The Workflow Thread

So over the last few months I have wanted to do a thread that is in general about workflows of different users or what different machines and OS´s are capable of. I thought it would be a good reference guide for those new to OS´s like Ubuntu or something like OSX. Maybe even AmigaOS! But the interesting thing is that a lot of OS´s have almost the same sort of workflows. So in general I think this will be interesting for a lot of people, even if they´ve never really thought about this sorta thing before.

Now for me, workflow is everything. I´ve gotten mine down mostly, but I have also been tackling it for nearly 10 years. For the most part, I use the terminal a lot. Its faster, easier, and I can just tell my mac6yhine to update, or run thunar as admin, or run server stuff, really whatever. I have gotten to the point that I have about 3 terminals open over the course of the day and they each are pretty vigorously used.

As for the non-terminal use, I hate UI. A lot. I want it there to frame apps and that´s it. I don´t want to use my mouse to move shit until I have to. More often than not I have keyboard combo´s for everything and I will just have shit snapped to the side of my display. Every other time I have set sizes saved to each app as well as positions. I don´t want to deal with having to resize terminal´s every boot or DE restart. I just want it there.

So to accomplish all of this I use XFCE with many hand written config´s in the .config folder. This folder has been around for around 6 years now too, so I should probably do a new one, but in general I can replace the stock folder in any XFCE based OS and be up and rolling in about 10 minutes. It´s very handy. The only thing left I want to do is rip out XFWM and replace it with AMIWM or AwesomeWM. Then one way or another I have everything set out specifically and can even run terminal commands without needing a terminal.

Now I don´t think this would work for most people. I am very much a multi-monitor user and workspaces user. I hate clutter, and even certain apps go on certain monitors (IE browser, terminals, IDE´s on main screen, discord, steam, etc apps on other screen). So with all that together, thats my workflow. Some people don´t really think about how complex their workflow´s can get, while others obsess over it [like me heehee]. So lets go over some basic´s so maybe you can better your day.

Hardware

Hardware is probably the first thing to think about. Are you going to be on a laptop or desktop? Maybe a tablet? Touchscreen? What about resolution, or does that even matter to you?

Personally for me I like uniform hardware. I like mac pro´s as desktops and thinkpads, most of the time, as laptops. I like mac pro´s because of the integrated wifi, the ram tray´s, the strict setup of the case is nice. I can pop it open and change what I need to when I need to, otherwise its there and it runs. The silver is nice too ;3

Laptop wise I have a harder time saying what exactly is correct for any situation. I prefer for there to me something for a GPU, not just a turd for a gpu like the intel GEN GPU´s. I´d rather never have to touch those. If I had the option atm to save for an HP Envy X360 15z I would have one asap. But so far I´ve had enough power in a recent laptop that has the features I want that I haven´t had any real complaints. That being, a Thinkpad X230T.

Short review of the X230T, I got this thing for 180 bucks at a local shop. Battery is OK, touchscreen is good enough for krita, I´m happy enough with it. Gave it 12G of ram, a 1TB SSHD, and it can´t play all the games I want, but I can do art whenever I want to. The 15Z would be the better version of this, or a similar 13inch HP Elitebook that is coming soon. Either way, ryzen mobile with a pen touchscreen blows this thing out of the water, but its a good stepping stone.

Past all that, you do have to consider touchscreens as they can be useful for scrolling quickly through a document. Where I have used my X230T for docs has really shown that I need touchscreens in my laptop life. I always thought they were dumb, but aside from art stuff, I have used it for websites a lot more than the built in nub, and I love my nub.

Quote me on that and make a shirt please.

I think all the other BS you can figure out yourself what is best for you. What keyboard´s you like, what screen res you are comfy with, what mouse you like. Personally I like 1366X768 on my laptops because I have sight problems. I also like to have it at full res to use the whole screen, not just one fourth of the screen space that I could have. So 1080p screens are about my limit. I also prefer 16:10, but again thats a personal thing. I also like trackpoint mice on laptops, and trackball mice on desktops, though my Elecom DEFT M-DT2DR makes it easy for me to take a trackball with me everywhere I go.

OS´s

Certain OS´s allow you to do as you please while others force you to do it their way. MS Windows is an example of the latter. Its very slow and cumbersome to me compared to any linux I have set up for myself. Versus something I have built myself, windows is kinda crap, on top of not having the apps I like to use. I also don´t like mouse based DE´s like windows´ Redmond or Gnome 3. I need the speed I get from XFCE, and certain DE´s cannot offer that.

DE´s

IMO theres about 4 types of Desktop Environments. Single Use, Multi Use, Tabbed, and Stacked.

