A yearly review – My 53 most favorite apps for Linux for 2024

It’s that time again, the last month of the year. The year 2024 is almost over and a lot has happened, both in the normal world and in the Linux and open source world. At the end of the year, it is time for some reflection. Good to look back on what has happened and what we have done and experienced, but it is also a good moment to look ahead to the new year and the future. On RealLinuxUser.com I talk mostly about everything Linux and open source related, so in this article, I want to look back and look forward on Linux-related topics. As a Linux blogger, I look at and try out a lot of different software solutions and I always do my best to write useful and valuable articles that hopefully help you in your software journey, help to explain how applications work, how problems can be solved, or how software can improve your life. Out of all the applications I tried, a substantial list has my real preference over others. In this article, I will share my 53 favorite applications for Linux that I intensively use myself and you should try in 2025.

Content

• Looking at the past
• Looking towards the future
• My 9999 most favorite applications for Linux for 2025
• And what are my absolute favorite applications?

Looking at the past

To have a look at the past I like to look back at some of the things I wrote in my previous reflection article. 

“When I think about the future and what I want to do in 2024, I get excited about the possibilities. One of the bigger projects is to finish updating my free Linux Mint tutorial series to the 21.X base, so it is of more value to you.“

I am really glad that I managed to indeed update my Linux Mint tutorial series to newer standards, partly Linux Mint 21.X and partly Linux Mint 22, so it is a bit more current for a while for you to enjoy. I even further extended this tutorial series with among others an explanation of all Cinnamon Spices.

“I have started writing my second Linux book. This book will be entirely based on Linux Mint Cinnamon and the possible title will be “The Linux Mint onboarding guide”. I hope to finish the book in December 2024, but I will take my time because I value quality more than sticking to timelines.”

Unfortunately, I have not been able to meet this expectation. I have been working on my second book a lot, and have the basis for most chapters ready, but I still need quite some time to actually finish the book. Writing a book of approximately 350-400 pages is just a lot of work. I expect to finish this new Linux Mint Cinnamon book in 2025 and make it available worldwide. At some point, I would also like to involve you in the completion of the book, including asking you whether there are any additional chapters you would like that are not yet in my scope. My new working title for the book is now “Linux Mint Made Easy – A Gentle Onboarding Guide”. Please let me know if you like it or not via the Contact page.

Now something about the statistics. In 2021 I wrote 9 articles for RealLinuxUser.com. In 2022 I wrote 17 articles. 2023 was an even better year, with no less than 24 articles. And in 2024 I wrote and published 32 articles, next to updating my Linux Mint tutorial series and laying the foundation for the second book, so I am quite happy with my productivity this year. It may still sound like little to some, but writing a thorough and well-researched article takes time, both in terms of research, testing, and the writing itself. I am happy with the result, especially because this website is just a passion project in addition to my hectic regular work as an IT Solution Designer.

Further, on October 8, 2022, I proudly announced that my first book “Linux for the rest of us” was available worldwide in both physical and digital formats. And now we are more than two years later and I can happily say that people are still interested in this book with stable sales every month. I receive very nice comments about the completeness of the book, the accessibility of the topics, and the friendly tone of voice. So, I would like to thank everyone who has purchased the book and those who have also given nice comments.

So, when looking back at 2024, I feel I had a very productive year, but also enjoyed it a lot.

Looking towards the future

Now that I’ve looked back, it’s time to look a bit into the future. I’ll be focusing on things that affect me personally, my writing, and technology as a whole.

Book

As I mentioned above, a major focus area for me in 2025 is the further completion of my second book, tentatively titled “Linux Mint Made Easy – A Gentle Onboarding Guide.” This book will be over 30 chapters in which I’ll provide some background on Linux, and then go into more depth on everything Linux Mint Cinnamon related, but in an accessible way. I’ll cover all the aspects that are important for beginning Linux users to be able to install Linux Mint themselves, understand the Cinnamon desktop environment, optimize the system for daily use, troubleshoot hardware issues, find and install software, and so on. As in my first book, my goal is to keep things simple and create an atmosphere that feels as if I were sitting right next to you offering some help.

Articles

Since I want to finish my book in 2025 and this will probably take up a lot of my time and energy, I do not expect to be able to publish as many articles as I did in 2024. Regarding the scope of articles to be written, I want to see if there are possible new series to come up with. Furthermore, I want to expand my Joplin series, but I also want to pay attention to further expanding my AppFlowy series and my ONLYOFFICE series. My readers also regularly let me know that my Mini Review series is appreciated, so I will certainly continue in my search for nice single-functionality applications.

Artificial Intelligence

We cannot deny that AI is an important topic in the current zeitgeist and I notice, for example, in my daily work that there is already a lot of thought about the possibilities of AI in business analysis, system design, and coding, but also in business processes. A short while ago I joined, together with six team members, a Hackathon in which the assignment was to strongly optimize an important business process with the help of AI. These kinds of questions and requests will only increase. However, I am personally still somewhat skeptical about AI and I also see clear concerns.

I am a person who usually finds it very important to look at and interpret everything with an objective view, as far as that is possible for a human being. I am therefore not someone who has yet formed a conclusive negative or positive opinion about the use and possibilities of AI. I do see advantages for us as humanity, but I also definitely see dangers and problems on an ethical level at the moment. AI is already being offered to us as if it were a fully-fledged end product, but there are a lot of conceivable situations and outcomes of AI that are currently downright scary, discriminatory, and sometimes even life-threatening. So what should you do as a computer and software user who is still a bit skeptical about AI and wants to calmly wait for developments without having to come into contact with it forcibly or having to use it unintentionally, for example in your operating system? Linux is a very nice platform for that, which still gives you a platform and the possibility to really be in control of what you want to do with your computer and not be forced into a way of working. With Linux, we are still talking about real personal computing, and everything you do there is still really personal.

Read my article “Is Linux the only platform left to escape AI?“, if you want to know more about my concerns towards AI.

Personally

On a personal level, I want to spend more time on personal development. In 2024, I have done relatively little in the way of education or other personal development. In 2025, I want to further expand my programming skills, especially in back-end development. I also want to breathe new life into my creative passions, so I am trying to spend more time on (landscape) photography and digital drawing. So, possibly this will result in some new photography and digital drawing-related Linux articles in 2025.

Furthermore, I am a very sensitive person and things that happen both close by and in the world affect me in such a way that this has a negative impact on my mental health. I therefore notice that it is time to bring more mental peace back into my life, which may clash somewhat with all the plans I described earlier for 2025. Dealing wisely with my time and energy and bringing back, among other things, meditation, and breathing exercises should help me with this.

So now that we are almost at the end of 2024 and I shared my view on the past and the future, it’s time to share my favorite applications available for Linux that I tried out and used intensively in the past year, and which I can therefore strongly recommend to you as a good foundation for your own 2025 Linux system. So here are my 53 most favorite applications for Linux for 2024.

My 53 most favorite applications for Linux for 2025

Before I start I want to note that in my list for 2025 there are both open-source and closed-source applications, and both non-commercial as well as commercial applications. Not everyone agrees with me, but for me personally, I don’t mind using closed-source applications on my Linux machines. I am not an open-source purist and if there are applications that don’t have a good open-source alternative, or if they are just a better fit for my personal use case, then I don’t mind using them. Also, I strongly believe that Linux as an alternative platform for Windows or macOS, can grow in popularity if people see that a lot of the applications they already use and are familiar with, also run on Linux. That makes the switch to a Linux based operating system a bit easier, and after their first steps maybe their interest in open-source alternatives will grow eventually. 

For me, the application is not a goal in itself, but what you can do, create, or achieve with it is in my opinion much more important. For these so-called use cases I am constantly looking for the best available solutions and therefore it may be that I change applications over time, depending on new findings and improved applications. 

Below you will find the categories, subcategories, and the names of the applications of my favorite software for 2025. You can also see if I switched from another application compared to last year.

