People usually assume that Linux is something quite difficult and confusing especially those who wish to shift towards it and are newbies. But, the story is quite different as like others you can enjoy the freedom of using the best Linux software which comes in free. Follow through to learn about 16 different apps that are highly useful, open source and also work as great alternatives to major paid versions!
The software however is subjective and dependent upon the needs of the user.
16 Best Linux Apps that are useful and are great open-source alternatives
LibreOffice Draw – Edit PDFs on the fly
This is used to email, share and even print different documents. It provides support to many operating systems including Windows, macOS, Android and many others. For every OS you shall find great options to select the best Linux PDF editor.
LibreOffice Draw is one that can be seen in all the major Linux distros as it comes pre-installed. It comes free and is open-source. Another one is Master PDF Editor which is rich in features and tools required for editing PDF files, but keep in mind that it is neither free nor open-source. There are the same equivalents of PDF apps available for Windows too, and the UI looks exactly the same.
GParted Partition Manager
If you are a newbie and looking for the best partition manager then don’t worry as the GUI-based Gparted is the best for you if you are not comfortable with a text-based partition manager. It comes free and is open-source allowing users to perform all the major tasks of disk partitioning.
Kazam for Screen Recording
Today an important task that helps users a lot in different activities such as making tutorials of any video, making a presentation, compiling a how-to tutorial, software review, or even playing your favorite games is Screencasting.
Today people are filling up their pockets with a good amount of money from social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube and other video-hosting websites by making helpful guides.
This is a lightweight screen recorder which is designed for desktops. Moreover, it is a straightforward yet nifty tool for screencasting.
ALSO CHECK: 16 Free Screen Recorders for Ubuntu.
TexMaker for LaTex Editing
When it comes to Linux then Latex is seemed to be a standard markup language. With its help, we can edit documents. Talking about TexMaker then this is a great editor present in the market with a friendly interface. We have a list of 9 LaTex editors that you can choose for Linux which also includes other free picks.
Many of these can be easily found in the market making it difficult to select one for both advanced users and beginners.
FileZilla for FTP access
FTP which stands for File Transfer Protocol is quite an efficient way to transfer files over TCP-based systems such as the Internet. With the help of this, we can also move files off the system from one host or system to the other without any issues.
FileZilla it tops the list of the best FTP clients, it is the most secured and supports different platforms including Linux, Unix, Windows, and macOS. Moreover, it is a reliable yet fast FTP, FTPS and SFTP client.
Our Pick: 9 Open Source Linux-based Firewalls to install for extra security.
Transmission for Torrents
If you want something free, open-source and with minimum configuration, don’t worry; you have dropped at the right place. It supports cross-platform systems like Linux, Windows, Mac, and Unix.
Many of these are present in the market, so it becomes quite difficult to select one.
Bacula for backups
To recover ourselves from different situations which arise up without any expectations such as human errors, corruption of file systems, or even Disk failure or RAID we need to have a good backup plan.
Bacula which is open-source is designed to work in different networks. This is an automated task that does not need any intervention from the system administrator or the computer operator.
Atom for editing code
One fun thing in the tech world is coding, we can build a great application for our OS to learn how to code. To be a developer, you must know how to program or code in different apps.
If we talk about atom then this is a Linux code Editor which is smart and trendy and the best thing is that it can be customized easily and approached as well.
Many code, text and HTML editors are available in the market for coding capability easy and quick. Some alternatives are Neovim and Vim but they are more terminal-based and not as friendly in the design as Atom when compared visually.
To make a new software in Linux many code editors are available in the market and can make the user an expert code developer.
Terminal Editor
It is great for the Linux Gnome desktop environment. It is practical and rich in features which prioritizes it over others on the list. You can utilize Gnome extensions to make the GUI more friendly with shortcuts and toggles.
Users mostly get satisfied with the terminal emulator which comes at default in their Linux distro but you have the option to settle with others as well.
OpenShot
If you are into editing, this can be performed quite easily on Linux if you find the best editing software. Many of these are available in the market, and you can use them to customize or edit any type of media file.
One is an open-shot video editor present on Ubuntu that works great in other Linux distributions.
This can be installed easily on different distros. It can be installed either from the software center or by using the following command
Sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa
Sudo apt update
Sudo apt install open-shot-qt
VLC Media Player
We are all aware of Video players but for those who do not know, this is quite popular Linux app. It is open-source and provides support to mostly all the kinds of media files present. It supports network shares which include downloading subtitles, browsing, video play-lists, pop-up videos and much more.
Many players can be seen in the market but you need to find the one that offers additional features of playing any video. If you fancy dark mode, you can enable it in VLC.
ALSO CHECK: Top 14 Beautiful and Elegant VLC Skins and Themes.
Thunderbird for Emails
We all know about the Mozilla Foundation and its Firefox browser but for those who do not know, this is quite a fast and patron of open-source software.
One which comes from the same development house is Thunderbird which is again open-source and fast. This is more of a cross-platform, a modern webmail technology for using email services.
ALSO CHECK: Top 6 Linux OS to install on your Android Phone.
LibreOffice
This is quite a popular yet well-known office suite in the market. The best thing is that it comes for free. Though it has discontinued the Office suite Apache OpenOffice still has a lot of popularity. This comes with any defaults for various Linux environments. It is highly recommended instead of using Microsoft Office.
KeePass to remember your credentials
If you have set different passcodes on different sites then it becomes difficult to remember each and every one, this is where it comes in handy.
The KeePassXC is a password manager that is designed for users of Linux and is able to fulfill all the needs.
GIMP to edit photos
Just like Photoshop, this is another photo editing software that comes free. It supports different systems including Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and many others.
Use this multi-platform supported software to complete all your tasks.
Bonus Pick: Simplenote
This is the best application in real-time and provides users with all the basic yet professional features.
Of the top grade, the note-taking application is Evernote, designed for the dominant operating systems. However, it does not have an official Linux client.
ALSO CHECK: 10 Worthy Sticky Notes Alternatives for Windows 11.
Conclusion
Having just the OS installed itself is not helpful. Apps are what make it complete. We have curated a vast list of the 16 best apps for Linux that are free to install. You can use this on any Distro including Ubuntu, Kali and even CentOS. The category varies from media players like VLC, and backups to word-processing software like Microsoft Office.
