I use this
I’m not famous enough to be interviewed by Uses This, but I do have very important opinions on stuff that has stood the test of time and deserves to be recommended.
Software
XFCE
I used to love tweaking KDE settings, trying to create the perfect setup, but I ran out of time and needed a desktop UI that Just Worked. I tried GNOME for a while until the Gnome 3 rugpull, and the final straw was the refusal to support type-ahead-find in the file picker, so I landed on XFCE and haven’t looked back. I’m not aware that it has added any major new features in the last ten years, and that’s completely fine with me. It launches apps and manages windows and as far as I’m concerned that’s a completely solved problem and I don’t need to ever think about it again.
Vim
I was aware of vim vs emacs before I ever used a non-commercial OS, and for a while I tried them both, but at the time I was more interested in learning Perl than Lisp, so I settled on Vim and now I can play it about as well as I play piano. 25 years of muscle memory later, I feel like I’m missing a limb if I arrive at a terminal that doesn’t have it installed.
Digikam
I have a love-hate relationship with Digikam. On the one hand, it’s buggy and obtuse in a way that only C++ applications know how to be. On the other hand, 23 years later I’m still using it. True, I did at one point get so frustrated by its limitations that I created a complete web-based photo/genealogy system to replace it, but a few years later the web fell off a complexity cliff and became a chore to write for, so I’m back on Digikam.
I don’t trust it with my originals, so it only has access to a read-only view of the filesystem. I use it strictly for viewing and metadata management.
Krusader
This is the best orthodox file manager. The two-pane view combined with preview pane makes bulk file operations easy. I mainly use it for sorting photos fresh out of their DCIM folders.
It has some KDE-derived jank, but that can be tolerated.
Thunar
This is the best non-orthodox file manager. It does everything you need and does it lightning fast. In that respect it is the anti-Nautilus, which does things you don’t want it to do, and lags while doing it.
Firefox
The web is now a dangerous, unpleasant place. It is feature-complete, yet the features keep growing, and browsers keep churning. You must place an ultimate level of trust in a browser, because it mediates (and could control) everything you do on the web:- banking, taxes, love letters, passwords, angry rants against browsers… For now, Firefox is the least worst because it comes from the least-disreputable vendor.
I don’t use any add-ons, because I don’t grant any add-on author that level of trust.
There are derivatives which strip gunk, but that places yet another party in the supply chain. Trusted gunk outranks shady purity.
Dropbox
I’ve tried them all. Nothing works better, and it’s had a native Linux client since the beginning. It’s a shame the company seems to have gone on a decade-long detour of random acquisitions and pointless feature churn, but the core product hasn’t gone away and is still stable.
Joplin
Having tried every note-taking and journaling system under the sun, and creating some myself, I find Joplin to be the sweet spot of featureful and simple. Fully open source, and with a nice iOS client too. Some prefer Obsidian’s use of markdown files, but I consider markdown-in-SQLite to be an equally open and sane format.
It integrates with Dropbox for cross-device syncing. Not an easy feature to get right, but Joplin manages it.
Recoll
From the era of desktop software, this is a powerfully configurable and well-maintained search engine for local files.
Hardware
Apple ecosystem
I know they’re in control, and I know their masters are watching, but I choose to handle the devil-you-know threat of being impersonally surveilled over the risk of being personally surveilled by a niche supplier that takes a malign interest. Normies hide in plain sight.
With that out of the way, I switched from Android to iOS many years ago after finding Android a relentlessly stuttering experience. iPhones and the Apple Watch are completely great when they work, and they do work most of the time. When they don’t work, or when you want to put a foot outside the guardrails, you are of course completely fucked.
Phillips AJ3230 clock radio
More than 25 years continuous uptime and this thing is still functioning perfectly. I imagine it will outlast FM transmissions. Even then, I’ll keep using it as a clock.
Cherry MX Desktop
This is a beautiful keyboard, for which I have only praise. The mouse is brilliant while it lasts, but very sadly it doesn’t last: there is a flaw whereby the wheel becomes jumpy. No amount of cleaning helps. Cherry replaced it under warranty, but the replacement eventually developed the same problem, so it’s clearly a design flaw.
Pentel Energel pens
These are available in a wide range of colours, can be refilled, and have a great fluidity and texture. I don’t write enough to justify a more expensive pen, which probably wouldn’t be a whole lot better anyway, but I do write enough to know that amongst affordable pens these are the best.
Notebooks
Plain or ruled A4 pads. As long as it’s not from the very bottom of the gsm barrel, any will do. I draw diagrams, write actions, and take very brief notes - not for the sake of art. It all goes in the scanner and then the shredder.
I did once use Moleskines while travelling in highly offline places, but you can’t back them up, you can’t feed them through an ADF scanner, and they’re expensive. I’m not writing Dr Jones Sr.’s grail diary here (but perhaps I *am* creating the digital equivalent).