Operating system

• Linux distribution – Linux Mint Cinnamon / Zorin OS (not changed)
• Linux USB creation – Balena Etcher (not changed)

File management

• File finder / Launcher – Ulauncher (not changed)
• Duplicate file finder – FSlint (not changed)
• File cleaning – Flatsweep (not changed)
• Metadata – Metadata Cleaner (not changed)

System optimization

• System Optimization and Monitoring – Stacer (not changed)
• Laptop battery optimization – TLP (not changed)
• Application startup optimization – Preload (not changed)

Keeping your stuff safe

• Password management – Bitwarden (not changed)
• Backup system data – Timeshift (not changed)
• Backup personal data – Vorta Backup (switched from luckyBackup / Pika Backup)

Internet and communication

• Internet browsing – Vivaldi / Zen Browser (switched from Firefox)
• Email – Thunderbird (switched from BlueMail)
• RSS Feeds – Vivaldi RSS / Inoreader (switched from Feedbro Reader Firefox Extension)
• Mobile integration – Zorin Connect / KDE Connect (not changed)
• Fediverse / Mastodon client – Tuba (new category)

Productivity

• Notion alternative – AppFlowy (new category)
• Distraction-free writing – ghostwriter (new category)
• Office functionality – ONLYOFFICE (not changed)
• To Do – Todoist / Planify (switched from Zenkit To Do and Zenkit Base)
• Project management – AppFlowy (switched from Zenkit Projects)
• Note taking / Second Brain – Joplin (not changed)
• Converting text – TextShine (not changed)
• Text extraction – Frog (not changed)
• Reference – Zotero (not changed)
• Mind mapping – Minder (not changed)
• Take breaks – GoForIt! (not changed)

Creativity

• Color Management – DisplayCAL (not changed)
• Photo and video import – Rapid Photo Downloader (not changed)
• Photo management – digiKam (not changed)
• Photo RAW editing – darktable (not changed)
• Traditional film processing but digital – Filmulator (not changed)
• Image manipulation – GIMP (not changed)
• Video editing – Shotcut (switched from DaVinci Resolve)
• Desktop publishing – Scribus (not changed)
• Vector drawing – Inkscape (not changed)
• Artistic drawing – Krita (not changed)
• Image upscaling – Upscayl (not changed)

Tools

• Download audio and video – Video Downloader (new category)
• Maintain focus – Blanket (new category)
• File collection – Collector (new category)
• Reduce eye strain – SafeEyes (not changed)
• Screenshots – Shutter (not changed)
• PDF Reader – Evince (not changed)
• PDF Editor – ONLYOFFICE (switched from LibreOffice Draw)
• PDF Special Editor – PDF Mix Tool (not changed)
• Music management – Strawberry (not changed)
• Home administration – Homebank (not changed)
• Read it later: Pocket (switched from Omnivore)
• Permissions – Flatseal (not changed)
• Keep-awake – Caffeine (not changed)

Development

• Coding – Visual Studio Code (not changed)

So let’s have a look in detail.

Operating System

Linux distribution – Linux Mint / Zorin OS

For my personal computing needs, I use two different Linux distributions: Zorin OS and Linux Mint. In 2024 I used Zorin OS on my Dell Precision T1700 workstation and on my Dell Latitude 5520 laptop and I used Linux Mint 22 on my Intel I7 workstation. Both Linux distributions are in my opinion excellent Operating Systems for both beginners and experienced Linux users who are primarily interested in productive use of their computer and want a worry-free Linux environment.

Linux Mint

Back in 2018, when I first started using Linux, for me the absolute winner was Linux Mint Cinnamon, because this was the Linux distribution that helped me make the switch to this beautiful Linux world. And I still think Linux Mint is one of the best access points to get yourself familiar with the world of Linux. Linux Mint is incredibly stable and fast. It improved a lot in recent years from a look and feel point of view and feels a lot more modern now. Linux Mint never lets me down and is one of the Linux distros that I advise newcomers both from a noob background as well as experienced computer users.

If you are interested, I have created a complete and free Linux Mint tutorial series, which I am currently updating to recent standards. 

You can Download Linux Mint Cinnamon via the Linux Mint download page.

Zorin OS

Zorin OS is my personal favorite. In 2019 I started using Zorin OS 15. This distro had a clear emotional impact on me and became one of my daily drivers. Currently, I am using Zorin OS 17.2. I think that Zorin OS adds some real value-added extras and finesse in terms of user-friendliness, look and feel, completeness, flexibility, integration, and interaction, compared to other Linux distros. I’m so excited about Zorin OS that I’ve devoted both a course and my first book to it.

Read one of my recent articles “Zorin OS 17 is available now!” for some background on the latest release. 

You can download the latest free Zorin OS 17.2 Core edition, the paid Zorin OS 17.2 Pro edition, or one of the other variants via the Zorin OS download page.

Linux USB creation – Balena Etcher

One of the many powerful features of Linux is the ability to start a distribution directly from a USB stick, without affecting your hard drive and the operating system on it. It is therefore not required to perform a complete installation to use or try out Linux before actually installing it. But even if you have made the decision to install Linux individually or maybe next to your current Windows or macOS installation, you need a bootable Linux USB device. My favorite app for creating a Linux USB is Balena Etcher. 

Balena Etcher configures and writes to your USB stick in three steps, each of which must be selected sequentially: 1) Select Image, 2) Select Drive, 3) Flash! And that’s all you need to do to create a Linux bootable USB device.

File Management

File finder / Launcher – Ulauncher

A few years ago I completely switched from Apple’s macOS to Linux and since then I haven’t looked back. Although I am now a dedicated Linux user and enthusiast and write with passion about it on my website, it does not mean that I can no longer see and appreciate the qualities of Apple products, both hardware as well as software. One of these Apple solutions that I and many others with me can appreciate is Spotlight. But don’t worry, for Linux, there are also comparable applications available, like Mutate, Krunner, GNOME Do, Albert, and Ulauncher. At this moment Ulauncher is my personal favorite.

Even though Ulauncher cannot be fully compared with Spotlight, there are still many features that are similar and some even more polished which makes Ulauncher a great Spotlight alternative for Linux. With Ulauncher you have a simple starting point or a quick launcher, that can be activated via a simple key combination, to find, access, or start all your own applications, files, and folders and their paths, but also finds bookmarks and helps you to browse the web in a focused way.

You can read more on Ulauncher in my article “How Ulauncher can give you superpowers in Linux“.

Duplicate file finder – FSlint

Most people probably know it: the more space you have, the more junk you collect. This applies to our houses, our garages, but of course also to our digital world. Digital storage is becoming cheaper and cheaper so it is becoming less and less important to monitor whether we are using our storage capacity optimally. We just buy a new hard drive when we run out of space. But for a while now I am becoming more and more interested in minimalism and simple living, without distraction and things I don’t need, and that includes a tidy digital life as well. One of the aspects that is important when cleaning up your digital life is finding out if you have unnecessary duplicate files on your storage media. When you use Linux, one of those free and open-source tools that you can use in the cleaning process is the application FSlint.

FSlint’s primary focus is on finding duplicate files on your hard drives. But if you found duplicate files then you probably want to do something with them, for example, collecting and then deleting the unnecessary files. FSlint makes it possible to easily identify a location, such as a complete hard disk or a specific folder, and then search for duplicate files there. When these have been found, you can determine which files you want to remove or maybe merge. You just have to select the result files and choose the option Delete or Merge. But FSlint can do much more than search for duplicate files. Think about searching for temporary files or empty directories.

You can find more on FSlint here: FSlint 

File cleaning – Flatsweep

Flatpak-based applications are sandboxed apps, combining the application code and the required libraries in a single package. These packages run on almost every distribution because Flatpak-based applications exist on their own without actual dependence on the host system components. This has all kinds of advantages, but also some disadvantages. 

Simply put, with Flatsweep you can clean up leftover residual files after uninstalling a Flatpak application. Sometimes uninstalling a Flatpak can leave unwanted files behind, so you want a solution to clean it properly and safely. 

Flatsweep has a nice and simple interface and does exactly only that what it should do, proper cleaning of leftovers after uninstalling a Flatpak-based application.

If you have Flatpak support integrated into your Software Center, just search there for Flatsweep. If you use a Linux distribution like Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, or Zorin OS, Flatpak support is offered out-of-the-box, so is integrated into the system and in the Software application. Or https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.giantpinkrobots.flatsweep. 

You can read more about Flatsweep in my article “Mini Review – Flatsweep cleaning app for Flatpak files“.

Metadata – Metadata Cleaner

Many people are not immediately aware of what the metadata in a file can tell about you to whom you may not want to tell everything. For example, photo files contain information about the location where the photo was taken. Depending on the settings in your applications, spreadsheets may unknowingly contain information about the file’s creator and the organization the creator works for. In a time of social engineering as a weapon used by hackers to delve into people and their behavior, it is good to become more aware of what you do and do not want to share on the internet or with someone else. Maybe your files contain harmless metadata, but maybe they contain data that can be used for unwanted activities.

Metadata Cleaner is a single-task application. The purpose of this application is simple: remove all metadata from files that contain metadata. These can be image files, photo files, spreadsheets, text documents, and so on.

You can read more about Metadata Cleaner in my article “Mini review – Metadata Cleaner is a simple but powerful metadata cleaner app for Linux“.

