85 Essential Applications available in Linux (Categorized)

Leave a Comment / Listicles / By
applications in linux

Generally, people talk about Windows operating system as it’s the most convenient and most widely used OS across the globe. But there are also many tech-savvies out there (Like you!) who can handle the command-line interface. For those people, I have created a list of 85 essential applications available in Linux distribution. And for your convenience, I didn’t forget to categorize them, so in case, if you are looking for some specific category applications in Linux then you don’t have to go through this entire article!

Applications in Linux Distribution

Here we go!

Browsers

Chrome

Google Chrome is a web browser based on the chromium framework. It’s one of the most popular browsers of all time! This browser is known for its speed, simplicity, security, and also, a brand, Google! This browser is the most favorite of the developers. Also, it’s free and open-source!

Installation
$ wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install google-chrome-stable

Firefox

Firefox Quantum is also one of the best browsers developed by the Mozilla foundation (non-profit). When it comes to customization, Firefox is a clear winner due to its large extension library!

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

$ sudo apt install firefox

Vivaldi

Vivaldi is a freeware, cross-platform web browser that was developed by Vivaldi Technologies. It’s just like Chrome but more focused on privacy and security.

Installation
$ wget -qO- http://repo.vivaldi.com/stable/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add -

$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=i386,amd64] http://repo.vivaldi.com/stable/deb/ stable main"

$ sudo apt install vivaldi-stable

Linux Terminals

GNOME Terminal

GNOME Terminal is a default terminal emulator for the GNOME desktop environment. It’s written by Havoc Pennington and others.

Installation
$ sudo apt install gnome-terminal

Konsole

Konsole is a free, open-source terminal emulator. It is a part of KDE Applications and ships with the KDE desktop environment. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle. It provides features like Multiple tabs support, Silence and Activity monitoring, Bookmark support, Multiple profiles support, Searching, Saving output, and also, Multiple splits in any tab.

Installation
$ sudo apt install konsole

Terminator (Preferred)

Terminator is a Linux terminal emulator that provides some extra features that the default terminal doesn’t provide. Mainly, we can create multiple workspace in a single window by splitting the window horizontally or vertically.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install terminator

Guake

Guake is a top-down terminal for GNOME. It’s highly inspired by a famous terminal used in Quake. Just With a single key stroke, you can instantaneously either show or hide the terminal, execute the command and then go back to the previous task without breaking your workflow.

Installation

Office suites

LibreOffice (Preferred)

LibreOffice is an open-source and free office suite, a project of The Document Foundation. It was forked from the OpenOffice project, which was an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install libreoffice

Calligra Suite

Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite developed by KDE. There are different applications available for word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, databases, vector graphics, and digital painting. This suite supports desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install calligra -y

WPS Office

WPS Office is developed by a Chinese software developer Kingsoft. It’s made up of three primary components: WPS Writer, WPS Spreadsheet, WPS Presentation.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install snapd

$ sudo snap install wps-office

OnlyOffice

OnlyOffice is a free software office suite that was developed by Ascensio System SIA which is a company, headquartered in Riga, Latvia. OnlyOffice comes with elements like online document editors, a platform for document management, corporate communication, mail, and project management tools.

Installation
Get OnlyOffice from here

Video Editors

Shotcut

Shotcut is a free and open-source cross-platform video editing software available for Linux, macOS, Windows, and FreeBSD. It’s developed on the MLT multimedia framework.

Installation

First, you need to install prerequesties.

$ sudo apt install libsdl2-dev

Then, add repository, update package list and install shotcut.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:haraldhv/shotcut

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt install shotcut

DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve is a color correction and non-linear video editing software for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Originally, it was developed by da Vinci Systems and now developed by Blackmagic Design following its acquisition in 2009.

