PC software

All of the software on this page is cool and I think you should try it. I also use all of this software, and will update this page when I find new, even cooler software to use instead. Most if not all of my configuration files (dotfiles) are on my github. You can clone these and edit them to fit your needs, or you can use them as a reference for when you can’t figure out how to configure something.

Regular software

• Email client: neomutt. It’s fast and simple, though configuring it was a pain in the ass. I’m currently using it in combination with mbsync and imapnotify to get notifications for new emails, and sync my mailbox for fast email viewing.

• Music player: mpd with ncmpcpp. This is the best music setup I’ve ever used. I download all my music in .flac format and mpd just works. Since mpd has a server-client structure, I could also use this to set up multiple devices that can add music to a central queue at a party or something, but I just use it to launch an fzf mpc wrapper to quickly add music while I’m doing something else.

• Text editor: nvim. It’s vim. If you don’t like vim, you should try using it longer. If you still don’t like vim, you can use code oss which is visual studio code but without Microsoft’s creepy telemetry features.

• PDF viewer: zathura. It’s a pdf viewer with vim bindings, and it works with my TeX editing setup’s live reload thingy.

• Image viewer: sxiv. It’s like zathura but for images, but it also does a bunch of other stuff that I don’t use very often.

• Browser: brave. It’s a normie-friendly chromium fork with extra privacy features! I of course use brave (or any chromium-based browser) with tampermonkey, ublock origin, stylus and dark reader.

• Terminal: st. It’s fast and simple, nothing to complain about. I have my own st fork, with a bunch of patches that make me happy.

• Password manager: bitwarden. Open source password manager that you can host yourself. It also has public servers which are mostly free, but some features like time-based one-time passwords are paid. All the clients are also open source.

• Document typesetting: LaTeX (using latexmk with the XeTeX compiler).

• File browser: ranger. It’s kind of slow, but I use the bulkrename feature very often, and I haven’t gotten used to the perl rename script yet.

• unar. I like running unar [archive] instead of using 7z, tar, unzip, etc. It creates a new folder to unpack to automatically so it does exactly what I need.

OS stuff

• Window manager: i3-gaps. I tried it once and didn’t switch back so this is a winner I guess. I’ve also heard good things about dwm, though I haven’t used it myself. Most people complain about i3’s limited configurability, but I haven’t ran into something that it doesn’t do for me.

• Application launcher: rofi. I’ve been using rofi since I started using linux, and haven’t switched to anything else because it’s very configurable, and has a dmenu mode for using it instead of dmenu with other scripts. I use it primarily as my application launcher, but I also have a hotkey setup to launch bwmenu which is a script that fills in bitwarden passwords using rofi.

• Shell: zsh with oh-my-zsh. It’s zsh, all the cool kids use it already. I do have /usr/bin/sh ln -s‘d to /usr/bin/bash, but I’d like to change that to /usr/bin/dash. Eh, I’ll get around to it someday.

• Status Bar: polybar. Simple bar, gets the job done, the configuration files make me go insane though. It took me a good half year of ricing to understand the polybar configuration files, and I’m still not sure if I do.

• Notification daemon: dunst. I used to use deadd-notification-center, but that has waaaay too many haskell dependencies on arch, so I don’t use that anymore.

• Global keybinds: xbindkeys. Simple configuration, works flawlessly, 10/10.

• Compositor: picom. It’s a simple compositor. I use it to enable vsync for desktop windows, and I have it set up to only show a drop shadow on floating i3 windows.

Closed source

• discord. Gamer. The only reason this is listed here is because I use discord with betterdiscord (which is open-source). Betterdiscord allows you to use custom css themes, custom plugins and a whole bunch of other cool stuff that regular discord doesn’t do. It’s technically against TOS, but I don’t really care as I only use quality of life improvement plugins.

• figma. It’s the designing software that I use to create user interface or website mockups. It’s easily accessible though a browser, and it uses webassembly so it’s also decently fast. It’s free for personal use.

Server software

This is the software that runs on my home server.

Email

I used Luke Smith’s emailwiz to set up my email server. The script installs and configures an email setup with postfix, dovecot, spamassassin and opendkim.

Etesync

I run my own etesync server for synchronizing my to-do lists, calendar and contacts. It’s relatively easy to set up, and has a web interface that you can use with your own self-hosted instance.

Bitwarden

I also run my own bitwarden server. It uses docker with docker-compose, which are two things that I’m supposed to know about, but I don’t.

I’m working on a connect 4 website myself, and I’m planning on learning to use docker with docker-compose to make it easier to run the seperate parts that are needed to host the project.

Git

I have a cgit server to host my git repositories on https://git.pipeframe.xyz, and I use gitolite for ssh git push access. Cgit is very easy to set up, and I like it very much. Gitolite on the other hand is a pain in the ass to set up, because the documentation is not that great. If you’re planning on using gitolite on your own server, set the umask in ~/.gitolite.rc of your server’s git account to 0022.

SFTP

I have two semi-public sftp accounts set up on my server: media and sftp. sftp is for generic file sharing, and media is for my media. Both accounts have tty login disabled and are chroot-jailed to /var/media and /var/sftp.

Phone apps

These are the apps that I use on my phone. I recently upgraded my 2017 Nokia 6 to a Google Pixel 4a (sunfish). It’s a great phone! You can root it or flash custom rom’s very easily, and it gave me new appreciation for the basic features of a smartphone. The Pixel 4a has really good haptics. They’re almost iPhone level, though I won’t be using iPhones any time soon.

I flashed CalyxOS as soon as it was 5 minutes out of the box, but ended up not liking it because of it’s nonexistant root support. I’m currently using LineageOS 18.1, rooted using magisk.

Open source

• One-time password generator: andotp

• App store: aurora store. This app works better when you’re rooted, but it’s way better than the google play store.

• App store: aurora f-droid

• Password manager: bitwarden

• Browser: bromite. This is basically ungoogled chromium but for mobile.

• Calendar: etar

• etesync

• File browser: material files. It looks sexy, it’s free, it’s awesome.

• Email client: k-9.

• Maps: osmand.

• Music player: shuttle. It looks sexy, it’s free, it’s awesome.

• Instant messenger: signal.

• Manga reader: tachiyomi

• To-do lists: tasks.org. This is easily the best to-do app I’ve ever used, and it integrated very well with etesync.

  If you’re cheap (like me), you can get ‘free’ pro by downloading this app through f-droid instead of the play store. It’s still nice to donate.

• Smart home control: home assistant. the whole spiel.

• Notes: leaflet. It’s basically Google Keep but open source and without Google. It’s part of the PotatoProject which is a custom Android rom, and there were plans for an open source notes sync server that you could host yourself, but I haven’t seen that pop up yet.

  The app is written in Flutter, and did have choppy scrolling animations on my old phone. I’m not sure if that was a bug or my old phone just being underpowered, but it’s something I want to mention anyways.

• Weather: geometric weather. It’s really good. Good animations, live wallpaper, fast, etc.

• RSS Reader: tiny tiny rss. This app requires that you host your own tiny tiny rss server, but I do and the app works great!

• Myanimelist client: moelist. I don’t know how I found this app but it’s a real gem. If you use MAL you should download this app.

• PDF reader: pdf viewer plus. This is the only one that’s actually decent. Good UI, good UX, pretty fast rendering. 9/10

Requires root

• Ad-blocker: adaway. It does have a rootless mode, though the app warns you that it’s slower and impacts your battery life negatively.

• Theme engine: substratum. Substratum requires root on android 9+, unless you’re on stock samsung (one ui). Android 8 and under users can buy andromeda. Samsung users can buy synergy. They’re both developed by the same people behind substratum, but they’re not open source.

Closed source

• Reddit client: sync