9mo ago

What open-source software would you like more people to know about?

364 comments

LocalSend, a cross platform alternative to airdrop and nearby share.
My family uses it for almost all of our filesharing. IPhone to android, iPhone to windows PC, android to macbook, etc. Its works really, really well.
- Just tried it - so simple, so good. Thanks for posting about this!
- I love this. Its great. I use this and syncthing if I want to move files across.
- Yeah I just found that diamond!
- thank you for this recommendation! i hope i can convince my friends to start using it
- Just picked this up based on the up votes here, and I'm already a fan. Seems like it does what you want and nothing else, which is perfect.
- I love it so much that I put it right away on my donations list.
- Has it some automation? Cron like?
- Ooh I use apps that use the Magic Wormhole library. There's a linux app for it called Warp and several android apps, all FOSS.

TrailSense, an easy to use, comprehensive wilderness tool.
The goals of the developer are fun to consider:
Goals
Trail Sense must not use the Internet in any way, as I want the entire app usable when there is no Internet connection
Features must provide some benefits to people using the app while hiking, in a survival situation, etc.
Features should make use of the sensors on a phone rather than relying on stored information such as guides
Features must be based on peer-reviewed science or be verified against real world data
Likewise, the features being developed under those goals are great for getting outside:
Features
Designed for hiking, backpacking, camping, and geocaching
Place beacons and navigate to them
Follow paths
Retrace your steps with backtrack
Use a photo as a map
Plan what to pack
Be alerted before the sun sets
Predict the weather
Use your phone for astronomy
And more
- How does the metal detector work? I've never heard of a phone being able to do that.
  
  It uses the magnetic field sensor on the phone (compass). It can only detect magnetically active metals and also kinda weakly, but it's quite fun!
- Downloaded it and I love it!
- Can't wait to take a picture of a trailhead map and try tracking myself on it.
  
  It works pretty well! I found in my one quick test that a pair of known points on a diagonal offer the best tracking. Definitely need to play with that feature again.

Syncthing, a peer to peer file synchronize that basically everyone needs, they just don't know it.
- It's insane how many services sell file synchronisation as a premium feature when syncthing can do it for free and no one seems to use it
  
  I mean, true...but I don't think the average user is paying for the service rather than they're paying for not having to worry about setting up everything needed to get syncthing working.
  I don't consider myself a luddite in any way, but within five seconds of reading syncthing's install instructions even I basically just said, "yeah...no." And I say that AS a nearly 12 year semi-advanced linux user. It's not that it's difficult. But difficult enough to not be worth it for the average person.
  
  Too bad for Apple users though
- The best part is it works with Android as well. Whenever I turn my computer on, all my photos on my phone sync to my computer to a folder that gets regularly backed up (using Vorta which is an excellent and easy to use open source backup program for Windows, Linux, and Mac)
  
  For images I highly recommend Immich. It's the Google Photos equivalent, and it works excellently.
  I use SyncThing for documents, but photos from my phone go to Immich.
- I set it up last month. I’ve rarely experienced had such a smooth setup process. Was putting it off for years because I had assumed I would need at least several hours. Right now I have one on a server and then every device syncs to it (thought it would be easy to set up backups that way)
  
  this was my experience too. kept putting it off because I assumed I'd need to tinker a bit. didn't at all, worked immediately with only the simplest configuration. genuinely amazing, I wish my software worked that well.
- Can you explain a bit more about what file synchronization is?
  
  You know Dropbox? Google drive? OneDrive? That's file synchronisation. Files across multiple devices kept in sync by the software provider. Except in the named cases above, all your data is uploaded to their servers. With syncthing there's no cloud server, just your devices operating over the internet. So you have some backup responsibility to cover.
  Caveat: I've never used syncthing and I wrote the above with a total of 10 seconds of reading their website and so it is entirely possible I'm completely wrong about everything and so I emplore you to do your research.
- I wish I could set it up so that I can remove a file from Computer A that's syncing to Computer B and not have the file deleted from Computer B
  
  Haven't used this feature before, but this flag might be what you need

Bitwarden an open source, simple password manager it does it's job very well
- I would personally recommend KeepassXC foe PC and KeepassDX for Android phones, just having your Vault available locally is a lot better than relying on a server that can get a security breach in any moment, not to mention the Keepass's Vaults are encrypted and no one can access them without the , key or physical key, with KeepassXC and KeepassDX, you only will need ONE password 😁
  
  I get the thought, but your phone can also have a security breach at any moment, ESPECIALLY because normal user error is by far the weakest and most often exploited attack vector.
  Bitwarden's vaults are also encrypted with the option for even stronger argon2id encryption. Bitwarden themselves can't access them or reset them. It is open source and most importantly, audited. KeypassXC has only had one audit ever. (Though that passed and I would also definitely recommend keypassXC, it is great software security-wise)
  The database is stored, encrypted, once on their server and once to each device you sync to, so it is available locally.
  Even if they had a security breach, by design the assailant couldn't access your database any more than they could access your keypass database.
  You can also self-host it which would bring it exactly to the level of keypassX variants as far as attack surface.
  Not to mention with bitwarden, you will also only need one key. That is the whole point of a password manager.
  "It is available locally and a lot better..." is simply untrue. They are both great options. Just whatever works best for the person. Bitwarden has a ton more QoL options and enterprise options, plus separate, shared password databases and such for families and companies. Again, just as secure.
  
