Whats your favorite free open source software that everyone should try?
Lemmy seems like the right place to ask this. Personally I've really enjoyed Gurgle, which is a FOSS Wordle clone app.
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Lemmy seems like the right place to ask this. Personally I've really enjoyed Gurgle, which is a FOSS Wordle clone app.
Libre office, a great office option. I've been using it for 15 years. Foreshadowing
VLC, Plays media. It's a tank. Also Highways use VLC to mark many winter potholes.
Linux, It's not that hard to use anymore.( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
WINE, not just for one night stands! it's great for running Windows Stuff on Linux.
Also, and my personal favorite, your mom is free and open source. Mic Drop going to bed. With your mom. Wasn't expecting that twice were you? Well, neither was your mom. Got 'em.
I was searching for some kind of VLC based image / video processing algorithm to detect potholes
Was this a joke about how the logo is a traffic cone
Yes. Very much so.
VLC: Very Large Cone
mpv has superior playback quality to VLC in my opinion.
I’ve also find mpv about a thousand times faster to start up.
And to seek to position!
Aren't they both based on ffmpeg? Surely any quality difference is just a configuration issue?
Yes. If I remember correctly VLC was originally configured (maybe still is) to network streams and prioritize no lag. That's why you get weird artifacts in VLC sometimes that's not present in mpv.
I use celluloid, because I absolutely hate the mpv interface. Seriously, how unexplorable and unintuitive can you make it?
It's driven by keyboard shortcuts
Yes, that is deeply connected with being unexplorable.
Celluloid is also keyboard driven. But in celluloid there are clearly marked buttons for the most used functions and I can open the menu to check the keyboard shortcuts. Not so in mpv.
For what it's worth, I think celluloid is a thin wrapper around mpv with the only purpose to provide a better UI. And I'm very thankful for and happy with that.
I really like the idea of Celluloid. However, last time I tried, it somehow felt less performant than pure mpv. Colors a bit washed out and not perfectly smooth playback. Should try it again soon.
Yeah, it does have some hickups when playing a movie from my HDD. I think it doesn't prefetch enough data, because I didn't have any issues after copying the movie to a tmpfs.
I still use it over mpv, because I truly cannot stand mpvs UX. But a valid point.
I used to feel the same way, but the interface is actually super customizable if you are ok with editing config files!
Here is the manual.
There is also a huge variety of third party scripts, like this one shows thumbnail previews when hovering over the seek bar.
I will say that on Windows at least I prefer MPC-HC because of how much smaller and snappier it is compared to VLC.
MPC-HC instead of VLC https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc (the still maintained one) (windows only)
For me VLC had issues to stream very high bitrate content on my pc. MPC-HC used less resources while being smooth too.
I love LO as well, it's perfect if you're used to old versions of MS Office and like to be in control of everything. A good open-source alternative for the new releases of MS Office is Onlyoffice.
Ublock Origin. The amount of people going through life exposing themselves to ads is tragic. It's so unhealthy and most people aren't aware that there is a simple and free way of protecting yourself from the psychological warfare that corpos use against society
I don't understand how people do not get blood red angry at advertising more often. Its the root of a lot of our problems with censorship and they flat out just exploit what little free time we all get.
By the time I get home I got 3 hours to chill. Then these ads take up 1/3 of that selling me shit I never asked for. They indirectly forced every platform I ever enjoyed to become these homogenous boring vanilla time sinks. That's because they pay one content safe creator and then the rest start to copy them. Now if I want to avoid ads, I have to pay extra fees which fuck it, the content creators circumvent by putting ads directly into the media.
We should all be more hostile to any encroachment of ads into our lives. Its weird that instead I see people embracing it like it isn't a cancer. We've lost the freedoms we had on thr internet to these ads and nobody seems to care.
Given that there is a lot of effort put into research into making advertisements more ‘effective’, I wouldn't be surprised if there is also some research put into influencing people to accept advertisements as a normal part of life, justifying it as a necessary evil, or even embracing it as an essential part of what makes the free market ‘work’.
Reminder that the FBI recommends people to use ad blocking
Krita 🎨🖌️
It's literally FOSS Adobe Illustrator, why do people don't use it??
I thought Inkscape was FOSS Illustrator
Probably should add darktable in here as FOSS Photoshop Lightroom Classic.
edit: and Scribus as FOSS Adobe InDesign
I’m sitting here asking myself how I have not tried darktable before. Definitely checking it out, and already verified the support for my camera.
Darktable is definitely my favorite RAW photo editor. There are a lot of great tutorials online including YouTube
I have to admit that I only found that one myself because I was curious what "premium apps" were included in Zorin OS Pro, and eventually found this list they provide of alternatives:
https://help.zorin.com/docs/apps-games/alternatives-to-windows-apps/
Thankfully almost everything on that list is cross-platform. RawTherapee is another on the list you may want to check out.
Yeah doesn't Krita do raster art and Inkscape does vector art?
Yes. Illustrator is vector graphics so Inkscape is a more direct replacement, and Krita is raster so it’s closer to Gimp and Photoshop. One or both of those probably also have some vector, but not as much as with Inkscape/Illustrator. I think.
And also FOSS Photoshop. Without the annoying subscription model and AI scraping. And way more comfortable to use than GIMP.
I would say GIMP (+ extensions) is still the FOSS version of Photoshop.
Of course, i would love to have a fully fledged program without such a steep learning curve.
But i think Krita is fine as it is.
So i wished there was another just as good program that filled that void.
https://www.photopea.com/ could be an option, depending on your needs.
Photopea is excellent, but FOSS it is not.
Any extensions you would suggest for GIMP?
