Visit: https://lukesmith.

xyz/

After many requests, here are the programs I use for everything. I'm only putting
here programs I consider tried and true and have used for a while.
Software I Use
Priorities

I'm about getting things done quickly and having as little space between my
thoughts and actions on the computer.

I like having vim-like bindings and prefer running programs in the terminal for
simplicity's sake. That said, I'm very much against the cringey meme that things in
the terminal are "cooler" or "nerdier" XD. Terminals are good for most tasks, but
useless for others, for example, browsing the modern web (I admit this unfortunate
fact with much consternation) or looking at maps or images or modifying videos by
NLE. I do do some image/video editing with imagemagick/ffmpeg, but only simple,
repetitive tasks.
Basic

Operating System/Distribution
I use Artix Linux (vid/site) which is a fork of Arch Linux except for without
systemd. You can see some of my reasons for using Arch-based distros here. Linux
distributions are generally not distinct enough to have strong feelings about,
hence the reason I only rarely care to talk about them. You can see my opinion on
Linux distributions generally here.
Terminal
I use st (vid/download) (simple terminal) by suckless.org, which is one of the
most minimal, yet easily customizable terminal emulators out there.
Shell
I use zsh as a shell. It has pretty much all of the features of bash with
additional plugins for more advanced auto-completion and syntax coloring.
Window Manager/Desktop Environment
dwm (vid/download). If you want to know "why my computer looks like that", this
is what to check out. The status bar I use for dwm is dwmblocks (vid/download).
Note that in order to run my builds of dwm/dwmblocks, you need to install libxft-
bgra until a patch is merged into libxft on the upstream.
Text editing and programming
vim. Less of a text editor and more of a lifestyle. No, I'm not going to ever
switch to emacs. Technically I use neovim nowadays, but it's all the same.

A full overview/tutorial of vim and vimtutor for new users.

Web browser
Firefox with the arkenfox user.js (with some modifications). Note that while
Firefox is a free software browser, it comes with a multitude of a multitude of
trackers and other annoying "features." A custom user.js file like the one linked
above removes all the trash and allows you to customize the browser to be usable
and private. I often recommend the following add-ons:

uBlock Origin
Decentraleyes
VimVixen
I don't care about cookies
Stylus

Utilities

File manager
lf. In most of my older videos, I'm using ranger which was the original model
for lf, albeit written in Python and somewhat sluggish. I use file managers less
and less nowadays and usually pull one up merely for illustration in videos.
Mail client
mutt [1] [2]. I keep all my mail offline with isync. Setting up the perfect
terminal-based offline email system can be difficult, so I made mutt-wizard for you
and me to make it easy.
Music/audio player
mpd with ncmpcpp for a library, mpv for playing songs manually when I select
them in lf. I also occasionally use beet for music tagging and organization.
Video player
mpv. Don't bother with any other video player. The only reason I've never done
a video on mpv is because all the cool kids already use it.
RSS reader
newsboat. I've never subscribed to YouTube channels or Twitter accounts or
anything else. You can simply give accounts' feeds to newsboat and watch videos
remotely via mpv without having to open a browser.
Torrent client
Transmission, with the transmission-remote-cli as an interface. Now that I'm a
30-year-old Boomer who doesn't care for copyrighted music or Hollywood movies, I
don't actually use my torrent client for anything illegal nowadays though. I mostly
seed Linux ISOs, rare old books and language learning materials.

Production

Video and Audio

ffmpeg is the tool I use to record all of my screencasts, and also splice and
combine all of the video and audio when needed. I sometimes used Blender for making
videos which would require NLE, but I always begrudged it. If you're a novice at
video editing, kdenlive would probably be better. In general, I never do any video
editing, so ffmpeg is enough.
Writing documents
I used to write documents in either R Markdown or (Xe-)LaTeX and compile them
into either pdf documents or presentations after that. In some videos, I've also
used the vim-live-latex-preview for automatic LaTeX/XeLaTeX compilation. I've also
used pandoc for document conversion and compiling markdown to .pdfs. Of course if
you've been watching my channel recently, you know I've been experimenting with
groff/troff to much success and recommend it as a much more minimal and elegant
typesetting system, scarcely lacking anything you might need, although lacking
documentation, so it'll probably be a jungle at first.
Presentations
suckless sent is my new favorite presentation software, which creates a
presentation immediately from a plain text file. Barring that, and especially for
academic presentations, I use LaTeX Beamer which you can also compile from markdown
via pandoc. I find presenting without software is usually the best in normal
circumstances.
Excel-like spreadsheets
sc-im for when I need a very visual interface, but I generally use R for the
things one typically does in a spreadsheet. Most things you need and excel-like
program for can just be done with your core utilities.
PDF viewer
zathura. I used to use mupdf, which is good too. Check out that video for
zathura's big benefits though.
Image Viewer
sxiv. Handles images, animated gifs, has additional thumbnail and slideshow
modes and allows you to run custom scripts and read/write to standard input/output.
Okay. This is epic.
Image modification
GIMP for big things, but imagemagick commands for most little modifications,
filter changes, trims, etc.
Cryptocurrencies