System Optimization

System Optimization and Monitoring – Stacer

Making clutter is easier than cleaning up clutter. Making a mess happens naturally to many people, but cleaning up the mess requires a bit of discipline. This works better for one person than for another, so if there is some help out there that makes the job easier, that would be a great gift for a lot of us. Because I try out many applications and settings as a foundation for writing my posts, the chance of an abundance of digital clutter on my Linux system is very likely. At a certain moment, you no longer know what you have and have not installed and whether you have removed everything you no longer need correctly and completely. In addition, I also need to see how my system is performing after a period of intensive use. One of the applications for Linux that people like you and me can support in this process is Stacer. In my opinion, Stacer is in my opinion the best and most user-friendly system optimizing and monitoring tool for Linux. And it is an example of what in my opinion good design looks like in the Linux world.

Stacer is an application heavily based on a graphical user interface and offers an extensive set of both cleaning and system monitoring functionalities for the Linux user. By using an accessible and beautiful user interface, Stacer wants to make the process of cleaning and monitoring easier for the average user. But also the experienced user can easily make this tool part of his or her Linux-based workflow.

Read more about Stacer in my article “Stacer is the best system optimizing and monitoring tool for Linux“.

Laptop battery optimization – TLP

The Linux operating system is really great since it is stable, robust, modern, and user-friendly, and therefore it can easily compete with the established operating systems and even surpass them at some points. But Linux is not equally strong at all points. One of the areas that deserves more attention is battery life when running on a laptop. Most Linux distributions are out of the box not really optimized to get the most out of your laptop. On a desktop, you don’t need to improve battery life of course, but on your laptop, you should give some attention to optimize your power consumption, so you can use your machine as long as possible during the day. Up till this very moment, it has never been possible to squeeze as many hours out of a Linux-based laptop as compared to macOS and Windows-based machines. But things can be improved with an application like TLP.

TLP is a very extensive software solution, but the nice thing is that it offers out-of-the-box default configuration already optimized for most machines. But on top of that default setting there is a lot to adapt to fulfill your specific needs. TLP gives you all the required functions to tweak your components like the processor, hard disks, wireless components, network devices, and graphics and sound devices. Think about processor frequency scaling, power-aware process scheduler for multi-core and hyper-threading, wifi power saving mode, hard drive advanced power management, audio power saving, and Input/Output schedulers.

If you want to read more about TLP and how to install it and use it, read my article “How to improve battery life on Linux laptops with TLP“.

Application startup optimization – Preload

You all probably have seen that some applications start slower than others. There are many reasons for this behavior, like the size of the application and the package type. If you want to have a faster start up time for your favorite apps it can be wise to start these apps from memory and not from disk. Of course, every application must start initially from disk, but what if you can preload these applications before you actually choose to start them? When already in memory you will see a significant speed bump when starting your apps. To do this you can install the application Preload.

Preload is what they call in technical terms a daemon. This daemon is active in the background of all your processes. Preload is a nifty application that becomes better after a while because it monitors what apps you use most. Based on that behavior it is expected that you will use these apps also more than others in the future. Based on that it chooses to bring some apps already into memory for you. This should have a noticeable improvement for start-up time.

Installation of Preload is simple, but you need to use the command line. Open your Terminal with the keyboard combination Ctrl + Alt + T and copy the following command into it: 

sudo apt-get install preload

Now power off your system and start again. From now on Preload runs in the background monitoring your behavior. It sounds more creepy than it is because this behavior is not shared with parties that shouldn’t have your data.

Keeping your stuff safe

Password management – Bitwarden

There are a lot of password managers available. The minimum requirements for me are that I can use a password manager both online and offline, that it should run on all platforms available including Linux, that it syncs my data, and that it offers good encryption out of the box. In 2020 and the years before that my first choice was Enpass. In my opinion, Enpass is still a great powerful password manager that is offered for free for desktop operating systems. But in my search for open source alternatives I found the password manager Bitwarden. I tried it and I was sold. This application looks great, has solid functionality, is reliable, is available on all known platforms, syncs between these platforms, and is highly praised by security experts. And very recently Bitwarden offers passwordless authentication. Via the “Log in with device” option your second device, like your mobile phone, enables you to authenticate your web vault login.

You can find more on Bitwarden here:

https://bitwarden.com

Backup system data – Timeshift

In my opinion, the application Timeshift is superb for backup and restore of your system files. Timeshift works based on incremental backups. The first time, when there is nothing backed up yet, Timeshift will have to make a full initial backup of course, but from then on Timeshift only looks at the modified files and then only makes a backup of those changes. The advantage of this approach is that these follow-up backups are much faster since the number of files that are in scope is much smaller. But also the amount of storage needed is much smaller.

Timeshift is not meant for every backup situation, because if you don’t think wisely about your backup strategy for Timeshift, it also unexpectedly recovers your personal data in for example your Documents, Videos, or Pictures folder from another moment in time, so you lose the latest updates on the files you created. To backup and restore your individual personal files, such as text documents, spreadsheets, photos, and films, it is advisable to use another backup application such as LuckyBackup or Cronopete. That is also the reason why Timeshift excludes your home folder and all subfolders by default and you have to actively indicate to include it in the backup scope if you want to go against this advice. But for securing your system implementation, Timeshift is a perfect solution, as it enables you to recover your whole system to another moment in time when something really went wrong. Perfect for those who like to experiment a bit.

Read my article “How to use Timeshift to backup and restore Linux Mint” for more in-depth information on Timeshift.

Backup personal data – Vorta

Please think about a backup strategy for your personal files. The question is not if your hard disk will break once or not, but when it will actually happen. And you want to be prepared for that. Every hard disk, SSD, etc, has a limited lifespan and the moment it stops working is always at an unexpected and undesirable moment. So be aware of that and act on it. A simple but generic implementable backup strategy is the globally well-known 3-2-1 backup strategy. The 3-2-1 strategy simply means that you save at least 3 versions of all your data, of which 2 are stored locally (on site) but on different (types of) media and 1 version in a location out of reach (off-site) of your computer and your local versions.

Vorta

For my backup needs for backing up personal files, I switched to Vorta from luckyBackup and Pika Backup. For my personal files, I have some specific requirements, like writing different sources to different targets, activating or deactivating parts of the backup procedure as needed, and setting up and using the software completely within a graphical environment. For this, in 2024 I switched to Vorta. Vorta is based on a powerful and reliable foundation, called BorgBackup. BorgBackup, or in short Borg, offers what they often call deduplicating technology. This means that this technique can analyze your files and only store changes to these files, which makes it very suitable for high-frequency (hourly, daily, etc.) backups. So it doesn’t create full backups each time, which makes this technology faster and uses less storage space on your backup device. Unlike other backup solutions. Vorta has quite some settings and is able to write different sources to different targets. 

If you are interested in a simpler backup solution, but based on the same powerful and reliable BorgBackup foundation, have a look at Pika Backup. Pika Backup has relatively few settings, but enough to reliably back up your personal files and restore them in case of an emergency.

You can read more on Pika Backup in my article “How to easily create backups in Linux with Pika Backup“.

Internet and Communication

Internet Browsing – Vivaldi / Zen Browser

I have to say with some pain in my heart that Firefox is no longer my preference. In 2024 I had to experience too many problems with Firefox, such as websites not opening at all and QR codes being shown blurry, which made it impossible for me to do my banking, while this worked fine in other browsers. Due to the many issues, I have decided to return to one of my other beloved browsers, Vivaldi.

Vivaldi is a web browser developed by Vivaldi Technologies. This company was founded in 2014 by two former top employees, Tatsuki Tomita and Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, of Opera Software. The Vivaldi browser is inspired by the Opera browser version 12 and is a kind of a statement against the choices that Opera made at that time by switching technologies, which caused it to lose many popular parts loved by its users. The team behind Vivaldi has a clear motto and vision. A browser should adapt to the user and not the other way around. The designers believe that many people want to adapt their browsers to their own preferences in every detail possible. They want access to advanced tools without sacrificing performance or safety. Privacy is a hot topic these days so if you do not have that as a high priority in everything you do as a serious software developer then you will quickly lose the battle with your competitors. The Vivaldi developers have made privacy, security, and reliability the core of their scope with every modification or extension of the application.

Although I switched to Vivaldi, for me personally, there was always an important argument for using Firefox. One of the problems is that most other browsers are based on the same engine that Google’s Chrome is built on. When we all use browsers with that same engine this could potentially mean that Google has at some day complete monopoly on how we all use the internet. Without any competition, Google can add web technologies that support its business model. And even worse, they may decide to simply not include non-Google web technologies in this engine. And since most people use browsers with the Chromium base, Google has a lot of influence on what is and what is not possible on the internet. To counterbalance the growing monopoly of Google, we could make more use of alternative web technologies such as Firefox offers. That’s why I am currently keeping an eye on the new Zen Browser, which is based on the same foundation as Firefox, but with a more modern design. 

