Mine is Local Send which is a FOSS alternative similar to air drop that works across a variety of devices.
Syncthing; it’s a modern miracle
Last time I tried it, it choked on anything over a million files. Is it better now?
When I learned about it first time I thought it sounded too good to be true. Turns out, it is just that good.
What is it?
It syncs things.
No but really, it’s Pretty freaking cool A tool you can use to automatically sync data across multiple OS with minimal interaction from you.
Oh, is it like a Dropbox but without a cloud?
Yes. You have a “share”. That’s the imaginary dropbox-like thing. Then you have a folder on some device that you link to that share. All folders you link with that share become the same on any device, intelligently.
For sanity’s sake, unless I’m doing something like syncing game map folders across devices but inside a game’s special map folder, i keep them all in a folder called ‘sync’, and name the folders in ‘sync’ after the share name. Otherwise, things can get wonky. Consistent naming is important imo. With a share called “share with bob” started from a folder called ‘bob sync’ on sam’s end, ‘Sam’ on bob’s end, and they stay that way after anita joins, and she calls it ‘bob and Sam’ or something. Someone else joins and calls it “buddies”. Then, people say things like ‘i put it in the sam folder’, and it brings up questions.
But with a little bit of organization, it’s awesome. Drop a file in a folder, and it’s now on the other person’s computer too. They move it out, and the file’s gone for you.
If the computers can talk to each other (same lan, or proper internet connection) they will. If you have dysfunctional NAT or phones with no public-facing IP that are connecting to each other, just make sure some system can be accessed, and it’s all good. You want a cloud backup? Just set up the daemon on a server somewhere, and join the share.
Similar in function to google drive or onedrive or other cloud sync services but everything is kept local, more performant, and non-intrusive. Each device keeps your chosen synced folders up to date with other devices. You choose what is synced with each device on a foldee-by-folder basis.
I use it to sync my password manager database (keepass) and my notes app, among other things. So all my devices have the password database up to date and i can use the same password manager accross them.
It also provides version control optionally. I use obsidian for notes so if i screw up i can revert to the prwvious revision as a complex ‘undo’ option.
Works on major platforms including android, Linux, windows, and i assume apple stuff.
Awesome. I wonder if I can incorporate OneDrive easily. I’m on a family plan and have 1 TB of storage. Maybe there’s a way to upload stuff to OneDrive without the garbage of OneDrive.
Hmm. No it won’t work like that. It only syncs between devices. But i suppose you could have a dedicated device sitting in a closet or whatever which only handles a cloud sync service to which you could use synching with the one drive folders. That would minimize the suffering of having to deal with the broken interface of onedruve/google sync.
Yeah exactly. The Drive Sync hasn’t been too bad but OneDrive app is much more limited and I’m afraid to use it because it’s so flaky. Especially on non-Windows.
This isn’t exactly “can’t live without,” that would be HomeAssistant. But what I Immediately thought of?
This is an RTS game in the spirit of Total Annihilation.
- labor of love
- fully 3d, including ability to rotate or raise/lower view
- tens of thousands of units without hardware lag for reasonably modem hardware (3-4 years old)
- all shots actively rendered, leading to:
- realistic friendly fire
- even air units can get hit by ballistic shots targeting land units (although odds are fairly slim)
- redirect-unit-to-dodge micro is effective in some situations
- meaningful terrain
- radar will have blind spots based on line-of-sight
- radar gives clear indicator of coverage during placement
- two factions, almost 200 units each, with tier 1, 2, and 3 units. A third (currently playable with a setting change) faction is in the works.
- crafty, non-cheating ai opponents
- free server hosting (!)
- active servers all times of day
The overall feel and balance of the game is great. The changes they make to balance are generally light and reasonable, and the game had a good community.
Fam and friends play together often.
Loved TA as a kid. Played it for countless hours on GameSpy and EA Zone. Will definitely give this a try, thank you!
Sweet! For others coming by, here’s the official trailer:
That link doesn’t seem to work for me 🙁
Fixed, but it’s a youtube link.
Proxmox, if that counts, life changing.
Same. I went from one overly complicated Debian install to two dozen neat and self contained VMs that do one thing each. I even tricked a Windows VM into not knowing that it’s a VM, so I can game with anticheat games.
Got any recommended sources for someone looking to do the same thing? My home server is approaching 18 years old, was looking to set up something neat and tidy to replace it when it eventually fails. Tricking a windows vm sounds pretty useful too!
I don’t have a good primary source, its been a lot of disparate googling. But if you have any questions at all, let me know. I love helping
I might take you up on that, thanks for the offer!
