I'm a big fan of Linux and have been using it consistently as my desktop daily driver since 2012. In that time, I've used a lot of software and these are the picks I come back to consistently. I don't live in the terminal with a tiling window manager, but also don't fear the command line.
There are lots of opinions and lists for terminal-centric Linux operators, hard core developers, and free software enthusiasts, but I haven't seen many for casual users just looking to do boring stuff. This is my humble list which includes practical applications, system tools to keep things running, and details on terminal specific software I use.
I'm not going to list Linux distros here because no matter what I am using because nearly all of these can be found in Fedora, Debian, and Arch derived distros (which is most beginner-friendly distros).
When I am using desktop Linux, I use the desktop environment and prefer a stacking/floating window setup to a tiling one.
I don't do fancy gaming and prefer using my computer to perform simple tasks. I have many more applications installed, but these get the most use:
Xfce (pronounced as four individual letters) is a free software desktop environment for Unix and other Unix-like platforms, such as Linux, Solaris and BSD. It aims to be fast and lightweight, while still being visually appealing and easy to use.
My default go to for a desktop environment. Lightweight and yet has great features and built in utilities. Also has excellent dark mode options.
A simple text editor for the Xfce desktop environment. Mousepad aims to be an easy-to-use and fast editor for quickly editing text files, not a development environment or an editor with a huge bunch of plugins.
Default XFCE text editor. I used to use Gedit, but now prefer Mousepad since it doesn't require additional installation and works really well with markdown, spell-check and other add-ons.
Thunar is a modern file manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment. Thunar has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy-to-use. Its user interface is clean, intuitive, and customizable. Thunar is fast and responsive with a good start up time and directory load time.
Default file manager for XFCE. Does what it says on the tin without complaints.
Secure and encrypt entire partitions or devices, including system drives, with automated, real-time protection and enhanced security measures.
All my external hard drives and flash USB drives are encrypted so VeraCrypt is a must!
Its minimalistic interface provides more screenspace for your images. Among its features are:
Very simple image viewer. Nothing fancy and doesn't need to be! I use this for viewing images I download off the internet and which I take with my digital camera.
Cross-platform, free media player supports multimedia files, DVDs, streaming, offers hardware acceleration, 4K, lossless audio, and more.
With the right plugins installed, this beast will play any video file! I use for playing videos I download off the internet or capture with my video camera. Doesn't play nice with dark mode in XFCE though? :(
Displays PDF, Postscript, DjVu, comic books, TIFF, DVI, XPS formats, supports editing PDF annotations, remembers individual zoom and position settings, includes search.
Great little PDF file reader. Doesn't have all the fancy bells and whistles of Adobe Reader and doesn't need them.
LibreOffice Calc is the spreadsheet program you've always needed. A fork of OpenOffice.org Calc, professional data miners and number crunchers will appreciate its comprehensive range of advanced functions.
I do financial planning and make fun lists in Libreoffice Calc. It's not as powerful as Microsoft Excel, but for most simple tasks, it gets the job done.
Privacy-focused diagramming software supporting real-time collaboration, offline mode, and cloud storage without ads or registration.
I do a lot of fun diagrams, including programming logic, network topology, and other maps, and find drawio to be a great tool. Saves files in XML format. Only major downside is that it's an electron app so it's heavy.
I am practicing python programming and this is a great, all bits included IDE for python. While it may be heavy for some, I prefer a fully stacked integrated development environment with batteries included all built by one trusted party compared to building one from a text editor like vscode using third party extensions I don't trust. One of the few times I think more is better!
Free, open-source note-taking with rich text, cross-platform support, syntax highlighting, embedded files, and customizable interface.
My favorite hierarchical note-taker for fancy notes. Includes support for tables, rich text, and formatting for tons of programming languages (it can even run python scripts!). Also has options to save notes in encrypted format. All files are saved in open XML and SQLite files.
I use these utilities less frequently, but see a lot of use when I am re-installing operating systems, doing backup or file management processes, or managing disks.
