Note taking apps

TheProf

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2021
Messages
318
Reaction score
328
Credits
2,941
So what do folks use for note taking on Linux?

I've used OneNote in Windows, I really liked it, worked well, however at some point I ended up switching to Notion. I find Notion works better for me and how I take notes. I like the fact that there's a web version, so I pretty much just use my browser to access Notion and jot down notes. I use it quite a bit for certification studying, but in general, I use it for pretty much any notes these days.

Other note taking apps I tried include Evernote, Ulysses, and Bear. Although not sure if Ulysses or Bear work in Linux.
 


I use for vim taking notes and I sync to my self hosted nextcloud, other times I just send myself an e-mail when it's something temporary.
 
Last edited:
Primarily, I use Google Docs. It's accessible everywhere including my phone.
 
I also use Google Docs. Same reason as dcbrown73
 
I'm using P3X OneNote (appimage), accessible on smartphone and tablet.
 
Joplin , since I on arm64 I am using the flatpak. It syncs with my phone. Works great.
 
I use a horrible mix of poorly labeled text files, a calendaring application, and an online (self-hosted) todo list that's stretched beyond what the designers ever intended.
 
As I spend most of my time in the terminal - I use my own bash-based note-manager application for keeping general notes, which I imaginatively called "note":

I created it 8 years ago and have used it almost every single day since. A few years ago, I uploaded it to a git repository at notabug.org and publicly released it, in case anybody else found it remotely useful. So far, it probably just serves as a bad example of yet another note-taking application in bash, ha ha!

But it does everything I need. It collects all of my notes in a single directory. I can list all notes alphabetically, or by file-size. I can search for notes containing a search term/key-word. I can delete notes. I can view notes in a terminal based pager like more, or less, or a browser like w3m, or lynx. I even have it set up to read my notes to me using espeak in a Brummie (Birmingham, UK) accent.

But most importantly I can quickly load/edit/create my notes in the terminal, regardless of where I am in the file-system using:
note filename
If the specified file already exists in my notes directory - it gets opened in my default text editor (vim), if it doesn't exist - the editor opens a new file with the specified name and it gets saved to my notes directory.

So I use my note application (note) for taking detailed, general notes.
e.g. If I find out some new programming trick, or I need to make some notes for a course I'm doing. Or just to record some random thoughts.
And to export my notes, I just have a --backup command that creates a .tar.gz, which I can copy to another machine. It's not a sophisticated setup. I don't generally transfer notes to other machines - I use note to keep notes on individual machines. So my work PC has one set of notes and my personal laptop has another set of notes!

To allow my note application to be useful to others - I have also created a configuration program called notesettings - which allows users to set up a couple of simple options.
e.g. path to default text editor, path to default pager, whether or not to keep any backup files created by the text editor.

There are probably a raft of improvements that could be made to "note" - but I just haven't had the time, or the inclination. It does everything I need it to!

Stup is another bash-based note-taking solution, created by fellow linux.org user @iridakos (https://linux.org/members/iridakos.45661/):

Ever since my development team at work switched to agile development, I've been using "stup" for taking daily notes, in the terminal, to prepare me for the morning scrum/standup-meeting.

So I use my "note" application for general notes, but I use "stup" to keep detailed daily records of work that I've done, via a series of brief notes that are added throughout the day.
e.g. Tasks done, time spent on tasks, tasks that are still TODO. Any problems, or blocker bugs. Or other time-sinks like phone-calls, or meetings, or training, or technical conversations with colleagues, interactions with customers/management etc.

Basically - every time something gets done, or something significant happens, I'll add a brief note using stup.

That way, when I have a scrum/standup-meeting with the rest of the team the following morning - I can run stup without any parameters, to see all of the notes from the previous work day. That way I can brief the rest of the team on my previous days progress, without forgetting anything.

So if you're a developer using the agile/scrum methodology and you spend a lot of time in the terminal, then stup is extremely useful IMO!
 
Last edited:
I use a horrible mix of poorly labeled text files, a calendaring application, and an online (self-hosted) todo list that's stretched beyond what the designers ever intended.

There has to be a better way to do this :)
 
What kind of notes were you actually talking about, because there are notes that you temporarily write and then throw out and there is notes for when learning something new or something like that?
 
What kind of notes were you actually talking about, because there are notes that you temporarily write and then throw out and there is notes for when learning something new or something like that?

I am referring to the notes you take to keep as a reference when you're learning / deploying / configuring stuff.
 
I am referring to the notes you take to keep as a reference when you're learning / deploying / configuring stuff.
Then I need to rephrase or edit to what I said earlier.
I use for vim taking notes and I sync to my self hosted nextcloud, other times I just send myself an e-mail when it's something temporary.
For any type of note taking I use vim and I currently do sync it to my nextcloud but I never read those notes on my phone only when I'm behind a computer. When I have short term notes I have for example when I go grocery shopping then I just e-mail it to myself. When it comes to writing documentation notes for work, I do that in mediawiki.
 
Joplin , since I on arm64 I am using the flatpak. It syncs with my phone. Works great.
Do you have encryption turned on? And do you self host or use JoplinCloud?

I'm going to post about my encryption Whack a Joplin fun later on after I've tested a couple other things. But as far as hosting I don't use Dropbox or Google Drive, so I tried at first setting up with OneDrive. Long story short I could never get Jopline to sync correctly between two device, much less the three I'd like to. So I'm trying the $3/mt JoplinCloud thing now. Without encryption, as I mentioned.
 
Simplenotes. and Codex for code.
 

Staff online


Top