Installation
Get Davinci Resolve from here

Kdenlive

Kdenlive is a free, open-source video editing software. It is based on the MLT Framework, KDE, and Qt. The project was started in 2002 by Jason Wood. Now, it is maintained by a small team of developers. It became a part of the official KDE project after the release of Kdenlive 15.04.0.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install kdenlive

Openshot

OpenShot is a free, cross-platform, and open-source video editor application for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Jonathan Thomas this project (Openshot) was started in August 2008. The objective behind this project was to provide a stable, free, and friendly to use video editor. Languages used for the development of Openshot are Python, PyQt5, C++ and it also offers a Python API.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install openshot-qt

Image Editors

GIMP

GIMP(GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editing program. You can use it for image editing and image manipulation, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install gimp

Inkspace

Inkspace is a free and open-source vector graphics editing software. You can use it to create vector images, primarily in Scalable Vector Graphics format. Other formats can be imported and exported. It can render primitive vector shapes and text.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository universe

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:inkscape.dev/stable

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt install inkscape

Audio Editors

Audacity

Audacity is a free and open-source, cross-platform digital audio editing and recording software. You can also extend its functionality with the help of supported plugins.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/audacity

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install audacity

LMMS

LMMS is a digital audio workstation program. With appropriate hardware, when LMMS is executed on a computer, it allows music to be produced by the arrangement of samples, synthesizing sounds, playing on a MIDI keyboard, and combining the features of trackers and sequencers.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install lmms

Screenshot tools

Shutter

Shutter is a free and open-source, feature-rich screenshot program for Linux-based OS. You can take a screenshot at your convenience for example, you can take a screenshot of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website. You can apply different effects to it, draw on it to highlight points, and then upload to an image hosting site, all these, within just one window, amazing, right?!

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/shutter

$ sudo apt install shutter

Kazam

Kazam is a simple screen recorder that can capture the content of your screen. Also, it can record a video file that can be played by any video player that supports VP8/WebM video format.

Optionally, it’s also possible to record sound from any sound input device that supports kazam and is visible by PulseAudio.

Installation
$ sudo apt install kazam

Gnome Screenshot

GNOME Screenshot is a utility software that is used in the GNOME desktop environment to take screenshots. It was split into its own package from the 3.3.1 version in 2011.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-screenshot

Flameshot

Flameshot is a simple screenshot software. It provides features like In-app screenshot edition, DBus interface, upload to Imgur, easy to use, customizable appearance.

Installation
$ sudo apt install flameshot

Ksnip

ksnip is a Qt-based cross-platform screenshot and annotation tool.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo snap install ksnip

Screen Recorders

SimpleScreenRecorder

SimpleScreenRecorder is a Linux program. It’s mainly created to record programs and games. According to developers (as I didn’t use it personally!), It is simple as it is easy to use than ffmpeg/avconv or VLC, as it has a straightforward user interface. It comes with GUI(Qt-based) and also, it’s Faster than VLC and ffmpeg/avconv, Records the entire screen or part of it, or records OpenGL applications directly (similar to Fraps on Windows), Synchronizes audio and video properly (a common issue with VLC and ffmpeg/avconv) and many more! Check here.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder
Also, run following command if you want to record 32 bit OpenGL applications on 64 bit system.
$ sudo apt-get install simplescreenrecorder-lib:i386

RecordMyDesktop

recordMyDesktop is a free and open-source desktop screencasting software specially written for Linux. The program is separated into two parts, first is a command-line tool that performs the tasks of capturing and encoding, and the second is an interface that exposes the program functionality graphically.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop gtk-recordmydesktop

For KDE

$ sudo apt-get install recordmydesktop qt-recordmydesktop

OBS

OBS(Open Broadcaster Software), maintained by the OBS Project, is a free, cross-platform, and open-source streaming and recording software built with Qt. Since 2016, this software is now referred to as “OBS Studio”.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install obs-studio

Email Clients

Thunderbird

Thunderbird, developed by the Mozilla Foundation is a free, open-source, and cross-platform email client, news client, RSS, personal information manager, and chat client. Originally the strategy of this project was modeled after that of the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

Installation:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install thunderbird

Geary

Geary is an open-source, free email client written in Vala and based on WebKitGTK. Although since adopted by the GNOME project, originally, it was developed by the Yorba Foundation.

