You just installed a shiny new fresh install of Linux mint. What are your must install apps/tools?

  • Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    I’m going to try to mention things I haven’t seen already written, though I may repeat some of the more important ones to me.

    (In no particular order)

    Terminal:

    • Kitty (Main Terminal)
    • Fish (Terminal Prompt)
    • Neovim (Code/Text editing)
    • Zoxide (a directory changer; once you go to a directory, you can type z and a partial name to go back to it)
    • Atuin (a command history lister, can get a key and bring over commands from other systems)
    • Midnight Commander (CLI file manager)
    • Btop (CLI system monitor)
    • Palette (I do a lot of theming in different configs as well as HTML/CSS, so its nice to have something to quick convert hex to RGB).

    GUI:

    • Timeshift (backup/restore)
    • Eddie (for AirVPN)
    • novelWriter (my FAVORITE writing tool for my books)
    • Floorp (Firefox fork browser)
    • Conky Manager 2 (desktop monitoring widgets)
    • Rofi (keyboard launcher)
    • firewalld (tried this out recently, good firewall)
    • Flameshot (ALWAYS; its my favorite screenshot tool)
    • MPV (I still get VLC, but opt for MPV most of the time for videos/streaming)
    • Speedcrunch (A+ calculator)
    • Steam
    • Lutris
    • Protonup-QT (to inject GE Proton into Steam/Lutris)
    • Stremio (a great little streaming tool)

    I would like to add that I do use Arch, but I’m fairly sure 99% of these packages, if not all of them, are available for most other distros.

    For CLI lovers: Check out Terminal Trove

    Edit: I did see that someone mentioned no explanations on the apps, so I tried to put a little blurb on each.

  • tomatoely@sh.itjust.works
    7·
    2 days ago

    LocalSend for quick local network file sharing from my phone that just werks. I prefer it over kde connect because the latter uses lots of random ports that kinda bloat my firewall whitelist. I know there is an alternative called warpinator, but I don’t see a reason to change my preferences for now.

      • Onno (VK6FLAB)@lemmy.radio
        12·
        2 days ago

        I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic, observant, or something else. There have been many a meal where I was asked what I wanted to eat and it’s rare that I go beyond the words “surprise me”, knowing full well that the person asking would eat the same as I was offered, making the “surprise”, less of a risk and more of an adventure.

        In this case, OP asked a completely unanswerable question to which there was absolutely no reasonable answer, since we know nothing about the person, their interests, their experience, the hardware they have access to, or anything remotely resembling a needs analysis.

        So, even my answer, generic and random as it might appear, was based on how I use a computer, namely, to be productive. I’ve been using them for over 40 years, mostly like that, with some sojourns into art and personal expression, not nearly worthy of public scrutiny, but not specifically “productive” as such.

        So … what were you attempting to say?

        • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
          5·
          2 days ago

          I didn’t interpret the original post as “What would a generic user consider necessary installs?” I interpreted it as “Could you suggest some software that you consider absolutely essential so that I could discover some that I might’ve overlooked?”

    • LupusBlackfur@lemmy.world
      139·
      3 days ago

      ➕ 💯

      This is the correct answer. 👆

      Not one of the other replies (so far) addresses the question to the OP: “What do you want to accomplish with the machine?”.

      🤷‍♂️ 🤦‍♀️

      • thefactremains@lemmy.world
        15·
        3 days ago

        But OP is asking us. Presumably for the benefit of the community.

        If you believe your answer would be more valuable to also include what you are trying to achieve, by all means, include that.

  • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
    112·
    2 days ago

    There’s a lot of letters here, but nobody is explaining what they mean. How do I know what I need? I’m not gonna install everything, or look up every single program to see.

  • Beryl@lemmy.ml
    14·
    3 days ago

    For me personally I install kitty terminal and integrate it with fish asap. Then I waste a bunch of time customizing it to my liking. My preferred text editor is Kate regardless of what DE I’m using and I usually get bleachbit for basic cleanup.

    • SBFalcon@kbin.earth
      3·
      3 days ago

      Hello Beryl. Could you help me with bleachbit settings (tick boxes)? Once when I used bleachbit, it changed back the icons of packages like Zen Browser that I have changed through Menu Edit. It also removed start up applications from the setting. I’m on Arch KDEplasma. So, I was wondering, which check box should I leave empty to preserve my icon customizations and startup apps?

  • a14o@feddit.org
    15·
    3 days ago

    Helpful answer: vlc, libreoffice, gimp, inkscape, zathura, obs-studio

    Real answer: gnome, run-or-raise, foot, fish, tmux, fzf, silver-searcher, neovim, neomutt, vifm

    • Kory@lemmy.ml
      3·
      2 days ago

      Curious why you would need Gimp and Inkscape? Wouldn’t one of them be enough? Is one of them better suited for certain tasks?

        • Kory@lemmy.ml
          2·
          2 days ago

          Oh I see, thanks. I thought you could also edit images with Inkscape. I’m apparently not very well versed in these topics.

          • a14o@feddit.org
            3·
            2 days ago

            You can load bitmap images into Inkscape and manipulate them to a degree, but Gimp is much better at that. You can probably also load vector graphics (svg) into Gimp, but I’d assume they would be converted to bitmaps.

            Vector vs bitmap is a good topic to be familiar with for anyone who works with computers, I keep running into professionals who really should know the difference but don’t.

            • Kory@lemmy.ml
              2·
              2 days ago

              Thanks for the explanation! I agree, this has been very helpful already. Now I go and do some reading on it.

  • HotsauceHurricane@lemmy.oneEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    At the very least:

    Yazi Eza Kitty Fish Fastfetch Feh Trash-cli Micro Spotify-player Nmcli Polybar Rofi (fuzzel for wayland) Librewolf

  • Geodad@lemm.eeEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    If you use the terminal and have a tendency to fat finger commands, I would recommend “The Fuck”.

    It always makes me smile to type fuck into the terminal. 🙂

  • Engywook@lemm.ee
    6·
    2 days ago
    • Kate
    • Yakuake
    • Brave, Vivaldi, Chromium
    • LibreOffice (I use Calc a lot)
    • Kate
    • Ocular
    • DoH-client
    • htop
    • ncdu
    • Windscribe
    • virt-manager

    … and more I can’t remember right now, because it’s too early in the morning.

    EDIT:

    • nano
    • mc (midnight commander)
  • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    3 days ago

    Timeshift is number 1

    Also it’s recommended to not reinstall a bunch of stuff and just install the app when you needed it that’s the power of Linux. Unless you just want to learn the software then disregard

    • over_clox@lemmy.world
      7·
      3 days ago

      I found Timeshift to be a disappointment. I tested it as I was setting my system up.

      • Install Linux Mint, obviously.
      • Install most main software I want.
      • Do a Timeshift backup.
      • Install more software I might want to try eventually.
      • Restore the Timeshift backup.

      Result: The system still thought all the extra software packages were installed, but none of them actually worked. Like, if Timeshift is gonna uninstall packages that weren’t present in the last backup, shouldn’t it also unregister those packages as well?

      To fix all that crap, I had to force reinstall all packages, which takes about as long as a full OS reinstall, but I was already happy with the rest of the configuration, so I ran…

      sudo aptitude reinstall '~i'

      • lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        2 days ago

        Had similar experience with snapshots. Restore to the last working version just to find the same issue that’s been bothering me.

        Then went back to the classic approach with 👻 images and Rescuezilla.

        With NVME drive, it takes 7min to backup 60Gb, and 3min to restore it.