I'm currently writing a report in using Overleaf. As I'm getting the premium version for free through my Uni, I've had no problems so far. Now I'm working in a place with unstable internet and using Overleaf has become very annoying....
If you're on Linux, I found Gummy to be the closest to Overleaf's constant recompilation. My default has always been TexStudio, it has a good UI, but you can also use a VSCode extension.
These are all just editors, though. You'd also need to download LaTeX locally. On Windows, that's MikTeX, on Mac it's MacTeX, and on Linux texlive is usually already installed, but you may need to install packages. On Debian-based distros, they're grouped into collections like texlive-science.
I will say that I've helped friends who were very used to overleaf to a local editor, and they were quite frustrated that TeXStudio wasn't exactly 1:1 with the overleaf UI. Please know beforehand that if you're expecting to be able to do things like open images in the TeX editor to check on them before inserting them, that's not gonna happen.
Just FYI, I've done this, and if you're not super familiar with Docker network permissions it can be more than a bit funky, especially if you're on Windows. I'm sure it's trivial for folks who're used to docker, but getting the right ports configured is a bit of a pain.
Also LyX will not seamlessly interconvert with a TeX file, even though it seems like it ought to. Pandoc conversion between TeX and markdown seems to be less fixing each time, but is also not 1:1. For writing where I care about being able to draft quickly, I've settled on writing markdown with embedded LaTeX with something like Zettlr, then converting to a LaTeX with Pandoc for final formatting. You can also convert to Word better from md than from TeX, for those collaborators who refuse to comment on a PDF.
Oh I got it running eventually. If you were on Linux, it'd be fine, but since on Windows the docker engine runs inside WSL, the ports exposed to a browser in Windows are not the same as what Overleaf is trying to expose in WSL.
LaTeX is just fundamentally not that fast, especially when pulling in lots of packages. I'm running it on a server with a i7-12700K and 64 GB of RAM, but I didn't really notice a slowdown when running it on an old laptop, they're both about the same speed as the official overleaf. With longer or more complex documents, I usually split it into multiple files and edit them on their own, then use \include{} to being them into the final file with proper formatting and the right preamble. Of course, thats using a local MikTeX install, so YMMV.
To be honest, I've always wondered why you can't like "pre-compile" a bunch of packages into a binary and include that to speed things up. I'm sure there are good reasons, I just don't know them.
Jabref is so great, but do read the documentation when you start. Its easy to use without reading any of it, but there's so much functionality beyond the basics that I just found out recently, and makes it so much easier to use!
I checked it out, seems interesting but I still prefer Feeder. Mostly because I couldn't get Read You to actually show text/images from a page, for instance XKCD.
It looks like the photographer sadly passed away two years ago, so checking if he'd be OK with that would be challenging. Most OS's let you cycle among a set of background images if you want, I dont think you'd need to write a script.
It's not commercial use, so I think it's reasonable to download the photos and use them as backgrounds as a memorial to his work.
I recently got a Sony prs 600 e reader from 2009. The battery is at the end of its life (It lasts about 3 days with heavy reading, and a couple weeks without reading). No backlight, no Wi-Fi, just an SD card that I can load epub files and small PDFs. The screen is slow and the contrast isn’t the best. The “touch screen” is...
Yeah, even if you don’t hack em, I just use it for ebooks from my library and that works great. Not open source by a long shot, but wayyyyy better than kindle.
That’s true, but I get easily more than that on my current kobo, which has a similar advertised battery life. I can get easily 5-6 days of reading 8h a day on it.
No, I forget where exactly it was, but at some point last year I was deep in Rakuten’s documentation and it referenced that the Clara HD’s OS is based on a modified Android 8 kernel.
It’s possible that there’s a reason it requires lossless audio, in that it requires uncompressed signal to work. For instance, if the ML model is trained on uncompressed data, it may need audio which has never been compressed.
Do you really think you could build a tower without tensile reinforcement? The hoop stress on the base of a cylindrical tower is no joke, especially when made from something as dense as concrete…
For me, Google video search, Google books (Internet Archive is good, but doesn’t always have the same stuff), Adobe InDesign (but in the process of learning LaTeX), and Typewise. As for the Google stuff, I liked Whoogle a lot, but almost all their instances seem to have been blocked or shut down. Also, apologies if this is...