Examples of Each:

Single Use: Gnome 3, Redmond, Amiga Workbench, DOS
Multi Use: XFCE, Mate, KDE, Aqua [OSX]
Tabbed: Openbox / Blackbox, PEKWM, Ratpoison
Stacked: AwesomeWM, AMIWM, Amiga Workbench

So what do all these even mean? A single use DE is something that prefers you use one app at a time. You only get to really use one app effectively, but you can use as many as you want realistically. Technically Gnome and Redmond can be Multi Use, but they inherently prefer a Single Use workflow. Meaning using one app at a time for the duration of that app´s use.

Multi Use refers to the ease of modification to a DE. Like my resizing and positioning stuff I have set up in XFCE, or other settings that make a DE do all sorts of things. Even just setting up different WM´s for your DE to use.

Tabbed DE´s are often just WM´s that can act like DE´s. Often users will have a lot of workspaces to split stuff up, or many instances of the thing running, allowing the user to tab between tasks.

Stacked DE´s are DE´s that inherently want to use a bunch of stuff on one screen. AwesomeWM and AMIWM are good examples of this, with Amiga Workbench actually having the ability to be Stacked or Single Use. Stacked DE´s are often super cluttered though.

The kind of DE that you choose actually sets you up for a lot of configurations as well that might be useful to you, or rather not let you configure anything at all and have all of that setup done for you. Its worth looking into how all of these things go together.

OS Differences that should be paid mind to

Different OS´s act differently. While Void Linux and Ubuntu are both a Linux OS, they both are absurdly different all the way down to the init. Void is terminal dependent for updates and a lot of its features are based in terminal. Whereas, Ubuntu is mostly UI based. Theres an update app, an app store, all sortsa shit for the normal desktop user moving from windows or OSX. Void you install stuff by hand, even wget and all that, where ubuntu you have a lot of stuff out of the box. Differences like this can be found in many OS´s and its why I believe many people OS hop all the time. Certain things are stuffed in that the user doesn´t like, or not enough is included. Or they just don´t like the flow of the OS itself, which I can understand.

Still, its healthy to OS hop. Look for a base you like and try other OS´s.

Conclusion

Theres too much to think about when it comes to your workflow. Mine is pretty fucky for the normal person, but its what I am comfy with. I think for some its a bit too fast moving, and maybe for others I am too slow still. Being comfy with the terminal helps me a lot, and a lot of tools I am used to aren´t available in other OS´s like windows, so outside of linux, and even OSX, I have no idea what I am doing and get lost easily.

I think everyone should look at what they are used to in their OS and look at what they think could be improved. Personally I would like to make my own DE to have everything just right, but that will take time I think.

So, what it your workflow and what could change?

3 Likes

Good question, I like this thread!

Just a quick summary of my system, but I’ll add more as I think of it.

Hardware

I’ve got three machines. Primary Linux workstation is a Ryzen 1700 with a 1070, 1.5TB of SSD and 32GB ram. Windows system, mostly just used for games is a 6700k with a Fury and 500GB ssd. I’ve also got a laptop I use on the go. HP Elitebook 840 G3, 5200u, 16GB ram, 500GB ssd.

These machines are all connected to my dual-headed L1T KVM, pushing video to Dell U2415 monitors. I’m running a Cooler Master MasterKeys S and the TekSyndicate mouse from back in the day.

I do a lot of content creation on Linux, hence the GPU and large capacity SSD. I’m running DaVinci Resolve on KDE Plasma. As far as footage management goes, I have a Dell R510 powering 32TB of disk and 500GB of SSD read/write caching. I use that for both archival and footage dumping. I dump the raw footage directly from my cameras to the NAS using a USB 3.0 card I installed on the back of it and a couple SD card adapters.

Operating Systems

I like my OS to stay out of my way and let me get shit done. I’m using Fedora on my Linux workstation, Debian on my laptop and Windows 10 on my Windows system. Why’d I choose Windows 10? Because it’s easiest to work with and I only turn it on once or twice a week. Fedora is the obvious choice for my workstation because I like KDE, so I’m using the KDE spin, and I work a day job as a sysadmin for a lot of CentOS and RHEL systems, so I’m a huge fan of yum/dnf. I’ve chosen debian on my laptop because I’m using some packages from the Kali repos on it, and I needed a compatible package manager, simple as that.

Conclusion

I’m pretty happy with my workflow, but I’m trying to find my groove with Linux tools for photo management and editing right now. I’ve settled on darktable as a RAW editor, but I’m not sure what to use for managing the quickly growing (4000 raw photos month to date) collection. Any advice on that front would be excellent.

2 Likes

My workflow doesn’t change much between systems.

opening an app:
launchpad/start menu/K menu (across macOS/Windows/KDE)…
type name of app
enter

one macOS thing i do use for bulk conversions (media transcode for example), etc. is folder actions. set up a folder action to do the conversion, drag media into folder, it kicks off in the background…