L4TL. Looks pretty cool. I'll try that out. Thanks!
exactly the layout package I needed, thank you for suggesting that
Unfortunately my knowledge only goes for the base program. But i've heard many saying that with the right time and extensions GIMP does replace Photoshop.
I remember the first time I tried Krita and clearly thinking "Wait, is this a community project?!?"
You mean a FOSS Clip Studio Paint or maybe Paint Tool SAI? IIRC Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based program
Here is Krita usage in a timelapse of editing a webcomic(CC-by) by David Revoy. (My current selection for GOAT comic artist)
Huh. Just noticed, there's so much details the novice takes for granted.
This is what I use if I can't use Illustrator - it's also got some terrific conversion tools. Currently the only app i know that can open and convert old Fireworks files.
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is an open-source (open data) project. OpenStreetMap is a collaborative mapping platform that allows users from around the world to contribute, edit, and use geographical data. The data and software behind OSM are open-source, which means they are freely available for anyone to view, use, modify, and distribute under open licenses.
The data contributed to OpenStreetMap islicensed under the Open Database License (ODbL). This license allows for the free use of the data as long as proper attribution is given and any derivative works are also made available under the same open license.
I got addicted to using and contributing on OSM daily and enjoy spending my time improving the map. In fact a lot of closed source maps such as Google Maps and Apple Maps pull from some of the OSM data, so everyone gets to benefit from contributions.
In case you're looking into this out of curiosity, check out the Beginner's Guide and try to verify that the data around your neighborhood is correct and maybe add a point of interest (PoI) or a street name or two. Beware, it gets addictive quite fast.
OSM is also used for humanitarian use thanks to the HOT tasking platform. For example the majority of relief effort in Turkey's February earthquake, Sri Lanka flooding, and the recent Marocco earthquake. Mapping can literally help save lives. It's fun and easy too!
I love OSM, I try to put notes to fix things when I see them (for example, one-way streets that aren't properly set up, or left turns that aren't allowed). One day I'll hopefully have the confidence to fix things myself.
I use Osmand mostly, as it allows me to easily have everything offline. (Plus I can sideload/back up the maps on android)
There is a fun app called StreetComplete than makes it easy to complete missing info and I suppose fix it too.
There is a (somewhat) active community here too: ![email protected]
And if you want a maps app that uses OSM, I recommend Organic Maps
I love OSM and use it through OsmAnd. I also contributed in the past, creating the first mapping for the area I lived in back then. I want to contribute again. But I find that wherever I go, everything is already mapped to the finest detail. A good problem to have, I think.
I once saw a comment about an app that made it easier to contribute to OSM. Do you know which one that might be?
That was very likely Street Complete which is self explanatory and a great way to start. You are adding all kinds of useful information about any kind of object or building with this.
There's also Vespucci which allows to alter the whole map (ie edit streets, POIs and so on) but takes a lot more to get familiar with.
You can also try the webapp https://mapcomplete.org
Honorable mention for Maproulette as well!
Is there a decent option for using OSM with Android Auto? I want to move away from Google as much as possible, but Mapfactor's routing is... well, terrible.
Give OsmAnd a try. Organic Maps are also working on the integration, but its not yet there and fully refined, though it is my preferred map for navigation while driving.
Hmmm, I'm using osmand from Fdroid and it does not support it. It looks like you need to use the subscription version which is a bit much but I'll take a look.
Magic Earth uses OSM and has Android Auto capability. It also has traffic data. It's not open source, but they have a great privacy policy.
You can start light, just by verifying that the data is up to date or adding some information eg. wheelchairs facilities or payment methods accepted. I use a tool called Every Door (Android) and it makes this surveying really simple and quick.
Jellyfin, it's pretty simple and if you have a spare computer, a decent connection (and by decent I don't mean even a decent one by 21th century standards, I still have a 100/10mbps ADSL) and a 2/4tb Hdd, you can host your own FOSS Netflix/Hulu with all the shows you want, if you're in a county where "sailing the seven seas" is a huge deal, the only subscription would be a cheap VPN or even better something like real debrid.
Literally, and I mean literally, just downloaded this yesterday because I was tired of using Syncthing to pass media files back and forth between my phone and my NAS.
Plex is a shit show, charging you to view remote files.
Got any recommendations on where to put together a decent setup? The documentation seems a bit sparse.
I run Jellyfin in Docker on a Pi4 and it works great. The only problem are x265 files, because Jellyfin tries to transcode them and the Pi cannot handle that.
You can disable that, I did that too. I don't have any issue playing h.265 or even AVI on any of my devices.
How did you disable it? I would love to just have a direct stream, but I can't find an option for that anywhere.
You have to change it for each user. Go to the users settings and scroll down, under Media Playback there are options to allow audio and video transcoding. I still have audio transcoding on but that doesn't seem to cause any issues.
I tried that, but then it won't play any HVEC video.
Do you use the flatpak version on Linux? I'm a bit of a noob but I think due to flatpak sandboxing it can't access your home folder or something, so I had this problem where it could only access my /media/ external HDD.
Aside from that, I just make folders named something unambiguous like "jellyfin documentaries", make a jellyfin directory from the control panel, name it something like "documentaries" link the two and then add the documentaries and then scan the libraries. (i may have misunderstood your question lol sry, English is my 2nd Lang)
https://swizzin.ltd/
The "best" setup (simplest to maintain, not to set up), is using docker to host jellyfin, sonarr, radarr, lidarr, transmission with wireguard VPN, and prowlarr for all of your media needs. Jellyfin plays stuff, sonarr manages shows, radarr: movies, lidarr: music, prowlarr: your sources for said media. Transmission + wireguard VPN for the downloading.
But then you are getting into self hosting stuff which opens up a whole good, but time consuming rabbit hole
https://perfectmediaserver.com/ Check that out, one of the guys who is a main personality of the self-hosted podcast made that website. It's all about setting up automations to download movies and TV shows automatically and stuff.
