Notepad++ - This piece of software is a very advanced form of Notepad. Fuck that basic Notepad shit that Windows or any other OS gives you. This one is all you’ll ever need for basic note-taking needs. But it does a hell of a lot more. One thing I love about it is that, if for any reason I put my PC to sleep, it crashes, power outage, I can run this again and everything I’ve ever written and no matter how many tabs - it’s all retained.
AIMP - The definitive media player that you’ll ever need for just playing stuff (music only, sorry if I mislead those thinking it can do video). Winamp and all the other software are just around for nostalgia (though Winamp has it’s uses where you need it to play specific formats like video game music such as SNES with .SPC). One feature that attracted me to it was, it used to infuriate me when I am playing something and something crashes in any other media player. And you boot up that media player and you have to play your playlist all over again or that song from the beginning.
Not AIMP, if I accidentally close it, crash or whatever, I can bring it back up and it’ll have the song or whatever on Pause so I can resume. Why isn’t shit like this more implemented in software?
Davinci Resolve - Video Editing
Blender - 3D Modelling
Darktable - Photo Editing
Keira - Digital Art
Are some I use frequently.
Not only is Resolve’s free version amazing, the paid version is even better. And it has a reasonable, one time, upfront cost that gives you lifetime access.
Obsidian and VLC.
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OnShape for designing 3d objects. I’ve been using it for 3 or 4 years, after outgrowing TinkerCad (which is also good and beginner-friendly, but limited). It’s an online app, nothing to download or install. The free version is fast and full-featured. The only difference between it and the paid version is that in the free version your designs are all public. So if I were doing 3d design for business I probably would use software that resides on my computer. But as a hobbyist IDGAF.
KeePassXC, or any kind of KeePass-compatible client. It uses strong encryption to store passwords, passkeys, and arbitrary data. Also does TOTP. Not using a password manager in current year is stupid.
QOwnNotes - a note-taking app that uses plain markdown files. None of that stupid metadata-inside-markdown-inside-database bullshit.
I love Keypass XC for it’s better User interface but the Kee Broswer addon for Keepass 2.0 is just astronomically better. You can search and edit entries and it doesn’t close on you when the page reloads.
I can confirm both these. Although Qownnotes is a bit of mess in UI, it does its job well. I wanted something simple that will just load bunch of locally saved md files and this is the best I could find so far.
If you want a similar markdown editor, Obsidian does much the same, but with a much nicer single-panel UI. The client is free (as in no-cost), but closed-source.
I’m kind of hesitant with it since it’s not FOSS. To be honest I never really understood why anyone makes free (no $$) software but not open source it. I might give it a try though.
There’s Zettlr & Logseq Or… you use Org-Roam/Org-Agenda in Emacs to get a 2nd brain functionality
I’ve tried both and did not like either. Logseq would be probably ok if it didn’t sort every note as a bullet list.
Zettlr was veeery slow for me.
Obsidian also operates a paid cloud storage and public hosting service. Releasing the client for free is a way to gain good publicity and hook new customers, but making it open-source (or even nonfree source-available) would make adapting it to a different storage service trivial, which would hurt Obsidian’s business.
Well, yes, but also no. There are other similarly strucuted SW that can survive even though they’re open sourced. Things like Standard Notes, Notesnook, Stingle photos, etc. I believe most people would go hassle free route if the accompanying “cloud service” were good enough. And FOSS sticker is a good bonus on top. Just my 2 cents.
It works well with syncthing…
It’s a niche thing, but if you play electric guitar and need a virtual amplifier and effects, you’ll like Guitarix very much. Just thinking that is a community project blows me away every time
Since you’re saying “pieces of software” and not specifically apps I will mention Node.js, the programming framework for javascript apps that run outside of a browser. You can develop websites and services or standalone apps that just run locally. There’s a whole universe of free packages people have created for it.
Since you’re saying “pieces of software” and not specifically apps I will mention liburing.
I love Node for small apps and scripts. It’s become my go-to for quick tasks. I’ve even used it to write some small CLI utilities as standalone executables.
Please be careful with dependencies and malware
Speedcrunch!! Speedcrunch is a text based calculator that I just recently found, and already cannot live without. The syntax is very intuitive. If you’re a programmer, you will feel right at home. Now, I do all my bit twiddling in speedcrunch before it gets to code.
It also works on Windows. At work, I have a Windows and Linux machine, and it is pinned to the taskbar on both.
ZoomIt - Sysinternals at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/zoomit
That small free application will notably allow you to press a key combination to “zoom in and out” on your screen and “draw” on your screen with your mouse. When presenting something using an external monitor, you can use that tool to draw attention to specific things or zoom in on tiny details when people are having issues seeing something. The link also show a small preview of what the application does.
Most of the systernals apps are BS-free.
qBittorrent
Yeah but Notepad++ looks like camel shit.
tech illiteracy 👆
Ah yes, the great determinant of whether someone knows their tech or not: an opinion on something’s appearance.
Are you dense or just stupid?
Why camel?
Literally how? If you’re talking about the toolbars, it looks like literally any text editor. If you’re talking about the text, that’s probably because you’re not used to looking at monospace rendered text. It’s much better when you’re editing anything technical. If you don’t need advanced features you don’t need N++.
LMFAO. You must be a troll?
One literally looks like it’s from the 90s, the other respects modern design.
Can you read my comment? Or are you one of those rabid FOSS enthusiasts who will stab themselves with a rusty nail if it’s free? I talked about the fucking appearance of the notepad.
As I said, if you don’t need advanced features you don’t need N++. If you’re happy with notepad you are definitely not the target audience lol.
What a cool strawman. Good thing I didn’t mention functionality then, you mongoloidian troglodyte.
I already addressed your complaints about the look; it’s all for functionality and technical features which you clearly do not need. You don’t get to expose a rich feature set without complicating the UI.
Again with the strawman. Why do you dislike the idea that your shitty software has shitty looks so much that you need to construct a whole-ass argument for me in your head?
Oh that’s right, you’re a cretin.
I guess because it’s better than interfacing with your lack of an argument and ableist slurs?
Ah, the old criticize the strawman, throw an ad hominem trick.
If you want something efficient and free of bullshit you probably first need to change your OS to a GNU/Linux distro
“Free, efficient, no bullshit” is kind of the default for Linux software.
I did consider posting a screenshot of just all the applications on my PC… 🙃
But yeah, not much OP can do with hundreds of recommendations that don’t work on their OS.
not unless you count UX as partof the “efficiency”. A lot of oss software has top-notch functionality, but horrible ux
I don’t think this is generally true at a higher rate than for any other software. Multi-billion dollar companies will have more polished UX, but step outside of the major flagship apps and things quickly degrade. Even the best in the business have plenty of problems, you can’t design a perfect UX that will please all users.
Yeah that front still needs improvement, but I will say things have gotten a lot better, especially in the past 5 years. Regardless of personal opinion on their approaches, projects like GNOME, Inkscape, GIMP, KDE (sort of, the settings app is still confusing as hell), even Blender’s recent UI updates have been pretty solid. There’s still a lot of room to improve though, and plenty of older software still hasn’t seen much of its UX addressed.
Fan Control.
Free as in beer but definitely not free as in speech.
kate is similar to npp.
I’ve recently discovered and made heavy use of xournal++; for stylus-based note taking.
I got heavy use out of that one as a teaching assistant in grad school during the pandemic. I used a cheap wacom drawing pad.
VeraCrypt – creating encrypted partitions/disks with easy manager. I am surprised I did not see anybody to mention it.
LUKS or fscrypt
