• Audile: offline, trackerless music recognition.

• Keepassdx + Heliboard: both excellent apps in their own right that create a smoother experience of mundane phone use, but they also integrate rather well together and Heliboard will often pop Keepassdx in to its suggestion bar when you enter a log in page. It's been really nice for me.

• FUTO voice input: speech to text for those who don't want to use Google speech services. Frankly, the FUTO app works better than googles app anyways, it always handles grammar correctly as long as you speak relatively clearly, and integrates with Heliboard nicely.

• Tailscale: for those who need VPN access to their other devices.

• Thunder : a Lemmy client with compatibility with Lemmy's recent server side changes and also has a decent UI/UX

• tasks.org: fantastic, customizable to do app with various syncing options.

• Magic Earth: privacy respecting maps/directions for those who don't want google maps. (NOTE: closed source. Here is the privacy policy, terms of use and description of their business model at the bottom of their FAQ)

• Myne: e-book downloader.

• Markdownr: convert webpages to markdown. Great option for mobile, if I'm on desktop I use the Joplin web clipper plug in for Firefox.

Seconding Newpipe, excellent app.

EDIT: added links to the terms, policies and FAQ of Magic Earth, as it is not open source.

EDIT: realized this was for desktop, so removed the original list of mostly android apps. Here's my go to desktop apps:

Lollypop - music player
Invoiceninja - open source invoicing service
Meld - file/folder comparison
Librewolf - hardened Firefox
Joplin - notes
QEMU/Virt-Manager - virtualization for that one windows app you still need
KeepassXC - password management
Element-desktop - Matrix client
Gparted - no fuss partition management
Lutris - game launcher that works with epic games (among many others)
PDFarranger - best PDF management I've found on Linux Soundconverter - easy to use file converter
Restic - backups
Fdupes - duplicate file finder
Freetube - privacy respecting YouTube client
Paperless-ngx - very well built electronic document storage. Must be run as a server.

I thought this was a really good point regarding situations where a github issue or other channel of communication is being used to pester or make demands of a maintainer. I hadn't thought about it from this perspective.

Let the maintainer deal with it publicly, and reach out privately if you are concerned about the situation. Otherwise, even if you are concerned about burnout or the maintainer overworking, you may wind up advocating for a threat actor to become a maintainer of something.

KDEConnect works great, you can share every form of content I've run across between desktop and mobile device. Runs on Linux, Windows and Android. Not sure if there's a Mac client.

Awesome setup. I tried kvaesitso in the past but couldn't get comfortable with it. I'll have to give it another shot and try to get it dialed in.

You should post this over in !c/android_homescreens@lemmy.ml, it would be appreciated there too.

EndeavourOS. I like the simplicity and minimalism of stock Arch, bloated distros bother me. I have been thinking of trying out Linux Mint again though, I used it for years and it was really good.

For your use case I would definitely recommend Immich. It has a "partner sharing" feature that allows you to view your partners photos from your account while still maintaining separate archives. You can then download or add to albums from there. Immich has been fantastic for my family because it supports android and iOS (being as I can't get some members off Apple products.)

Here's the description of the feature. Sorry it's a Reddit post, that's the only place I could find the developers summary of the update.

https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/13lbp2r/immich_selfhosted_photos_and_videos_backup/

tasks.org is pretty excellent

I second LinuxMint. When I first got in to linux I was (shamefully 😅) looking for something that was as close as possible to Windows and a turn key experience with both installation and app compatibility. Linux mint was what I settled on personally.

I actually haven't found much value in his videos lately. I followed him during the time that he was covering more informational topics like android ROMs and a smattering of how to walkthroughs. Haven't seen anything like that in awhile. The few I have watched have basically been news bites about some event in the tech world. I guess those are OK, but still not super helpful in discovering new tech or services.

Now that I think back, he did do a video on how to switch from sudo to doas in Linux, which was awesome. One or two videos like that are enough to keep me monitoring the channel.

This Lemmy community is a pretty good resource for inspiration, and sometimes you can snag animation or icon sources from the descriptions or comments. It's not super in depth on the how to end of it though.

Yeah, seems like Immich is kind if taking over. It really is an excellent one stop solution for automated multi-user backup. Ive been using it for a few months and its solid.

The other option that I really like is a combination of software: Nextcloud + Les Pas. Nextcloud is the server where images are stored in a flat folder system, and Les Pas is an android photo album app that organizes and manages the albums. Its super nice and has some really advanced organization features. Worth checking out if you want to use nextcloud as the storage server.