Installation
$ sudo apt install geary

Evolution

Evolution is a personal information management app. It provides functionalities like integrated mail, calendaring and address book.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install evolution

Hiri

Hiri was a business-focused desktop e-mail client that was built to send and receive e-mails, managing tasks, calendars, and contacts. It was developed as an alternative to the existing e-mail clients and calendar applications such as Thunderbird and Outlook.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo snap install hiri

Instant Messaging

Pidgin

Pidgin is a free and open-source chat application that lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks at a time. This means that you can chat with your friends on XMPP and at the same time, sitting in an IRC channel! Cool! isn’t it?!

Pidgin is compatible with many popular chat networks out of the box like Jabber/XMPP, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, and Zephyr. Also, It can support many more with the help of plugins.

Pidgin supports many features of these chat networks. To showcase some, file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smileys, and typing notifications. Also, there are many plugins available to extend Pidgin’s functionality above and beyond the standard features.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install pidgin

Skype

Skype is a proprietary Telecomm. application that provides video chat and voice calls between computers, tablets, mobile devices, the Xbox One console, and smartwatches over the Internet. Also, skype provides instant messaging services. Users may transmit video, audio, text, and images.

Installation
$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo snap install skype --classic

Empathy

Empathy is an IM(Instant Messaging) and VoIP client that supports text, voice, video, file transfers, and also inter-application communication over various instant-messaging communication protocols. It’s actually a fork (a branch) of the Gossip project which was started by Michael Hallendal, Richard Hult and later maintained by Martyn Russell. It provides features like private and group chat, location sharing, some IRC support.

Also, it provides multi protocol: Google talk(Jabber/XMPP), IRC, Salut, AIM, Facebook, Yahoo!, MSN, Gadu Gadu, Groupwise, ICQ and QQ. It supports all the protocols supported by pidgin.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install empathy

Team communication and productivity

Slack

Slack is a proprietary business communication platform. It was developed by the American software company Slack Technologies. It provides IRC-style features including private groups, persistent chat rooms organized by topic, and direct messaging.

Installation
$ wget https://downloads.slack-edge.com/linux_releases/slack-desktop-4.0.2-amd64.deb

$ sudo apt install ./slack-desktop-*.deb

Franz

Franz is a messaging application for WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, skype, linkedin Telegram and many many more. So, we can say, it’s kind of, all in one solution for messaging.

Installation

First, you need to download Franz package from here.

Then change directory to the folder where the package is located. In my case, it’s in Downloads.

$ cd Downloads/

$ sudo apt install ./franz_5.5.0_amd64.deb

Gaming apps

Steam

Steam is a video game digital distribution service, provided by Valve. In September 2003, it was launched as a standalone software client as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for its games. Later, it was expanded to include games from third-party publishers.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository multiverse

$ sudo apt install steam

Discord

Discord is we can say, a combo of VoIP, instant messaging, and digital distribution platform designed to create and maintain communities. Using discord, you can communicate with voice and video calls, text messaging, and also they can share media, and files in private chats or as part of communities called “servers”.

Installation
$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo snap install discord

Media Players

VLC

Developed by the VideoLAN project, the VLC media player is a free, open-source, portable, and cross-platform media player application, and streaming media server. It is capable to play most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

Installation
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install vlc

Banshee

Banshee was an open-source, cross-platform media player, called Sonance until 2005. Built upon Mono and Gtk#, it makes use of the GStreamer multimedia platform to encode and decode various media formats, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:banshee-team/ppa

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install banshee

Kodi

Kodi(formerly known as XBMC) is a free and open-source media player. It was developed by the XBMC Foundation which is a non-profit technology consortium. It’s available for multiple operating systems as well as for multiple hardware platforms, with a software 10-foot user interface for use with remote controls and televisions.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install kodi

Audacious

Audacious is a free, open-source audio player software that mainly focuses on low resource use, high audio quality, and support for a wide range of audio formats. It’s designed primarily for use on POSIX-compatible Unix-like OS, with limited support for Microsoft Windows.

