Which graphical system utlities you miss on Linux?
Which graphical system utlities you miss on Linux?
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?
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.
I generally don't miss anything graphical, once I learn how to do something from the cli I rarely feel the need to do it graphically anymore as it's usually a lot slower
The obvious one would be Photoshop and paint.net of course but krita does the trick
Maybe tangential but this reminded me of how much I hate setting up systemd timers/services. I refuse to accept that creating two files in two different directories and searching online for the default timer and service templates is an okay workflow over simply throwing a cron expression next to the command you want to run and being done with it. Is there really no way we can have a crontab-equivalent that virtually converts into a systemd backend when you don't need the extra power? I feel like an old person that can't accept change but it's been a decade and I'm still angry.
My Linux experience has been command line training. Now I avoid GUI stuff like the plague if I can help it.
Something to help visualise BTRFS volumes & sub-volumes (ie, free-space, etc)
One thing I kind of miss is autohotkeys on windows. It was relatively easy to do things like set keyboard keys to act as mouse keys. I did that once when I was getting over tendonitis.
These days I have a keyboard with mouse keys on it and a trackball also with mouse keys. I can use the middle button on the trackball and scroll with it, but I can't use the middle button on the keyboard and scroll with the trackball, which would be more ergonomic for me. Haven't figured that one out yet.
That said, I mostly don't miss GUI stuff. I use a tiling window manager and command line utilities to do most things on my system. Its kind of primitive I guess, but the benefit is it works exactly the same on remote systems, headless servers, etc.
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.
Edit: Although this is not an admin function, one thing that bothers me about windows, A LOT is that the file explorer does not show free space while I am in the current directory. Dolphin will do it even for SMB shares. Also you can click the drop down and examine all drives right there instead of have to back to the left and ruining your view in explorer. And don't get me started about how you can't split views in Windows explorer. This is just one everyday task where windows GUI is lacking in features even though it is not an admin tool.
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.
I've recently gotten into using cockpit. I just wish it was as expansive as openSUSE's yast.
Pretty sure any one using YAST is confused right now
Well KDE had this awesome process management tool, I think it was called
System Monitoror something. You could tune process priorities with IO and CPU. They deprecated the tool though, I think because nobody wanted to port it to QT6EDIT: It's not System Monitor. I can't recall the name, but there used to be an app that let you set niceness / priorities of your processes.
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.
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.
A native Apple Music client