There's probably a mixture of those that do and those that don't, but I'd imagine statistically speaking there is a majority who play videogames, especially given the generation that is coding now has grown up with video games as a big part of their childhood.

This is pretty much my same set up as well, it's refreshing to see a fellow firefox derivative user standing on principle 🤩. Here's a few more mentions that are daily drivers for me that I really respect:

• Tasks.org: highly configurable to do list app.
• Doodle: high quality live wallpapers for degoogled devices.
• KDE connect: iOS/MacOS like integration for your mobile and desktop devices. Share files, copy clipboard contents, sync notifications and a ton of other stuff I haven't gotten in to myself.
• Photok: encrypted vault for your sensitive photos.
• Shattered Pixel Dungeon: a fun top down RPG to kill time with. Very difficult and dynamic.

Lastly, the music app: I would actually suggest an audio converter instead of trying to find something that can play m4a. I've used this linux app (soundconverter) and its been great for getting my files changed to either mp3 or ogg. If you're on Windows I'm sure there are other apps that would do the same thing, but if you happen to be a penguin user definitely check that app out.

You could try Audile if you don't mind switching away from Shazam. I don't use the app heavily, but it has worked great for me.

Saber notes is really good. It's more for notes, annotating PDFs and simple artwork than anything graphic design level though.

I've looked for this off and on over the years and haven't found anything I really liked. The closest I came to it was Youmail. It isn't an open source app, which is a bummer, but it seems to be a (at least sort of) privacy respecting company. I remember reading their privacy policy at one point and not seeing anything terrible in it.

Joplin has a sharing feature that allows multiple user editing of an entire notebook.

The downside is that both individuals need to have Joplin installed and either have Joplin cloud accounts or a self-hosted installation of Joplin server, which in either case may be more effort than is worth it for you.

Or you could get it directly from their github releases using obtainium if you don't like to mix repos in to fdroid.

I had the same problem when I set up endeavourOS recently. Seems to be an Arch specific issue, not KDE (provided it's the same issue I ran in to.) Here's an excerpt from the Arch wiki that helped me:

Reference article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Avahi

2 Using Avahi

2.1 Hostname resolution

Avahi provides local hostname resolution using a "hostname.local" naming scheme. To enable it, install the nss-mdns package and start/enable avahi-daemon.service. doas systemctl start avahi-daemon.service (if you do not use doas, substitute sudo)

Then, edit the file /etc/nsswitch.conf and change the hosts line to include mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] before resolve and dns. It should look like:

hosts: mymachines mdns_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] resolve [!UNAVAIL=return] files myhostname dns

How are your backups currently stored, simple copies of the files like you would make with rsync? I assume your on a Linux NAS, in which case fdupes would likely fit the bill. meld would be another option, and it also has a GUI if your NAS isn't headless.

For future backups restic might be a nice option as it deduplicates itself each time you run the backup. You can set retention policies (i.e. 7 daily, 4 weekly, 2 monthly, etc...) that only keep regulated intervals of backups.

I would be surprised if someone who games stuck entirely to open source options. Even so there are some pretty good entries out there like Shattered Pixel Dungeon. It's pretty amazing and better than any top down SNES game I've ever seen.

If you use KDE, look for the "TV Glitch [burn-my-windows]" opening and closing animation. It's a default setting in the KDE Settings > Workspace behavior > Desktop effects > Window open/close animation section. It's really good in my opinion, especially if you tinker with the open/close timing to make it a little more crisp.

Yeah, I hear you there. I usually get overwhelmed by the time I get to the "B" section.

I think (looking back at your post) the most important thing that helped me was learning how to use docker-compose. All of my services are in docker containers and are much more manageable then trying to do a bare metal install.

With that comes the struggle of security though, as docker containers use their own set of firewall rules distinct from the main firewall rules you might have setup on your server. If you end up using docker, do a few searches on how to secure those firewall rules for the containers themselves.

I have definitely benefited from other peoples current set up lists, I'll leave mine here in case it sparks some interesting directions for you.

• Diun - notification service for when new images are released for any running docker apps I have up.

• Immich - self-hosted photos backup. Incredible app, its extremely refined and feature complete.

• Jellyfin (Linuxserver.io image) - personal media streaming service. The Linuxserver.io version was much easier to set up than the stock jellyfin version.

• Joplin server - self-hosted back end for Joplin notes sync. Much faster and more reliable than the 3rd party sync targets like one drive or Dropbox.

