What does your OS do that I should steal? (kbin.earth)

submitted 3 days ago by unknown1234_5@kbin.earth to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I use a Linux distro with kde, so I have a lot of customization available. I like trying other distros in VMs, but stuff like windows (no need to copy really kde is similar by default) and Mac is a pain in the ass to use that way. so, I want to know what your os does that you think I should copy using kde's customization. I'm looking for Mac in particular (bc I haven't used it before) but any OS or desktop environment is fair game.

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[-] traches@sh.itjust.works 28 points 3 days ago

super+u shows a wofi menu allowing me to fuzzy find a credential from my password manager and copy its username
super+p same thing but for passwords
super+o same thing but for TOTP codes
super+t allows me to select an area of the screen, take a screenshot, run it through OCR, translate it to English via the deepl API, and then pop up the result as a desktop notification and also copy it to the clipboard. (I’m not fluent in the language of the country I live in)
”lock” and „request” based suspend management, so my backup scripts or other long running jobs can keep the computer from sleeping until they are done.

[-] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 days ago

what software do you use for super+t?

[-] traches@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Grim, slurp, tesseract, and apparently the deepl SDK for Ruby? That was an interesting choice, younger me.

#! /bin/zsh
# Select an area of the screen, Screenhot, OCR, and translate it to english.

temp_image=$(mktemp --suffix '.png')
grim -g "$(slurp)" "$temp_image"

# DPI of 120 seems to work OK for screenshots.
source_text=$(tesseract "$temp_image" - --dpi 120 -l pol+deu) 

translated_text=$(~/scripts/translate "$source_text")

wl-copy $translated_text

notify-send 'Translation: ' "$translated_text" --expire-time=60000 --category 'translation'

rm $temp_image

Translate script:

#! /bin/ruby
require_relative 'deepl_request'

puts Translator::DeeplRequest
       .new(ARGV.join ' ')
       .translation

This script is a bit hacky and one-off, I wouln't just copy-paste it.

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[-] FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

♬ One of these things is not like the others.. ♬

[-] MotorCade93@sh.itjust.works 18 points 3 days ago

I never really looked into Linux or any alternate OSs before now. This thread is super interesting and a very fun read.

[-] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 6 points 3 days ago

if you ever feel like trying it, Linux is easy to try in a virtual machine or on real hardware (do not install it to your main machine when you first try it except in a vm, which does not change your system). I'd recommend trying fedora workstation and fedora kde because they are decent examples of the best two desktop environments. mint exists as well, but I personally wouldn't recommend it. btw, there is no "best" distro, just find one that works for you and ignore the tribalism.

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[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Caps Lock remapped to compose. Much more useful, especially for those of us who sometimes need to type "other" letters, but prefer US dvorak keyboard layout.

[-] meekah@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I don't really need the compose key, but rebinding caps does sound tempting. But what to bind it to... Hmm

[-] 30p87@feddit.org 8 points 3 days ago

I bound it to normal shift, because I fat-finger caps instead of shift all the time anyway lol

[-] meekah@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Haha fair enough

[-] trevor 2 points 3 days ago

On Macs, I remap it to the Command (super) key. On Linux, I remap it to Ctrl.

It makes copying, pasting, etc. way more ergonomic and doesn't strain your pinky 😌

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[-] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 5 points 3 days ago

what's the compose key? never heard of it but any excuse to not waste a key on caps lock sounds great.

[-] kambusha@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Allows you to do umlauts, accents on letters etc.

E.g., öšéå

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[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Basically, hitting compose causes the next two keystrokes to "combine". For example, / + o = ø, as well as the other letters that are useful to us with extra letters in the alphabet. In addition to that it provides a myriad of other characters such as copyright, trademark, just to name a few.

[-] I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

What? And lose one of the disco buttons? (along with scroll lock and num lock)

Flashing lights and a loud beep if set up right hehe.

[-] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

Yes, love the compose key. My native language (Dutch) uses accents occasionally, but typing on a regular Dutch layout with dead keys is awful, especially as a software dev who uses loose quotes a lot.

It's also great for symbols. No more ddg'ing "euro symbol" and copying from Wikipedia, just type compose, e, =.

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Does dutch have ß as well?

