arran 🇦🇺

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  • 21 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: September 23rd, 2023

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  • Back when I started out I wanted something similar I used webmin (I think it was) which is a perl webserver interface for linux configuration. There are a couple issues with gui/tui based solutions:

    1. Config files can be very expressive, and it’s hard to make a data structure and a ui which matches it, which causes it to clobber comments and extra config options you turn on (the comments help a lot with config files)
    2. They can be very out of date, and break your config unless you’re aware of the differences in version
    3. Webmin was the source of many security vulnerabilities
    4. They actively prevent learning - config files are a bandaid, although pam, like selinux, fstab, crypttab are painful ones to make a mistake in but the good news is often fixing them is booting into a live cd and changing it, so make backups.

    Along with webmin tuis were popular for config too in a similar way. IDK if redhat still does it but there were a bunch similar to nmtui.

    I don’t think that this one is particular complex to write. But you might run into other issues. Let us know if it’s on your system etc. Look in /lib/security/ to see if you have the pam_time.so installed. Might be the first place to go.









  • # System
    Distro: Gentoo Linux
    Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma
    Window Manager: kwin, twm, icewm
    Shell: zsh
    Terminal: Konsole, xterm, urxvt
    Terminal Multiplexer: tmux
    Application Launcher: -
    Notification: -
    Compositor: -
    Panel: -
    Audio: Pipewire
    
    # The Web
    Web Browser: Firefox (via flatpak)
    Chat: Discord web, Beeper Text (App image)
    Mesh VPN: -
    DPI Bypass: -
    Browser Picker: which_browser
    
    # File Management
    File Browser: Dolphin, mc, sf
    File Sharing: scp
    Torrent: torbox.app
    
    # File Creation/Modification
    Text Editor: vim, kate
    LaTeX Editor: -
    Image Editor: -
    Video Editor: -
    Audio Editor: -
    Modelling: -
    Document Editor: LibreOffice
    Image Upscaler: -
    
    # Software Dev
    Code Editor: Jetbrains
    Web Agent Manager: KJules
    Agents: Jules, agy, codex
    Github Notifier: kgithub-notify
    Languages: Go, Flutter, Qt/C++
    Git CLI: git / gh / gl
    
    # File Viewing
    Music Player: Strawberry, Spotify
    Media Player: mpv
    Image Viewer: -
    Document Viewer: -
    
    # Utility
    Screenshotter: Spectacle
    Pipewire Graph: -
    Video Recorder: Spectacle
    Color Picker: -
    Default Apps: -
    Clipboard History: klipper
    Dotfile Manager: chezmoi
    Network TUI: nmtui
    Bluetooth TUI: -
    Volume TUI: wiremix
    Disk Analyzer: du, ncdu
    Wallpaper: -
    Chooser: -
    Markdown Renderer: -
    Socket CLI tool: socat, ss, nc
    
    # Gaming
    Game Launcher: Steam
    Proton Manager: -
    
    # Productivity
    Flashcard: -
    Whiteboard: tldraw
    Password manager: bitwarden
    

  • The way I use a computer changes frequently, having an overly opinionated desktop environment makes it feel like it’s not my computer. I like my computer to work for me at my current time and I don’t mind the inconvenience of modifying settings to get there. I would rather defaults just work but I’m not asking my computer to read my mind. I’ve settled with KDE but I often use other window managers and desktop environments. Last week I used twm for the whole week. Other than scaling issues it was fine.