What Linux "Productivity" (ideally FOSS) tools do you use?

I’m in a bit of a productivity rut and whilst I suspect the issue is mainly between the keyboard and chair I’m also interested in what (FOSS) tools there are that people find effective.

One of my issues at the moment is cross managing different workstreams particularly with personal projects which are more in the “if I have time category”.

I’m interested in anything that helps manage time or limit distractions or anything that makes it easier to keep track of progress/next steps for project when there may be a bit of a time gap between.

leanleft,
@leanleft@lemmy.ml avatar

selfhosted searchengine . i see zero reason not to.

Hundun,

Please elaborate, I’ve been interested in this for awhile - what do you use/recommend for someone who’s new?

leanleft,
@leanleft@lemmy.ml avatar

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Lucene
there are many other options, also.

zingo,

Whoogle (through Tor)? ;)

Or searx??

javonbonjovi08,
@javonbonjovi08@mastodon.social avatar

@zingo @leanleft Searax?

NateSwift,

Searxng github.com/searxng/searxng

leanleft,
@leanleft@lemmy.ml avatar

i was thinking more of a narrow information retrieval system. as opposed to doing random exploration and discovery.

javonbonjovi08,
@javonbonjovi08@mastodon.social avatar

@leanleft Right.

javonbonjovi08,
@javonbonjovi08@mastodon.social avatar

@leanleft Hmm. I think I would agree.

smotherlove,

I’m certain you can think of a reason not to if you really try.

leanleft,
@leanleft@lemmy.ml avatar

too lazy.
i love google.

OsrsNeedsF2P,

One of my issues at the moment is cross managing different workstreams particularly with personal projects which are more in the “if I have time category”.

Literally what I use virtual desktops to solve

zerakith,

So you keep a project open in the Virtual Desktop and then boot it up when you are working on it?

Blisterexe,

Virtual desktop =/= virtual machine

I think gnome calles them workspaces. This article is old and gnome-specific, but it gives you a good idea of what they are.

maketecheasier.com/how-to-work-with-workspaces-gn…

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

They’re not talking about a virtual machine. There is no “booting up”.

You can have multiple desktops in linux, I personally use three, which you can switch between using a keyboard shortcut (or widget/ taskbar item).

It’s kinda like turning one computer into multiple computers that you hop between on demand.

I have one for gaming and entertainment, one for work, and a third for personal projects.

captainjaneway,
@captainjaneway@lemmy.world avatar

How does resource management work for desktops? Is the computer running all of the processes in the background as though they are just minimized?

MentalEdge,
@MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz avatar

Yes. Or out of focus. If you have one monitor, three virtual desktops would be like having three monitors. Looking at a different one, doesn’t stop anything running on another. You can also “send” a window on one desktop to another, equivalent to dragging a window from one monitor to another when using two or more.

KDE Activities is a similar feature, but it can actually suspend everything running in a certain “activity” when you switch to another, if that’s something you want.

zerakith,

Ah KDE activities might be what I’m looking for then. I am planning to transition from Gnome to KDE very soon.

moody,

It’s essentially the same as having more monitors, except you can only see the active ones. Nothing changes except what your displays are showing.

zerakith,

Ah thanks for the clarification. I never did manage to use Virtual Desktops effectively but it sounds like the problem was me trying to use them within the workflow rather than for different projects. I always found it difficult to switch compared with just having an extra monitor.

I do worry it might be quite resource intensive just sitting loads in the background though.

I’m going to give it a try!

sirico,
@sirico@feddit.uk avatar

distrobox too

calzone_gigante,

That and using multiple instances of the browser instead of one instance with many tabs helped me a lot. If i have to switch tasks i go to a new workspace and only open the software related to that task there. Once I’m done i just close everything in the workspace and move back to the previous one that is the same way it was before i switch.

devfuuu,

Kde activities should suit this well since it’s integrated to the level of the file viewer.

delirious_owl,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

QubesOS is this on crack

8263ksbr,

Is it possible to “save” those sessions between reboots? That would be awesome.

