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 (webchat). I love learning about new tools and smarter workflows!

TODO: Create sets for role-specific scenarios.

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

Network engineering

Network troubleshooting

• dig, host, nslookup, nsupdate, dnssec-keygen, etc... all tools useful for network engineering and troubleshooting - net-dns/bind-tools

Network scanning

• What is on your network (graphical version)? - net-analyzer/wireshark
• What is on your network (cmdline version)? - net-analyzer/nmap
• What is your network sending (deep packet inspection)? - net-libs/nDPI
• What is your network doing? - See conntrack (below).

Network security

• Every system should have a good firewall. - net-firewall/firewalld

System management

gentoo repository

rsync

My favorite repos.conf/gentoo.conf value for sync-uri:

FILE /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf

[DEFAULT]
main-repo = gentoo

[gentoo]
location = /usr/portage
sync-type = rsync
sync-uri = rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/mirrors/gentoo-portage

git

FILE /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.confGentoo ebuild repository sync via git

[DEFAULT]
main-repo = gentoo

[gentoo]
location = /var/db/repos/gentoo
sync-type = git
# Official "sync-friendly git mirror of repo/gentoo with caches and metadata"
# sync-uri = https://anongit.gentoo.org/git/repo/sync/gentoo.git
# GitHub mirror (saves the Gentoo project bandwidth - of *this* sync-friendly git mirror is preferred)
sync-uri = https://github.com/gentoo-mirror/gentoo.git
auto-sync = yes
sync-rsync-verify-jobs = 1
sync-rsync-verify-metamanifest = yes
sync-rsync-verify-max-age = 24
sync-openpgp-key-path = /usr/share/openpgp-keys/gentoo-release.asc
sync-openpgp-key-refresh-retry-count = 40
sync-openpgp-key-refresh-retry-overall-timeout = 1200
sync-openpgp-key-refresh-retry-delay-exp-base = 2
sync-openpgp-key-refresh-retry-delay-max = 60
sync-openpgp-key-refresh-retry-delay-mult = 4

# for daily squashfs snapshots
#sync-type = squashdelta
#sync-uri = mirror://gentoo/../snapshots/squashfs

distfile mirror

My favorite GENTOO_MIRRORS value for make.conf:

rsync

FILE /etc/portage/make.conf

GENTOO_MIRRORS="rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/mirrors/gentoo/distfiles/"

Gentoo specific

• 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

System resource monitoring

• htop - sys-process/htop
• atop - sys-process/atop
• iotop - sys-process/iotop
• pipe viewer - sys-apps/pv
• conntrack and its associated daemon, conntrackd, are tools that can track active connections on the system. Use these tools to keep an eye on active connections and to log relevant activity - net-firewall/conntrack-tools.

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 distribution developer tools

Collaboration

• A tmux fork with built-in terminal sharing (useful for pair programming, remote access assistance, etc.) - app-misc/tmate

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
• Better df with colors and visible usage graphs - app-admin/pydf

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. For desktop environments that do not include blue light filtering - x11-misc/redshift
  • Gnome 3 includes this functionality under the term "Night Light".
  • Plasma includes this functionality under the term "Night Color".

Fonts

• media-fonts/hack
• media-fonts/croscorefonts
• Although this font was created by Microsoft, it is very nice console font. I typically end up setting it as default in terminal emulators. - media-fonts/cascadia-code

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

DevOps

AWS

• AWS CLI utility to manage AWS resources: dev-python/awscli
• JQ: A cannot live without, turbo fast, commandline JSON parser: app-misc/jq

Log files

• Log file review option 1 - net-analyzer/goaccess
• Log file review option 2 - app-admin/lnav

Forensics

• Viewing raw data: app-editors/hexedit

Firmware reverse engineering

• Timesaver on determining what kinds of filesystems: app-misc/binwalk
• Viewing embedded filesystems such as NFTL, JFFS2, NAND, FTL, or UBI: sys-fs/mtd-utils
• Data carving utility: dd

Communication

Web browsers

• Primary browser - www-client/firefox
  • Firefox browser add-ons:
    • NoScript Security Suite (Addon)
    • uBlock Origin (Addon)
    • Enhancer for YouTube (Addon) - Note: This addon is not FOSS... Alternatively look at Video Speed Controller (Addon)
    • SponsorBlock - Skip Sponsorships on YouTube (Addon)
• Secondary browser - www-client/chromium
• Ternary browser - Librewolf (overlay)
• Command-line browser - www-client/links

IRC clients

• IRC client (you only need one good IRC client!) - net-irc/weechat

Voice chat

• VOIP client - media-sound/mumble

Email clients

• Mail client - mail-client/mutt
  • Mail sorting - net-mail/notmuch

Encoding

• Encoding tools - app-arch/sharutils

Entertainment

• The best video player ever created - media-video/vlc
• Download videos to watch one the best video player ever created - net-misc/yt-dlp