r/linux4noobs • u/Heylookanickel • Mar 30 '26
programs and apps What are must have programs/apps for your Linux distro?
Looking for cool or useful stuff to download
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u/SavageNineFour Kubuntu 24.04 LTS Mar 30 '26
Timeshift
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u/Tesla_Corporation Mar 31 '26
This is essential! I have turned off the automatic backup but i manually take the backup whenever I feel like it's a good time to do it. Although I don't backup root and home directories cause they are too big and I have an HDD so that makes the whole process a lot time taking...
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u/Liemaeu Mar 30 '26
Firefox (web browser), Thunderbird (email client), VLC (video player), Kdenlive (video editing), Audacity (audio editing), GIMP (image editing), LibreOffice / Onlyoffice are programs I always install.
The rest depends on your needs.
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u/jasonappalachian CachyOS Mar 31 '26
This is a solid list. I would recommend BetterBird over Thunderbird, based on personal experience.
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u/SnuffBaron Nobara KDE Mar 31 '26
Out of interest what does BetterBird offer over Thunderbird?
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u/jasonappalachian CachyOS Mar 31 '26
I like BetterBird's multi-line message list option, the colored account labels are small upgrade/feature but nice, attachments show at the top of messages instead of the bottom, and I found the search feature to be way better/quicker/smoother. There aren't any crazy powerful features that I'm aware of, but the experience is just nicer.
Thunderbird has a long history of shipping updates that break stuff. The founder of Betterbird used to be on the Thunderbird dev team, left over disagreements, and started patching the things Thunderbird won't fix or is too slow to fix.
Oh and BetterBird doesn't send telemetry.
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u/SnuffBaron Nobara KDE Mar 31 '26
Nice, I'll give it a look thanks.
Does it have the stupid icons in the right click menu Windows 11 style or does it spell out the options like an adult?
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u/jasonappalachian CachyOS Mar 31 '26
It's all text!
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u/SnuffBaron Nobara KDE Apr 02 '26
Turns out it has the four icons at the top of the right click menu just like thunderbird, but I'll stick with it anyway
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u/jasonappalachian CachyOS Apr 02 '26
Ah, too bad. I clearly misunderstood what you were asking about. Good on you for trying new things tho!
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u/penguin039 Mar 31 '26
but for email we can use Firefox itself isn't it?
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u/raqisasim Mar 31 '26
What you may be thinking is about web clients for email, which is the way the majority of modern users access email.
But all those are just Web Application frontends to a provider's email service. Email existed well before HTML was invented, and back in the day you downloaded your email to your local device via a desktop email client, not a web one. The key benefits for current usage of such an application include:
- Improved searchability over most web clients (save arguably GMail), and
- Archival -- if the provider decides to close your account (it happens!), you have all your old emails.
Interestingly, the application that Firefox evolved from used to include such an email client. It was seen as a huge benefit for Firefox, when it was introduced, that it ditched that client to do just web browsing.
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u/ryancnap Mint and Mint accessories May 06 '26
gmail search is terrible, gets way too much credit. Results rarely include what I'm searching for, even address field autocomplete is terrible. Last time I used Thunderbird was 17 years ago, some things never change lol I just came back to it
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u/DentalMagnet Mar 31 '26
Zen browser (Firefox-based)
LocalSend (transfer files to devices nearby)
Handy.computer (Speech-to-text utility)
VLC
LibreOffice / OpenOffice
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u/xplosm Mar 31 '26
LibreOffice / OpenOffice
Even though LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice, you want LibreOffice. It's more up-to-date and has way more features. The last stable release of OpenOffice is from November 2025.
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u/FryBoyter Mar 31 '26
The last stable release of OpenOffice is from November 2025.
In addition, the changelogs for new versions of OpenOffice are quite short because it seems that almost no further development is taking place.
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u/vSTekk Mar 31 '26
Idk why i cant receive with localsend on my cachy os install from android phone. It just times out :(
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u/oldrocker99 Mar 30 '26
For me, it's the gapless music player Aqualung, and its presence in the AUR is why I run Arch-based distros.
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u/SubGothius Mar 31 '26
Speaking of audio players, radiotray-ng; it's a nice, teensy stream player that sits in your DE status tray.
