26 must-have pieces of fantastic freeware on Linux in 2019
TL;DR:
sudo dnf install mpv openshot gwenview dia gimp inkscape telegram-desktop keepassx gimagereader-gtk emoji-picker tmux vim terminator xclip the_silver_searcher s3cmd jq GraphicsMagick diffuse htop glances gnome-tweak-tool unrar fuse-exfat exfat-utils yum-plugin-fastestmirror breeze-cursor-theme
Well, OK, maybe not 26 exactly. Close enough.
Though we live in the world of webapps, there are still quite a few handy programs I install as one of the first things on any new installation of Linux.
General Applications
mpv
Minimalistic video player. VLC reigned surpreme for a long time because of its incredibly wide gammut of video algorithm support. It's still great, but MPV is a newer offering that offers a far more refined and fast UI compared to VLC. I find that I mostly prefer MPV and fall back to VLC on rare occasions when I need further details about a codec. MPV seems to support nearly as many algorithms as well.
openshot
Video editing on Linux continues to be a tough sell. Generally the options aren't as stable or flushed out as the Mac or Windows counterparts. That said, I have found OpenShot to offer an attractive, simple, and responsive UI. It gets the job done for your simple edits, but you'll likely need to run back to Windows or Mac land for anything advanced.
(Notable mention -- Google "lossless cut" for a fantastic raw footage clipper, though it's not offered through dnf)
gwenview
Super responsive file manager that is useful when you need to scroll through lots of photos as files. Nautilus gives you basic thumbnails, though Gwenview can size them up larger.
dia
There are plenty of diagraming tools in the cloud nowadays, but sometimes a simple desktop application is nice. Dia is just that. Though a lack of some basic keyboard shortcuts can be frustrating at times, the program just works and works well.
gimp
I'm not a huge photography guy, but the GNU Image Manipulation Program, GIMP, more than covers my somewhat more advanced photo work requirements. Photoshop nerds, stop reading now...I think GIMP is easier to learn in most aspects than Photoshop. Best of all, there's no Adobe monthly fee.
inkscape
I absolutely love Illustrator. But again, that monthly Adobe fee. Reluctantly, I've migrated to Inkspace and found it more than capable for the occasional illustration.
telegram-desktop
Of all the post-Hangouts solutions out there, Telegram is my favorite mainly because its UI is fast, it encrypts messages, and it's supported well across all main platforms.
keepassx
Keepass is a great standalone password manager. It doesn't make you sign up for an account, its UI is fast and simple, and ctrl+v auto-switches to your previous window and fills out username/password fields. Best of all, it is supported well across all platforms.
gimagereader-gtk
Once in awhile, someone sends you a photo of text, whether it's actually a photo from a camera or a PDF without text data. gImageReader is a lightweight OCR program. Give it any input and it will easily recognize text.
emoji-picker
The name speaks for itself. So many great emojis in these days.
Development Environment
tmux
The key to a truly keyboard-driven development environment.
vim
So much to say, so little space.
terminator
Vastly customizable terminal emulator. One nice feature is the ability to make the window borderless.
xclip
Allows you to yank from Tmux to the system clipboard.
the_silver_searcher
Fast in-file searcher. Hook it up to Vim for a good time.
s3cmd
If you're reading this it's very likely you work with stuff stored on S3. S3cmd is a great client that has full capabilities including pulling whole directories of files. s3cmd get --recursive s3://...
jq
Small utility that formats JSON responses. CLI quality-of-life thing. Pipe curl or wget results into this.
diffuse
Cool open source diff tool. I use this mainly not with a VCS but to compare two arbitrary bits of output. Sometimes it's nice to do this in a GUI.
Notable mention for VCS diffs -- Google "diff-so-fancy" for another huge CLI quality-of-life win, though not offered through dnf.
python3-sqlparse
Provides command line utility sqlformat
. When you want to understand a big nasty query, this helps a lot. What I do is yank from Tmux, pipe through sqlformat
, and dump in a new Vim window.
git-xcleaner
Nice curses-based way to clean up merged Git branches that tend to pile up.
System Improvements
htop
Fast CLI process manager. Makes it easy to hunt down that one process you're after and kill it, plus other nice bits of UI.
glances
Provies more summarized info about resources than htop which can be more useful than htop.
gnome-tweak-tool
Must-have for GNOME desktop. Add weekday to clock, change appearance, and manage GNOME extensions.
GraphicsMagick
Improved version of ImageMagick. If you're a developer, you'll likely need this at some point.
unrar
Linux support for the .rar format.
fuse-exfat, exfat-utils
Linux support for exFAT devices, like most thumbdrives.
yum-plugin-fastestmirror
Strangely this still isn't a default DNF plugin, but can speed up the time you spend waiting for stuff to download.
breeze-cursor-theme
Attractive cursor, so you can feel all different and stuff.