Installation
$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install audacious audacious-plugins

SMPlayer

SMPlayer is a free, open-source, and cross-platform graphical front-end for MPlayer and a fork of Mplayer using Qt-based GUI. It has been localized in more than 30 languages.

One thing that I like the most in SMPlayer is, it remembers the settings of all files you play. So, let say, you start to watching a movie but you have to leave. What then? Don’t worry! because when you open that movie again, it will be resumed at the same point you left it, and with the same settings!

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
 
$ sudo apt-get update 

$ sudo apt-get install smplayer smplayer-themes smplayer-skins

Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox is a combo of a free & open-source audio player application, tag editor, and music organizer for digital audio files on Linux and other Unix-like systems. It is designed to work well under GNOME, but it can also function well on other desktop environments as well!

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vascofalves/gnome-backports

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install rhythmbox

Lollypop

Lollypop is a lightweight & modern music player program, designed to work excellently on the GNOME desktop environment. It provides a party mode that automatically selects party-related playlists to play; a full-screen view that lets you visually access the player from your couch, thanks to its HiDPI support; and native support to replay again. It also provides features like synchronization, multiple audio files, and audio scrobbling.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnumdk/lollypop

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install lollypop

Amarok

Amarok is a free, open-source music player. It is available for Unix-like, as well as for Windows and also macOS systems. Although Amarok is part of the KDE project, it’s released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation release cycle.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install amarok

Clementine

Clementine is a free, open-source audio player. Just like Amarok, it is available for Unix-like, Windows, and macOS. Using Clementine you can listen to local music library, listen to radio from several platforms, play audio CDs and many more features are available.

Installation
$ sudo apt install clementine -y

Cmus

Cmus is a light and fast console audio player software for Unix-like OS. It operates exclusively through a text-based user interface, built with ncurses.

It provides features like Gapless playback, ReplayGain support, MP3 and Ogg streaming (SHOUTcast/Icecast), Play queue, Optional playback resume on startup.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install cmus

Media server software

Plex

Plex is a global streaming media service and a client–server media player platform, developed by Plex, Inc. It organizes audio, video, and photos from a user’s collections and also from online services, and streams it to the players.

Installation
$ curl https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key | sudo apt-key add -

$ echo deb https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.list

$ sudo apt install apt-transport-https

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install plexmediaserver

Media Converters

Handbrake

HandBrake is a free and open-source transcoder application for digital video files, developed in 2003 by Eric Petit. Originally, it was created to make it easy ripping a film from a DVD to a data storage device.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install handbrake

SoundConverter

SoundConverter is an unofficial GNOME-based, free and open-source transcoder for digital audio files. It uses GStreamer for input and output files. It has a multi-threaded design and it can also extract the audio from video files.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install soundconverter

Cloud Storage

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting service provided by the USA-based company Dropbox, Inc. It offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software to handle those tasks.

Installation

We need to install the wget package using the apt command.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install wget

Dropbox cli version is available for both, 32 bit and 64 bit editions. Based on your version, choose one.

32-bit

$ cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86" | tar xzf -
64-bit

$ cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

Execute following command to start the Dropbox from .dropbox-dist folder.

$ ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

Google Drive

Google Drive is a product of Google that provides file storage and synchronization service. You can store files in the cloud, synchronize files across devices, and also, share files in Google Drive.

Installation

As this process requires account setup and all, I’m providing a link for your ease. Check here.

