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Software Snapshot

I want to capture an annual snapshot of software I am using on my computer. This info is sort of embedded in other notes where I talk about setting up Ubuntu, but I thought it would be interesting to regularly record a snapshot to compare over time. I have noticed a significant decrease in software I actually use, moving more to either browser or text editor.

Jan 2021

  • Distro: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS - I used to really enjoy installing the latest releases and completely wiping my laptop every 6 months, but lately LTS seems less work…
  • Desktop:
    • GNOME 3.36.8
    • Extensions: Caffeine
    • GNOME Tweaks
  • Browsers:
    • Firefox 85 - I use firefox for every thing. Interesting to have work access to office365, Word is just as terrible in browser as on desktop.
      • uBlock Origin
      • Multi-Account Containers
      • Facebook Container
    • Chromium 88 (snap) - I use chromium just for testing web development. I prefer the dev tools to Firefox’s.
  • Text editors:
    • VS Code - used constantly, but getting more annoyed by each update. It seems like it is getting constantly more features, with debugging and information popping up everywhere. I don’t need or appreciate that stuff. I spend a lot of time trying to turn it off, but seems harder…
    • TextEditor / Gedit - used as extra scratch pad constantly.
    • Atom - installed, but not used. I want to like it (it seems like it should be slightly better than VS Code), but just seems slow and not quite right. Not having a good integrated terminal is a big draw back for me.
  • Other GUI software:
    • GIMP
    • OBS Studio
    • VidCutter
    • KeePassXC
    • Etcher
    • OpenRefine
    • LibreOffice Calc
  • Pandemic work from home has introduced some new every day tools:
    • Zoom - not great on Linux, has less features, freezes up on screen share.
    • Cisco VPN
    • Remmina
  • Command line tools:
    • git
    • ImageMagick
    • ExifTool (via libimage-exiftool-perl)
    • ffmpeg
    • Pandoc
    • LaTeX (via texlive texlive texlive-fonts-extra texlive-xetex texlive-extra-utils) - mainly just for use with Pandoc.
    • Ruby (via rbenv) - used to do more with Python, but recently just using commandline, OpenRefine, or Ruby + Rake for anything.
    • Jekyll (via Ruby)
    • Java (via default-jre) - just for use with OpenRefine.
    • tlp tlp-rdw - laptop battery utilities.