Linkarzu Podcast | Neovim, macOS, Emacs, Linux, Terminals and more.

Echasnovski is the creator of mini.nvim, as per the website:
"Library of 40+ independent Lua modules improving overall Neovim (version 0.9 and higher) experience with minimal effort."
He's also the creator of MiniMax:
"MiniMax is a collection of fully working self-contained Neovim configs. All of the them: Use mostly MINI to showcase its capabilities. Provide out of the box a stable, polished, and feature rich Neovim experience. Share minimal structure with potential to build upon. Contain extensively commented config files meant to be read."
The interview is over 3 hours long, so it is split in 2. Part 2 is going to be released soon
Video:
https://youtu.be/ypJTkwarAVE
What's the best way to support me?
https://linkarzu.com/about/#youre-a-fraud-why-do-you-ask-for-money-isnt-youtube-ads-enough
Timeline:
00:00:00 - Highlights
00:01:36 - How do we pronounce your name
00:04:23 - What do you do in the neovim community?
00:07:53 - Neovim 0.5 and the wild wild west of lua plugins
00:10:23 - We've been planning this interview for over 6 months
00:12:20 - Echasnovski's ban on reddit
00:14:59 - Colorscheme theory (that I didn't understand, not normie friendly)
00:22:10 - Color theory is very complex as everyone is different
00:23:30 - Gruvbox is for old people, highly saturated colors
00:27:15 - Echasnovski created the default Neovim colorscheme
00:27:38 - Justin Keyes also likes boring colors. Old soul trapped in a young body
00:29:17 - Is Justin a dictator?
00:32:18 - Why the reddit ban?
00:38:49 - long reddit posts go through mod's approval
00:40:17 - How does the shadown ban work?
00:42:02 - Shoutout to Lukas Reineke
00:43:37 - Account restored by a misterious reddit employee
00:45:19 - Self hosting git server, codeberg, tangled.org
00:48:02 - Why planning on self hosting?
00:49:17 - Explaining the repo structure of mini.nvim
00:50:44 - You also have a picker? mini.pick
00:52:15 - Sylvan Franklin seems to use mini.pick
00:52:53 - Custom pickers?
00:54:03 - Issues with the matching of some pickers
00:56:18 - mini.pick has a frecency option? mini-visits (sounds like a prison conjugal visit)
00:59:30 - Thoughts on telescope?
01:01:00 - Why did you move from vim to neovim?
01:03:48 - Embarrassing experience with vim at work
01:05:32 - vscode neovim plugin
01:07:21 - Do you remember your first times using vim, was it tough?
01:10:38 - Thoughts on distros? What do you recommend to a beginner?
01:16:58 - What happened to lunarvim?
01:18:23 - Lazyvim distro or kickstart
01:19:38 - MiniMax demo
01:21:24 - Is MiniMax designed for complete beginners?
01:25:59 - mini.clue and why not which-key?
01:26:37 - Folke is always on vacation
01:29:11 - Did you copy Helix?
01:31:01 - The which-key hate continues
01:35:29 - Interview with Folke?
01:36:02 - The 30_mini.lua config file
01:39:21 - What if I want to use my own picker with MiniMax?
01:42:14 - Single config file for all plugins or a file per plugin?
01:44:21 - Echasnovski allegedly created the new neovim plugin manager vim.pack
01:48:10 - Should I wait for Neovim 0.12 before trying MiniMax?
01:52:22 - vim.pack doesn't have a healthcheck because it's perfect
01:52:54 - vim.pack demo
01:54:16 - Do you use any other plugins besides mini.nvim?

This is the 2nd time (or third time, would be forth but he no showed no called me once, MF) that Vimothée Chalamet AKA @sylvanfranklin shows up in my channel. In the last interview we discussed about Neovim, drugs (including Adderall), and many other topics. But it seems that as of Q4 2025 he's going for the kefir, kombucha, yoga pants, breathing techniques, pachamama and on his way to become a zen monk. Or maybe not. Let's see what he's up to because he changes his mind every couple of months.
Video:
https://youtube.com/live/vLfaiRHT6bo
What's the best way to support me?
https://linkarzu.com/about/#youre-a-fraud-why-do-you-ask-for-money-isnt-youtube-ads-enough

