Best Apps For Linux is a professional experience and resource guide that offers a list of the most useful open source applications to find everything you need on a laptop or netbook running the Ubuntu operating system. The resource guide features an updated “Best 10 Apps” list that is bimonthly maintained and supported by a team of tech professionals. The blog also covers topics such as best Linux games, alternatives to Mac and Windows, music recommendations, and more!
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Linux
- Firefox
The best browser
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Privacy settings
+Day/night versions
+Many plugins
Firefox is the default web browser for a number of Linux distros such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint. The browser’s simple and fluid interface is one of its many attractions. Firefox will play YouTube videos right off the bat, and can download plugins to play other formats for you. The browser also updates itself from the get-go, meaning you always have the latest version.
Firefox supports a number of extensions to enhance your web experience, and you can customize the browser further via the Mozilla add-ons page, where it is possible to install a colorful theme.
Read our full Firefox review.
Divider
Website screenshot for Thunderbird
(Image credit: Thunderbird)
- Thunderbird
The best email client
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Free to use
+Plugin options
REASONS TO AVOID
-Not cloud-based
Also from Mozilla, Thunderbird is a free and powerful email client. The setup wizard guides you gently through the process of either creating a new email address or setting up your existing one. Thunderbird’s database contains email settings for all common providers, and you can add as many email accounts as you wish.
Like Firefox, Thunderbird can be enhanced by add-ons such as themes to make it more colorful, or better ways to sort your Mail folders. The most useful of these is undoubtedly the Lightning extension which adds a fully functioning Calendar to the email client.
Read our full Thunderbird review.
Divider
Website screenshot for LibreOffice
(Image credit: LibreOffice)
- LibreOffice
Best free office suite
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Free office apps
+Comprehensive features
+Smooth formatting
REASONS TO AVOID
-Microsoft 365 still better
Advertisement
LibreOffice is nothing less than a full-blown free office suite, on a par with commercial alternatives like Microsoft Office. While the interface may look rather basic, this product has some extremely advanced features.
The LibreOffice word processor Writer, spreadsheet software Calc and presentation app Impress are preinstalled in Ubuntu and most of its derivatives. The suite also includes three less well-known apps – Draw, Math and Base – which are used for editing vector graphics, composing mathematical formulae and managing databases respectively.
While LibreOffice uses the ODF (Open Document Format) by default it can open and save Microsoft Office compatible files too.
Read our full LibreOffice review.
Divider
Website screenshot for VLC Media Player
(Image credit: Videolan)
- VLC Media Player
Best media player
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Supports many codecs
+Audio and DVD
+Media streaming
VLC is most commonly known for being a media player, although it does much more than this. When installed, it downloads codecs for virtually every kind of audio or video file, meaning you’re unlikely to ever have playback issues again. The software can also play DVDs.
You can use VLC to clip video files and even convert them from one format to another – from AVI to MP4, for example. See our guide on this here. The media player client can also act as a server, allowing you to stream media from one device to another (handily, we’ve also got a guide on how to do this).
Advertisement
Read our full VLC Media Player review.
Divider
Website screenshot for Shotcut
(Image credit: Shotcut)
- Shotcut
Best video editor
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Free to use
+Multiple effects
+4K support
Shotcut is free and open source video editor that’s available not just for GNU/Linux but also macOS and Microsoft Windows. It features support for the latest video and audio formats, including 4K, and includes a wide range of video and editing effects.
As well as multitrack audio it can also be used on a Linux machine set up with more than one monitor.
Read our full Shotcut review.
Divider
Website screenshot for GIMP
(Image credit: GIMP)
- GIMP
Best art and design app
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Professional editing
+Plugin support
+Tutorials
Advertisement
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free image editor. It can be used to edit and retouch images by resizing, adding layers and other special effects. You can access these via the handy toolbox or dropdown menus. The GIMP website itself has a great selection of tutorials.
If you’re accustomed to Adobe Photoshop, it may take some time for you to adjust to GIMP’s interface, but it can do almost everything professional image editors are capable of. You can even add certain Photoshop plugins to GIMP.
By default the program takes up less than 100MB, which is another considerable benefit, particularly for those short on disk space.
Read our full GIMP review.
Divider
Website screenshot for Audacity
(Image credit: Audacity)
- Audacity
Best music editor
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Multiple inputs
+Multiple formats
+VST plugin support
Audacity is a music editing program which allows you to record and tinker with audio. Not only can Audacity record audio simultaneously from various inputs (for example, a USB microphone or an electric guitar), it can also trim and edit clips. Furthermore, it supports multiple tracks, allowing you, for instance, to record lyrics and backing music separately.
The software also supports a number of audio effects such as noise reduction, as detailed in its extremely comprehensive manual which is both bundled with Audacity and available online. Audacity also supports VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins. Tracks can be exported in a number of popular sound formats such as WAV, OGG and MP3.
Advertisement
Read our full Audacity review.
Divider
Website screenshot for Visual Studio Code
(Image credit: Microsoft)
- Visual Studio Code
Best code editor
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Range of plugins
+Customizable
+Free extensions
Visual Studio Code is Microsoft’s free text editor for coding, and provides cross platform support now just for Windows but also macOS, as well as Debian and Red Hat families of Linux. It comes with a range of plugins, provides keyboard shortcuts, supports code refactoring, debugging, and includes Git integration.
Like Atom and Sublime Text, it offers a variety of packages and free extensions that can be downloaded from its marketplace to add additional features – and the code editor itself can be customized.
Visual Studio Code sports its own terminal and debugger, supports linting, and has integration with all manner of source control tools. We reckon it makes one of the best IDEs for Python developers, as it suggests completions and provides on-the-fly popups that show the documentation for classes and methods.
