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.

  • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net
    49·
    29 days ago

    Logseq.

    What is Logseq?

    It’s a non-linear note taking app that allows smart linking and is made as a second brain.

    It makes use of the Zettelkasten system, where, in theory, you make notes of everything and categorize it. Over time, you offload your brain and make it free for more productive stuff.

    Logseq is often considered as a FOSS alternative to Obsidian.

    • noodlejetski@lemm.ee
      17·
      28 days ago

      I tried it and really wanted to like it, but the Android client’s UI is just unusable for me. as much as I prefer going FOSS whenever I can, I tried Obsidian and stuck with it. it’s electron on desktop and definitely not native UI on mobile, but feels much more polished.

      • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net
        5·
        28 days ago

        Yeah, the Android app is horrible. I only use it if I don’t have my PC in arm’s reach.

        It feels sluggish, buggy, is overloaded, I always get sync issues (usually the last words I just typed go missing), and some features (especially the graph overview) don’t work at all sometimes. And the whole app sometimes feels like an alpha version, which is just a no-go…

        I really hope the mobile app gets polished more over the next months. Many people nowadays mostly use mobile devices, and having such an unpolished app really hurts the image. And, PLEASE devs, test your software before shipping it out. Especially the mobile app is broken half the time.

        I still gladly pay the 5$/ month for the optional sync and to support the devs.

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
      6·
      29 days ago

      Do you feel like offloading stuff into your notes helps your cognition?

      • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net
        9·
        28 days ago

        Yeah, definitely, especially at work.
        It really helped me to switch off my “work brain”, because I know, that everything I did today is written down, and I don’t have to keep things in my mind anymore after work. Doing that was a blessing for my stress level and mental health.

        It also gives me the edge above my colleagues that I “remember” everything I did in the last months, which is nice when my boss wants to know details of a project I did a year ago.

        I basically can’t even remember what I did 5 minutes ago (ADHD says hello), but I know exactly where I can find that knowledge. This frees up my working memory (psychological term, not related to work) immensely. It’s basically like transfering more tasks onto your hard drive instead of keeping it in the RAM.

        It’s also great to give me an graphical overview of all I think and work on all day, and unveals connections I never thought of between different topics.

        For private use, it’s also great as a journal, though I gave up on that because I’m too busy for it and it cost too much time in my everyday life. But I still use it daily for normal note taking, e.g. results of some experiments at home, hobbies, thoughts, and much more.

        • Fizz@lemmy.nz
          4·
          28 days ago

          Fuck you I’m sold. That sounds so useful if I can stick with it enough.

          • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net
            5·
            28 days ago

            That sounds so useful if I can stick with it enough.

            That’s my main issue for private use. At my job, I never had problems sticking with the habit of writing everything down. I work in a science job, and documentation is key there. So, I basically get paid for exactly that.

            But in my free time, the whole concept of task management, knowledge offloading, and more, is a bit harder for me, especially when I come home tired.

            Welcome in the life of someone with ADHD. I need my life to be organized, but have a hard time with exactly that. It’s like needing to find your contact lenses because you dropped them…

        • fossphi@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          28 days ago

          All of this makes sense, but I still can’t wrap my head around the “finding” of information. How do you search for it? Do you remember keywords or the location of the note (this I feel like maybe defeats the purpose of Logseq’s write anywhere idea)

          • Guenther_Amanita@slrpnk.net
            5·
            28 days ago

            I use a mix of

            • Search bar, very powerful
            • The graph overview, which allows me to “hunt” for the thing I need
            • Filters
            • And a lot of tags, aliases and crosslinks
      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
        3·
        28 days ago

        I don’t use Logseq, I use Silverbullet, and yes, it helps A LOT. I have lots of random notes on random pages on how to do things at work, or on my personal servers or whatever. You know that feeling of “I’ve already had to deal with this, how the hell did I do it?” It’s completely gone.

        If you use a good organization system with a hierarchy that makes sense and tags you can easily find stuff, so you can turn off your brain from having to remember all of that and it can focus on the thing you need to actually solve now. Don’t know if you’re old enough to remember a time before cellphones, we had to remember our friends number, nowadays this is not a concern, because your phone will remember the number for you, it’s like that but for everything, very liberating.

    • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
      4·
      27 days ago

      I tried it on desktop but the fact that it’s “paragraph-based” so to say is annoying. I’d like to format text freely and hit return to go to a new line, not create bullet points for everything I write. It seems a bit contrived in this way, but perhaps I just haven’t found how to make it work the way I want yet

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    41·
    5 hours ago

    If you like gaming:

    For the CLI:

    • cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml
      5·
      27 days 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.

