Software and services

What's this?

This is a list of software, services and some minor tweaks which I use. I made it for myself to have a backup for most important things and have a quick startup if something completely breaks or to try a new distro.

List mostly targets arch-based linux distributives, but there are also some windows apps. Most part of list is FLOSS and I treat this as default choice, but there are some proprietary apps just in case/no alternative, I'll mark them correspondingly. If you're more into iOS platform, here's a comprehensive list of open source software for you. And an analogue for android users is here.

A lot of stuff and recommendations on privacy was taken from privacyguides. Also a lot of useful software and tweaks for arch-based distributives listed on arch wiki page.

Legend

! marks ! important info about software platforms or states that software is proprietary

$ marks $ shows if software is not completely free

? marks ? needs clarification

Awesome lists

Prefer using these, rather than looking on my shit, these are created for people, not only for me:

OSes and compositors

CachyOS -- arch-based high-performant distro
RedoxOS -- independent microkernel OS completely on rust

You can skip this part, if you're using a complete DE, e.g. KDE Plasma, Gnome, etc. List below includes only compositors without DE and ones I'm interested in. I'm not going to dig deep into the wayland-specific apps (like wlgreet, etc), you'll have to figure out which ones suits you best on your own. You can use the awesome-wayland list for this.

hyprland -- a highly customizable dynamic tiling Wayland compositor. Read it's docs and arch wiki for more info on troubleshooting and configurations. See the awesome-hyprland and community tools for some basic apps and configurations too
sway -- i3-compatible Wayland compositor

I tried theseus-ship project as replacement for default KWin, but it doesn't seem to be stable at all, so I can't recommend it now, though it's always good to have alternatives and I hope it will evolve

I also want to note the Pop!_OS COSMIC DE, which is quite fast and not so resource-intensive. It works the best on a vbox installation of all other DEs for me

Linux-specific

optimus-manager -- a program, that provides a solution for GPU switching on Optimus laptops (i.e laptops with a dual Nvidia/Intel or Nvidia/AMD configuration). Has an unofficial gui on Qt
pipewire -- PipeWire is a server and user space API to deal with multimedia pipelines. If you're planning on replacing pulseaudio with pipewire, you should also use pipewire-pulse packages. On manjaro it's recommended to use manjaro-pipewire meta package. It's also recommended to use manjaro-bluetooth meta package, if you're using bluetooth audio devices
openrazer -- open source, linux-native driver for razer devices
polychromatic -- open source RGB lighting management front-end application to customise OpenRazer peripherals on GNU/Linux
yay -- AUR helper for Arch-based distros. I prefer it over paru and aura for some configuration differencies

Windows-specific

Some tweaks and tools for Windows. Prefer using package manager, like scoop, to manage applications on windows

win-debloat-tools -- re-imagining Windows like a minimal OS install, already debloated with minimal impact for most functionality
gsudo -- sudo for windows
scoop -- a command-line installer for Windows
PowerToys -- official system utilities to maximize productivity
MediaCreationTool.bat -- lets you create bootable device on/for unsupported win 11 pc
Explorer Patcher -- set of tweaks for win 11 to return win 10's behavior
Open Shell Menu -- more minor tweaks for win 7-11
WindowsSpyBlocker -- disables telemetry and some services
!PROPRIETARY! O&O ShutUp10++ -- portable, free to use app to block lots of tracking stuff and services in windows. Has a GUI
!PROPRIETARY! Sysinternals Suite -- set of semi-official tools for windows. It's very useful and I highly recommend it
GoodbyeDPI -- Deep Packet Inspection circumvention utility (for Windows)
7zip-zstd -- 7zip with zstd support for windows

Routers firmware

Read this article. I don't use custom firmware because my router isn't supported by these systems. If you're lucky to have one of these and you're a proton user, you can configure your router to force all connections through ProtonVPN, see detailed guide here.