I love how Jellyfin is like "nah we don't want any donations. If you wanna donate, just volunteer and contribute"
Lmao didn't even know that. I guess my contribution will be spreading the word, since I can't code to save my life
They have non code contributions (like translations)
I tried to use Emby and Plex since both were available bydefault on my NAS, good lord they both suck ass and charge for the most basic functions. Switched to Jellyfin, so much smoother and completely free.
Wow, I've just downloaded and set up Jellyfin based on your post. It took literally 20 minutes and looks like it will immediately replace the awkward DLNA Serviio setup I had running. Amazing
Well nice to know (^_-)
Just so you know, there are custom CSS themes aviable on some official page I don't remember, but if you look up "jellyfin custom CSS" an official jellyfin page should come up, they look so much better.
Home Assistant. If you ever want to do home automation properly, this is the way. Works with pretty much anything—Zigbee, zWave, BT LE, MQTT—while keeping things manufacturer agnostic, local, private and highly responsive (your commands don't need to go through some server 3000 km away and won't have ugly 1 second latency as a result).
DAVx⁵ and Radicale to sync contacts and calendars between devices without snooping middle-men.
Syncthing to sync any files between devices. Works remotely, too, thanks to Syncthing relays.
Navidrome for your personal music streaming service.
Debian, Docker, Docker Compose and Portainer as the backbone to run all your services.
And many others.
One of the best things about HASS is the counterweight it applies to the home automation industry.
When everyone is trying to lock people in to proprietary systems, the hass community is keen to find alternatives.
"To use this temperature sensor, you must use our hub and app"
2 days later: 'Good news everyone, it's manchester coding on 433Mhz, and I've written a direct integration for rtl_433'
Wait a minute, is FLOSS home automation really this robust? Having avoided most wifi enabled gadgets, I'm pretty out of the loop here
It's pretty good, honestly!
I also avoid wifi gadgets where possible, I try to go for Zigbee, Z-wave, or 433MHz stuff.
For things that "have" to be IP, I put them on a separate vlan, then interface through them using hass.
You can check what it supports. Though there are some stuff that people have created support for that aren't on there yet as well
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/
I was searching for some nice way to keep my KeePass files in sync across my phone + pc. Tried Syncthing as soon as I saw your comment and it's a life saver :D Thanks so much!
Wait, does this mean I don't need a VPN to sync remotely? That has been the doubt I have had since I heard about such software.
Yeah, you don't need a VPN as their is also a relay component that forms a sorta sync thing network. While the data is always encrypted, with the relaying you are using external servers to route the traffic. The relaying also isn't required, but ensures data can be synced even when a direct connection isn't possible (e.g. You arent home and aren't on your VPN).
I've been seeing Home Assistant mentioned a lot lately.
Can it control smart plugs and switches that are made for Tuya/Smart Life?
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tuya/
(I only own older Tuya devices that I flashed with Tasmota before setting them up with Home-Assistant. But I think what they sell nowadays can't be flashed with a free and open-source firmware. So the Tuya integration should work. But I haven't tried it.)
Yeah I saw that. It doesn't help me in trying to break free from those cloud services if I still have to integrate them into my setup.
Unfortunately with the smart home stuff, you're often stuck with some vendor and their decisions. You have to pay close attention before buying devices. There is a chance your Tuya devices are supported by something like the mentioned Tasmota. They have a long list. But flashing a new firmware on some lightbulb is a bit cumbersome and you can brick the devices easily. It's probably not something you want to do unless this is your hobby.
I can recommend buying Zigbee devices and a supported gateway, or something alike. That works without some cloud service.
I have a zigbee gateway. I use it for physical buttons that control other smart devices using the scenes in the Smart Life app.
The zigbee stuff has been the devices to give me the most trouble, plus they cost more.
Most of the affordable plugs and sockets are all compatible with Smart Life (which is just Tuya with another brand label). Quite a number of real cheap devices that have their own apps are also just copies of Tuya so they all end up working with Smart Life.
I am going to start looking into flashing firmwares. There's SO MANY devices running hardware for those platforms, it would be great to break them free of the cloud apps.
https://templates.blakadder.com/
Unfortunately things once have been easier. The first Tuya devices contained ESP8266 microcontrollers and had a vulnerability that allowed users to just upload a different firmware. But at some point they started using some cheaper microcontrollers that aren't as easy to program. So there is no custom firmware available for many/most of the recent devices. Beware if the supported devices repository says "soldering required" or "module needs to be replaced". I don't know why they do this, but it requires a hot air soldering station and proper soldering skills.
Regarding Zigbee: I bought some Ikea stuff. The lightbulbs work fine. But I also had issues with the buttons.
Fucking GREAT info! Thanks!
It does work although breaks occasionally and you seem to need a (free) token from tuya to get it running now. That said it let’s me use my tuya devices through homekit now which is pretty handy.
Proton.
I know it might not be in the spirit of the thread because it's not something you download and use as it's own thing but it has allowed me to exclusively run Linux on my gaming PC. I think more folks should try it to slowly tip the scales more on Linux.
Do you mean, using it without Steam? I do use Proton with Steam. AC Valhalla runs so great.
Using it with steam or without. I personally use it with steam as well, it's amazing. Hopefully we reach a point where publishers are incentivised to make sure their games run smoothly on Linux at launch through proton.
Blender is my favorite open source tool I wish I knew how to use :)
I’d love to use it for creating my own designs and took several attempts at learning it. But I always end up giving up on it due to lack of time and energy.
Did you use the youtube tutorials from the doughnut guy?
