Our Favorite Apps 2026

Hey everybody, welcome to Linux Cast. I'm your host Matt. >> I'm Drew. >> And I'm Nate. Welcome to the Linux Cast, the podcast that apparently was never wanted to get started tonight. We were just, you know, whenever I say we, my mom would always say, "What do you got? A turd in your pocket." It was me. It was all my fault. So, apologies for the the late start to my fellow co-hosts and to everyone else. It's just been a long [ __ ] day. And then I get here and nothing works. And you're right, Drew. It is probably Hyperland's fault. But what what are we going to do? Um, >> what are you gonna do? >> What are you gonna do, man? >> Content doesn't make itself. Sometimes you got to sacrifice stability for for content >> for the kids. For the kids, Matt. >> Yeah, exactly. All right. So, we're we normally do a mini topic. Tonight, we can't be ared, as the British would say. So, we're going to go ahead and move it right on to the main topic, which is our favorite apps of 2026. So, about once a year, we go through and we do this. You'll have some repeats from last year, I'm sure, but I tried to do my best to to name apps that I haven't named before. Wasn't always successful. I did put Vivaldi at the top of the list just to prove how unsuccessful I was. But anyways, that's what we're going to do. What I figure we'll do is like we normally do just we'll we'll do one app and we'll go around talk about a little bit and then do a round robin until uh we run out. I'm probably won't name all the ones that I have on here because I just don't need to do that. So, all right, Drew, your first app. I think there's going to be no secret in which I have expressed my love for Genie. Genie is going to be my first app. Every year, friends, every year it will be my first app. Everyone files it under a lightweight IDE. But look at uh my configuration. toolbar hidden scroll bars uh scroll bars hidden uh sidebar stripped down in you know 17point nerd f and then plugins like markdown like spellch checking like git change bar and tree browser it's not an IDE it's a better it's better so I'm going to take it over VS Code any day of the week [ __ ] is great I haven't used it in a long time though not since the la that time I set it up with your config Nate years. >> First of all, I'm a little disappointed he said better, not butter. Anyways, mine will always be Dinci Resolve. The Vincent Resolve, it's worth every penny. The best video ever editor ever created. The only one that might come close is Final Cut, but you know, that's tied to Mac and frankly, I don't want to be tied to just one OS. So, it is the best video editor. And do not come to me about Caden live period in a discussion. Surprisingly, Resolve didn't make my list. It's probably going to hate me now and not work anymore. >> Does it work like across? I mean, because I know that you try, like I said, you tried a lot of different like, you know, you're on Hyperland today. You're on Utah before, you're on KDE. Does it work across all of those? >> Now, it does. >> At one point, it didn't, >> but that was more of a DRO thing than a or let's let's be honest, it was more of a Matt thing than anything else. >> Matt's hardware. That's what it was. >> It It's working now. I don't know why I I This is awful off related, but the um I am going to up upgrade to the unstable version of it, Nate, so that I can render it out for you. That way you don't have to send it over the internet and deal with all that [ __ ] I'm very worried. I'm I'm just very very very worried about it. >> Unstable unstable version of Da Vinci or >> Da Vinci Resolve. So, it's kind of like in >> what? >> Four nicks. >> Yeah, four nicks. >> Yeah. So, it's kind of like uh Debian drew where you can Frankenstein your >> I see >> and just pin like one thing to the unstable branch. That's what I'm going to do. Probably not a good idea. I'm probably going to regret it. But hey, you know what? I'm on hyperland tonight. So, I've obviously living on the edge. All right. So, my f my first one is going to be one that pissed a lot of people off, but I love it. it. The Cloud desktop app is actually only available for Debian based systems right now, but I I managed to create an overlay for Nyx to install it. It is phenomenal. If you are a AI person and you like to mess around with AI, it is so good. The context is 10 times longer than cloud code. I mean, it's just it lasts forever and it just allows you to organize things so much better. kind of like you do on the web if you want to put things in groups and folders and it remembers across repositories and stuff like that if you wanted to. It's very very good if you're into claude. So claude desktop app again only available for debased systems unless you write a write a way to get around that. So that's my first one. Drew, your second one. >> I use flameshot a lot guys. You know I needed I know that's probably bloat for a lot of people. you know, you can use, especially if you're on, you know, something other than an X11, you know, they have other options for you. So, anyway, I use Flameshot. Uh, it has, uh, annotation and arrows and blurring and and in one tool. And I take that over, you know, like Gnome Screenshot or things like that, uh, any day, even over something like Grim or Slurp, even though, like I said, it's a little bit more bloated than that. But, uh, I kind of enjoy all the as the, um, tools that go with Flameshot. >> Yeah, Flameshot's really good. It does work on Wayland. It's just not as nearly as >> Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was kind of X11 only. >> Yeah, it it'll work on Wayland. It's not as good on Wayland as it is on exorg, but it will work if you want to do some tinkering. I think I use just a built-in version or I use a Grim Slurp on Whand and then I use something I think it's called like Mimo or something like that. I don't know what I use on Xorg. It's something that that replicates uh Grim and Slurp on XOR just be just because I want to script it and I don't really I don't need the annotation stuff for from Flameshot. Nate, your next one. >> So, my next one is easy effects. If you're wanting something that will actually work with Pipar to be able to control like