The Other Stuff

The other software stash

btop

Rating: ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Project link: https://github.com/aristocratos/btop

Not so important notes:

• Your personal anxiety dashboard. Stare at these numbers long enough and you’ll convince yourself your 8GB of RAM is actually 8KB. It’s fine. Probably.
• The first place you go when your system feels ‘a bit slow’ and you’re sure it’s not the 30 tabs open in Firefox. (It’s always the tabs.)
• A comforting reminder that somewhere, something is always chewing on your CPU. Probably a background program you forgot about.
• Or you wanna look cool in r/unixporn and your task manager just ain’t cutting that slack.

Picom

Rating: ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Project link: https://github.com/yshui/picom

Not so important notes:

• Behold! Picom! The patch you desperately slap on Xfce to make it stop screaming about screen tearing. You’re welcome (and I’m sorry you even needed me).
• If your windows are still tearing, it’s not my fault. It’s your fault for using a display server from the Stone Age. Kidding! (Mostly.)
• My job is to make your desktop look smooth. Like, actually smooth, not ‘smooth for Xfce’ smooth. There’s a difference.
• Consider me the digital equivalent of spackle for your window manager’s existential dread. We all have our coping mechanisms.
• I help your windows fade in and out gracefully, because apparently, having them just appear was too shocking for the system. We’re all a little sensitive here.

All about your cursors

Bibata Cursor

Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Project link: https://www.bibata.live/

Not so important notes:

• Warning: May cause intense feelings of aesthetic superiority. Your other cursors will feel inadequate.
• This cursor has a PhD in looking good. It also judges your messy desktop, but silently.
• If you suddenly feel compelled to organize your life, it’s probably Bibata’s subtle influence. You’re welcome.

ColorCursor

Rating: 🤪 🤪 🤪

Project link: https://github.com/keiaa-75/ColorCursor/

Not so important notes:

• You’re here because you found a cursor theme you loved… on Windows. And you thought, ‘Why can’t I have that?’ Don’t worry, we’ve all made questionable life choices. This tool is just one of them.
• You could just use a native Linux cursor theme. But where’s the fun in that? We’re here for the chaos, the cross-platform shenanigans, and maybe a little bit of trauma.
• My sole purpose in life is to bridge the unholy gap between your aesthetic desires and your operating system’s default settings. It’s not a glamorous job, but someone’s gotta do it.
• You’ve found it. The script that answers the question no one asked: ‘Can I have my gacha game waifus pointing at my files?’ Yes. Yes you can. You magnificent individual.
• You could be productive. You could be working. Instead, you’re here, making your cursor a tiny, pixelated Miku. And honestly? I respect that.
• We’re translating the very essence of Hatsune Miku’s digital sparkle into something that can highlight your sudo rm -rf commands. The duality of man.

Fonts to use with the desktop

Cantarell

Rating: ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Project link: https://cantarell.gnome.org

Not so important notes:

• The default GNOME font for years — and like most defaults, it never asked to be loved, only tolerated.
• Designed with readability in mind. That’s it. That’s the tweet.
• Soft, polite curves… but not too soft. Like if Helvetica and DejaVu had a socially awkward baby who preferred GTK over Qt.
• Important note: GNOME officially replaced Cantarell with Inter as the default UI font in GNOME 45, meaning even the GNOME devs finally said, ‘it’s not you, it’s variable fonts.’
• Still, if you miss it, you’re probably either: a) nostalgic, or b) running a distro that hasn’t updated GNOME since 2022.
• GNU/GNOME reminder: Yes, it’s free software. Yes, Richard Stallman would want you to respect its freedom — even if you replaced it in your .gtkrc-2.0 out of spite.

Inter

Rating: ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Project link: https://github.com/rsms/inter

Not so important notes:

• Inter is what happens when a type designer stares at Apple Human Interface Guidelines for too long—and we’re not mad about it.
• Crisp, polite, and very ‘product design Twitter.’ If your UI starts looking like a Figma prototype, Inter is probably involved.
• Has so many weights and stylistic alternates you’ll start to wonder if you need variable fonts in your life.
• Basically Helvetica’s younger, friendlier cousin who drinks cold brew and uses Tailwind CSS.

Noto Sans

Rating: 🌐 🌐 🌐 🌐 🌐

Project link: https://fonts.google.com/noto/specimen/Noto+Sans

Not so important notes:

• Google’s answer to font fragmentation, Noto Sans tries to support everything—and sort of succeeds.
• Clean, neutral, and inoffensive to a fault. It won’t win any beauty contests, but it won’t upset your layout either.
• Great for multilingual setups where things just need to render without tofu.
• If your system’s UI ends up looking like a UN conference, this is probably why.

Fonts for the programmer in you

Fira Code

Rating: 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀

Project link: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode

Not so important notes:

• Powered by dreams, caffeine, and an ungodly amount of ligatures. Use responsibly.
• If your code still looks ugly with Fira Code, it’s definitely not the font’s fault. Just sayin’.
• My therapist told me to embrace my inner developer. So I installed Fira Code. Best decision ever.
• A font so good, even your rubber duck will be impressed. (Probably. Do you have one?)

JetBrains Mono

Rating: 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀

Project link: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/mono/

Not so important notes:

• A font made by developers for developers who want their code to feel like a startup pitch deck.
• Has ligatures so elegant they might trick you into rewriting all your Java just to see them in action.
• JetBrains Mono doesn’t just render code—it judges your indentation silently.”
• If fonts had a LinkedIn profile, this one would say ‘Type-safe. Pixel-perfect. Team player.’”
• Pairs well with Nord themes, tiling window managers, and the constant urge to optimize your dev environment instead of actually coding.”
• Switching to it won’t make your code better—but you’ll definitely believe it will.

---

View page source