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u/Avalon3-2 Mar 31 '26
Neovim - where most of my work occurs. Teamspeak - access to the homies. Spotify client - while I will eventually migrate this will be changed to someone console media player to access my home media server. I need music to function while working. Fireshot - for quick and easy screenshots.
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u/Automaticpotatoboy Arch < Gentoo Mar 30 '26
Easy effects for eq, equibop for discord, fish shell with tide prompt, kitty terminal to name a few
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u/Rarpiz Mar 31 '26
Steam and Wine.
Sublime Text for programming.
Krita for graphics manipulation.
LocalSend for device to device file transfer. I use it to quickly send photos/videos from my iPhone to my Linux desktop.
Asunder CD ripper. I use it to rip my old audio CD's to AAC (supports multiple audio codecs).
HydraPaper, allows multiple wallpaper images for multiple monitor setups.
Digikam, I use it to identify and remove duplicate photos whenever I find old pictures to add to my growing photo library.
FreeCAD, indispensable (and FREE) CAD program.
UBlock Origin, actually a Firefox extension, and IMHO, the ONLY way to navigate the web nowadays.
YTDownloader, great application for downloading videos. I use for technical or DIY videos I can watch without an internet connection.
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u/jasonappalachian CachyOS Mar 31 '26
UBlock Origin is great.
I set up a PiHole too. My web browsing experience rules now.
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u/GeekyGamer49 CachyOS Mar 31 '26
Brave Browser
Steam
Heroic
BTOP
Ghostty
Libra office
Distrobox
Discord or Vesktop
Limine
And for my fellow NixOS users: Fastfetch
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u/StructureCapable9798 Apr 11 '26
why brave? i once heard brave pretends to be as private as firefox but idk. my mint came with firefox preinstalled and i added opera purely for ad free youtube.
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u/GeekyGamer49 CachyOS Apr 12 '26
If privacy is a cern of yours, I would stay away from Opera since Opera is majority-owned by Kunlun Tech, a Beijing-based company, and they’re required to share their data with the Chinese government.
I like Brave because it blocks ads on all websites, including YouTube. It’s also great on mobile because I can continue listening to video while my phone is locked. So that’s two premium features without paying the cost. Also, on iOS, I can add any videos I want for an offline playlist.
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u/SyrusDrake Mar 31 '26
Timeshift.
The good thing about Linux is that, unlike Windows, it lets you so whatever you want. The bad thing about Linux is that, unlike Windows, it lets you do whatever you want. If you break something, you can just reverse it with Timeshift.
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u/Desertcow Mar 30 '26
Distrobox is great. There's little need to ever distro hop when you can install any program from any distro
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u/z_valk Mar 30 '26
I think walker launcher is a game changer for me.
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u/Automaticpotatoboy Arch < Gentoo Mar 30 '26
Better than fuzzel?
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u/z_valk Mar 31 '26
Walker is more robust, you can use > to run scripts, @ for web searches, / for files, : for the clipboard, and so on.
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u/jcruz70 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Firefox, shotcut (vid editing) libre office, audacity, [okular, scribus both pdf viewers/editors] puddletag (song metadata) vlc, flameshot (screenshot)
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u/Th3JackofH3arts Mar 31 '26
Shortwave: Internet radio
Iptvnator: iptv streams (need to find a playlist)
Newsflash: RSS feed
Readest: ebook reader
Standard Notes: notes (Linux/Android/IOS/Windows sync)
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u/lateralspin Mar 31 '26
There is a significant upgrade to FreeCAD to 1.1 recently, making it very viable now and worth installing.
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u/yakdabster Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Apps I typically install: Gkrellm, mc, nmap, clementine (now obsolete, replaced with strawberry), VM Ware, macchanger, nordvpn, putty, libreoffice, onlyoffice, darktable, gimp, firefox, sticky-notes, steam, lutris, ProtonDB, wine, wine-tricks, discord, mumble, google-chrome, bitclean. Not an extensive list, but some of the main ones I use on a daily.