  I have a lot of experience with both. As a tech savvy user, I slightly prefer KeePass. Syncing between devices is slightly more painful, but I find it to be more reliable, and it doesn't have the attack surface that Bitwarden does. (While encrypted, Bitwarden still really wants a web server and a local database connection.)
  VaultWarden is probably better for those who can't be bothered to move a file around and want direct browser integration. With KeePass when you need a password, you'll make sure the username has focus and then alt+tab to KeePass and hit "autofill". Some sites won't take "username{tab}password{enter}" and you'll have to customize the configuration.
  VaultWarden is better at prompting you to add new passwords. I prefer the workflow that's encouraged by KeePass, where you open the app first and use the app to open the URL. (You can do this in VaultWarden too, but it's less obvious.)
  
  While I personally use KeepassXC and Keepass2Android on mobile devices (as with KeepassDX there is no reliable way of syncing the database that I know of) to other less tech-inclined people I'd always recommend Bitwarden as it is much more suitable to most people's usecases.
- TIL BitWarden is open source.
- Indeed, most people I know IRL still use the same passwords for everything.
- VaultWarden if you want all the features without paying $40/year.
  Otherwise Bitwarden will either allow you to self-host OR allow you to share passwords with one other person (using their server), but not both.
  VaultWarden just unlocks all the features.
- @shinysquirrel @PumpkinDrama I've been using password-store for a while now and I love it. I have it synced on multiple device via a bare git repo
- I don't know about "simple", but it's very good. Been a happy user for many years
  
  What's not simple about it, as a password manager? Pop in the name/uri, pop in a username, pop in/generate a password Bingo bango Is there a level of complexity I'm missing, or alternatively is there a simpler approach?
- does its* job very well

KDEConnect - I use it on Windows and android phone. Very nice when you get security codes or links on phone, want to send files or when I want to control audio|video and I watch from the couch.
in general: Fdroid nearly always has a more feature rich and performant alternative
- For those wondering it is a linux-first software, and works better on there

OpenStreetmap as an alternative to the closed source maps.
OrganicMaps or OsmAnd to navigate and StreetComplete or EveryDoor to improve it.
- Yes yes. It's so satisfying contributing to OSM and seeing my changes pop up in OrganicMaps knowing it might help somebody and support open mapping data. I wonder if Wikipedians feel that way.
  The Humanitarian OSM Team is cool too https://www.hotosm.org/
- streetcomplete is a great companion app. It makes it really easy to add points of interest and help collect other data. I've already made over a thousand edits using it.
- Oh man, Street Complete is very cool, thanks! I always wanted to contribute to OSM but found it a bit daunting. This is like Pokemon Go but useful!
  
  I always wanted to contribute to OSM but found it a bit daunting.
  Any contribution helps! Hell, I went around town just looking for bike parking racks to add, and was able to put dozens of new ones on the map. You can even just label house numbers (with the aforementioned apps listed in the comment you replied to).
- To add to that, Maperitive is a fantastic piece of software (Windows only) to create your own custom maps for hiking or cycling with osm. A bit tough to wrap your head around unfortunately, but actually pretty powerful. Hmu if you need quick instructions

VSCodium is the open source part of VSCode, so I prefer to use that.
Mull is firefox on android without the proprietary parts. Heliboard is a good android keyboard.
- How does VSCodium differ from the community version?
  
  Attempts to remove datamining, disallowed from installing microsoft proprietary extensions.
  
  It removes the proprietary part inserted when MS builds the code. This unfortunately makes other proprietary extensions useless, such as Dev Containers. You can still use the main extension marketplace by changing a .json but some MS extensions won't work at all (tried it last week).

Paperless-ngx that allows you to self host an easily browseable archive of your documents. Fully featured with OCR, ML-powered categorization and the works.
https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/
- Do you know if the ML works offline? Or does it require an internet connection?
  
  Everything runs locally, OCR, ML, etc, which can be a bit taxing on lower end hardware, but there are ways to disable the more advanced and computationally expensive features, like NLTK for advanced Natural Language processing.
  Your data is stored locally on your server and is never transmitted or shared in any way.
  https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/
- Impressive, thank you!
- How does it compare with Paperwork? https://www.openpaper.work/en/
  
  There seems to be a huge overlap in functionality. But a major difference is that Paperwork is a local application that runs on Windows and Linux, while Paperless has a web front end that makes it accessible anywhere (it also has some independently native apps for mobile).

