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Ask HN: What useful Linux (Ubuntu) software should more people be aware of?

40 points by deepsy ↗ HN
Hey guys! I've been Windows users for over 10 years and about 2 months ago I switched to Ubuntu. I wonder what software do you think will be really useful for the average Linux user and more people should be aware of?

I just would like to improve my daily user experience :)

34 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 84.4 ms ] thread
sharmi
Tunesviewer to access the university courses available on iTunes. It allows you to choose which videos to download and you can watch it through tunesviewer itself or your favorite media player.

https://github.com/rbrito/tunesviewer

Ag0s
It all depends on what you do with your computer. For one I am a stats nerd so I tend to have Conky running.

OpenOffice or Libre office; for all your Office needs, it can also output to Microsoft formats.

Screen; for multi terminal windows within one terminal. Also very handy when working remotely.

noobiemcfoob
tmux is a replacement for screen that feels more integrated and full featured.
Faaak
GNU/units

Its a wonderful CLI app when you calculate things with units.

Eg: You have: (1000W * 5 hour)/(24V100A) You want: min 125

Or: You have: 10 km * 6L/100km * 1.3 EUR/L You want: USD * 0.837486

You should try it !

mobitar
Standard Notes :) It's an encrypted notes app I work on. Available on Linux and almost every other platform. https://standardnotes.org.
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jdauriemma
Very cool! Is there a CLI?
mobitar
No CLI currently..I would probably leave that to the community to develop.
type0
for simple cli notes application terminal_velocity is great, especially with Tilda.
Rjevski
Is this a native app or Electron crap? Looks really cool but unless it's native I'm not switching.
jrader
Riot: End-To-End encrypted chat system the runs on Matrix. The idea behind Matrix is to connect different protocols through "bridges".

Matrix is federated (I suppose XMPP is federated too). You can send an email from Gmail to Yahoo, Outlook to Protonmail, etc.

more_corn
If you don't already you should get familiar with Aptitude (apt-get). There's nothing like hopping into the command line and immediately installing the piece of software you want.

I like the Clementine music player.

Being able to hop into the command line to process text is neat. You might want to do a toutorial on grep, awk and sed.

Gimp is nice for photo manipulation, I use Inkscape for vector graphics.

Opera is a nice second browser (chrome is a memory hog) it also has built in vpn and Adblock.

stephenr
Apt-get and aptitude are different programs that do similar things.
grover_hartmann
There's also apt.
stephenr
Right, apt is essentially a human-friendly wrapper around apt-cache/apt-get etc.
chuckdries
Opera is chrome-ish now that they've ditched their old rendering engine :/

(though I'm fairly certain they use a different strategy for managing tabs than chrome that might still be more memory efficient)

zhte415
Opera is now 360 and there's no way I'm touching anything they're involved in having combated their intrusive software on Windows.
[dead] sayelt
* systemd-nspawn - aka. chroot on steroids -- for all your container needs -- I use this a lot for all my development, for trying new programs, for games, etc.

* RetroArch - for all your emulation needs in one package.

* ripgrep - better and faster than ag (The Silver Searcher).

* mpv - very nice video player, it can also be used together with youtube-dl for streaming from various websites, including youtube, etc.

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steven_braham
Franz: http://meetfranz.com/

It's a cross-platform messaging client that combines, Whatsapp, Facebook chat, Slack etc. into one application.

anotheryou
and a second ago I wondered why I as a wandows user even read this thread :) thanks
anotheryou
oh, it just wraps the web tab and captures the notifications. No better than pinned tabs for me I think.
[dead] sayelt
Why was my suggestion marked dead?

Being silenced for nothing like this is incredibly infuriating.

grover_hartmann
* systemd-nspawn - aka. chroot on steroids -- for all your container needs -- I use this a lot for all my development, for trying new programs, for games, etc.

* RetroArch - for all your emulation needs in one package.

* ripgrep - better and faster than ag (The Silver Searcher).

* mpv - very nice video player, it can also be used together with youtube-dl for streaming from various websites, including youtube, etc.

To site admins: stop marking my comments as dead for no good reasons, my suggestions are valid.

BlackjackCF
+1 on ripgrep. I have rg installed on my main work laptop and now ag feels a lot slower.
type0
You could add PPA for VS Code on Ubuntu, you should try rsync (cli) or grsync (gui) and get Meld for diffs. Shutter for screenshots, Parcellite for clipboard history, Caffeine to inactivate the screensaver. Also you could get a lot of task specific software via so called snaps or package your tools own with snapcraft.
Rjevski
"Linux" "user experience"

Good luck.

12s12m
For a person who is initially starting with Linux. I'd suggest you to get familiar with the terminal. I'd also ask what your primary use case is. If you are a software developer vs code is a great editor to download.
fphammerle
If you like vim or other console applications with vi-like key bindings I'd would recommend taking a look at http://ranger.nongnu.org/

Ranger is an highly customizable file manager that can be controlled by using the keyboard only.

File management (searching, copying, moving, renaming...) takes considerably less time since I switched from windows-explorer / nautilus / nemo to ranger.

I can't imagine going back.

Getting started with ranger: https://github.com/ranger/ranger/wiki/Official-user-guide

fphammerle
In case you haven't yet: Set up an automatic backup system.

If you prefer a graphical user interface consider backintime. https://www.howtogeek.com/110138/how-to-back-up-your-linux-s...

Otherwise check out duplicity. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DuplicityBackupHowto

Duplicity supports a bunch of protocols / target services (SFTP, dropbox, google drive, amazon S3 ...)

Duplicity uses asymmetric encryption (via gnupg) so the backup commands can be run unattended. (Your private key is not required for encryption during backup)