Email – Thunderbird

Thunderbird is my primary email application for Linux, and lately more and more really good improvements and design decisions are being implemented. Thunderbird solved the complaints about being outdated. For me, the strength of Thunderbird is the old-school column-based setup with the always visible columns for the Subject, Correspondent, Date, etc, which is very convenient for sorting and for example, deleting in bulk in a fast manner. Many ‘modern’ email apps let go of the column-based experience, which in my opinion is a step back in efficient mail handling. And in the last years a lot of work has been done to modernize Thunderbird so it looks and feels very fresh again. 

I was also looking forward to see what is coming out of the current work to migrate the K9 browser into Thunderbird on Android, and now we finally have that as well (and I think it is already great).

For more information on Thunderbird, you can read my articles in my Thunderbird tutorial series.

RSS Feeds – Vivaldi Feeds / Inoreader

We all have our favorite news sites, websites, YouTube channels, and blogs, of which we like to stay informed about new publications. When you follow a lot of websites like I do and you want to know about updates daily, it is almost impossible to stay up-to-date with all of them by checking them each day one by one. If you visit these websites frequently to look for updates, you probably find that most of them have not been updated. This will cost you a lot of time that you could save and use in a better way. Ideally, you want to be automatically notified when there is an update on the websites you follow. This is possible with an RSS feed reader. And although it is old technology, it is getting more and more popular again, because people are getting tired of the overload of arbitrary and often of little value articles they get via news aggregators like those from Google. With RSS you decide for yourself what you want to see in your news feed instead of an algorithm.

Because I switched from Firefox to the Vivaldi browser I also stopped using the Feedbro RSS extension. The reason is that Vivaldi has very good RSS support built in, called Feeds. It uses the built-in mail client to show and manage incoming RSS feeds. You can even add YouTube channels and podcasts to be notified of new content. When websites have an RSS feed available (and sometimes that is difficult to find out), you can see that directly in the Vivaldi browser which gives you an option to directly describe.

I also like to have my RSS feeds on my mobile devices, like my iPad Air or my Android mobile phone. For this I use the free version of the Inoreader app on these devices, which works well for me. The free version supports 150 feeds, which is currently enough for me.

Mobile integration – Zorin Connect / KDE Connect

In Zorin OS I use Zorin Connect. Zorin Connect is a software solution that provides convenient and intelligent functionality to integrate your Android mobile phone and your Linux Zorin OS based pc or laptop. Zorin Connect was designed and created and is in active development by the team behind the Zorin OS Linux distribution and is based on GSConnect and KDE Connect. Zorin Connect is a software solution that makes wireless communication possible between your Zorin OS device and your Android mobile phone, as long as your computer is connected to your network and your Android phone is connected to the same network via WiFi.

With Zorin Connect it is possible to receive the notifications that normally appear on your phone, on your desktop as well. So when WhatsApp or Telegram messages are coming in, a pop-up will also be visible on your desktop, that you can even react to or remove without touching your phone. But you also can browse the photos on your phone, share both files and links between your devices, get notifications for incoming phone calls and SMS messages on your computer and you can even use your Android phone as a remote control to manage some software on your computer. And that’s not all. You can see the battery status of your phone on your desktop, you can browse the file system remotely, launch the camera app to take and transfer images, find your Android Phone via your computer, send SMS messages from your desktop, use your Android device for changing slides in a presentation or the pages in your LibreOffice document, it provides a remote control function for your media player and you can use your phone as a touchpad or keyboard. That’s all pretty great in my humble opinion.

If you want the same kind of functionality in another Linux distribution, like Ubuntu or Linux Mint, you can download and install KDE Connect on both your computer and mobile phone.

Fediverse / Mastodon client – Tuba

This year I opened a Mastadon account via social.vivaldi.net, the Mastadon instance offered by the people behind the Vivaldi browser. I am not there to actively post myself, but because there are many Linux and open source posts available that could be interesting to keep up with Linux developments. On my Linux desktop, I currently use the Mastdadon client Tuba. Tuba is a very nice client application, offering support for posting, receiving notifications, searching, sending direct messages, etc. Tuba offers a nice and clean interface.

Productivity

Notion alternative – AppFlowy

More and more applications are appearing that help us better organize and plan our tasks. Apps help us to show only those tasks that are important at the right time. Other apps help us to concentrate at the right times and to take a rest at other times. Some apps help us empty our brains and build a second brain. And then there’s AppFlowy, an app that allows us to integrate all those functionalities above and build them ourselves in the way we want.

One of the software solutions that has received a lot of attention and experienced enormous growth in a relatively short period is the application Notion. Millions of people are using Notion on their computers or mobile devices. Notion has become so popular that a large community of users has emerged to exchange knowledge and skills. And Notion has even created possibilities for income streams, based on course creation and the possibility to export your own Notion applications and templates and offer them to other users.

Notion is a fantastic platform for many users that enables you to design solutions. But Notion does not only have advantages but also some disadvantages. For people who value for example features such as local storage of your data to have more control yourself, freedom of self-hosting your application, the advantages of Open Source software, and higher performance because the app can run locally with local data, then Notion is not necessarily the right answer. One of the applications that, in contrast to Nottion, supports these points is the open source application AppFlowy. 

AppFlowy is a really extensive, but also flexible app in which you can compile your own productivity solutions based on a large number of standard building blocks, but also by designing your own underlying logic. Based on these LEGO-like building blocks you can create lists, set up tables, and compile formulas to compose the behavior of fields and the behavior between fields. You can develop dashboards, you can let people work together in teams, implement integrations with other apps, set up wikis, write your documents, you name it. But you can also easily use AppFlowy as a note-taking and note-making app to dump all your thoughts and keep them safe in your second brain. There is no end to the list of possibilities of AppFlowy, and I really like it.

Read more in my articles “AppFlowy is a good Notion alternative for Open Source and data privacy enthusiasts” and “AppFlowy Basics – How to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy“.

Distraction-free writing – ghostwriter

As a writer, you often have different needs at different times in different situations. When I want to design or format my texts, I need tools that support design and formatting. When I want to fully focus on the content of my articles or chapters of my new book, I often want to use a writing tool without too many distracting components, such as busy menu bars. The ghostwriter application is one such app, as it offers a distraction-free focused experience, with only the essentials, and you can even turn that off. The ghostwriter application is aimed at not disturbing you and giving you the space to focus solely on the content. Ghostwriter is a free, and open-source markdown editor for Linux.

Read more in my article “Mini review – Distraction-free writing with ghostwriter for Linux“.

Office – ONLYOFFICE

Everyone who is interested in Linux and Open Source knows the LibreOffice office suite. From the moment I started using Linux, I also used LibreOffice for my office needs. And although LibreOffice is still fantastic, when I stumbled upon ONLYOFFICE I found this open-source solution ONLYOFFICE a better option for my specific needs. 

One of the reasons I switched to ONLYOFFICE is the fact that this office suit simply has much better compatibility with documents created in Microsoft Office. The developers themselves indicate: “ONLYOFFICE was made for working with docx, xlsx and pptx, and has maximum MS Office compatibility”. In addition, I find the user interface and the way ONLYOFFICE works a breath of fresh air. In my opinion, it is much clearer and easier to use than LibreOffice. ONLYOFFICE also offers a cloud environment and also has mobile applications so that documents can be maintained on any platform.

You can find more on the Linux version of ONLYOFFICE here: ONLYOFFICE for Linux

To Do – Todoist / Planify

If you are a frequent reader of this website, you will know by now that I am a fan of productivity applications, such as to-do lists and Kanban boards. In the past, I have paid attention to different open source To Do applications, all with their own specific qualities. But some years ago I came in contact with a suite of related productivity applications from Zenkit, and immediately I was strongly drawn to Zenkit Base for my project-related needs, and Zenkit To Do for individual to-do items. Until some months ago I really liked the Zenkit applications and used them on a daily basis, but then things changed. Due to their increasing integration of the different apps and their functionalities, the user interface and user experience became more and more cluttered, unclear, and less efficient. I therefore started looking for to do applications with a more logical and less cluttered user interface and soon came across the immensely popular Todoist application. 

Todoist is a powerful task management application available on all platforms, with a simple, uncluttered UI. It offers the ability to switch between a list view, kanban view (my favorite), and calendar view. You can manage your tasks in a project-oriented way, but it also offers the ability to organize your management structure in many other ways, such as based on a time horizon or Eisenhower Matrix. I personally love the natural language input. For example, type “clean up mailbox every day at 09.00 am” and it will automatically create a repeating action on a daily basis at the specified time instead of selecting the repeat function and the time input function separately.

