Linux Software List

For People with A Peaked Interest in Linux, Concerned about a lack of Typical software …

This thread is really just to raise some awareness about the range of available software on Linux that is typically the main stay applications of Microsoft Windows, Most software here is actually cross platform or allows for Account integration into many mainstream & popular services with no fuss.

I sense that some new comers or casually interested folk are looking for alternatives to their existing software, in many cases it is not needed. This isn’t a definitive list by any means.

So here goes …

  • Web browsers ⤶

Chromium ( Open source browser based on Google Chrome )
Vivaldi ( Proprietary freeware/ opensource component, Customizable browser for the power user )
Firefox ( Open source, well featured browser Required for Gnome Extension Integration )
Chrome ( Closed source & fast browser, Required for Netflix compatibility )
Opera ( Closed source & Fully featured browser with good HiDPI support )
Midori ( Open source, Lightweight extensible browser suitable for casual browsing )

  • Social Media & Messaging ⤶

Mumble ( Secure, certificated local server or remote hosted messaging, high quality positional audio )
Discord ( Free, Proprietary, closed source, cross platform messaging alternative to teamspeak/skype )
Corebird ( Modern, easy and fun Twitter software client )
Gwibber ( Basic Twitter notification software )
Pideon messenger ( Google Talk, Yahoo!, IRC, MSN, XMPP)
Chatty ( Twitch Chat application)
Hexchat ( Cross platform, Themeable IRC Client)
Tox ( Open source encrypted communication platform for voice, video and chat )
Telegram ( Cross platform, Part open source, Encrypted group messenger with private P2P mode)

  • Downloads, Cloud & Backup ⤶

Syncthing ( Encrypted opensource data sync software, no central server, private clusters)
Dropbox ( with desktop sync and integration )
OwnCloud ( cloud storage with desktop integration and mobile app sync)
Backula ( backup )
Deluge ( bit torrent )
Transmisson ( bit torrent lite )
Clipgrab ( Fast Automated Youtube Downloader with Queuing and quality selector)

Libre Office ( Distribution supported, Fully open source office suite: Calc, Draw, Impress, Math, Writer )
Okular ( Universal cross platform document viewer based developed by KDE. PDF, Postscript, DjVu, XPS, ePub)
PDF Studio ( Non Free, fully featured Adobe acrobat replacement. Free trial available )
WPS Office ( Microsoft office file support, 700million users cross platform, cloud and mobile support )
ThunderBird Mail ( IMAP,POP with auto registration for gmail , yahoo! )
WMAIL ( Cross platform, Desktop client for Gmail & Google Inbox )
Geary ( Straight forward IMAP mail client with easy account setup and desktop notification, gmail, yahoo! )
Manager Accounting ( Powerful & comprehensive free accounting & ledger Software )

  • Mainly Video ( but also audio ) ⤶

Tomahawk ( Open source, cross platform & Mobile Music player with cloud streaming integration )
Kaku ( Open-Source Desktop YouTube, Soundcloud, Vimeo Music Player for Linux)
TwitchLive ( A Gnome panel extension showing whether your favourite Twitch.tv streamers are streaming)
GNOME Twitch ( Dedicated light weight twitch app for Gnome )
Livestreamer ( Pipes Live video streams into VLC or other Media Players, Useful for removing Streaming Lag )
VLC ( The Swiss army knife of desktop media players )
KODI ( Formerly XBMC, custom personal cinema and media suite, game emulator with steamOS integration )
Microsoft Skype ( Professional VOIP/Video call client & Spyware tool :stuck_out_tongue: )
Plex ( All in one easy to use Client-Server Desktop/Mobile media suite, all in one easy to use )

  • Audio Playback ⤶

Banshee ( Cross platform music player, supports internet radio, podcast & MTP devices. Also CD burning)
Audacious ( Lighweight alternative to WinAMP with some good audio plugins supplied, Winamp Skin Support )
Clementine ( Amarok Alternative Music player with good system integration and playlist support )
gmusicbrowser ( Customizable, Mutil layout Jukebox Music Player )
JuK ( Simple but effective Jukebox Music Player )
Deadbeef (Clean, GTK2/GTK3 music player with headphone crossfeed & large array of format support )
Soundnode ( Opensource SoundCloud app for desktop )

