Software I use

Introduction

I grew up with Windows computers and switched to a Mac computer when I was a teenager. Eventually I got very annoyed with all the proprietary software, and my dependence on expensive hardware and software got real. I realised that if my computer got damaged or lost, I would not have the money to replace it. This motivated me to switch to Linux and start using FLOSS software. Little did I know that it would fundamentally change the way I computers. Today I only use FLOSS software, and can easily do 100% of my computer needs (personal/noise) on a 15 year old computer that could be acquired for little to no money. I can not imagine ever going back to be using Windows or Mac computers.

Today my main computer is a macbook air 11" with an Intel i7-3667U and 8GB Ram from 2012, that I bought used a couple of years ago. It is running a minimal install of Arch Linux.

Basic

Operating System
• I have been using Linux for all my computer needs since 2019. My distribution of choice is Arch Linux, primarily because it was my first experience with Linux and it fit pretty well with my overall commandline focused minimalist approach to computing.

Compositor/Window Manager
• Hyprland: tiling Wayland compositor. I use a very basic setup with no flashy animations.
• Waybar: Status bar

Terminal emulator / multiplexer
• Alacritty
• Tmux

Shell
• I use Bash because of it's simplicity and wide adoption.

Text editor
• vim: unlocked the power of text files for me and is one of the most liberating piece of software I have used. I'm also a fan of the vim keybindings and use them whenever I can

File manager
• I only use Bash shell and scripts for navigating and organizing my files.

Audio/Video playback
• mpv: for quick audio and video playback
• mpd with ncmpcpp: for more organized listening

Webbrowser
• qutebrowser: keyboard-focused browser.

Email client
• neomutt: TUI email client

RSS reader
• newsraft:TUI RSS client.

PDF reader
• zathura

Image viewer
• nsxiv:

Production

Audio editing
• ffmpeg and sox : for basic audio editing, file manipulation and repetitive tasks.
• Ardour: when I need a graphical interface.

Broadcasting
• Icecast 2: broadcasting server
• For my broadcasting client I use a bash script based around ffmpeg. I'm planing on sharing the script in the future, but I need to clean up the code. For an easy to use GUI client I have used and recommend butt.

Database
• recutils: a simple text based human-readable database format. I use it to keep track of releases, broadcasts, shows and more.

Image editing
• I use Gimp for image editing and have recently began using Inkscape for vector based stuff