short version
| name | usecase |
|---|---|
| neovim | text editor |
| emacs | text editor |
| lf | tui file browser |
| fish | shell |
| sops | secret management |
| anki | flashcards |
| LaTeX | creating documents |
| xournalpp | handwritten notes |
| firefox | mostly distraction free browser |
| neomutt | |
| ferdium | messaging |
| mpd/ncmpcpp | music |
| sioyek | pdf reader |
| rofi | application launcher/scripts |
| alacritty | terminal emulator |
| croc | file sharing |
| syncthing | file synchronising |
| keepass | password managing |
| keyd | remapping keys |
| nixos | operating system |
| nix shell | testing programs or using them only once |
| hyprland | window manager |
| waybar | bar inside of window manager |
| stylix | styling/colors |
| borg | backups |
long version
text editors
neovim
I use neovim due to its extensibility and minimalistic nature. As long as you don’t open 200MB files it will be quick.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nvim
(doom) emacs
operating system
nixOS
nixOS is used for various reasons, I have yet not managed to bring all my excitement about it in text. It offered me a lot of possibilities to learn new things that I otherwise would never have come across (such as secret management, remote deployment, functional programming languages, etc.).
It is objectively the better way to manage operating system configurations and the deployment of it.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles
window manager
hyprland
My WM timeline is bspwm -> dwm -> sway -> hyprland. Hyprland just seems to be a modern and foremost wayland based window manager that works great and seems to be the future for now.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/wayland/hypr.nix
waybar
Waybar is just a primitive bar that does its job, it works well, but I wouldn’t say that I love it.
stylix
Stylix uses nixOS’ declarative way to manage all your colors, opacities and fonts of all your programs at once, it’s most useful when you don’t have the time to “rice” your system.
security
borgbackup
Borg does deduplicated backups, it works well and I run it on all my UNIX systems reliably.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/hosts/common/optional/borg.nix
sops
Sops does secret management for me to access credentials across my nixOS configuration that are encrypted with age encryption. sops-nix
keepassxc
Keypass just takes care of my passwords in a single, encrypted file. It works well and reliably, all the things one would want from a password manager.
file sharing
syncthing
Syncthing synchronices folders across the devices you tell it to via the local network you are in.
I use it to synchronice my keepass database, books, papers, music and much else between my devices without having to worry much about cloud storage or a man in the middle.
croc
Croc does file-sharing not locally but encrypted via a server of theirs or something like that. You can just use `croc send <file>` and get back a code like `0384-here-three-words` that the other party is then able to enter within their croc to receive the file.
Very handy when you need to send something to a friend and don’t want to have the hassle of uploading it to a messanger and can instead just do it within the terminal.
shell and terminal
alacritty
Alacritty is one of my “just works” programs. It feels fast and I don’t need a terminal to do any more than letting me write things in it. At the end it’s tmux’ job to multiplex or tab, not the terminals.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/terminal.nix
fish
After years of having some hundred lines zsh configs in a weird format I came to the result of “that ain’t it” and seeing ersei using it on their blog I gave it a try. It’s made to be usable and has by far the best vi-mode on the shells that I’ve tested. It won’t be as minimal as bash or a plain zsh, but it’s just nicely made and fun to use.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/core/fish.nix
QOL improvement apps
keyd
Due to using an alternative keyboard layout I also need some program to remap my things there and keyd seems to be the best solution I’ve found yet. It allows other things next to remapping too, such as combos if I remember correctly, but I have not yet tried that.
It’s a systemd service that starts very early in the booting process and that way I sadly can not unlock my encrypted disk with it, but already login with the different layout.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/hosts/common/optional/desktop/keyd.nix
nix shell
productivity
flashcards
-
Anki is the only good flashcard solution that I trust. It’s open source, has a nice community and just works.
document writing / reading
-
LaTeX is used for document writing because
- i can write it in nvim
- it seems great by standard
- every solution to problems I could face already exist
- community is cool
- makes typesetting math easy
-
About sioyek I’ve gathered my thoughts in this video, it’s a more modern version of zathura to me, a program that I once loved, and just does a lot of things right.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/pdf.nix
handwriting
-
Xournalpp is for now the only good program I’ve come across when it comes to handwriting notes with a graphical tablet or a tablet-laptop. Just works, is reliable and fast.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/academia/xournalpp
communicating
ferdium
Ferdium I’ve only found some weeks ago due to a friend, it is an app that just connects all your web-apps for messaging and collects them for you there.\
I want my browser to be as minimal and distracting as possible, so having whatsapp, matrix, discord, … in one place helps to achieve that.
neomutt / abook
Neomutt is one of the programs that I was in love with since I saw them and still am. It is a terminal-ui based email program that works in conjunction with different nice tools such that it makes emailing a great experience.
- Contacts are in abook
- mbsync does the imap/smpt things for me
- emails are written in neovim
- isync allows me to read and write mails offline
- notmuch could do the indexing
- etc.
You get the point, it makes writing mails very easy and fast compared to having to use thunderbird, a web program or anything that does not allow you to write them in neovim.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/mail/default.nix
else
Browsing: firefox (with good config)
I initially switched to firefox because I found chrome became horrible but now since then there have a lot of reasons come on top of it, which are:
- being able to adjust the recommended search items. Have trimmed that to a minimum, nothing else than my 3 bookmarks are recommended when I search for something.
- search engines, such that i can make e.g. `@ar` to make a search `@ar test` query arxiv.org for test.
- I can declare the whole config in nixos-homemanager to not have to use a firefox account to keep track of my settings, etc.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/firefox
Music: mpd with ncmpcpp
Got this off of luke smith, it’s a nice setup to listen to local music with. It also includes a good tag editor in ncmpcpp that makes managing a local collection easier.
mpd here is the music player daemon and ncmpcpp is a client for mpd.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/music.nix
Application launcher: rofi
Used dmenu before and loved it but rofi is fine too, switched to it when going to wayland.
my config: https://git.sr.ht/~d-rens/nixos-dotfiles/tree/master/item/home/common/optional/rofi.nix