  • Audio Creation & Mastering ⤶

Audacity ( Opensource easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder. Cross Platform )
Ardour ( NON FREE OpenSource Digital Pro-Audio Recording & Mix Station )
LMMS ( OpenSource Audio Digital Work Station )
Bitwig ( NON FREE next generation of software for sound and music creation)

ShotCut ( Open source, cross-platform 4K video editor )
Kdenline ( Open Source & powerful multi-track video editor )
Pitivi ( Free video editor with a beautiful and intuitive user interface )
OBS (Open broadcaster, no nonsense video recording and live streaming )
Simple Screen Recorder ( Easy to use, multi-threaded Video Game screen capture software )
GIMP ( Powerful image editing program )
Autodesk Maya ( NON FREE, 3D Animation production Software )
LightWave 3D ( NON FREE, Extremely powerful industry standard 3D modelling Software )
FreeCad ( Computer Aided Design Software )
Krita ( Digital Painting Software with Full Wacom Graphics tablet support )
MyPaint ( Quick sketches for Wacom (Autodesk sketchbook express)
Darktable (Tethered Shooting, Instant Digital picture development and management ( Think Lightroom)
Inkscape: Vector graphics (illustrator)
Scribus (Desktop publishing and edition (inDesign, frontpage)
Autodesk Pixlr ( Cross platform & Mobile Web Based Image drawing and editing program )
Blender ( Powerful Free and open source 3D creation suite & Video editor, also available on Steam )
DraftSight CAD ( Free cross platform Computer aided design software supports DWG)

Gamejolt ( Opensource Indie game platform with Linux client )
itch.io ( Indie game platform, upload, buy & sell. Linux Client available)
Lutris ( Gaming platform Integrator, Launch Steam,Desura,GOG,Humble bundle all from one platform & Emulators! )
Steam ( Most popular game client, 2500 Linux Games and growing platform )
GOG games ( Good old Games, Alternative to Steam. See GOG forum for Linux Automated Downloader )

  • Emulators ⤶

PCSX2 (Cross platform, Playstation 2 emulator)
Dolphin Emulator (Nintendo GameCube, Wii emulator, Linux native version)
FCEUX (Nintendo entertainment system 8bit) emulator)
Fusion (SEGA MasterSystem, GameGear, Genesis/32X, SegaCD emulator, Linux native version)
ZSNES (Super Nintendo entertainment system) emulator)
Mupen64Plus (Nintendo 64 emulator, Linux native version)
Vice (Commodore 64, VIC-20, PET, emulator)
Libretro (Cross platform, front end development interface for pluggable emulators and game cores)

Leadwerks ( NON FREE, 3D game engine powered by OpenGL 4.0 )
Unity ( NON FREE, Cross Platform 3D game engine + tools )
LÖVE ( Opensource, LUA scripting framework for 2D game creation )
OGRE (Open-source graphics rendering engine)
ioquake3 ( free software (GPLv2+) first person shooter engine)
Godot ( multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine )
Blender-GameEngine ( multiplatform, Game engine part of Blender built in )
Spriter-Pro (NON FREE, crossplatform sprite editing and animation program )
Piskel (HTML sprite editor, onion skin, open source. http://www.piskelapp.com/)

Winconn ( RemoteApp Manager , FreeRDP to Windows)
WINE ( Basic Windows software support from the desktop )
PlayonLinux ( Front end Windows gaming management utility that integrates With WINE, play windows Steam games )
Virtual Box ( Easily run full operating systems within a container from your Linux Destkop, (3D gaming not supported )
KVM ( Direct pass through Virtualization of Windows Machines ( For Pro users )