    • land@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      27 days ago

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

    • Archr@lemmy.world
      2·
      27 days 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.

  • muhyb@programming.dev
    478·
    29 days ago

    Because you asked about “apps”, people are replying with mobile apps. I think you wanted to write “programs” considering the community. Maybe you should edit this

      • muhyb@programming.dev
        211·
        28 days ago

        That makes sense. Maybe I’m just old but they are called as programs since punched cards, as well as on Unix, Linux, Windows (until recently apparently).

        Not exactly sure but I think the term “application >> apps” started with mobile phones. So, to me they are different. At least that evokes this meaning in my mind. It seems not with younger people though.

        • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
          4·
          28 days ago

          Go search Usenet posts from the 80s. We’ve used the short term “app” for “application” for goddamn forever.

          • muhyb@programming.dev
            1·
            28 days ago

            It seems I’m not that old and apparently it first appeared around between 50’s and 60’s as a term. I assume it’s only used among programmers back then (until Apple, approximately late 80’s). Though it was not so common as today I guess.

      • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
        41·
        28 days ago

        I would say apps are software run with a runtime (PortableApps, Android apps, Windows Apps) while software runs by itself.

        Another interpretation could be “little (software) tools”. I assumed with “apps” you wanted some shell tools.

          • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
            1·
            28 days ago

            I mean, i’m a software developer too. I just sometines forget all he context.

            Hmm, thinking about it like that, the whole software stack has a similiar situation to the modern web: historical layers upon layers. Maybe we should sometime start from scratch, if the situation with vulnerabilities, reliability and brittleness becomes bad enough/gets more weigth.

    • swooosh@lemmy.world
      73·
      29 days ago

      People started saying apps to programs on computer as well. No idea who’s fault it is. Apple’s? Only old people call it software or so.

      • muhyb@programming.dev
        5·
        29 days ago

        Not exactly sure whose fault is this but if OP still wants to use the term “app”, they should at least mention it’s “desktop apps”, or just go with “programs” which is the proper term. Because even with “desktop apps” I still understand it is as web apps more likely.

        • j4k3@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          29 days ago

          Distrobox supports waydroid to use android apps on wayland. There are many small purpose built apps for android than can be useful on desktop.

          No one seems to be mentioning apps in this specific kind of context, and I don’t consider a locked down and stripped orphan kernel to be “Linux” but a lot of this stuff it FOSS and can now run on both.

  • paradox2011@lemmy.ml
    271·
    29 days ago

    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.

              • paradox2011@lemmy.ml
                1·
                27 days ago

                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.

            • dalë@lemm.ee
              1·
              28 days ago

              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.

              • paradox2011@lemmy.ml
                1·
                28 days ago

                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.

            • nastyyboi@lemmy.world
              1·
              28 days ago

              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.

              • paradox2011@lemmy.ml
                1·
                28 days ago

                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.

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    201·
    28 days ago

    Linux, system:

    • KDE Plasma (Dolphin, Kate, Kfind, Merkuro, shell, Spectacle)
    • Librewolf / hardened Firefox (system app because of user namespaces, which Flatpaks cant create)

    Linux, Flatpak:

    • syncthingy
    • thunderbird
    • libreoffice
    • KDE: Okular, Gwenview, maybe soon digiKam
    • Qt: qBittorrent, Keepassxc
    • GNOME/Circle: Celluloid, PDF Arranger, Carburetor, Decoder, G4music, Railway, SimpleScan (or Skanlite), Impression, GIMP
    • GTK: localsend, GPU Screen recorder
    • Electron: Freetube, Signal, Cryptomator, Nextcloud
    • Podman: StirlingPDF

    Android:

    • Fossify Gallery, Calendar
    • Material Files
    • Markor
    • Antennapod
    • Florisboard (or maybe Futo, but I dont need the fancy stuff yet)
    • Shelter
    • localsend
    • Obtainium
    • dict.cc
    • Grayjay
    • k9mail
    • soundbound (spotify), seal (ytdl)
    • öffi, kleine Wettervorschau
    • SaveTo…
    • mjpdf
  • aktenkundig@discuss.tchncs.de
    191·
    28 days ago

    Analogous to the Krita post, I am surprised nobody seems to know KolourPaint. It’s similar to MS paint. I use it, when I need to make a quick sketch, whiteboard style, e.g. when sharing my screen with a coworker.

    Otherwise, I really must have Dolphin and Okular.

