Recommended applications

This page lists X11, Wayland).]] Users having a particular requirement should find reliable and easy to install software here for common Gentoo Linux needs.

Most software here is in the stable branch, but some useful and otherwise high quality software is still in the testing branch. In that case packages may be made available for installation, however packages from the testing branch should only be used after taking notice of any risks.

In most cases, software designed for one desktop environment will work just as well with another desktop environment, though sometimes with less integration. Installing software from a different desktop environment may pull in more dependencies than an equivalent native application; there is usually no issue at all with this.

These applications should be widely useful and of sufficient quality to merit inclusion. To reference a new piece of software here, please read the adding to this page section.

Desktop environment
A desktop environment is a complete ecosystem of software and resources providing a homogenous graphical user experience. Generally based on specific widgets, configuration system, root window with desktop background, taskbar with window list and menu, icons, window manager etc. It provides a coherent visual metaphor for a user to interact with the computer.

A desktop environment can be a great convenience to most users, though a custom graphical environment can be assembled if preferred, i.e. Xorg could be used with a window manager and select desktop utilities. Gentoo does not have separate releases or "flavors" for different desktop environments, as some other distributions do - a desktop environment is simply installed on the base system. Gentoo's flexibility means that many desktop environments are available, and more than one can generally be installed in parallel. Gentoo can of course be used exclusively in text mode, as a server platform for example.


 * Cinnamon - a contemporary desktop environment with a traditional graphical interface, forked from GNOME 3's GNOME Shell and developed for Linux Mint.
 * Enlightenment - an eye-candy, compositing and stacking window manager that is released under the permissive BSD License.
 * FVWM-Crystal - an easy to use, powerful and pretty desktop environment.
 * GNOME - a feature-rich desktop environment provided by the GNOME project.
 * KDE - a free software community, producing a wide range of applications including the popular Plasma desktop environment.
 * Lumina - a lightweight desktop environment, free of D-Bus and *kit, designed to have as few system dependencies and requirements as possible.
 * LXDE - a free desktop environment with comparatively low resource requirements.
 * LXQt - a lightweight desktop environment based on the [Qt] toolkit.
 * MATE - a fork of the GNOME 2 desktop environment.
 * Xfce - a lightweight desktop environment for Unix-like operating systems.

Cross-toolkit themes

 * - a toolkit theme to provide a common style to GNOME/GTK and KDE/Qt applications.

See GTK themes in Qt applications for more information.

Taskbars / Panels
A taskbar is generally a strip on one edge of the screen with a menu, a representation of open windows, shortcuts to launch apps, widgets to display information etc. Desktop environments usually provide a taskbar but the default can often be replaced or complemented according to user preference. A taskbar associated with a window manager can form the basis of a custom desktop environment.


 * - a lightweight panel, works with any NETWM compliant window manager (e.g. xfwm4, sawfish, openbox, KDE window manager).
 * - a lightweight X11 desktop panel for LXDE, also works with other window managers.
 * - a tool for creating highly customizable status bars for the desktop environment.
 * Tint2 - a lightweight panel/taskbar specifically made for Openbox, but it can also work with other window managers.
 * - a fast, lightweight, quick launch bar.

Window managers
A window manager manages the creation, manipulation, and destruction of on-screen windows in X11. If a desktop environment is used, a window manager will generally be provided. This it the list of the currently most used window managers, for a more complete list of packages available on Gentoo, see this list.


 * Awesome - a highly configurable, next generation, dynamic window manager for X11.
 * Bspwm - a lightweight, tiling, minimalist window manager that is written in C and represents its windows as leaves on a binary tree.
 * Dwm - a dynamic window manager for X11.
 * Fluxbox - an open-source stacking window manager for X11 that was originally forked from Blackbox.
 * FVWM - a stacking window manager for X11.
 * I3 - a minimalist tiling window manager, completely written from scratch.
 * Openbox - a highly configurable, next generation, stacking window manager for X11 with extensive standards support.
 * Sawfish - an extensible window manager using a Lisp-based scripting language.
 * Sway - an open-source Wayland compositor that is designed to be compatible with the i3 window manager.

Application launchers

 * dmenu - a generic, highly customisable, and efficient menu for X11.
 * - a window switcher, run dialog and replacement.

Archive managers
Theses graphical file archivers support multiple archive formats and should work with any desktop environment.


