Hello everyone! I know that Linux GUI advanced in last few years but we still lack some good system configuration tools for advanced users or sysadmins. What utilities you miss on Linux? And is there any normal third party alternatives?
A native Apple Music client
7-Zip,on windows it was powerful and i loved it there is a port p7zip but it has not been updated since 2016.
Yes. But if you really need it, it works great under wine.
I really miss Microsoft AD configuration GUI.
Wait, no, that sort of group you have to make through Entra, formerly Azure admin center, wait no they actually wanted a SharePoint site for the group, wait no you can’t do that through entra even though you can see the groups, you have to do that through O365 admin center, wait no you can only make a SharePoint aaand teams group there, you have to click more -> SharePoint admin center and then create a new group there, but not the default, you have to click “show more group types”, but where can you modify the members of this group? Oh you can just go back to O365 admin center to do that. Now you want to make some small access changes to the force-created email for the group? Oh well you have to go to Exchange admin center for that. Wait, not Outlook admin center? No they are named different things just to make it easy.
Now someone who made an event involving the group is on holiday so I have to remove it, I can do that from exchange admin center right? Well actually the easiest way to do that is to log into Exchange from a power shell terminal through the GUI pop-up and terminal commands. But wait, the search for the event actually doesn’t work there ever, even with the exact name? I guess I will give myself rights to the calendar, reboot Outlook, go to the calendar, remove the event, go back to the terminal, remove my rights to the calendar, restart outlook.
Actually, I don’t miss Microsoft sysadmin tools.
IrfanView. Nothing comes even close. I would probably move to Linux if not for that.
Irfanview!
It’s FAST, it’s SMALL, it’s PURE POWERRR
I never understood why there isn’t anything even remotely close to it in Linux. Kde has Gwenview which is awful slow, bloated yet barely has any features at all.
There is a way to run it through wine but that is awful. Cane e start a GoFundMe for the dev to make a Linux KDE release with Deb and rpm files? I’ll happily contribute.
For real! Every time I spend real periods of time with Linux (and a random year with a MacBook Pro a friend wanted to get rid of). It always hits a point where I need to view images and can’t find anything that matches IrfanView. I have tried XnView and it is way too much with regards to the UI and features I don’t need. The most frustrating thing (and this applies to most others I tried) is handling going through a folder of images that are different resolutions. IrfanView has the option to both scale the program’s window based around the image size, and also be set to scale images if the are larger than my display resolution.
It is a very weird combination of those two things that drives me nuts. There are settings in XnView that kind of work but break. Like it might adjust the image that is large, but then the program’s UI will not shrink to fit a small image (the window will just stay large and have large black borders). Or it will shrink the window to the width of a large image, but not scale and the height will still require scrolling up and down to see all of it. The funny part is that I don’t even look at my saved images all the time. But shit is like a hard slam on the breaks at high speed.
I did end up just dealing with the kind of weird clunkyness of running it via WINE while on the Mac as it was my only PC at the time. Which was still better than not having it for my use-case. Just weird how it has been the only image viewer (with mid-level editing options) that has “felt” correct ever since I first tried it out over like 17 years ago.
Pretty sure any one using YAST is confused right now
The only thing I miss from Windows is Voicemeeter. God, I loved that thing. I miss it so much.
Handling the audio and adding what were once simple things like noise supression has been a really really shit experience.
Maybe simple and easy to use GUI Firewall.
Portmaster?
I use csf which isn’t GUI, text only, but the configuration is so straightforward and simple that it’s been my default for years now on server and desktop
You should try gufw. Great for simple setups! For more complicated ones you could use opensnitch.
I’d like some kind of visual task scheduler instead of having to read up on how to do cron jobs every time.
People still use Cron?
Use systemd timers which are very easy to configure.
And do systemd timers come with a GUI?
You really won’t need one, but your username says you specialise in great suffering so you won’t want one.
Dystopia is having to learn a whole new system and manually punch in commands in VIM instead of just entering “0400” and clicking “Every day” in a GUI simply to run a scheduled backup because some cyberpunks think it’s cool to stare at the black and green terminal emulator into the early morning and think that everybody else enjoys doing the same so we really don’t need a GUI.
Buy yourself a Mac, fella. You’re not ready.
How’s your eyes, that green light given you glasses yet?
I’ve completely switched from cron to systemd timers for everything. I feel like they are a lot easier to remember and keep track of! Plus, getting logs for free is pretty nice as well
Something to help visualise BTRFS volumes & sub-volumes (ie, free-space, etc)
regedit.exe, my favorite GUI app 🤣
You can use regedit on Linux via wine!
…what would that even do? Linux doesn’t have a registry, does it?
Wine as Windows layer has small registry for Windows apps
Oh, that makes sense
You can also open registries from windows install with it.
You could try gconf
I’ve recently gotten into using cockpit. I just wish it was as expansive as openSUSE’s yast.
I would like something to change my monitor output at a system level, for example I could emulate a CRT screen or decide my aspect ratio. Something like RetroArch shaders but in a more high priority level.
afterburner. i’m unable to oc my nvidia gpu :(
LACT. Though I don’t know if it can OC Nvidia, Nvidia support is quite new.
til about this one, nice. i wish discoverability for linux software was better.
Same here. I’m using CorrCTRL for my 6800XT and the VRAM OC is not working properly, will give LACT a try
I usually just feed my questions into three different LLMs plus ddg with site:reddit and then check consensus. As good as it gets.
But then last time I’ve managed to discover DeadBeeF through IRC.
yeah thats how i find them, we have good app stores on linux that could use some community curation though!
its common on linux for software to be abandoned, only for a fork to pop up elsewhere and it gets annoying.
Well KDE had this awesome process management tool, I think it was called System Monitor or something. You could tune process priorities with IO and CPU. They deprecated the tool though, I think because nobody wanted to port it to QT6
System Monitor is very much still alive, and I’m pretty sure it is updated to Qt6. I was using it only yesterday on Plasma 6…
You’re right. I can’t recall the other utility’s name. System Monitor is fantastic, but I just wish I could set the niceness and all that like you could on the old utility.
That would indeed be a nice feature. I’m sure they would welcome the suggestion!
a nice feature 👀
Took a while, but someone did eventually notice!
I’ve been using linux for over 25 years and I don’t understand this post. One of the strengths of linux is that you don’t need a gui to do sysadmin.
And one of the weaknesses is that you require the command line. Choice is good
I think I’m 30 years in, and I came to mention I haven’t used the GUI since ~97.
For sysadmin stuff? Or for daily use?