The Software I Use

Operating System(s)

My operating system of choice is OpenBSD because of the philosophy of the developers and because of how well put together the whole system feels. I typically run -current so I can get the most up-to-date drivers and packages.

Desktop Environment/Window Manager

I use a tiling window manager and have essentially built my own desktop environment from the ground up by gluing together different components. I don’t use a display manager; the environment is started with startx.

I use:

• dwm as my tiling window manager,
• dmenu as my application launcher,
• dunst as my notification daemon,
• feh to set my desktop background,
• and slock as my screen locker.

Colourscheme

I use the iceberg colourscheme and try to make the rest of my desktop environment follow that colourscheme.

Fonts

I am partial to the DejaVu font family. I use them pretty much everywhere.

Terminal

I use st (aka Simple Terminal). I like the model of patching a minimal piece of software with the features that I need and I enjoy its simplicity and speed.

File Manager

If I need to, I use pcmanfm. However, I find the tools available on the command line (mv, rm, etc) allow me to accomplish what I need to do faster than a dedicated file manager.

Text Editor/IDE

I use Neovim. I am very comfortable with the keybindings and modal nature of vim and vim-like editors. I use a select few plugins and a colour scheme but try to keep things as minimal as possible.

Web Browser

I mainly use qutebrowser but I also use lynx for browsing on the command line.

Mail Client

I use claws-mail. It has provided me the best out-of-the-box experience of any mail client I’ve tried. It’s fast, has GPG support, and handles multiple accounts very well. When I need to go offline, I synchronize my mail with mbsync.

Instant Messaging

• Fluffychat or Element for Matrix
• Dino for XMPP
• catgirl for IRC

Password Manager

I use KeepassXC. I chose it for being really simple to manage compared to something like BitWarden and because I really like the user interface.

Music Player

I use cmus for its simplicity and ease-of-use. It does everything I need from a music player.

Video Player

mpv is my video player of choice. It’s light, simple, and versatile. It also integrates with youtube-dl so I can watch YouTube videos or Twitch streams without opening my web browser.

RSS Feed Reader

Newsboat because it’s simple, easy, terminal-based, and I can program a bunch of macros to open up whichever feed in whichever application I want (e.g. open a Youtube feed in MPV).

Document Creation

I will typically write documents in either markdown or LaTeX. For instances where I need to interact with .docx files and whatnot, I use Libreoffice.

Presentations

I prefer using sent because I like the style of presentation that the tool produces. If I ever need anything more complex I opt for Beamer.

Day Planning/Organization/Notes

I use pen and paper for this. For whatever reason, I find it cumbersome to use electronic organizers/calendars for keeping track of my life and I much prefer having something physical to store this information. If you’re curious, I use a Leuchtturm1917 A5 Dot Grid Notebook and a Burgundy/Gold Parker 51 with Waterman Inspired Blue ink.

Image Viewing

sxiv since it handles all the image types I need it to and has nice keybindings.

PDF Viewer

Zathura for its excellent keybindings and speed.