Create boot device

ventoy -- a tool to create a bootable devices
rufus -- a tool to create a bootable devices on windows

Internet browsers

Desktop

Mozilla Firefox -- preinstalled browser on most linux distibutives
Tor Browser arch/win -- not for everyday use. Also there's a rust fork, named Arti, that will replace current C tor implementation. Rust crate's page describes a way to use it with tor right now, but keep in mind that's an early beta
Brave -- if you for some reason need chromium browser, recommended by privacyguides
thorium -- chromium fork with various nice patches, especially for linux
pulse-browser -- yet another firefox fork, targeting minimalistic design and performance. Uses betterfox tweaks
carbonyl -- chromium-based browser built to run in a terminal. Just for fun. I find it a better soultion, than browsh
verso -- servo based browser. In early state of development, not yet usable

iOS

Mozilla Firefox -- official rewrite of firefox for iOS devices. Doesn't support all features of original browser because of differencies in iPhone-specific impementations
Onion browser -- TorBrowser for iOS

Firefox addons

Since I only use firefox as my browser, tools listed here fits only it's ecosystem, but I'm sure there are alternatives for chromium family. When using my version of user.js, keep in mind, that it's mostly a linux-only, plus I'm using some experimental features

Main extensions:

DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials -- enables DuckDuckGo search in address bar by default, blocks some trackers and stuff
ff2mpv -- adds an ability to play any browser video through mpv. Read more in media players section below. There's also ready AUR package for this
Maximize all windows -- useful when using arkenox's user.js, read more below
Plasma Integration -- if you're using KDE desktop; usually KDE suggests it itself
Skip redirect -- as the title says - blocks some annoiying redirects
Stylus -- style manager. Here's open source style archive
Tabliss -- lets you configure your "new tab" page
uBlock Origin -- ad/malware blocker
Libredirect -- redirects your queries to normal services (e.g. youtube links opens in Invidious)
control-panel-for-twitter -- gives you more control over your Twitter timeline and adds missing features and UI improvements
$FREEMIUM$ ProtonPass -- cross-platform password manager from Proton team, IMO more reliable, than having passwords in a Firefox account

Additional/situative extensions and recommendations:

$FREEMIUM$ Bitwarden -- great alternative for ProtonPass
cookies.txt -- lets you save your cookies into .txt file
ViolentMonkey -- provides userscripts support for browsers. It works on browsers with WebExtensions support. Seems more "alive", than GreaseMonkey
Terms of Service; Didn’t Read -- short version of main points in terms of service
xBrowserSync -- sync browser data securely
darkreader -- analyzes web pages and aims to reduce eyestrain while browsing the web. Slows your browser, so decide by yourself

Firefox tweaks

betterfox -- some perf-oriented tweaks
arkenfox -- privacy-oriented tweaks. Check out the extensions wiki page also

user.js file is usually located in: ~/.mozilla/firefox/profile-id/, look at about:profiles for your paths

Networking

DNS

Desktop

Encrypt your DNS queries with DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS, DNSCrypt and more. This section mostly refers to corresponding privacyguides page

First, select your DNS provider from the link above. I personally prefer AdGuard DNS over Cloudflare since these are open source, support of DoH, DoT, DNSCrypt and it's fast, though keep some logs for 24 hours. As an alternative I use BlahDNS which is said to "not collect any logs", but it's speed is slower, so it's on the second place in priority. Plus, you can enable DNS over HTTPS in firefox settings (which is redundant if you've set it up on router level)

Pi-Hole -- a DNS sinkhole that protects your devices from unwanted content without installing any client-side software

iOS

I suggest using DNSCloak, which is a GUI and wrapper for dnscrypt-proxy 2

VPN

$FREEMIUM$ ProtonVPN -- while it's free plan is not very good, it's paid plans are a good choice. ProtonVPN supports Secure Core, Netshield and Kill Switch on most platofrms. Plus, it has a solid ecosystem, which I'll mention in below sections

Anti-virus stuff

It's not recommended to enable scan of downloads for viruses in browser, since it uses google services, but I'd prefer not to have viruses, so I turn it on. Here's mozilla explanation on how it works

ClamAV -- open source, CLI, scanning antivirus for Windows/Linux
!LINUX! ClamTK -- GUI for ClamAV, works only on Linux
!LINUX! gufw -- firewall for linux systems, which is a GUI for ufw
!PROPRIETARY! !WINDOWS! Windows defender and firewall -- handles most cases pretty good without any need of additional software

Email software and providers

Read more about providers and software choice

Providers

$FREEMIUM$ ProtonMail -- can't say I recommend it's free plan, since it doesn't allow you to do lots of things, but paid plans are awesome

Desktop software

Thunderbird -- supports most email providers. To connect ProtonMail with it you should use ProtonBridge app and have paid plan

