Programs & Utilities

2026-01-17

Shell

• bat

  A cat alternative with line numbers and syntax highlighting. The --all flag is especially helpful for showing spaces, tabs, and line endings in files. The only configuration really needed is setting the theme and perhaps more preferentially, an alias that also disables paging, like normal cat output:

  export BAT_THEME="base16"
  alias cat="bat --paging=never"

• direnv

  Allows for a shell script to be run upon entering a directory. This is particularly useful for automatically activating Python virtual environments. Configuration consists of creating the .envrc file that is sourced at entry, and allowing this to happen by running direnv allow within the directory.

  if [ -f ".venv/bin/activate" ]; then
    source .venv/bin/activate
  fi

• lsd

  A ls alternative that mostly provides intuitive colours and icons. As for configuration, I found it beneficial to trim down some of the default output, and configure colours accordingly.

• neovim

  My Neovim configuration is based on Nvchad, and configured with my desired language servers, formatters, and plugins. The following packages are installed through Mason:

  • Ruff: Python formatter and linter
  • Python LSP: what it says on the tin
  • Prettier: formatter for HTML and CSS (for me at least). This package unfortunately requires npm to be installed on the host system.
  • Lua LSP: also what it says on the tin
  • Stylua: Lua formatter
  • Verible: SystemVerilog language server, formatter, and linter
• ripgrep

  An incredibly robust grep alternative, which I am quite sure I do not use to its full potential. Things like omitting directories are especially useful, and also intuitive — e.g. rg -g '!dir/' foo.

• starship

  An alternative terminal prompt to $ that has extensive customisation and functionality regarding current working directory. I find the virtual environment status very useful.

• tokei

  Counts lines of code, as well as different languages, comments, etc.

• zoxide

  A cd alternative that auto-jumps to previously visited directories. This turns a long cd to/a/nested/directory/named/foo command to just cd foo, after entering it once.

• zsh

  My shell-specific configuration is rather minimal:

  #!/bin/zsh
  
  export HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
  export HISTSIZE=20000
  export SAVEHIST=20000
  export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
  
  path+=(
  "$HOME/.local/bin"
  "$path[@]")
  export PATH
  
  setopt HIST_IGNORE_ALL_DUPS
  setopt HIST_FIND_NO_DUPS
  
  bindkey -v
  bindkey "^?" backward-delete-char
  zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _ignored
  zstyle ':completion:*' matcher-list 'm:{a-z}={A-Za-z}'
  zstyle :compinstall filename '~/.zshrc'
  autoload -U compinit && compinit

  ZSH's default Vi mode has room for improvement unfortunately, but it is usable nonetheless.

• zsh-autosuggestions

  Similarly to Zoxide mentioned above, this plugin aides in running previously long commands. Instead of typing out a cumbersome awk command that you've run before, one can tap the right arrow key to fill the command after typing the first few characters.

  Depending on your terminal's colour configuration, the default colour of the suggested text to fill may not be very readable. If so, set it manually at shell startup:

  export ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE="fg=#C7C7C7"

• zsh-syntax-highlighting

  Provides syntax highlighting directly to commands run in your shell. A small detail but invaluable for things like underlining a path that is valid, quoted and conditional arguments, and so on.

Graphical

My non-headless Linux systems run under Wayland, so in turn, the following applications are more or less Wayland specific.

• fuzzel

  Application launcher that is incredibly easy to configure.

• grim
  • slurp

  Screenshot tools that are boring and functional. Grim is the screenshot utility itself, while Slurp allows for selecting a region to capture. The combination is easily bound to Sway shortcuts to either copy to clipboard (see wl-clipboard), or save to $XDG_PICTURES_DIR, respectively:

  bindsym $mod+p exec       grim -g "$(slurp)" - | wl-copy
  bindsym $mod+Shift+p exec grim -g "$(slurp)"

• gtklock

  A GTK-based lock screen program that's useful when I'm out and about. Configuration is rather simple, and it is styled via CSS, which I find to be a perk. Also triggered from a Sway mapping:

  bindsym $mod+Escape  exec gtklock -d

• imv

  An image viewer that supports the file formats I encounter, and even has Vim keybindings.

• mako

  Notification daemon that's libnotify compatible, and easily configured. Its daemon must be started by Sway: exec /usr/bin/mako.

• noto fonts (+ cjk & emoji)

  Incredibly widely used fonts, including support for CJK and Cyrillic languages, and emoji support in applications such as Discord.

