Linux

I don't replace anything. I just install what I need from the beginning.

And yes, I run Arch btw. :D

I replace ARCH with Windows 11 bloat edition. I use windows 11 BTW

• Firefox -> Edge
• Libreoffice -> Gsuite PWAs
• kernel -> Azure Linux kernel (added trust of Microsoft)
• nano -> vim
• vi -> Emacs
• GNOME -> Deepin
• Bash -> Powershell >=7.0

Fish for shell everywhere

As a former Windows SUPERUSER, I always change the desktop wallpaper, just to show off. 😋

But jokes aside and apart from things already mentioned, I always install the Speedcrunch calculator, and xbindkeys so I can copy all my keyboard shortcuts.

Arch, so pretty much nothing.

Except maybe ZSH (but it's 'added', I guess; not 'replaced').

cat > bat

ls > exa

(h)top > btop

whatever terminal > alacritty

whatever browser > librewolf + brave

cli editor > micro

app launcher > albert

vlc > mpv

bash -> fish

I choose what I want when I install. I use Arch btw

Nothing. I picked a distro that works for me out of the box. On top of that I only installed stuff, instead of replacing stuff.

Firefox with (used to) Vivaldi, but now Zen Oh. That's it. Everything else for me is default

Apps I replace with newer versions (on Mint too):

1. LibreOffice, with the latest .deb from their website
2. Celluloid, with mpv. I cannot tell how much I appreciate mpv even though it sucks with DVD, for which I use VLC ;)
3. yt-dlp, with the latest version available from git
4. Screenshot, with Ksnip.
5. Whatever the default image viewer is, with Pix.

There are a handful on non-default apps I've used across my last 3-4 distros at least:

• mpv - the best video player, period. Minimalist UI, maximalist configuration options. I've been using it for many years across many OSes and at this point everything else feels wrong.

• Geany - My favorite GUI text editor on Linux.

• Foliate - the simplest eBook reader I've found.

• Strawberry - It's "fine". Honestly, I've never found a music player on Linux that I really liked. I keep falling back to Strawberry because it's familiar and generally works as expected.

Celluloid is honestly better than VLC. Native Wayland, Pipewire, no filesystem permissions (Flatpak)

I am on Fedora Kinoite, I replaced Kwrite with Kate, all the other default KDE apps are great. Okular, Gwenview as Flatpak, and apart from that a mix of different KDE, GNOME or 3rd party apps as Flatpaks.

I made a list here, but it is a bit outdated

https://github.com/boredsquirrel/recommended-flatpak-apps

I usually replace these:

1. Bash with Fish
2. Neofetch (if there is) with Fastfetch+Hyfetch
3. Firefox with Floorp
4. Mkinitcpio with Dracut
5. GRUB with systemd-boot

• Clementine - music player
• yakuake - terminal
• fish - command line
• Geany - text editor
• eza - replacement for ls
• zoxide - replacement for cd
• bat - replacement for cat
• Librewolf - replacement for Firefox
• Brave - replacement for Chromium

I still haven't found a web service that really needs a chrome browser or that you cant' just trick with changing the user agent

I install the minimal version and go from there.

pdf reader with okular

Gnome Files with Thunar.

It’s the perfect file manager for a user like me.

• bash -> fish
• default text editor (like Kate) -> geany
• firefox -> firefox-esr
• chromium -> ungoogled-chromium
• nano -> micro
• top -> htop, btop
• default PDF reader -> Okular

VLC player with mpv

I use MPV as movie and general media player with my custom config as well as auto-crop and URI copy/paste scripts. It works better than any other media player I tried in the last 10 years. I only use VLC for DVD menus, but it sucks even at that task, because the cursor gets stuck and the menus lag even when playing from SSD folder.

I use Tauon Music Box as music player because of its design, easy playlist/library customizability and Jellyfin integration. I also pay for spotify and use spicetify with custom skins if the songs are available there.

Kröhnkite as real auto-tiling solution with KDE Plasma.

But I'm on Arch btw., so there is not much default software apart from what the KDE meta packages contain.

Arch master race: you don't have to replace defaults if nom defaults are isntalled in the first place and you choose everything our own anyways.

Terminal -> foot Text editor -> neovim, or more recently I've been trying Helix.

Those are the biggest two. I also recommend mpv over VLC.

First thing I install is git, followed by emacs.

Then I download my init.el and my PC setup is complete.

1. VLC with SMPlayer. I don't understand why they keep shipping VLC as default. It sucks.
2. Kate with KWrite.
3. Nano with Vim in *buntu variants
4. Elisa, Rhythmbox, etc. with Strawberry. Although I mostly just use Spotify nowadays.
5. Calculator with calc.

Everything else works just fine, unless the distro made an insane choice like having XTerm as the default terminal emulator.

Konsole - kitty Firefox - librewolf Bash - fish Juk - mpv

• bash -> zsh
• Gnome terminal -> Ghostty/Alacritty
• Adwaita -> My custom adwaita build with smaller sizes
• Default UI/Mono Font -> Inter/Meslo
• Default browser -> Zen Browser