There are many note taking software, but in the end it goes down to two features: simple distraction-less user experience and sync across all devices

Text-focused notetaking: Joplin

Image, digital pen, drawing focused: Onenote

Analogue note taking: spiral or glued lined paper notebook (look for strong covers and thicker paper); chemical pen (i recom japanese pens with standard replacable fillings, although my favs are from sakura brand), pencil/mechanical pencil, HB, B4 and H4 pencils for drawings (i recom staedtler mars lumograph). The one website i cant recom ennough for stationery and paper is Jetpens

• 🖥️ Document editor

Onlyoffice for OSS option, MS Office desktop (non subscription version) is still the king

• 🎮 Gaming

Online client: Steam for playing DRM'ed games (games are gone if something happens to your account), GOG for everything non DRM'ed

Note: fuck new minecraft versions with senseless upgrades that look like half-baked mods, use OG versions like 1.2.5, at this point developing and playing minecraft is like beating a dead horse

My fav games: Yakuza 0 and 1, Minecraft because nostalgia, Oblivion, Cyberpunk, Witcher 3

• 📖 eBook, manga/comic, document readers

Windows: sumatra pdf

Linux: xreader

Android: readera

• 📹 Image, video

nomacs image viewer

mpv video player

• 🖨️ Scanning software

Windows scan

sinple-scan for linux (find it for your distro)

• 🖱️ Other

Krita photo editing

Ventoy live multiboot UEFI usb maker

Transmission Bittorrent client

neofetch

netstat -ab or netstat -tulpn to display network connections

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Microsoft windows

There isn't an optimal solution to the OS of the choice, sure there are linux distributions, but if your work is design, 3D work, specific programming like .NET/C#, DAWs, artistic software, office use, etc.Than you are more or less locked in MS Windows.

It's an OS that most of us have memories of, playing games, discovering internet,... its like a bittersweet ice cream flavour coated with bloated "fixes" and "upgrades".

Cool looking win 95 pc:



There are many possible "windows fixes", software, scripts online, so i will present some i found the best, also some software i recommend.

"Fix" windows

Windows is rather invasive "out of the box", especially vanilla some versions, vendor/oem preloaded versions with tons of bloatware.

• During install

just disable everything

• More reading for installing windows, choosing a version:

renty friendly windows info

• Local/online account

you can always create an offline/local account

for windows 11: use win11 rufus guide if installing windows,

for oobe - set up win 11 without online account.

• Software tweaks/fixes

use ooshutup (remove what you need) + windowsspyblocker + tweak settings to your liking.

Also consider:

more: settings for an enterprise use manage windows connections

more: some other IT guy's blog - dealing with windows 10

Windows software to enhance your experience

• winscp
• winget (windows dafault "package manager")
• rainmeter desktop widgets
• wallpaper engine
• Greenshot screenshoting and editing tool, lightweight
• simplewall, lightweight firewall
• Search everything
• Customize your powershell profile
• Hwinfo PC stat/monitoring
• Winscp

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Linux distributions

• The "what distribution" question

Doesn't matter, we have our own preferences, in the end its just different packed software and developers philosophy.

I recommend fedora workstation or linux mint for begginers. For servers use ubuntu, debian and RHEL alternatives

• The "Gnu/Linux question"

Calling linux gnu/linux is a waste of words, if it comes to that we can call it gnu/systemd/gnome/linux.

Everyday linux CLI

bpytop resource monitor

lsblk list all "block" or storage devices

df -h list free disk space

nethogs bandwith usage

lsof -i open ports

cat /var/log/name-of-software view log file(s) of a specific software (tip: use tab completion)

dmesg kernel ring buffer messages

mount -t type-of-filesystem /dev/name-of-device mountpoint mount a storage device

!!!mountpoint can be everywhere, like /media/my-disk!!!

unmount mountpoint unmount a storage device

pgrep -l find a process by its name (tip: use tab completion)

pkill "kill" a certain process

ip a display your ip device info

locate find something, like a file

MacOS, Apple

I don't personally use or recommend any apple products, they are overpriced for what they offer. But mac os is just fine.

Luis Rossmann's opinion on Apple repeated engineering failures and

Macbook engineering in 3 minutes

finally, Apple offers least software/driver compatibility than windows or linux distros, not a good repair policy, leading to more e-waste (huge topic on its own).

Other

BSD license is a joke, not wort of my time typing it: Luke Smith's BSD license criticism.

Other than i absolutely don't recom following software: any tiling/hipster WMs, senseless forks of distros, arch linux, bloated RGB tools (use OpenRGB), non modern IDEs that require manual cofigs (emacs, vim)