Password Managers and 2FA

$FREEMIUM$ ProtonPass -- cross-platform password manager from Proton team, IMO more reliable, than having passwords in a Firefox account
$FREEMIUM$ Bitwarden -- great alternative for ProtonPass
Ente Auth -- end-to-end encrypted, cross platform and free app for storing your 2FA codes with cloud backups

File sync, share, version control, remote desktop

Search engines

Social networks and communication

Here I'll mainly cover some alternative frontends for these mainstream services, not introducing completely new and already good ones. Check out the Project Segfault website for some instances of below websites

Nitter -- alternative twitter frontend, focused on privacy. It's still in early beta, so there's not much features released
control-panel-for-twitter -- browser extension for better twitter experience
Pawoo -- alternative TO twitter for japanese artists and users, developed by pixiv stuff. Fork of mastodon
Libreddit -- private front-end for Reddit
Invidious -- alternative front-end to YouTube
Bibliogram -- alternative front-end for Instagram
Wikiless -- alternative Wikipedia front-end focused on privacy
SimplyTranslate -- alternative to google translate, that can use Google, DeepL, ICIBA and LibreTranslate APIs to translate text. Not very convenient for hieroglyphic languages
OpenStreetMap -- alternative to google maps
FreeTube -- desktop YouTube player built with privacy in mind. Pros: no ads, supports external players, lets you download videos on their pages, export/import your YouTube data easily, doesn't spy on you. Cons: desktop only, lacks playlists support, FUCKING ELECTRON. Can use invidious API
!iOS! EhPanda -- open source app for sad panda on iOS, written with Swift. Installable through AltServer
!iOS! FEhViewer -- another sad panda app for iOS. Has better support, than EhPanda, but written using flutter
Syncplay -- client/server app to synchronize media playback on mpv/VLC/MPC-HC/MPC-BE. Analogue for services like synctube, discord's youtube together, etc
Owncast -- self-hosted streaming platform (alternative for twitch). Requires you to have a static IP address or server (e.g. digital ocean)
PeerTube -- decentralized and federated video platform developed as an alternative to other platforms that centralize our data and attention, such as YouTube, Dailymotion or Vimeo
EH-Page-Scrobbler -- browser script to return pages on sadpanda website
danbooru -- taggable image board written in Rails
waifu2x -- upscaler for anime pictures on neural nets

Messengers

Read more about instant messengers on privacyguides

!PROPRIETARY! Telegram -- only app is open source, it lacks encryption by default and has many other problems. But still it's a lightweight client, that smoothly run on every system and even with bad internet connection. It also has a lot of awesome features, that completely open source alternatives doesn't
SimpleX -- messaging platform that has no user identifiers of any kind
Element -- good replacement for telegram/discord for future. Now lacks lots of features and feels very slow at all tasks
Session -- Onion routing based messenger. Fork of Signal. that doesn't require any personal data for registration

Discord alternatives and tweaks

Discord is shit as is and I would recommend you never use it because it's app VERY slow, has lots of bugs and I personally don't love discord policies. Third-party apps can fix first problems, but last one is in discord itself. Anyway, here's a short list

vesktop -- alternative discord client with linux-specific fixes
discordo -- a lightweight, secure, and feature-rich Discord terminal client
Abaddon -- young replacement of discord app on c++ without electron. In very early state, but can be good in future, developer seems really passionate about his program
!LINUX! dissent -- discord client on golang
Undiscord -- greasemonkey script to remove all your discord history. Theoretically can be the reason to ban you, but hey, I guess that's not a big problem

Self-Contained Networks

If you - for some reason - want to browse the dark web, than you definetely need to read the page about self-constained networks on privacyguides. Long story short, you can use onion services, listed in this README (onionshare, tor, etc) or these:

i2p -- tor analogue
retroshare -- onionshare p2p analogue with more complex UI and lots of possibilities

File Encryption Software

It's very important to have your storages encrypted. Even microsoft's BitLocker is better than nothing. Here's full list of recommendations from privacygides. My choice is following:

VeraCrypt -- simple, efficient and secure encryption tool

Media stuff

Image stuff

qimgv -- awesome lightweight image viewer on c++. Even supports playing videos through mpv. I've also created a fork for arch users, which enables qt6 compilation and KDE support for cmake args. Build script is located here, in /qimgv-qt6-kde directory
oculante -- minimalistic crossplatform image viewer written in rust. Native wayland support included
!WINDOWS! ImageGlass -- good alternative for windows, if you didn't like qimgv
libvips -- insane fast image processing library on c. Supports huge amount of formats and ImageMagick as plugin
ImageMagick -- alternative to libvips, slower on benchmarks but still usable for some tasks
pngquant -- lossy image-compression command line tool
!WINDOWS! AntiDupl -- app to scan and remove duplicated images, based on simd library on c++
DigiKam -- photo management application. IMO handles duplicate-finding worse, than AntiDupl, but has a lot of other features and a best choice on linux

Video stuff

mpv -- IMO best video player nowadays. Supported by a lot of plugins and programs like ff2mpv, freetube, qimgv and more. Has an ability to run sripts. My configs are included in this repo (based on eXmendiC guide). These configs also contains links to the shaders I like
vlc -- alternative for mpv
!WINDOWS! K-Lite Codec Pack with MPC-HC -- collection of DirectShow filters, codecs, and tools. Handles HDR video with MadVR pretty good, comparing to VLC. Need to compare with mpv though
ruffle -- flash player emulator on rust
ffmpeg -- cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video; CLI
libplacebo -- core rendering algorithms and ideas of mpv rewritten as an independent library
!iOS! Yattee -- Alternative YouTube frontend for iOS (iPhone, iPad), macOS and tvOS (Apple TV) built with Invidious and Pipedgit

Editors

krita -- analogue of photoshop, IMO better than GIMP
GIMP -- analogue of photoshop. While I think it's worse, than krita, I still think it's a good software choice
kdenlive -- free and open source video editing application
handbrake -- open-source video transcoder

Games and emulation

Games are rarely released open source, but still there are a lot of good and complete ones, and ESPECIALLY open source engines for existing games (e.g. openmw, openjk, openrct, etc). This section won't give you exact games, but some lists and tools for it.

Open source games on github -- list of open source game projects, hosted on github
Open source games -- alternative for list above
Open source game clones -- list, targeting only game-clones (e.g. open source diablo engine)
Emulation wiki -- a complete and improving wiki of emulators of any platform. Writes pros and cons for each emulator, writes about updates and much more. Cons are that they doesn't always write about forks about unsupported emulators (e.g. Mesen-X -- fork of awesome, but archived Mesen is not listed here)
Poi -- scalable browser and tool set for Kantai Collection(KanColle)
Cheat Engine -- ultimate -- and more safe, than trainers -- solution if you need cheats in games. Only works through wine and ceserver
!LINUX! scanmem/gameconqueror -- native analogue of Cheat Engine for linux
!LINUX! Pince -- yet another native analogue of Cheat Engine for linux. Supports cheat tables (but not cheat engine ones, has it;s own format)
!LINUX! Lutris -- helper for installation and playing video games from all eras and from most gaming systems
!LINUX! Wine/Wine-staging -- you've probably heard it before, but Wine Is Not an Emulator!
!LINUX! Wine-Tkg -- customizable wine builds
!LINUX! Wine-Mono -- package containing Mono and other projects, intended as a replacement for the .NET Framework (4.x and earlier) in Wine. Dependency for a lot of games
!LINUX! Proton -- Valve's fork of wine, that's used in steam
!LINUX! Proton-GE -- popular fork of proton with some additional tweaks. Recommended to trying out, if wine/proton couldn't handle running your game
!LINUX! Winetricks -- lets you install a lot of usefull stuff for your wine instance
!LINUX! Protontricks -- cli of winetricks for proton
ProtonDB -- database of reports of gamers about games being playable with proton
dxvk -- Vulkan-based implementation of D3D9, D3D10 and D3D11. Can be used on Windows too (and sometimes shows significant performance improvements)
vkd3d-proton -- implementation of Direct3D 12 API on top of Vulkan
innoextract -- tool to unpack installers created by Inno Setup (e.g. GOG games)
!LINUX! mangohud -- A Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load and more
!LINUX! goverlay -- GUI settings manager for mangohud, vkBasalt and ReplaySorcery
!LINUX! gamemode -- daemon/lib combo for Linux that allows games to request a set of optimisations be temporarily applied to the host OS and/or a game process
!LINUX! steamtinkerlaunch -- Linux wrapper tool for use with the Steam client for custom launch options and 3rd party programs
!LINUX! darling -- analogue of wine which targets macos behavior on linux
Heroic Games Launcher -- A Native GOG, Amazon and Epic Games Launcher for Linux, Windows and Mac

