Programs I use, have used, or love the idea of using. Not a minimal setup list. Not a dotfiles tour. An honest catalogue of software I recommend.
The status indicator reflects the current state of the work: - Abandoned: Work that has been discontinued - Notes: Initial collections of thoughts and references - Draft: Early structured version with a central thesis - In Progress: Well-developed work actively being refined - Finished: Completed work with no planned major changes This helps readers understand the maturity and completeness of the content.
The confidence tag expresses how well-supported the content is, or how likely its overall ideas are right. This uses a scale from "impossible" to "certain", based on the Kesselman List of Estimative Words: 1. "certain" 2. "highly likely" 3. "likely" 4. "possible" 5. "unlikely" 6. "highly unlikely" 7. "remote" 8. "impossible" Even ideas that seem unlikely may be worth exploring if their potential impact is significant enough.
The importance rating distinguishes between trivial topics and those which might change your life. Using a scale from 0-10, content is ranked based on its potential impact on: - the reader - the intended audience - the world at large For example, topics about fundamental research or transformative technologies would rank 9-10, while personal reflections or minor experiments might rank 0-1.
These are programs I use, have used, or love the idea of using. Some I have configured extensively, others I run stock. This is not a minimalism flex or a dotfiles tour. It is a practical catalogue of software I would recommend to someone building a Unix workflow from scratch.
If you want to see my hardware, see hardware. If you want to see what I think is harmful, see harmful.
Gentoo Description pending.
sbase Description pending.
OpenRC Description pending.
fish Description pending.
rc Description pending.
dvtm Description pending.
dwm Description pending.
dwmblocks Description pending.
dmenu Description pending.
slock Description pending.
vis Description pending.
nvim Description pending.
Emacs Description pending.
Helium Description pending.
surf Description pending.
Tor Browser Description pending.
Nyxt Description pending.
Freedom (IPFS Browser) Description pending.
nnn Description pending.
mpd Description pending.
ncmpcpp Description pending.
mpv Description pending.
ani-cli Description pending.
sfeed Description pending.
sent Description pending.
zathura Description pending.
nsxiv Description pending.
fastfetch Description pending.
git Description pending.
gh Description pending.
lazygit Description pending.
git-delta Description pending.
Mullvad VPN Description pending.
proxychains-ng Description pending.
OpenVPN Description pending.
pass Description pending.
Custom Hosts File Description pending.
rsync Description pending.
Syncthing Description pending.
GNU Stow Description pending.
rtorrent Description pending.
tin Description pending.
catgirl Description pending.
btop Description pending.
calcurse Description pending.
abook Description pending.
dunst Description pending.
picom Description pending.
xclipboard Description pending.
scrot Description pending.
buku Description pending.
lazydocker Description pending.
Inkscape Description pending.
GIMP Description pending.
cwal Description pending.
tcc Description pending.
C Description pending.
Go Description pending.
Bash Description pending.
scron Description pending.
wget Description pending.
Ollama Description pending.
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Yotam, Kris. (Apr 2026). Programs. krisyotam.com. https://krisyotam.com/blog/technology/programs
@article{yotam2026programs,
title = "Programs",
author = "Yotam, Kris",
journal = "krisyotam.com",
year = "2026",
month = "Apr",
url = "https://krisyotam.com/blog/technology/programs"
}