I tried to learn blender by just using it and googling the issues but gave up several times. Then I bit the bullet and went trough a proper video tutorial. Most of them run at increments of 10-20 minutes and each one reaches enough to be useful on its own.
Another tip is to do lots of tiny things you can reasonably make in a weekend before doing big things.
I prefer to use tutorials I can read and reference. But I’m willing to give videos a try if you say it’s a good one for a total beginner.
Could you give me a link?
I'm absolute with you on prefering written tutorials and documentation, however when it comes to beginner tutorials for Blender, there's simply nothing better than the doughnut tutorial from Blenderguru. It's not a "do this then do this" video - he's actually explaining what he does and why, so when you're finished, you actually have ideas of what to do with your own projects.
3D art is a complex thing - but you can actually get a long way following the doughnut tutorial, and after that, you may be open to try other video tutorials or have a look at other channels.
Link to the doughnut series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoXOplUvAw&list=PLjEaoINr3zgFX8ZsChQVQsuDSjEqdWMAD
Another favorite of mine to mostly just watch is Grant Abbitt: https://www.youtube.com/@grabbitt/featured
Thank you for the information! I just need to put some dedicated time aside to learn this, but it looks like a good place to get started.
Take it a little at a time. The blenderguru videos are short and arr perfect for doing 30 mins today, 30 mins the next day - you don’t need to do it all in one sitting.
Yeah, Absolutely. https://youtu.be/nIoXOplUvAw?si=NsMPxjkNfcCfuf6I This guy. I haven't done the most recent tutorial he has made because he actually goes back and redoes the beginners tutorial to keep up with the most recent version but the earlier versions of this was great for me.
Thanks! Someone else already posted the link but I really appreciate you still following up on this. I can see now why you call him the doughnut guy :)
Blender has one of the hardest learning curves I have experienced so far. It simply does so much and there is so much to remember. It's worth it, but man, it's intense.
Same
For anyone doing academic writing, I use a combination of Logseq, Zotero, and Zettlr. All open source. Collect articles in Zotero. Annotate and take notes on those articles in Logseq with absolutely amazing PDF annotation tools. Write draft in Zettlr which allows me to enter Zotero citations and reference Logseq notes.
Bonus shoutout to LibreOffice for exporting and formatting the final draft. And that’s your recipe for one all-natural, organic, FOSS thesis!
Zotero is such a lifesaver. I started using it to allow for easier citations and reference lists but I've loved being able to keep my sources organized and saved in one place while doing research. The browser extensions are also super convenient to save everything to sort later on.
I guess, i love you The PDF annotation part always bothered me. Will give it a try
I… love you too?
How does it compare to LaTeX?
Unfortunately I’ve never used LaTeX so someone else will have to answer that.
LibreOffice?
It’s basically Microsoft office, I don’t know if anything even remotely like LaTeX.
PC:
eX editor of choice; integral (ha!) when formatting maths-heavy documentsAndroid:
Thanks for spreading the good word on OpenData mapping solutions! In case you find Osmand's interface confusing, check out Organic Maps as well. FOSS and offline features are naturally part of the offering.
Good list I make use of a lot of these too. Keep both LibreOffice and OnlyOffice around depending on how I feel that day but been leaning towards LO quite a bit recently.
I will say I had Caprine for a while but my god it uses so much memory, it has an absolutely massive footprint on my laptop. I find a nice compromise is using messenger.com as that way I can still send and read messages without delving into the horrors of FB, plus can keep it in a container.
Question about zotero, I just started using it and I can't seem to find a way to direct it to PDFs I have already downloaded? Is there a way to do that or does it only have the PDF finding feature? The citation thing is pretty cool though, it's gonna make my writing class easier and I won't have to use mybib anymore. Also, is there a way to make it always use the classic interface when adding a citation? I keep having to click "show classic interface" or whatever the button is, and it's a tad annoying.
You can just drag and drop PDFs. Either to the list to create a new item or to an existing item if you already have it there.
Zotero: Edit: Preferences: Cite: Word processors: Use classic Add Citation dialog [X]
Thank you much!
BTW, why use classic dialog? The quick one is great, when you learn to use it: it allows you to easily find a bibliography item by any keyword or tag; lists previously cited items on top; can automatically add locator (page number) and also lets you modify the citation appearance by double-clicking the cited item. I can't imagine how the classic interface could be more usable in any application
I guess I just didn't like having to type and find what I wanted to cite when I knew I wanted to cite the first or second article in my paper. But I guess that could become a problem once I have more citations, so I'll definitely try to get used to the other way too.
Over question about Simple Gallery: My Pixel makes those small clips before the image. Is there a possibility to see this?
I don't think so. Dynamic Shots are proprietary and limited to Google Photos
You can also enable tabs, like in MS office, in LibreOffice. I find that easier to use than how it is by default.
but only tabs for functions, right? not tabs for documents like Onlyoffice
Every other classic board game should have a game client as good as lichess.
But, speaking of games, Simon Tatham's puzzle collection.
I recently learned that all of Lichess is FOSS and suddenly it all made sense.
I have so much respect for it
inkscape. awesome vector drawing program
Except CMYK 😔
Hopefully next year
:(
OBS for screen recording.
recordscreen.io is also great, if you want to record directly from the browser.
But NOT streamlabs
Lemmy
How do you exit zim?
i had switched after losing a D&D campaign in onenote, then not long after switched from windows to linux (Zim being compatible with both helped with that a lot too). I have a memory problem (in my carbon, not my silicon) and I use Zim for to do lists, a journal, note taking of course and several other things. i had some issues a few times but overall it's what just works for me. i use it for worldbuilding D&D campaigns and i've started building/recording my actual real life world with it too. love it!
Kdenlive video editor
Open source Adobe Premiere. Fucking brilliant.
