Working From Home
Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, I am currently working from home. Luckily I have a basement office, so I’m not having to resort to working at the dining room table. Since I haven’t blogged in a while, and I like making lists, I thought I’d take this opportunity to jot down some of the software I’m using to make remote work as easy as possible.
Plasma: The best desktop environment
I’ve been a fan of the Plasma desktop environment for some time now. However only now that I’m working remotely do I understand just how awesome the Activities feature is. Plasma Activities allow you to have different desktops, with different wallpapers, widgets, and programs running, for different tasks. Right now I have a “Work” activity that I keep all of my work-related programs open on, and a “Default” activity for my everyday computing needs.
NetworkManager and OpenConnect
Connecting to my office VPN was a cinch thanks to NetworkManager and the OpenConnect plugin. All I did was create a new VPN connection, put in my Active Directory credentials, and everything just worked.
Remote Desktop with Remmina
Before leaving the office, I made sure that my Windows 10 desktop had Remote Desktop enabled. At home, I can access everything on my work PC by firing up Remmina. Remmina is an open source remote desktop application that works wonderfully.
And for everything else…
… there’s emacs.