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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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a fun post. what are your favourite hacks that you've found or created for extremely unique use cases? (self.linux)

submitted 2 years ago by reallychris to c/[email protected]

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right, so as the title suggests...

i like linux based OSes because you can pretty much mould your operating system to the shape of your brain. i call it cognitive ergonomy. and i'd like it to catch on. even on a relatively play-it-safe distro like the one i'm currently using, the repos are full of handy little applications to make life immeasurably easier for you, if they aren't installed already. thanks to xdotool, xdo, wmctrl, and sxhkd, pretty much any action can easily be bound to a shortcut key. for eg, i have xdotool search --name vimnote windowactivate || kitty --title=vimnote nvim -c "norm 13j" ~/notes/index.md bound to mod+n. it's so simple, and i was so proud of myself when i got it to work (i'm not really a scripty person). i just wanted to make something easy. then i wanted to make it a bit easier. then i was feeling like "idk this is still way too many key presses" so i found a way of making it even easier.

i've got a bunch of little hacks like this. before i found qmmp, i set up global keys for mpv so i could listen to podcasts on another workspace. i have ranger set up to give specific info from mediainfo as a preview for audio and video files. (which windows does easily in gui file browser but THAT'S NOT THE POINT OK)

anyway, the ubuntu forums and arch wiki are full of tricks that a lot of people want to set up, i'm curious as to the ones you had to set up for yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I used to put them all under version control until 2017. I have well over 200 scripts now, so I stopped bothering with version control ^^

But there are a few things I use every now and then that I find "fun":

temporary workspace

tempsh starts a new shell in a temporary directory, and destroy it when you exit the shell. I use it to test code snippets, open tar bombs, whatever task that don't need to save my work.

emojis !

I have an emoji script, which prompts me for all emojis of the spec using dmenu, so I can search them by name, and put them in my clipboard. It's a stupid script but I use it a lot (much more than those :shortcut: style selector you have in messaging software!).

love

I have a love script, which simply outputs "♥️" to the terminal. Most important script of my workflow!

[–] reallychris 2 points 2 years ago

yeah i had an emoji selector for rofi, it was super useful. the problem with emoji selectors is on some sites they're really easy to use, and on some they are terrible or non-existent, so it's much better to have a universal menu. only problem was that i just could not train my brain to use the universal menu rather than clicking the face on the box i was writing in. i must revisit this.

this is what i'm talking about too. i have a similar scripts folder and honestly i can't remember half the stuff that's in there ha.