different volumes for certain applications or if you want to actually use it to EQ your actual speakers or your headphones easy effects it's free it's easy to install really good free piece of software so basically what I wrote down is if you just want to simply control each application sound volume very easy solution EQ which is a very nice touch. So, pretty good little app. >> Okay, cool. All right, my next one is an app called I'm going to have a lot of home home lab stuff on here this year. Um, just cuz I've been messing around with a lot of that stuff. So, I've been I I have an app called Plausible installed. It allows me to to add open- source statistics to my websites and um without having to deal with Google Analytics. So, it's it's not as full featured as Google Analytics, but it does the trick. It gives you all the information that you need, plus you have control of over all the data. So, uh, it wasn't that easy to install when I was on Debian, but there's a Nexos module for it. So, I I just installed it that way, and it's, uh, very good. It's it's stable. Gives you the gives you fairly accurate or at least fairly comparable stats to Google Analytics. So, that's good. I did try >> You're running it on like Linux your sorry uh the Linuxcast.org or and as >> in my >> is it is it like umami then? >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Basically the same idea. It's just a different you know kind. I like I like the UI a little bit of plausible plus they don't update nearly as often. I had problems with um where it broke every once in a while because of updates. >> So yeah, I stopped I stopped using that. Like I said, it's it was on Nexos it was easy to install. I had some problems when I was hosting on on Debian, but I think that was more of a Matt problem uh than anything else. All right, Drew, your next one. >> I just wanted to mention that I do use Yumami. So, in the same kind of like uh vein Matt's using for statistics for his websites, I am using Yumami for for mine as well. I think it it I think I've not used Plausible. I'll take a look at it. But I just wanted to mention that uh Yumami does work for me and I'm hosting it on my true .naz scale and it works so far so good. Let's put it that way. Yeah. >> As far as file managers, I'm going to go with our file a file manager. I've kind of been going down editor screenshot. And now file manager. I use thunar kind of across the board for every single everything I I use. So if I'm on in DWM, if I'm in uh BSPWM or what have you, I end up using Dunar for basically everything. I think it's I think there's some really good features that people don't really are aware like like bulk rename and stuff like that. So anyway, it uh it works really well. It's fairly lightweight and uh I think I've been on Thunar forever. It's a good file manager. what I used to I have decided I think I'm going to fork it and try to add better dual pan support because it has dual pane support but it doesn't remember it very well. So I'm going to try to add a couple features. We'll see. All right, Nate, your next one. >> So my next one obviously it's got to be Jellyfin. Jellyfin is just a great false application. It also it's one of the to me it's one of the best streaming platforms that doesn't stab you in the back. Yeah, not going to mention any names. >> Plex, but it is another alternative that actually gives you full control of everything that you need for your system. And it used to be a pain in the rear to add like the Nvidia codecs to be able to, you know, render the stream, whatever. It's it's stupid simple now. It everything just ties in together. It's really simple. It's in the settings. >> I don't use jelly my jellyfin as much as I should. I'm just not as much into TV shows and movies as I used to be. I have all the stuff there and I I I hoard it. I don't watch it. Um and I use Navum for music. That's just kind of the way that my life tends to gone. Drew, you're still on Plex, right? >> I am. Yeah, it it it works like and I've said this before. I know that I could probably switch over. I think that it's just too damn lazy to to do that, especially when things are working well. You know, I sometimes I feel like I know myself and I might like go hip deep in something just to see if I can get it to work and then I'm like, well, this other thing worked too. Why did I take this all this time to uh to uh to to to try something else? And you know, again, I use I use it for other people so that they can watch some of my local television and it works well for that. So, I don't know if JellyFin does the same thing, but I'd be willing to at least check it out. >> I mean, if something works for you, you just you use what works. Plus, you Plus, you're you're grandfathered in on the cheaper lifetime plan, right? >> Yeah. I have I paid $75 like over a decade ago for a lifetime membership and uh I think it's paid for itself. >> Oh, yeah. Definitely. It's better than the Did you see they raised it like $749? >> Yeah. It's ridiculous. Yeah. Ridiculous. >> Yeah. All right. So my like at that point, you know what? Just don't offer a lifetime plan. You know what I mean? Nobody's nobody's paying that. All right. Sorry. Okay. So, mine my next one is home assistant. So, uh this is actually Drew's fault. >> In a good way this time. >> I'll take credit. I don't >> In a in a good way this time. Home Assistant is just awesome. I I'm not as knee deep into it as I'm going to be eventually, but I've been I I talked about this a couple weeks ago. I got a couple cameras for around my house and a couple cameras from my mom and dad's house and a couple cameras now for around my brother's house which he you know he lives a little further away and it it's instead of having to deal with the real link app which requires you to sign out and sign in if you want to get to a different hub. I just attach them all into the home system and I can view everything there and even control like the zoom and panel and all that stuff from there which you can't even do that from the real link app. I wasn't able to get my GOI lights to work because they're too old. They're not they're not capable to sign up for the service or whatever. So, I'm not buying new RGB just