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?
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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.
I have Emacs, and I have my NixOS configuration. That’s all the GUI system configuration I need.
Why use NixOS, when you could just use emacs?
My Emacs needed a bootloader.
That should be our new slogan:
NixOS: Your Emacs’ bootloader.
It seems impossible to set display scaling from the command line. Anything that fixes that would be nice.
What is your DE? On KDE Plasma Wayland you can just use
kscreen-doctor output.HDMI-A-1.scale.2to set it to 200%And it seem like CLI not GUI issue :)
Debian + GNOME. I’m extremely new to Linux so excuse my ignorance. I searched around the topic a while finding some commands that didn’t work and others having the same issue. If you know different that would be much appreciated!
If you are talking about fractional scaling it is not available (probably only available as an experimental setting on debian??). Otherwise, does this work https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI#GNOME ?
It didn’t unfortunately :/
One of my favorite things about Gnome is that almost anything can be customized via CLI with dconf or gsettings. Which is great until you encounter one of the few things you can’t customize, like displays.
A GUi for SystemD
Just yesterday I saw one on Lemmy but I don’t know if I will be able to find it again.
Found it! https://lemmy.ml/post/23671806
With the ever increasing complexity of systemd, the GUI will quickly get in par with Firefox in lines of code 😂
HWMonitor / cpuID / cpuz. One of the frustrating things is not having good driver level support for certain mbs with system monitoring utilities, so you can’t see fans and some cpu stats (like per ccd temps etc on Ryzen processors). Specifically things like it87 boards
HardInfo2 may be interesting to you
I’ll check this out, thanks! I really just need to figure out how to build in the driver level stuff for my chipset. Even this I think just pulls from lm-sensors which needs the low level drivers to populate the appropriate files to read from.
Given that windows administration is powershell these days they kind of are similar.
Windows is missing so much in their guis abilities (like copy text) that I wonder what there is you are missing.
My Linux experience has been command line training. Now I avoid GUI stuff like the plague if I can help it.
I’m willing to entertain the possibility that the linux world may be lacking in some things, but I’m pretty sure “configuration tools for sysadmins” is not one of them.
Maybe simple and easy to use GUI Firewall.
You should try gufw. Great for simple setups! For more complicated ones you could use opensnitch.
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
Sound volume mixer
Pavucontrol exists.
If you need something advanced install EasyEffects
IrfanView. Nothing comes even close. I would probably move to Linux if not for that.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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!
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.