• Mealie - recipe management.

• Nextcloud - so many things. Calendar, files, kanban, contacts, etc... Personally I find Nextcloud's documentation hard to follow, so I've linked the video tutorial I used to set mine up.

• Nginx proxy manager - reverse proxy with basic protections built in. I'm on the fence on suggesting this one and have been considering switching to something else, as it rarely gets updates these days. It is the only one I've been able to wrap my head around though. Zoraxy, Traefic and Swag are all other options. You mentioned having Nginx set up already, so this might not even be an issue for you.

• Paperless-NGX - document server and archive. All you need is the docker-compose.env and docker-compose.postgres.yml from the linked directory. Tweak the compose and env values as you see fit and remove the "postgres" from the file name before firing it up.

• Portainer - basically just a GUI for viewing docker services. You can manage docker images and stacks with portainer, but I would recommend just learning the docker-compose method in general.

If you ever run into instructions for setting something up with a regular docker command but want to convert it to a docker-compose.yml file instead, this site is super useful: composerize.com

I can also say it works very well, been running it for a few months now and its been super stable. There has been an odd behavior or two, but I can always figure out what's going on by checking the github issues section. They have a super active community and updates get pushed regularly and frequently

Biggest benefit: has android and iOS mobile clients so you can get the whole family on board.

Yeah, weird right? 😅

Yes, it's super easy to do as well. Most distro installers give you the option to automatically install for dual-boot without any manual partitioning.

Definitely try Mint, I was on it for years and it is very thoughtfully designed for stability and ease if use.

The hardest part will be getting the liveUSB made for the Linux ISO. You can find some simple tools like Balena Etcher that make it easy though.

That's correct. I didn't notice the c/opensource that this post came from, disregard that entry if you're a %100 FLOSS user. I'm still happy to recommend it in general though. It's privacy respecting as far as I am able to verify by their policies and TOS, and it has been a huge quality of life improvement for me on mobile. Hopefully organic maps or other mobile clients for OsmAnd continue to progress 🍻

That was exactly my experience with Florisboard too. It has tons of potential, but I couldn't ever quite feel fluid with my typing on it. It was a relief to see Openboard get forked.

Nice, I haven't tried that termux widget yet. Here's a Lemmy community just for android home screens if you're interested: !c/android_homescreens@lemmy.ml

Definitely check DB Tech's videos put on YouTube. He covers a ton of self-hosted apps and how to set them up. You'll have to sift through a bit, not all the apps he talks about are really necessary, but I basically learned self-hosting through his channel.

Look for stuff on authelia, crowdsec or fail2ban with regards security for your server and decide what direction you want to go there.

Christian Lempa's channel is also good, though can be more technically oriented.

EDIT: also, this github repo has an amazing (though overwhelming) list if self-hosted services. Awesome Self-hosted.

You only need a subscription if you use it over 300 times per day (or week, I can't remember). I haven't needed an API token and have been using it with no account successfully.

I've been looking for a decent PDF editor on Linux for years. Like you said, there are plenty that will basically work, but I always have issues with font mishandling.

So far I've just settled on using a windows VM with adobe for editing PDFs (along with one other windows only program that I need.) There is a way to get Adobe PDF software working in linux, but I haven't tried it.

If you need to sign PDFs, xournal++ is an excellent app for applying a saved signature as a stamp.

You might like oneshot. It's not quite as full featured as some mood trackers are, but the design is pretty nice. It hasn't had updates in a year or so, so daily you might be worth checking out too.

• Tasks.org - To Do lists
• Saber - Handwritten notes and drawing in PDFs
• Les Pas - photo management (Nextcloud based)
• Invoice Ninja - invoicing for business

Maybe this is what your looking for? Self-hosted video sharing set up through Docker.

https://github.com/ShaneIsrael/fireshare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHID50gmkYc&t=531

I second that. It's been brutal trying to find a good FOSS 2FA app for desktop.

I hate that so much but you're probably right 😅

I don't have any idea of how conplicated it would be, but a phone app would be a nice option. The stock dialer that comes with FOSS ROMs is OK functionally, but visually looks like it was from 2010. Plus it's not available through F-droid or other open source app store. Koler is the only serious dialer alternative I've seen, and while it looks nice it has always been super buggy.

Just gonna leave this here for anyone who wants a laugh. It wasn't a Linux based desktop, but it was hilarious. Buying a PC with Dell: my journey into hell