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

From the website's description:

Org mode is for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, planning projects, and authoring documents with a fast and effective plain-text system.

I just copied some of the set-up from here[1]

[0] - https://orgmode.org/

[1] - http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html

Redshift for blue light filtering, although KDE now has that built-in.

zsh and the oh-my-zsh suite has been really helpful

A bunch of cli tools are nice. Ripgrep is a super fast grep tool that comes in handy for searching inside of files... can basically search your whole filesystem at lightspeed.

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 me.

steam - A distraction now and then certainly helps

- 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 more clunky using other keys

From hardware aspect (although it was never asked), I use a hhkb type-s with the hasu controller. You may think it's a small change, but the fact that you can remap the arrow keys to {h,j,k,l} also helps because you no longer need to stretch your arm to your arrow keys. It did cost a bit of money, but I'm happy that I have it. And aside from the arrow key remap, I also remapped other keys to help with basic functionalities.

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.

- Flameshot for screenshots and annotation [1] - Albert Launcher [2] - Jumpapp for quickly launching or switching between windows [3]

They are all desktop agnostic.

[1]: https://github.com/lupoDharkael/flameshot [2]: https://albertlauncher.github.io [3]: https://github.com/mkropat/jumpapp

https://cerebroapp.com

rsyn^I e.o^I:/va^Iw^I/ ./ -av --prog^I

autocompletes to

rsync example.org:/var/www/ ./ -av --progress

with alternatives listed if I press tab sooner (e.g. --protocol, --protect-args are shown with the purpose of those flags).

On a local filesystem,

ls /v/w/h/i^I

autocompletes to

ls /var/www/html/index.html

The non-default shell tool I use most often is "jq", a JSON processor. I can interact with a REST API, and answer a lot of one-off queries just in the shell.

I should probably write a tab-completion module for our REST API...

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 patches without a single issue and all the company-provided MacBooks I've had since 2010 have been zero-maintenance.

iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 53 -m string --hex-string "|08|facebook|03|com" --algo bm -j DROP

Not joking

- AutoKey (key shortcuts)

- Conky (desktop widgets)

- lsyncd (syncing files)

[1]https://github.com/cjbassi/gotop

- Clipit - clipboard management

- i3 Desktop window manager - gave me a superb boost of productivity

- Indicator Netspeed unity - live network consumption/speed indicator applet

It also allows for faster throw-away function editing and saving if you want to keep it. `function`, `funced`, `funcsave`, `functions`

* Tmux: Use pane splitting so much, always frustrates me to see others moving so slowly through terminal windows and tabs. bonus: I also have pane splitting to re-attach to existing SSH connection if it was split from a SSH session.

I used to use tmuxinator and probably will again, more valuable if multiple projects simultaneously.

* Guake/Gnome Drop Down Terminal: Terminal dropdown is just such a huge time saver.

* z: jump to recent directories, https://github.com/jethrokuan/z

* fzf: get ctrl + r history search functionality back that bash provides, also provides ctrl + o to open files in $EDITOR https://github.com/jethrokuan/fzf

* copyq: Best clipboard manager evah! You NEED a clipboard manager, can't believe I went years without it, I trigger mine with ctrl + alt + c

* pipe to clipboard: `<command with output> | xsel --clipboard`, wrap xsel in a `cb` abbreviation in fish for autoexpansion. `abbr -a cb xsel --clipboard` may need to install `xsel` first.

* workspace tiling: I map 9 workspaces to the same grid on the keyboard with these keys + an <alt> modifier. I also assign certain applications to always auto-assign to specific workspaces:

w e r

s d f

x c v

* clock: set it to show seconds, you can easily perform loose timing way. Use `time <command>` if you are on the terminal.

* timezone: if you work with a team who is in one timezone, just set it to use their timezone during working day. I made a script to toggle this back and forth easily

I also display my timezone in my tray if I am toggling timezones.

* Arch Linux: On previous distros I would have to futz with package sources way too much. With Arch it is the easiest and most productive ever by using the `yay` package manager/wrapper. I can type `yay -S <package name>` and 99% of the time it will be available and even automates building it from source if there isn't a binary. It just works, I will never go back. Arch has some of the best packaging out there, I will use Arch for this reason alone, it saves many hours of time.

* ethernet cable: I use ethernet cabling whenever possible. Lower latency times and in video conferences you can say "not me" when the stream breaks down. Results in you not having to troubleshoot wifi. Using wires is amazing!

* Jabra 410 WIRED speakerphone: one reason, hardware mute button. Don't have to fiddle through windows to see if you are on mute. Big red ring around the speakerphone shows if you are muted or not.

* Screen annotations + touchscreens: The reason to use a touchscreen with linux is screen annotations. Arch + Gnome 3 works well enough with `yay -S gromit-mpx` as an alternative to Compiz Annotate. This saves time because during presentations you can communicate much more efficiently by drawing a red circle around something. You don't need a touchscreen and can use a mouse pointer, but that does slow things down, still better than no annotations though.

* noise cancelling headphones: this is the best investment I have ever made. Do this.

* Focus music: "hey google, play focus music" and also I purchased lifetime subscriptions for brain.fm and focus@will. I toggle between the 3. Combined with noise cancelling headphones you can get into some killer focus zones with these!

* rubber ducking: similar to other posts here for marking @todos etc, which I may look into their suggestions for a CLI method. But for now I use a running Google Doc where I write it out for getting stuck and making progress. Here is an article I wrote expanding on this blurb. https://medium.com/@ElijahLynn/write-it-out-f9c74082e6ca

* 2-5 minute runs: Sometimes just gotta get up and run. I run around the block, it doesn't have to be long. A goal of once around the block is super good for brain health, more is better but 2 minutes is really a good start. My long-term goal is to do a 2 minute run every hour during the day.

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Here is my most recent Arch setup with most of these tools listed, it is pretty messy and I didn't document everything in there but maybe it is useful to someone, there is also a video recording of how to install Arch + Gnome 3 at the top of the document that my friend and colleague Cameron Eagans walked me through with some great discussion around UEFI & BIOS. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QtQyveacu8dgTeoy8939Ti42...

Gosh that was way longer than it was intended to be, original intent was just to write about `fish abbr --add` which you should switch to fish for that reason alone!!

Shutter for screen shots

parsec for streaming a local windows box