Home Hello Journey Now Uses

Uses

2026-07-02

Notes:

Systems

PC spec, OS, server, all mixed on this.

Desktop PC

My daily driver

Additional spec:

Intel Core i7-4770

My desktop processor

A little outdated, but still performs pretty well, and the price also genuine, overall an solid processor, even already able to do light gaming with low performance, that’s where the GPU is important.

AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP

My desktop GPU

Specifically using RX7 vendor.

For it’s price and the non-underwhelming performant, honestly it’s feels really genuine. I can easily opening any apps, do a little gaming, and building apps and coding just works. The drivers and compatibility is also top notch, I have no issues with it, as in every time I Linux distro-hopping, and the driver in Windows is easily search-able and your PC suddenly works perfectly just like every good driver. What’s an hassle for my performance is the 8 GB RAM that some heavier games not working consistently, the inside gaming experience is good, but it’s really intriguing when it’s suddenly closed. But for the GPU itself, it’s well documented, discussed and highly stable. I even had it 2 in my home, and totally no complaint, highly recommended.

PikaOS / Ansible

My primary desktop setup

Visit PikaOS: https://wiki.pika-os.com/
Visit Ansible: https://docs.ansible.com/

Overlooked Linux distro of all time, you get the stability of Debian and performance of CachyOS, and it’s really what it is. Basically an combination that people really wants, and surprisingly I get overwhelmed by it. The setup is incredibly easy, and just with few clicks we get automatically detected drivers and a ton of gaming tools like Steam and Wine even though I’m not playing so much. But why not too? When there’s a new game your friend recommend, you can just play it, just the way it be in Windows. And then with customized drivers and kernels, you can easily editing videos, building apps and doing extensive stuffs without headache and additional commands.

And the thing that makes me even more comfortable, ansible which is why I used everyday for symlinking, automated scripts, and installing software. The thing is, the tool is advertised for managing servers and remote system by automate virtually any task, I never see any user dotfiles uer it and you actually able to runs it everywhere. All the things being in one configuration that can be easily reproducible just like NixOS config, that I turned into dotfiles. You know what, PikaOS + Ansible may looks like an niche combination, but it’s really works well to me. It’s like you get the best worlds of Debian, CachyOS, and NixOS.

Windows 11

My second desktop setup

Visit Windows X-Lite: https://windowsxlite.com/

For Windows-only tasks, I will switching once sometimes. You may ask why don’t I use Windows 10, but for me Windows 11 is just looks good, and I have no issues with it. And also I uses an modded ISO version that I installed on every devices in my home, it’s free of bloatware and no requirements or Microsoft account nonsense. Just so you know, yes, I really trusted the website, developers and community, I have tested on every devices and it’s works pretty well. The important part, put an trust on yourself.

Compaq 435 Notebook PC

My home server

Rarely used for now too, local files and syncing per device is actually feels more convenient the more I think about it.

OpenMediaVault / Docker

My server setup

Visit OpenMediaVault: https://www.openmediavault.org/
Visit omv-extras: https://wiki.omv-extras.org/

Also kind of overlooked OS but incredibly capable, for server that I use in my old laptop. It’s have an easy-to-use web GUI, and a lot of built-in useful stuffs, and the customizations are pretty good. And also it’s just like vanilla Debian OS, which is lightweight and highly stable while you need to do everything in terminal or installing more softwares, unlike OpenMediaVault. Even the setup itself really lookalike and even feels faster.

For docker stuffs, you many need a little more commands like omv-extras. After you done, you can simply add in the web GUI, a lot of Docker apps/services that you can search in the internet, like for handle storage thingy with Nextcloud just to name one. Basically just search it yourself, or even make your own maybe?

Poco C75

My phone

Visit “Making 3rd party launcher works properly in HyperOS 2”: https://w3teal.bearblog.dev/making-3rd-party-launcher-works-properly-in-hyperos-2/

I have a mixed feeling to this point. The negative, this is my first time HyperOS experience, and it’s godly awful. A lot of UI bugs littered in system settings and tools, lack of quality customizations, and the control panel is just outdated feeling, the system apps like Themes and File Manager are full of ads even thought you can turning off it, but kind of hassle. You can’t really do bootloader unlocking, the tools and requirements just very silly. And the fact you can’t use system gesture if you using custom launcher is hilarious, but gladly I find a workaround to fix it (which I linked). Also the performance is not the most capable in the price range too.