There really aren't that many good programs for using cryptocurrencies, but here is
what I use.

Bitcoin
Electrum.
Monero
The standard monero-cli.
Trading
Bisq, decentralized exchange which uses Tor out of the box.

Where can I find good software options?

The program of your dreams is probably listed below:

The suckless website's list of programs that "rock" – Generally minimalist

programs
A more comprehensive (and gradient) list of minimalist software
The FSF's Free Software Directory – Emphasis on libre software (although most
software in the links above will have free licenses as well)
Install Gentoo wiki recommendations – A good mix of programs for novices and
advanced users

Hardware I Use

Laptop
The main laptop I use is a Thinkpad X220, released in 2011. I bought mine used
on eBay for $90, and it included the ThinkPad Ultrabase, which I use at home daily
(it can also hold an extra hard drive and I have a 2TB one inside). Old ThinkPads
are designed for long term corporate use, and last forever and are made to be easy
to repair and improve. They have many simple perks, like their uniquely tactile
keyboards, their trackpoints and their ThinkLight (a more commonsense solution to
lighting your keyboard at night). Newer ThinkPads are not as good, lacking the
classical keyboards and generally being more Mac-like (unrepairable, breakable, and
generally bad for an enormous price). My X220 ThinkPad was Corebooted by tripcode!
Q/7.
Hard drives
I own two Solid State Drives (SSDs), one for my main laptop (1TB) and one for
my desktop OS (512GB). I think they're both "Crucial" brand. SSDs are the only
thing I recommend using a good bit of money on in your computer build. They make
your computer hugely snappier and apparently use less power.
Peripherals
I use a Unicomp Endurapro which is a classic-style buckling spring keyboard
like the old beloved IBM Model Ms, but also with a trackpoint to use as a mouse. I
do not own or use a mouse aside from this.
Microphone
I record most of my videos with a Blue Yeti, which seems to be the dominant
model on YouTube generally. I can't compare it to other microphones, but it does
the job.
Webcam
Logitech C920. I can record audio decent enough too, although the Yeti is
better. This webcam is passable for a small face in a portion of the screen, but is
nothing special.

What I don't use

Proprietary software
It's sort of weird that my channel has gotten large enough that a huge slice of
my viewership has missed one of the main points of my channel: the use of only
libre software. I will not recommend, review or test out proprietary software. I'm
not going to do a video on how to "rice" Google Chrome, I'm not going give you
Linux hacks for Slack or Steam. I'm especially not going to endorse proprietary
services that have gone out of their way to spy on or politically suppress their
users, just as Discord or Amazon. One of the many potential take-aways you should
get from my channel is that the use of libre/free software, by its nature, is more
constructive and extensible—that's the point. There are philosophical reasons for
this you'll run across in time, but for now, suffice it to say I will not support
the usage of non-free software.
emacs
Emacs has little purpose for people who use tiling window managers like I do.
Emacs is also enormous, and for someone like me who often is in the habit of using
my text editor to open just one file, it's massive overkill and a massive drain on
time. My movement in my computer usage has been constantly gravitating to more and
more lightweight and minimal programs, getting closer to the core of how Unix-based
operating systems work, using emacs on top of things to replicate the functionality
of my current setup violates this tendency. Everything I've ever needed to do, I
can do perfectly well between vim and my WM.
A cell phone
Don't get me wrong, I own a cell phone, I just don't use it or carry it around
or endorse cell phone usage generally. I use it as a house phone... except for I
don't have reception at my house 😉. I can't think of a single thing that is more
highly correlated with personal mediocrity more than cell phone usage. If you do
use one, be sure to install F-Droid, which is a application manager for free
software programs, and use applications from that. I have LineageOS installed and
have no Google anything. If you want to install Lineage or another free software OS
on your phone, remember to get a compatible phone that is unlocked.