I need to quench my thirst for knowledge and learn something new just for the sake of it.
I’ve already learned:
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Equations and pivot tables in Excel
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Vector graphics in Inkscape
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Music mixing in rekordbox
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Personal VPN on a raspberry pi 4 with OpenVPN
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LAMP stack web hosting
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Streaming & video capture with OBS
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Manual & automatic backups with FreeFileSync
Things I’m open to:
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FOSS (even beta) or free-as-in-beer software
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A high or low learning curve
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Tools for niche fields that I’d otherwise have no reason to learn
How did you learn inkscape?
Over the years I’ve gotten proficient enough in GIMP that I can usually accomplish what I set out to do.
Inkscape is a foreign language that I have no frame of reference for.
SQL - understanding how to interact with databases will be an incredibly useful skill for whatever rabbit hole you next want to fall down.
It is tradition (and fun) to start your Blender journey with the Donut Tutorial.
ssh and scp (secure connection and file transfer)
grep (the standard command-line search tool)
sed (Stream EDitor, good for find-replaces once you learn how to use it)
awk (can operate on text files or command output that’s organized in columns)
sc (terminal-based spreadsheet)
trash (safer replacement for rm that moves things to your desktop’s trash directory instead of deleting immediately)
- MuseScore 4 is a (the!) free music notation software. It is genuinely fantastic. It’s also a lot of fun, if you know some notation basics and want to play around.
- Darktable is a Raw photo editor in the vein of Lightroom. Except where lightroom is sleek, polished, user friendly and Adobe (🤮), Darktable is FOSS, and clearly so both in the design and functionality: it could easily make a UX designer cry, but if you’re willing to give it a try, there does not exist a more potent raw editor on this earth. Lightroom is a toy in comparison. (Now whether you need that is another question… But I’ve been using it for more than 10 years, and am still finding new, incredibly useful sub-menus, drop-down contexts on hidden sliders,…)
- rmpc is a really cool TUI music player
MuseScore 4
Go for it! People make hilarious sheet music with that, like Swan Lake But It’s Hunting Season (headphones users: it gets loud!).
Learn Krita. David Revoy, artist of Pepper and Carrot, has a ton of great tutorials on using it.
“Krita is a professional FREE and open source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.”
Came here to say the same thing.
Krita is a fantastic image editor.
The ability to script it with Python is a huge plus. I’ve created posters by having it read files from a directory and place images precisely spaced, etc.
Krita is a fantastic name for a KDE drawing app if you speak Swedish. Krita means crayon, and traditionally KDE apps were prefixed with a “k”, also Rita means to draw.