But let’s not forget there is an open source application, called Planify, that uses the Todoist foundation for synchronisation purposes. Planify is specifically designed for Linux but works very well with the Todoist platform. Planify does not have mobile applications, but if you still want to manage your tasks on your mobile devices, a combination of Planify on your Linux desktop and Todoist on your mobile devices is also a nice solution, because of the seamless synchronization. And if you want to use Planify on multiple Linux devices, Todoist syncing offers a great solution for that as well. And Planify is really a fantastic task management application.

You can find more on Todoist here, and more on Planify here.

Project management – AppFlowy

For the Clarify, Organize, Reflect and Engage steps that I follow for my productive life, I prefer to use a Kanban based solution, which helps me to visualize the organization and planning of all my actionable items. So, for all my personal projects I use Kanban boards in which I manage my work by moving activity cards between statuses like Backlog, To Do, In Progress, and Done.

I already mentioned that for my more (single) task-oriented activities I switched from the Zenkit Suite to Todoist. Even though I could also use the Kanban functionality of Todoist for my more coherent project-related activities, such as writing my book and writing for my websites, I am looking for a bit more flexibility in the way I want to organize my tasks and optimize my task management.

I am very impressed by the possibilities that the enormously popular application Notion has to offer to put together your own project management solution, but also to design and implement many other applications yourself based on standard building blocks. Millions of people are using Notion on their computers or mobile devices. Notion is a fantastic platform for many users that enables you to design solutions. But Notion does not only have advantages but also some disadvantages. For people who value for example features such as local storage of your data to have more control yourself, freedom of self-hosting your application, the advantages of Open Source software, and higher performance because the app can run locally with local data, then Notion is not necessarily the right answer. 

However, this year I came into contact with an open source alternative for Notion, namely AppFlowy. AppFlowy is a really extensive, but also flexible app in which you can compile your own productivity solutions based on a large number of standard building blocks, but also by designing your own underlying logic. Based on these LEGO-like building blocks you can create lists, set up tables, and compile formulas to compose the behavior of fields and the behavior between fields. You can develop dashboards, you can let people work together in teams, implement integrations with other apps, set up wikis, write your documents, you name it. But you can also easily use AppFlowy as a note-taking and note-making app to dump all your thoughts and keep them safe in your second brain. There is no end to the list of possibilities of AppFlowy, and I really like it.

Read more in my articles “AppFlowy is a good Notion alternative for Open Source and data privacy enthusiasts” and “AppFlowy Basics – How to create a simple To Do list in AppFlowy“.

Note taking – Joplin

For many years I used Evernote as the base for my digital second brain, or my permanent storage functionality for long-term reference and note-taking. But because I came into contact with Linux, my search for an Evernote alternative for Linux started. And I found it in Joplin! I have used Joplin for years now and is currently the most important app in my productivity workflow.

In my humble opinion, Joplin is by far the best open-source, platform-independent, subscription-free, and cost-free note-taking tool, natively available for Linux, but also on all mobile devices, with sync capabilities with various cloud services including Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV or the local file system.

Joplin is great in my opinion and offers all the possibilities you can imagine for capturing various kinds of notes.

In my article “How I manage my productive life in Linux” you can read more about how I integrate this application into my productivity workflow. Or have a look at my articles “Joplin Basics – How to add Kanban functionality to the Joplin note taking app“, or “Joplin Basics – How to set up and use Joplin as a Zettelkasten application“. 

If you want to find out more about Joplin go to the following website:

https://joplinapp.org

Converting text – TextShine

Textshine is a single-task application originally developed for the elementary OS platform, but since it is available in Flatpak format it can be used on any Linux distribution. TextShine is an application that focuses entirely on converting text to a specific format easily and quickly. I do not mean the file format here, but the format in which the text itself is converted, such as well-known text presentations such as camel case, title case, upper case, lower case, etc. But also options such as indent, change to curved quotes, double to single quotes, remove leading whitespace, etc. TextShine is therefore a powerful tool to easily implement large amounts of standardized changes to a text. Consider, for example, a coding assignment for which a standard naming convention with camel case must be applied based on a list of attribute names, or a messed up text from which duplicate sentences must be cleaned.

TextShine is simple and doesn’t really need much explanation. Copy a text or part of a text from your document, spreadsheet, web page, etc, and paste the text into TextShine. Select all or part of the text there and choose an action from the options provided under Actions to adjust the text to your liking.

Read more about TextShine in my mini review “TextShine is a simple but powerful text modification tool for Linux“.

Text extraction – Frog

With the application Frog, you can quickly and effortlessly extract text from whatever source. Think of sources such as images, websites, your desktop, file manager, and even video. Even if the text is encoded in a QR code! So basically you can extract text from anywhere.

Frog is extremely simple. It basically offers two options, “Configure languages” and “Grab the area”. That is all you need. First, make sure that you activate the required languages. There are more than 100 languages available that you can activate so the screenshot of the text that you grab will be converted to usable text as perfectly as possible. When you have activated the required languages select the language of the text you want to grab in the top left corner language selector. Next, click on “Grab the area” and select the area containing text that you want to convert to usable text. That’s all.

Read more about TextShine in my article “Mini review – Frog is a simple but powerful text extraction tool for Linux“.

Reference – Zotero

To be able to write my already available book on Linux, and now also for the new book that I am writing, I have to be careful with quotations from other authors from other books, articles, etc. I use the Zotero application as a reference tool to store the details of all articles, books, etc. that I have read and use as reference or will use in the future in the Zotero application. Zotero is a powerful tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, and share your research material. When you integrate Zotero with your Office applications, such as LibreOffice Word, MS Word, and Google Docs, you can automatically generate a reference section in your document.

Find more on Zotero here:

https://www.zotero.org

Mind mapping – Minder

I use a mind-mapping tool to support all my ideas, organization, and decision-making. I am a very visual person when I want to be efficient and effective in my research and refinement. There are many open-source mind-mapping applications available for Linux, but when I found the application Minder, I was blown away by the simplicity, flexibility, logical operation, and powerful features. You can choose from many tree layouts, add notes, tasks, and images to your nodes, add node-to-node connections, you can stylize nodes, links, and connections, do a quick search of node and connection titles and notes, including filtering options, and the list goes on and on.

You can find the Minder application via the Minder Flathub page.

Take breaks – GoForIt!

I know GoForIt! from the time I tried out elementary OS. I really liked the simplicity of a lot of their curated apps, and one of these apps was GoForIt!. GoForIt! is a simple but nice and clean-looking productivity app that can be installed in almost every Linux distro, because it is offered as a Flatpack package. 

This application distinguishes itself from other simple to-do applications by the integration of actions to be performed and time management. The app wants to help you focus on your current task and take healthy breaks to start with a new task fresh.

GoForIt! is clearly not an extensive application with an immense list of options, but has a minimalistic foundation with only the most important functionalities. Less is more fits the bill here. For my overall task management, I use the Zenkit suite, but when I have some tasks on one day that I really need to focus on, I bring those tasks to GoForIt! and use the time management options to focus, rest, and optimize my output while staying sane.

When you want to read more on the installation and setup process and how the application works, you can read my somewhat old but still usable article “Go For It merges to-do and timer functionality in one handy productivity app“.

Creativity

Color Management – DisplayCAL

When you are serious about photography and image editing, your monitor must display colors accurately and with the correct brightness, tone, and intensity. Just think what happens when the screen is set too dark. Then your photo seems darker than it is. Based on that perception you adjust the brightness of the photo mistakenly to the bright side to make it visually match what you expected. If you now have the photo printed at a professional lab, the result will be an overexposed image. To avoid these kinds of mistakes you have to objectify your use of colors. So if color accuracy is important to you, the first step in your photography workflow should always be the calibration of your monitor with a device intended for that purpose, also known as a colorimeter. I use a

very old Spyder 3 Pro myself on the hardware side and DisplayCAL on the software side. DisplayCAL is a display calibration and profiling application for Linux, but also for other platforms. It has screen accuracy in mind. The software is set up in a very clear way and you are guided through the process by logical steps.

Read more in my post “How to color calibrate your monitor in Linux“.

Photo and video import – Rapid Photo Downloader

Anyone who is very involved with photography or video will automatically come to the point of thinking about a workflow, or an optimal and standardized process that includes, for example, steps for importing files, building the folder structure, and naming the photo files and video files. The purpose of the Rapid Photo Downloader application is, based on your own pre-defined rules, to greatly simplify and standardize the transfer of files, so transferring your photos and videos from the memory card to the computer will be a breeze. In my opinion, Rapid Photo Downloader is absolutely the best open source photo and video download software for Linux.

Rapid Photo Downloader does not try to be everything in one application but is very clearly focused on just one part of a photo or video workflow. Where all-in-one applications are often a bit alright in everything, but do not really excel at anything, precisely because of this limited scope Rapid Photo Downloader has become a very powerful tool for the limited part for which it is intended. For me as a Linux user, I am very happy that this application is available and it has therefore become my default starting point in my photo workflow. 

