be quite useful for computer science and programming! (I admit, I'm still kind of used to GCC...) After that, I mostly stuck with putting Linux on my secondary computers for fun. Now that I got a new laptop recently (a Galaxy Book Pro), I might consider going to a dual-boot setup for that! As of now, though, I'm debating if I should put both Windows and Linux on one disk, or if I should buy a second SSD for Linux.

Anyways, my top two choices are Garuda Linux (which is Arch-based) and GeckoLinux Rolling (which is OpenSUSE-based). I'm kind of leaning towards the former due to the fact that the latter hasn't gotten a new ISO in ages. Though now I'm hearing rumblings that OpenMandriva's rolling release (now christened "ROME":wink: might actually be getting somewhere, so I might go for that!

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My first dive into Linux was in 2013 or 2014 (I don't know exactly what year this was) I had an old Dell laptop with no disk drive which meant no OS, and the only way I was able to get a functioning OS was with the live preview in Ubuntu.

It wasn't until I accidentally killed the laptop when I split water on it, so my dad bought me a brand new laptop of the same model but now with a hard disk and Windows installed.

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My first dive into Linux was in 2013 or 2014 (I don't know exactly what year this was) I had an old Dell laptop with no disk drive which meant no OS, and the only way I was able to get a functioning OS was with the live preview in Ubuntu.

...

It wasn't until I accidentally killed the laptop when I split water on it

This was the exact same fate as my first Ubuntu laptop. I loved that Toshiba Satellite like a brother.

I bought the original Microsoft Surface afterwards and tried installing Ubuntu on it because I thought the Unity desktop would be perfect on a tablet, but I could never get the wifi drivers to work. So that's when I went back to Windows, but I've been a Surface fan ever since.

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Switched to Artix a couple of days ago and it's great. Xfce is still my favorite desktop environment, I even turned on system sounds for the clickies and the beeps.

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My girlfriend gifted me her old netbook recently and I've been having fun setting it up as a super playful workstation! Who says that GNU always needs to emulate Windows/MacOS corporate blandness when you can have THIS

[cinni]

uhmmm /home/user/ i am absolutely OBSESSED with that UI!!

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uhmmm /home/user/ i am absolutely OBSESSED with that UI!!

Thank you!
It's simple to set up, really. It's the Pink theme for Moksha/Bodhi Linux. Just install Bodhi Linux on a PC or laptop or whatever, and download the pink theme from the store. I made some more adjustments but that's most of it. The icon pack is called Gartoon, also in the Bodhi app center.

And of course it's all free. c:

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I strongly believe I would also opt for full-time Linux usage if I wasn't so attached to my Steam library! Dual-booting or running Wine seems like far too much trouble than its worth when considering that my desire to muck around with a game can disappear in a matter of minutes.

I just use Proton. Valve developed it to make the Steam Deck work, and I find that it works very well on Pop!_OS as well. I got Oblivion to run, Deep Rock Galactic(Rock and Stone bruther) and Dark Souls. I don't play much these days as I am too busy, but I find that it usually works. The hardest game I had to get running was 2000's Deus Ex, and that was because the framerate was way too fast and the shadows were weird...but as it turns out, its like that even on Windows without addons.

I def can't recommend Linux to everyone, but it is way easier to use now than when I started lol.

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made my desktop look super cute!