Jellyfin Sonarr Radarr Prowlarr stack
Syncthing
Well, I guess we’re a little past the year mark but I really like Lemmy and Jerboa lol.
I was previously using Obsidian, which is great! but didn’t like that it was closed source. I then went on to try various options [0] but none of them felt “right”. I eventually found notesnook and it hit everything I was looking for [1]. It’s only gotten better in the last year I started using it and just recently they introduced the ability to host your own sync server, which is one of the requirements it didn’t initially make, but was on their roadmap.
[0] Obsidian, Standard Notes, OneDrive, VSCode with addons, Joplin, Google Keep, Simple Notes, Crypt.ee, CryptPad (more of a collabroation suite, which I actually really like, but it did not fit the bill of a notes app), vim with addons, Logseq, Zettlr, etc.
[1] Requirements in no particular order:
- Open source client and server.
- Cross-platform availability as I use Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android.
- Cross-platform feature parity.
- Doesn’t fight me over how notes should be taken - looking at Logseq’s lack of organization.
- Easy notes syncing.
- End-to-end encryption (E2EE). It’s about to be 2025, if the tools you’re picking up aren’t E2EE, you’re letting unknown strangers access your data and resell it. It doesn’t matter what their privacy policy says as that can always change and/or they can get compromised/compelled to expose your data.
- Ability to publish notes.
- Decent UX.
Can you self host this yet?
Nice, I checked earlier on mobile but couldn’t find it. Not sure why. Thank you!
I am using Logseq and the organization is basically the only thing not working for me. I will try this out.
I really tried making Logseq work for me but even if they added some kind of organization/hierarchy, I still had performance issues with my limited notes (just testing things, didn’t want to go all the way in), and various copy/paste drag and drop UX issues that made the experience frustrating.
Nice ive been using obsidian as well I’ll give this a shot
Currently im using standard note but id love to give this a try. I first heard of it from techlore
My favourite recent one is Yunohost, which makes it super easy to spin up a little self-hosted server with a bunch of apps. I’ve been having good fun with that and a spare Raspberry Pi lately.
LaTeX and maybe NixOS with hyprland (both for the first time)
Check out Typst and its flake! Really nice, a lot simpler than latex. here’s my template https://git.sr.ht/~imadnyc/nix-templates
My choice is
screenon the CLI. It’s an old one, but I just learned about it this year and it’s been amazing helpful doing complex, long-running tasks via SSH.In that same vein, give zellij a look! I use it pretty constantly whenever I’m sshing in a nominatim server
screenis liketmux, right? So you can split your CLI, open a new window/tab to open more Bash/Vim instances?tmux is a modern screen replacement.
Yep! You can have multiple named screens, log them all individually, and they’ll keep processes running even if you disconnect. Never used
tmuxbutscreenis usually installed on the systems I’m working on.
Screen is great, i used it for a long time to keep my Minecraft server process running on a raspberry pi. I recently just switched from screen to tmux
Jellyfin. Use it daily. Dropping more and more atreamjnf services, it’s been awesome.
Honorable mentioned to Revanced.
What apps do you use revanced for? Maybe it’s just me but the two apps I use haven’t had new revanced versions in 6+ months.
YouTube, mostly. Twitch.
Linux and godot
If you’re in any flavor of academics from middle school to doctorate program or otherwise writing papers that require strict citation formatting, drop what you’re doing and click that link.
Or probably YouTube it or something first so you can see why it’s so much better than your standard internet citation generators.
Don’t forget to share the intel with your classmates!
Edit - honorable mention to Desmos for 99% of your calculator needs… with the unfortunate exception of exams, cuz phone.
I wish i knew about this during my degree
it’s the sort of tool that is really just fundamental now and should be ubiquitous and promoted and taught and talked about every where there is knowledge work. Even more so as there’s a great open source version of the tool.
This, logseq, and PKM in general for me. I guess it’s not really “can’t live without” because I hardly know where to start, but the possibilities for organizing my mess of a brain are enticing.
It would probably help to have a project to work on and actually use the things rather than diving too deep into PKM conceptually… Really wish I knew about them in school, though.
Ditto clipboard manager and altsnap with the Hot-click and fancyzone style controls
Seconding AltSnap although I use normal controls with an Alt key bound to a mouse button. Special shoutouts to “Action menu” for all the cool stuff it lets you do and “Windows list” which is just a better version of Alt+tabbing if you have multiple monitors.
Locate command. I know it’s a command in thw terminal but since I had to apt install it I’m adding it here.
I absolutely love it.
If your distro uses apt, install aptitude and enjoy a nice TUI for all your package management needs…