KepassXC for PC and KeepassDX for Android phones.
I personally would recommend it over Bitwarden since with Bitwarden you NEED internet to access your passwords, and even if is open source, i canmot trust it, security breaches can happen in any time, having your vault locally stored helps a lot.
There are more but i can't Remember them right now.
- I just tried because you made me doubt, but you can access your passwords offline with bitwarden. Your argument about trusting a third party is far more pertinent, i'm choosing to trust them but thats really my choice. It is also a limited trust: even in a case of a data breach, bitwarden is encrypted end-to-end with your password, even if someone gets access to your data they wont be able to read it without your master key.
  
  I ran into issues when using Bitwarden for the first time, i don't understand why, i just like having my password vault close to me, KeepassXC and KeepassDX just makes things a little more painless
- You don't need internet to access the passwords stored in Bitwarden if you have their local clients installed. It stores an encrypted copy of your database locally to your device which syncs (updates) over the internet.
  
  It gave me trouble when i tried to log in ob my account, and i prefer having the database WHERE I CAN SEE IT
- These would also be my top two apps. Absolutely essential pieces of kit IMO.
  The android integration is just so good these days. Syncing is the only minor issue but it is minor.
  
  Hoe do you sync it? I've been meaning to make the switch to these for a long time now, but still not gotten around to it.
- You can self-host Bitwarden, and sync your vault to your phone. Maybe not an option for everyone since it requires some technical skills, but very doable.
  
  Oh you just reminded me, KepassXC and DX Doesn't demand you to create an account and log in to access your vault 😄
  
  Self-hosting KeePassXC requires installing one package and backing up one file. I expect that requires less technical skill and is doable for more people than to self-host Bitwarden.
- pwsafe too.
  
  I will still prefer KeepassDX and KeepassXC
- Can only second this
- Don't you still need internet to access your passwords if you want to use Keepass across devices?
  
  You don't. KeePass databases can be easily shared totally offline.
  However, it all depends on "how easy" you want the sync to happen...
  There are many ways to "sync" KeePass databases, basically you just have to copy password database among the devices, which can be done totally offline.
  HARD - Manually copy the KeePass database to the devices
  Can be accomplished via any Network connection or USB cable connection
  
  EASIER - Put the database on any file sharing service that's available on your devices, and sync that
  The file sharing service can be available on the internet (Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud...), but it also works with any file sharing service that's not connected to the internet (e.g.: local only Nextcloud server, or not even that, using Syncthing if that's your thing..., which would not even require a local server)
  
  So, I'll just give one example.
  If you have 2 devices:
  Linux PC
  Android Phone
  You can use KeePassXC on the Linux PC, and KeePassDX on the Android Phone, and have a copy of your kdbx file (the encrypted database) on each device, manually copying the newer version whenever there are changes on them.
  Issues that might happen: consistency between the files in case you make changes to both databases and forgot to sync manually previously. There's no easy way to handle this currently afaik if you are doing manual syncs... I'd suggest maintaining one of the databases as "kinda read only", not performing edits on it unless you can immediately copy it to the other one.
  You can do the same thing above, but instead of manually copying the files among the devices you can use Syncthing... Or if you have a local Nextcloud server, you can use that to share the files, which is pretty easy to use to ensure consistency if you are using KeePassXC and KeePassDX, since if you open the database on Android using KeePassXC directly to the "file system" that links to the Nextcloud folder, it will always automatically retrieve the newest version to your device if there has been any change and if your local Nextcloud server is reachable, otherwise it just uses the local cache, and you will know it's using the local cache and was not able to sync.
  
  Nope, sonce your Keepass database is store locally, all you need is Syncthing, you won't beleive how easy it is to use.
- I love KeepassXC, but I use Keepass2android on my phone. Do you know how it compares to KeepassDX?
  
  KeepassXC honestly is more userfriendly IMO.

Jitsi - Open-source and self-hosted video conference platform. You can even try it directly on their website.
IPFS - A distributed file sharing technology which is wonderful for file or site hosting (edit: wether it is uncensorable is open for debate)
Rust - A programming language and a powerful compiler that creates compiled memory-safe programs and can be used nearly everywhere
Fedora + KDE - A combination of a stable modern OS and a complete desktop environment
Wine - launch Windows programs on the latter
Lemmy
Bonus : AlternativeTo to find good open-source alternative software
- Lemmy
  Never heard of it...
- Love me some Jitsi. The app, and website, make it easy to just start a secure, anonymous call with pals. No weird AI models running in the background like Teams or Zoom.
- IPFS - An uncensorable distributed file sharing technology which is wonderful for file or site hosting
  Uncensorable? Seriously doubt it.
  Resilient to censoring? Believable.
  