Read more in my post “Rapid Photo Downloader is the best open source photo and video download software for Linux“.

Photo management – digiKam

Before I start editing my photo RAW files, which I do in darktable, I first want to clean up, categorize, and select my new images with the help of ratings and keywords. digiKam enables me to do this in an efficient manner, among other things with the aid of star ratings and color indicators. digiKam is an advanced open-source digital photo management application, which provides a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing, and sharing of photo files. Within digiKam I can quickly view a collection of images, I can add a star rating of 1-5 and then I can filter on these ratings. IPTC metadata such as keywords, descriptions, and copyright information can also be added here and can be used for filters. When you are into photography and like to have professional grade managing capabilities, you should have a look at this powerful application.

Find the digiKam website here:

https://www.digikam.org

Photo RAW editing – darktable

Adobe’s Lightroom has been the de facto standard for professional and serious RAW editing for Windows and macOS for years. As lovers of Linux and open-source software, we do not have Lightroom at our disposal, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have similar needs when it comes to serious processing of RAW photo files and accompanying workflow support. And in my opinion, the fulfillment of those needs is offered to us in the form of the powerful open-source solution darktable. Anyone who appreciates a clear and professional workflow for importing, valuing, editing, synchronizing, presenting, printing exporting and looking at the enormous range of high-quality development modules can hardly ignore darktable. In my opinion, a must-have in your professional workflow.

The team behind darktable has clearly been inspired by Adobe’s Lightroom and that is certainly not a wrong choice. It offers a clear interface that fits in with workflow thinking, although it is probably a bit of a chore for the novice image editor in the beginning. It therefore offers the possibility to select from the wide range of editing modules only the one you use most as a favorite so that it meets your own needs. You even can select a predefined set of tools based on your use case, like landscape photography.

In addition, darktable is what is called a fully “color-managed” application, making it an optimal fit in a workflow where color management from conception to print plays a crucial role. For example, darktable supports the automatic detection of display profiles, including built-in ICC profile support for sRGB, Adobe RGB, and linear RGB color spaces. And in terms of performance, we are served our every need. If you have a relatively powerful GPU, the option is offered to use OpenCL when editing the photo files, which gives a very noticeable boost in performance.

An important feature of darktable is the non-destructive way in which adjustments are made to photo files. Each photo file is opened as a read-only image. Adjustments in contrast, color, gradient, and sharpness are not processed directly in the pixels but are recorded as metadata in a sidecar file. Actually, the set values ​​that are mutated via sliders and graphs, are recorded separately and each time you open and look at the same photo, these mutation values ​​are executed again, which means that you can copy these same settings to other files as well and have them edited in the same way without extra work. 

Read more on photo workflow in my blog post “How to setup a Linux and Open Source based workflow for professional photographers“.

Traditional film processing but digital – Filmulator

Filmulator (https://filmulator.org/) brings back traditional film processing in your Linux digital darkroom by using a completely different way of “developing” your digital photo files compared to other editing applications. Filmulator has its foundation based on what we call Stand Development. This type of photo development was also in the analog film darkroom era a differentiating technique from regular development with unique resulting characteristics. Stand Development was a developing process for black-and-white film. The basic difference between the regular development process and the Stand Development process is the way you handle the developer fluid during the development process.  

In the “old” days when you were developing your film in the darkroom, you were using developer fluid, a stop bath fluid, and a fixing fluid. Normally when you were developing, you were what is called “agitating” the developing chemicals, which means that during the process, the bottle holding the fluid and the film was repeatedly rotated for a couple of seconds each couple of minutes to spread the fluid evenly over the film material. With Stand development you don’t rotate the bottle holding the fluid, which has a different effect on the final results. In a normal developing process, the highlights of the exposed film were treated differently by the developer than the shadows. In the Stand Development process, there is a different development balance between them, resulting in optically finer grain, a very specific balance between shadows and highlights, and the perceived effect of more sharpness than there actually is.   

Filmulator is based on this very specific Stand Development technique. Well, we are not actually using digital chemicals of course, but we can use different digital sliders that use behind the scenes the Stand Development characteristics. To do this the application is designed to simulate 3 steps in the photographic process: 1) Exposure of the (digital) film, Development of the (digital) film, and Exposure of the print. You can read more on Filmulator in my article “Filmulator brings back traditional film processing in your Linux digital darkroom”.

Image manipulation – GIMP

For image manipulation on a pixel level, it is GIMP for me. GIMP, which stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is an incredibly versatile application and the absolute winner and must-have for image creators and photo editors and manipulators that use the Linux platform. It has really powerful functionalities for photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring, that offer many of the functionalities of the commercial sister Adobe Photoshop. GIMP uses a comparable user interface to Photoshop so newcomers to GIMP but who are experienced in Photoshop are able to have a quick and easy learning curve and can start right away. GIMP is in very active development.

You can more information on GIMP on the following website:

https://www.gimp.org

Video editing – Shotcut

A year ago it was DaVinci Resolve that was on my list. I really like DaVinci Resolve for non-linear video editing. And DaVinci resolve is great…incredibly great. It is not for nothing that this professional software from Blackmagic Design is used for editing and coloring the big Hollywood blockbuster movies. And it is free to download for Linux. I really think there is nothing better that runs natively on Linux.

But, my video editing requirements have been simplified, simply because I don’t do it and need it that often anymore. So, I went back to my favorite open source video editing application Shotcut. The user interface, the functionalities, the relative simplicity, the clear workflow, and the good results. At this moment it offers all I need.

If you want to read more about all the features that Shotcut has to offer, visit the Shotcut features page.

Desktop publishing – Scribus

Most people will probably agree that Scribus is the best desktop publishing application for the Linux platform. Scribus is a powerful page layout program for both amateurs and professionals. It is professionally being used for magazine creation, book publishing, and manufacturing packaging material and product manuals. Scribus has a very friendly, logical, and intuitive interface, although it takes some learning time to get real grips with it because of its extensive functionalities. Scribus offers professional desktop publishing features, like CMYK colors, spot colors, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation. But Scribus also offers powerful vector drawing tools so you can work with shapes, lines, colors, gradients, and patterns with all the benefits of vector-based design.

You can find more information on Scribus here:

https://www.scribus.net

Vector drawing – Inkscape

There are different vector graphics applications that can be used in Linux, both closed-source and open-source. Think about Gravit, Vectr, LibreOffice Draw, and sK1. But I think the most robust vector graphics application native available for Linux is Inkscape. According to many users, Inkscape is a true open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Some highlights of what Inscape has to offer are freehand drawing with simple paths, creating Bézier curves and straight lines, freehand drawing using filled paths representing calligraphic strokes, shape tools, text tools, transformations, z-order operations, grouping objects, layers, node editing, converting to path, boolean operations, and much much more. When people ask me to create cards or logos, Inkscape is an important tool for my needs.

If you want to find out more about everything Inkscape has to offer go to:

https://inkscape.org

Artistic drawing – Krita

If you just like to draw, or if you are a professional matte painter who wants to use Open Source software or everything in between, Krita is the tool for you. It is an open-source drawing and painting tool for both amateur and professional concept artists, illustrators, matte artists, cartoonists, and texture artists. Important to know is that this application is developed by real artists and so with their experience in mind they can build precisely what they need themselves and expect others to need. Krita offers an intuitive user interface that does not get in the way of the most important things like the canvas. The dockers and panels can be moved and adapted to suit everyone’s specific workflow. When you don’t have a steady hand or if you just do not have a trained hand yet, then there is a stabilizer functionality available for the brush you want to use to smooth out irregular lines. Krita contains various ways to soften and stabilize brush strokes. There is even a special dynamic brush with which you can add drag and mass. And additional community-created brushes can be added as well. If you are creating comics there are built-in tools to create comic panels and text bubbles. And a while ago 2D animations capabilities were added to the tool set.

If you want to see what a real artist can do with Krita then you must have a look at what the amazing comic creator David Revoy produces in his complete Open Source based workflow. David Revoy is working only with free and open source software on his free and open source webcomic project Pepper&Carrot he started in April 2014. He is in my opinion an important role model for what is possible with free and open source software. And the developers of Krita think that as well as they use his art in the Krita splash page, but also include David’s custom brushes as standard.

You can find more about Krita here:

https://krita.org/en

Image upscaling – Upscayl

AI tools are currently the talk of the town, both positively and negatively. AI technology is still in its baby shoes, so it is difficult to estimate what the future will bring in this area, and it is not always clear if it only brings good. But what is clear is that extraordinary results can already be achieved with AI, and can cause possible disruption of established technologies. One of the possible purposes of AI is the more effective improvement of images. Upscayl is such a tool for Linux.