Lemmy
Never heard of it.
Sure you have, it's that guy from Mötorhead?
Oh, right. Thanks.
OMG, I loved you in Catch Me if You Can!
Pretty sure that's Amy Adams.
Blender. Maybe not everyone needs to try it but it it's great if you like 3D.
I can suggest everyone to try Bitwarden if they don't have a password manager yet. I use Pass now (because UNIX^TM^) but was a Bitwarden fan before.
Bitwarden is very good. And it is not getting hacked every year as Lastpass... (another free password manager).
I also saw that proton has launched proton pass as a password manager. Seems to also be free, but only the app, I think is open source, and not the server. It also works less well than bitwarden, being new it can be expected.
I was a Bitwarden user for 2yrs and recently moved away to ProtonPass. Primary reason for me was native mobile apps and email alias feature. Although it doesn't have a web version yet (which is planned and would be coming in future), browser add-ons and native apps cover what I need and migration was mostly seamless as well
bitwarden is nice because you can selfhost it. i'm too lazy to do that so i use keepassxc
A little different from many of the things mentioned, but...
Casual: Puzzles by Simon Tatham (the Android port is great)
And OpenRCT2 and OpenTTD, of course.
OpenTTD for life.
Only because CTRL+F had zero results: Krita. Everyone complains about GIMP having a bad name and Krita is actually good!!
For what it's worth, there's several static site generators that use WordPress as a backend but generate static HTML files. You might be interested if some of those WordPress sites are client sites, as the clients could still use the WordPress admin panel but the actual site will be static.
Aegis is good but I personally prefer Authenticator Pro. It's also open source, and supports watches. It's so much more convenient getting 2FA codes on my Samsung watch. Aegis is very principled and refuse to use non-open-source libraries. I really appreciate that stance, but unfortunately some of Google's libraries for building WearOS apps are closed-source.
Besides software mentioned by others:
NeoVim: The single most perfect editor of all time.
QOwnNotes: A pretty good note taking app for markdown notes with tons of extension and options. But tbh Obsidian is still the gold standard.
SSH: It's everywhere. Controlling my servers from remote is a trivial task. Also, it does tunneling.
Syncthing: Syncing files around has never been easier than with syncthing. And it's decentralized, encrypted, private.
Kitty: A great Terminal Emulator
Are you trying to start a war? I have (doom) emacs installed at least, but neovim is my light.
Ah, I see you are also a person of culture.
I used to use Kitty, but I switched to Konsole due to the lack of tabs.
Kitty has tabs, I use them all the time
I read somewhere that it hasn't have tabs, but I might have mistaken Kitty with some other terminal emulator.
Alacrity does not have tabs. Maybe you mistook them? I can definitely say that Kitty has very well working tabs
Yes, I think I made this mistake.
Obtainium - - app with which you can download & update apps (apk's) directly from github/gitlab/etc. (and even f-droid).
Absolutely awesome 👍
i have a few all time favourites on android:
-Aves, a really good gallery app
-openboard, awesome keyboard without tracking software
-fairmail, really good email app
-liftoff for lemmy
-dolphin emulator, if your phone can run it
-SD maid SE, one of those storage cleaner thingys
-syncthing, for making backups over WiFi
there's even more i use on windows. if you look hard enough, you will find an alternative to every program you're using.
Rad, but openboard doesn't swipe? Bummer... I've been meaning to learn how to tap, so I'll give it a go all the same.
Floris board has the best swipe amongst foss options Ive tried. And Ive tried a few. But unfortunately google/ samsung swipe keyboards were super convenient.
Actually keypass2android, my password managaer has a keyboard thats the best (but its really ugly) so I cant use that.
pretty sure you can swipe. i just never use it.
edit: nvm you can't
This fork has it
https://github.com/erkserkserks/openboard/releases
Oh fantastic, that's really worth a look.
Pity I've just trashed my phone and am stuck on a corporate-managed device!
Amazing list, thank you!!
Syncthing was the way I ended up solving the problem of having the same playlists on mobile and desktop.
Playlists?
.m3u format is shared between most sound apps, and I was keeping music on the same relative path anyways between devices. So basically I can define playlists on PC and have them show up on the phone. Then on the phone I can track the number of times and the rating of each music and create dynamic lists, which I can send back to PC if I feel like moving things around.
Just downloaded openboard, seems pretty good. Have been growing dissatisfied with Swiftkey for a while now.
I have tried to use Openboard, but Gboard really spoiled me with the quick language auto detection... I have even tried using the iOS stock keyboard and it sucks balls compared to Gboard...
From the top of my head, I would name Okular. No other FOSS pdf reader is as complete and easy to use.
I use okular as my primary image viewer as well. I love the middle mouse drag to zoom.
MPV player. Super lightweight, minimalist, literally runs anything you throw at it, keyboard focused, hyper customizable, loads of plugins for anything you can think of, supports all the meme filters and best of all, multiple frontends available.
Can't emphasize how much i love it.
Inkscape and GIMP as alternatives to Illustrator and Photoshop.
Gimp really works for my use case. Love it.
Inkscape and LaTeX are what I used throughout my undergrad for all documents. The quality always impresses people.
I'm not as well versed in FOSS as other posters but FOSS Android apps that I learned about on Lemmy/kbin and am enjoying:
AntennaPod (podcast player)
Inoreader (RSS reader)
Newpipe (YT player)
Bitwarden (password manager)
LibreraFD (PDF and other format reader, substitute for OverDrive)
kbin (I subscribe to Lwmmy communities thru kbin, also)
And I rely in Firefox with UBO, as other posters have mentioned.
I like inoreader, but I don't think it's even open source, let alone FOSS?
Thanks, I didn't know this.
