this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2024
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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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[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 6 days ago (12 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

IrfanView. Nothing comes even close. I would probably move to Linux if not for that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days 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.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I'd like some kind of visual task scheduler instead of having to read up on how to do cron jobs every time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (5 children)

People still use Cron?

Use systemd timers which are very easy to configure.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

I've completely switched from cron to systemd timers for everything. I feel like they are a lot easier to remember and keep track of! Plus, getting logs for free is pretty nice as well

[–] [email protected] 26 points 6 days ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

With the ever increasing complexity of systemd, the GUI will quickly get in par with Firefox in lines of code 😂

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

A native Apple Music client

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

Something to help visualise BTRFS volumes & sub-volumes (ie, free-space, etc)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Setting per game frame limits and undervolting AMD GPUs is a lot more complicated than on Windows

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

This is a configuration declaration abstraction issue. Systemd timers and services are more like primitives.

In NixOS, we have an abstraction that allows simple declaration of a service and timer that runs some script.

As an example, I use this to export my paperless for backup daily in a way that is safe (paperless itself cannot run during that time, guaranteed by systemd) and simple:

https://github.com/Atemu/nixos-config/blob/ca0d39eb98c62424208487f973573478268048b4/modules/paperless/module.nix#L59-L95

(Even without NixOS domain knowledge you should be able to follow what's going on here.)

All that's needed in order to cause a systemd timer to be created for this service is to declare the startAt = "daily"; at the bottom.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Maybe simple and easy to use GUI Firewall.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You should try gufw. Great for simple setups! For more complicated ones you could use opensnitch.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Pretty sure any one using YAST is confused right now

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

7-Zip,on windows it was powerful and i loved it there is a port p7zip but it has not been updated since 2016.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

afterburner. i'm unable to oc my nvidia gpu :(

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

LACT. Though I don't know if it can OC Nvidia, Nvidia support is quite new.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

til about this one, nice. i wish discoverability for linux software was better.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Same here. I'm using CorrCTRL for my 6800XT and the VRAM OC is not working properly, will give LACT a try

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago

My Linux experience has been command line training. Now I avoid GUI stuff like the plague if I can help it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

A decent GUI LDAP client.

Yes, I know, I can use slapcat and all... But holy hell, I'm tired of writing basic LDAP files to populate a new domain. And, no, I really don't want to spin up a webserver just to run a web based GUI that I NOW have to ensure is locked down.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

regedit.exe, my favorite GUI app 🤣

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (5 children)

You can use regedit on Linux via wine!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

You could try gconf

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Check out keyd, it's very powerful.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I have Emacs, and I have my NixOS configuration. That's all the GUI system configuration I need.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

I've recently gotten into using cockpit. I just wish it was as expansive as openSUSE's yast.

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