to use Home Assistant. But I will admit that I thought about it. I like come on, man. I could use it for the app. It's like, but no, >> it's because it's not in a pin yet. >> An RGB pen. Sign me up. All right. Sorry. It's okay. Anyways, if you have like internet of things stuff flying around your house or home smart home stuff, Home Assistant was is really good and it just has so many integrations. Like you just go into their like it's basically like going into a store. You click on something and it like will walk you through everything that you need to go in order to get the device you have signed up for. It just works really well and you can kind of put everything in one place. Plus, there's Android and iOS apps so you can view it from your phone if you're if you need to. So, highly recommend Home Assistant. So, there you go. Drew, your next one. >> I feel like I should at least uh mention the things that we use for YouTube or the pod, you know, OBS Studio. I use OBS. Did Did someone already mention that yet or Okay. OBS >> crashed. >> Yeah. Oh, true. Matt has problems with OBS. You know, the whole channel runs on it. You know, it's FOS. It's won its c, you know, it has its category kind of like all to itself. It's the best thing that we have on Linux in terms of like being able to either stream or maybe I'm wrong about that, but it it's it's free and it works for streaming and it works for video recording for YouTube. So, yeah, it it works for me and I have never had a problem ever with it. So, it's good. It is it is it is very good when it wants to be. I I should I should be buttering it up is what I should be doing. Don't uh >> don't crash on me OBS. I love you. You're you're amazing. >> Nate caught the butter reference as well. I just wanted I just want to put that out. >> I caught it. I ignored it and tried to move on as fast as possible. Nate, your next one. >> My next one is going to be Vim. At first, when I started Vimil, I did not understand it whatsoever. I I was like, why would somebody even use this? But after I got used to the key bindings, things now make sense to me. And in my notes, it literally says, the best editor ever made. Don't care about your opinions. Get over yourself. >> Respect. I mean, respect for, you know, what's funny is, you know, I have, you know, I don't use I wish I could say I was a good Neoim user. I'm not. I'm clearly not, which is why I have an entire configuration for Neoim that does nothing except like what Genie does. You know, like I have like I know I have two configurations. one for Neoim with like a normal one which Matt would use and then one for me which I would use that uses like controls for saving and all this other stuff. You know, it's uh it's it's so flexible that I can do that. That's what's so good about it. >> Well, I'm >> I just had to get in there. I was going to say I'm going to have to get over I had to get in there before you mentioned this particular >> the other one >> next. Yeah, >> DT's in the chat. He's waiting. He's been waiting, man. I'm just letting you know. Funny thing is like like you guys probably won't be able to see this, but I have my especially though I can't put it in the camera, but I don't have Emacs on my list. So, it's not it's not even on my list. It's good, but it it's one of those things has become a an appliance. Like, I don't even tinker with the with the config anymore. It just sits there forever. What are you giggling about, Mr. Nate? >> Cuz you call it an appliance. >> Well, >> it's like the blender that you stick in your closet and never touch for like 20 years. Then you pull it like, "Oh yeah, I forgot I had one of these." >> Uhhuh. Except for I use I use the Blender, man. Like I use it all the time. I just don't sit and configure it like crazy like I used to with Vim. Like I used to spend a lot of time on my Vim Config. I don't do that with Emacs anymore. I did it be I did at the beginning, but now it's just where it needs to be and I don't think about it all that much. So I didn't even think to put it on my list. But yeah, use Emacs. Actually, I take that back. Don't use Emacs. It gets good, but it's Vim is fine. It's where you should go. Vim is everywhere. Emacs is just in Grub. All right. Anyway, so my my next one is audio bookshelf. And I'm This is actually going to be kind of weird. It's kind of cheating because I'm not going to be using it for much longer, but I uh I I mentioned this on the pod a few weeks ago. I downloaded a terabyte of audiobooks from, you know, a very legitimate source slashs. But anyways, I have all these audio books and I needed something that I could play with them on. And I downloaded audio bookshelf. It is phenomenally good. Uh, it gets all the I did it did a fantastic job with metadata. Like really just a phenomenal job. A lot of those apps that are for books and and audiobooks and comics and manga or whatever don't do good with metadata at all. Audiobook shelf did fantastically well. Has apps several apps for Android, several apps for oops, several apps for I uh iOS. Um, all of them pretty good. They do what they need to do. So, if you have audiobooks, whether you've downloaded your Audible library or whatever and you need to uh talk about it or I mean use them or listen to them, that's the word I was looking for, uh you should check out audiobookshelf to self-host. It's also very easy to set up just a docker container to go to to install. So, audiobook shelf is is my next one. Drew, your next one. You know, I have gone from a number of different terminals. I know that not everybody's going to have their, you know, everyone's going to have their opinion if they are a terminal user. I have gone from a number of I think elacrity and uh even just using XFCE's terminal like built-in terminal as a primary. I'm on kitty these days and um whoa wait this is a change. So I I okay there's a number of reasons why and I mean obviously I have Wes term and ghost deconfigs as well as a way to install them. Kitty is something that just happens to live in the Debian uh repos. Um, and it just provides one easier step in the install process rather than going out hunting and doing an install from so it's basically I'm trying to bulletproof installs