Downloaders

curl -- a command line tool and library for transferring data
yt-dlp -- fork of abandoned youtube-dl for downloading videos (not only youtube supported); CLI
youtube-dl-gui -- youtube-dl (actually yt-dlp) GUI
qBitTorrent -- simple and fast bittorrent client on qt. Sometimes preinstalled on linux systems
gallery-dl -- awesome command-line program to download stuff from a huge variaty of websites. Configs are usually located in ~/.config/gallery-dl/config.json (create one if you don't have any)
pixivutil2 -- CLI on python to download stuff from pixiv, alternative for gallery-dl for pixiv only (gallery-dl supports pixiv too) Supports authentication, pixiv FANBOX, downloading videos (through ffmpeg). Has an AUR package. Config is located in ~/.local/share/PixivUtil2
!PROPRIETARY! !WINDOWS! Hitomi Downloader -- partially closed-source software for downloading galleries, alternative to gallery-dl with GUI. Though it's mentioned to work on linux with Wine I couldn't run it myself
DoujinDownloader -- my own tool to organize doujins repo using .md or .json files. It's not actually a downloader, since there are a lot of better tools for this, but it's capable of parsing undownloaded list of links into file, that downloaders like gallery=dl can handle
imgbrd-grabber -- imageboard/booru downloader with rich GUI and lots of features, including adding your own data sources

Virtualization

Docker -- popular CLI containerization application. Has free community edition and paid enterprise, more explanation on this regards here
Virtual Box -- most basic and simple to use virtualization application
!WINDOWS! wslg -- enable support for running Linux GUI applications (X11 and Wayland) on Windows. Requires win11+ and special drivers (read more on their github page)

Terminals/shells

shellcheck -- a static analysis tool for shell scripts
nushell -- a new type of shell
atuin -- terminal history made easy
alacritty -- a cross-platform, OpenGL terminal emulator
oh-my-posh -- implement themes for your shells
!LINUX! foot -- terminal emulator for wayland
zellij -- a terminal workspace. Useful with foot/alacritty
PowerShell Core -- modern rewrite of windows's proprietary powershell. Works on windows/linux/mac. Be aware, that some commands require you to run pwsh as administrator on windows or even doesn't work in a new version
!WINDOWS! Windows Terminal -- terminal for windows system. Supports WSL, git bash, theming, etc and is actually very good

Text editors and development

vscodium -- VS Code without MS branding/telemetry/licensing
notepad++ -- fast (hey, it's not a browser) and extensible source code editor on C++
!LINUX! nano -- I prefer it over vim because of it's ease of usage
micro -- modern nano alternative
lapce -- vscode alternative on rust. Alpha-quality for now

Diff tools

The code/vscodium isn't bad, but it's not recommended to run it with sudo (cases like pacdiff), so tools here must be able to run with sudo without problems.

kompare -- diff tool by KDE
meld -- visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers

Screenshots and screen recording

flameshot -- cross-platform screenshoting tool on C++
!LINUX! wayshot -- screenshoting tool for wlroots based compositors
!LINUX! watershot -- analogue of flameshot on rust for wlroots based compositors
!WINDOWS! ShareX -- windows-only analogue of flameshot on C#. Can shot videos with ffmpeg and supports additional task (e.g. convert your screenshots to .webp before saving)
OBS Studio -- free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording. MUCH better, than default windows 10's screen recording through game bar

Cleaners

czkawka -- a simple, fast and free app to remove unnecessary files from your computer. Written with Rust
BleachBit -- app, that cleans files to free disk space and to maintain privacy. Cleans less stuff on windows, than ccleaner
!LINUX! Stacer -- system cleaner, primarily targeting debian-based linux systems

Office software

LibreOffice -- alternative to MS Office. More or less supports microsot data formats, but mainly targets support of it's own .ods and other formats
$FREEMIUM$ OnlyOffice -- cloud-based alternative to MS Office. Primarily targets MS data formats support