OsrsNeedsF2P,

I do with KWin rules. It’s not elegant but it doesn’t require coding

8263ksbr, (edited )

Thank you, I will look into KWin.

Turns out, it is awesome and does more than I need. I already move a lot of my applications with xdotool to prediscribed positions and sizes, via hotkeys, which start some scripts. Now I found out, it also can move them across virtual desktops. Nice :)

taaz,

As a programmer most of my utilities are CLI oriented.

zsh
fzf (integrated into zsh, improves reverse search, killing processes and more)
zoxide - for quicker navigation into folders I visit often
Other programs I use from time to time: jq, btop, bat.

Flameshot - best screenshotting tool for linux (and also windows)
Redshift/Gammashift - blue light filter
ddccontrol - controlling monitor brightness and contrast without having to fiddle with buttons

Last but not least my Awesome WM (tiling) config - makes working with multiple windows/desktops so easy.

lemmyreader,

+1 for these that I also use : fzf flameshot and redshift !

UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT,

Ooh flames hot does look interesting! Thanks, I’ll check it out

OsrsNeedsF2P,

Make the print screen button call flameshot gui and you’re golden

governorkeagan,

Could you share your config for Awesome? I’m toying with the idea of moving to a tiling WM.

taaz,

I don’t really have it ready to publicize but it’s based on powerarrow-dark from awesome-copycats github repo (I have mainly removed things I don’t use and added some more mappings like media keys etc).

mrh,
@mrh@mander.xyz avatar

emacs org-mode

ouch,

This is the way.

Nothing comes even close. I just wish there was a distributed / mobile-enabled way to use org-mode. I guess there exists some project, but running full emacs org-mode mobile is hardly usable.

wigol,

I got acceptable results with org-roam cooperating with logseq. It took some fiddling with org IDs, config and a bit of elisp, but it’s stable enough for me.

fossphi,

How did you handle note interlinking?

Yearly1845,

deleted_by_author

    •
    fossphi,

    True. And I wanted to know how they keep that in tandem with org mode. Because the wiki style links logseq uses don’t seem to work with other applications

    Falcon,

    I though the interlinking worked for org but not md?

    wigol,

    I forced logseq to use relative file links and skipped backlinking in org-roam. However, it looks like logseq now supports org-id links with backlinking. I might need another script to convert :).

    fossphi,

    Would you mind sharing your experience and/or the script? Would be nice for the community!

    ParetoOptimalDev,

    Need to use strokes to make gestures for cycling, todo cycling, etc and see how it works.

    Cwilliams,

    Just Emacs in general

    noeontheend,

    I’m a Vim user to my core, but I still use org-mode with this plugin (and Orgzly on Android) because of how useful it is.

    zerakith,

    I worry I’m not “hardcore” enough for emacs (I have tried in the past and now mostly use Vim). I will give it a try though as quite a few people recommend here!

    pingveno,

    It takes a little bit of getting used to, but I found once limited myself to a few useful features I really started using it every day. For the most part I organize myself inside of Jira, but for tasks that I am currently thinking about I put them in a org-mode document. I have a few minor customizations, use a few hot keys, and that’s it.

    Are_Euclidding_Me,
    @Are_Euclidding_Me@hexbear.net avatar

    You could try spacemacs (what I use) or doom emacs. Both have vi-like keybindings as a default and are slightly easier to get going with than vanilla emacs. On the other hand, especially with spacemacs, there’s more to learn than vanilla emacs and more that can go wrong.

    digital_alchemist,

    Highly recommend pairing this with David Allen’s GTD and Rainer König’s excellent course Getting yourself organized with Org-mode

    kelvie,

    I’ve recently started replacing most of my shell usage with org mode and babel, along with GitHub copilot and similar LLM backed tools it’s like autocomplete on steroids

    Cwilliams, (edited )

    OBSIDIAN!

    modcolocko,

    Obsidian is not open source.

