User:Maffblaster/Recommended applications

Hey! You may or may not be interested in learning what applications I recommend in order to have a pleasant Gentoo experience, but something bought you to this page...nonetheless, I hope you find this helpful.

If you think there is either a better tool or an easier way to do the job the tool is supposed to do (see my feedback on each tool) feel free leave a comment on the talk page or message me in #gentoo-wiki. I love learning about new tools and smarter workflows!

World file

When everything is done the world file will look something like this:

FILE /var/lib/portage/worldmaffblaster's world file

The quick and dirty way of rebuilding the system with all these packages is to updated the @world set after copy/pasting the the above text into the system's world file:

root #emerge --ask --update --deep --newuse --with-bdeps=y @world

System management

My favorite GENTOO_MIRRORS value for make.conf: rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/mirrors/gentoo/distfiles/

My favorite repos.conf/gentoo.conf value for sync-uri: rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/mirrors/gentoo-portage

Gentoo specific

• Build that btrfs, Plymouth-bootsplashed initramfs! - sys-kernel/genkernel-next
• gentoolkit - app-portage/gentoolkit
• repoman - app-portage/repoman

Hardware

• Contains lspci utility. Use PCI devices? - sys-apps/pciutils
• Contains lsusb utility. Use USB devices? - sys-apps/usbutils

Resource monitoring

• htop - sys-process/htop
• atop - sys-process/atop
• iotop - sys-process/iotop
• pipe viewer - sys-apps/pv

Misc

• uptimed is a system uptime logger. It is really only necessary for OpenRC (since these kinds of times are not specifically logged by default), but it will work on systemd as well - app-misc/uptimed

Must-have developer tools

Task management

• A command-line todo list manager. Keep this open in a tmux buffer. - app-misc/task
• The server part of the command-line todo list manager (above). - app-misc/taskd

Version control

• Are there any other VCSs that matter? - dev-vcs/git
• Graphically visualize where you need those changes. - dev-util/meld
• Command-line diff tool - app-misc/icdiff

File management

• My favorite file manger of late - xfce-base/thunar
  • Don't forget the archive plugin - xfce-extra/thunar-archive-plugin
• Measure directory sizes in a way better than using simple du - sys-fs/ncdu

Editors

• Python development - dev-util/pycharm-community
• Everything else graphical - dev-util/geany
  • There's an EditorConfig plugin available: dev-util/editorconfig-geany
• Everything else command-line - app-editors/vim
  • Be sure to get the syntax highlighting packages for vim - app-vim/extra-syntax
  • Support for EditorConfig files in vim (note this plugin requires vim to be built with the python USE flag enabled in order to function correctly) - app-vim/editorconfig-vim
  • Run cp -vr /usr/share/vim/vimfiles/ ~/.vim to install after emerging.
  • Verify plugin is installed...

Embedded work

• Control host and/or user access to a running X server - x11-apps/xhost
• Want to simply and speed up mounting virtual filesystems for all your chroots? Yes, please. - dev-python/pychroot
• Want an old archive format that initramfs still use? Grab cpio. - app-arch/cpio
• Save time on recompiling toolchains and the like - dev-util/ccache
• Build stage tarballs - dev-util/catalyst

Portage development

• View messages that we're printed once upon a time - app-portage/elogv
• eix, an extremely fast package search tool - app-portage/eix
• q applets (fastest Portage database search ever!) - app-portage/portage-utils
• Sign those ebuilds! - app-crypt/gnupg
• Get the overlays - app-portage/layman

Troubleshooting

• Design how you want it to work, or at least how you think it should work, then build it - app-office/dia
• wgetpaste - app-text/wgetpaste

Ideal setup

• btrfs: the best filesystem created (so far). Enable it kernel side too and use it for everything (except your EFI partition!) - sys-fs/btrfs-progs
• Preserve your eyeballs - x11-misc/redshift

Fonts

• media-fonts/hack
• media-fonts/croscorefonts

Utilities

• zip archives - app-arch/zip
• unzip - app-arch/unzip
• rar archives - app-arch/unar
• lrz archives - app-arch/lrzip
• Find files with extreme speed - sys-apps/mlocate
• Securely mount filesystems across the net - sys-fs/sshfs
• Download large files in a bandwidth sensitive way - net-misc/zsync
• What's on your network (graphical version)? - net-analyzer/wireshark
• What's on your network (cmdline version)? - net-analyzer/nmap

Forensics

• Viewing raw data: app-editors/hexedit

Communication

• Primary browser - www-client/chromium
• Secondary browser - www-client/firefox
• Command-line browser - www-client/links
• IRC (you only need one good one!) - net-irc/weechat
• VOIP client - media-sound/mumble
• Mail client - mail-client/mutt
• Encoding tools - app-arch/sharutils

Entertainment

The best video player ever created - media-video/vlc