this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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After I install Linux Mint (which is the distro I have settled on), I replace:

  1. Thunderbird with Betterbird
  2. Firefox with Librewolf (I also install Brave for web services that need a chromium browser).
  3. Celluloid / Rythmbox with VLC player
  4. Default Libreoffice with latest Libreoffice from source.
  5. ClipIt/Parcellite with xfce4-clipman

I find this to be my optimal setup and these software give me the extra quality of life that make my workflows easier.

What software do you replace and install on your distro of choice?

Edit: I forgot to say I replace sudo with doas. That's something my friend told me to do although I personally don't find any immediate working advantage with it.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

cat > bat

ls > exa

(h)top > btop

whatever terminal > alacritty

whatever browser > librewolf + brave

cli editor > micro

app launcher > albert

vlc > mpv

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

cd > zoxide

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Similar to yours:

bash > fish
cat > bat -p
ls > lsd
df > dysk
top > glances
firefox > qutebrowser

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)
  • 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
[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wait? Why cat needs replacing? Do you have a link for bat?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yasuke for Terminal because he was a sole black man in Japan of his time. Just like Terminal program is solely black as compared to most other apps.

Most people dont use dark mode on Linux because most apps look horrible in Linux under dark mode

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh wow, cool story about Yasuke. Is that where Yakuake got its name from?

Most people dont use dark mode on Linux because most apps look horrible in Linux under dark mode

Among my friends, dark mode users hugely outnumber light mode users, I really don't have any apps that struggle to support it. LibreOffice used to be really bad, but I don't really edit documents anymore, so I don't use it often, but when I do, I don't see issues (although the document background is white, because paper, so the contrast is a bit weird). I'm curious about which apps didn't work for you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Code::Blocks is the worst offender

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

VLC player with mpv

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)
  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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If you haven't tried it the repl python is pretty in a pretty good calculator. Use "_" to use the output value.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

I don't use calc for much more than basic calculations. Even speedcrunch was too much for my taste. Honestly, I'd use bc if it wasn't for the complicated syntax.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

First thing I install is git, followed by emacs.

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Defaults hehe

I use arch btw

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Ooh, not a "hot take" answer. I rather like MusikCube. It plays nice with putting my music on my NAS and running it from both my personal machines and my Windows/work machine too. I'm not specifically excited by it as a TUI, but it also works just fine as a basic-'03-iTunes-style-navigation clone. It's super boring in the most usable of ways.

My more "hot take" answer is that I replace the terminal program in Fedora with the boring arsed "Gnome Console" from vanilla Gnome. It does all the stuff I want it to do and nothing more. If I was slightly more different than me I might be upset that it doesn't do enough terminal things but I'm just me. :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

I didn't see this one yet:

apt -> nala

Though I think it's technically just a wrapper, the colour support and formatting makes things much easier to parse (visually)

[–] [email protected] 96 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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

And yes, I run Arch btw. :D

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

lol ditto. but the first thing I do on new installs is chsh /bin/zsh, replace caps lock with control and enable vi keys. otherwise I'm dysfunctional

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago (2 children)
  • Firefox -> Edge
  • Libreoffice -> Gsuite PWAs
  • kernel -> Azure Linux kernel (added trust of Microsoft)
  • nano -> vim
  • vi -> Emacs
  • GNOME -> Deepin
  • Bash -> Powershell >=7.0
[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think you forgot to add /s

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Probably should have added yeah. Based on the amount of downvotes, some people took it too seriously

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 week ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago

Arch, so pretty much nothing.

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

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (6 children)

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.
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah this is me.

I was reading these comments feeling as though I must be very odd until I got to yours.

Debian comes with firefox ESR which I think is a good choice because it "just works", but it's also no one's "preferred" browser. I tend to use both LibreWolf and ungoogled-chromium all day every day.

I do use the terminal every day. Years ago I used oh-my-zsh for a while but I think eventually I just kind of didn't bother to install it.

For file manager and video player et cetera, I've always found the defaults to be good choices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I find most of the defaults are fine and get the job done, but I also understand the tinkerer types who like working on a super custom setup that's theirs.

I still use old big iron unix boxes from the 90's, but most of the time I Install the GNU versions of stuff like ls, sed, cat etc because they are so much more feature rich (and just about any modern software/script assumes GNU versions of those tools anyway)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Too many people concentrate on which distro when in fact it's the desktop they choose that will have the biggest impact on their experience

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

bash -> fish

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

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.

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