YouTux is a fairly new YouTube channel, only 1.5 years and it has double my subscribers, we'll touch on a lot of interesting and probably controversial topics. If you want to support open source projects, for every $5 donate as superchats, YouTux will donate the same amount to an open source project. All the superchats will also be donated to an open source project.
All of the podcast episodes are available in all podcasting platforms, like spotify, apple music, deezer, etc. If you don't find it in one, let me know and I'll add it
Video:
https://youtube.com/live/TOUby-uuZ4I
What's the best way to support me?
https://linkarzu.com/about/#youre-a-fraud-why-do-you-ask-for-money-isnt-youtube-ads-enough

Timeline:
00:00 - Introduction and Audio Check
02:00 - Guest Introduction and Channel Growth
04:00 - Discussing Linux Distributions and Hardware
06:00 - Transition to Void Linux and Debian Politics
09:00 - Polarization in the Open Source Community
12:00 - Debian's Political Changes and Systemd
16:00 - Value of Disagreement and Text Editors
18:00 - Critique of Systemd and Unix Philosophy
20:00 - IBM's Role and Linux Fragmentation
24:00 - Wayland vs X11 and Ubuntu's Evolution
28:00 - Critique of Zorin OS and Distro Recommendations
32:40 - Thoughts on arch
35:51 - Donations dynamic
37:42 - Zorin OS scam
43:55 - What terminal do you use
45:00 - Thoughts on Omarchy
46:27 - woke non woke
48:20 - Debian king, Slackware the queen
49:48 - Linkarzu switching to Void Linux?
51:15 - 21K subs, burnout?
54:44 - background, studies
55:38 - sponsorships and intellectual freedom
59:00 - tired of watching youtube and the algorithm?
01:01:45 - favorite youtubers RiccardoPalombo and antirez
01:04:28 - Bathroom break and pulp fiction mask
01:06:33 - Thoughts on NixOS
01:07:30 - I have no mercy
01:08:12 - The queen @AndreaBorman and why the mask?
01:09:45 - Thoughts on macOS
01:12:40 - Apple M series hardware
01:13:55 - Snapdragon and ARM on Linux?
01:14:45 - Thoughts on Window's
01:16:35 - THE "FREE" WORD MISCONCEPTION
01:20:00 - immick, Jellyfin, SearXNG, Mail server
01:23:28 - how to fix the poor FREE mentality
01:26:05 - Is your channel an AI?
01:28:57 - AI thumbnail fail
01:30:40 - Nobody uses AI, but everyone builds now, suspicious?
01:33:35 - Thoughts on substance abuse
01:36:00 - 2 favorites movies
01:39:00 - books
01:40:40 - talking about the queen again
01:42:45 - split the channel?
01:44:50 - Video analytics and money
01:50:00 - Superchats, you will match the donations

Stability wisdom and a peaceful life, or bleeding edge? Some say Debian is a legacy distro with legacy packages, some say Arch gives them nightmares. I'm still trying to get a response for the question I've been asking in all these interviews, which distro should I try first 😂 So who is right then, who should we trust?

Video:
https://youtu.be/pkLG2SwR7J8

Participants:
https://youtube.com/⁨@AndreaBorman⁩
https://youtube.com/⁨@DistroTube⁩
https://youtube.com/@tony-btw
https://youtube.com/@LinuxRenaissance

What's the best way to support me?
https://linkarzu.com/about/#youre-a-fraud-why-do-you-ask-for-money-isnt-youtube-ads-enough

Timeline:
00:00:00 - Highlights
00:01:55 - 4 linux queens vs 1 mac gigachad
00:03:23 - Andrea Borman
00:06:51 - DistroTube
00:10:44 - Darth
00:14:21 - Tony
00:17:53 - Darth's hat and red hat
00:20:30 - FreeBSD
00:21:27 - Andrea Borman Demo
00:24:45 - SuperChat by Darth
00:26:36 - DistroTube Demo
00:30:37 - Wheres DT from and weather
00:32:30 - DT switching to CachyOS and audio issues
00:36:42 - Copyright strikes
00:41:25 - DT strikes tony on the "Propietary Garbage" phrase
00:41:53 - Andrea issues with ads, brave, firefox, chromium
00:43:45 - Darth demo
00:49:15 - Wallpapers do most of the heavy lifting when ricing
00:49:57 - Transparent terminal?
00:50:45 - Tony's demo (OXWM)
00:53:49 - Only If you do YouTube you need more than 1 monitor
00:56:01 - Andrea, why Debian and not Arch
00:59:23 - DT's thoughts on Debian
01:01:49 - Darths thoughts on Arch as a Debian user
01:06:18 - Gaming and streaming at the same time on Debian
01:08:08 - Malware in the AUR
01:09:26 - DT: Do you trust the AUR with your soul?
01:10:23 - Andrea dissing on the AUR
01:11:54 - Dependencies and the chaotic AUR
01:13:48 - Tony's thoughts on Debian
01:14:20 - Debian is gentoo with a GUI installer
01:16:13 - Dependency hell in Debian
01:17:05 - Thoughts on Omarchy
01:25:02 - Tonarchy
01:27:32 - X11 vs Wayland