Archivers

!LINUX! p7zip-zstd -- fork of modern 7zip (22.00+) and outdated p7zip with support for major modern codecs such as Brotli, Fast LZMA2, LZ4, LZ5, Lizard and Zstd
7z -- fast archiver with a high compression ratio. Since 21.01 officially supports linux build (was used on linux as p7zip before)
!WINDOWS! 7-zip-zstd -- 7z's fork with support for zstandard, brotli, lz4, lz5, lizard and fast-lzma2. Has GUI app for windows only, supports linux build as p7zip's fork, though I wouldn't recommend that one
!LINUX! Ark -- file archiver by KDE , can be also used as GUI for 7zip and other archivers

Theme engines

!LINUX! kvantum -- SVG-based theme engine for Qt, tuned to KDE and LXQt, with an emphasis on elegance, usability and practicality
!LINUX! qt5ct/qt6ct -- required for theming of qt apps on some compositors. Prefer using -kde patched versions if possible

File browsers

!LINUX! Dolphin -- KDE file manager
!WINDOWS! Files -- better file explorer for windows 10+
!WINDOWS! $FREEMIUM$ !PROPRIETARY! Total Commander -- customizable file explorer for windows with rich set of features. Free for first 30 days
yazi -- terminal file manager

Driver installers

!WINDOWS! Snappy Driver Installer Origin -- open source driver installer/updater for windows systems

Development

You're probably familiar with this, since you're on github and know what to use and why. But for other users (especially windows ones) some things aren't always clear, e.g. not even everyone knows about openjdk and oracle's java builds. I'll only list basic things here, not mentioning minor stuff for developemtnt, like IDEs, libraries, package managers, etc. Plus, I'm only (mostly) aware about c++/c# stuff, which advanced developers knows anyways

CPython -- the most popular implementation of python standards. Yes, there are more efficient ones (for some tasks, at leasts), but I'd prefer stability, since a lot of various software bind to this version
RustPython -- experimental rust python implementation
OpenJDK -- open source java builds without oracle's shit
dotnet -- official microsoft implementation of .NET language family. Alternative to mono project that is an open source of older (closed source) .NET Framework. See compatibility page for more info
!LINUX! base-devel -- set of must-have development tools for linux distributives. Can have another name on other (not arch) dists, but still will contain make, sudo, gcc and others
!WINDOWS! MSYS2 -- alternative to above base-devel for windows with lots of linux tools, like mingw. You can also try cygwin if this didn't work in your case
dotdevelop -- wip fork of abandoned monodevelop project, that aims to create an open-source and cross-platform IDE for dotnet developers
netcoredbg -- open-source debugger for dotnet core
csharpier -- FLOSS formatter for dotnet code

Android

As the name implies, the whole section is about android apps or android emulation

!LINUX! anbox -- a container-based approach to boot a full Android system on a regular GNU/Linux system
!LINUX! waydroid -- analogue of anbox, uses wayland
LineageOS -- a free and open-source operating system for various devices, based on the Android mobile platform
GrapheneOS -- build with security and privacy in mind fork of android. Currently supports only Google Pixel devices
DivestOS -- a soft-fork of LineageOS. DivestOS inherits many supported devices from LineageOS. It has signed builds, making it possible to have verified boot on some non-Pixel devices
Aegis -- a free, secure and open source app for Android to manage your 2-step verification tokens
GmsCore -- free implementation of Google Play Services
Magisk -- a suite of open source software for customizing Android
K-9 -- Open Source Email App for Android
AdAway -- a free and open source ad blocker for Android
AuroraStore -- an unofficial FOSS client to Google Play with an elegant design and privacy
FDroid -- Free Software repository system for Android
LoliSnatcher -- a booru client with support for batch downloading
mpv-android -- a video player for Android based on libmpv
Pix-EzViewer -- a third-party Pixiv Android client with modern design and many other enhancements

Database stuff

PostgreSQL -- a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance
MariaDB -- a community-developed, commercially supported fork of the MySQL, intended to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License
dbeaver -- free multi-platform database tool for developers, SQL programmers, database administrators and analysts
DB Browser for SQLite -- standalone browser for SQLite databases

Fonts

nerd-fonts -- a project that patches developer targeted fonts with a high number of glyphs (icons). Personally I prefer using CaskaydiaMono Nerd Font Mono, which is based on Cascadia Code by microsoft, for my terminal

AI stuff

I hate any kind of ridiculous censorship, so here's the list of AI-related tools/services I use \w pros and cons