Mega cloud

Mega is a file hosting and cloud storage service provided by Mega Limited, a company based in Auckland, New Zealand. The service is offered primarily through web-based apps. It also provides mobile apps for Android and iOS. Mega provides a large 50 GB storage allocation for free accounts. That’s huge compared to Google’s 15 GB, right?!

Installation

You need to get mega client from here.

Now, update package list and go to the directory where mega client is downloaded. In my case, it’s in downloads.

$ sudo apt update

$ cd Downloads/

$ ls

You will see one deb package with name starting from megasync*.

Run following command to install mega synch. (Press y and hit enter if asked in between.)

$ sudo apt install ./"Type megasync package name"

PDF Editors

LibreOffice Draw

LibreOffice Draw is a free and open-source vector graphics editing program. It’s one of the applications that comes bundled in the LibreOffice office suite, developed by The Document Foundation. It can be used to create complicated figures using shape tools, straight, polygon tools, and curved tools among other features.

Installation

Just install libreoffice to get LibreOffice draw.

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install libreoffice

PDF Studio

PDF Studio is a commercial desktop software developed by Qoppa Software to create, convert, review, annotate, and edit Portable Document Format(PDF) documents.

Installation

You have to buy this.

Get PDF Studio from here
NOTE: This is NOT an affiliate link. It's provided here just for your convience.

Code Editors and IDEs

Atom

Atom is a free, cross-platform, and open-source text and source code editor. It supports plug-ins developed using JavaScript, and embedded Git Control, developed by GitHub. Atom provides features like smart autocompletion, multiple panes, find and replace, and more. It supports Git and Github and also comes with a built-in package manager.

Installation

Update package list and install dependencies

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install software-properties-common apt-transport-https wget

You nee d to import the repository GPG key and enable Apt repository.

$ wget -q https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/gpgkey -O- | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://packagecloud.io/AtomEditor/atom/any/ any main"

Now, install Atom.

$ sudo apt install atom

Sublime Text

Sublime Text (Sublime Text 3) is a cross-platform code editor with a Python application programming interface. It natively supports many programming and also markup languages. Also, functions can be added by users with plugins, typically community-built and maintained under free software licenses. It provides features like split editing, multiple selections, powerful API and package ecosystem, and much more.

Installation

First, Install the GPG key:

$ wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -

Make sure that apt is set up to work with https sources

$ sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https

Then add apt repository with this command

$ echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list

Now, just update apt sources and install sublime text using following commands.

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install sublime-text

Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform and lightweight but powerful source code editor that runs on the desktop. There is built-in support in visual code for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Node.js. Also, it provides extension support for other languages (such as C++, C#, Python, PHP, Java, Go) and runtimes (such as .NET and Unity). It offers various features like snippets, syntax highlighting, debugging, intelligent code completion, code refactoring, and embedded Git.

Installation
$ sudo snap install --classic code

That’s it. All done!

But, you can also install vscode using apt. For that, you need to first update the packages index and install the dependencies.

$ sudo apt update

$ 
sudo apt install software-properties-common apt-transport-https wget

Now, import Microsoft’s GPG key using following command.

$ wget -q https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Then, enable the Visual Studio Code repository.

$ sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/vscode stable main"

After that, just install visual studio code using following command.

$ sudo apt install code

Eclipse IDE

Eclipse is an integrated development environment(IDE) generally used in computer programming. It contains a base workspace and also, it provides support for plug-ins to customize the environment. It’s famous for Java but can handle many technologies.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install default-jre

Now install snap and update the package list.

$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo apt update

Run following command to install eclipse using snap.

$ sudo snap install --classic eclipse

Netbeans IDE

Apache NetBeans is a cross platform integrated development environment(IDE) for Java. NetBeans allows applications to be developed from modules (a set of modular software components).

Installation

First, update package list and install OpenJDK package using following commands.

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk

Then, install netbeans with snap package as below.