    Cwilliams,

    not really open source, but all of your data is safe as markdown files. While normally prefer FOSS applications, I make an acception for Obsidian, because nothing really matches it

    Blisterexe,

    Not even logseq?

    Kata1yst,
    @Kata1yst@kbin.social avatar

    In my experience, nope. I tried so hard to use Logseq, but I had massive issues with speed, stability, and database corruption.

    Really I think the root of the issue is their database. The database causes so many problems and makes their synchronization methods dirty hacks at best.

    Marduk73,
    @Marduk73@sh.itjust.works avatar

    python i automated a ton of repeatative and boring tasks. made my work life super easy. made some tools for my manager to harvest all drawings for a user specified product. sky is the limit. well until you type import cosmos /s

    tom42,
    @tom42@lemmy.world avatar

    A combination of different.

    For brainstorming Logseq is great, for tasks I use CalDAV in combination with Thunderbird and JTX Board (Android) a lot.

    squid_slime,
    @squid_slime@lemmy.world avatar

    Sway really sped things up for me. Also using ble.sh helps with bash. Then custom scripts and aliases in bashrc.

    TheAnonymouseJoker, (edited )

    FZF in Bash. For those wondering why Ctrl+R does not work in Terminal, web.archive.org/…/fzf-ctlr-r-not-triggering-histo…

    And to avoid all the web browser player BS, use yt-dlp for any video link or worthwhile playlist. I just search and fetch video links from Invidious, or read comments on videos, so it ends up with practically zero bandwidth load on instance owners.

    UNWILLING_PARTICIPANT,

    Was going to say fzf - it’s a huge help for so many CLI activities, but especially searching history

    massive_bereavement,
    @massive_bereavement@kbin.social avatar

    I send links from my browser to freetube, which is fantastic.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,

    For some reason I never found FreeTube working, or able to import my NewPipe .db file in it. So I use Newpipe on Android, and on Linux/Windows, Invidious links + yt-dlp. Works too well since years now.

    zerakith,

    Avoiding going on yt is definitely a plus. I am trying to move more to active choice of music rather than just what the algorithm is pushing. Obviously that requires upfront work but I think it’s worth it.

    TheAnonymouseJoker,

    You may find yourself better suited with a throwaway free Spotify account, letting the algorithm suggest bands and songs based on your taste, and just noting down all of them. Spotify also allows exporting your account’s data, which includes music preferences, so that can work well. I am doing the same because it is just not feasible to discover by yourself.

    catguy,
    @catguy@mastodon.social avatar

    @zerakith thunderbird and obsdian I know it's not foss but it's really good. As well as vs codium

    femboy_bird,

    Try out a tiling wm (i use i3/sway) they are much easier to focus in than a regular de

    zerakith,

    It’s on the list to try. I briefly tried i3 but couldn’t get on with it. Though that was a bad time to try change as there was a lot of deadlines and I didn’t really have the time to learn. I have a bit more time so I’m going to try again.

    jbd,

    I use emacs, Denote, and markdown-mode to keep a loose Zettlekasten archive of notes.

    njordomir,

    Nextcloud Calendar is where I’m blocking out my time. I use a proprietary task app with a Linux client because tasks.org/former Astrid/nextcloud tasks isn’t quite there yet… for me. If I was creating a system to keep me on track today, I would center the whole thing on Nextcloud. The one thing I despise about nextcloud is how it handled locales and formats. There is no easy way to move to YYYY-MM-DD and HH-DD without messing up other stuff like day of the week captions language. The thing I love about nextcloud is how it doesn’t spam you with garbage recommendations and clutter and such like Outlook.

    ViaFedi,

    Obsidian flatpak with network disabled

    dessalines,

    Not FOSS unfortunately.

    ViaFedi,

    Therefore disable networking…

    zerakith,

    Useful, I’m open to non-FOSS if I really have to and no networking helps.

    crony,
    @crony@lemmy.cronyakatsuki.xyz avatar

    Neovim and markdown

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