Steam Linux Swiss Knife - ( A backup utility and database for Linux Steam games )
HydraPaper - (A Gtk utility to set two different backgrounds for each monitor on GNOME)
Gnome-Pie ( circular application launcher for Linux, made of several pies)
indicator-sound-switcher ( input/output Audio selector (source and sink) specific output port with just two clicks)
Grsync ( Easy Backup software, Graphical Front end for R-Sync)
Calibre (ebook management (kindle)
Timeshift ( Easy Windows restore like system snapshots ( SystemFiles only not user files like Documents)
Greyhole ( HDD storage pooling with JBOD using Samba to create pools (* NOT a backup utility / Raid1 replacement)
P7zip ( File compression )
Peazip ( extended file support file compression )
7-zip ( AES encryption supported compression support )
BleachBit (Program for cleaning web browser Pron cache, double-files. Free disc space (use with caution!)
f.lux (white color filter for better reading at night, turns screen a warm orange )
Redshift ( white color filter for better reading at night, turns screen a warm red )
Solaar (Logitech unifying reciever utility)
gparted (Easy but powerful HDD Partition manager )
Albert ( Lightweight Desktop file & program Search tool, works on most Desktop Environments )
Tomboy notes ( light system integrated note taking software, for jotting down quick references and links )
Synapse ( GUI, hotkey enabled quick program launcher )
Hamster ( Time tracking software )
Radeon-Profile (Fan Control Daemon for AMD card >=HD7000)

  • Networking Utilities ⤶

Wireshark ( Network Monitoring and fault diagnosis )
Smb4K ( KDE samba windows shares configuration tool NTFS )
Samba-configuration-tool ( Samba shares configuration tool including NTFS for multiplatform file sharing )
LinSSID ( Graphical Network discovery tool, similar to inSSIDer )

  • Terminal Based ⤶

htop ( great lightweight process viewer: Customisable CPU/Mem/Swap graphs )
Screenfetch ( a terminal utility for helping others discover your window tweaks, icons and themes useful for screenshots)
lolcat ( colors your terminal text like a funky rainbow )
Guake ( Theme-able, Fancy Drop down terminal emulator as seen on the Tek)
cool-retro-term ( Terminal emulator which mimics the look and feel of the old cathode tube screens)
Terminator ( cross-platform GPL terminal emulator with Multi-tabbed features )

razerCommander ( GTK contol center for managing razer peripherals on Linux)
polychromatic ( A graphical front end for managing Razer peripherals under GNU/Linux)
SC Controller ( User-mode driver and GTK3 based GUI for Steam Controller )
SSCD ( standalone userland driver for the steam controller to be used where steam client can’t be installed)

Kdevelop ( Cross platform, IDE with semantic code analysis )
Bluefish Editor ( Powerful but fast web development, scripts and programming language software )
Geany (small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment GTK2)
Brackets Web Editor ( open source text editor with good integrated CSS support )
Light Table code editor (Next generation Code editor, Supports Python, JavaScript)
Atom.io ( A modern hackable text editor)
Vim ( lightweight, Highly configurable text editor)
emacs ( Popular customizable, free text editor)
TextSuggest ( Autocomplete Tool for the Linux Desktop )
LLVM Clang (front-end for the LLVM compiler)

~
There are MANY more, But The list above should give you and Idea Just how Closely Linux Rides along side Windows / Mac in terms of Software. There are only a handful of big programs that are not on Linux today, most if not all of those can be either Emulated or Alternatives can come close to offering the features required by most users.

Extended List of Linux Applications
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/List_of_applications

Alternate Tek syndicate Wiki: https://tekwiki.beylix.co.uk/index.php/Linux_Software_List

74 Likes

owncloud for storage and alos backula for backup

2 Likes

Oh gosh there are thousands of programs. These are the ones I use and can add to the list.

Internet: Chromium. vivaldi

Email: Geary

Torrent: Transmission (it is a very nice and clean app)

Music: Banshee

Virtual Machine: KVM

CAD: FreeCAD

Internet: Pale Moon, Seamonkey

Email: Claws Mail

Torrent: QBittorrent

Music: Clementine, Deadbeef

Video: SMPlayer

Cloud: Mega Sync

... that's all for now!

