@Raizel lol from left to right it's power button (log off etc.), Terminology (terminal emulator), GIMP (image editor), Darktable (photo editor), Shotcut (video editor), JackQctl (audio router), Pianoteq (piano modeler), Keepassx (password manager), Opera (browser), Chromium (browser), ardour (audio editor), cpu temperature, and analog clock

@kai So these are all the essentials for you ~thanks for pointing them all out to me, while I know some of these names, can't say I was familiar with all of their icons 😁

@Raizel I figured you knew GIMP and Chromium and I think you said you use Keepass or similar but once I started writing things out I figured I might as well label all of them in case someone else looks at it

They're all free and open source software except for Pianoteq, which is a demo. I do want to buy a license eventually (it's expensive) but the demo runs for 20 minutes and only a handful of keys are disabled.

@Raizel the pianoteq demo would be annoying to play an existing composition, but for composing, disabled keys are just another creative limitation to be worked around

@kai That's a very healthy/positive way of looking at the disabled key limitation ~that's the spirit!

@kai Indeed, Gimp and Keepass user I am and Chromium I knew. You don't like Firefox/Mozilla based browsers?

Good move labelling them 👍

Oh I see, how expensive are you meaning? Your time is cut out for you then xD!

@Raizel after 20 minutes you can just open it again. I've been testing the $300 version but I should probably get the $500 version with the higher internal sampling rates.

I've been really good about saving money after a spending spree earlier in the year. I had to replace a lot of high end windows-only hardware so that I could run Linux.

It probably wasn't worth it. I could have spent my time working toward creative goals instead.

@Raizel I try to keep a cool head about it like "it's just a means to the creative output" but I guess I really wanted to be using Linux because here I am, heh.

@kai Linux is <3

@Raizel I guess it's all for the best. Adobe subscriptions and windows licenses would have caught up with me eventually. Pianoteq is truly remarkable and they have a $130 version if I get desperate. I was happy to pay for the proprietary tools I was using before, but now I feel like I'm a force for good, since going forward I will be carefully choosing hardware and software that works on open source platforms. I didn't have the discipline to do this until it was my reality.

@Raizel I'm also curious what you use GIMP for

@kai tends to be preinstalled on my SYS 🐭.

@kai Oh wow that's truly expensive, Adobe products immediately came to mind.

Your dedication to Linux is very admirable 👏

Well, you can't regain the lost time but you have the rest of of October to December to work towards your creative goals though.

@Raizel Adobe products are expensive for an amateur, especially now that creative cloud is $50/month. And while even Darktable apparently now has a windows version in alpha, that wasn't the case when I switched.

I like Pianoteq and Shotcut so much that I would have certainly used them on windows, but it was the switch to linux that caused me to look for new tools and find those programs. Otherwise I would have just kept using familiar applications.