this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2026
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I need to quench my thirst for knowledge and learn something new just for the sake of it.

I've already learned:

  • Equations and pivot tables in Excel

  • Vector graphics in Inkscape

  • Music mixing in rekordbox

  • Personal VPN on a raspberry pi 4 with OpenVPN

  • LAMP stack web hosting

  • Streaming & video capture with OBS

  • Manual & automatic backups with FreeFileSync

Things I'm open to:

  • FOSS (even beta) or free-as-in-beer software

  • A high or low learning curve

  • Tools for niche fields that I'd otherwise have no reason to learn

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[–] vantablack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 58 minutes ago
[–] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Blender and buy a 3D printer afterwards

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 hours ago

You can do really neat thinga in QGIS -- like make your own professional quality maps, make map animated gifs, etc

[–] Funkt4st1c@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)
[–] wibble@reddthat.com 1 points 1 hour ago

Vi/vim counterpoint. Learning to quit vim will get them very far in life

[–] Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Now that is the gift that keeps on giving! I also like the implication that one can "learn" emacs.

[–] brown567@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 hour ago
[–] Digit@lemmy.today 4 points 5 hours ago

some suggestions for your consideration in order of empowerment and learning curve first,

  • AWK
  • ffmpeg (~ & imagemagick ?)
  • bash, zsh, or fish
  • kew (it's just a really simple nice tui music player, no fuss). (... "Am I the only fun one in Digit's list here?" -- kew)

n_n

Some other things that sprang to mind, (generally tending to more gui things, some distro/packagemenent things)... audacity/tenacity, fontforge, gimp, gentoo and portage, bedrocklinux and brl, peertube self hosting, forgefed self hosting, suckless.org's tools, CRUX or KISS/Carbs, just playing around in stellarium, playing around in pioneer space sim, learning how to evade humanity's detection as an ai in the game called singularity, ;3

Oh... Here's an idea for you... Learn a text editor.

Think it's not fun?

Depends on which text editor you pick, and how much the fun suits you. ... Emacs has so many things (including games, like tetris and doctor). Even neovim has some extra things (~ opencode runs on neovim... tho it's not the same, lol). Or maybe you want something simpler, like nano, mcedit, or fin (I wrote fin, don't use it, it's scruffy... and only able to do that from learning some of the things mentioned, and more).

Yay for learning. Yay for asking for what other fun things to learn. Good post. Good question. ... Sorry my answers were not better. Heh. Caught off guard, answered just what first sprang to mind. n_n Doubtless many other more fun things exist.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

idk the software but multitrack audio editing sounds fun.

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] onipa@feddit.org 2 points 5 hours ago

or vim with vimtutor

[–] ascendings@fedia.io 9 points 11 hours ago

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.

[–] notfromhere@lemmy.ml 4 points 9 hours ago
[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 10 points 13 hours ago (4 children)
[–] Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Mango jelly on YouTube

[–] Pupschism@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I came here to recommend frecad too!

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 hours ago

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.

[–] wezzzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 10 hours ago

Yes def freecad its really fun to fuck aound in

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 6 points 12 hours ago

Learn the basics of a couple of FOSS audio-software staples.

LMMS - tracker

Audacity - Audio recorder

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago

CRRCSim (RC plane simulator)

Learn how to slope-soar a glider.

Best with the photo mountain scenery added in.

In many distro repositories too.

https://github.com/gcmcnutt/CRRCsim

[–] coolie4@lemmy.world 52 points 21 hours ago (2 children)
[–] MissJinx@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

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

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 41 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

It is tradition (and fun) to start your Blender journey with the Donut Tutorial.

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[–] lIlIllIlIIIllIlIlII@lemmy.zip 4 points 14 hours ago

Meshtastic (Software and hardware).

[–] interweb_pirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

Docker and Docker Compose. Once you know that, you'll be able to self host almost any FOSS.

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[–] cannedtuna@lemmy.world 31 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

Learn Krita. David Revoy, artist of Pepper and Carrot, has a ton of great tutorials on using it.

[–] Digit@lemmy.today 1 points 5 hours ago

Reminds, there's mypaint too.

Yeah. Krita, mypaint, I neglect, living 99% of the time in gimp.

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[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

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.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 7 points 17 hours ago

Kubernetes (ala k3s) you can make any collection of computers a cluster and play with automation of apps and services

KiCAD play with circuit board design with FOSS.

FPGA programing! Tons of use case for when you need near line speed but can't afford the time and money it takes to build a full ASIC.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 4 points 15 hours ago

libreoffice if your using excel.

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 25 points 22 hours ago (4 children)

OpenSCAD. 3D modeling as code.

I've gotten a lot out of it, and their tutorial is excellent.

[–] gatohaus@eviltoast.org 3 points 3 hours ago

Is it perfect? Nope. Is it useful? Yep. Is it fun to play with? Most definitely!

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

How does this compare to FreeCAD or CAD in general?

[–] testfactor@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's very unique in the CAD space. It's almost more akin to a hardware definition language like VHDL than it is a traditional CAD solution.

You don't ever do any direct manipulation of your model through visual tools. There is a visualizer so that you can see your model, but all changes are done via plaintext editing of the model's definition file.

This has a lot of advantages, not the least of which is being able to version control your 3D models.

It has some disadvantages as well, in that some transforms that are easy in a traditional CAD software are a little more manual in OpenSCAD. I've definitely had to dust off my highschool trigonometry once or twice to get something the way I wanted it.

Specifically with regards to FreeCAD. I found FreeCAD to be a little inaccessible. It's unintuitive at best, and I found it unpleasant to work with, as it was exceptionally fiddly. OpenSCAD feels far more intuitive to me, but I also have a software engineering background. I think OpenSCAD may be trickier for someone without that, but it's hard to say.

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

Thank you for the thoughtful explanation!

[–] Digit@lemmy.today 1 points 4 hours ago

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]

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[–] newtraditionalists@kbin.melroy.org 20 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] wezzzy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Or a rogelike/light! Really hard as starter project

[–] VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 13 minutes ago

I made a roguelike for a game jam a few months ago, it taught me a lot!

I'd been making mostly text-based/UI-based stuff before, so it was my first "real-time" and "3D" game.

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

PosteRazor, is super easy to learn.

It can make wall posters, by printing the A4 segment sheets, and then gluing them together.

https://posterazor.sourceforge.io/

[–] brrt@sh.itjust.works 7 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Obsidian (Free but not OSS) and PKM. Might help you improve how you build your knowledge, or might just trap you in an endless hunt for the perfect system.

NixOS if you’re looking for an endboss kinda thing.

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