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

Thank you so much, comrades! I am feeling pretty comfortable with linux mint, and now would like some suggestions for some absolutely necessary FOSS or free license software for the OS. So far I have the standard, Firefox, ThunderBird, LibreOffice, yada yada. Thank you again to everyone on the linux comm! sankara-salute

Secret300,

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

jack, (edited )

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 Anything else will be outdated or can lead to headache (dependency issues).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,
@backhdlp@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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

pH3ra,
@pH3ra@lemmy.ml avatar

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

PrimalWrongdoer,

KDE connect?

pH3ra,
@pH3ra@lemmy.ml avatar

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

governorkeagan, (edited )

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

chemicalwonka,
@chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Gimp and PGA

vhalragnarok,

For me it’s (outside of the usual stack):

github.com/sezanzeb/input-remapper (Input-Remapper, if you have annoying proprietary thing you want to re-bind this is an amazing way to handle that)

This project made Linux viable for me, and I have not looked back at all.

autumn64, (edited )
@autumn64@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Welcome! Some of my must-have FOSS software for GNU/Linux are:

  • ONLYOFFICE: Similar functionality to that of MS Office, but free and open-source, very nice compatibility with .docx documents and all the excel formulas I use are still there.
  • Boxes: If you like or need virtual machines, Boxes is one of the best FOSS solutions out there, I have made Windows, BSD and Linux virtual machines using Boxes and they work flawlessly, and the drag-drop feature to send files from the host to the guest machines is absolutely nice.
  • Konversation: In my opinion the best graphical IRC client, with HexChat also worth noting.
  • Kdenlive: I have used many video editors in my life, both FOSS and proprietary, but Kdenlive is the one who made me stay. I have even remastered old 80s Betamax videos using only Kdenlive.
  • TeXstudio: If you like LaTeX, this editor is absolutely wonderful and it works out of the box.
  • Prism Launcher: If you like Minecraft, this is the only launcher that actually worked on my Fedora installation, and it’s so easy to install mods, resource packs, shaders, etc. that I already consider it to be the best FOSS launcher for both premium and non-premium instances.
  • HandBrake: I just love this open-source video transcoder so much.
  • fre:ac: I have used this FOSS audio encoder since I was a kid when I wanted to convert mp3 music to a format that my DSi could read. Nowadays I still use it to convert from and to any type of audio and it just never fails.
  • RaccoonLock: A modern-looking and private password manager that is wonderful if you just want to store your passwords locally in your PC and you do not care about syncing them with other devices (although such feature is partially possible through the creation of backups).

It’s also worth mentioning other FOSS software like VLC, VS Code (though it’s not entirely FOSS, with Codium being an actual FOSS version), OBS Studio, GParted, PDF Mix Tool and FreeTube. Welcome to the GNU/Linux world! I hope you enjoy it and you find these utilities useful :).

candle_lighter,
@candle_lighter@lemmy.ml avatar

Bottles makes using Wine real simple.

Treczoks,

Inkscape for drawing vector images.

Loads of command line tools to process PDF files, like extracting images or text.

All those tools for automated processing of data, including script languages like perl.

The MediaWiki engine that allows me to run a local wiki at home for my hobby.

ExLisper,

vim !!

PedroG14,

Neovim too!

axzxc1236,
  • syncthing - Sync files across internet, works very well
  • netdata - Very comprehensive monitoring software for servers
  • Firefox
  • wine - Without it (including proton) I couldn’t make the switch, it’s kind of a necessary evil but it’s not wine that’s the evil.
  • KDE Desktop - My personal preference, I used Ubuntu and Pop OS, gnome doesn’t suit me.
Cargon,

KeePassXC (there’s a Firefox extension too) and Syncthing are the first things I add to a new install.

Kiwi_Girl,
@Kiwi_Girl@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

LibreSprite is cool for creating and animating 2d pixel stuff.

alt,

Welcome on board!

You revealed in your previous post to be a gamer. Therefore, I’d like to focus on software that might help with that (in alpabetical order):

For a one-stop-solution for all your problems related to package X not being available in the repos of distro Y; consider the more than excellent https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox.


  1. You should probably start with this one as the others might be less intuitive to you at the moment. Furthermore, their use-cases and thus why one might prefer the others over Lutris in the first place might not be clear currently and not even be stuff you worry about in the first place.
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