Useful Software

Text

Neovim (apt) Terminal Text Editor

Config: ~/.vimrc and ~/.config/nvim/init.vim

• vim-plug Minimalist Vim Plugin Manager.

Addons

• vim-snippets for snippets, particularly for Latex. Config: ~/.local/share/nvim/plugged/vim-snippets/*, in particular, ~/.local/share/nvim/plugged/vim-snippets/UltiSnips/tex.snippets

• COC autocompletion. See ~/.vimrc for instructions

• fzf.vim see fzf below. Allows searching from within vim.

• vimtex automatic compiling of tex documents

• vim-markdown makes opening links from markdown documents easier with gx.

• ultisnips used for editing snippets files so that they have syntax highlighting

• tabular used to make tables in text

File managing

lf Terminal File Manager

Config: ~/.config/lf/*

• bat cat with syntax highlighting for previews. Installed as /usr/local/batcat but copied to /usr/local/bat. Config: ~/.config/bat/config (must be generated)

• ueberzug (apt) render images and other previews in lf and fzf

• ueberzugpp render images and other previews in lf and fzf. Installed from .deb Note that I have aliased lfi to have images, because it is much slower to load. I have edited the preview file in ~/.config/lf/ (installed from .deb, since not in Bullseye repositories)

• ffmpegthumbnailer (apt) to generate thumbnails

• elinks (apt) terminal browser for html previews. Config: ~/.elinks/elinks.conf

• See ~/.config/lf/preview for more programs used to generate previews

fzf Command-line Fuzzy Finder (also from apt)

Config: ~/.bashrc for default settings.

• ytfzf Uses ytfzf to find videos on the web and open them using yt-dlp and mpv. Config: ~/.config/ytfzf/conf.sh

• fzfub fzf with image viewing (see ueberzug). Again, slower.

Terminal

st suckless terminal

Config: source code

• tmux Terminal Multiplexer (from apt). Config: ~/.tmux.conf

• bash (preinstalled) Config: ~/.bashrc

Requirements

• libharfbuzz-dev (apt) for ligatures support

Patches

• st-anygeometry-0.8.1.diff Allows terminal to be any shape (not just multiples of character size)

• st-boxdraw_v2-0.8.5.diff Makes box drawing better

• st-colorschemes-0.8.5.diff Allows cycling through various colour schemes with Alt+[0-8]

• st-csi_22_23-0.8.5.diff This patch adds support for CSI escape sequences 22 and 23, which save and restore window title (for instance nvim does this when opening and closing).

• st-font2-0.8.5.diff This patch allows to add spare font besides default

• st-ligatures-boxdraw-20210824-0.8.4.diff has ligatures for ->, &c.

• st-scrollback-0.8.5.diff Scroll back through terminal output using Shift+{PageUp, PageDown}.

• st-w3m-0.8.3.diff Support w3m images hack

Terminal Applications

• gotop A terminal based graphical activity monitor

• top A terminal based activity monitor. Config: ~/.config/procps/toprc

• pulsemixer (apt) TUI for controlling audio devices

• arbtt (apt) time tracker. Config: ~/.arbtt/categorize.cfg.

  • arbtt-graph arbtt visualiser

User interface

dwm modified version of Luke Smith’s build of dwm

No patches on top of his. Config: source code and ~/.dwm/autostart.sh

Requirements:

• libx11-dev (apt)

• libxft-dev (apt)

• libxinerama-dev (apt)

• libx11-xcb-dev (apt)

• libxcb-res0-dev (apt)

• xinit (apt)

To add dwm as an option in graphical login screens, create a file /usr/share/xsessions/dwm.desktop with the following contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=dwm
Comment=Dynamic window manager
Exec=dwm
Icon=dwm
Type=XSession

or add dwm to ~/.xinitrc and edit ~/.bash_profile to have

if [[ -z $DISPLAY ]] && [[ $(tty) = /dev/tty1 ]]; then
    startx
fi

source ~/.profile

For some of the shortcuts, you need

• xdotool (apt)

• feh (apt) image viewer for backgrounds

Note: requires fonts.

• dwmblocks Write information to status bar in dwm. Config: source code and /usr/local/bin/sb*

• herbe Notifications. Config: source code

dmenu application launcher among other things. Config: source code

• dmenumount (don’t know where from) dmenu interface for mounting drives. Requires pmount (apt)

• clipmenu (see /usr/local/bin/)

Requirements

• libx11-dev (apt)

Patches

• dmenu-border-5.2 Gives border around on option -bw 3

• dmenu-center-5.2 Gives option for dmenu to be in middle screen

• dmenu-gruvbox Makes dmenu fit gruvbox colour scheme.

Graphical Programs

• mpv (apt) video and audio player. See ~/.bashrc for various shorthands for playing web videos in the terminal. Config: ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf

• sxiv (apt) image viewer. Config: ~/.Xresources

• zathura (apt) pdf viewer. Config: ~/.config/zathura/zathurarc

• Blender for 3d modelling and viewing. Config: ~/.config/blender/*

• Xournal++ (apt) handwritten notes. Config: .config/xournalpp/toolbar.ini

• Brave (see following instructions) web browser.

sudo apt install curl

sudo curl -fsSLo /usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main"|sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list

sudo apt update

sudo apt install brave-browser

Miscellaneous

• newsboat (apt) another terminal RSS feed aggregator. Config: ~/.newsboat/config

• pass (apt) password manager

  • passmenu dmenu interface for pass

  • pass-otp (apt) generate one-time passwords from QR code contents

• mpd (apt) music player. Config: ~/.mpdconf

• network-manager-applet (apt) called network-manager-gnome to install. Connect to WPA2-enterprise networks. Requires stalone (apt)

• Look for more in ~/.Applications and /usr/local/bin

2023-08-17