  Recently they officially added a module to censor stuff on an individual instance basis...

linux, unironically. literally all local infrastructure is running on windows, despite the security risks this entails.
- Fair point but Linux is inherently safe either? The local library here has client PCs running Ubuntu 16.04 lts.. my point being that IT infrastructure is only ever as secure as the amount of continuous effort you put into securing it. Linux doesn't solve that.
  
  Perhaps this will change drastically with immutable distros
  
  It's not that it's inherently safe, but that Microsoft is inherently not.

Video Downloader. https://github.com/Unrud/video-downloader
Strips all junk off any video url so you have the mp4 or mkv.
Use this to add youtube videos/playlists to jellyfin. Doesn't have to be youtube. Downloads any videos from a link.
Can also save audio only from video links if you want to.
- how does it compare to yt-dlp?
  
  it's a GUI for yt-dlp
- It's great for porn!
  Source: Twenty years of experience
- And if you find yourself needing a less simple but more powerful tool for this:
  https://github.com/mhogomchungu/media-downloader
- for a quick web based downloader I use https://cobalt.tools/
- i've been using yt-dlp for youtube videos for ages (supports about a million others as well)
  Supports metadata nicely which is beneficial, obviously.
- Parabolic does the same thing better

Xournal - a great way to draw on pdfs
- Yep, fantastic for annotation, doesn't rasterize other layers, keeps the quality intact
- Looks neat, but does it have txt recognition? Either for graphical pdfs or preferably at least for the text notes I am writing so I can search later?
- wowwww, i think i just found the one note replacement i needed

The todo.txt format and the software being built around it.
Namely sleek and ntodotxt
- Looks really cool but also seems like something I would get into procrastinating my actual to-dos
  
  I have a great technique for this.
  First, pick some to do software. Start adding things as you remember them, and ticking them off as you do the. Soon you will find you are adding things to the list much faster than you are ticking them off!
  Now here's the trick: find some new to do software, and start adding your to dos to that one instead! Ignore the previous list.
  Repeat! It's like magic!

Shotcut an amazing video editor.
Openwrt Routers can be fun too!
- Openwrt is awesome! It has the gui with the best ratio of ease of use/features I ever used in a router. It can require some skills to be installed, but then it's so smooth. I wish we had routers with openwrt straight from oems.
  
  Check out GL.iNet, good hardware and ships with OpenWRT but with their own WebUI. I set up my dad's place with their router and an access point and I don't remember the specifics, but it was really easy to access LuCI and do the advanced stuff.
  
  The Turris Omnia is an open, powerful router that comes with OpenWRT.
  Turris adds an additional UI and features beyond that, but the OpenWRT UI is still available and the stock firmware can be completely replaced with OpenWRT if so desired.
  It's a bit pricey but has great specs (1.6 GHz dual core, 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC) and is an excellent device for tinkerers with headers exposing UART, JTAG, GPIO, and more. It has three internal mPCIe ports as well.
  I am not affiliated with Turris but just happened to stumble upon a new one at a garage sale a couple of days ago. Lucky find and I'm excited.
- your links are broken I think
  
  They're broken for me as well. They're missing the https:// at the beginning, which I think is the problem. Here are the links:
  https://shotcut.org
  https://openwrt.org
- Openwrt bricked 2 of my routers. Be careful

Ruffle: You may not know it but most old Flash games (and basically every anmiation) can be played again with this, modern and in a Browser sandbox. Website owners can include it in the backend with a few lines of code and all flash games work again automatically, and it's also available as desktop app :D
- Btw, Dinnerbone (the Minecraft OG) works on this
  
  Yes. It may be a bit silly but I'm pretty happy / proud that I've had some contact with him while working on it :D

Keepass/KeepssXC/KeepassDX (password manager for desktop)
Syncthing to synchronize database between devices.

GrapheneOS!
- I'd love to use it especially since Android Auto is working on it, too. The only thing holding me back is not being able to pay with my phone. I'm currently only having my phone and keys with me. So it's extra convenient to not have to take my wallet with me.
  But to be fair the devs can't make anything against that restriction as of now. I still wish there would be some way to be able to pay contactless using your card with GrapheneOS.
  
  I'm in the exact same boat. If someone figures out how to get tap-to-pay working on graphene, I'll be daily driving it so fast.

Gadgetbridge, an app to use your smartwatch without the proprietary brand one.
- This is the biggest reason I don't own a smartwatch yet. I want to own my own health data, and not have it locked into Fitbit or Google.
- How does this work? Does it have specific supported devices or any smart watch?
  
  Specific supported devices, but the list keeps growing.
  I use a Xiaomi Mi Band 7. Works pretty well for my needs.

