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Software I’m thankful for (2021)

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Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#381

Post by fsckboy »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #92
Dalewyn wrote: post #20

Strangely enough: Windows. Yes, I fucking hate Windows 10/11 for several laundry lists' worth of reasons, but you know what? At the end of the day, Windows is the only desktop OS that enables me to use my computer to do the shit I need or want to do. So long as that fundamental principle as a tool is not violated, I will forever be thankful for Windows regardless what criticism I might have for it.

I can't disagree, even if I would prefer something else. Easily the most compelling argument I've heard for Windows is Tom Scott's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIFE7h3m40U .

I haven't watched till the end of it, but he's on and on about bodging rather than computer science, and all I've gotta say is "sounds like he wished he knew how to use linux". Worse is better is not computer science.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#382

Post by aliencat »

Karabiner is incredible for making keyboard shortcut to do some pretty complicated task. Obsidian, what a note-taking app! Makes Evernote looks like a dinasour. Vim (and NeoVim), you learn it once and use it for everything.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#383

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

loudmax wrote: post #75

> WireGuard is a great demonstration of why the total complexity of the implementation ends up affecting the UX of the product. This is absolutely true! Probably everything you could do with WireGuard you could accomplish with OpenSSL/OpenVPN, but the complexity is staggering. This makes it much more difficult to troubleshoot and far more likely that there will be an error in the configuration that could lead to comp…

I'm torn on WireGuard.

Getting it set up was really easy. I think it took about an hour, which included standing up a new OpenBSD VM to run the server. Configuring clients (iOS) was pretty straight-forward and reasonable. I don't have a feeling that there's some security hole lurking in the configuration simply because there's not a lot to get wrong.

In comparison, IKEv2/IPSec was incredibly painful, especially when you also create configuration profiles for iOS and have to issue and distribute certificates. Once I understood how it worked it made some sense, but there's always that nagging feeling that I've screwed up the configuration because there's just so many options to get wrong. I've probably spent six hours, not all at once of course, getting it working and set up "just so."

In spite of all of this, I'm continuing to use my IKEv2/IPSec setup. I have not figured out how to get WireGuard to do split DNS, whereas this was a fairly simple part of the IKEv2/IPSec setup. The other requirement I have is split tunnels, but I think WireGuard can do that fairly easily.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#384

Post by sangnoir »

rocket_surgeron wrote: post #269
p4bl0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? At the university I work at some of the administrative staff with little to no technical knowledge are using Ubuntu and doing essentially the same thing they would on Windows or Mac, and that really not only web browsing, nor LibreOffice usage. For example they have to use custom horrible tools developed years a…

>I would have agreed with that 15 and maybe 10 years ago. Nowadays, do you really think this is still true? Last month we had six linux desktops at work fail to boot after an upgrade using the disto's built-in update manager because of video card driver issues. These were all workstations manned by data scientists with brains the size of planets who foolishly thought that keeping their systems up-to-date for security…

> Last month we had six linux desktops at work fail to boot after an upgrade using the disto's built-in update manager because of video card driver issues

We had a similar issue with updated official drivers at a previous gig at a corporate- but leading to BSoDs on Windows using DELL provided drivers (does that count as a Windows distro?). It was re-solved by downgrading the display driver and re-imaging the whole fleet. At a certain scale: you are bound to run into driver issues - unless you're on Mac with its homogenous hardware, and don't upgrade too early.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#385

Post by furstenheim »

pmontra wrote: post #250
Dalewyn wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of customization for one, either I do things the GNOME way or the highway. Screw that, if I wanted that I would be using MacOS and/or iOS instead since Apple does that far better. Form factor dissonance for another. GNOME clearly targets the mobile form factor, and it fails me for all the reasons Metro in Windows 8 failed me because guess what: I'm using a desktop/laptop, not a tablet/phone.

About configurability, I installed more than a dozen shell extensions and my Gnome desktop looks like and behaves like what a desktop should be for me, quite distant from the ideas of Gnome's developers.

Metacity works for me, nice standard look

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#386

Post by PikachuEXE »

aliencat wrote: post #382

Karabiner is incredible for making keyboard shortcut to do some pretty complicated task. Obsidian, what a note-taking app! Makes Evernote looks like a dinasour. Vim (and NeoVim), you learn it once and use it for everything.

Instead of Obsidian which requires payment to sync notes.

I am using Joplin: https://joplinapp.org

Using Dropbox as sync with E2EE (but you can use other ways to sync)

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#388

Post by blahgeek »

aqfamnzc wrote: post #278
onehair wrote: post #64

ffmpeg is one software that comes to mind. At first it sounds and looks complicated, but all the internet video is ran by it, and now even for small stuff I use it with admiration

Can you elaborate on "all the internet video is ran by it"?

For instance I found this old article "Google’s YouTube Uses FFmpeg" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2831292

This may have changed for Youtube but I believe that a large portion of video services still uses ffmpeg under the hood.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#389

Post by Smar »

wan_ala wrote: post #266
dividedbyzero wrote: post #126

The fish shell, makes using the shell feel almost painless. Hammerspoon, I use it to automatically switch audio devices based on context, so every call uses the best microphone currently available, window management via keystrokes, limiting media keys to Spotify, tons of other things. Indispensable. Arduino, I don't think I would be able to tinker with microcontrollers as much if I had to write C and use obscure tool…

I use fish as my main shell and haven't seen anyone else that has. Honestly its really good, the autocomplete feature is my favorite.

Long-time fish user here too. It's pretty widely available, so I suppose it has fair share of use.

Re: Software I’m thankful for (2021)

#390

Post by backslashr »

on ubuntu

- terminator

- apt

- pick color utility

- plex although i used it briefly

- blueman to get bt audio working for my sennheiser btnc 4.5

- openssh

on macos

- iterm2

- homebrew

- macsfancontrol on my intel based macs

- amphetamine

regardless of any os

- vscode

- vim and neovim now a days

- brave browsers tor window option

- google docs

- git

- fortune, lolcat & cowsay

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