from either Butterbean or any of these other projects. So, um, anyway, so Kitty uh, fast, it's got liatures, it's got image protocol, it has a really sane configuration file, it works very very well. I'm not saying that these other ones don't. I just wanted something really stinking stable that was part of the Debian packages and this ended up being the one I chose. >> Yeah, Kitty's my ride or die for and I'll just use until it it stops in being developed. It's just very very good. I mean I I I Drew Sings how you probably set it up from scratch more recently than I have. Do they still put all of their documentation in the default config in folds? >> Yeah. >> I hate that. That's That's the worst part. >> Yeah. I I I basically started from I started with a blank piece of paper and went from there. >> Yeah, you have to. The first time I did it, so the funny story, the first time I set up Kitty, I didn't know what the hell a V them fold was. I never heard of a Vimfold before. >> I was like, "What? It says this, you know, 35 lines are folded. What does the hell does that mean?" So, I had to get on Google and like, "How do I unfold something?" You like, "Okay." And then I went through and deleted all those things. Like, I should have just started from scratch. should have been easier, but I did eventually. But yeah, it's it's a very it's very weird that they put all those comments in there cuz like that's not really where I want to go for my documentation. Be much easier with a man page or whatever. But other than that, yeah, Kitty's fantastic. Uh Nate, what term do you use right now? Are you still on Wester? >> No, I'm on Kitty. I've been on Kitty, >> man. It is a it's an epidemic. All right. All right, Nate, your next one. >> My next one is going to be Reaper. I know that this is kind of more of my niche area, but to me, it's one of the best dolls that are out there, which is a digital digital audio workstation. It has support for all of the desktop OSS, and it's free as long as you want to use it. It there is a little caveat with that. It will keep popping up saying, "Hey, have you bought a license?" But all you have to do is say, "No, I'm I'm not going to buy one." Or just click it off and then you can still use Reaper for free. But once you have a license, it does give you quite a few to go to go across multiple machines and you can use it to it's got fantastic support for plugins even on Linux. So just it's a good digital audio workstation if you want to get more into making music, uh maybe even editing your voice a little better. It's way better than Audacity when it comes to that. Just multiple different things that you can use it for. I personally use it for I have a VST that I plug into my laptop. I have to have a DAW in order for the VST to work and then I can hook those to my electronic drums and actually get better sounds from my VST for that. So, it's a really good app. >> Nice. I'm actually really looking forward to the version 4 of Audacity. I'm I want to see what they do with I think it's going to be cool, but it's I don't think it's ever going to compete with Reaper if if you're a full-on like if you need those kind of stuff. So, but I don't know what I was going to say. I'm I'm really airheaded tonight, guys. I don't know. Like, jeez, I couldn't tell Matt. All right. U my next one is a sync thing. I use So, I have sync things set up on every computer, every phone that I have. I have it set up across the street for my mom and dad uh to back up their computers. It is just I it's not the simplest thing ever. I will say that it does entail making sure that you are up on how things work in terms of versioning, but if you can set it up so you have watched folders on your computers, it will sync them instantaneously. There there's no waiting, uh none of that stuff. It just does it automatically. And it has none of that weird like like with NexCloud or whatever where you can't sync, you know, something because it has a a weird symbol in it or uh because it's too big. It just does it. It's just very very good. It's not quite the files anywhere solution that a lot of people will want because you can set it up so it's outside of your network, but it's it's not necessarily the easiest thing to do and you may not want to do it simply because of the the bandwidth requirements that would require you to do so. But, uh, if you do if you do have multiple machines within your network to sync between or to have things sync between God lord, I cannot [ __ ] talk. I think I'm just going to stop. just I'm just I'm just done. Uh but anyways, if you have if you have a need for it, sync thing is fantastic to get files from multiple machines. It's very very good. Uh and there's also doc like if you're into Docker, there's a Docker container. There's a Nyx module if you're if you're on Nyx. Very very good. Uh also sync thing tray uh so that you know it's running in the background because otherwise it just runs and you don't know it. So there's that sync thing if you need it. Very good. Drew, your next one. >> I'm going to go for a twofer here. I just wanted to mention browsers real quick for all of us. Okay. So, I'm using Firefox ESR as my nonchromium uh engine. Still my daily driver. And then for a Chromiumbased, I'm using Helium. And this is Chromium with the Google stuff stripped out lightweight private. Can't do things like uh watch Netflix on it just because there's no DRM, but I don't care. So, there you go. Those are the two browsers that I use on a daily basis. >> Have you pretty much given up on Zen? Um, yes. I I would hate I hate to say that I'm just too dumb to to try to to use something that has like the vertical the vertical tabs and stuff like that, but it's just so stinking odd for me to do that. I wish I could say that I was just more like I don't know. I am really really set in my ways, guys. I don't know if you knew this about me, but I'm just very set in what I do. And uh it's hard for me to like break uh with tradition. So Firefox ESR Helium. >> Nice. Um I'm with you on the vertical tabs. I can't do it. I'm just I don't think it's anything to do with the fact that we're too dumb. It's just too weird. Yeah. Top and I can do top and bottom. I can't do left or