Seal (Android)
It's an audio/video downloader that uses yt-dlp internally.
It's not only useful for YouTube, it can download media from most sources.
It also has a little "quick download" share target that comes handy when browsing YouTube (Music) and Po...other sites with tons of media 👀
- I LOVE SEAL!! Found it a few weeks ago. Even used it today. Free music ftw!
  
  I use it in conjunction with RiMusic (which I forgot to mention).
  🏴‍☠️❤️
- I've been looking and waiting for precisely this app solution. thanks!

Immich. Just found out about it, still gotta try, but looks good, an app that allows you to configure a Google Photos like app locally hosted, with automatic phone backups
- I personally just switched from Immich to Ente on my self hosted server, since it is E2EE and since sync doesn't work that good for users on iOS with Immich right now. Also Ente just open sourced all their stuff including their server and supports self hosting. Very nice.
- It's really nice, can't recommend it enough
- Can it sync with Google Photos so you could use both?
  
  You can use both on your phone to sync with each of them, yes. Immich and Google Photos won't communicate directly (and don't need to).
  It's a good idea in case your Google account ever gets banned. (Say you issue a chargeback against Google Wallet or something.)

btop is a TUI (or TTY) resource monitor and management tool
Very intuitive and easy to use
Highly configurable
Supports mouse
Option to filter processes
Theming support
- That's really neat, and in the Debian main repos.
- How do you like it next to htop?
  
  It def looks cooler, whatever that's worth
  
  Btop is kinda like htop but with the advantages that I mentioned

PostmarketOS to actually own your phone.
- How does this compare to lineageOS or GrapheneOS?
  
  LineageOS is very stable and usable as a daily driver, meanwhile PMOS struggles to deliver basic functionalities like calling and sending SMS.
  LineageOS has a bigger community and supports more mainstream devices, where PMOS primarily focus on PINE64 and Purism.
  
  Lineage and Graphene are based on android and bear the danger of support loss when google drops support.
  PostmarketOS is actual Linux (alpine is the base to be exact).
  Graphene definitely is a lot more advanced since it uses all the proprietary blobs of android. There is no use in comparing the two. Its like comparing lemmy and reddit in terms of technical finesse.
  It works very well for some apps already but it is highly dependent on people supporting either financially or through contributions (code, issues, translations, documentation, tutorials).
- I can't unlock my bootloader :*(
  
  Sad face. What phone do you have?
- Newbie here, can this be installed on any phone?
  
  Not any phone to be totally honest but many and growing.
  Check here to see the devices that are supported.
  But disclaimer: its a foss project so it wont ever be perfect and if you like the project, consider contributing and help solving issues instead of judging because that doesnt help anyone.
  
  It can be installed on several phones... Probably not yours though.
- If I understand correctly, this thing turns your phone into a computer. But I need a phone...
  
  Technically, every smartphone is a computer. Sorry if you thought you bought a phone. :)
  The difference is that this is a full fledged linux operating system instead of the proprietary crap that comes with ios and android.
  The downside at this point is that it’s not in end user stadium but a lot of folks are working on making that a reality. If you consider yourself a tinkerer, chances are you might be able to test it, maybe on a non daily driver phone if you have an old one, especially if its out of support.
  
  With a de like kde mobile, it can be closer to a phone experience. Proprietary, obscure and unmaintained drivers for several phone components make such a project harder to develop.

Darktable Great digital photography RAW editor. Alternative to Adobe Lightroom.
- Would this work at a professional level? I haven't tried Gimp either in a long time these days, but I think it hasn't gotten much better? I think most of everything else I've "de-adobe'd" and either use FOSS or other proprietary software like DaVinci Resolve or Bitwig with reasonable purchase options, which I could all use on Linux but I don't think I can really leave LR+PS as they're so core to my daily work.
- for this one
- Nice, I've been looking for one of these that worked in Windows (I know, I know, but I don't have time to redo everything if I switched atm).

Universal UnifiedPush support so we can manage our own push notifications through something like NextPush on your Nextcloud. At that point I could completely remove Google Play Services from my phone without much trouble.
- Isn't it common nowadays to use Unified with ntfy?
  