I've never used inoreader, but Wikipedia lists it as "Freemium". It's not FOSS
Termux: A terminal emulator for Android.
Firefox+uBlock (web browser)
MEncoder (video encoder)
OBS (screen recording and streaming software)
Inkscape (vector illustration software)
Mumble (VoIP chat room server/client/protocol)
Julia (programming language great for scripting and mathematics)
For Unix systems:
Wezterm (terminal multiplexor)
i3 (window manager)
As a (former?) developer of Mumble I'm delighted to see it mentioned.
Over a decade ago when I was big into gaming it was the best option over competition like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak. Still have a server to this day even though many gamers seem to have moved onto talking over Discord voice calls or channels.
LogSeq for taking notes.
It is a markdown editor and has a lot of features i didn't know I wanted. Like you can mark in PDFs and those marks will be made into notes with shortcuts to that place right into your other notes.
Gonna have to check this out. I'm a sucker for good note taking apps and my current one is Notion - except it's not free and that annoys me.
Check this out...
https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE?si=ZbtPtphNHdQxEEZJ
Man.. what a deep dive that I did not need. Whew.
Gonna try out a few of these, but I have to admit I prefer the rich-text and database options that Notion provides. That said, the whole privacy thing they do and was mentioned in the start of the video concerns me. Time to do some testing! Thanks for the link!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/XRpHIa-2XCE?si=ZbtPtphNHdQxEEZJ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I use a lot of note apps partially for school partially for fun but man Logseq PDF annotation is incredible. That plus native Zotero integration is a game changer for anything academic.
I adore VLC.
I've been using Linux Mint for almost a year and a half now: would recommend it to anyone ready to make a jump into Linux and away from Windows. It's quite friendly.
I'm also quite enjoying Sonarr to keep track of some older television shows that I enjoy.
I forget how incredible VLC is. It's been my primary video player for going on 7 years?
I honestly don't know if any other video player that just works.
MPC-HC https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc (the still maintained one).
For me VLC struggled on very high bitrate videos. While MPC-HC was smooth and used less resources.
However it is not available for Linux. So if it's a software for Linux, I guess VLC is the best choice.
mpv is what I used, but I switched to VLC because of the interface
KeePassXC, it is a client for KeePass password management, works great
Krita, KDE's awesome drawing program
Over the years I got bored of repirating photoshop and now I just use GIMP.
I'm not exactly a graphic designer by any means but there's very little I can't do with GIMP. Seems to just run better and more intuitive than photoshop for me too.
Freetube = seriously good.
Top two for me are Freetube and KDE Connect.
Sharing files (and all the other features) with KDE Connect across 2 devices on same network has never been so easier.
Ardour. Great digital audio workstation. It's on par with the proprietary options, would choose it any day over Cubase or Reaper. Listen to some music I made in it!
If you spend a lot of time in the terminal zellij is a cool alternative to tmux.
Why do I want an alternative to tmux? Like what's your favorite thing it gives you?
Maybe they've fixed it now, but I remember tmux having weird issues with scrollback and mouse events (clicks etc).
I prefer using tabs in my terminal app, and would use tmux just to handle if the connection drops. I use Eternal Terminal for that these days.
I enjoy the discoverable UI, and the way it handles windows and panes. Overall I think its a cool project with a lot of potential.
Eternal Terminal is a good alternative to tmux too, it you're just using it to run stuff in the background / reconnect after losing connection. Things like scrollback work normally.
I thought you'd say
screenlolReally going to plug KeePassXC. I think there are several forks for different platforms/slightly different implementations of the KeePass family of password managers, but I prefer the "app that creates a file" paradigm of KeePass to Bitwarden's "server that hosts a database" paradigm.
RedNotebook. It's not 100% what I was looking for in journal software, but it's the closest I tried. For the longest time I kept a journal in plaintext using basically any text editor that fell to hand, but RedNotebook lets me use some formatting and rich text (apparently via YAML or similar markup notation?) and adding pictures/links etc. I do sometimes use my journal to kind of stream-of-conscious-brainstorm, and checklist functionality would be handy for that but any app I've found that provides that is also incomprehensible. I also like that RedNotebook respects my system theme.
AutoKey. You're aware of AutoHotKey for Windows? Well AutoKey runs on Linux, and it uses Python for its scripting language instead of its own proprietary weirdness. I use it all the time.
Gonna mention FreeCAD. FreeCAD probably has the worst case of FOSS disease I'm aware of; it's UI is a klunky mess, it's perpetually unfinished, but if you can survive the utter pain in the ass it is to live with it's extremely powerful. Just the fact that it's a CAD program with a built-in spreadsheet is a total game changer. There's a lot to dislike here, but I honestly don't know what I'd do without it.
Firefox. Everyone reading this already knows everything I'm going to say.
Thonny. A pretty basic Python editor/IDE aimed at beginners and students, but I'm quite fond of it, especially when playing with Micropython on various little microcontrollers.
Immich: Google Photos alternative (link)
What's sauerbraten? I feel like searching that up won't give me the results I want...
And btw, you missspelled Ublock Origin
probably http://sauerbraten.org/
Are you sure that's the correct domain? My browser tells me it doesn't exist.
For me the link works. :(
Thanks, corrected
It's a FOSS FPS game
LineageOS
vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-6.2.0-32-generic
This makes me laugh
Qbittorrent and LibreOffice
sshfs
Seriously, it will change your life.
What is it?
Any cloud server, any linux server on your network, any virtual machine... is a network hard drive. No need to mess around with shares, permissions or server side settings (caveat: Your ssh user on the remote server DOES need to have the access you want to the files you want... but also duh). Want to edit config files on a remote server in your local text editor? You can. Want to mount your media server in your home directory on your Ubuntu laptop and watch your videos in VLC? You can. Want to just open Finder windows where one is your working directory on a cloud server and one is your home directory on your local machine and just drag files between them? You can. Want to share a hard drive between your Mac, your Windows machine and your Linux Mint laptop and just open the network share with one simple line in the terminal? You can.