right. So >> yeah. >> Nate, your next one. My next one I am going to actually do a video slashmusic player and that's just VC. VC VC just works on nearly any codec that I've ever run across. They normally have if it doesn't work they normally have a plugin that will work. Yeah, it it's one of the it's one of the best ones that I've ever run across. And you know I I use like MP was it MPV sometimes >> but it doesn't support every codec. If you're on Windows Windows doesn't support every codec. Just get VC install it. Done. And if you're on Mac OS by the way and use a MKV file. It's not going to play back on Mac. So you're going to have to use VC. >> Oh yeah. Plus it's on mobile too. Right. If you need it on Android. Yeah. So if Yeah. So >> very good. All right. Speaking of Android, I have an Android app for you guys. It's called Quilpad. It's my note-taking application. It >> syncs with Sync Thing. Uh then I can use Emacs or whatever I'm using on my computers to open those things up because it's just a markdown file. Saves everything in a folder on my phone syncs across the network. The reason why I like it, so I'm I'm a I was a longtime Google notes guy or Google I guess it's called Google Keep. >> And um this looks exactly like it. almost almost down to the bit. It looks exactly like it. Plus, it's open source. So, if you if you uh if you want uh if if that's a a thing for you, which it is for a lot of people, you can get to it. Quilpad, it's on Android only, unfortunately. So, if you're an iPhone user, sad for you. Get an Android phone. All right, Jury, your next one. >> My I I think I mentioned this before, but I wanted to to make make sure that I mentioned it again. Okay, Nate mentioned JellyFin. I use Plex, but not for television inside my own network. I use something called channels DVR and I can watch live TV and DVR and it feels like it feels like you would get something like a too or something like that. It's an enthusiastic it's something that I have to self-host. Let's put it that way. Okay. So, it's something that I have to selfose. And I haven't really successfully done it until recently. And once I got it working, holy crap is it good to the point where like I'm watching overthe-air television and then once the once the show has been recorded, it has a really interesting it has a really good feature. You can just say skip, you know, skip the uh skip the advertisements and stuff like that or the commercials. Boom. and it's just like goes to the next uh segment and it's really stinking good guys. Like I said, I failed miserably at at like installing this uh self-hosting this a number of times, but now that it's like set up, holy crap, it's good. It's really stinking good. Channels DVR. >> Yeah, I'm every time you mention that, Drew, I'm astonishingly jealous. Um because because we're stuck on paying for YouTube TV and it just got us so stupid and so slow, but unfortunately we need the the voice activation stuff, >> right? >> Yeah. It's sad. All right, Nate, your next one. >> I'm going to go with a game. And if you ever ever get into Linux and you're in the Linux space, you're going to know about Zero AD. Zero AD. It's just a very fun false game that's been made. It's free to play and lord, I don't know how many matches I've been in with people since I kind of got into the Linux even deeper. But the only thing I really wish that someone would actually put as much effort into more false games like Zero AD has. But right now, this is kind of the best one we got and it's really stinking good. So, go play it. It's only like 1.8 gigs, I think, at most. >> Good game. Um, I haven't played it in a long time. Not since Zan's been around. All right. So, my next one is Navad Drrome. I use this for uh music. It It's So, I am a digital hoarder. I'm admitted to that uh very publicly. I I like to download lots and lots of stuff. Um, and I have about I have a couple music libraries, but my main one is 4 tab. and it and it grows a lot. Uh, so Jellyfin doesn't really work for me when it comes to music. It's just too slow. So I use Navum way way faster. Deals with very large libraries. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles like metadata management or any of that stuff. It just plays your music. And the best part about it is it works on the open subsonic standard. So, if you can find yourself a subsonic client like Symphonium on Android or whatever, uh you can stream it from Navum without actually running Open Subsonic itself, which is good. Uh so, if if you have a if you self-host music, I highly recommend Navum. It's just the best thing ever. So, uh there you go, Drew. Your next one. So, um Matt and I think both use this. It's called Searching, and I'm S E A RX NG. It's basically self-hosting your own search engine. So, and it's a meta search and so you can kind of control which search engines you are using in this meta search. You can use Google search and you can use brave search and so on. uh but there is no tracking and there is no SEO sludge and you can like I said you can aggregate multiple engines and once it's your and and and make it your default and when you self-host it um and you just I I self-host it and I just type in something in your omniar in Firefox and it just gives me the results in my searching instance and uh yeah I if you want you can also use duckgo and start page and whatever you want. You can use a number of different and weight them accordingly. If you think that uh if you think that duck.go is the superior uh search engine, you can bump that up the list and uh and it weighs it heavier. >> Yeah, it's very good. The only downside to it is the image search. >> Yeah, I don't do that one. I rarely do I do that, but uh I actually have like shortcuts. So I could just go uh colon GI space and then it just like does my Google image search and uh and then it does like Yeah. So >> yeah, I have something similar. I just use the GBang from Google. You just stole that, right? >> I would I it's weird that they haven't improved the the image search because it's been bad for just forever. >> Just just needs just needs to be a little bit better. Just give me the results that I searched for. They don't have to be good results. just like