The positive is, the memory and storage is very generous, getting 8/256 for $100 is actually an good deal. I never feels like running out of space, I can sync an videos and files, then like just leave it on my phone. The screen size while heavy to brought in pocket, really nice to use for watching contents, thought the resolution and brightness are low. For now, it’s just an phone that works, I can actually do generic stuffs without hassle. When I already bored, I just resetting my phone.

And on this RAM outrage era, I don’t feel like planning to change a phone with the same price again. I feel like, changing a expensive phone for every 5 years is better than changing a cheap phone for every year, because performance have more deal than just being up-to-date.

Development tools

Tools for productivity, or for extending workflow, whatever.

pnpm

My package manager

Bloated systems are something, but lightweight systems is the one up to my philosophy. I’m a long time npm user, but since the first time I use it, I really enjoyed the experience and don’t want to going back, every package installation is incredibly fast, and the command output with result also feels tidy. Installing wrangler with this is an pleasant experience.

Forgejo

My git

Visit pub.solar: https://pub.solar/
Visit git.pub.solar: https://git.pub.solar/

GitHub are now very heavy, bloated of AI nonsense, and so social-ish, the more I grew up into coding, the more I hate it, it doesn’t feels appreciated the philosophy of open source at all. Then it’s where other git services flashing, for me Codeberg is good Forgejo instance, but my personal issue being kind of the same social feeling and so much people inside, maybe it’s just me. I tried Sourcehut, and actually I had no issue with it, it’s feels like big freedom canvas with actuallt useful tools, no stats and numbers, just codes and hack-ish vibes, but the UI itself nothing much to say, I may be lookalike hacker for others, while for me it’s psychological feels like a void. It’s up to my philosophy of course.

But then, I finding again some Forgejo instances, and git.pub.solar is an cool space. It’s have stuffs like dotfiles, flakes, websites and other indie projects that actually sounds like project that I would build, plus in their root pub.solar there’s more perks they’re have. On projector, it’s not feels like the perfect or flashy services out of anything on internet. But it’s just feels right to me, I keep with this one. You may want to check a list of Forgejo public instances.

wrangler

My hosting service

Visit wrangler (Pages command): https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/wrangler/commands/pages/

My favorite web technology is the most bare thing ever, which is HTML + CSS + JS without frameworks, so using an deployment service that optimized for frameworks might be overkill. All I need is easy and dependable service hosting, and Cloudflare genuinely one of the greatest thing ever happened to internet, my domain service also using their DNS tool. Wrangler itself is an flexible tool, and the one I use is pages command, I can make all my vanilla projects with live reload changes in browser, and it’s honestly reliable. And then I can publish using specified deploy command afterwards, all that just by adding one package.

Tauri

My building app framework

Like advertised, it’s an lightweight app builder with web technology. But when you’re really get into it, the more flexibility on it. At the first time, I get overwhelmed by all the setup stuffs like Rust, toolchain, Visual Studio Tools and everything. I really get that feeling, but in the same time the docs are greatly covering everything from zero, and if you just can understand the guide and the commands on it, you’re highly ready to go. For desktop app, it’s feels stable already and expected, you get less than 10MB app and hassle-free installation package generated, it’s really lightweight and fast.

And if you want mobile app development, then you need to met the final boss Android Studio, keystore signing, and ~20 minutes building. And also don’t expect it’s just works like the desktop app, you may need to setup live development environment like emulator or your phone with USB and troubleshoot and fix the problems afterwards. And when it’s all works, then it’s you ready to publish an multi platform app, and you will incredibly satisfied like I do. And I genuinely feeling wants to make more apps with this again.

Visual Studio Code

My code editor

Incredible code editor ever, and nothing really changes it to me for now, the ecosystem and experience already in highest level possible, but the strongest argument I could say that, it’s just incredibly work. The only code editor that makes me feels really comfortable. There’s also the MS branding/telemetry/licensing version of the binary you can install too, which is VSCodium.

Plugins I use:

nvim

a.k.a Neovim.