  I tried ntfy, it is great
  
  Not common enough, when you look at the small list of apps that support it

I say this a lot, but "nomacs" image viewer/editor. I take a lot of time lapse videos and I have directories of like, 50000 identically-sized images each on a smb server over gigabit ethernet and nomacs can open from a directory and quickly cycle through the photos using the arrow keys, without resetting the current pan/zoom setting (important for me), without any trouble. It takes about as long to open the directory of photos as it takes for my samba client to download the directory data.
It also has a lot of cool little quality of life features, including lots of shortcut keys for overlaying metadata and such. It has basic image editing capability as well. The only other image viewer I use is digikam, which is more for organizing personal photos. Otherwise it's all nomacs, baby.
- Hmm... Machine learning on a dataset with images?
- nomacs is pretty slick but if the recursion feature worked properly it would be about 10x better.
  Also i'd like to be able to scroll up/down without selecting images, the highlight blurb annoys me.

croc is a tool that allows any two computers to simply and securely transfer files and folders.
https://schollz.com/tinker/croc6/
allows any two computers to transfer data (using a relay)
provides end-to-end encryption (using PAKE)
enables easy cross-platform transfers (Windows, Linux, Mac)
allows multiple file transfers
allows resuming transfers that are interrupted
local server or port-forwarding not needed
ipv6-first with ipv4 fallback
can use proxy, like tor
- Another thing like that I wish I'd discover sooner is syncthing - it's really intuitive, just point it to a folder and it syncs stuff across your devices automatically. With it, a lot of cloud storage, backup and file transfer applications and features are completely redundant.
  EDIT: Ah, I did not scroll far enough to see that this recommendation is literally the next comment from this.
- I am by no means a star whore, but 26.4k stars on git?!? And I’ve never heard of it. Mind blown. Thanks for the suggestion!
- I've been trying to do this with scp between two computers running ssh on ports that are not 22
  
  Croc just requires each computer to have internet access.

For all note taking, I enjoy ZimWiki.
- How is it compared to other note taking software such as Logseq or Joplin (if you ever tried them too)?
  
  A lot simpler, IMO. That said, I'm still mainly using plain markdown.

Owncast Stream whatever you want on your own platform and announce natively to the Fediverse!
IDK why but tons of folks think it's not feasible as they need million dollar computers. I've streamed to 70+ open streams, albeit as a test, on a like $5/month VPS. The key is that the resources needed are how many qualities you're transcoding, not how many folks are viewing. Yes bandwidth is needed for each viewer, but that's significantly less than people imagine.
Full transparency I run the !owncast@lemmy.world community, but I'm in no way affiliated with the project. I just love open platforms and open source.

I would like lemmy as a whole to know more of this comic. Hell, the entire tech and coding space. Look, i love tech but some of you guys can be absolute bellends to people not knowing something and it turns plenty of people off from even learning.
"WhAt YoU dOn'T kNoW hOw To MaKe A fIlE? It'S eAsY, iF yOu DoN't KnOw ThEn YoU sHoUlDn'T bE uSiNg ThIs PrOgRaM!!!"
My brother in Christ maybe they want to learn, some people are neurodivergent and they don't pick up new information as easily the first go around
Sorry rant over
- le required "touch woman, permission not found" statement incoming

DietPi, for setting up an SBC (ie raspberry pi) with common server software. very good for a first-time self hoster like myself.
- I use this on all on my Pis. It just works. I like the text config file for headless installation and how you can even add scripts to run on install too.
  
  Yeah it's nice to have a "IaC-lite" setup for stuff. Could definitely do an involved install but for my use case its not too involved :)
- Can you share what most folks use DietPi for? I searched but found mostly only installation videos.
  
  TLDR it's a Debian/Linux image that comes preconfigured for raspberry pis and other small single board computers.
  Firstly, it's quite minimal for a "full featured" Linux distro, reducing RAM and CPU usage which are usually in high demand on SBCs. But it also doesn't remove stuff that a typical linux user needs, so no weird configuration to get your regular suite of apps running.
  Secondly, it has a library of utilities for managing your computer from the command line. Such as common raspberry pi configuration, setting up and managing cron jobs, services, DDNS, VPNs, disks, etc.
  Thirdly, it has its own "repository" of applications, which are really just regular Debian packages but with extra scripts to configure said software for the typical user. Stuff like, installing and configuring a database, webserver, python, php are all done alongside your software setup, and it "just works".
  It's usually used for hosting services like Plex, Jellyfin, Nextcloud, and other utilities with minimal effort but it's really just like any other Linux and you can do whatever you like to it.
  dietpi.com if you wanna read about it from the devs

ubuntu touch, its actually at a usable state
- I kinda wanna try this, Google is messing up the android open source project to a point I don't really want to tolerate
  
  dont expect to daily drive it yet ive had an issue with random powering off and there isnt volte support yet which is required for carriers that have dropped 3g. VOLTE is coming though

Thumb-Key — A flick keyboard for mobile phones; a FOSS alternative to MessagEase created by Lemmy's own Dessalines. It's not perfect, neither was MessagEase, but for what it is it's pretty damn good and definitely beats using a mobile QWERTY keyboard.
Ibis — A federated wiki created by Lemmy's own Nutomic. It's currently pretty barebones with little activity, but I'd like to see more interest in the project so that it can grow and improve. I think it has a lot of potential.
- I've been slowly trying thumbkey but seem to be struggling to get to the point where I feel comfortable using it over qwerty. I love the concept as I also hate using qwerty.... Yet I still seem more accurate using the crutch of autocorrect. With thumbkey I have to go back and correct more than I thought I would. I can kinda touch-type at a decent rate now but I definitely need more practice.
  All of this is to ask: is there a point where I will be so comfortable as to not need to fear misspelling something without this crutch of autocorrect?
  
