I made it to Linux! What is your must-have FOSS or Free Software for linux?

jacob, 10 months ago

BONUS: here’s some command-line toys that are not useful or necessary, but are just real fun to take a look at especially if you’re new to linux:

• cmatrix (does the matrix code rain thing)
• cowsay (ascii cow with speech bubble)
• sl (steam locomotive in your terminal)
• cbonsai (generate bonsai tree)
• neofetch (this one is actually very useful and will print system information in an aesthetically pleasing way)

blakeus12, 10 months ago

wow, neofetch is really cool! thank you!

GigglyBobble, 10 months ago

It's mandatory for online boasting.

ikiru, 10 months ago

Thanks for this!

dbx12, 10 months ago

You forgot the package hollywood.

backhdlp, 10 months ago

fastfetch is neofetch in C instead of bash, makes it much faster.

WeLoveCastingSpellz, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Cmatrix,SL and neofetch work on android too through termux, I bet others would too, but I have only tested these two

Secret300, 9 months ago

Komikku is my go to manga reading app and I honestly can’t use anything else now.

pH3ra, 10 months ago

I always start with Syncthing, which is a cross-platform p2p syncing client I use to share documents between devices

PrimalWrongdoer, 10 months ago

KDE connect?

pH3ra, 10 months ago

I never tried it seriously mostly because I don’t need all of the features it provides. But yeah that can be an alternative too

stepanzak, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Logseq is a pretty nice FOSS alternative to Obsidian I came across recently. Tmux is absolutely necessary for any terminal work. Wezterm is my favorite terminal emulator because you can easily disable all of the shortcuts except very few you want (tmux handles most of terminal stuff for me). Some new alternatives to old command line utilities:

• bat is cat but 1000 times better. I love it so much!

fun factI also recently learned that it’s safer, because you can have a file that has some bad command, then the backspace character several times, and cat doesn’t display the characters “deleted” by the backspaces (but it still executes). Bat doesn’t do that.

• fd is better find
• rg (ripgrep) is better grep
• zoxide is better cd
• dust is better du

CatLikeLemming, 10 months ago

Personally, instead of Tmux, I’d recommend trying Zellij. I started with Zellij right out of the gate, but a friend of mine who dislikes Tmux a lot quite enjoyed Zellij, so I assume it’s somewhat better.

stepanzak, 10 months ago

I know about Zellij, but in its current state, I think it doesn’t make sense for me to switch. I really lobe my Tmux setup, and I don’t think I would be able to replicate it on Zellij, mainly because of Tmux plugins I use. I also don’t think that Zellij currently has any advantages over Tmux except for better default config and user friendliness that I don’t need. I’m looking forward to the Zellij ecosystem getting better tho. Some day, I will probably make the switch. The WASM tabs feature looks extremely promising!

sag, 10 months ago

You know any better cd?

boomzilla, 10 months ago

I use zoxide plus fzf which ends looking like this.

My default go-to for a better cd was teleport when I still was on bash. The tp command can be aliased to cd. I don’t think it will run on other shells though.

stepanzak, 10 months ago

What? It’s literary in my comment.

sag, 10 months ago

Oh, Sorry I didn’t notice also thanks to tell us about bat. It’s much better than cat.

dust_accelerator, 10 months ago

Depends what device you run, but Xournal++ is useful. Otherwise pdftk.

jack, 10 months ago

Xournal++ is for drawing over pdfs like MS OneNote

heygooberman, 10 months ago

I personally recommend LibreWolf over Firefox. It is a fork of Firefox, but it includes some additional settings for better privacy.

Flameshot is a pretty useful screenshot tool that functions similar to the Snip tool on Windows.

If you’re going to be installing apps via Flatpak, I recently learned of an app called Warehouse that allows you to view all the Flatpak apps you installed, the user data associated with each app, and their file location.

If you want another option for LibreOffice, you can try OnlyOffice, but I personally prefer LibreOffice.

If you’re looking for a text editor that’s like Notepad++, I recommend checking out NotepadQQ.

Finally, if you want a notebook app similar to Microsoft OneNote, I’d like to recommend Joplin.

Deregon, 10 months ago

For Flatpak apps, along with Warehouse, Flatseal allows you to view and edit permissions for each app, which is not only useful but sometimes mandatory when an app has misconfigured permissions

heygooberman, 10 months ago

Oh yes, Flatseal is also a good tool to have! Thanks for adding that!

jack, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Install everything as a flatpak, it is the future. Anything else will be outdated or can lead to headache (dependency issues).

Here’s a simple GUI video downloader.

Here are elegant, easy to use apps that cover many different needs.

EDIT: Tell me where I’m wrong

backhdlp, 10 months ago

ProtonUp-Qt is an easy way to install and manage different Proton versions for gaming.

jacob, 10 months ago

Another nice-to-have is KDE Connect, it connects your desktop with your phone to sync notifications, send files, control media playback, use as remote input, share clipboard, send commands, and more

possiblylinux127, 10 months ago

I’m not sure it will work with cinnamon.

jacob, 10 months ago

It should work normally, there’s even cinnamon applets for controlling it from the panel

electric_nan, 10 months ago

I use it in Cinnamon.

possiblylinux127, 10 months ago

Good to know

ExLisper, 10 months ago

vim !!

PedroG14, 10 months ago

Neovim too!

jacob, 10 months ago

Here’s some creative software that replace the functionalities of Adobe software & more.

• photo editing: GIMP
• vector images: Inkscape
• drawing/painting: Krita (GIMP also fine for this)
• video editing: kdenlive
• 3d modelling, animating, etc.: Blender
• audio editing: Tenacity (Audacity fork made after the buyout without telemetry)
• DAW: LMMS
• media player: VLC or mpv

if there’s any other specific software you’re looking for a FOSS alternative to, don’t hesitate to ask. You always have more options on Linux than you’d think.

blakeus12, 10 months ago

thank you! i appreciate it!

panosalevropoulos, 10 months ago

For DAW, you may also want to check out Zrythm and Ardour.

governorkeagan, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

I’m loving these suggestions, definitely saving the post for later!

hottari, 10 months ago

Flatpak for all *possible installs of user apps. But if there’s an app I respect most, it has to be MPV.

beta_tester, 10 months ago

Why do you respect it the most, or why is it better than vlc?

hottari, 10 months ago

Aside from the fact that I’ve used it long enough without encountering any breaking issues or bugs, it is very powerful and highly customizable.

chemicalwonka, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

Gimp and PGA

Strit, 10 months ago

I’m surprises no one has mentioned the ones I use most days.

• git (version control software development)
• openssh (for ssh connections to other devices)
• handbrake (video transcoding)
• Element (matrix client)

metaStatic, 10 months ago

I literally had to run the windows version of handbrake in virtual box because for some reason the linux version can't save to the same directory as the input files while batch processing.

basically the same otherwise, fine for single files.

Strit, 10 months ago

I’ve had no issues saving to same folder as source when doing batch transcoding queues on Arch Linux. As long as the input and output files does not have the same filename it’s fine.

metaStatic, 10 months ago

there was no way to set default path so everything got saved to the top level directory. maybe they've added it since but this wasn't that long ago.

Strit, 10 months ago

I just realized you might be talking about the CLI version? I’m talking about the GUI version.