this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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Why software do you use in your day-to-day computing which might not be well-known?

For me, there are ~~two~~ three things for personal information management:

  • for shopping receipts, notes and such, I write them down using vim on a small Gemini PDA with a keyboard. I transfer them via scp to a Raspberry Pi home server on from there to my main PC. Because it runs on Sailfish OS, it also runs calendar (via CalDav) and mail nicely - and without any FAANG server.

  • for things like manuals and stuff that is needed every few months ("what was just the number of our gas meter?" "what is the process to clean the dishwasher?") , I have a Gollum Wiki which I have running on my Laptop and the home Raspi server. This is a very simple web wiki which supports several markup languages (like Markdown, MediaWiki, reStructuredText, and Creole), and stores them via git. For me, it is perfect to organize personal information around the home.

  • for work, I use Zim wiki. It is very nice for collecting and organizing snippets of information.

  • oh, and I love Inkscape(a powerful vector drawing program), Xournal (a program you can write with a tablet on and annotate PDFs), and Shotwell (a simple photo manager). The great thing about Shotwell is that it supports nicely to filter your photos by quality - and doing that again and again with a critical eye makes you a better photographer.

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[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The Docker Engine makes hosting applications over your network easy, if you have spare hardware I highly recommend setting up your own server on a headless OS.

[–] harsh3466@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

For me it's Perl's rename, which of course cones in a variety of package names depending on the distro you use. In trying to find a link, I landed on this stack exchange answer that gives a great overview of how the tool works and the different packages available on different distros.

I have to bulk rename files every day, and using regex and the other features of Perl's rename makes it so much easier to do.

[–] funkyB@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I don't know if it has been already mentioned but I love bat a lot. It's like the cat command but with colors and line numbers. Makes things a little bit easier.

[–] skrlet13@feddit.cl 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Not Linux exclusive, but https://freefilesync.org/ and https://goaccess.io/ my beloved

Easy file sync and easy log checking

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

UpNote. I use it like a combination of the gollum wiki described by OP, but I just put everything in there. I have watch and reading lists for things I want to check out, writing projects, notes for TTRPG games, I keep extensive notes on healthcare-related stuff, and so on. I like UpNote because it's lightweight, has windows, linux, and android apps, and because it has a one-time $25 lifetime membership that does free syncing forever instead of a monthly subscription like most other things seem to. I've tried OneNote, Evernote, Obsidian, Joplin, AnyType, and a bunch of others and didn't like them for various reasons, but UpNote is both pretty small and also has a pretty full-featured editor that can do rich text, all kinds of formatting, media files, etc.

The only thing I've run into that UpNote wasn't ideal for is I started writing a novel a couple months ago and managing the structure and notes and all that got a little unwieldy so I picked up Scrivener. Still wish they had an updated linux client or there was some good, complete, feature-rich linux-native equivalent, but it runs pretty good under wine, so.

[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, my main reason to use Zim Wiki and Gollum is that all the information stays on my computers -no sync service is needed, I sync via git + ssh to a Raspberry Pi that runs in my home. And this is a critical requirement for me since as a result of many experiences, my trust in commercial companies that collect data to respect data privacy has reached zero.

The differences between Zim and Gollum are gradual: Zim is tailored as a Desktop Wiki, so each page is already in editing mode which is slightly quicker, while Gollum is more like a classical server-based wiki, which is normally accessed over the browser (but by default, without user authentication). The difference is a bit blurry since both just modify a git repo, and Gollum can be run in localhost, so it is good for capturing changes on a laptop while on the road, and syncing them later. A further difference is that Zim is a but better for the "quick but not (yet) organized" style of work, while Gollum is better for a designed and maintained structure.

Both can capture media files and support different kinds of markup, while always storing in plain text. Gollum can also handle well things like PDFs which are displayed in the browser, and supports syntax highlighthing in many programming langages, which makes it nice for programming projects - it is perfect for writing outlines and documentation of software, and I often work by writing documentation first.

[–] Libra@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I have since discovered pCloud as a replacement for OneDrive and that I could just have everything saved to a pCloud directory to auto-sync.. but IMO UpNote is worth the $25 anyway so I don't mind. Also it requires considerably less effort to just install the android app vs setting up some kind of multi-device syncing with pCloud/equivalent and managing that myself. I guess I value convenience over privacy in this one area.

Thanks for the explanation re:gollum/zim, I was curious why you were using 2 different sets of software to accomplish what seemed like the same thing. My notes are definitely more of the 'scribble some shit down and organize it later if I get around to it' variety, but I stopped using zim because I wanted synced notes with multiplatform apps and also it felt a little archaic, and I wasn't really using the real star feature of wikis (cross-linking) anyway, I just wanted something with a traditional tree structure.

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I do a fair amount of pentesting and I'm on mobile, so I'll just list software.

Trufflehog & nosey parker (both kinda suck, but there's nothing better)

Subfinder

Nuclei

Credmaster

To name a few.

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[–] Nemoder@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Ocenaudio for audio editing. It's not FOSS but it's native, simple to use, and doesn't have backend library issues I kept having with audacity.

[–] Elkenders@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

100%, super impressed with Ocenaudio.

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[–] Elkenders@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago

Any benefits to help notes stuff over obsidian or other?

[–] FlappyBubble@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I would say Rymdport (https://github.com/Jacalz/rymdport). It's a GUI for the magic-wormhole tool (another recommendation in itself). It let's you easily and safely transfer files to another computer.

[–] Unmapped@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I use Localsend to send files between my computers. Also to family and friends if they are local at the time. I keep seeing magic-wormhole mentioned on Lemmy. Do you know if wormhole is better somehow? Is it worth me trying it?

[–] Flatfire@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

Biggest difference is that wormhole will pass traffic between devices on different networks as long as both are routable. So it's not limited to a local network connection.

[–] FlappyBubble@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

Very different tool. Magic-wormhole is dead simple, works over CLI and requires no setup. It's not dependant on computers being within the same LAN. I wouldn't use it with non-technical people. For users with some skill Rymdport is an option for them to interface with magic-wormhole. The tool is great for transferring secrets when setting up computers for example.

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