Setup on ph03n1x's blog

My Offline Music Setup

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:26:03 +0530

Introduction

I have a penchant for hoarding FLAC files, even though I don’t have good enough hardware and the critical listening skills to appreciate the difference. I just feel good, knowing that I’m listening to the music in its original quality.

My music setup follows a simple pipeline:

Download music in FLAC format
Organize and store it locally
Sync it across devices
Listen using a feature-rich player on each device.

Here’s how each part works.

Downloading Music

I use SpotiFLAC for downloading FLAC files. It uses either Qobuz, Tidal or Amazon Music as the source for the FLAC files, and doesn’t require a subscription.

It has a beautiful user interface.
It supports downloading music using either a Spotify link or searching for songs/albums by name.
It also has support for fetching lyrics & high quality album art and embedding them inside the FLAC files, or downloading them as separate .lrc/.jpg files.

It is under active development, and new features are being added regularly.

Listening to Music - Laptop

I recently switched over to namida as the music player of my choice. Though it is not truly FOSS, it has many amazing features, that compensate for it. In fact, it has so many features that I didn’t even know I needed some of them, before I used it. The following is a list of some features that I found others lacked:

It supports YouTube search, video playback, and offline downloads, with SponsorBlock integration built in, which saves time. The controls for video playback are also extensive and very similar to the native YouTube UI.
It supports the WebDAV protocol, which allows streaming music from a remote file server. This is useful if you expose your music library over WebDAV using a self-hosted setup.
It also has strong music recommendation algorithms that suggest tracks based on what you’re currently listening to, your listening history, or even specific time periods and moods.
It’s UI and behaviour are insanely customizable.

A full list of features can be found on their GitHub page.

Before namida, I used Harmonoid which had very beautiful animations, though it lacked many of the features of namida like online service support, song recommendations ..etc.

Syncing Music to phone

Syncthing is an awesome and very easy to use software that allows syncing a folder across devices. It is also open-source. I store all my downloaded music from SpotiFLAC in a single folder. I run syncthing as a systemd service on my laptop, and use the app on my phone to sync the folder to my phone. This took maybe 5 minutes to setup, and works very reliably. I also use it to sync photos and documents to my phone, and it works just as well.

Listening to Music - Phone

I use namida on my phone as well, since it’s the only app that has all the features I want.

I’ve tried a lot of other apps as well, and here’s a table that summarizes their features:

App Name	FOSS	Modern UI	Online Search	Playlists/m3u	Navigatable Lyrics	Built-in EQ	WebDAV support	Song recommendations
namida	⚠️¹	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Symfonium	Paid	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
RiPlay	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
OuterTune	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌	✅
Gramophone	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Poweramp	Paid	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Harmonoid	⚠️¹	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅	❌

¹ Note on namida and Harmonoid: While parts of the source code are public, there are some components whose source code is private, and hence they are not truly open-source. Most of their features are free to use though.

Namida is the clear winner for me here, and it is also under active development, with new features being added regularly. Although, you may prefer others depending on your requirements, for example:

If you have a very strict Material 3/Material You design language requirement, you might want to check out Symfonium, Gramophone, or Harmonoid.
If you want something that is stricly open-source, you could consider RiPlay or OuterTune, which are both excellent players, though they lack some features that I wanted, like built-in EQ.

Conclusion

This setup has worked surprisingly well for me. It gives me full control over my music, works offline, and doesn’t depend on any subscription. It does take a bit more effort compared to streaming services, but I prefer owning my collection and being able to manage it exactly how I want. If you’re building something similar, or have better tools to suggest, I’d be interested to hear about it.

My Development Setup - Part 1

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 19:01:00 +0530

This is the first post out of a series, where I document my development setup, including both the hardware and the software that I use on a daily basis. In this part, I’ll be talking about the hardware that I use.