Just a comment – for InDesign-type work, I find something like Inkscape (or Scribus) easier to work with than LaTeX. I usually only use LaTeX for things where the layout needs to be pretty but not customized. Its possible to use it for design, but not a good use of time.
For some reason I have it in the back of my mind that they were at one point accused of being a honeypot for US intelligence because of their association with MIT. Probably complete BS, but maybe not. Are they as open source as they claim to be? Looks like they’re on github. F-Droid seems to think they have some Google...
Yeah I remember that conspiracy theory. Iirc, the claim was basically that any company which had any relationship with any US institution must be a honeypot. It was pretty out there, and as far as I’m aware it was very much debunked.
I’m pretty sure that the Google libraries F-droid are things like the push notification service, which afaik almost anything with notifications uses, even signal.
I’ve never actually compiled from source, but AFAIK they are open source. Its been convenient to use for me, just make very sure you don’t lose your password!
If you’re OK with using inkscape and GIMP, if the background color is different than the chicken, you could apply a color filter to simplify the image to “chicken” and “not chicken” (basically, reduce the number of total colors to 16 or less), then use inkscape Trace Bitmap in Colors mode.
Tracing a bitmap to an SVG is really only practical if it’s a line drawing or if it has less than 16 (preferably less than 8) colors, because each color becomes a different vector object. Its really not intended for full on photos, unfortunately.
“I found it very weird that there essentially is no way to browse the web in an open manner. So that’s what I am trying to build,” the founder of Stract said.
They’re ways to search on a specific site from the engine’s search bar. For instance, !gsch cows will search for cows on google scholar from DuckDuckGo. I don’t know how stamdardized bangs are across engines, but they’re super useful if you use a bunch of obscure search tools on the day to day.
Ubuntu’s popularity often makes it the default choice for new Linux users. But there are tons of other Linux operating systems that deserve your attention. As such, I’ve highlighted some Ubuntu alternatives so you can choose based on your needs and requirements—because conformity is boring.
I mean anything but the atomic distros will dual boot just fine. GRUB is GRUB. I have the most experience with Debian-based distros, but they all dual-boot just fine.
Yeah I can explicitly not recommend modern HP or Toshiba laptops for reliability reasons. I’ve had serious hardware and structural issues with both. Also, in general 2-in-1s will break at the hinge in less time than other laptops. Lenovo 2-in-1s specifically have known issues with the hinge which can shatter the screen. If you want durability, go for a more traditional form factor with no touchscreen.
You’re going to get a million answers, mostly people saying to use which distro they’re currently using. In my experience, KDE works just fine on any distro that allows you to install it out of the box, so I would choose based on other attributes of the distro, such as:
Package manager: which are you used to?
Update cycle: KDE 6 is out soon, so you want something which updates often enough to get it fairly quickly (at least semiannual).
Stability: unless you want to have to manually maintain your system and learn how it works, avoid arch and arch-based distros. I have run it, its fine, but it’s not “normie”, and unless you really know what you’re doing, daily driving it can be stressful. Manjaro has the same issues, but takes away some ability of the user to fix them.
For instance, I personally like Debian and apt, but I would not recommend base Debian right now, since KDE 6 is about to come out and Debian will take a loooong time to get it. I have not personally used Kubuntu, but if it gets rid of any the bloat canonical has been adding to Ubuntu lately, it sounds pretty good to me.
I want to like Scribus, but every time I hear about it getting updated, I download it, open it, only to find these tiny toolbar icons that have no apparent way of being made bigger. This is always what prevents me from trying it out! Seems like kind of a basic design no-brainer. Grrr. Does anyone else have this problem? I’m on...
This is my exact situation! It’s not just uncomfortably small, either – it’s flat out unusable. I think its a hiDPI issue, but from the forum posts it sounds like its been an issue for 5-6 years. I even tried changing the QT startup settings, but no luck.
I’m looking for a small 7” or 8” computer monitor to keep on my desk to display Discord and other things without taking up real estate on my main monitor. Ideally something cheap and therefore not a touchscreen. There’s tons of options online but I’d like to get some recommendations from people who have a similar...
