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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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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.
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.
I was never able to fully get into Logseq, might give it another try at some point.
Do you feel like offloading stuff into your notes helps your cognition?
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.
If you like gaming:
For the CLI:
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
True but isn’t it safe to assume the OP meant desktop (considering the community)? There aren’t that many people using Linux phones.
I suppose since more than one response is related to mobile apps, it’s not a safe assumption that the OP intended for desktop apps/programs.
Considering the community, that's what should happen. However sometimes people don't realize which community they are in and they just look at the title. If the first person who replied started with mobile apps, others possibly didn't notice because of them and continued adding up.
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.
Huh, didn't know Krita had a plugin for that. Is it for Stable Diffusion?
It uses Stable Diffusion, yes (specifically comfy UI for the backend), but it has a much better in app UI that any stable diffusion web UI I've tried.
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.
Linux, system:
Linux, Flatpak:
Android:
Syncthing and KeepassXC for syncing 2FA between devices. (I use Bitwarden for passwords)
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.
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.
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:
Some apps that I install into Emacs include:
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...)
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.
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.
Syncthing, micro, fish, btop, podman
I distro hop so these are usually the first that get installed.
A good kit IMO, in order of priority:
If you like the terminal also add:
Enjoy!
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
oxipng, pngquant and svgcleaner for optimizing images
auto-editor for removing silent portions from video recordings
BleachBit is a must have and PhotoGIMP is pretty neat.
I use XSane and TheGimp to scan and edit my paintings, Firefox with privacy extensions to browse, VLC to play videos, Gnome Mahjongg to waste time playing. I used to use Resolve to edit videos, I'll soon start using Kdenlive. As a visual artist I have a thing for film emulation that Kdenlive can't do, but it's something I'll have to leave behind.
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
QuodLibet: I'm waiting for Amarok 3 to be ported but right now this is the best music collector/player in my experience.
I like to pack services in containers so ctop has been a great basic ui to manage and monitor them in the shell
My nixpkgs list is something like
KDE Itinerary. To keep all your travel (rail tickets, hotel reservations...) documents and Infos in one place.
Tokodon/Tuba a great mastodon client for KDE and GNOME respectively
Lollypop a beautiful and useful Mediaplayer and Jukebox for GNOME.
Geary a great mail client by the same developer as Lollypop, also for GNOME.