TL;DR

Laptop: ASUS Creator Laptop Q530VJ (i7-13620H, RTX 3050)
Phone: Motorola G54 5g
Keyboard: Rainy75 Pro (Cocoa switches)
Mouse: Cosmic Byte Firestorm
Earphones: Nothing Ear (2)
Chair: Vergo Ease office chair

Laptop

I own an ASUS Creator Laptop Q530VJ, whose specifications are as follows:

CPU - Intel i7-13620H (10 cores, up to 4.9 GHz)
RAM - 16GB DDR5
Display - 1920x1080 OLED screen
GPU - NVIDIA RTX 3050 6GB

I chose this laptop after a lot of research and consideration, and I can confidently say that it was the right choice for me, for the following reasons:

The OLED screen is a delight to work on or consume content, and I don’t think I can ever go back to a non-OLED screen.
The performance is more than sufficient for my daily use, and I’ve never noticed anything to be slow or laggy. Although, in case of very heavy compilation tasks, I usually use a remote server provided by my university.
The GPU is good enough for me to play the games I like such as Hollow Knight, Minecraft and Elden Ring.
The RAM is sufficient to handle a couple of open editor windows, lots of browser tabs, a few terminal instances and a music player running in the background (which is quite a common occurence), without any noticeable slowdown.
It has a finger-print sensor, so I don’t have to enter my full password for sudo commands, which is a nice quality of life improvement.

There might be a few things that could have been better, which I’ll mention here for the sake of completeness, but they aren’t deal breakers for me.

The display has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, which is a bit disappointing. I really would have liked it to be at least 120Hz.
The battery lasts around 5 hours of usage in power-saver mode, but since I mostly use my laptop while plugged in, this isn’t a huge issue for me either.

I also own a 15 year old Dell Inspiron N5110, which I use as a server to self-host some awesome services.

Mobile Phone

I use a Motorola G54 5g, which also hasn’t disappointed me.

It has a clean, stock Android-like and bloat-free software (though Motorola has been pushing some games and apps with updates, that I immediately delete).
It has a good enough battery that lasts me around a day of usage.
It has an IPS LCD screen though I wish it was OLED and the peak brightness was slightly higher. This is the only area where I’m slightly disappointed with my phone.
It has good enough performance for my use case, since I don’t play a lot of games on my phone.
The camera could have been better, but since I don’t use my phone’s camera much, it’s not a deal breaker for me.

Motorola’s partnership with GrapheneOS gives me further confidence in Motorola, and I’m looking forward to upgrade my phone to anything that comes out of this partnership (hopefully with a OLED screen and a better camera).

In the meantime, I am also waiting for LineageOS to support my phone (keyword - cancunf), so that I can try out a custom ROM on it.

Keyboard

I currently own a Rainy75 Pro with linear Cocoa switches, and so far, I’m really liking it’s creamy and thocky sound. It has a compact 75% layout, which is a good balance between functionality and desk space, and the build quality is really good, with an aluminum case and it has a nice weight to it.

Though, my eventual goal is to build an entirely custom ortholinear ergonomic keyboard, with my preferred switches (I would need to try out a couple of switch tester packs to find out my preferred switch).

Mouse

I use a wired Cosmic Byte Firestorm mouse right now, and I find it to be good enough. It feels quite comfortable, has support for variable DPI, and two buttons on the left, which make navigating back and forth through web pages very convenient. Though, in the future I wish to upgrade to the Logitech MX Master 3s or the Keychron M6, for their wireless capability and awesome scrollwheels.

Chair

I believe that having an ergonomic setup is important for long-term health, so, I use a laptop stand to lift my laptop to the ideal height, and a Vergo Ease office chair which is properly height adjusted, and has decent back support. You can refer to this video to find out more about setting up an ergonomic desk.

Earphones

I own a pair of Nothing Ear (2) true wireless earbuds, and I really like them. They have good sound quality, and also support the LHDC codec for hi-res audio, which thankfully my phone also supports, despite not costing that much. They come with a nice app for adjusting the sound profile and the touch controls. The ANC is also decent, but not as good as some of the premium options like the Apple Airpods Pro. The battery life is good enough, lasting around 3.5 to 4 hours with ANC, which could be better, but since I mostly use them while working at my desk, I can easily charge them when needed. I also own a pair of Oppo Enco Buds 2, which I can use as a backup pair of earbuds when the Nothing Ear (2) are charging.

Since I listen to music for a few hours every day, I plan to purchase a pair of IEMs (In-Ear Monitors) in the future, perhaps the Kiwi Ears Cadenza, along with a good DAC, to really get the most out of my music collection, and experience the superior sound quality that they offer compared to true wireless earbuds.

Future Additions

I would love to add a secondary monitor to my setup, which has at least 2K resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate, with either OLED or microLED display technology.

If you have any recommendations for me to check out, or any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.