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u/Davydicus1 Mar 31 '26
Kde plasma for OS, SDDM greeter/login, steam, spotify, libre office suite (MS office replacement), konsole (terminal), yay (for AUR if youre running Arch), vim (text editor, but theres way better options. Im not editing many text files and its what i learned first), dolphin (file browser), mullvad vpn, firefox, some wallpaper library, and the screengrab tool that i cant remember the name of because im on my phone right now (flameshot maybe?)
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u/Little_Al_Network Mar 31 '26
I found the Ubuntu clipboard to be very restrictive with the amount of characters it could copy. I created my own clipboard manger that can handle 1 million character and it mangers a history too. This is the beauty of Linux - you can create your own tools.https://snapcraft.io/copy-paste
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u/Academic_Current8330 Mar 31 '26
I personally like to install Jetbrains toolbox for my IDEs. And I prefer Chrome (sorry) I have recently discovered Proton. Thunderbird Mail, Okular for PDFs. TexLive/LaTeX. Calibre (ebook library). Helix (text editor) ZSH for my shell. (Theres lots of good plugins available for your terminal) KDE Plasma desktop environment is a must for me. Lots of customisation. OBS. Discord. VLC. There seems to be an unlimited amount of available apps out there but these are what I use 99% of the time.
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u/Alice_Alisceon Do as I say, not as I do Mar 31 '26
I’m really not very picky about software anymore. I can’t think of anything that I MUST have, and most of the things I would like to have have already been mentioned. But here are a few I have yet to see in the thread from casual scrolling:
The foot terminal is currently my preferred terminal emulator.
Sway is a great window manager if you like tinkering
I like the gnome stack for when graphical applications are needed, like their pdf viewer. But if your DE already ships all that then there is no sense in actively seeking out the gnome ones.
Nix is becoming a better dependency management system by the day, no matter your distro. It has issues and is wildly overkill in a lot of cases but it is worth looking into if you have the time and brain space.
I’ve been using bottles for wine prefix management lately and it’s been nice.
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u/Marble_Wraith Mar 31 '26
fooyin : once configured, hands down the best music player available
xdg-ninja : script makes it so easy to clean up $HOME
yazi : with the right config it can replace cd and ls -lA in your interactive shell
Endless Sky : Because when done with work i like to conquer the galaxy 😏
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u/Clogboy82 Mar 30 '26
My Linux distro would be nothing without Prusa Slicer and a code editor of any capacity. Steam for good measure, Brave Browser for ad free browsing and to install my favourite websites as an app (such as YouTube, OnShape and GitHub).
Cool factor? FastFetch for quick system stats in the terminal, and Fish for better terminal highlighting.
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u/heavymetalmug666 Mar 31 '26
i was liking fish till i learned that its syntax is different from bash - i dont think that would really matter but it did matter the ONE little program i was writing.
Im using CachyOS and out of the box Fish is configured to be one helluva rad CLI, but that little language difference sent me back to Zsh
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Mar 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ogcanuckamerican Mar 30 '26
"I'm not a robot but I write like one."
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u/inbetween-genders Mar 30 '26
"I'm not a ad robot but I just want other ad robots to post ads of their aps."
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u/Heylookanickel Mar 30 '26
Yea but what are programs/apps that you can’t operate without? Looking for personal opinions and thoughts
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u/heavymetalmug666 Mar 31 '26
bat - its like 'cat' had a baby with 'less'
alias cat='bat' because i cant break the cat habit.
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u/torchmaipp Mar 31 '26
I don't have a distro. Whatever the system is doing in the first place. Without those programs it doesn't matter what distro I use the customer isn't getting what they requested.
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u/Steel-Tempered Mar 31 '26
Hidamari! It lets you use animated wallpapers for your desktop. Videos, stream, webpages... or just a basic looping image. Pretty much whatever you want. There's a flatpack you can grab for it from you Software manager. Websites like Motion Backgrounds have tons of animated wallpapers up to 4K resolutions you can grab for free. I just stare at it sometimes for a few minutes. Pretty cool IMO.
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u/ResearcherConstant42 Mar 31 '26
Librec office for me a must have. Have now Linux Mint om old laptop.
