Lemmy seems like the right place to ask this. Personally I’ve really enjoyed Gurgle, which is a FOSS Wordle clone app.
PC:
- Libreoffice – the best, most customisable and powerful office software available
- Onlyoffice – alternative for less-advanced users who are used to the UI of contemporary MSO
- Zotero – great bibliography manager useful when writing scientific papers: lets you collect books, journal articles and all other types of sources, automatically finds full text PDFs online, fills in metadata and then inserts dynamic citations in thousands of different, customisable styles. Also generates bibliographies. Works with LO, MSO and GDocs
- Caprine – clean Facebook Messenger client (web wrapper based)
- TeXStudio – my LATeX editor of choice; integral (ha!) when formatting maths-heavy documents
Android:
- Cloudstream — free streaming app, works with SFlix, Sodastream, PH and other legally dubious streaming providers. Takes some trickery to set up though.
- Osmand — OpenStreetMap client with offline (optional online) navigation and plenty of plugins; loads of customisation
- Material Files — nicest file manager, especially for rooted devices
- Showly — freemium open-source TV and film tracker. Syncs with Trakt.tv
- Simple Gallery — out of all Simple Apps by this developer, this is the only one which is in fact superior to its alternatives. Highly customisable, powerful, lightweight gallery app
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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’.
I don’t consider myself someone who gets really worked up about much, but goddamn if ads and corporate bullshit isn’t a hot button for me. Somehow the fact that it’s become so normalized just makes me angrier about it.
Reminder that the FBI recommends people to use ad blocking
“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.
- Xonotic is an open source FPS with an active community. If you liked Quake 3 and Unreal, then I can highly recommend checking it out. It’s got lots of active servers, and perfectly captures old school FPS vibes.
- Calibre is a great way to manage ebooks
- Logseq is a great way to organize notes and ideas
Cherrytree note app, Desktop
https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/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 :(
IIRC it is not open source.
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:
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.
Obtainium - - app with which you can download & update apps (apk’s) directly from github/gitlab/etc. (and even f-droid).
Absolutely awesome 👍
OpenTTD
Big fan of Krita as a painting program. You’ve gotta learn some different hotkeys and all that, but it’s better laid out and easier to learn than like, GIMP or Blender ime. Lots of good tutorials, plenty of free brushes, quite customizable. I really like its alpha-locking and groups as an alternative system to clipping masks.
Really 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.
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.
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.)
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.
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!
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!
I’d actually recommend Podman over Docker nowadays. It’s basically a drop in replacement and embraces open source while Docker’s moving more in the direction of a closed monetized model.
I really want to use podman, but the compose part in it is still a bit too far behind
I guess I’m pretty basic with my compose files, what did you end up running into with that?
Syncthing to sync any files between devices. Works remotely, too, thanks to Syncthing relays.
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).
Yes, you can sync between two on devices anywhere in the world as long as a connection path can be found.
The downside of this is that both devices have to be on. If not on the LAN it may go though some unknown gateways too which makes me nervous (though it should be all encrypted). It can take some time too for the devices to find each other and then do the transfer (even on the LAN).
Some people place syncthing on their NAS so it is the always on device. Also if you do not want your connection to go through other peoples bridges then you can disable that feature (and loose the global WAN transfer capability), or you can put up your own bridge in a VPS on the WAN.
I am no expert on this. For me I use syncthing only sometimes and only on my LAN. Mostly I use SSH, Nextcloud, or Bitwarden Send myself. I’d like to play more with some of the other options though. Seafile or placing Send on my VPS for example seems interesting to me.
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
If you spend a lot of time in the terminal zellij is a cool alternative to tmux.
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.
OBS for screen recording.
Only because CTRL+F had zero results: Krita. Everyone complains about GIMP having a bad name and Krita is actually good!!