when if I search for dogs, don't give me images of turtles. You know, like those things don't go together. It's it's so weird. Anyways, other than that, it's it's very very good. Nate, your next one. >> My next one is something called Ascender. And basically, it's a very good CD ripper that does a great job of pulling the information from the CD. If it makes mistakes or if it can't pull from the CD, it's very, very easy to go through and actually edit every track to label it correctly. And I know this is kind of a niche thing now because a lot of people don't really do CDs. But if you're like me and want to own your actual media, then this is a very good application that you can, you know, save your CDs if something were to happen and they eventually just quit playing. So >> there was one like it it it there's one that's like the it's like make MKV that also does ripping of CDs and stuff like that. Oh, that's DVDs and Blu-ray. But yeah, >> I don't know what I was thinking of. Oh, all right. My next one is LinkedIn. It's very, very good. If you are a tab hoarder or a reformed tab orderer like me and you like to save things for later, even though there's a part of you that just knows you're never going to get back to it, but you still want to save it because, you know, again, digital hoarder, it's just a lot of these things that are on my list actually enable my hoarding. Now that I think about it, damn. So, uh, anyways, LinkedIn basically is a like a read later service similar like what Pocket was back in the day. Um, it's self-hosted obviously. It it's very very simple. It has a very simple UI. It does allow you to say to categorize and tag and put on notes and stuff like that, but other than that, it's just a list of links that you've saved previously. It has Android and iOS applications. And if you want to save something for later and you don't want to have to have the tab open forever and ever, link LinkedIn is fantastic. L I N K D I N G. Weirdest name in the book, but it's just the what it is. Um, highly highly recommend it. I've used it for well over a year now, almost two years. I think like 18 months or something like that. And um it's fantastic. I go through every once in a while and clear out things that I know I'm not going to need. And so I I've I've ever managed to maintain it a little bit. So it's not like overwhelming. But one of the coolest things about it is that you if you are fidious to be, you know, right from the beginning and put on tags and notes to everything that you save, you can at least go back and remember why you saved it, which is something that I had a big deal with. Like a lot of times when I was a tab hoarder and I had like a thousand tabs open, I'd have something open like why did I save this? It's been here for 2 years. I don't need it anymore. I can close that thing. Then I wouldn't close it and keep it because you know I might need it someday. But at least this way I can write down and say, you know, this is why I saved this thing. I'm going to make a video on it or whatever. And it's really, really good. All right, Drew, your next one. >> Yeah, I'm going to go on the link train there as well. As far as bookmarks, I use link warden. It's it's more complex and that's not a good thing than LinkedIn. It's that's that's me saying that it's actually a little bit bloated and but at the same time, it does work well. Uh, I use it with a um with my Firefox extension called Flockus and I'm able to share links and bookmarks rather with my uh with my family members and it works well for that. If it didn't have that functionality, I probably would be doing what Matt is doing and use LinkedIn instead. So, I'm just letting you know if you need something a little bit more beefy and maybe you don't, Link Warden is at least available to you. >> I did try Link Warden. It just was Yeah, >> it's it's not for everybody. I mean, it's And it's like I said, it's kind of it's bloated. >> Yeah, they got a lot of They got a lot of stuff in there. >> Yeah. >> But I I will say that I did try that Flockus at one point when I was messing around with it. Good stuff. I just have nobody to share stuff with cuz nobody's interested in the stuff that I say. All right, Nate, your next one. >> I am going to use I wasn't going to include it, but I'm going to just because I really, really like it. And that's not nook. It is to me one of the best note takingaking applications. If you want something that is simple, easy to design, still uses markdown, can export into markdown, can export as a PDF, can export as something else and I can't remember off the top of my head, but still Notes Nook is just so stinking good. And it can, you know, do crossplatform on any device that you have. So that's my next one. >> Do you self-host that? No, you don't. Do you use like Okay. Right. >> Yeah. I use theirs and I pay the like $4. >> It's not that expensive. >> No, at all. >> Yeah. Matt, what are you using for notes these days? Are not Obsidian anymore, right? >> No. >> Oh, you said you were using Emacs. >> Yeah, I use So, I use Quilpad. Most of my notes are taken on the phone. So, I use Quilpad and then I use Sync Thing to go to a directory on my computer and then I have a roy script that allows me to browse through them and then open them in Emacs. it it works for me, but I will admit that it doesn't when I have high doubts that it would work for anybody else. Um, just because Emac, how do I say this without being mean to Emacs and still admitting that I like it? It's bloated. It's just it's it's a big program and even if you have the Demon running, it takes a minute to launch. I mean, not an actual minute, but it it it's sluggish sometimes. So, it's not for quick notes, but because most of the time I take notes on my phone, this just works good enough for me. I could but I could use I could use Vim just as easily. It just be a matter of going into the script and, you know, search and replace Emacs into NM. It's the exact same. Uh, it's nothing Emac specific. It's just just that happens what I use. At one point, I was using Iotus >> as a markdown editor and note takingaking application. And then I went to Obsidian. Obsidian is is very very good. Um, and I probably would still be