ZLUDA -- CUDA on AMD GPUs

LLMs

ollama -- lets you run lots of LLMs locally on your PC. Can work even on GPU-less setups, though considerably slower
Cognitive Computation models aka Dolphin -- open-source, free from censorship LLMs by Cognitive Computations group. Also see it's founder's, Eric Hartford's blog for details and some interesting articles

As for cloud alternatives, I'm not aware of any FLOSS services that could provide dolphin models, but there are some paywalled ones

Stable Diffusion

First, it's very important to note, that at current point of time (SD3 Medium release) only uncesored (good) base models are SD1.5 and SDXL and their derivatives, so keep that in mind when selecting your model

Stability Matrix -- package manager, made it easier to manage different models, plugins, UIs and virtual environments for stable diffusion instances

For usage tips and overall guidance on how Stable Diffusion works under the hood and why, I recommend reading the articles on Stable Diffusion Art website, here are some basic ones:

How Stable Diffusion works?
Inpaint guides: basics, more specific example
Samplers and Schedulers
Basic model selecting guide
Prompting: basics, fine-tuning, anime examples
Embeddings/Textual Inversions
Hypernetworks
LORA
LyCORIS
VAE
ComfyUI basics

UI

AUTOMATIC1111's Stable Diffusion WebUI -- most popular, easiest to use web UI for Stable Diffusion. Probably also has most number of different plugins
Stable Diffusion WebUI Forge -- fork of A1111's UI, made for compatibility with AMD GPUs and some nice perf improvements
SD.Next -- so far the only (?) UI that allows running on AMD GPUs with ZLUDA
ComfyUI -- advanced UI, that offers best performance, but requires some knowledge of how Stable Diffusion works under the hood and learing to use these nodes. Also has a lot of useful extensions, making it capabilities on par with A1111. Has an ability to export/import any run configurations! Also never install/update unknown nodes without checking them out. There are already security incedents occured in the past

As for cloud solution, I use thinkdiffusion, it's the cheapest one I could found, but still not free. And I highly recommend you to get some learning/practice before you start using it just to not throw away your money

Models

I'm not interested in not-anime models, so these are not listed here

Always check the parameters and prompting guide for each and every model/lora/etc you download so you won't get shitty results

SDXL

Base SDXL models are trained on 1024x1024 resolution images, so you shouldn't generate smaller images if you want something with decent quality and relevance to your prompt. This also means you'll need a better GPU with decent amount of VRAM

Basic parameters for running SDXL1.0 models are: Steps: 20-30, Sampler: DPM++ 2M SDE, Schedule type: Karras, CFG Scale: 6-7 Note, that SDXL Lightning/Turbo models need different running parameters, usually something like this: Steps: 6-8, Sampler: DPM++ SDE, Schedule type: Karras, CFG Scale: 2-4

Kohaku-XL Epsilon and other models by kblueleaf -- models, trained on large amount of data from danbooru. Optimal parameters: Clip Skip: 1
Animagine XL -- analogue of Kohaku-XL. I personally like it lesser, but it still gives good results too. Clip skip: 2, also recommended to use bundled VAE
Anything XL -- mix of data of several great models, including Kohaku-XL and Animagine XL. Gives very decent results, maybe the best of three. Clip skip: 2
XL_VAE_C -- custom VAE for anime models. Not a requirement
NegativeXL -- negative embeddings for anime SDXL models
Useful Quality Embeddings XL -- more great negative embeddings for anime SDXL models

SD1.5

Probably the only good reason to use SD1.5 over SDXL based models is the availability of some LORA/LyCORIS only for SD1.5, e.g. Kagamihara Nadeshiko LORAs are available only for SD1.5 or Pony (can't generate lolis, so it's a no-no).

As for resolution, you use classic 512x512 at least and apply hires fix if you need something better

Kohaku V5 -- model, trained on large amount of data from danbooru
Anything XL v5 -- note, that you should select V5 to use SD1.5 and not SDXL
ClearVAE -- custom VAE for anime models. Not a requirement
EasyNegative -- negative embeddings for anime SD1.5 models
badhandv4 -- negative embeddings for anime SD1.5 models, and especially hands

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dotfiles		dotfiles
userjs		userjs
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE.txt		LICENSE.txt
README.md		README.md
installs.txt		installs.txt
minor-linux-tweaks.md		minor-linux-tweaks.md

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Gigas002/software-and-services

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