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.
- 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:
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.
This is fantastic! Thank you for taking the time to write all that down.
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.
- 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:
I don’t know about you specifically, but I’m surprised how many people haven’t heard of Krita, a FOSS image editing app with an optional AI Image Generation plugin.
EDIT: realized this was for desktop, so removed the original list of mostly android apps. Here’s my go to desktop apps:
Lollypop - music player
Invoiceninja - open source invoicing service
Meld - file/folder comparison
Librewolf - hardened Firefox
Joplin - notes
QEMU/Virt-Manager - virtualization for that one windows app you still need
KeepassXC - password management
Element-desktop - Matrix client
Gparted - no fuss partition management
Lutris - game launcher that works with epic games (among many others)
PDFarranger - best PDF management I’ve found on Linux Soundconverter - easy to use file converter
Restic - backups
Fdupes - duplicate file finder
Freetube - privacy respecting YouTube client
Paperless-ngx - very well built electronic document storage. Must be run as a server.On linux?
Whoops, didn’t notice the /c this was posted to 🤦♂️
Hahaha if Aegis was available on Linux I’d switch to it instantly.
I second that. It’s been brutal trying to find a good FOSS 2FA app for desktop.
If you’re in the GNOME ecosystem, you could give Authenticator a shot. It’s worked quite well for me so far.
I’m on KDE 🥲 That Gnome app has been almost enough to get me to switch though. There’s a few Gnome apps that KDE doesn’t have a comparable parallel to.
You could try https://2fas.com/ open source mobile application with browser extensions and cloud sync for backups.
Or www.bitwarden.com password manager is also open source and for a small “premium” supports 2FA for mobile/desktop/browser.
I haven’t heard of 2fas before, they seem pretty interesting. I’m inclined to keep my password and 2fa vaults out of the cloud (thus Aegis and Keepass) so I’m interested in how the browser extension syncs data with a phone. If it uses a shared network or ephemeral data transfers that would be pretty nice.
If you’re already using keepassxc, you can import OTP codes and use that. That’s what I do when my phone is not around to use aegis. It’s not as pretty, but it works.
I have a few codes duplicated in my keepass vault for the services I log in to often on desktop. The autotype is super nice in those cases. Other than that I do generally prefer having a separation between password manager and 2fa data though. Probably only a theoretical safeguard in my case, but simple enough to keep in place for the time being.
I use CoreCtrl to fix my GPU’s atrocious fan curve, which is a necessity since normally it overheats to high hell. With CoreCtrl, I have a nice fan curve that makes my GPU rarely, if ever, run hotter than 70°C.
I wish it had Nvidia support. Even though I have it installed, it’s useless for me. Currently trying to find a fan control/curve tool/program that works with Nvidia GPU.
Yeah, I get you :c
I’m using Green With Envy to manage the fan temp curves for my NVIDIA GPU.
Do you mind sharing your fan curve? Also, I can’t unlock the additional feature of Green with Envy. (I think there’s a command for that).
Here is my fan curve. I was having stability issues when the GPU got hotter that 50 deg C, which the card should be fine with, hence the curve
The additional feature? Do you mean the CoolBits stuff https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA/Tips_and_tricks#Enabling_overclocking
Thank you and Yes, i can’t seem to make it work on fedora. Overclock Profile section.
Emacs.
Emacs is an app platform in and of itself, and the vanilla installation comes with dozens of its own apps pre-installed. Like how web apps are all programmed in JavaScript, Emacs apps are all programmed in Lisp. All Emacs apps are scriptable and composable in Lisp. Unlike on the web, Emacs encourages you to script your apps to automate things yourself.
Emacs apps are all text based, so they all work equally well in both the GUI and the terminal.
Emacs comes with the following apps pre-installed:
- a text editor for both prose and computer code
- note taking and organizer called Org-mode (sort of like Obsidian, or Logseq)
- a file browser and batch file renamer called Dired
- a CLI console and terminal emulator
- a terminal multiplexer (sort-of like “Tmux”)
- a process manager (sort-of like “Htop”)
- a simple HTML-only web browser
- man-page and info page browser
- a wrapper around the Grep and Find CLI tools
- a wrapper around SSH called “Tramp”
- e-mail client
- IRC client
- revion control system, including a Git porcelain called “Magit”
- a “diff” tool
- ASCII art drawing program
- keystroke recorder and playback
Some apps that I install into Emacs include:
- “Mastodon.el” Mastodon client
- “Elfeed” RSS feed reader
- “consult” app launcher (sort-of like “Dmenu”)
Was gonna recommend Emacs, myself, but looks like you got it covered! Emacs is an amazing tool and is worth the journey
Syncthing and KeepassXC for syncing 2FA between devices. (I use Bitwarden for passwords)
I mostly use terminal unironically. Duf (to check system storage) Youtube-tui (written in rust tui for youtube) Btop (for system management) Iftop (see where my pc is calling to) Tuptime (has full system uptime from install to now. It just for fun to see how long my system has been alive)
Ive also gotten into atuin to find command i used and cant remember the command.