 * - the official  archive  manager  for  the MATE Desktop Environment.
 * - an archive manager for the GNOME desktop environment.
 * - a simple & lightweight Qt-based but desktop-agnostic file archiver.
 * - a desktop environment-independent archiver front end based on GTK.

Clipboard managers
The X11 clipboard supports multiple selections which may be filled by simply selecting text on the screen or by specifically using a copy function. X11 selections have a coherent operation and applications implement their use by convention, though the conventions are not always fully respected. Clipboard managers generally manage a history of the X11 selections and sometimes modify their behaviour.


 * - an advanced clipboard manager with editing and scripting features.
 * - a lightweight GTK based clipboard manager.
 * - a lightweight and cross-platform clipboard history applet.
 * - a clipboard manager for Xfce called Clipman.

File managers

 * - a KDE file manager focusing on usability.
 * - a web browser and file manager based on KDE Frameworks.
 * - an advanced twin-panel (commander-style) file-manager with many extras.
 * PCManFM - a powerful yet lightweight file manager application, default file manager of LXDE.
 * - a multi-panel, tabbed file manager.
 * - a modern file manager for the Xfce desktop environment.
 * - an MS-Explorer-like minimalist file manager for X11.

Optical disk burners

 * - a CD/DVD burning application for the GNOME desktop.
 * - a fully-featured CD/DVD burner for KDE.
 * - a GTK disc burner from Xfce.

System

 * - GTK disk usage analyzer.
 * - GTK disk partition editor GUI.
 * - application menu editor.
 * - device Manager for Logitech Unifying devices.

Terminal emulators
A terminal emulator enables interaction with the system through a powerful text based interface. See the terminal emulator article for more information and even more package choices.


 * alacritty - a terminal emulator focused on simplicity and performance.
 * - a terminal emulator for GNOME.
 * - a modern, hackable, featureful, OpenGL-based terminal emulator written in Python and C.
 * - a terminal emulator for KDE.
 * - a lightweight, vte-based, tabbed terminal emulator for LXDE and other WMs.
 * Rxvt-unicode - a fast and lightweight terminal emulator with Xft and Unicode support.
 * - a terminal emulator arranging multiple terminals in one window, Python based, for GNOME.
 * - a feature rich terminal emulator using the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries.
 * - a drop down terminal, similar to the consoles found in first person shooters.
 * - a terminal emulator for the Xfce desktop environment.
 * - a Quake-style dropdown terminal based on.

Document management

 * Calibre - an electronic book management tool.

E-book readers

 * - an e-book reader with a Qt interface.
 * Foliate - a free and open-source eBook reader that supports EPUB, Mobipocket, Kindle, FictionBook, and comic book archive formats.
 * - an e-book reader supporting many formats.

General document viewers

 * - a PDF/EPUB viewer with vim like bindings.
 * - a simple document viewer for GNOME.
 * - a graphical PDF viewer which aims to superficially resemble.
 * MuPDF - a free and open-source software framework written in C that implements a PDF, XPS, and EPUB parsing and rendering engine.
 * – KDE universal document viewer.
 * - a lightweight tabbed PDF viewer with a Qt5 interface.
 * Zathura - a free, plugin-based document viewer.

Note taking

 * - a note-taking application for GNOME.
 * - KDE sticky notes.
 * - Xfce panel sticky notes plugin.
 * - handwritten note-taking, sketching, and keeping a journal using a stylus.
 * - handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support.
 * - a desktop wiki as a graphical text editor used to maintain a collection of wiki pages.

Prodctivity software

 * - a light and fast cross platform word processor.
 * - the KDE office suite.
 * LibreOffice - a full office productivity suite, a successor of the OpenOffice.org that strives to be a better and less bloated office suite.
 * - a WYSIWYM frontend for LaTeX, DocBook, etc.
 * - a desktop publishing (DTP) and layout program.
 * - a multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor for ePub format.

Text editors

 * - a text editor for the GNOME desktop.
 * - a bare-bones text editor for Xfce that starts up extremely quickly.
 * - a small and lightweight UTF-8 text editor for the MATE environment.

Chat clients / video conferencing

 * - all-in-one voice and text chat, much used by gamers.
 * HexChat - a graphical IRC client based on XChat.
 * Pidgin - an easy to use and free chat client that supports AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, XMPP, and more chat networks all at once.
 * - a Qt Jabber client.
 * - a Qt5-based Tox client.
 * Quassel Core - a daemon/headless IRC client, part of Quassel, that supports 24/7 connectivity.
 * Signal Desktop - a messaging application geared towards privacy.
 * Skype - instant messaging client, with support for audio and video.
 * (or ) - a freeware, cross-platform, cloud-based instant messaging software and application service with optional encryption.
 * WebRTC - implemented in Firefox.