  i'm trying it now as I love the idea, but how do I add capitals?
  
  is there a point where I will be so comfortable as to not need to fear misspelling something without this crutch of autocorrect?
  I can't speak for how long it will take you specifically, but yeah, I absolutely think you can get to that point. I don't really remember how long it took me to learn, but it couldn't have been more than a few weeks, and I think I had some factors which were working to my advantage, anyways. Have you adjusted any of the settings?
- Is his other software as shitty as lemmy?
  
  That's a bit mean, I think Lemmy is pretty good all things considered.

Gnu Guix. By default Guix uses only free libre software, but there are ways to install it with a non-free kernal. Systemcrafters has a guide (this is what I used) as well as non-guix (guix repo for non free software).
- Woah, definitely need to check this out. I wanted to slap guix system on an old laptop but had issues with proprietary drivers, very curious to see what workarounds people have had luck with. Otoh I barely touch this computer, and NixOs is running fine on it..
  
  Never used nix but it's goals are similar to guix. Worth checking out if you ever get extra hw.

Thanks for making me feel like an idiot for not knowing things after age 30.
- Today's lucky 10,000
- Don’t feel too bad, not only is 30 an arbitrary number, he doesn’t account for folks too young to understand something. I don’t think a 2 day old baby learning about the mentos thing should count. So either it’s more than 10,000 people per day or the age should probably stretch out to 60 or maybe even 75.
  Of corse there are also the people like me who are forgetful and may not remember they heard something!
  
  The age in the comic was quite a misleading thing to add, because we all live in a different way and interact with different things, so anything can be new to anyone. Anyone can be in the "lucky 10000".

I am surprised that no one mentions this.
Firefly III this is an amazing financial tracking and budgeting tool that literally saves me so much time and money, I even donate monthly since it's so good and essential to me that I think it's only fair that the developer gets something back.
- for those of us who aren't very savvy... is there a way i can use it like a normal app on windows or do i have to be a tech genius? the "getting started" section on github lists a bunch of words that are gibberish to me.
  
  Sorry, probably not.
  This is meant to run hosted (like a website), so it needs a server setup.
  If it all sounds like gibberish then you don't understand what a lamp stack or a docker container is it's unlikely you'll be able to install it on your own in a way that is useful or that you can maintain for security.
  You could possibly hire someone to install it on your behalf - but given that it's dealing with your finances I would be hesitant to do so.
  If you are on Android try the Cashew app - has a paid tier but it's unlikely you'll need it and is minimally intrusive.
  
  What @whereisk@lemmy.world said below, but instead I'd recommend You Need A Budget (YNAB). YNAB is amazing, and despite not liking paying for subscription services, I keep using it and not getting firefly (and I do self host my own things). It's like $100 a year and will save you far more than that if you use it correctly. Check them out: http://www.youneedabudget.com
  Make sure to read their intro stuff on why they recommend doing things the way they do, as active budgeting isn't for everyone.
- I tried installing it years ago on a weekend and somehow failed. Should try again
  
  Try the docker version, pretty simple overall

Helix is a modal text editor, but I haven't used it as much as I'd like because it lacks the plugins I use in Neovim.
- I like it because i never took the time to setup neovim with plugins haha. Helix is a more out-of-the-box experience 👌

Vorta is a great program for backing up files. Works on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Couple I've come across recently and haven't seen here yet:
micro - a nano-style terminal text editor with modern features and plugins.
termscp - a terminal FTP (et al) client heavily inspired by WinSCP.
- micro looks very impressive. I'm too invested in vi to move away from that, but it's great to see alternatives, especially those focused on being easy to use (like jed)
  Only weird thing from the cap I saw was that you need to edit a json file to change keybindings - doesn't that go against the 'easy to use' edict, or is that something that's planned to be changed?
  
  Same. If a newbie can't get stuck inside, is it even a text editor?

linux
- I don't care about people knowing the kernel

A more private and secure messenger than WhatsApp, signal and telegram, like simplex
- Along similar lines, I'd say Snikket. I feel XMPP often has quite a bad reputation based on the user experience from 10 years ago, but it's come such a long way and projects like Snikket make it very easy to get started.
- Defintely agree here. Glad that Signal finally allowed users to stop connecting their phone numbers to their accounts but man, I wish there was something else.
- https://github.com/privacyguides/privacyguides.org/blob/HEAD/docs/real-time-communication.md or https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-messaging might have information useful to you, or if they don't but you find better solutions for your needs please let me know!
- You could check out Wire, Session, and Threema etc.
  Signal and Simplex are also pretty good.
- .
  
