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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What are your must-have programs? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Trying to discover new/unheard Linux desktop programs (Sorry for the confusion).

Edit: I apologise for confusing a lot of people. I meant Linux desktop “programs” coming from Windows/Mac. I'm used to calling them “apps”.

Edit: 🙌 I’m overwhelmed with the great “programs” people have recommended in the comment section. Thank you guys.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)

LibreWolf as my browser (it's a more secure and private version of Firefox, comes with a pre-installed adblocker and removes all the unnecessary junk) (Flatpak) with some of the following extensions:
- LibRedirect for redirecting privacy-invasive websites to private frontends
- ff2mpv
- Read Aloud (text-to-speech)
- Buster for solving CAPTCHAs
- Dark Reader
- Violentmonkey for userscripts like Lemmy Universal Link Switcher (it's really useful)
- DownThemAll
- Search by Image
- Server-Status (GitHub) shows information about a web server like country/region (via local GeoIP database lookup), SSL certificate information and more. Good open source alternative to Flagfox.
Thunderbird for emails (Flatpak)
Proton Mail Bridge (Flatpak)
Merkuro Calendar
Ptyxis (Flatpak) as my terminal. It's optimized for containers (e.g. distrobox). foot is a pretty good alternative if you want something more minimalistic and don't care about containers. There are countless other good options like Kitty, Alacritty, Konsole, WezTerm and many others.
Emacs as my IDE
KWrite, Kate or NotepadQQ for quickly editing text documents. There's also Apostrophe for GNOME.
QOwnNotes for local/Nextcloud-synced notes (Iotas for GNOME) There are other good options like Trilium Notes or Joplin.
Speech Note speech-to-text note-taking (https://piped.video/watch?v=zlLVgTB42Bo)
Akregator as my RSS client (Newsflash for GNOME)
Strawberry as my music player (Amberol or Rhythmbox if you're on GNOME)
Spot for Spotify (Flatpak)
Cider for Apple Music (unfortunately not FOSS anymore)
Feishin for connecting to my self-hosted Navidrome music server
rescrobbled for saving my music listening history to Last.fm. Also works with self-hosted ListenBrainz.
Jellyfin Desktop for connecting to my self-hosted Jellyfin media server
mpv as my video player (Celluloid on GNOME)
FreeTube for watching YouTube videos
This modded YouTube Music client that has an adblocker and many other cool features: https://th-ch.github.io/youtube-music/
Kasts for listening to podcasts (also has the ability to sync with gpodder.net or self-hosted GPodder on Nextcloud)
LibreOffice (Flatpak) There's also OnlyOffice.
Skanpage for scanning documents
GNUcash for accounting
Notesnook or Standard Notes for end-to-end encrypted note-taking
Anki Flashcards (Flatpak)
Logseq (FOSS Obsidian alternative)
Flameshot for screenshots (GitHub, Flatpak)
Kdenlive for video editing
GIMP, Krita and Inkscape for graphics stuff
Blender for animation stuff
Natron for VFX
LMMS and Ardour for music production
Virtual Machine Manager for creating/managing KVM/QEMU VMs (Boxes for GNOME)
Nextcloud Desktop for connecting to my home server
Signal Desktop (Flatpak) There's also Flare for GNOME, which uses GTK instead of Electron and feels more native (Flatpak)
Element (or NeoChat if you use KDE, Fractal for GNOME) for Matrix
WebCord for Discord. There are some native GTK clients like Abaddon and Dissent.
Paper Planes (Native GTK Telegram client)
Konversation or HexChat for IRC (Polari on GNOME)
Tokodon as my Mastodon client
qBittorrent for downloading torrent content. (You can use KTorrent on KDE and Fragments on GNOME)
Pika Backup for taking backups (There's a pretty good video about it: https://piped.video/watch?v=W30wzKVwCHo)
Timeshift for btrfs snapshots
Gradience to customize GTK4 appearance
Bitwarden for syncing my password database with my self-hosted Vaultwarden server (also works with their public cloud syncing option). Use KeePassXC if you prefer something entirely local.
LocalSend for sharing files on the local network (basically works like AirDrop) (also works over NetBird or Tailscale btw)
NetBird for creating a flat VPN network between my devices
KDE Connect for better integration with my phone. Also works over NetBird btw. Check out GSConnect if you're on GNOME.
KRunner for quickly finding files or applications (Ulauncher for other desktops, rofi for window managers)
Safing Portmaster (Firewall and DNS blocking solution. Check out OpenSnitch if you just need a firewall)
LACT for controlling AMD GPUs
Flatseal for managing Flatpak permissions (On KDE this is integrated in the system settings)
Bottles for managing Wine prefixes (Flatpak)

If you like gaming:

Lutris for managing my games
Heroic for Epic Games and GOG
Prism Launcher for Minecraft
Dolphin for emulating Wii and GameCube
Ryujinx for emulating the Switch
RPCS3 for PS3 emulation
Vita3K for PSVita emulation
PPSSPP for PSP
Cemu for Wii U emulation

For the CLI:

fish shell
starship
tmux
fd as an alternative to find
bat instead of less (written in Rust, has some nice syntax highlighting)
ripgrep
fzf
zoxide
yt-dlp
streamlink
ncmpcpp
ncspot
newsboat

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Brilliant list! Starred this to go through it in detail later.

EDIT: A good deal of overlap with me on the type of applications I already use, so looking forward to discovering other hidden gems I haven't yet found.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Amazing list, thanks for sharing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I also like lutris. But it being "for games" doesn't do it justice I think. It is basically just a wine environment manager. It advertises as being for games but it should work with just about any windows executable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

This is fantastic! Thank you for taking the time to write all that down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Abaddon is light weight gtk discord app. Also has voice support.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Added it to the list.