I love to use it, but for coding stuffs just feels like it’s just works, maybe I need to install or setup more tools to make it feel like home, but then ended up learning a ton of useful stuffs of vim that actually can made easy rather actually coding an real stuff. I love it for little editing configs in terminal, but I can’t really use it for hours. I have tried lazyvim but things just don’t feeling right with me, aside of that it’s an solid tool.

pblog

My site generator

Visit pblog: https://pblog.btxx.org/

Pandoc static blog generator that used on this website, built by infamous Bradley Taunt. It’s very lightweight and fast, literally no-nonsense at all, just install 3 system packages (on Linux), and then just running make command for every single changes and in a sec it’s done. And I even powering it with wrangler dev server so every time I run the make, I just had to go the localhost and reload to see changes. Weird combination, but it’s just works like charm to me and less system usage than all site generator on the internet of course.

modern-normalize

Visit modern-normalize: https://github.com/sindresorhus/modern-normalize

My go-to CSS starting point to start styling a website. That also used on this website.

GUI tools

Q: What is it?
A: GUI tools is an tools that have an Graphical User Interface which is shorten as “GUI”.

LibreOffice

My Office suite

Best office suite ever and no one close, strong compatibility, free and open source of course. Basically just learn how to use it and just gets comfortable as time goes, the only issue is maybe the first time use like I used to be. I know someone would rather using an cracked Microsoft Office because just don’t want to learn more things. I don’t really care now, the design and UI customization has been greatly polished and you don’t have to pay a penny for it, I actually think LibreOffice is a must installed in Linux.

Firefox

My browser

Goated browser of all time, and available on every single Linux distro that makes it even feels more seamless. Also multi platform, I installed it as default browser in my android phone also, and tabs syncing are running smoothly. I have no issue at all, but for some reason everybody changed to forks, I don’t know if I had to.

Tuta

My mail service

Simple inflexible privacy mail service, it’s just works and nothing else. I have use it for years and no problems, the web GUI which is the only way to use it, is already enough.

Bitwarden

My password manager

To store passwords and passkeys, also multi platform and all the apps feels mature and stable. I kind of wanting to change for something local in future because my everything is basically stored in someone somewhere, but for now it’s just handy app.

Syncthing

My (automated) backup tool

For backup everything like from my phone to computer disk, it’s multi platform, flexible and comfortable to use. All my photos, selfies, videos, authenticator, and basically any files are now available in both devices, that makes it easy to reset the phone some day, or just for future proof. Maybe the hassle is when I distro-hopping, I don’t really know the easy way to migrate the config so everything just back the way it is. But, manually importing the folders back is not an hard task at all.

FastCopy

My backup tool

Like the name, it’s copying and backing up things in the fast way. The UI is easy to use, and the customizations are very flexible yet I rarely touched them as it’s already made just works, but only available on Windows.

qBittorrent

My download manager

To download. Everything. *Most of time, I use it for downloading entertaining stuffs.
Fun fact: I’m the most sane torrent fan.

Nicotine+ / Picard

My music resource

One for download music, one for tidying the library/directories and give metadata to the musics.

Elisa

My music player

To listen music, the UI and library just looks nice and fitting with KDE interface. The syncing is also really fast.

Creative tools

I need to basically learn more on these tools, imagine have an good creativity that the result even more creative.

Kinemaster / Pixellab

My mobile editing tools

When I only can get creative on mobile phone.

FL Studio

My DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)

I need to learn more on this, but it’s not working in Linux, really down point. The UI is amazing and highly flexible, but I remember the first time I use it I just feels like it could be easier, but after watching tutorials and tinkering, I think nope. It’s perfect and it’s totally how music editor looks like, and Bandlab is totally an propaganda.

Kdenlive

My video editor

I need to learn more on this, I feel like I want to be YouTuber, but maybe in someday. For the app itself, I think it’s really flexible and nice.

Misc

Something that I don’t know where to put in.

Fontsource

Visit fontsource: https://fontsource.org/

“Font” library that open “source”. Available as CDN, or to install with package manager, highly dependable.

Instrument Sans

Visit Instrument Sans: https://github.com/Instrument/instrument-sans

It’s an cool variable grotesque font (that this website uses), and it’s have “Instrument” on it, a thing that I really love deeply.

Catppuccin Mocha Teal

Visit Catppuccin color pallete: https://catppuccin.com/palette/

Chill color pallette, used on this website.

Gruvbox

No homepage for this(?)

Warming color pallette, used on my system and Visual Studio Code theming.