  That... Was what you asked for. Things you hadn't heard of. Now you're in the lucky 10,000.
  
  Telegram just claims to be private, but they can't prove it with technical means, instead they rely on the narrative that they are not data brokers. All the while they have strong connection with suspicious parties like the UAE, and from time to time publish weird announcements like the tucker carlson interview that is also said to have contained a far right dogwhistle
  
  Telegram isn't encrypted by default btw! If you want that, I'd recommend Matrix, Signal or WhatsApp (in that order imo)

xpra: it is like tmux but for X windows (works on wayland), but it can do much more than that. You can seamlessly run GUI programs from a container or VM on your main desktop while still sandboxing their X capabilities, forward windows from Windows desktops, and it has efficient encoding so it is usable over poor connections as well.

Typst, Nix, Git, Blender
- You think Git and Blender are unknown?
  
  Being unknown was not a premise in the question.

MusicBrainz Picard
Amazing music tagger and batch renamer, for those of us who still have all our music as files.

For 3D Modelling / Printing, if you have even a little bit of programming / scripting ability, OpenSCAD is amazing.
It's basically just a small scripting language for generating 3D objects and performing 3D modelling operations and its so handy to be able to store important info as precise variables, and create new objects and cuts and stuff just with for loops and if statements.
I use the web version a lot of the time, and while it could use a little work, it's pretty amazing.
- I also recommend trying out FreeCAD and seeing which clicks with you. I found FreeCAD's sketch system more intuitive, though you have to be pretty careful about your order of operations while building your hierarchy.
- Do you know a good tutorial ?
  
  No, I honestly just started here, and started playing around with the example, and then started turning that into what I wanted and googling when I needed to: https://ochafik.com/openscad2/

Shutter encoder, it has a ton of useful tools built in for quick video conversion, compression, trimming, etc, and it works very well for batch encoding of a lot of different video files
Affine, its a surprisingly feature rich notes app (open source but all cloud features are currently paid)
KopiaUI, an easy to use automatic backup program

ViMusic, android APK to play music from youtube, Ive just come across it when I wanted to listen to some OST that were only on youtube and my phone by default doesn't let me play youtube and block the screen. Im not gonna pay any subscriptions ever.
- ViMusic is not maintained anymore.
  Someone forked it as RiMusic and fixed a lot of bugs with the original version and added the ability to download songs (as opposed to hoping they stay cached)
  
  Thanks, I will check it out.
- firefox on android allows you to play youtube and block the screen.
  
  I have android, idk if its because its old but I cant play youtube and block the screen, the music stops and youtube tells me to play premiun to be able to do that.
  Also vimusic works offline too if you download the music before, like downloading the mp3 directly.
- ViMusic has been unmaintained for a while AFAIK. Use RiMusic instead.
- You can use newpipe

More people should code Csound. Doesn't matter if you're musically inclined or not. Just do it. Make weird noises. Have fun!

Open street maps
- The Organic Maps app implementation is pretty neat.

More of a couple of features. Python venv makes it much easier to work with third-party libraries. That said, the standard library is fantastic for everything from parsing json to subnetting to quick regex searches.

Kanipaan https://yu7.in/kani, a CLI calculator.

Forth. Not forth compilers like gforth but the whole environment. Esp32Forth is a great implementation.

Claude 3. Most people don't even know what it is, let alone the fact that it's as good and better than GPT4 in some ways.
- Is that the same one that brought down the Linux Mint forums ?
  
  That’s terrible. Their response (page 2) could’ve been worse, so at least there’s a very small something, but that’s terrible.
- Didn't know that was open-source.
- What part of Claude 3 is open source? I tried to do some googling to find something, but came up short. Got a link?

Is there room here to ask about software? I've been interested lately about getting into hosting my own server for multiple things. It'd be nice to be able to access it remotely for files for work, as a media server locally and remotely, and to access my Stable Diffusion instance remotely. I suppose those all require different solutions right? I'd love to know more!
- not that i don't think you could ask about them here, but there are a number of self host communities that you should check out, here are two of the bigger ones:
  !selfhosted@lemmy.world !selfhost@lemmy.ml
  
  Amazing, thanks - I'll look into them.
- tailscale is about the lowest effort way of doing this.
  
  Thanks for the suggestion, hadn't heard of it.
  So I guess it's a VPN software - would that solve all three needs in one? I can see how it works for remote files but not as well how it would help with the other two.

yunohost it's basically an os that easily lets you selfhost, by having an extremely big amount of selfhosted services packaged with scripts that autonatically set everything up and all of that trough a clear and modern web interface.

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