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?

Andrea Borman has been doing YouTube videos for over 15 years, I was quite intrigued to get to know Andrea more on a deeper level, I want to learn about her background, history, why she decides to use Linux, what her favorite text editor is, terminals, thoughts on macOS, Windows, etc.

Video:

https://youtu.be/iLpIzfZ_2zI

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

00:02:38 - History with computers and Windows

00:05:34 - The first linux distro, linux mint 9 GNOME edition

00:09:40 - Let the lady cook

00:11:25 - What do your friends say when they find out you use linux?

00:11:54 - Early videos on Windows

00:12:34 - Fedora 43 is the worst

00:13:01 - Thoughts on Arch and the malware in the AUR

00:14:24 - Why did you start a channel?

00:16:21 - What's your favorite distro?

00:17:29 - The good old paint, do you miss anything from windows?

00:19:09 - Let's look at Andrea's multiple laptops

00:24:29 - Andrea's mobile phone and the beef with ebay

00:27:04 - Do you have anything against smartphones?

00:33:33 - Your background, why did you start with computers? Age

00:35:32 - Linkarzu started with windows 95. When XP came out it was awesome

00:39:53 - The worst distro you have used? PC linux and fedora 43

00:41:51 - Why the switch to Debian?

00:44:48 - The freedom you get with open source

00:46:36 - Let me tell you a secret, I use macOS

00:48:16 - Showing macOS to Andrea

00:51:19 - Do you use the terminal a lot?

00:56:01 - Do new Linux users need to be terminal experts?

00:57:41 - What's your favorite text editor?

00:58:51 - Thoughts on Neovim or Emacs

01:00:40 - Reading superchat by GenX

01:02:12 - vim-gtk and gvim

01:03:26 - Have you heard of what Drew uses, Geany?

01:07:54 - Thoughts on Nix

01:11:25 - How do you edit your videos? Shotcut Openshot

01:13:20 - The disappoinment on me using macOS

01:13:51 - My debian version is old

01:16:13 - Is Debian a legacy distro with legacy packages?

01:19:31 - What terminal do you use ptyxis

01:20:43 - What keyboard do you use?

01:21:25 - Favorite movies or music?

01:21:59 - YouTube @NixiePixelGB

01:24:01 - YouTube @DontCallMeLenny

01:24:25 - YouTube @quidsup

01:25:11 - YouTube @ZacOfAllTech

01:26:13 - YouTube @VeronicaExplains

01:26:36 - YouTube @BreadOnPenguins

01:27:01 - YouTube @DistroTube

01:27:25 - YouTube @JustAGuyLinux

01:27:52 - YouTube @thelinuxtube

01:28:44 - YouTube @LearnLinuxTV

01:29:39 - YouTube @tony-btw

01:30:12 - Wayland or X11

01:30:45 - YouTube @TheLinuxCast

01:32:56 - TempleOS?

01:33:40 - YouTube @LinusTechTips

01:33:52 - Thoughts on popos

01:35:41 - What do you do for a living?

01:36:23 - The beef with Ads

01:37:56 - Did you activate youtube monetization?

01:39:32 - What do you do for a living? Try 2

01:40:03 - At what time do you go to bed?

01:41:23 - You want to end the call already? Nope, still wanna diss

01:42:57 - Thoughts on Gentoo and the furries

01:44:36 - Furries

01:46:22 - YouTube @Britec09

01:47:08 - Windows or Linux

01:49:35 - Any final words?

01:51:10 - Final words on Fedora?

01:52:07 - Why linkarzu on macOS and not linux?

01:54:57 - Windows XP was the best

01:55:53 - Do you want ads or no ads?

01:56:37 - What is my job?

Let's get to know Justin M. Keyes more on a personal level, let's learn about his computer workflow, preferred OS, keyboard, favorite terminals, Neovim history, upcoming Neovim features, thoughts on security, his favorite movies and way more.

Link to the video:

https://youtu.be/OWk1Y9MrawQ

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

00:04:24 - Justin in New York but loves Florida

00:06:01 - Why do you do all this?

00:08:15 - Justin works at Amazon

00:09:51 - Hate in reddit at the beginning

00:12:07 - Neovim multiplied Vim's energy

00:13:30 - Does Neovim move faster than Vim?

00:15:03 - Are you Neovim's benevolent dictator?

00:16:04 - Did Neoviim gain a lot of popularity because of Prime?

00:17:46 - Justin will become a streamer

00:19:39 - Thoughts on Security

00:23:08 - Install Neovim on remote VMs?

00:25:19 - Minimal plugins

00:25:53 - Integrating webassembly

00:28:02 - Thoughts on distros, lazyvim

00:29:51 - Making Neovim beginner friendly

00:32:14 - oh my zsh bloat?

00:34:02 - What happened to kickstart?

00:34:58 - Neovim's plugin manager

00:36:17 - Core minimal and modularize?

00:38:17 - Is extending neovim bloat?

00:41:01 - Neovim embedded terminal was called bloat

00:43:41 - Super chat, embedded terminal slow neovim

00:45:23 - libghostty integration

00:47:35 - Thoughts on moving away from defaults?