Catfish is a handy file searching tool for Linux and Unix. The interface is intentionally lightweight and simple, using only GTK+3. You can configure it to your needs by using several command line options.
Useful for doing file searches, including content search. Only downside is it can't peek into Cherrytree or Libreoffice files. :(
File Roller is the archive manager of the GNOME desktop environment. It can extract, view, create and modify archives. File Roller is only a graphical interface to archiving utilities such as tar and zip.
Basic file compression tool. Used for opening and creating .zip and other archive files.
Graphical GNOME application that analyzes disk usage with detailed graphical representation, supporting scans of both local and remote directories.
When I need to do a quick search to find out why a disk is full, I reach for baobab.
Manage partitions with ease, supporting resizing, moving, and copying. Utilize GParted Live for cross-platform use on x86 machines.
Graphical front end for the parted disk utility. Useful when I am messing around with disks for installing and uninstalling partitions.
Graphical interface for smartctl, part of smartmontools, enabling SMART data monitoring, drive health inspection, and diagnostic tests on hard disks.
Graphical interface for smartctl hard disk diagnostic tools. Great for checking disk health.
Grsync is a rsync gui, a graphical user interface for the rsync file synchronization and backup tool. It works on linux, solaris, windows, mac os x and maemo. It uses the gtk libraries and can work under the gnome desktop.
A graphical user interface for the rsync command-line tool. Used for all my backup operations.
Flatseal is a graphical utility to review and modify basic permissions from your Flatpak applications.
Graphical interface for managing flatpak permissions. Important for doing basic things with a sandboxed flatpak, like saving a file to a local usb disk from a flatpakked browser or saving an image file from a flatpakked image editor.
dupeGuru is a free and open source tool to find duplicate files on your computer. It can scan either filenames or contents. The filename scan features a fuzzy matching algorithm that can find duplicate filenames even when they are not exactly the same.
Excellent tool for searching for duplicate files. Thinking about changing to Czkawka though.
A tool I use for ripping CDs I own. Many of my old disks are old and starting to degrade and skip, so having digital copies is a great backup.
I spend time in the terminal mostly to do admin work. Here are some common tools I use for these jobs.
The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It provides DEC VT102 and Tektronix 4014 compatible terminals for programs that can't use the window system directly.
Default terminal for XFCE. You won't get the bells and whistles that come with fancy terminal emulators like Alacritty or Ghostty, but works reliably well for most tasks.
Bash is the shell, or command language interpreter, that will appear in the GNU operating system. Bash is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It is intended to conform to the IEEE POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.
Bash is the go to standard for the terminal because it's tried and true. Why mess with success?
The GNU Core Utilities or coreutils is a package of GNU software containing many of the basic tools, such as cat, ls, and rm, needed for Unix-like operating systems. It is a combination of a number of earlier packages, including textutils, shellutils, and fileutils, along with...
90% of the work I do in the terminal is using the core utilities. I can ls and cd with the best of them and destroy disks (dd) like nobody's business.
GNU nano is a small and friendly text editor. Besides basic text editing, nano offers many extra features like an interactive search and replace, go to line and column number, auto-indentation, feature toggles, internationalization support, and filename tab completion.
I used vi/vim as my go-to text editor for 15 years until I found nano and switched to it immediately. A true terminal text editor for the 21st century (what is Emacs?)
Terminal file manager with VI key bindings. It provides a minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy. The secondary task of ranger is to psychically guess which program you want to use for opening particular files.
I'm looking into trying lf, but right now, ranger works well for me, especially with its built-in file launcher.
OpenSSH is a free version of the SSH connectivity tools that technical users rely on. OpenSSH encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks.
How I make connections with outside systems. PuTTY is also a good tool, but I don't use it with Linux.
Inxi is a system information script that can display various things about your hardware and software to users in an irc chatroom or support forum. it runs with the /exec command in most irc clients.
I use this to get basic details about the computer I am using.