Ive used those, they all seem to be pretty similar in hardware and work fine. Might be out of the range of scaling things to a “normal” size with built in OS scaling settings, but still usable. I was expecting the color to be terrible, but in my experience it’s fine.
What are some good Overleaf (Latex) alternatives?
I'm currently writing a report in using Overleaf. As I'm getting the premium version for free through my Uni, I've had no problems so far. Now I'm working in a place with unstable internet and using Overleaf has become very annoying....
Read You, A modern rss reader for Android. ( www.f-droid.org )
Found some really beautiful penguin photos ( davidcschultz.com )
Safety in typing, no cloud needed ( f-droid.org )
NASA ( mander.xyz )
Open source e reader ( lemmy.ml )
I recently got a Sony prs 600 e reader from 2009. The battery is at the end of its life (It lasts about 3 days with heavy reading, and a couple weeks without reading). No backlight, no Wi-Fi, just an SD card that I can load epub files and small PDFs. The screen is slow and the contrast isn’t the best. The “touch screen” is...
Kobo's new color E Ink eReaders start at only $150 ( www.pocket-lint.com )
Team-Kodi PPA officially retired, switches to Flatpak ( kodi.tv )
Video editor with the ability to filter out only a single person's voice?
I’ve recently done some talks for my schools cybersecurity club, and now I want to edit them....
3 days 🤯 ( jlai.lu )
What non-FOSS software have you been unable to quit?
For me, Google video search, Google books (Internet Archive is good, but doesn’t always have the same stuff), Adobe InDesign (but in the process of learning LaTeX), and Typewise. As for the Google stuff, I liked Whoogle a lot, but almost all their instances seem to have been blocked or shut down. Also, apologies if this is...
Is there anything unsavory about ProtonMail?
For some reason I have it in the back of my mind that they were at one point accused of being a honeypot for US intelligence because of their association with MIT. Probably complete BS, but maybe not. Are they as open source as they claim to be? Looks like they’re on github. F-Droid seems to think they have some Google...
What lesser known free and open source software do you use daily to improve your life?
For me it is the note taking/PKMS tool SilverBullet.
Windows Notepad’s midlife renaissance continues with spellcheck and autocorrect ( arstechnica.com )
Now Windows' only built-in text editor, there's more room for Notepad to grow.
Android app to trace photos that supports SVG export
I know this might be a bit too specific, but I’ll ask anyway....
This Guy Has Built an Open Source Search Engine as an Alternative to Google in His Spare Time ( www.404media.co )
“I found it very weird that there essentially is no way to browse the web in an open manner. So that’s what I am trying to build,” the founder of Stract said.
New to Linux? Ubuntu Isn’t Your Only Option ( www.howtogeek.com )
Ubuntu’s popularity often makes it the default choice for new Linux users. But there are tons of other Linux operating systems that deserve your attention. As such, I’ve highlighted some Ubuntu alternatives so you can choose based on your needs and requirements—because conformity is boring.
New laptop time. Thinkpad recommendations?
My lappy has bitten the dust, and I’m in the market for a laptop. I’m thinking about going Thinkpad....
open source pdf editor for linux based os?
currently using libreoffice draw.
what's a normie KDE distro?
Looking for a normie KDE distro that works out of the box and is stable without issues.
Scribus Gets Huge Update (but the toolbar buttons are still too small to see!) ( www.omgubuntu.co.uk )
I want to like Scribus, but every time I hear about it getting updated, I download it, open it, only to find these tiny toolbar icons that have no apparent way of being made bigger. This is always what prevents me from trying it out! Seems like kind of a basic design no-brainer. Grrr. Does anyone else have this problem? I’m on...
Mini Monitor Recommendations
I’m looking for a small 7” or 8” computer monitor to keep on my desk to display Discord and other things without taking up real estate on my main monitor. Ideally something cheap and therefore not a touchscreen. There’s tons of options online but I’d like to get some recommendations from people who have a similar...
Can we get more hands on Florisboard? We need a modern open source keyboard with all crucial features. ( github.com )
I could not recommend AnySoftKeyboard to my mum. I could recommend Florisboard, tho....