The remote server just needs to be running SSH (that's it! You don't need ANY OTHER SERVER SIDE code) and you can mount ANY PART OF IT'S FILE SYSTEM like a network drive. It's file system agnostic on the server side as well. Implementations for Mac and Windows in addition to Linux. Although, admittedly, the non-Linux implementations are a bit janky... but I'm almost a pure Linux user, so that doesn't affect me... I DO have it running on my MacBook and my Mac Mini, but I barely use those.
mount a folder over ssh with a simple command
@Sigmatank
Open source projects that are best-in-class, rather than imitators if commercial software
RStudio: just an everything box for software development in R, version-controlled website creation, and scientific publishing via Quarto.
Zotero: open-source, shareable citation management.
Joplin, a Markdown-based Evernote that let's you self-host your private notebook instead of giving it to a corporation to hols onto.
VLC: the video player that plays everything.
Navidrome, be your own spotify
+1 for Navidrome. I have just set it up in a docker for serving grateful dead shows. I may set up a second navidrome for other assorted music. I am experimenting with Clementine, also free, as a front end for playing the music.
i mostly use feishin for that, at least on pc.
I've been using iBroadcast for this and really like it; what do you like about Navidrome (besides being FOSS)?
uses less than 50mb of ram.
Some foss games I can recommend are Battle for Wesnoth and Endless Sky.
Battle for Wesnoth really needs more love. I know it's popular in the open source gaming community, but seriously, it's sooooo good. Mainstream gamers really ought to jump on board.
I don't know if you've heard of Unciv, but it's another really well done open source game that needs more love:
https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv
Synfig, very capable animation software.
Equalizer APO + Peace equalizer (as the interface) + AutoEq (for the automatic equalization).
It allows to change do advanced and automatic equalization on audio devices, being audio outputs or inputs as mics.
AutoEq is the automatic part. It is more focused on Headphones/earbuds/iems presets. It's an automatic tool trying to equalize measured (by a compatible reviewer source, which is already in the database) headset to match the target the user wants, Then export a file for the software someone uses (peace for example).
As a common preset, the harman over-ear 2018/in-ear (depending on the device) is pretty good, but other presets are available too.
Oobabooga Textgen Webui - because offline open source AI is the biggest force multiplier and most powerful game changer in the last 20 years. It will reshape everything in the next couple of years. This will be bigger than the revolution of capacitive touch screens. Oobabooga is easy, and it makes playing with AI easy even if you don't have the best hardware. Get it on github, then go to Hugging Face for models. Look for prequantized models by The Bloke, read the model card. His models tell you the minimum requirements and what you need to do.
GrapheneOS
I'll second Openstreetmap, I use it exclusively. There's also a set of lightweight versions that are locally hosted, so I use osmap.nl if I want to quickly look at where something is. It also forces the names to the language of the server, so you can use it to improve a second language.
I use an adblocker on my phone called Blokada. It blocks adverts in apps as well as on websites, so I don't get adverts if I play something like Words With Friends for example. Also blocks adverts on Youtube which is an absolute godsend. Advertising is one of the few things I get irrationally upset about.
I make music using LMMS. It has its limitations but it's quite versatile if you're handy with it. This song was made in it for example: https://on.soundcloud.com/dTqgb
I use Betterbird for email on my PC. It's Spartan in design, which is what I'm into, and you can sign in with multiple addresses. I use K-9 Mail on my phone which has the same advantages.
I use an app called Saisonkalender to look at what veg is in season. Quite niche but it's handy for ordering ingredients for soup of the day in work.
I have a game on my phone called Lexica which is basically Boggle. It's good fun.
Cherrytree note app, Desktop
https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/
Yunohost! If you want to get started self-hosting some services, check out Yunohost. It's super easy to setup and run, active development and community, and just awesome. I found it so much easier than docker-based projects. I used to have it running on an old eeepc netbook, but now I have a dedicated tower server for it.
As some who has to do a lot of textwork and text research I really like:
It is a tool that lets you Index and keyword search large amounts of documents easily.
GNU/Linux and the PineTime
"Everything" is really great for anyone that has a nas system, it will make finding random files a thousand times easier for you.
I also am a big fan of greenshot, although there is a lot of good competition in the screenshot realm.
ShareX (windows). At first glance it looks like just a screenshot software, it just has so many features and options that it goes above and beyond
squaker for twitter since it helps me get info on calyx xmpp/jabber server
Android
Android is hardly open source these days.
How come? Isn't that like saying Linux is not open source these days because RedHat keeps making their code more restrictive?
No, that's like saying RedHat isn't open source.
So that's like saying Google, Samsung is not open source. Not Android.
AOSP (Android Open Source Project) is separate from Google's. Similar to how RHEL and other related OSs are separate from Linux. Even though Google contributes to Android and Redhat contributes to Linux.
uhhhh.... I think? Android is built from linux, with a modified linux kernel, so linux can still be open source even when Android mostly isn't.
Android is also open source. Here's the source: https://github.com/aosp-mirror
Ghoelian has already responded to you with what I essentially meant:
There is no such thing as "hardly open source". Either the source is open or it isn't, and the source of Android definitely is. I think what you mean is "community driven", which is not the same thing. But open source always enables community driven forks and derivatives, which there are plenty of for Android.
PhotoPrism
Micromath plus is a great graphic calculator app for android.