Also, noggie keyboard is alright for normal typing, but once you get into more geeky computery, some characters are awfully placed. ' " / { > just to name a few. That's why I started using US layout to begin with, and I later migrated to YS Dvorak because I'm that guy (PS: You should totally switch to Dvorak, bro)

[-] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

No thankfully Dutch doesn't have any additional letters, just accents.

I have been wanting to try different keyboard layouts for a while. The issue is that my employer probably wouldn't be super happy with like 50% output for some days or weeks.

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

I was thinking that too for a while, but upon switching to dvorak my typing speed picked up surprisingly quickly.

On that note, I never bought into the meme about it being possible to type faster with dvorak. It might be true in theory, but in practice the bottleneck is fingers and old habits. I type around the same speed with dvorak as I did with qwerty. The main advantage to dvorak is that it's much more comfortable.

I had a realization around 2012 that I would most likely be using a keyboard for a living for the rest of my life, so that's why I started experimenting with alternatives to qwerty.

[-] Cratermaker@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 3 days ago

On Linux Mint I can resize windows by hitting super+z, close windows with super+c, and move them around with super+left drag. There are others too, but I use these constantly. I was worried when I switched from Windows that I'd lose my shortcuts, but it turned out that there even more options on Mint.

[-] StarlightDust 5 points 3 days ago

I used to quite like the Unity desktop for all its quirks and how the panel would merge with maximised title bars. I do that with KDE Plasma, a global menu, active window controls, and a bunch of command output widgets for CPU usage and things like that. libadwaita-without-adwaita and gtk3-classic help to theme the stuff Gnome tries to force the look and feel of to be consistent with everything else. Another tweak that I have grown accustomed to is editing the Firefox userchrome.css. It means I can even make that fit in with every other application too. Search Github and you will find loads.

[-] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It is gnome, but https://aylur.github.io/astal/showcases/ is pretty awesome if you've done any React development. Pretty much coded up my own desktop environment with typescript and tsx for layout stuff. Lot's of fun widgets.

Note that I use nixos so pretty much everything is hand picked instead of a prebuilt ready to go environment. Hyprland for the basic desktop, Astal for my desktop shell with widgets, toolbars, etc.

[-] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

What's performance like using a desktop with a translation layer like that? Does it feel as responsive as a native desktop?

[-] sloppy_diffuser@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Pretty snappy. All the gnome APIs are written in C. It doesn't run on node, it runs on gnome-javascript (gjs) which exposes all the C APIs through JavaScript. If you use the Astal wrappers its pretty painless but using the gnome APIs directly in gjs is a little weird since you have to consider things like memory management.

[-] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Nice, sounds really cool! I'll definitely try it out at some point.

[-] 7dev7random7@suppo.fi 4 points 3 days ago

Fullscreen or maximized windows always are -1 px on the right of the screen.

My cursor rests on the right of the screen so that a swipe changes workspaces and a right click opens a dropdown-launcher to navigate to apps not used frequently.

Build-in in XFCE.

[-] TootSweet@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Minimalism.

[-] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 3 points 3 days ago

kde kinda just comes like that, taskbar and important apps (system stuff, browser, etc.) only. I've added some stuff but only things I use or anticipate using.

[-] TootSweet@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I meant more like not taking up shit tons of hard drive space, memory, or CPU, not having a billion dependencies, starting instantaneously, low cognitive load, etc.

It was kindof a sarcastic dig at KDE. I deserve downvotes.

[-] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

KDE Frameworks used to be a single package (I think with KDE 4?) that people complained about because it contained unnecessary features for the software they want to use. They split it into different packages because of that, so software could only depend on the part of Frameworks that it actually used. And now people complain that KDE software has "a billion dependencies". Unbelievable.

[-] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 2 points 3 days ago

in my experience plasma 6 and gnome (idk what the newest one is but I've tried the newest in the last couple days on a couple distros) both boot just as quick and use about the same amount of resources.

[-] TootSweet@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah, Gnome is far to bulky for my taste as well. I use Sway. It's one single process. And it's a Wayland compositor, so I don't have any separate process for the X server. And Sway is currently using less than 90MB of RAM on my computer. With nothing else running but a minimal terminal emulator, htop, SystemD, and various daemons, my whole system is using less than 480MB of RAM.

