For CAD, I really like Onshape. It’s free for personal use and runs in a web browser but is not open-source. I’ve used Creo and SolidWorks before and, IMO, Onshape blows them out of the water for being intuitive and feature complete. But again, web-based and closed source.

I haven’t used Speech Note, but I have been using Whisper with great success. I run it via Docker.

I agree with this, the issue may be the packages installed rather than the distro. For a more reliable experience, I like to:

• Use Flatpak instead of the AUR where possible
• Use built-in filesystems and avoid DKMS

I don’t like Notepad++ as a text editor for code, but my god is it amazing for taking quick notes. I’ve been searching for a Linux equivalent but haven’t found it yet. My favorite Notepad++ features:

• Opens immediately.
• Never loses data, and I mean never - unsaved files are restored after crashes, reboots, power outage, you name it.

For jotting down quick meeting notes in a hurry, it’s great. The settings are messy and hard to configure though, so I use Vim/Helix for writing code (hobbyist, not professional).

I wrote my own program, filetailor. It’s similar to Chezmoi but uses inline comments instead of templates for machine-specific lines. This allows me to make edits directly to my local files and then sync those changes to other machines.

I also use Ansible.

I just moved from Neovim to Helix. I think it’s worth considering, especially if you don’t know the keybindings yet. Plus, Helix is probably easier to learn.

Interesting idea. If you really break it down, the “terminal with command buttons” is similar in concept to saving each of the commands as a script and putting those scripts in a directory to act as “buttons.”

I’ve also seen some programs such as Kopia, a backup tool, that provide a GUI with the equivalent terminal commands for what is bring done shown at the bottom.

I don’t think what you’re describing exists, probably because experts don’t need it and beginners would prefer a full GUI.

There is Nushell, which promises more helpful error responses for the terminal, but its too early for it to be targeted at beginners in my opinion.