• sway

  Rather powerful window manager. Especially appreciate the input configuration options like easily changing trackpad behaviours and switching between languages. Things like these are challenging on X. I use swaybg to set wallpapers.

• waybar

  Status bar with loads of functionality. Configuration is done via a JSON-esque file and styled via CSS, which offers nearly too much opportunity.

• wezterm

  Terminal of choice. I went back and forth between this, and st, and while fun, st lacks Wayland and macOS support. Wezterm is easily configured in Lua.

• zathura

  PDF viewer with Vim keybindings and commands. Allows for ample configuration of colours and fonts.

System

• chrony

  The system clock frequently falls out of sync on some of my older hardware and Chrony is a solution. Enable the system service and select a NTP pool.

• dracut

  On my systems, Dracut is used to generate initramfs during kernel installation, and create a bootable UKI, which omits the need for a bootloader, such as GRUB. See system-specific pages for more details.

• efibootmgr

  Similar to usage of the above, efibootmgr is used to create boot entries for bootable kernel images, both in the form of UKI's or EFI Stub's. Also handy for cleaning up other entries littered around by other operating systems.

• iwd
  • openresolv

  Preferred networking setup for its minimal system footprint, reliability (significantly over WPA Supplicant), and ease of use with most networks I encounter. It can be configured to use its internal DHCP client, and a DNS manager such as a resolvconf:

  [General]
  EnableNetworkConfiguration=true
  
  [Network]
  NameResolvingService=resolvconf

• doas

  A sudo alternative that is a fraction of the size of the traditional authentication program, and performs everything most single-user, non-server systems would need. Configuration to allow persistent authentication for some time after a user of the wheel group has entered their password is straight forward:

  permit persist :wheel

• keyd

  Key remapping for Linux systems that's capable of reproducing much of my QMK configuration, which primarily includes combos, layers, home row mods, and more. This is certainly suitable for making my laptop's keyboard usable, albeit uncomfortable. is certainly straight forward as well. This file must however either live at or be symlinked to /etc/keyd/default.conf.

• openrc

  Undoubtedly my preferred init system. Incredibly reliable and not built such that things like reboot depend on some other program (hint hint systemd...). Usage is also intuitive:

  $ rc-status
  Runlevel: default
   chrony                                                                 [  started  ]
   dbus                                             [  started 17 day(s) 23:13:07 (0) ]
   thermald                                         [  started 17 day(s) 23:13:06 (0) ]
   sshd                                             [  started 17 day(s) 23:13:06 (0) ]
   iwd                                               [  started 3 day(s) 01:25:06 (0) ]
   keyd                                                                   [  started  ]
   tlp                                                                    [  started  ]
   agetty.tty1                                      [  started 17 day(s) 23:13:05 (0) ]
  Dynamic Runlevel: hotplugged
   user.jack                                        [  started 17 day(s) 23:12:47 (0) ]
          

Development

• bear

  The clangd language server sources a compile_commands.json file that provides information like where header files are found, compilation flags, etc. Clang(d) has no built-in provision for generating this file, so bear is the tool for the job. Usage is rather straight forward:

  $ bear -- cc misc.c
  $ cat compile_commands.json
  [
    {
      "file": "misc.c",
      "arguments": [
        "cc",
        "misc.c"
      ],
      "directory": "/home/jack"
    }
  ]

  Running bear -- make would be appropriate for projects that use a Makefile.

• lldb

  A debugger that behaves similarly to GDB, but is much more intuitive in my opinion. This here extends LLDB a bit by providing some graphical features and overall more information by default. The script lives in ~/.local/lldbinit.py and call it from .lldbinit:

  command script import ~/.local/lldbinit.py

• pkgconf

  Used to automatically configure compiler and linker flags for libraries that need them. Helpful working on projects across different systems and architectures.

• uv

  Python installation and package manager. Incredibly fast and intuitive to use, and preferable to pip and other Python utilities.

Miscellaneous

• imagemagick

  I occasionally find myself in need of some sort of basic image manipulation, like rotating, resizing, or combining images. Searching the web for "rotate image online" is silly, and imagemagick is capable of far more than just that.

• weechat

  I am active in a few IRC channels, however not often enough to need a fancy GUI client. Weechat is quite configurable and easy to use, with much of the shortcuts match those found in browsers and Vim.

• yadm

  This tool (read git wrapper) keeps track of all my system configuration files with the ease and convenience of git. Each system gets a branch and files I want to exclude are excluded via the standard .gitignore. This makes setting up new systems or undoing changes incredibly easy.