Distributing applications on Linux is a pain: different distributions in multiple versions, each with their own versions of libraries and packaging formats. Flatpak is here to change all that. It allows the same app to be installed on different Linux distributions, including...
I use Flatpaks sometimes to install applications which are not available for my distribution. I only install verified Flatpaks if my computer is online.
Apt (for Advanced Package Tool) is a set of core tools inside Debian. The user interface application for Apt is aptitude.
The default package manager for Debian. I prefer using this tool directly in the terminal instead of graphical user frontends.
The pacman package manager is one of the major distinguishing features of 
Arch Linux . It combines a simple binary package format with an easy-to-use build system. The goal of pacman is to make it possible to easily manage packages, whether...
Same as above for arch based distros. Pamac is also available, but I prefer using the terminal for managing software.
I mainly use Firefox derived browsers to do all my browsing, switching browsers depending on what I am doing. I don't use Arkenfox and prefer Firefox clones with decent defaults. I accept there is an update risk between Firefox base and these browsers, but I find that less risky than using an add-on that demands I read an entire wiki to use it properly.
An encrypted messaging app focused on privacy, supporting texts, calls, photos, videos, files, and group chats, with no ads or trackers.
Not really a browser, but one of the most important online tools I use. My default messenger on my phone, now linked to my desktop.
The Mullvad Browser is a privacy-focused web browser developed in a collaboration between Mullvad VPN and the Tor Project. It’s designed to minimize tracking and fingerprinting. You could say it’s a Tor Browser to use without the Tor Network.
Great browser specifically designed to be generic to avoid unique fingerprinting. I use it for casual clear-net browsing. I use it as is out of the box and it works very well. Includes a default ad-blocker and forgets sessions on close.
This project is a custom and independent version of Firefox, with the primary goals of privacy, security and user freedom.
Similar to Mullvad browser, I use this browser for logging into accounts for online shopping, paying bills, online banking, etc. I use Firefox containers to keep these accounts separate from each other and block access to non-bookmarked sites using Blocksite and no-script to shut off third party scripts.
Fast, secure browser with built-in ad block, privacy controls, and global tracking protections. Optimizes data, speed, and battery life.
Used exclusively for Youtube videos since its ad-blocking shields are second to none.
Open-source browser with Gecko engine, supporting HTML add-ons and providing privacy features like Enhanced Tracking Protection and third-party cookie blocking.
Useful when the customization to all of the above browsers breaks a site and there's no other choice.
I don't like using browser add-ons since they have privileged access to the browser and can be compromised by a supply chain attack. When I do use them, I prefer sticking with privacy focused add-ons which are well known and open source. I don't use any of these in Brave since default functionality in Brave is good enough to block ads and I only use it for one site.
uBlock Origin (uBO) is a CPU and memory-efficient wide-spectrum content blocker. It blocks ads, trackers, coin miners, popups, annoying anti-blockers, malware sites, etc., by default using EasyList, EasyPrivacy, Peter Lowe's Blocklist, Online Malicious URL Blocklist, and uBO...
I use this in every browser except Firefox. Great ad-blocker with minimal customization needed.
Enables private, separate browsing sessions with isolated cookies and storage, allowing multiple account sign-ins, unique container settings, and privacy benefits.
I use this in Librewolf to keep accounts separate from each other.
The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Seamonkey and other mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plugins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank).
Used in Librewolf to block third party scripts.
This extension will block access to websites of your choosing. A master password controls all customization options, as well as access to any blocked site. It’s also possible to redirect navigation from one specific website to another.
I use this in white-list mode to block the entire internet in Librewolf except for specific sites to avoid casual browsing on tabs where important business is conducted.
This eye-care extension enables night mode creating dark themes for websites on the fly. Dark Reader inverts bright colors making them high contrast and easy to read at night.
Probably the riskiest add-on I use since it is not privacy focused - it's just easy on the eyes.
What tools do you prefer when casually using Linux? Anything new you think I should add or something lame I should remove? Let me know in the comments below! :D
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