on it, but I just don't need all of its features. It has a ton of stuff in there. I I I felt weird getting attached to vaults and stuff like that. So, it just works just way better. What What your What are you What do you use, Drew? So overall, I think I use Genie at least 80% of the time. I would say just to have something that allows me to just I I like I'll set the like a genie instance on like uh workspace 5 and I'll make the root uh because I'm using the the tree whatever that you know whatever that thing is called the tree browser but and then I just set the root to my notes and I just like can can get to things really really quickly. The other 20% of the time I'm using Neoim because it has some really cool markdown like if you use the markdown um the u the editor as well but I mean there's two plugins one one for previewing and then the other one for actually viewing within within the editor itself. So overall yeah I think I use Genie like like I said eight times eight times out of 10. >> So butternotes is in is not in >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't use that nearly. No, I don't use it. Even though I mean, it's funny because I was looking at my I was looking at the stats for my uh my Butter Forge and I because I wanted to see what was the more popular and more uh most most eyeballs on a specific on a specific project. Butternotes wasn't like at the bottom. It was close to the bottom, but it wasn't on the bottom by any stretch. So, it was a like wow. People actually use that [ __ ] Crazy. >> Yeah. >> Crazy to me. >> But abandoned for not not necessarily abandoned, but moved on to your dro. >> Well, you know what? There's like I was about to use this one. Matt, is it my turn? I was just going to say um >> I honestly don't know whose turn it is. >> Yeah, it's it's Matt's, but it's >> okay. Go ahead, Matt. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is my turn cuz I was like like I don't know how to say this one. All right, so I I uh I I don't spend as much time on Mastadon as I used to. I used to spend quite a bit of time on Masedon, but I still do like to go on there from time to time and see what people are saying. I I enjoy it a lot more than I ever did did Twitter, that's for sure. Um but I do I need a good client because their web client is is garbage. Um so I found one called Fampy. P H N P Y I think is how it's spelled. I don't have it up in front of me so I can't tell you for sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is. And um it if if you use Tweet Deck back in the day uh and you you liked that user interface, you can recreate that with Fampy. And it is just very good. It's also it's also 100% self-hostable. So if you want to pull down the code and self-host it yourself, you can. I actually forked it and integrated Blue Sky with it. Took me like I don't know half an hour. It wasn't even that hard. It is it it's just a very good mass client. allows you to boost and and and keep with all the latest mastadon stuff. So, it's just very very good if you're interested in that. I do wish it supported Blue Sky out of the box. It doesn't, but still the fact that you can self-host it. You don't have to work. They there is a uh hosted version as well. Someone else hosts it. You can just use it for free. I self-host mine. It's very very good. So, in Fampy is what you're looking at there. So, that's one. Drew, your next one. So, we we kind of talked about Butternotes there for a second. And the reason why I liked Butternotes was it was using FZF. Okay, that was part of the build was using ROI and FCF. And I like that kind of combination so much that well, I don't use ROI for this other one, but I use some I use FZF for a git suite called Gee. That's gee. And I did a whole video on it. I know this is kind of self-s serving to say something that but literally guys I use it like 80 times a day. It's one program for my entire Git workflow. It's built because nothing did exactly what I was looking for. Uh which is one of the reasons why I like this one is because I it's custom specifically to me. I've tried lazy git. I've tried other things in the past. This one just worked really has been like the thing that I use like I said all the time like all the time. So ghee is my ghee is my application that I use constantly. >> Okay, cool. I watched that video that you did on it. It look it does look very very nice and I I will still maintain that. I will take credit for saying how it was fun for Peter. It was just it it was a funny YouTube comment. I don't actually I didn't put So all right Nate your next one. My next one, and I'm probably going to say we need to get close to the end here, but I am going to mention something that works fairly well, and that is Micro, which is another text editor. If you're wanting something that's just fast and has common sense key bindings just for a quick little text edit, Micro is highly recommended. It's It's very easy to use. You will learn it very quickly. It's not complicated and it actually puts the buttons in the correct place unlike nano. So micro. >> Okay. My next one is fresh fresh RSS. I don't think I need to say too much about it. I use it all the time like 20 times a day. I just go there check to see I use it for news. I use it for blogs. I use it for some YouTube stuff. I'm still transitioning over to YouTube a little bit to move my YouTube subscript subscriptions over there. But it's phenomenal. I mean, it's just literally one of the best self-hosted apps that I've ever used. It It allows you to just make the internet work better for you. It's just so good. So, um if uh even if you aren't into fresh RSS or if even if you are into RSS, I highly recommend trying Fresh RSS out uh and getting into it because it just makes the internet better. So, there's mine. Uh Drew. >> Yeah, I think this is my last one as well. Um, so I mentioned searching and there is an AI kind of like extension to searching called vein and I've mentioned it here before. I am using it um I'm using it I don't want to say all the time but when the need for something kind of searchable and a little bit more of a little bit more of an explanation than what you can see from your meta search. uh this uses uh