OpenRA
LocalSend, it's FOSS airdrop available on all platforms
quick tip:
use apps like localsend/snapdrop/sharedrop/nearbyshare etc with 5ghz hotspot, you'll get at least 5-10 times more speed
thank you
Ah, I’ve been needing something to transfer between my windows desktop and iPhone. Just been using email / network drive
is it better than warpinator?
Install it and compare it and then tell us?
Firefox and its derivatives
Obsidian for Knowledge base, note taking. https://obsidian.md
Edit: TIL not open source. sorry. They even had a Github and all. I wasn't paying attention. I have to move now :(
Sadly Obsidian is not open source or free as in free speech. For individuals it is free as in free beer though
Yeah seconded that it’s not FOSS but still a great app. Logseq is a good FOSS alternative for a knowledge base, and I really like Zettlr for long form md writing and note taking too.
You might find this video on open-source notes apps interesting:
https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/XRpHIa-2XCE
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
IIRC it is not open source.
This app isn't fully ready yet but Accrescent is a secure and private app store for Android. It aims to be a better alternative app store on Android rather than using the Google Play Store. It currently has 11 apps right now and more to come soon.
Highly recommend to check out and support this project cuz this appstore is the best out there right now security and privacy wise.
Try F-Droid instead.
F-Droid has many security vulnerabilities and has many issues such as:
If you want more details about these issues read this:
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/
#2 can be solved by using one of several alternative clients with root permissions. Yes, manual APK install is tedious but not inherently insecure, and the only option for nonroot devices without an ADB host.
#4 is not really true. They are just very lenient, mostly just flagging apps with problems (known vulnerabilities, telemetry, non-FOSS services/assets/libs, ads).
#5, #6 and #7 are actually advantages. It's nice to know that all apps are FOSS and correspond to source, and I can install old apps / earlier versions on old phones – as opposed to Google Play, which denies an app’s existence if your device is incompatible, resulting in shady alternatives and adware typosquatters topping search results.
2 - Manual installation methods can be insecure because a lot of people don't update their apps all the time. Obviously rooting a phone is insecure, but having no auto updates in 2023 is crazy.
4 - It is very true, having zero quality control on new apps. The flagging of apps with problems is just following the FOSS philosophy. Any FOSS app can be added to F-Droid.
5 - Not sure why you would want to install abandoned apps on F-Droid, let alone use an EOL device. A lot of people don't check if apps are maintained because they trust their app store.
6 - FOSS doesn't automatically mean its secure or private. Also, why is it that I have to install proprietary apps only on the Google Play Store?
7 - FDroid signing keys isn't an advantage because it requires an extra layer of trust. I'm already trusting the developer by installing their app, so the developer should be signing the keys. This is a reason why Signal is not on F-Droid.
2 - You cannot really fix this unless an alternative F-Droid client is installed as a system app by the manufacturer, or they allow relocking the bootloader. Good luck convincing them.
5 - I can run anything of any age on my devices, accepting the security risk. I want to be able to factory reset and use one of my Android 4.4 phones with an unmatched speaker as an Internet radio receiver instead of throwing it out. F-Droid explicitly tells you how long it’s been since the last update and ranks old apps low in lists and searches.
This is why Accrescent is amazing. It has automatic updates for Android 12+. Also leaving the bootloader unlocked is a security risk. Using stock or GrapheneOS (better option) on Android is best because you can lock the bootloader.
I don't mind Fdroid being around. If you're okay with the security risk, I have no problem. I've explained to you the security issues and the misinformation that people give that FDroid is secure. I was just explaining their security vulnerabilities and explaining why Accrescent is a much better option for installing apps.
The point of free software isn't security, but freedom. For people who want control of their computing, this is not an "arbitrary restriction" but rather a basic requirement. Just because you don't particularly care about a concern doesn't make it "arbitrary." I'm not a vegan or vegetarian but I don't complain about the "arbitrary restriction" of a plant-based diet.
I think your thinking im against FOSS but you're not understanding. Many people in the FOSS community only care about privacy and ignore security. A developer can implement security benefits to FOSS but many people don't care to do it.
Accrescent is FOSS and it has much higher security benefits than F-Droid. Accrescent allows both open and closed sourced apps because there's no benefit being exclusive to having FOSS apps in their catalog.
If the user chooses to not use proprietary apps on Accrescent, they don't have to install them.
It's a misconception to say that free software is "about privacy." Many people in the free software community care about having the four freedoms (the freedom to use, share, modify, and share modified copies). We don't like free software because we think it's more secure, we like it because it's free software. Freedom doesn't need a justification other than freedom itself.
For us, a catalogue offering only free software isn't an "arbitrary rule" that's the whole point. If F-Droid carries an app I know I have the four freedoms with that app, because they put in the work to verify that, by building the app according to their (relatively strict, not strict enough IMO) standards. Accrescent and Obtainium fans have different priorities, which is okay, but I don't understand why they spend so much time shitting on F-Droid and the free software movement.
Security is important in free software, but security in proprietary software is often user-hostile (for example, DRM and WEI). Often times the only way to regain freedom in a proprietary environment is to exploit a security hole, so sometimes we prefer that proprietary software actually not be very secure.
As for F-Droid's and the free software's community towards "old" apps, we understand that software does not lose value simply by being unmaintained. Of course, if something is particularly security-critical and/or has a large attack surface (for example an operating system or a web browser). I would stay away from anything unmaintained. That doesn't apply to all software, though.
DaVinci Resolve. It's insane to me that you can get that much video editin functionality for free.
Edit: I somehow missed the open source-part. Nvm me.
That's not even free, and more importantly not free and open source.
Oops, I mentally skipped the "open source" part. It's definitely free as long as you don't need the premium features. But maybe that doesn't qualify as free?
Free is a loaded word and in FOSS it means "free as in freedom" as opposed to "free as in free beer".