Kovid Goyal is the creator of the Kitty terminal and the Calibre e-book reader. We had an interview around 4 months ago. After that interview, I became a fan of the myth, the legend. So much so that I switched back from Ghostty to Kitty as my main terminal. Well, not just because, but because he implemented a feature I was missing in Ghostty: Sessions. So I was able to replace my beloved tmux with kitty and I've been running without tmux for a few months now, it's been good.
Video:
https://youtu.be/SY8L-cj4x6k
What's the best way to support me?
https://linkarzu.com/about/#youre-a-fraud-why-do-you-ask-for-money-isnt-youtube-ads-enough

Timeline:
00:00:00 - Highlights
00:02:31 - 2nd time
00:03:24 - choose-files kitten image and video preview demo
00:07:30 - Does it replace the open file dialogue on macOS or just Linux?
00:09:13 - Why do you create all these protocols and tools?
00:10:34 - The itch of improving your workflow. Do you over optimize?
00:12:06 - What file manager do you use, yazi or something else?
00:13:12 - How is Calibre pronounced?
00:14:20 - The name Kitty
00:15:36 - How and why did you get started with computers?
00:16:07 - Mother PhD got ZX Spectrum
00:16:58 - Book source code of various games
00:19:15 - Sony and the PRS-500 reverse engineering
00:22:05 - Wife thoughts on you leaving Caltech to work on Open Source
00:23:37 - Are you happy going the Open Source route?
00:24:48 - The misconception of the rude maintainer
00:25:57 - 0 bugs philosophy
00:27:15 - More issues, Calibre or Kitty?
00:27:46 - Competition with other terminals, Ghostty, WezTerm
00:28:44 - Kitty got started because terminal sucked back then
00:30:40 - Why not use the computer like a normie?
00:31:59 - Your wife and friends understand your passion for the terminal?
00:33:16 - Kovid's browser Vise
00:38:07 - Are kitty and calibre dead when you're gone?
00:40:58 - Thoughts on 2,000 lines added generated PRs
00:41:42 - Be succinct with your PRs, fight AI with AI
00:44:00 - Finger emoji for PRs not being merged
00:44:35 - Who started GPU accelerated terminals, alacritty or kitty?
00:46:47 - How are kitty sessions going?
00:48:41 - Kovid uses sessions in the window manager
00:51:01 - Scrollback and cursor trail demo
00:52:11 - trails come from neovide
00:52:41 - Alacritty with tmux?
00:54:12 - How would you manage remote persistent sessions without tmux?
00:56:29 - Future kitty tool for remote session persistence
00:57:33 - Kitty remote control via unix sockets
00:59:54 - Why did you go with Neovim and not Emacs?
01:01:05 - Thoughts on Emacs?
01:01:37 - Thoughts on split keyboards
01:04:11 - The OG chair and approvals
01:05:19 - Swimming and stair climbing
01:07:13 - Do you take notes?
01:08:38 - Why linux?
01:10:23 - From redhat to gentoo to arch
01:11:24 - Thoughts on Debian
01:12:23 - Why do you think people have issues with Arch?
01:13:57 - Thoughts on NixOS
01:14:58 - If you maintain 200 computers, nix makes sense?
01:16:36 - Thoughts on macOS
01:17:37 - Using macOS over SSH as a headless server
01:19:49 - Marker 59
01:20:43 - Thoughts on Windows. Mandatory file locking
01:22:55 - Homelab. Keyboard layout qwerty?
01:24:35 - Favorite movies
01:25:09 - Frost nixon
01:25:44 - Doctor Zhivago
01:26:09 - Music?
01:26:58 - multitasking?
01:28:31 - Best way to support you?