21 essential Ubuntu desktop applications

Whether you are new to Ubuntu or recently switched from Microsoft Windows to Ubuntu, you will find a software that suits you below. Not all applications are useful for everyone, welcome to share what you think is the best Linux application.

Readers often ask us what are the essential Ubuntu applications. In this article, I will introduce 21 essential applications for Ubuntu one by one, instead of just replying in the message area.

We will not introduce any software delivered with Ubuntu by default, such as Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Transmission, etc., if possible, we will focus on software that does not require PPA to be added to it.

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**1. **GearyE-mail client software

Geary is an open source desktop email client software with a wide range of functions, a convenient installation wizard program, and integration with the Unity desktop. If you are more familiar with Gmail than other mail client software (such as Outlook), you will find Geary easier to use than the default Ubuntu email application Thunderbird.

**Other alternatives: **WMail(Electron), Evolution and Claws Mail.

2. GoogleChromeBrowser

The Mozilla Firefox web browser is already installed on your Ubuntu system; for most tasks, it performs well. But if you are more of a Google user, or have used Chrome on Windows, you will be happy to continue using it on Ubuntu.

In addition to the built-in and latest Linux version of the Flash player, you can also log in with a Google account to synchronize bookmarks, extensions and applications between Linux and other operating systems you use.

**Other alternatives: **Vivaldi (Chromium), GNOME Web (GTK) and QupZilla (Qt).

**3. **GIMPPhoto Editor

The full name of GIMP is "GNU Image Processing Program", it is a free and open source Photoshop alternative tool. Although it lacks some of Adobe's more fancy features, GIMP is comparable to Adobe in terms of common features, and even better in some aspects!

Whether you want to quickly and automatically retouch your selfie avatar, create a multi-level cultural gene that can be shared online, or do some professional retouching as part of a photography hobby, you have to look at GIMP.

**Alternatives: **Photomatix (paid version), Pinta (GTK) and Shotwell (GTK).

**4. **VLCMedia Player

You don't need me to tell what VLC is, because like Firefox, LibreOffice and GIMP, it is probably one of the most famous open source software in the world!

This is a versatile desktop media player that can handle almost any media format you throw at it, play DVDs, and even transcode videos from one format to another.

**Alternative: **SMPlayer(Qt).

**5. **Unity Tweak ToolUtility Tools

Unity Tweak Tool can be described as the Swiss Army Knife of the Ubuntu Unity desktop world. It allows you to fine-tune and customize the desktop to suit your taste. Whether you want to try a trendy GTK theme, change the icon set, adjust the size or behavior of the application menu, set the trigger angle, or reduce the size of the Unity launcher, it can meet the requirements.

From advanced configuration options to common options: If an item can be adjusted, then Unity Tweak Tool is likely to have a corresponding switch!

**6. **CaffeineLock Screen Blocker

This app is indispensable to me. My password is very long. Whenever I leave the Ubuntu computer for a while, the Ubuntu lock screen will lock the screen.

But sometimes when I read a long article or watch a YouTube video on BuzzFeed, it also locks the screen. In this case, I don't want to lock the screen to interfere with me, and I can use caffeine at this time.

Caffeine provides a quick way to inhibit (block) screen savers or lock screens. As long as you enable it when you need it, disable it when you don't need it!

**7. **KdenLiveVideo Editor

Do you need to modify a video clip before uploading to YouTube? Want to add beautiful transitions and cool effects to long video podcasts? Then, you should use Kdenlive.

Kdenlive is a non-linear video editor, it is very good: it is not only easy to use, but also very reliable (other Linux video editors are easy to crash).

**Alternatives: **Flowblade, Shotcut and Lightworks.

**8. **DropboxCloud Storage

Dropbox provides an official Linux client software that is perfectly integrated with the Ubuntu desktop, allowing you to quickly and selectively synchronize files from or to its services, back up new files immediately and perform more operations.

Do not use Dropbox? On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and later versions, you can use Google Drive directly on Ubuntu.

**9. **FranzCommunication Client Software

The days of using multi-protocol instant messaging software are long gone, and now most of the protagonists are proprietary mobile services.

Do you want to use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram or another well-known communication service to chat on Ubuntu? Try Franz.

Franz allows you to connect to a large number of services and provides some basic desktop integration features.

**10. **Etcher USBImage Burner

If you often try new Linux distributions, you know how important it is to have a reliable and easy-to-use image recorder-Etcher is such an image recorder.

It is a completely open source application developed by the people of Resin.io. The simple interface allows you to easily complete the process of burning ISO or IMG image files to a USB or SD card.

You can download the latest Linux version of this application from the Etcher official website.

**11. **AtomText editor

Although it is not the only text editor available on Linux (there are many text editors), Github's Atom is undoubtedly one of the more popular choices.

As an open source text editor, Atom allows you to customize almost every function of it, either manually or by installing packages, plug-ins and themes developed by other Atom users.

