February 14th, 2014 (orig) May 9th, 2023 (last updated)
List of Favorite Tools
These a list of my favorite tools that I've come across over the years.
Server/Dev Operating System
Linux (Debian Distribution) ; Previously Solaris
I stopped being a fan of Ubuntu for years, however, since they've managed to get rid of that abomination Unity, they've since come back into my good graces. One thing is for certain, Ubuntu Server is a far smarter option than the horrendous Amazon Linux EC2 distro in the AWS cloud.. stay far away from that! However, for a pure server environment, it seems like sticking with pure Debian is arguably better.
Solaris is a highly advanced and evolved operating system, and introduced intersting concepts with its hypervisor and kernel zones. Unfortunately it has stagnated in the hands of Oracle, the unfortunate successors to the mighty legacy of Sun Microsystems. With the fall of the OpenSolaris project (and subsequently the ability to tap larger communities, such as how the Linux community avails itself), and the extremely limited resources that Oracle allocates toward research and development, Solaris advancement has basically come to a screeching halt. There are some updates every few years, but nothing game-changing or revolutionary. While still very advanced (in some areas) it is a dead operating system now. The last update (11.4) was a couple years ago (the previous one being 3 years before that), and only came with extremely minor fixes and adjustments.
Daily Driver Operating System
Garuda Dr460nized(Arch-based)
Performance-oriented distro with a gorgeous and unique KDE Plasma theme, combined with a solid desktop experience for daily driving.
VI
neoVIM
Windows Text Editor
Brackets (formerly Notepad++)
Code Editor
VSCodium (formerly Atom)
Coding Font
Hack »→
VI / VIM Colorscheme
Solarized
neoVIM Colorscheme
cyberpunk
C/C++ Compiler
GCC
C/C++ Debugger
KDbg
Command Line Sysinfo
neofetch
Command Line Resource Monitor
BpyTop
Directory Listing
exa
Filesystem
btrfs
USB Boot Tool
Ventoy
USB ISO Burner
UNetBootin
For some inexplicable reason, they dropped NTFS support in later versions, preferring FAT32. It just doesn't make any sense. The simple hack is to simply preformat as FAT32 to select the USB drive, and then reformat as NTFS before resuming with the burn.
Windows USB ISO Burner
Rufus
Windows SSH Client
PuTTY
Windows SFTP
WinSCP
Music Player
Audacious (Classic Winamp Skin »→)
Shell
ZSH ; (Previously KSH)
While I don't mind BASH just for regular quick simple usage, ZSH has really grown on me. I still have nostalgia for KornShell, but its just deprecated at this point.
Team / Project Communication
Discord ; (Previously slack)
MUD
CircleMUD
CircleMUD will always be my favorite, however, its likely better to simply use its successor (tbaMUD).
Image Viewer
xviewer (originally xv)
DeepFake
Icon Theme
Reverse Engineering Tools
Packet Sniffer
Wireshark
ASCII Tools
jp2a
Web Browser
FireDragon
Start Page
YouTube Browser
ytfzf
YouTube Downloader
youtube-dl
Torrent Client
deluge