searching's um backend and then displays a result. So let's just say hey what is uh uh you know who is how old is um is Sam Elliot or something like that. you can do that you can use this vein and it it gives you a nice kind of like formatted AI response that's uh that again is using searching so it has no uh it is very private I guess maybe that's the way I I need to frame that because uh because vain is and searching are private uh search results has private search results >> nice >> my last one is so I kind of got used to using truness and Drew understands the true [ __ ] thing. And so I my last one is going to be image. And I'm going to say this with a little bit of a caveat to it. It is a decent self-hosting pictures and video solution that will pull your pictures and save them on file if you set it up that way. With that being said, it has had issues in the past. So far for me, it has been working and I hope it doesn't break. But yeah, it it is a good application to use to just scroll through your pictures and all that stuff on your server. So, >> okay. All right. So, my last one is actually four, but it's just going to be one gigantic, you know, self-promotion thing really. Although, I don't recommend anybody actually use these things. I built these things for myself. So, I have four projects that I'm like super duper proud of. Five, but uh we won't mention the other one. So, one is uh DJ I've mentioned a couple times on the podcast. It continues to get better. It's basically it uses my subsonic music service to create radio stations based on artists or genres. And then it will use data for the artist ones at least. It'll use data from last FM and Listen Brainsrains to make sure all the artists around it are actually similar enough to it, which which is fantastic cuz for a while there they weren't similar at all cuz genres is just too broad of a of a category. And then it will actually if you set it up, it will interrupt every once in a while with an actual like DJ audio like AI voice to uh tell the weather. It will give you information from Reddit or the news like NPR. Actually has an NPR voice. It it will tell you things about the artists or the upcoming songs. It is still a work in progress, but man, I'm really proud of it. Another one I I built my own habit tracker, which I use every day. It's just a habit tracker. Nothing really special about it. One I've been working on recently is called my reading. It's basically it tracks my reading, but I also put an Android app up, which is just a throwaway thing, and it allows me to track while I'm reading, so I don't actually have to enter anything. It just tracks how many pages and how long I've been reading and keep stats for me. And the last one is is Subsonic Tuy, which allows me to basically get to all my music and uh DJ itself actually in the terminal. So, those are my self-hosted ones that I actually created. So, those are those are my last ones. All right. I don't Did you guys put in nugies of the week? >> No, man. We've just went through like 50. Yeah, >> that's what I thought. Um I just >> I have one, but >> I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to cut anybody off if I said, you know what, we just did a whole bunch of nugies. This was the nuggie episode. That's what we This la last last week at the end of the show, I came up with um dealer big deal or no no deal or whatever for name of the podcast. This week we could just called this one the Nugie podcast. I'm good at coming up with names after we record the podcast. So, go Matt. It's fantastic. All right. Anyways, >> you can still rename it for Saturday's release. >> I will do that. All right. >> I will say this while you're talking. I'm just going to show my Nuggie so people can just see it. >> So, yeah, it's it's a game controller for your phone. >> Cool. I think I have one of those. I don't I doubt very much it would be wide enough for my phone, though, with a case on it. Anyways, that's it for this one. If you want to get in contact with us, the easiest way to do so to do do so, it's been a long day. Just this just it's just >> edit that part out, Nate. >> No, just leave it in. Just leave it in. It's fine. It's fine. Everybody knows that when we get to the end of end of the show, Matt loses his ability to speak. Not that I had much of an ability to speak actually over the whole damn podcast. It's been horrible. Anyways, if you want to get in contact with us, let's start this over slower now. Email at the Linux.org. org is the email address that you can get a hold of us at. If you want to get a hold of the boys email there and I can forward it on to them. If you want to get in contact with them on their own channels, you can head over to their YouTube channels. Drew is just a guy Linux. He is a YouTuber who does Debian stuff and scripting and window managers and all sorts of stuff. And also he covers his very own DRO which is Butterbian which you can find at betterbn.org. It's just become part of the lore now. I have to promote it. It's in the contract now. Anyways, just a guy Linux is where you can find him on YouTube. Nate is Nate Pix Tech World and we've lost him to what is that? Um, Asphalt. >> Yep. >> Okay, we lost him. Anyways, Nate Pix Tech World on YouTube. Definitely check him out on YouTube. He he makes a hardware related videos. So, so good stuff. And obviously I'm the Linux cast. Subscribe, like, all that stuff. And if you want to watch a if you want to starting All right, Maggie, center yourself. Next week, Thursday, 8:15 p.m., the second Linux user group of the month. We're going to be talking about Cashios. It's going to be amazing. Uh if if you want to participate, you can find out all the information on the Discord. If you would like to watch, you can subscribe to the channel. We do live stream it. That's the second Linux user group of the month. We do a second one uh which is the early version that's at 12:30 on the second Thursday of the month. Uh you can find all of that information on the G on the calendar which is available at get.theinxcast.org. I think that that's it. So we will see you guys next week uh on Tuesday when we record a brand new episode of this one and we will see you then. See you. Happy number.