00:50:21 - How do you get to normal mode

00:51:49 - Relationship with the subreddit community

00:53:04 - Neovim history, you started it?

00:55:43 - Afraid of alligators?

00:56:35 - Open source burdain

00:57:28 - What happens when you go to emacs?

00:59:54 - Theena moving to emacs, thoughts

01:02:51 - Thoughts on emacs

01:04:09 - Relationship with emacs community

01:05:31 - Thoughts on sublime or helix

01:07:39 - promiscuous

01:08:13 - You used helix?

01:10:22 - OS of choice

01:11:13 - Distro for servers

01:12:47 - Thoughts on daily driving linux?

01:15:57 - Distros are an accident

01:16:41 - Pushback for using macos?

01:17:55 - Neovim needs windows maintainers

01:19:07 - Thoughts on 2,000 lines AI generated PRs

01:20:34 - Superchat

01:20:58 - Justin demo

01:21:14 - :restart :connect :detach

01:35:23 - demo progress integration with ghostty

01:38:55 - ghostty built-in inspector

01:41:14 - Neovim window management

01:42:08 - You use OS window manager?

01:43:10 - Terminal of choice

01:44:18 - Scrollback with colors in Neovim with kitty

01:47:18 - Neovide

01:48:48 - Thoughts on Kovid Goyal, kitty maintainer

01:53:54 - Open source misconception

01:56:45 - Kitty graphics and keyboard protocol

01:58:47 - When does neovim 0.12 come out?

02:01:00 - Thoughts on drugs and substance consumption

02:06:26 - Sylvan franklin no show no call

02:08:21 - Thoughts on a supreme being

02:12:36 - Favorite movies

02:15:13 - What's the best way tu support neovim monetarily?

02:17:27 - Corporate sponsorships on Neovim?

02:20:17 - Would you like to work full time in neovim?

I've been thinking about Linux lately, a lot. But I'm still not sure which distro to go with, everyone keeps saying arch, but my brain, wisdom and soul say Debian. So when I find someone else that went down this path, I want to learn and hear more about it. We'll also touch on many other topics

Link to the video:

https://youtu.be/0CEYNvEdsag

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

00:02:14 - Why the red hat, is it redhat related?

00:05:10 - youtube channel

00:08:00 - Thoughts on the Red Hat distro

00:12:17 - What is Matrix, is it IRC, Element app, discord

00:16:56 - So Matrix is more about ownership and censorship?

00:19:40 - Thanks for the superchat @tony-btw

00:20:20 - Should we use forums?

00:21:55 - Darth's matrix server

00:25:27 - What are matrix encrypted channels?

00:27:37 - amiga, Commodore 64

00:28:56 - How terminals worked in the past with serial cables

00:30:58 - Debian 1.3

00:33:59 - Darth is 44, terminal showdown

00:36:23 - Unix finger command

00:37:35 - Education background and current profession

00:39:20 - Rocky Linux, RHEL, Red Hat killing CentOS

00:45:32 - Using macOS the way Apple has envisioned it

00:48:43 - Hyprland more like "Hype" rland?

00:51:14 - macOS yabai window manager demo

00:53:43 - Thoughts on Hyprland

00:55:10 - What is X11, xorg, wayland?

00:58:12 - From Debian to Arch, then back to Debian

00:58:44 - KDE plasma, wayland mode

01:00:38 - using X11 as a networking protocol, similar to tmux

01:03:19 - waypipe

01:04:55 - Thoughts on tmux

01:06:49 - Why the switch from Arch back to Debian?

01:12:41 - What's the AUR? People can upload malware to it?

01:15:56 - So if not using the AUR, why to use arch?

01:17:05 - Dependency hell, kdenlive

01:20:01 - Ended up with a lot of flatpaks

01:22:00 - The straw that broke the camel’s back

01:25:31 - Nix users, how can we solve this?

01:27:00 - Am I just lucky with macOS?

01:30:56 - Darth is from Croatia, thoughts on macOS

01:33:56 - Windows is so thoughtful, taking screenshots so you remember

01:40:15 - Been thinking about switching to linux

01:44:24 - Which distro should I use?

01:49:52 - Pacman breaking stuff

01:54:08 - Thoughts on the beef with systemd

01:56:49 - The unix philosophy, do 1 thing, but do it well

02:01:53 - Thoughts on Omarchy

02:06:35 - Zorin OS

02:11:27 - Why do people use something other than Debian on servers?

02:16:11 - Do you upgrade debian or fresh install?

02:17:56 - How often do you upgrade, rule on automatic updates

02:20:09 - Workflow demo

02:28:33 - Thoughts on Kitty, Wezterm, Ghostty

02:30:45 - What is suckless

02:33:49 - No novices asking stupid questions

02:34:23 - KDE plasma bloated?

02:38:16 - What is picom?

02:39:07 - OpenBSD, FreeBSD, what is it and why?

02:44:50 - Who uses BSD?

02:45:40 - BSD when Linus Torvalds is no longer around?

02:49:00 - Is the linux community sub-divided?

02:51:38 - Neovim or Emacs?

02:57:48 - Is debian the king of distros?

03:00:11 - Do you play games?