Recommended applications

This page is intended to list applications recommended for use in a graphical (X) environment. See Recommended tools for commandline tools.

Desktop environment

 * Enlightenment
 * FVWM-Crystal – transparent desktop for your Linux box
 * GNOME
 * KDE
 * LXDE – light-weight GTK+ DE
 * LXQt – light-weight Qt DE
 * MATE – GNOME2 fork
 * Xfce

Window managers

 * Awesome
 * dwm
 * Fluxbox
 * FVWM
 * i3
 * Openbox
 * Sawfish

Taskbars / Panels

 * – Lightweight X11 desktop panel for LXDE, also works with other WMs
 * – quick launch bar
 * – quick launch bar
 * – quick launch bar

Cross-toolkit themes

 * and

File managers

 * – A KDE file manager focusing on usability
 * – Light-weight Qt file manager
 * – Fast lightweight tabbed file manager
 * – A multi-panel tabbed file manager
 * – Another Xfce based file explorer
 * – Another Xfce based file explorer
 * – Another Xfce based file explorer

Optical disk burners

 * – feature-rich application to manage CD/DVD images
 * – KDE's fully-featured CD/DVD burner
 * – simple GTK+ disc burner
 * – GTK+ disc burner from Xfce

Terminal emulators

 * – KDE's terminal emulator
 * – Quake-style dropdown terminal based on
 * – Lightweight vte-based tabbed terminal emulator for LXDE and other WMs
 * rxvt-unicode
 * – Multiple GNOME terminals in one window

Chat clients

 * WebRTC – implemented in Firefox
 * Lightweight or QT5-based net-im/qtox – net-libs/tox-based Tox clients from tox-overlay
 * – GTK Instant Messenger client
 * – Qt Jabber client
 * – Graphical IRC client based on XChat
 * – Qt IRC client supporting a remote daemon

Email clients

 * – "All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less."
 * – A fast Qt IMAP e-mail client
 * Claws Mail – An email client (and news reader) based on GTK+
 * Thunderbird

P2P

 * – Qt BitTorrent client
 * – BitTorrent client with GTK+, Qt, CLI, and web front-ends
 * – -based server/client with front-end
 * – -based server/client with GTK+, text console, and web front-ends

Web browsers

 * – open-source version of Google Chrome web browser
 * – lean minimalist web browser for resource-starved systems
 * Firefox – Mozilla's flagship web browser
 * – Qt WebKit web browser
 * – A keyboard-driven, vim-like browser based on PyQt5 and QtWebKit

Audio

 * MPD – music player daemon
 * – Qt4-based audio player with winamp/xmms skins support
 * – Advanced audio player based on KDE framework
 * – Rhythmbox is a music playing application for GNOME framework
 * – Amarok 1.4 based audio player
 * – An open-source jukebox for large collections of mp3/ogg/flac files
 * – Music management program designed for all music enthusiasts
 * – Music On Console: ncurses interface for playing audio files
 * – Music On Console: ncurses interface for playing audio files

Image viewers

 * – Image viewer and browser for Gnome
 * – KDE image viewer
 * – fast and light-weight image viewer
 * – light-weight GTK+ image viewer
 * – GTK+ lxde light-weight image viewer
 * – Image viewer and browser for Gnome
 * – Image viewers for the framebuffer console (fbi) and X11 (ida)
 * – light-weight Qt image viewer

Photography

 * – powerful, feature-rich KDE digital photo management application
 * – graphical user interface for the creation & processing of panoramic images
 * – graphical user interface for high dynamic range image composition and processing

Video

 * – A GTK+ interface to
 * media-video/mpv – video player successor or fork of MPlayer/mplayer2
 * – fully-featured front-end for
 * media-video/vlc – video player and streamer

3D

 * – 3D Creation/Animation/Publishing System (See Blender on this wiki).

Document readers

 * – Alf's PDF Viewer Like Vim
 * – Simple document viewer for GNOME
 * – ebook reader supporting many formats
 * – Qt CHM viewer
 * – a graphical PDF viewer which aims to superficially resemble less(1)
 * MuPDF – the heart of llpp
 * – light-weight tabbed PDF viewer
 * – highly customizable, minimalist, keyboard-driven document viewer
 * – KDE universal document viewer

Document management

 * – fully-featured ebook management application

Editors

 * – GUI version of the Vim text editor
 * – A powerful, extensible, self-documenting text editor
 * – A very powerful editor for programmers
 * – An improved vi-style text editor
 * – WYSIWYM frontend for LaTeX, DocBook, etc.
 * – Desktop publishing (DTP) and layout program
 * – epub editor
 * – KDE text editor
 * – A text editor for the GNOME desktop

Note taking

 * – A note taking application
 * – keep your notes, pictures, ideas, and information in baskets
 * – desktop wiki

Office suites

 * – light and fast cross platform word processor

Diff/Merge tools

 * – quilt patch manager
 * – Qt frontend to diff3
 * – Qt frontend to diff3

IDEs

 * – GTK HTML editor for the experienced web designer or programmer
 * – light-weight C++/Qt IDE from the Qt Project
 * – The open source, cross platform, free C++ IDE
 * – fully-featured Python IDE using PyQt4
 * – GTK+ based fast and lightweight IDE supporting many different languages
 * – Python IDE

Astronomy

 * – OpenGL 3D space simulator
 * – Planetarium for amateur astronomers
 * – renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time

Nanoscience

 * – View, convert, and analzye scanning microscopy data (e.g. atomic force microscopy)
 * – View, edit, and convert electron beam lithography files

Network Management

 * Dhcpcd-ui
 * Gentoo Network Interface Management Scripts
 * systemd-networkd
 * wpa_supplicant

File Sharing

 * NFS
 * Samba – A re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol.