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Could running a VM help me organise my computer better? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I use my computer for so many things and I have about 200 applications on my computer. I don't know why, but it bothers me that everything happens on this one machine as well as seeing so many app icons (even grouped into folders). It's not an option, but I'd prefer to have dedicated computers for broad categories of tasks (Audio DAW, video editing, bash scripting, web dev, gaming, system stuff like disk space visualisation, web apps for social media and video sites, games, communications, office, music and film.

So I was thinking of installing something like openSUSE in a VM on my iMac. But I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Putting CPU intensive applications onto the VM is pointless since they'll struggle more. But putting convenient apps on the VM seems like a mistake too because it means that quick utilities like calendar, voice memos, alarms, contacts etc become inconvenient.

Anyway. I miss the days when all these functions weren't service by the same hardware and screen. Does anyone who can relate have any ideas?

One thing I've done is have my music served by Navidrome on a headless server.

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

How many of those 200 applications did you deliberately install? That seems excessive even for all of those use cases.

And can you elaborate on these use cases, like I’m not sure why you would want a specific VM for bash scripting.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago

macOS comes with quite a few applications that can't be uninstalled. They're quality applications, but many are totally irrelevant to me like Stocks, Chess, Stickies, Home Assistant, AI stuff, Graphs and others).

Let mé elaborate on use cases (and thanks for asking, by the way): Terminal / bash

wget: I often download stuff this way using wget followed by the URL of something I've copied. It's just quicker on keyboard than using the UI in the web browser.
ffmpeg: I often convert audio / video formats quickly this way, strip audio tracks from video etc.
scp: I copy media to and from a server at times and maintain a simple website
bash: I have some scripts for updating websites and pushing changes to yet another server, however these are run from another machine I ssh into
nano: I use this a a quick notepad for throwaway stuff

Video Editing:

iMovie for the overall job
Handbrake: for cases when ffmpeg commands would be too complicated or I need to do something visual like crop a videos dimensions
Lossless Cut: Can make cuts from video clips without transcoding (which takes longer and causes quality loss)
Claquette: Fast screen recordings. macOS does have a built in tool for his too but it doesn't capture system audio like Claquette does.
Photo Booth: Apple app for making videos of myself or another presenter with webcam.
Game Capture HD: Records from an Elgato device so I can record video output of other computers.
Pixelmator Pro: Graphics editing for thumbnails, captions, stationary, merchandise etc. I use GIMP too but currently have it zipped up to see if I can get by with just one application. My fingers remember the GIMP keyboard shortcuts though!
Color Sync utility, Digital Color Meter, Image Capture: I never use these but in my (unpaid, voluntary) work I will need them some day.

Audio editing / Music production:

Logic Pro: Main music production application
Audacity, MusicBrainz Picard - utilities that do somethings that LP can't do / do as well.
Podcast Soundboard: Used for live events, although I don't plan on doing any more of those.
EQ Mac: System audio equaliser

Tech:

Sublime Text: Helps me get my head around long source-code documents
Forklift: I mainly use this as an FTP client because Finder drops the connection way to often.
Publii: Like a simplified Wordpress for quick website development and deployment
Whisky: Runs windows apps on macOS (frontend for WINE)
Lagrange: Browser for geminispace. Just for fun.
VPN & Antivirus

Literature / Study:

Calibre: for epubs
Highlights: For PDFS. It summarises parts of PDF I've highlighted and allows me to view them as a document of its own. Good study tool.
Apple Books: Also allows to export highlights in an ebook as a document of its own.
Dictionary
KLib: View all highlights made in ebooks on your kindle device.
Anytype & Notion

The rest of the apps fall into: entertainment, social media (web apps only), office / communications, system utilities (like disk space visualiser and caffeine which prevents screensaver), LLM clients like DeepSeek and ChatGPT.

Finally I have meditation apps.