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
Adding to that, since I work at a computer I was never motovated to stay at tbe same place to learn blender so I changed to Nomad Sculpt at the tablet and I love it, I can do it from my couch (or toilet lol). It is a different aproach tho
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.”
If that’s too basic/open ended, learn to animate in Krita.
Thanks for sharing this! I’ve had Krita on my tablet for a while now and have been meaning to learn it.
Reminds, there’s mypaint too.
Yeah. Krita, mypaint, I neglect, living 99% of the time in gimp.
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.
I know you said software, but I would like to suggest a musical instrument. They still require learning a new language and typically provide a huge level of self satisfaction. A cheap keyboard or guitar can provide literally thousands of hours of study.
You can combine the two with something like Overtone (programmable synth) or similar
OpenSCAD. 3D modeling as code.
I’ve gotten a lot out of it, and their tutorial is excellent.
Oh yes… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk3A41U0iO4 (keep watching. Is relevant.) [… and oddly relevant to my earlier suggestion list that also included emacs]
Latex is worth knowing, its most commonly used for academic papers, but it opens up a whole world of scripting automated documents. But, to make it really interesting, throw in
tikzand/orpgfplotsfor some interesting power tools. Tikz does A LOT, and is really powerful. But can definitely be overwhelming.And all this time, I thought Latex was just for condoms!
FreeCAD
Mango jelly on YouTube
Second this. Not because I have experience in it, but because I’m learning it this week so I could have a friend 3D print a part for my car, as I’m deleting some original equipment and now need something that doesn’t exist as a spare part.
I came here to recommend frecad too!
My suggestion already submitted was Blender, but any of these ideas require a purpose. I don’t think you truly learn an application or language (even human languages!) if you don’t have something you’re trying to do with it. Even music (it’s a language), you can learn how to play something, how to put together notes and sounds, but you really start figuring out how to do things when you have a need to accomplish.
I would say 90% of my coding and application knowledge comes from decades of having a need or inspiration to do something, and having to find the right tool and learn how to use it to make my idea become something (even if it doesn’t get finished). When that purpose or desire disappears (for whatever reason) I stop wanting or caring about learning more about the tool I was using to do it with.
Your initial request seems to point to a different style of learning, wanting to do it for the journey itself. That’s cool, I just wonder if you had a reason for doing it, would it make the effort more fun and worthwhile.
Thats why i struggle so much learning any type of programming. What’s the point. Any software I’d want is super complex, and there’s a billion simple tiny ones that have already been made.
I think there’s probably still room creatively, especially as a hobby.
I sort of see it as the opposite with software though, that popular options are bloated data-wise (and cost) and simple usage-wise, other options are small-ish data-wise but less user-friendly. It seems like the middleground (low data+easy-to-use) is less likely to exist, particularly for techniques that aren’t as shiny/new. In some cases, it really does seem like certain workflows don’t exist. (or perhaps for some things that we’ve seen before, implementations were always in-house rather than something that existed in a usable editor)
Which isn’t to say stuff like that will be easy, maybe doable with limitation and if libraries can take you half-way there.
I definitely look to see if the wheel is already invented, but I guess I started early enough when there wasn’t a lot out there and had to make it work on my own. I totally enjoy having to hack together things and google answers (god, that’s gotten a lot harder than it used it be), so that’s also part of why I jump to DIY unless I find something that’s perfect and already made.
A recent one where I stopped myself was automating backups. I was going to try to throw together something, but then ran across restic and Backrest and wow, it’s so much better than what I could have done.
Docker and Docker Compose. Once you know that, you’ll be able to self host almost any FOSS.
Take it one step farther and learn podman and quadlets. It’s like learning docker/compose, but it’s also rootless if you do it from userspace.
Docker can also be run rootless, though not by default.
True, but I personally don’t see the point in adding a bunch of new packages to a system to make it work the way another system does when the migration process is minimal.
Using podman compose, I’ve migrated multiple docker compose to rootless with basically no required refactoring until I made it a quadlet so it would always just run.
I’ve never understood why Docker doesn’t work like that by default.
Docker was initially only rootful. So I’m assuming for compatibility’s sake they kept the default that way?
Yeah I also switched all my docker containers to podman as well. I wasn’t making any point for using either above the other
I wasn’t making any point for using either above the other
I know, but I AM making a point to use podman over docker because it’s rootless by default and requires less work/admin overhead to implement and maintain.
It’s all well and good that docker can run rootless with a good amount of tweaking and configuration, but the juice isn’t worth the squeeze IMO. I pulled the pin on that once I realized podman was the much better option.
I’d say GIMP for photo editing would be a good one to learn. It’s come in handy in a pinch both at home and at work when I’ve needed something done up real quick.
Factorio
This is just pure evil
Bash. If you use Linux.
OpenFOAM. If you ever want to figure out the aerodynamic qualities of a cow. This may take more than a weekend.
Godot. Start with an idle game, move onto more. Just don’t make a horror game, way too many of those and a lot of them are bad.
Blender and buy a 3D printer afterwards
Real cad software (like Freecad or OpenSCAD if you want FOSS) would be more useful for 3d printing, unless you only plan to print useless plastic figurines
Get your finances in order with Firefly III and Waterfly III (Android app, available in F-Droid)
I like numbers and was really tempted to go all in into this rabbit hole but this ends up being a lot of work and stress if you try to maintain it manually. It’d be ideal to be able to automate imports from your banking apps but those don’t really exist, or depend on some possibly sketchy 3rd party services that I dont trust with my finances