Also obligatory Megalist of terminal apps
NewPipe
Have you ever tried grayjay? Its like freetube but pipes into all services like twitch, odysse,rumble, kick And youtube. All into one app Its also is open sourced
It’s not really FOSS, just the software-equivalent of CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND.
Unfortunately it’s not FOSS, just source-available
A good kit IMO, in order of priority:
- Cherrytree; nominally for making hierarchical lists but you can basically use it as a wiki for your entire life. You can theme it yourself too, if you think it looks too retro out of the box.
- Syncthing, for keeping files synced between devices without having to use a server.
- Qbittorrent, for getting files you need. Remember to install search plugins.
- KeepassXC. Password manager (local, not on a server, use in combination with Syncthing).
- Convertall, for unit conversions.
- Calibre, for managing an ebook library, converting formats, removing DRM, transferring to ereader etc.
- Rhythmbox, for music library, podcasts, internet radio.
- Shotwell, for photo and video library. Easy to use, supports tags (metadata written to image files).
- GIMP, for image manipulation. It’s extremely versatile, comprehensive and versatile. 3.0 is due out soon and will include non-destructive layer effects. Heavyweight piece of software, so expect a learning curve.
- Ardour, for music production. Heavyweight, steep learning curve.
- Flowblade for video production. Lightweight, easy to learn.
- Libreoffice, desktop publishing.
- Librewolf; privacy-focussed web browser.
- Thunderbird; highly organisable email client.
- Freetube, for watching youtube videos without all the ads and tracking. Local subscriptions and playlists, which you can export to use with Newpipe on Android. Also lets you download video and audio.
If you like the terminal also add:
- ranger; file manager
- newsboat; RSS feed reader
- yt-dl; download videos from youtube and many other sites ;)
- w3m; command line web browser. I like to use this in combination with newsboat.
Enjoy!
deleted by creator
For terminal, the first thing I install is Midnight Commander - dual pane file manager. https://midnight-commander.org/
For all of my physical Linux machines - Cockpit and Cockpit-File Sharing plugin.
Desktop
-
Thunderbird
-
Firefox
-
Vivaldi
-
Gnome
-
Chromium I use Firefox, wife uses Chromium and My WFH job I use Chrome. Vivaldi is a backup browser, I’ve been messing around with.
-
QEMU/LibVirtd - So I can run a Windows VM for my old Canon Lide 60 scanner which scans clearly there, otherwise in Linux, it’s contrasted super grey for some reason.
-
Kopia-UI - Backup system which supports NFS Shares - set and forget type of setup.
-
VLC - Need I say more? Lol
-
OnlyOffice - Better aesthetically IMHO than LibreOffice
-
PDF Arranger - Works well to re-arrange pages or rotate them after scanning them in. (I self host Sterling PDF and will probably switch to that later)
And for some inspiration - the “Awesome Linux Software” list (Not mine) similar to the other Awesome lists you see around. https://github.com/luong-komorebi/Awesome-Linux-Software
-
I really like Lunatask. It’s a task/habit management app kind of like Todoist, but it works better for me personally. The premium version is quite expensive, but the free one is quite okay to work with. And it’s still in development so a lot of features are missing (you can’t set a time for a task for example which I find ridiculous).
Also Ghostwriter, it’s a really nice minimalistic markdown editor. I wish it was a bit more customizable but I guess I could try emacs for that.
The first things I install on a fresh linux install are always
htop(task manager) andmicro(nano but better).I have used both, but have stuck with nano. Why do you personally choose micro over nano?
It has shortcuts that feel a little more natural to me and the ootb theming makes files more easy to navigate.
I know you can also theme nano but I’m lazyOh no judgment, purely curiosity here.
Never felt it as judgement :)
Someone already mentioned Logseq, but I’m really enjoying Obsidian for my note taking needs. It’s similar, but I have found Obsidian to be very nice. Not FOSS, but I really like what the devs are doing.
Same here. I have tried:
- Joplin
- Standard Notes
- loqseq
- simple notes
- craft and a few others, but I keep coming back to obsidian. Currently self-hosting it using one of the plugins, that helps me easily sync between pc, MacBook, android and iOS.
Nice! Yeah you’ve definitely tried a bunch of apps.
What service are you using to self host obsidian? And is it cheaper than paying for obsidian sync?
Cool thanks for the info! Ill check it out
There’s no doubt there are a great variety of Linux packages in use.