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u/nandru Mar 31 '26
A GUI, I prefer Plasma on Wayland, but honestly anything that lets me run firefox is fine. Also, NetworkManager
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u/ItsJoeMomma Mar 31 '26
If you're doing a lot of audio stuff, qpwgraph is a great program to route audio between various programs.
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u/skyfishgoo Mar 31 '26
timeshift
backintime
unless you like reinstalling every time you bork your system.
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u/ArXiLaMaS Mar 31 '26
Zen browser, Steam, Thunderbird, Lutris, Ayugram, KDE connect, Localsend, obs studio, protontricks, winetricks.
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u/-Kyri Apr 01 '26
I'm cheating, but my only must-have is KDE, all the tools I need already have an okay default there. Actually most DEs do, but dotfiles and kde-connect specifically are what makes KT for me
I still want some other stuff, but my steamdeck has basically nothing installed and it's fine for what I use it for.
Everything else is just highly subjective, which there are many examples in the comments already. Things like a specific terminal emulator, browser, text editor, image editor, media players, instant messaging, remote access (screen sharing like Rust Desk or a VNC client when ssh isn't enough)
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u/Correct_Cockroach818 Apr 01 '26
Shortwave - an internet radio app.
SpeedCrunch - a calculator with a side pane history and copy/paste function. ( the copy function lets me paste to a text editor for printing. I couldn't find a Linux calculator with paper tape and print. )
JamesDSP - an audio enhancer, ( equalizer + much more ) lots of features, works well, and is easier to understand and use than EasyEffects.
Rhythmbox - music library app. Similar to iTunes with the same navigation and drag/drop Playlist function. None of the other audio player do manual playlists as simple and obvious. It's old and really needs some tlc but i keep coming back to it. Paired with JamesDSP it serves up music intuitively.
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u/Ok-Statistician8872 Apr 01 '26
mpv player for hardware accelerated video decoding (4k60fps) kdenlive as I needed premiere pro Okular for reading ffmpeg (cli) is the easiest way to transcode or cut videos
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u/Mammoth-Acadia2572 Apr 02 '26
Kitty terminal. I like having expansive config options+themes to make it look however I like, considering I prefer to use CLI over GUI for most maintenance tasks.
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u/NotInTheControlGroup Apr 02 '26
- Cherrytree notekeeper
- KolourPaint for simple cropping/sizing/etc
- GIMP - advanced image editing
- Audacity (audio editor/exporter/etc)
- Kate editor
- OnlyOffice (office suite)
- Terminator - nice multi-terminal app
- Flameshot - screen capture app
- Plank - a good simple dock
- Yakuake - hot-key activated dropdown terminal window
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u/bronkish Apr 02 '26
late to the party, as always...
keepassxc - because I have passwords to stuff
claws-mail - because I use email
firefox - because I browse the web and manage web sites
kitty - because I love being in the terminal
screen ruler - for measuring stuff on my screen
mahjongg (gnome) - can't I just play?
nexuiz - because I like the fast and furious action and will frag your ass
pianobar - because I gotta groove
lots and lots of scripts and functions and I run Debian with OpenBox - bespoke hella desktop action
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u/RomanOnARiver Apr 02 '26
ffmpeg is a really nice file conversion programs. You run it from command line, lots of options but the basic one is ffmpeg -i someInputFile.mp4 someOutputFilie.webm or whatever.
lxsplit takes a large file and splits it up into several smaller files that you can join back when after transferring them somewhere, for example when email or Discord or whatever has a file size limit you say lxsplit -s someFile 50M or whatever then you get a . 001. .002 etc. then join then back with lxsplit -j and feed it the .001 file
FocusWriter is my favorite text editor for long session writing, it goes fullscreen and removes distractions. There are different themes, I use the black screen green text one.
Krita is my graphics tool of choice, specifically for its CMYK support and the fact that it doesn't have a cringy ass name and interface, and a team too backwards to acknowledge that it needs changing.
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u/epicusername1010 Mar 30 '26
Some packages from the top of my head:
btop- more intuitive version of toplm-sensors- Allows you to view your PC temp and voltage sensors (might need external driver)micro- it's exactly like windows notepad but in the terminalconky- allows you to display system info on your wallpaper