    I love dolphin’s split mode (quickly toggled with F3) and its ability to seamlessly navigate all kinds of protocols for my NAS, webdav for nextcloud storage, MTP for the phone…

    Okular has annotations which have been super useful to me. And it’s so easy to switch between viewing single page, two-page and multi-page. Which is great for skimming text documents and presentations. The auto reload ability is great when iterating on a document (e.g. latex doc or matplotlib chart).

    Otherwise, of course firefox and thunderbird, not much to say here Please don’t use chrome. It’s market share makes Google the de-facto owner of www technology. But I guess I’d be preaching to the choir here.

  • SimplyTadpole@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    17·
    28 days ago

    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.

  • Ramin Honary@lemmy.mlEnglish
    172·
    28 days ago

    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”)
    • the_doktor@lemmy.zip
      7·
      28 days ago

      I’ll stick with nano over Esc+Meta+Alt+Ctrl+Shift, thanks. I mean, it’s an interesting operating system, but too bad its default text editor sucks.

      (This from someone who used to use “pull the power plug to exit” vim…)

      • Ramin Honary@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        27 days ago

        Of course people who pull the power plug to exit Vi would be the type of people to confuse app platforms with operating systems.

    • arxdat@lemmy.ml
      7·
      28 days ago

      Was gonna recommend Emacs, myself, but looks like you got it covered! Emacs is an amazing tool and is worth the journey

    • yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca
      3·
      28 days ago

      How do you think one should get started with Emacs? Should they start start with regular GNU Emacs or should they install one of the “distros”?

      • arxdat@lemmy.ml
        4·
        28 days ago

        Honestly, just download/install from your package manager and then start using it. One of the best built-in modes is called Org mode. Don’t try anything crazy because it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It took me some periods of stopping and starting before things felt natural and became my daily driver.

      • Ramin Honary@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        27 days ago

        How do you think one should get started with Emacs? Should they start start with regular GNU Emacs or should they install one of the “distros”?

        I always recommend using the default setup for any software. The same goes for learning GIMP, Krita, Blender, FreeCAD, or whatever else, even though you can customize them all to your liking.

        It is usually a good idea to try and learn the workflow that was intended by the people who developed this software, you could learn something from trying to use the computer in the same way that the professionals do. Same for Emacs: professional software developers have used it for almost 50 years, the default keyboard shortcuts are set the way they are partially for random historical reasons, but partially because they often make a lot of sense.

        If you are interested, please check out my blog series on getting started with Emacs, called Emacs for Professionals

  • axzxc1236@lemm.ee
    161·
    28 days ago

    Syncthing and KeepassXC for syncing 2FA between devices. (I use Bitwarden for passwords)

    • Lem453@lemmy.ca
      41·
      28 days ago

      Do you want to have 2fa keys on all your devices? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
        8·
        28 days ago

        Everyone needs to make their own choices about this but IMO it’s fine.

        Pretty much everyone saves recovery codes in their password manager anyway, which is the same thing.

      • axzxc1236@lemm.ee
        1·
        28 days ago

        Do you want to have 2fa keys on all your devices?

        Yes

        Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

        I use different password between KeepassXC and Bitwarden. (On my phone one of them is unlocked by fingerprint because I am lazy but not both)

        And I don’t store KeepassXC password in Bitwarden.

        • axzxc1236@lemm.ee
          2·
          28 days ago

          While my solution isn’t perfect (if someone key logged my computer I am very screwed), I think it’s better than (1) have a much higher chance of losing my 2FA tokens altogether (2) put all hope on Bitwarden being not compromised

  • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
    131·
    29 days ago

    An web browser. 99 percent of my mobile activities are done in Firefox. I have Organic Maps for routing, a local mobile payment app and a local sharing electric sooter app.

    This is pretty much all apps I use.

  • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
    11·
    28 days ago

    edir to mass-rename

    fd is more convenient than find

    aria2 makes downloads go brr with parameters -x 10 -k 5M and is integrated with multiple tools like yt-tlp, yay

    Oh, and pass for password-management

    ssu makes root console tools password-less. That and rdo for gui-tools (both a bit over 100 loc) made me uninstall sudo.

  • rodbiren@midwest.socialEnglish
    9·
    28 days ago

    Syncthing, micro, fish, btop, podman

    I distro hop so these are usually the first that get installed.

    • rem26_art@fedia.io
      10·
      28 days ago

      If anyone’s interested and using KDE, there’s Yakuake, which is also a Quake-style terminal that fits in nicely with that environment

      • kurcatovium@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        28 days ago

        Although I’m not really terminal-heavy user, I use Yakuake multiple times a day. It’s awesome to have it ready all the time with one on keypress…

      • xcjs@programming.dev
        2·
        28 days ago

        I’m also going to push forward Tilda, which has been my preferred one for a while due to how minimal the UI is.