Divider
Website screenshot for Virtualbox
(Image credit: Oracle)
- VirtualBox
Best virtual machine app
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Powerful virtualization
+Open source
+Cross platform
Advertisement
VirtualBox is an open source virtualization machine which provides cross platform support, including for Linux. Although it’s owned by Oracle, it still remains the only free professional virtualization product on the market.
It also runs on a very wide range of operating systems, including older ones such as DOS and Windows 3, and also includes Solaris and OpenBSD. It also runs on Apple Mac, and for Apple users, it can host a client Mac VM session.
Oracle has been kind enough to support VirtualBox, and provide a wide selection of pre-built developer VMs to download and use at no cost. And, all this is free, even with the Enterprise release.
Divider
Website screenshot for ClamAV
(Image credit: ClamAV)
- ClamAV
Best antivirus app
TODAY’S BEST DEALS
VISIT SITE
REASONS TO BUY
+Protect against malware
+System scanning
+Synaptic compatible
Although Linux machines can’t be affected by viruses designed to infect Windows, your PC can accidentally forward harmful files to other computers, for example in an email attachment. And these days, there are even some incidences of malware aimed at Linux systems.
The antivirus scanner ClamAV provides some peace of mind, as it can detect many types of malware. It’s often used on mail servers but will run happily on your desktop system if you want to scan files or folders.
By default ClamAV can only be used from the command line, but you can use Synaptic to install ‘clamtk’ and ‘clamtk-nautilus’ to allow you to scan your system and individual files with a few clicks of your mouse.
Top 100 linux apps
- Google Chrome Browser
Almost all the Linux distributions feature Mozilla Firefox web browser by default and it is a tough competitor to Google Chrome. But Chrome has its own advantages over Firefox like Chrome gives you direct access to your Google account from where you can sync bookmarks, browser history, extensions, etc. from Chrome browser on other operating systems and mobile phones.
Chrome
Google Chrome features up-to-date Flash player for Linux which is not the case with other web browsers on Linux including Mozilla Firefox and Opera web browser. If you continuously use Chrome on Windows then it is best choice to use it on Linux too.
- Steam
Gaming on Linux is a real deal now, which was a distant dream few years ago. In 2013, Valve announced Steam gaming client for Linux and everything has changed since then. Earlier users were hesitant to switch to Linux from Windows just because they would not be able to play their favourite games on Ubuntu but that is not the case now.
Steam
Some users might find installing Steam on Linux tricky but it worth all your efforts as thousands of Steam games are available for Linux. Some popular high-end games like Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Hitman, Dota 2 are available for Linux, you just need to make sure you have minimum hardware required to play these games.
$ sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install steam
- WordPress Desktop Client
Yes you read it correct, WordPress has its dedicated desktop client for Ubuntu from where you can manage your WordPress sites. You can also write and design separately on desktop client without need for switching browser tabs.
If you have websites backed by WordPress then this desktop client is must have application for you as you can also keep track of all the WordPress notifications in one single window. You can also check stats for performance of posts on website. Desktop client is available in Ubuntu Software Centre from where you can download and install it.
- VLC Media Player
VLC is a very popular cross-platform and open-source media player which is also available for Ubuntu. What makes VLC a best media player is that it can play videos in all the Audio and Video formats available on planet without any issue.
VLC has a slick user interface which is very easy to use and apart from that it offers lot of features such as online video streaming, audio and video customization, etc.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/master-daily
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt-get install vlc qtwayland5
- Atom Text Editor
Having developed by Github, Atom is a free and open-source text editor which can also be used as Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for coding and editing in major programming languages. Atom developers claim it to be a completely hackable text editor for 21st Century.
Atom Text Editor has one of the best user interfaces and it is a feature rich text editor with offerings like auto-completion, syntax highlighting and support of extensions and plug-ins.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/atom
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install atom
- GIMP Photo Editor
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Programme) is free and open-source photo editor for Ubuntu. It is arguably a best alternative to Adobe Photoshop on Windows. If you have been continuously using Adobe Photoshop and finding it difficult to get used to GIMP, then you can customize GIMP to look very similar to Photoshop.
GIMP is a feature rich Photo editor and you can always use additional features by installing extensions and plug-ins anytime.
$ sudo apt-get install gimp
- Google Play Music Desktop Player
Google Play Music Desktop Player is an open-source music player which is replica of Google Play Music or you can say it’s better than that. Google always lacked a desktop music client but this third-party app fills the void perfectly.
Like you can see in above screenshot, its interface is second to none in terms of look and feel. You just need to sign in into Google account and then it will import all your music and favorites into this desktop client. You can download installation files from its official website and install it using Software Center.
- Franz
Franz is an instant messaging client that combines chat and messaging services into one application. It is one of the modern instant messaging platforms and it supports Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, HipChat, WeChat, Google Hangouts, Skype integration under one single application.
Franz is complete messaging platform which you can use for business as well to manage mass customer service. To install Franz you need to download installation package from its website and open it using Software Center.
- Synaptic Package Manager
Synaptic Package Manager is one of the must have tools on Ubuntu because it works for graphical interface for ‘apt-get’ command which we usually use to install apps on Ubuntu using Terminal. It gives tough competition to default app stores on various Linux distros.
Synaptic comes with very simple user interface which is very fast and easy to use as compared to other app stores. On left-hand side you can browse various apps in different categories from where you can easily install and uninstall apps.
$ sudo apt-get install synaptic
- Skype
Skype is a very popular cross-platform video calling application which is now also available for Linux as a Snap app. Skype is an instant messaging application which offers features like voice and video calls, desktop screen sharing, etc.
Conclusion
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Check out other publications to gain access to more digital resources if you are just starting out with Flux Resource.
Also contact us today to optimize your business(s)/Brand(s) for Search Engines