You can roughly divide digital images into raster-based images and vector-based images. A vector-based image, such as the result you get from the open-source application Inscape, can in principle be enlarged indefinitely. After all, vector images do not consist of individual pixels, but are based on mathematical concepts in relation to lines, curves, etc, so that all objects in an image can be enlarged indefinitely. In contrast, a raster image, such as a digital photo, cannot simply be enlarged. The available pixels determine the native resolution since when enlarging you do not have extra pixels somewhere available. Additional pixels must be created by creating an extra pixel based on the average of the surrounding pixels. The result of that process is not always convincing. But that now seems to be changing with the introduction of AI technology.

Upscayl is a relatively new open-source Artificial Intelligence (AI) image upscaling and enhancement application. Although Upscayl is also available for Windows and macOS, according to the developers the application is built with a Linux-first philosophy. Upscayl offers different upscaling types for different use cases. In standard mode, it upscales 4x, but it also offers a double upscale option to get 8 times upscaling. In the latest version, the developers added new functionality to compare the original and upscaled versions of the image.

If you want to read more about Upscayl on Linux, have a look at my article “How to use the AI image upscaling app Upscayl on Linux“.

Tools

Download audio and video – Video Downloader

I have loved music and audio equipment since I was a child. As a teenager, I listened to music in my room at my parents’ house via my then-quite nice hi-fi equipment, alone or with my friends. Later, I visited live concerts and also went to many audiophile fairs. In my teens and twenties, I played a lot of U2, Tears for Fears, Simple Minds, and Pink Floyd, among others. One of my all-time favorite live concerts is Pink Floyd’s impressive “Delicate Sound of Thunder”. So recently I wondered if the full concert would be available on YouTube and if it could be downloaded from there. Indeed, it is on the HDPinkFloyd YouTube channel as a New 4K Edition. So, now I had to find a way to download it to be able to (re)watch it without an internet connection, wherever I am. There are several options available for Linux, but I found exactly what I was looking for in the simple application Video Downloader. Video Downloader does what the name of the app says, namely making it easy to download video material, but also only the audio part of the video. Just provide a URL of the video you want to download. Via the user interface, you can choose to download the video, or only download the audio in MP3 format. You can choose in which resolution you want to download the video.

Read more about Video Downloader in my article “Mini review – Download YouTube videos with Video Downloader“.

Maintain focus – Blanket

Every person is different in many ways, but various studies have shown that many people respond the same to certain types of sound, while performing knowledge work or tasks that require focus. For example, during my work or writing activities, I cannot listen to new and for me never listened before songs with artists singing, because the unknown lyrics distract me and force me to listen to the lyrics proportionately more than to continue to focus on the work that needs to be done, or the attention required to come up with new ideas. I can do better knowledge work if I play music with lyrics that I have known for years, as it doesn’t pull my attention. Instrumental music without lyrics works even better. However, I have learned that using ambient sounds, such as the presence of the sounds of rain, wind, and water, allows me to focus even better and maximize my productivity due to the absence of distracting sounds. These same ambient sounds also help me in the meditative or simply restful moments that I try to incorporate into my life.

Blanket is a simple application developed for Linux, that helps you gain and maintain focus during, for example, thinking, but also in situations where you just want to relax and do not want to be disturbed by unwanted ambient noise, or do not want absolute silence. Blanket offers options to play various ambient sounds, such as Birds, Boat, City, Coffee Shop, Fireplace, and Storm, separately or combined as background noise over your speakers or headphones, without the need to be online.

Read more about Video Downloader in my article “Mini review – Maintain focused productivity with Blanket for Linux“.

File collection – Collector

The Collector app is a simple but very useful application that you can use as one or more temporary repositories for collecting various files of different types that are somehow related to your specific use case, project, etc, and ultimately storing or accessing the contents of these collections in a more permanent location. You can drag different text blocks to Collector and later save them as a complete text in .csv format or copy them into another document. You can drag images on a web page directly from the browser to Collector. You can drag files directly from Google Images into Collector. You can also copy the URL of an image from your browser and paste it into Collector to automatically download the image. When you have collected multiple files, text snippets, and images, you can easily scroll through the stored components. When you want to look at an item that you dropped into Collector, simply click on the preview icon to view the contents immediately, or to open the appropriate app to view it. Ultimately, you can drag the entire contents of a collection into a folder for permanent storage.

Read more about Video Downloader in my article “Mini review – Drop content anywhere with Collector“.

Reduce eye strain – SafeEyes

Much has been published for years about computer use and its harmful consequences if we do not implement proper measures for ourselves to limit excessive computer use. Next to the consequences of minimizing the amount of blue light in the evening, we also have to deal with looking at a screen for too much time without breaks. I really love computers and everything that I can do and create with them, and if my wife isn’t telling me once in a while that I am already working for hours without a break on my book, my blogs, my apps, or my photos, I keep sitting there forever. But last year I found SafeEyes which is a simple but very effective application for all Ubuntu-based Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Linux Mint.

The SafeEyes application is a reminder app that helps you to have a break once in a while to give your eyes and body some rest. But it is not only doing that. In each short break, it offers simple exercises like “Roll your eyes a few times to each side” or “Rotate your eyes in a clockwise direction”, but also “Walk for a while”. At that moment the screen goes black and you can’t do anything else but do some exercise. Of course, there is a skip button, but the whole point of SafeEyes is to help you think about the important health-related things in life. But really cool that you can define your own exercises as well.

Read my article “How to reduce eye strain and body strain with SafeEyes for Linux” to find out more about how to install and set up SafeEyes.

Screenshots – Shutter

As a blogger, for my website www.reallinuxuser.com, but also as a writer for my book in progress, I use a lot of screenshots to support my texts in a visual way. And in my opinion, Shutter is the best screenshot tool for Linux that supports my requirements. If you are a writer of technical manuals, writer of courses, or blogger about technology, and you need a tool that can capture parts of screens or complete windows fast and easily and in high volume, but also enables simple edits directly on the captured result, in my opinion Shutter is the best choice for those needs.

Read more in my post “Shutter is the best screenshot tool for Linux“.

PDF Reader – Evince

For the non-Linux world, Adobe Acrobat Reader is the world standard for displaying, printing, annotating, and signing PDF documents. According to many Linux users, Evince is the best alternative for such functionalities for the Linux environment. Evince is a document viewer that can handle many single-page and multi-page document formats like PDF using the Poppler backend, Postscript using the libspectre backend, Multi-Page TIFF, DVI, and DjVu using the DjVuLibre backend. Evince has a very friendly user interface, within which it is easy to navigate through a clear hierarchical and cascading chapter structure. Evince can handle form-based documents and filled-in forms can be saved as a new PDF document.

You can download the Evince Flatpak here:

https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Evince

PDF Editor – ONLYOFFICE

Mostly we need software to just read PDF files. But what if you want to edit an existing PDF file? I always used LibreOffice Draw to edit PDF files, but since I switched from LibreOffice to ONLYOFFICE and since this suite offers very good PDF editing functionality, this PDF Editor is now my current preferred choice. 

You can find more information on the ONLYOFFICE PDF Editor page.

PDF Editor – PDF Mix Tool

If you want to do some special things with PDF files, the PDF Mix Tool is something to check out. Merge multiple files, extract pages, delete pages, add empty pages, PDF Mix Tool can do it. Combinations of all of these actions? No problem. With a very simple and intuitive user interface, this tool can do powerful things in only a couple of clicks. 

You can find more information on the PDF Mix Tool Gitlab page.

You can download the application from the PDF Mix Tool Flathub page.

Music management – Strawberry

There are quite a lot of music solutions available for Linux. I probably tried most of them. My music files are on a Synology NAS and I hoped to find a music player and organizer that can handle files on a NAS reliably and fast. A lot of applications seem to be very slow when opening the application because each time they need to build up the file overview from scratch. And with more than fifty thousand music files, this can take a while. The application Clementine was once my go-to music organization app, but for years there doesn’t seem to be any development. But we also have Strawberry, which is a fork of Clementine. Strawberry handles large music libraries best and works perfectly together with NAS-based storage. Strawberry is a great piece of software, with lots of usable options, like smart playlists, and radio stations. And it works perfectly fine with my Apple iPod Classic as well.

You can find more on Strawberry here:

www.strawberrymusicplayer.org

You can download the most recent version of Strawberry here:

https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/#download

…or via the Strawberry Flathub page.

