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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by Maroon@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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

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

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

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

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

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[-] Strit@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show 113 points 2 months ago

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

And yes, I run Arch btw. :D

[-] gi1242@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

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

[-] bitcrafter@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

Yeah, there is nothing more annoying in general when starting to type text into a co-workers desktop than having random letters show up rather than having the cursor move around.

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[-] lig@lemmings.world 33 points 2 months ago
[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 months ago

Any specific features made you go fish over others like zsh?

[-] lig@lemmings.world 8 points 2 months ago

It just feels better and lighter. Also, autocomplete looks nicer. Devs are also amazing. They have a clear vision of the product. And Fish 4.0 had been rewritten in Rust. Now I just cannot go away:)

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[-] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 30 points 2 months ago

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

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[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

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

[-] helmet91@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

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

[-] sawdoctor@lemm.ee 23 points 2 months ago

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

[-] pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz 7 points 2 months ago
[-] superkret@feddit.org 12 points 2 months ago
[-] vort3@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

Is KDE 3 so bad that people only prefer <3 or >3, but never =3?

[-] Libb@jlai.lu 19 points 2 months ago

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

  1. LibreOffice, with the latest .deb from their website
  2. Celluloid, with mpv. I cannot tell how much I appreciate mpv even though it sucks with DVD, for which I use VLC ;)
  3. yt-dlp, with the latest version available from git
  4. Screenshot, with Ksnip.
  5. Whatever the default image viewer is, with Pix.
[-] maxprime@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 months ago
[-] princessnorah 5 points 2 months ago

how do you personally install yt-dlp? I just use pip(x).

[-] Libb@jlai.lu 8 points 2 months ago
  1. I remove the preinstalled version (sudo apt remove yt-dlp)
  2. In my ~/.local, I have a 'bin' folder in which to put any manually added app, and in my .bashrc I added that folder to the path. So everything in it is usable.
  3. I download the latest binary from https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#release-files and moved it to that bin folder.
  4. Done. I can use it like if it was the pre-installed app ;)
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[-] eruchitanda@lemmy.world 18 points 2 months ago

Arch, so pretty much nothing.

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

[-] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 17 points 2 months ago

bash -> fish

[-] Knuschberkeks@leminal.space 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

cat > bat

ls > exa

(h)top > btop

whatever terminal > alacritty

whatever browser > librewolf + brave

cli editor > micro

app launcher > albert

vlc > mpv

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[-] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 15 points 2 months ago

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


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

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

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

[-] edinbruh@feddit.it 11 points 2 months ago

Celluloid does much less than vlc, why not just using mpv (which celluloid uses as backend) so you have a full player

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[-] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
  • Clementine - music player
  • yakuake - terminal
  • fish - command line
  • Geany - text editor
  • eza - replacement for ls
  • zoxide - replacement for cd
  • bat - replacement for cat
  • Librewolf - replacement for Firefox
  • Brave - replacement for Chromium
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[-] Matombo@feddit.org 14 points 2 months ago

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

[-] PancakeBrock@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 months ago

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

[-] hersh@literature.cafe 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

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

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

  • Geany - My favorite GUI text editor on Linux.

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

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

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[-] icogniito@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 months ago

Defaults hehe

I use arch btw

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[-] thadah 12 points 2 months ago

I usually replace these:

  1. Bash with Fish
  2. Neofetch (if there is) with Fastfetch+Hyfetch
  3. Firefox with Floorp
  4. Mkinitcpio with Dracut
  5. GRUB with systemd-boot
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[-] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 months ago

pdf reader with okular

[-] geoma@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

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

[-] lnxtx@feddit.nl 8 points 2 months ago
  • bash -> fish
  • default text editor (like Kate) -> geany
  • firefox -> firefox-esr
  • chromium -> ungoogled-chromium
  • nano -> micro
  • top -> htop, btop
  • default PDF reader -> Okular
[-] CsXGF8uzUAOh6fqV@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Do you really replace bash though? I also use fish but even as a relatively deranged minimalist I haven't removed bash as it has so many dependents.

[-] lnxtx@feddit.nl 10 points 2 months ago

Replacing doesn't mean removing in this case.
It still needed for the system scripts, etc.

More like fish is my daily driver, bash if needed (I can write a script in bash faster then in fish).

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[-] GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago

I replace the <default, slow, annoying to use> image viewer with qimgv, which is ergonomic and very fast.

[-] Kanda@reddthat.com 7 points 2 months ago

VLC player with mpv

[-] dallen@programming.dev 7 points 2 months ago

Gnome Files with Thunar.

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

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[-] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 7 points 2 months ago

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

[-] eugenia@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I leave Firefox installed, but I download and use Chrome. Chrome is much faster than Firefox in many websites I use (not only youtube where Google might be using a secret sauce, but also Photopea and other js-heavy websites). Also, Chrome is using way less RAM than Firefox. I have a bunch of older laptops with 4 GB of RAM, so these "small" differences in speed between the two browsers is VERY evident on these older computers (not so easily seen on very fast PCs). Many people don't like me writing all that, and often downvote me for having written that in the past, but it's god's honest truth. I looked into installing a totally degoogled chromium, but it's not updated asap for security updates, so it's a no-go for me.

I also prefer VLC for videos, and OnlyOffice instead of LibreOffice (better MS compatibility). Also, because it's Linux Mint and comes preinstalled with warpinator, I prefer LocalSend instead of Warpinator. Easier to use.

Edit: just as predicted, downvotes. People seem to prefer a live in a lie. Do your own tests guys before you press the trigger!

[-] narp@feddit.org 13 points 2 months ago

I doubt you're getting downvoted for saying that chrome is faster than firefox, but for the irony of using Linux with a Chromium based browser, while being on lemmy.

  1. Chromium, while open source, is controlled by Google and a lot of browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Samsung Android, Vivaldi) are built on it, giving it a market share of around 75%.

  2. Electron apps are frameworks based on Chromium (ie VSCode).

  3. Google is evil and with Manifest V3, Adblockers like uBlock Origin, will eventually stop working for all derivatives (even for Vivaldi).

  4. The future: Because Chromium got the de facto monopoly there is no need for Firefox support anymore and the big corpos (ie Microsoft is a sucker for Chromium/Electron) can turn what's left of the "old" Internet into apps without the ability to block ads or tracking.

  5. No "?", just Profit.

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[-] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

Default terminal -> Kitty

[-] I_Miss_Daniel@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Rustdesk, so I can remote into my main computer and the others I manage.

PWAs For Firefox.

And that's about it.

I use Debian BTW. (Was on Fedora but killed it when there were sound issues, turned out to Rustdesk at fault. Can't do Mint as it boots to black screen.)

[-] verdigris@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago

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

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

[-] rfr_Foglia@feddit.it 6 points 2 months ago

I stared using Zen Browser instead of Firefox lately and i find it really good.

[-] bpt11@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago
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[-] starbrite@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago

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

[-] nyan@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

There isn't much in a default Gentoo install to replace. In most of the cases where a decision is possible, you make it during the install process. Thus, I have nothing to remove afterwards (but a lot to add!)

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this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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