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Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

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Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#51

Post by stuntkite »

subjectsigma wrote: post #50
stuntkite wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a ton of writing and system description. I've got kit in Illustrator, I've bought tools on the mac like Scrivener[0] and Scrapple for writing fiction and technical documentation. I can really move with Omnigraffle. I've bridged that gap with writing my own tools in Python with JS web display layers. I am a competent developer in a few languages and I have known about emacs and org-mode for going on a decade…

I'm a huge emacs fan but this seems silly. You're comment makes it sound like you're struggling with emacs - don't, just use whatever you're comfortable and productive with.

Well a big thing that happened for me this year is losing OSX as my primary environment. So everything is in flux and has been for about six months. I don't see Apple turning around for what I need and I've been 100% linux desktop over this time period. I'm a long time linux and BSD user, but haven't had it as my primary OS in nearly a decade.

My job has shifted towards ops and managing kubernetes clusters at scale. Since I'm refiguring everything I used to do this year, I figure I might as well try things I always meant to that have been around forever and seem to do it just fine without buying into commercial tools (that largely aren't available for my platform anyway).

Because of my work focus on virtualization, my primary machine is starting to be a mini cluster and I have a 5 node rack adjacent. Being portable between all these environments is becoming an asset very quickly.

Maybe it's silly, but I'm not moving around comfortably in almost anything like I was. World's my oyster I guess.

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#52

Post by rodelrod »

hestefisk wrote: post #32
a-saleh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second emacs org-mode. I use almost nothing out of it. I have the default spacemacs configuration. I literaly just write bullet lists and cycle TODO and DONE states on them. Still the best todo-manager :)

I tried getting into org-mode and leave OneNote. Had to give up at the end of the day due to the lack of image / rich content support. I find it incredibly useful to be able to paste rich content into OneNote and then write work tasks around it. Is there any such option for emacs?

I'm no org-mode expert but I can drag and drop images into my org files with the default spacemacs configuration. I believe this is powered by org-download.

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#53

Post by dnlsrl »

thisgoodlife wrote: post #37
anikdas wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried visual studio code? I have replace all my IDEs (Pycharm, WebStorm) with vscode and never looked back. There are some issues if I am nitpicking but overall the experience is just outstanding.

Does vsc have good Django support?

Not built-in, but you can install extensions that cover your needs. Here are the VS Code extensions that have something to do with Django https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=django&targ...

Unfortunately, you'll have to test them for yourself since I don't have a use for them.

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#54

Post by dnlsrl »

zumu wrote: post #15

Rofi is pretty great. I'm also shamelessly addicted to guake (drop down terminal). I know there are more robust alternatives, but having grown up with Quake/CS, it just feels right.

I wanted to use Yakuake but it's for KDE and didn't want to install a complete DE just to use its dropdown terminal. Guake is a fairly good alternative, but I'm having an issue with it that it somehow makes title bars and top menus unclickable, which forces me to terminate it every now and then start it again.

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#55

Post by akulbe »

cik wrote: post #44

In addition to the usual suspects of tmux, random window managers + friends, here are the applications I have to install to function rofi - Fast, phenomenally good launcher terminator - Terminal that allows splitting, tabbing, and more importantly bonding redshift - Literally, shift my red light levels by time of day retext - I write a lot of markdown. Seeing it real-time previewed makes life significantly better for…

For terminator, what is bonding? is that what allows you to send keystrokes to more than one tab simultaneously?

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#56

Post by eric24234 »

tushartyagi wrote: post #36
lgunsch wrote: post #11

- i3 window manager - I just couldn't go back now. Over the course of the last 5 years I have saved time and made window management much less painful. - Parcelite clipboard history - very useful for various reasons. It's such a basic tool for me now I don't know how people live without one. Not a tool, but for any shell work learning the readline key bindings is a good time saver: Ctrl+a/e/n/p/b/f. It's just so much…

+1 for i3. I have a 13" laptop as my primary driver and using i3 is so much faster & convenient on such a small screen. Though I have made 2 changes to my workflow to get better out of it: - I use i3 inside XFCE. This allows me to use the xfce launcher, status bar, tray icons and other goodies, e.g. adding external monitor pops open the display properties, volume bar is available anytime. All this saves me from bindi…

4 / 5 window arrangements i use the same except Thunar. I dont remember why i choose that particular arrangement. Did you copy from some where ?

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#57

Post by eric24234 »

jessedhillon wrote: post #21
lgunsch wrote: post #11

- i3 window manager - I just couldn't go back now. Over the course of the last 5 years I have saved time and made window management much less painful. - Parcelite clipboard history - very useful for various reasons. It's such a basic tool for me now I don't know how people live without one. Not a tool, but for any shell work learning the readline key bindings is a good time saver: Ctrl+a/e/n/p/b/f. It's just so much…

FYI, one line change each to your bashrc and inputrc will get you vi keybindings instead of emacs

what's the change ?

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#58

Post by wasted_intel »

johncoltrane wrote: post #17

Switching back to Mac OS X is what really boosted my productivity as it allowed me to forget all about constant fiddling, broken drivers, breaking updates, inconsistent UX/UI, amateurish applications, etc. My Ubuntu box (an Ubuntu-approved Dell tower IIRC) required constant attention and ultimately died after two years while my mid-2011 Mac Mini went through 4 major Mac OSX/MacOS versions and countless security patch…

Counter-anecdote: I've been running an Arch install for 2+ years with zero problems. Picking hardware that has direct kernel support will save you a bunch of headaches.

Also, a rolling release distro, which you'd think would be less stable, provides better hardware support as the kernel and firmware packages are much more recent (not to mention libraries/build dependencies). Personally, I'd never go back to a fixed-release distro.

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#59

Post by bwat49 »

wasted_intel wrote: post #58
johncoltrane wrote: post #17

Switching back to Mac OS X is what really boosted my productivity as it allowed me to forget all about constant fiddling, broken drivers, breaking updates, inconsistent UX/UI, amateurish applications, etc. My Ubuntu box (an Ubuntu-approved Dell tower IIRC) required constant attention and ultimately died after two years while my mid-2011 Mac Mini went through 4 major Mac OSX/MacOS versions and countless security patch…

Counter-anecdote: I've been running an Arch install for 2+ years with zero problems. Picking hardware that has direct kernel support will save you a bunch of headaches. Also, a rolling release distro, which you'd think would be less stable, provides better hardware support as the kernel and firmware packages are much more recent (not to mention libraries/build dependencies). Personally, I'd never go back to a fixed-r…

Yeah I've got a dell xps 13 and I've never once had to fiddle with drivers

Re: Ask HN: What linux desktop tools/apps boosted your productivity?

#60

Post by craftyguy »

jac08h wrote: post #10
craftyguy wrote: post #9

Tmux, vim + handful of plugins, i3wm, mutt, qutebrowser. Without the ability to completely control my systems from the keyboard, I would suffer a bit hit to productivity and these applications allow me to do that.

also ranger for file management and saka key firefox/chrome extension

I prefer using no specialized application for file management. ls, cd, (rip)grep, find, less, tail, and others work perfectly fine.
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