I'll add a few
Program: Description (alternative of)

Graphics:

MyPaint: Quick sketches for wacom (Autodesk sketchbook express)
Darktable: Digital picture development and management (picasa, iPhoto, ~Lightroom)
Scribus: Desktop publishing and edition (inDesign, frontpage)
Inkscape: Vector graphics (illustrator)

Video:

HandBrake: Video transcoder (nero?)
Openshot / Lightworks / cinelerra: video edition (iMovie, W. Movie Maker)

Misc / utilities:

Calibre: ebook management (kindle)
Sigil: ebook editor
Solaar: Logitech unifying reciever utility
gparted: Partition manager (Norton Partition Magic)
f.lux: white color filter for better reading at night

4 Likes

There's a pretty extensive list here.

I will add:
- TimeShift for saving system snapshots much like System Restore in WIndows
- Ettercap and Wireshark (don't misuse)
- htop (enhanced top variant)
- ndiswrapper (if you need Windows drivers)
- SmartGit
- RedShift (f.lux alternative)

Krita for digital art.

2 Likes

screen

1 Like

That format is much better, i suggest OP to add purpose of the program in () or in continuation of the line, or as you did.

Torrent: QBittorrent (in my opinion best one atm, as you mentioned), Deluge (very good,a s OP mentioned).
KShutdown = program for delayed shutdown, reboot, sleep, hibernation, suspend etc..
K3b = good alternative to NERO Burning Rom, if needed at this time ofc..
Audacious = good alternative to WinAMP, for MP3 files etc..
BleachBit = program for cleaning double-files, app cache etc. (use with caution!),
Storage Device Manager (SDM) = GUI manager for handling permissions, mounting points etc. for all sorts of partition types (most importantly NTFS, use with caution!).
Samba Configuration Tool = GUI configurator for Samba server with advanced but simplistic options = brilliant for sharing legacy NTFS partitions/directories/files etc. over local area network).

Emulators (my opinion of best ones):
Dolphin Emuplator = Nintendo GameCube, Wii emulator, Linux native version.
FCEUX = NES (nintendo entertainment system 8bit) emulator.
Fusion = SEGA MasterSystem, GameGear, Genesis/32X, SegaCD emulator, Linux native version.
ZSNES = SNES (super nintendo entertainment system) emulator.
Mupen64Plus = Nintendo 64 emulator, Linux native version.
Wine (HQ) = Windows based programs "compatibility layer/emulatior", run windows programs on Linux.

Aisleriot Solitaire = Very good card game, with over 90 games selection (alternative to Windows integrated Solitaire, Spider Solitaire and much more).

@meggerman You can add all programs listed in your post, and add categories and descriptions if you have time, so that everything would be contained in one post.

I just wanna throw this list in:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/list_of_applications

1 Like

@leipero You are missing the best one!
Retroarch with all the libretro cores; I't's like all that list in a single program (except wine duh)

2 Likes

I have made some alterations based on suggestions. The List supplied in the Arch Wiki is useful although I have included it I was aiming at keeping the software most closely related or actually cross platform with Windows, the really blatant day to day usage tools in the list for those who would quickly glance and wonder.

Of course there are many thousands of cool utilities and programs on Linux, some better than others, some down to personal preference but part of the fun once the newly initiated user has gotten to grips using familiar programs is the discovery of such gems, so I wont be adding those.

If there are any more cross platform ones i have missed then post them. I was also interested in adding some more oddball stuff but im not sure if that should be saved for another thread ?

Just thought I'd let you know these two items are posted twice.

https://www.greyhole.net/

An application that uses Samba to create a storage pool of all your available hard drives, and allows you to create redundant copies of the files you store, in order to prevent data loss when part of your hardware fails.

I looked at it briefly with Ubuntu almost 2 years ago when setting up my server but instead went down the easy path. You know what path I'm talking about.

For VM there is also Xen it's similar to KVM

Amended thanks !

Is Xen user friendly though and something your typical Windows desktoper is using,?I know its seriously powerful though, If there is an easy GUI i will definitely add it to the list

hmm, this looks interesting i have never heard of it. But it looks simple to administer and would be the sort of thing some Windows users with a RAID / Home server that doubles up as their gaming machine might need. Il add it to the list

thanks

Added timeshift, good call. Is wireshark opensource ?