$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo snap install netbeans --classic

Light Table

Light Table is an integrated development environment(IDE) for software engineering, developed by Chris Granger and Robert Attorri. It provides features like real-time feedback that allows instant execution, debugging and access to documentation. The instant feedback feature offered by the light table provides an execution environment intended to help developing abstractions.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:dr-akulavich/lighttable

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install lighttable-installer

Brackets

Brackets is free and open-source software, source code editor (now discontinued) with a primary focus on web development. Created by Adobe Systems, it’s currently maintained on GitHub by Adobe and other open-source developers. It’s written in JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install snapd

$ sudo snap install brackets

Geany

Geany is a lightweight GUI text editor which uses Scintilla and GTK, including basic IDE features. It is designed to have short load times (time is money, right?!), with limited dependency on separate packages or external libraries on Linux. It has been ported to a wide range of operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, BSD, Solaris and Windows.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:geany-dev/ppa

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install geany

Gedit

Gedit is the default text editor that comes with the GNOME desktop environment and it’s a part of the GNOME Core Applications. Designed as a general-purpose text editor, with a simple GUI, gedit emphasizes easy usage and simplicity, according to the philosophy of the GNOME project.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install gedit

Text Editors

Nano

Nano is a text editor for Unix-like operating systems using command line interface. It’s licensed under GPL (General Public License).

Installation
$ sudo apt install nano

Vim

Vim, which stands for “VI Improved”, is a text editor for Unix-like operating systems. We can extend the functionality of Vim with the help of supported plugins. It supports multiple tabs, split screen (multiple windows in a single tab), and also recording feature so that we can record and play Vim commands in repeated manner.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vim

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install vim

Emacs

Emacs is a family of text editors which are characterized by their extensibility. The manual of GNU Emacs describes it as “the extensible, customizable, self-documenting, real-time display editor”. It provides features like Content-aware editing modes, including syntax coloring, for many file types, Full Unicode support for nearly all human scripts, and a few more.

Installation
 $ sudo apt-get install emacs

LYX

LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply just their appearance (WYSIWYG). It combines the flexibility and power of TeX/LaTeX with the simple and easy to use GUI.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lyx-devel/release

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install lyx

Texmaker

Texmaker is a cross-platform and open-source LaTeX editor that comes with built-in integrated PDF viewer. It’s entirely a Qt application. Texmaker integrates many tools required in development documents with LaTeX.

Installation
$ sudo apt install texmaker

Note taking apps

Evernote

Evernote is a utility application designed for taking notes, organizing, task management, and archiving. It’s developed by the Evernote Corporation, a USA-based company. With this application, you can create notes, which can be drawings, photographs, text, audio, or even saved web content.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo snap install evernote-web-client

Everdo

Everdo is a cross-platform GTD (“Get Your Things Done”… That’s what they say!) application with a focus on privacy. They provide an optional end-to-end encrypted sync service for online sync. They provide every feature in the free version, but with some limitations. You can check that here.

Installation
$ sudo snap install everdo

Org Mode

Org-mode is used to create and maintain to-do lists, keeping notes, planning projects, authoring documents, computational notebooks, literate programming, and more — in a fast and effective plain-text system. It supports GNU Emacs’ major mode for convenient plain text markup and much more.

Installation

Clone org mode from git as shown below, and then you can follow instructions here for installation.

$ cd ~/src/

$ git clone https://code.orgmode.org/bzg/org-mode.git

Taskwarrior

Taskwarrior is an cross platform, open-source time and task management tool, used to keep track of and handle tasks. It comes with command-line interface rather than a graphical user interface.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install task

SimpleNote

Simplenote is a note-taking app with Markdown support. It takes backups everytime you edit something. Also, you can add tags for instant searching and to stay organized.

