Software I like
list of software I like, use and endorse, inspired by suckless.org's list
not all software in that list is lean and minimalist (at least not as lean as things in the suckless list) but most of them are since that's my favourite kind of software, the kind that don't get in your way
Links goes to official sites or repos but most things are probably in your OS's package manager
Operating systems
- Alpine Linux: the most perfect operating system, easy to install, extremely lightweight, only problem is it doesn't have glibc so you cannot install proprietary nvidia drivers and closed source software can be tricky to install, oh and for X11 to work you need to add yourself to input and video group
- Arch/Artix: an absolute pain to install but once it's done it will not let you down, artix is the version without systemd, can take some time to figure out how to install arch packages on artix
- Debian: Kinda mid and bloated, packages so outdated it's infuriating, but the upside is it is the most supported server OS to exist, whatever you wanna do a Debian tutorial exist
libraries and programming languages and stuff
- Go: the most perfect programming language, both fast and easy to use, produce statically linked executables by default (unless if the dependencies have C code)
- Zig: next-gen C, haven't tried it yet but it's fully compatible with C libs and I heard it solved a lot of C's problems (still in beta tho)
- raylib: simple, easy-to-use video game library, few header files, no dependencies, just as much as you actually need and no non-sense, got a lot of bindings for languages other than C, Go bindings work really well
- sqlite: simple, extremely easy to install database
Server software
Software to install on your server, I will list those that are hassle-free to install (I deliberately did *not* list akkoma/pleroma cause it is too much of a hassle to install)
- conduit.rs: Matrix server (instant messaging), very easy to install, statically linked (which means no dependency hell for you to handle, single executable that works everywhere)
- Cinny: Matrix client, very easy to use got all the features you need (except VoIP but whatever)
- emailwiz: one click solution to install a full mail server, script that work on debian-based machines (would probably not be hard to adapt the script for other distros)
- darkhttpd: very simple web brower for static pages (doesn't have encryption, pair it with stunnel or something similar for that)
- transmission: bittorrent client, very easy to install, present in every package manager, have a web interface
- Shaarli: minimalist, database-free microblogging/bookmarking engine
web browsers
Most of them are actually terrible but whatever i'll list the one i like (or hate the least)
- librewolf: firefox but without the corpo junk, it still is firefox tho so bloated af, probably the best brower right now
- ladybird: new experimental brower, aims to be a true alternative to firefox, chromium and webkit, they still have a very long way to go (as of 2024) but they're insanely based on many levels
- netsurf: minimalist web engine that almost works correctly, they just don't have much support for anything newer than html 4 css 2 but they're a surprisingly capable browser
- dillo: minimalist web engine that is somewhat worse than netsurf, based on some old and limited gui toolkit (FLTK 1.3, that think can't even handle mouse 4 and 5 buttons) but they're kinda comfy and still in active development
window managers
- dwm: very minimalist tiling manager, customization by modifying the source code (not as hard as it sounds)
- hyprland: not sure if i should recommand this one, tiling window manager for Wayland, they have features that other wayland things don't have and they're the only wayland-related project that's in the hands of actually sane people, they used to make a lot of breaking updates which is why i stopped using it but i think the situation is better now
- iceWM: comfy floating window manager that I really want to like and recommand but that thing is weird and mess with xbindkeys and sxhkd for reasons I don't quite understand
removed from the list :
desktop software
- sxhkd: launch commands on keyboard shortcuts, some WMs have that feature built in but I recommand sxhkd anyway cause it will make switching WM way easier (do not use xbindkeys, for some reason that one is unreliable)
- dmenu: must-have for shell scripts, can also be used to run software, see luke smith's tutorials to understand how versatile that thing is
- vulonkaaz's scripts: a selection of scripts I wrote for myself, can be useful for you too
- nsxiv: good image viewer
- mpv: good video player
- zathura: good document viewer
- mpd: excellent music player, work as a daemon with multiple clients (best one is mpc)
- whonix: overengineered TOR browser, work as two seperate VMs, should be very secure
Tools, CLI and TUI software
- Zsh: way better shell than bash, you can use my own config file for sane defaults
- Neovim: the text editor, easy to use easy to learn (and easy to fuck up with useless plugins so don't bother, simpler is better)
- yt-dlp: youtube downloader, as well as a downloader for almost everything that's online, works very well
- ffmpeg: do anything you want with any media file you want, conversion, recording, editing, this thing can do so much I can't list it all
- newsboat: good enough RSS viewer
- gomuks: Matrix client (instant messaging) kinda bloated but it's the only text-based matrix client that I know that's remotely usable (i don't use it i just felt like i needed to list one text based matric client for people who want away from web apps)
- mutt-wizard: best TUI mail client out there
- go-mtpfs: mount MTP devices with FUSE, useful to access files from android phones
useful commands:
yt-dlp "url" -f 251 --remux-video ogg # Download a youtube music in the best audio quality and save as .ogg (no transcoding, optimal quality)
Networking
- ZeroTier: virtual LAN, similar to hamachi, very easy to use, useful for accessing your LAN from outside or making minecraft servers without bothering about port forwarding
- Nebula: virtual LAN, harder to install than ZeroTier and requires a internet exposed server but don't rely on anyone else's server and they support NetBSD
Android
- f-droid: app store that is actually good
- Binaural Beats: audio technology to influence your brainwaves, useful for meditation and a lot of other things
- Expand: Monroe Institute's meditation app, uses audio technology similar to binaural beats
- Termux: linux distro as an android app, very useful to use normal software such as nvim on your phone
- OpenCamera: powerful camera app, don't forget to enable camera2 API
- NewPipe: simple youtube viewer and downloader, perfect for music streaming, can't log into your account
- ReVanced: modded applications, can remove bullshit from corporate applications such as youtube's official app
- HeliBoard: comfy keyboard, I recommand disabling spell checking
- Organic Maps: comfy OSM viewer, accurate maps and navigation, offline use
- Speed Overlay: speedmeter as an overlay, very simple, just works™
- VLC: comfy media player, comfy music player, comfy video player
- Sky Map: point to the sky and see the names of the stars you see
- Flightradar24: look up informations about the planes you see in the sky, web version
- Husky: microblogging client (pleroma)
- FluffyChat: chat client (matrix, don't use the web version it doesn't work properly)
- Caffeine Mode: prevent phone from going into sleep mode (can be very useful)
Eldrich abominations
virtual neural network, "deep learning", generative "AI", a demoniac technology beyond human comprehension
most of them are coded in Python, the language of the shaitan, most of them are literally impossible to run if you don't have a PhD in demonology, but some software are actually useable (doesn't make it any less haram tho)
- KoboldCPP: text generation, runs LLaMa derivated models on the CPU, or GPU, requires a shitton of system RAM, actually easy to use
- stable-diffusion.cpp: image generation, runs SD, flux and some other on CPU, I'm listing it here but i never actually managed to run that thing properly yet
- Waifu2x-ncnn-vulkan: image upscaler, present in most distro package manager, runs on GPU with Vulkan API (there is CPU mode)
edit: as of v1.78 koboldcpp actually does image generation as well
Lists
- Suckless rocks: mostly sane stuff
- Cat-v harmful: kind of a meme
- igwiki software minimalism: /g/'s list, mostly sane
- Luke Smith's programs: Luke's list, mostly sane
- tastyfish's less retarded software: i only added him to my list of list cause i got a crush on the guy tbh (very minimalist software tho)
I'll add more stuff later maybe