And that all makes me happy, of course, but just seeing small numbers isn't really the point either. Aside from resource usage, I spend less time fixing, fighting with, upgrading, configuring, and otherwise maintaining Sway than I would KDE or Gnome or XFCE, and more time using my computer for the stuff I want to do on it. (As an aside, Sway's tiling model is absolutely baller. I rarely have to think about where I want my windows, and when I do have to think about that, I don't have to go to the mouse to position/resize them.)

KDE and Gnome are two different varieties of seven(-hundred?)-layer bean dips of dependencies atop dependencies. I like that my entire graphical system is one process with comparatively few dependencies that I can wrap my head around pretty easily. (And, honestly, Sway is a step up in bulkiness/heaviness/complexity from dwm, which is what I used previously.)

[-] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

I just switched employers, and had to go from using Sway to using Mac os full-time.

God damn do I miss the simplicity of organising windows with sway.

Mac os' Window Management is absolutely horrible. Especially the useless cmd+tab bullshit that only shows one instance per app, even if it has multiple windows open. Literally can't alt+tab through browser windows without installing software for it.

Sorry that kinda turned in to a small Mac rant, I just hate this system so much.

[-] TootSweet@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I know the pain. I've worked at Windows-only places and places where the options were Windows or Mac but you were strongly encouraged to use Mac. Honestly, when I started at the latter place, I hadn't touched Windows or Mac in like a decade, so as far as what I was familiar with, Windows and Mac were about the same for my purposes. And since most of the team used Mac, I just went with Mac.

The graphical system was terrible (to the point I even looked into what it would take to replace the default Mac graphical system (was it called "Aqua" or something? Don't remember.) with something X11 based, but that's like 100% impossible), but the thing that I hated the most was the touch bar. The Siri "button"(/"icon?") on the touch bar was like one millimeter away from the backspace key (which is called "delete" in Mac for some reason, even though it acts like backspace). I'm sure I wasted so much time just closing Siri dialog boxes.

Image of the Mac keyboard and touchbar zoomed in on the backspace/"delete" key showing how close the Siri button is.

All that said, I'm not saying Windows would have been better than the Mac I had to use there. I probably would have been just as frustrated with Windows.

I'm lucky enough now to be working for an employer that lets me use Ubuntu. I disabled all the default desktop environment stuff. I unfortunately can't get away with Sway because I need to use Zoom and desktop sharing doesn't work with Sway, but I use i3 which acts virtually identically (and does support desktop sharing).

[-] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 2 points 3 days ago

fair enough

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[-] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

Uses flatpak

[-] unknown1234_5@kbin.earth 3 points 3 days ago

I'm on tuxedo os so it is flatpak and distro package by default.

[-] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 3 points 3 days ago

I use Easy Effects to normalise volume so that I don't have to adjust the volume so often when watching YouTube videos and stuff. Just google for a preset.

Only downside is you'll have to make exceptions for real time communication apps like Discord because they crackle. But everything else is perfect without any noticeable lag.

[-] flembark@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks for the tip!

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

One more: super + q to change cooling/cpu/gpu schema. Quick way of swapping between "nice and quiet under the couch laptop, streaming to the TV" and "ultra-hurricane GeForce 8000 cataclysm gaming-mode for playing Tetris", or when I want something in between and/or portable.

[-] Libb@jlai.lu 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

A simplified system settings?

I'm an older (in my 50s) macOS and Mint/Cinnamon user but I also know after testing it I would love to use KDE (it's a great DE) if it was not for its billion of settings one needs to navigate through in order to turn off the many visual effects and whatever I don't need that are activated by default, and the few things I need to activate that aren't ;)

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[-] sga@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I made a launcher inspired initially by kde's krunner, tries to do everything with a launcher, keeps the keyboard shortcuts to minimum, but having almost everything within a few keystrokes. Most things are os/de/wm agnostic. Since the write up, I have added a bluetooth device selector, network connections, vpns, and more stuff.

edit: sorry I forgot to add the link - https://sga.codeberg.page/articles/Launcher/Launcher_for_Everything.html#how-does-this-work

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this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025

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