You can download the latest version of the Atom text editor from its project page on Github.

12. Steam Linux Gaming

If you plan to play games on a Linux system, it is indeed worth the effort to install Steam, which is a popular game publishing platform.

There are more than 3,000 Steam games available for Linux, including many well-known games such as "Tomb Raider", "Destroying the Siege: Splitting Mankind" and "Warhammer: Total War". There are also a large number of indie games and classic games worth exploring.

**13. **NeoFetchSystem Information Tool

Looking for a clever way to find out what window manager, GTK theme, desktop environment, kernel, and bash version you are running? You can click on a lot of menus to find out, or run a command: neofetch.

**Important to say in advance: **You need to install this application before you can run it; for this, you need to download the latest version from the NeoFetch Github page.

**14. **Corebird LinuxTwitter client software

Linux Twitter users want to use tools other than the default browser to understand the "current news". There are many desktop Twitter client software to choose from, and Corebird is undoubtedly the best Linux Twitter application.

Corebird supports multiple Twitter accounts, desktop notifications, and most of the features of Twitter, including quoting and forwarding other people's Twitter messages, unlimited private messages, etc., and has a clear, tidy, and easy-to-use interface.

It also hides several innovative features, including the ability to quickly enter common phrases, automatically save Twitter messages in the composer box, and mute specific accounts or words, which is very intimate.

**Alternative: **Anatine(Electron)%E3%80%81Choqok(http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/08/choqok-qt-twitter-app-new-beta)( Qt) and TweetDeck (Web).

**15. **Ubuntu Cleanersystem maintenance tool

Although the open source BleachBit is usually our recommended "system garbage cleanup tool", Ubuntu Cleaner is more usable than it, and may not be as destructive as the latter.

Ubuntu Cleaner is a fork of the "Cleaner" part of the abandoned Ubuntu Tweak application. Using this application is a great way to help free up Ubuntu space. It can clean up unnecessary packages, clean up outdated application configurations, and clean up apt and web browser cache memory.

16. FeedReader RSS reader

I use two ways to closely follow hundreds of applications, websites, and other development projects: email (via mailing lists) and RSS news sources (via Feedly). If you use the latter (or even if you don't), you may be interested in taking a look at FeedReader.

FeedReader is a GTK desktop RSS reading application, suitable for Linux desktop. It is not perfect in all aspects, and it is still not satisfactory in several places, but it is a better tool for using Feedly in the browser tab. It can install FeedReader on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS through a dedicated and stable PPA.

17. Weather Indicator weather tool

Paying attention to weather conditions is an essential part of our daily lives. If you want to know in more detail what the weather will be like in the next few days, you can't "look out the window" and guess. At this time, applications such as Weather Indicator came into play. The small, unobtrusive, panel-based application is reliable and will inform you of the current weather conditions, and it will display detailed information with just one click.

**18. **ShutterScreen capture and annotation tool

If you want to take screenshots of your desktop, applications, or the Web, and add text, arrows, and icons to them, you should use Shutter. No tool can match it in terms of features and performance. Shutter is not only capable of capturing screenshots, but also automatically uploading captured screenshots to remote web services, including Imgur.

19. Unity Folders Launcher organization

Unity Folders is an aptly named application that allows you to create clickable folders on the Unity launcher.

If you want to manage the most commonly used applications based on genre ("game", "office", "social", etc.) without opening Unity Dash, it is ideal. You can customize the folder icon (or automatically generate the icon according to the application inside), and you can edit, rearrange, rename, and other operations on existing folders.

**20. **Clementinemusic player

When I started writing this article, I believed that I would not list any other music players that could replace Rhythmbox, because few players provide as powerful functions as it.

**21. **Go For ItTask Manager

Ubuntu no longer comes with a good note-taking application (it used to come with Tomboy), but without such a tool, it is difficult to be organized.

Compared with other tools (such as Simplenote for Linux), Go For It!'s real selling point is simplicity. GFI is not trying to help you organize your paper, but to help you remind yourself: you need to start using it!

With the built-in alarm clock function and support for loading custom todo.txt, you can synchronize the to-do list between the application and the device, making GFI a completely worthy application.

Other necessary applications that should be watched

As I said at the beginning of the article, this article can easily introduce 101 essential Linux applications. You will notice that I try to avoid tools based on the command line interface (CLI), but there are several tools to like, including ncdu, rainbowstream and sudocabulary.

Peek is an excellent animated GIF screen recorder. GNOME-Twitch is an excellent desktop Twitch.tv application for Linux; Wundertux is an electron-based Wunderlist application for Linux; and Rambox is similar to the Franz introduced above, which is an all-in-one open source communication application program.

Original title: 21 Must-Have Apps For Ubuntu Desktop, Author: Joey Sneddon

[51CTO translation, please indicate the original translator and source as 51CTO.com]