Home administration – Homebank

I am a relatively organized person and I like to keep track of my personal finances to see where the money is going. There are some nice software solutions available for personal finance management, but in my opinion, Homebank offers the most simple and clean interface, robust functionalities, and good interactive graphical representations of my financial status. Homebank has been translated by the community into more than 50 languages and can be set up for the situation in specific countries. Homebank has frequent releases and an active user community. It has good import functionalities, recognizes duplicate import candidates, has robust category management, makes it easy to change multiple financial items at once, offers nice drill-down interactive reports, etc. Homebank suddenly makes financial administration a lot less stressful and boring and even fun to do.

You can find more on Homebank here:

http://homebank.free.fr/en/

Read it Later – Pocket

Are you someone who finds it very important to find good information, scan it, and record it for later use? Are you someone who wants to use every available moment intentionally to be more productive or to be more wisely productive? Are you someone who sees an opportunity in everything to learn something new? Do you prefer in-depth articles, but can’t always actually take the time to directly read with intention and focus when you come across something interesting? Do you work on your second brain and do you like to save good information for later use? Are you easily distracted in busy environments and would you rather read your information in an environment that is quieter or more inspiring, but don’t want to lose the gems you found? Are you serious about what information you take in and do you want to be sure not to lose potentially important information? Then you should try a Read it Later application. 

Not so long ago I came into contact with the open source application Omnivore which immediately felt good to me. I used it a lot because it ticked all my boxes until I received a message that Omnivore was joining ElevenLabs, an AI audio research and technology company. This was a direction that didn’t fit my requirements. So, I came back to my first Read it Later app, Pocket. I think Pocket is a great solution for saving articles from the web in your private Pocket library so that they are available to read at a later time. You can tag articles to make them easier to categorize for future reference. It is also possible to create and save highlights. If you don’t feel like reading, but you do have time to listen, simply choose the option to have your stored articles read aloud. Pocket is offered by Mozilla, the privacy-focused organization behind the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email application. Pocket does not have an installable application for Linux, but it is available as an extension for your web browser. Plus, Pocket is available for all mobile platforms and synchronizes via your Mozilla account.

Read more about pocket here.

Permissions – Flatseal

Flatpak-based applications exist on their own without actual dependence on the host system components. Because dependent libraries are included in the package, the application is not dependent on those available in the Linux distribution. Every Flatpak-based application can have even its own version of the same library because they don’t interfere with each other.

Because of the isolation of a Flatpak-based application from your system’s components, a lot of permissions are initially not enabled. But it is not only about giving more permissions, in some cases you may want to even lessen the possibilities of your app, like using your webcam, using Bluetooth, or even accessing the internet.

Flatseal is a Flatpak-based application that offers a nice and functional graphical user interface for Linux in which you can modify and review a lot of available permissions for a specific Flatpak-based application by simply toggling them on or off. All the Flatpak-based applications you have installed on your system will be visible in an overview from which you can select an application to do the required modifications or check the current settings. Also, it is much more convenient because you can see for each application which settings you can actually change, which can be different per application.

Read more on Flatseal in my article “How to use Flatseal to modify and review Flatpak permissions in Linux“.

Keep-awake – Caffeine

Operating Systems do not always do precisely what you would like or expect them to do. For example, they are set up in such a way that they make your computer fall asleep to reduce the energy consumption of your laptop, or to ensure that if you have a toilet break, someone else does not abuse your absence. But there are situations where you want to avoid that, such as a lengthy download of a huge file, compiling your big software project, making a backup, or rendering your latest blockbuster movie. In those cases, you don’t want your Linux computer to go to sleep while processes are busy doing their job. The solution is Caffeine.

If you want to be absolutely sure that your computer won’t go to sleep due to the default power settings of your Linux installation, you’ll want to use a tool that gives you control over when and how long your Linux computer stays active. Caffeine is a free and open-source tool that makes this possible. Caffeine can be operated via the command line but also offers a simple graphical solution, a nice hot cup of coffee, via the system tray.

Read more on caffeine in my article “How to prevent your Linux computer from falling asleep with Caffeine“.

Development

Coding – Visual Studio Code

There are numerous coding environments available for Linux. Think about Eclipse, Bluefish, NetBeans, or Brackets. My preferred platform for web development is Visual Studio Code. This choice for Visual Studio Code is not because I think it is so much better than other development environments, but because it is convenient for me as it is being used in the courses I already finished and the ones I am still doing, so I can exactly follow along with the course material that is being presented. There are many other development environments that offer a lot of the same, so I don’t have a strong opinion here on what you should use. What I really like is the strong IntelliSense functionality that offers smart completions based on variable types, function definitions, and imported modules. Further, it has Git commands built-in. There is an enormous amount of extensions available to adapt Visual Studio Code exactly to your specific requirements.

You can find more on Visual Studio Code here:

https://code.visualstudio.com

And what are my absolute favorite applications?

After reading through the above list, the question that some of you may have is which applications were my absolute favorite in the past year, which I will absolutely continue to use in 2025 for my personal digital needs. There are four now:

Joplin: I am “addicted” to taking notes. I strongly believe in the concept that your brain is not made to remember things, but to create things. We are creators, not databases. As stated before, for many years I used Evernote as my digital brain or my permanent storage functionality for long-time reference and note-taking. But when I started my Linux journey and I had the fantastic challenge of finding alternative software solutions, I came across Joplin. And Joplin is in my opinion by far the best open source, platform independent, note-taking tool, natively available for Linux, but also on all mobile devices, with sync capabilities with various cloud services including Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV or the file system. I think that as Linux and open-source enthusiasts, we are greatly enriched with a tool like Joplin. Give it a try. You will be surprised at the powerful capabilities and flexibility that Joplin offers. I use it all day every day.

Todoist / Planify

Like I already said above, I am a fan of applications that help me manage en streamline my productivity. The one that I use every day on all my devices is Todoist. Todoist is one of the few non-open source applications on my list, but as I said before, for me open source is not more important than having my applicative needs met. Todoist offers me perfect integration on all the platforms I use, it offers great natural language processing, it offers widgets on my mobile devices, and so on. I have not yet been able to find an open source alternative that meets all my needs on all platforms. 

Planify however is a very nice alternative for the Linux desktop that uses the foundation of Todoist for synchronisation purposes. However, not all functionality of Todoist is supported by Planify, but that does not take away from the fact that Planify is a fantastic application. I use Planify a lot, but in specific cases, I go back to the official Todoist app on my Linux machines.

Pocket: I am also addicted to reading, mainly non-fiction. Next to non-fiction books, I also love to browse the web for new nice in-depth articles on productivity, life improvement, psychology, simple living, applications, technology, etc. There are many short moments that I fill with searching for new interesting articles, such as waiting for the train, waiting for a movie to start, waiting at the dentist, etc. However, in these short moments, I do not have time to read these (especially longer) articles with attention. I only do that when I am sure that I have the peace and time available to read one or more articles uninterrupted. Often that is when I am in bed, sitting outside on a bench in the park, or having a long commute. Since I don’t want to lose or forget the articles I find, I want to store them so I can read them later. Pocket is great for that specific purpose. With Pocket you can store from every application on your phone, tablet, or web browser, the article you are interested in, and read it later distraction-free without all kinds of ads around the text. And if you don’t want to read, you can listen to it as well. And because you store all your articles in Pocket, it is a reference for later with everything you read in the past and want to go back to when necessary. 

Bitwarden: Generating complex passwords is extremely important. Don’t use simple passwords you made up yourself. And use a different password for every app or service you use. Managing your passwords properly should be a top priority for everyone, but unfortunately, too many people are still careless about it, and this doesn’t have to be the case. There are a lot of password managers out there and, with a few exceptions, most of them are good at what they are supposed to do. Personally, I prefer Bitwarden. This application works intuitively, has solid functionality, is reliable, is available on all known platforms, syncs between these platforms, and is highly praised by security experts. 

So, although I listed 53 favorite applications for 2025, Joplin, Todoist / Planify, Pocket, and Bitwarden are my absolute personal winners. Let’s see next year if they are still on top.

Final words

And so we reached the end of my 53 favorite apps overview, which hopefully can give some inspiration for you in 2025. A list that is of course personal to me and can look different for everyone else. But by sharing this kind of information and the reasoning behind my choices, I hope I can help some of you start using applications that you may not have known or considered using. 

Linux and everything around it is a fantastic hobby for me and I notice that others get excited when I talk with them about the possibilities of Linux. When I am sometimes over-enthusiastic about Linux to my friends and family, my wife often says jokingly to them that I have a large amount of shares in Linux. I really believe that Linux can be a productive, simple, beautiful, and user-friendly platform, and the old image of being too technical, too complex, and not user-friendly has long been gone.

To end this article, I wish you fun trying out some of the applications from this list and I hope I can bring you new Linux-related articles and my second Linux Mint book soon. A very merry Christmas and much love and health for you, your friends, and your family in 2025.

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