Recently I did a CD install of Debian 12 (Bookworm) desktop with Gnome, which loads a bunch of stuff over the Net. Here are extra packages that I installed manually. The first set is used by and with an automated configuration script that I wrote, so they have to come in to begin with.
Title Description Purpose info Gnu info processor “Config” curl Command line tool for transferring data with URL syntax “Config” dbus-x11 Simple interprocess messaging system (X11 deps) “Config” emacs Editor “Config” gconf2 GNOME configuration database system (support tools) “Config” mc Midnight Commander - a powerful file manager “Config” python3-iniparse Access and modify configuration data in INI files “Config” python-lxml-doc Python XML documentation “Config” python3-lxml Pythonic binding for the libxml2 and libxslt libraries “Config” sakura Simple but powerful libvte-based terminal emulator “Config” Title Description Purpose “apcupsd” “APC UPS Power Management” “Monitor” “artha” “Handy off-line thesaurus based on WordNet” “Utils” “backintime” “Simple backup/snapshot system” “Utils” “brasero” “CD/DVD burning application for GNOME” “Utils” “bwm-ng” “Small and simple console-based bandwidth monitor” “Monitor” “ccze” “Robust, modular log coloriser” “Utils” “certbot” "Automatically configure HTTPS using Let’s Encrypt " “Utils” “claws-mail-dillo-viewer” “HTML viewer plugin for Claws Mail using Dillo” “Mail” “claws-mail-feeds-reader” “Feeds (RSS/atom) reader plugin for claws mail” “Mail” “claws-mail-plugins” “Claws mail” “Mail” “claws-mail-spam-report” “Spam reporting plugin for claws mail” “Mail” “cmake” “Cross-platform, open-source make system” “Retroshare” “conky-all” “Highly configurable system monitor” “Monitor” “copyq” “Advanced clipboard manager with editing and scripting features” “Utils” “cups” "Common UNIX Printing System™ - PPD/driver support, web interface " “Utils” “dcraw” “Decode raw digital camera images” “Photo” “devilspie” “Automatically resize windows” “Utils” “dict” “Dictionary client/server and a selection of dictionaries, too” “Utils” “dictd” “Dictionary server” “Utils” “diction” “Utilities to help with style and diction” “Utils” “exiv2” “EXIF/IPTC photo metadata manipulation tool” “Photo” “festival” “General multi-lingual speech synthesis system” “Utils” “ftp” “Classical file transfer client” “Utils” “gedit” “Popular text editor for the GNOME desktop environment” “Editor” “gimp” “GNU Image Manipulation Program” “Photo” “git” “Fast, scalable, distributed revision control system” “Utils” “gnome-audio” “Audio files for GNOME” “Utils” “gnome-extra-icons” “Optional gnome icons” “Utils” “gnucash” “Personal bookkeeping and finance” “App” “golang” “Go programming language compiler” “yamn” “hplip” “HP Linux Printing and Imaging System (HPLIP)” “Utils” “hplip-gui” “HP Linux Printing and Imaging - GUI utilities (Qt-based)” “Utils” “hugin” “Panorama photo stitching program” “Photo” “imagemagick” “Image manipulation programs” “Photo” “libbz2-dev” “High-quality block-sorting file compressor library” “Retroshare” “libcurl4-openssl-dev” “Development files and documentation for libcurl (OpenSSL flavour)” “Retroshare” “libglib2.0-dev” “Development files for the GLib library” “Retroshare” “libjpeg-turbo-progs” “Programs for manipulating JPEG files including loss-less rotation” “Photo” “libmicrohttpd-dev” “Library embedding HTTP server functionality” “Retroshare” “libopencv-dev” “computer vision core library” “Retroshare” “libqt5opengl5-dev” “Qt 5 OpenGL library development files” “Retroshare” “libqt5multimedia5” “Qt 5 Multimedia module” “Retroshare” “libqt5network5” “Qt 5 network module” “Retroshare” “libqt5x11extras5-dev” “Qt 5 X11 extras” “Retroshare” “libreoffice-base” “Database component for LibreOffice” “Utils” “librsvg2-bin” “Command-line and graphical viewers for SVG files” “Photo” “libsqlcipher-dev” “Sqlcipher shared library” “Retroshare” “libssl-dev” “Secure Sockets Layer toolkit - development files” “Retroshare” “libspeex-dev” “The Speex codec library” “Retroshare” “libspeexdsp-dev” “The Speex extended library” “Retroshare” “libupnp-dev” “Portable SDK for UPnP devices” “Retroshare” “libxslt1-dev” “XSLT 1.0 processing library” “Retroshare” “libxss-dev” “X11 Screen Saver extension library (development headers)” “Retroshare” “lm-sensors” “Utilities to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors” “Monitor” “mosquitto” “MQTT version 5.0/3.1.1/3.1 compatible message broker” “Home Automation” “mosquitto-clients” “Mosquitto command line MQTT clients” “Home Automation” “net-tools” “NET-3 networking toolkit” “Utils” “numlockx” “Enable numlock in X11 sessions” “Unknown” “openhab-addons” “OpenHAB Home Automation” “Home Automation” “otpclient” “Simple GTK+ software to generate OTPs (TOTP and HOTP)” “Utils” “pandoc” “General markup converter” “Utils” “pcmanfm” “Extremely fast and lightweight file manager” “Utils” “python-is-python3” “Symlinks /usr/bin/python to python3” “Devel” “python3-babel” “Tools for internationalizing Python applications - Python 3.x” “Devel” “python3-calmjs” “Node.js Python framework for building toolchains and utilities” “Devel” “python3-cheetah” “Text-based template engine and Python code generator (Python 3)” “WeeWX” “python3-configobj” “Simple but powerful config file reader and writer for Python 3” “WeeWX” “python3-dateparser” “Python parser for human readable dates” “Devel” “python3-doc” “Python documentation” “Devel” “python3-ephem” “Compute positions of the planets and stars with Python 3” “WeeWX” “python3-nltk” “Natural language processing” “Utils” “python3-pycryptodome” “Cryptographic Python library” “eoas” “python3-pyqt5” “Python 3 bindings for Qt5” “Devel” “python3-pyqt5.qtmultimedia” “Python 3 bindings for Qt5’s Multimedia module” “Devel” “python3-serial” "pyserial - module encapsulating access for the serial port " “WeeWX” “python3-setuptools” “Python distutils enhancements (setuptools compatibility)” “Devel” “python3-tz” “The Olson timezone database” “Utils” “python3-usb” “USB interface for Python (Python3)” “WeeWX” “python3-venv” “Venv module for python3” “WeeWX” “python3-vobject” “Parse iCalendar and VCards in python” “Android” “python3-xdg” “Freedesktop.org standards” “Tonto2” “qgit” “Qt application for viewing GIT trees” “Utils” “qrencode” “QR code encoder into PNG image” “Photo” “qtcreator” “Integrated development environment (IDE) for Qt” “Retroshare” “qtmultimedia5-dev” “APIs for multimedia functionality” “RetroShare” “qtox” “Tox client” “Retroshare” “qttools5-dev” “Qt 5 tools development files” “Retroshare” “rapidjson-dev” “Fast JSON parser/generator for C++ with SAX/DOM style API” “Retroshare” “rblcheck” “Query real-time black list (RBL) servers” “Mail” “retroshare-gui” “Secure communication with friends” “Retroshare” “rsync” “Fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool” “Utils” “sane” “Scanner graphical frontends” “Photo” “sqlite3” “Command line interface for SQLite 3” “Firefox Devel” “sqlitebrowser” “GUI editor for sqlite databases” “Unknown” “ssh” “Secure shell client and server (metapackage)” “Utils” “tcl8.6-dev” “Tcl (the Tool Command Language) v8.6” “Retroshare” “tesseract-ocr” “Command line OCR tool” “Unknown” “timeshift” “System restore utility” “Utils” “torsocks” “Use socks-friendly applications with Tor” “QTox” “trash-cli” “Freedesktop.org trash implementation” “Utils” “tree” “Displays an indented directory tree, in color” “Utils” “ttf-bitstream-vera” “Bitstream Vera family of free Truetype fonts” “Utils” “whois” “Intelligent WHOIS client” “is_tout.py” “xsane” “Graphical frontend for Scanner Access Now Easy (SANE)” “Photo” “zbar-tools” “Bar Code Scanner and Decoder” “Photo” “zip” “Archiver for .zip files” “Utils” Here are third-party packages I admire. These are not available in Debian repositories although some provide Debian-compatible repositories of their own.
Tor Browser Bundle: Anonymizing Network Browser
This is available from https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/ as a tarball. This should be unpacked and the whole tor-browser_en-US directory moved to the ~user folder. This is so that the browser can auto-update at user authority as the need arises.
RetroShare: Secure Communications with Friends
This has its own Debian-compatible repository.
metar: A Package to Parse METAR Coded Weather Reports
~/lab_pip/bin/activate pip install metar --upgradeweeWX: Open source software for backyard weather stations.
From http://weewx.com/docs/debian.htm. Although a Debian package exists, doing any development practically requires that all the code be in user-space, so don’t install the package. Download it instead.
OpenHAB: Home Automation
This has its own Debian-compatible repository.
Ant: GTK3/4 Themes by eliverlara
From https://www.gnome-look.org/browse?cat=135&ord=latest.
This is for claws-mail. It provides better contrast.