Installation
$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo snap install simplenote

Laverna

Laverna is a note taking application based on javascript with Markdown editor and encryption support. You can consider it like open source alternative to Evernote.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ wget https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/releases/download/0.7.51/laverna-0.7.51-linux-x64.zip

Virtualization apps

Virtualbox

Oracle VM VirtualBox developed by Oracle Corporation. It’s a free and open-source software for virtualization. Developed by Innotek, it was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008, which was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox—ext–pack

VMware

VMware, Inc. is a USA-based cloud computing and virtualization technology company headquartered in California. It was the first commercially successful company for virtualizing the x86 architecture. It supports multiple windows simultaneously!

Installation
$ sudo apt install gcc build-essential

Now list available packages

$ ls

You will see one “.bundle” file. Now run following command

You can just write “sudo ./VMware” and press TAB for auto complete.

$ sudo ./filename

Now, automatically, installation window will open. Just follow the steps to complete the installation.

Qemu

QEMU (which is an acronym for Quick EMUlator) is a free and open-source emulator and virtualizer. It can perform hardware virtualization.

It’s is a hosted virtual machine monitor: it emulates the machine’s processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, which enables it to run a variety of guest operating systems. It can also be used with KVM to run virtual machines at near-native speed (by taking advantage of hardware extensions like Intel VT-x).. QEMU is also capable to do emulation for user-level processes, which allows applications to be compiled for one architecture to run on some another architecture.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm qemu virt-manager virt-viewer libvirt-bin

Antivirus

ClamAV/ClamTK

Clam AntiVirus(ClamAV) is a cross-platform free, and open-source antivirus software. It can detect many types of malicious software, including viruses. One of the main uses of ClamAV is on mail servers as a server-side email virus scanner.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

$ sudo apt-get install openssl libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev libpng-dev libxml2-dev libjson-c-dev libbz2-dev libpcre2-dev ncurses-dev

$ sudo apt-get install libmilter1.0.1 libmilter-dev     //This command is Optional

$ sudo apt-get install valgrind check check-devel

Backup tools

Rsync

Rsync is a free utility to efficiantly transfer and synchronize files between a computer and an external hard drive and across networked computers by comparing the modification times and sizes of files. It’s commonly found on Unix-like OS. Rsync is written using C language as a single-threaded application.

Installation
$ apt-get install rsync

Timeshift

Timeshift is a system restore tool for Linux. Creates filesystem snapshots with the help of rsync+hardlinks, or BTRFS snapshots. It provides support for scheduled snapshots, multiple backup levels, and exclude filters. You can restore snapshots while system is running or from Live CD/USB.

Installation
$ sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/timeshift

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install timeshift

Bacula

Bacula is an open-source, enterprise-level computer backup system for heterogeneous networks. It’s designed to automate backups that had often required intervention from a systems administrator.

Installation

You need to install MySQL first.

$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server

You will be asked to create a password MySQL administrative user. Enter a password then confirm it and remember it as you will need it while bacula installation.

Now, run following command for bacula installation.

$ sudo apt-get install bacula-server bacula-client

Last step is to update the permissions of a script that bacula will use in backup tasks.

$ sudo chmod 755 /etc/bacula/scripts/delete_catalog_backup

Miscellaneous

Gparted

GParted is a GTK frontend to GNU Parted and it’s an official GNOME partition-editing software. GParted can be used for creating, resizing, moving, deleting, checking, and copying disk partitions and their file systems.

Installation
$ sudo apt-get install gparted

Shortwave

Shortwave is an interesting open-source radio player that offers easy to use interface along with a great experience listening to the Internet stations. It makes use of a community-powered database for the Internet stations it lists.

It’s actually a successor of Gradio, which is a popular radio app for Linux. Its developer Felix discontinued Gradio joined GNOME and as he wanted to create Shortwave from scratch in Rust programming language.

Installation
$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install snapd

$ sudo snap install shortwave

I hope this article was helpful to you. If so, don’t forget to share this information with other tech-savvies. That will help them to know more and also, that will help me to grow. Win-Win, right?!

If you have any query or trouble while downloading/installing any software, feel free to comment down below. I’ll be happy to assist you!

Spread the love

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.