Some other popular messaging services can be used on Gentoo using their web interface, such as with WhatsApp.

Email clients

 * Claws Mail - a mail client forked from Sylpheed.
 * Thunderbird - Mozilla's solution to the e-mail client.
 * - a fast Qt IMAP e-mail client.

P2P

 * Deluge - an open-source, cross platform BitTorrent client.
 * - a Qt BitTorrent client.
 * RTorrent - a highly configurable torrent client based on libtorrent and ncurses.
 * - a BitTorrent client with GTK, Qt, CLI, and web front-ends.

Web browsers

 * Chromium - the open source version of Google's Chrome web browser.
 * - a lean, minimalist, web browser for resource-starved systems.
 * Falkon - a lightweight web browser based on QtWebEngine.
 * Firefox - Mozilla's web browser.
 * Qutebrowser - a web browser with vim-style key bindings based off the QtWebKit (or the QtWebEngine in its latest release).

Audio

 * - free cross-platform audio recorder and editor.
 * - simple sound recorder.

Scanning

 * - scan documents, perform OCR, produce PDFs and DjVus, gtk based.
 * - a personal document manager, scan or import your documents and find them back in a snap with full text search !
 * - simple document scanning utility for GNOME.
 * - simple image scanning application based on libksane and KDE Frameworks.
 * - tried and tested graphical scanning frontend.

See the wiki page on SANE for more information on scanning in Gentoo.

Video

 * - GTK program to take pictures and videos from your webcam, GNOME oriented.
 * - simple Qt5 or GTK 3 interface for capturing and viewing video from v4l2 devices.
 * - just as the name implies.
 * - just as the name implies.

Audio players

 * Audacious - a media player similar to XMMS, and Winamp.
 * - a music player and library organizer based on Amarok and Qt.
 * - an open-source jukebox for large collections of MP3/Ogg/FLAC files.
 * - a music management program designed for all music enthusiasts.
 * - an ncurses interface for playing audio files, Music On Console.
 * MPD - a flexible, server-side application for playing music with X11 clients.
 * - a Qt-based audio player with Winamp/XMMS skins support.
 * - a music playing application for GNOME framework.

Image viewers

 * - part of (a collection of tools and libraries for many image formats).
 * - an image viewer and browser for GNOME.
 * - image viewers for the framebuffer console (fbi) and X11 (ida).
 * Feh - open-source image viewer mainly aimed at command-line users but works as a very lightweight minimal viewer for X11.
 * - a lightweight GTK image viewer.
 * - a GTK LXDE lightweight image viewer.
 * - an image viewer and browser for GNOME.
 * - a fast and easy to use image viewer for browsing and displaying a collection of images in KDE.
 * - a lightweight Qt image viewer.
 * - a fast, simple, elegant, minimalistic image viewer for X11. Written in C with GTK.

Graphics

 * - batch image converter and resizer based on ImageMagick.
 * GIMP - the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It can be used as a simple paint tool, photo retouching and general image manipulation.
 * - framework and script language that allows the creation of complex macros, with GIMP and Krita plugins (enable appropriate use flags).
 * - powerful, free vector graphics design workshop.
 * - simple KDE-based painting program, like the traditonal MS Paint.
 * - professional open source painting program made by artists.
 * - fast and easy graphics application for digital painters.
 * - ultra light, bare X11 image editing tool.

Photography

 * Darktable - a photography workflow application and RAW developer.
 * - a powerful, feature-rich KDE digital photo management application.
 * - a graphical user interface for the creation & processing of panoramic images.
 * - a graphical user interface for high dynamic range image composition and processing.
 * - powerful, free, cross-platform raw photo processing system.
 * - photo manager for GNOME.

Video players

 * Mpv - a free and open source command-line media player.
 * - a fully-featured Qt front-end for.
 * VLC - a wildly popular, cross platform video player and streamer.

Video editors

 * - an award winning free and open-source non-linear video editor.
 * - a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks.
 * - stable and effective non-linear video editor for low-end systems.

3D

 * Blender - a free and open-source 3D creation suite.

File Sharing

 * Nfs-utils - a file system protocol that allows client machines to access network attached filesystems (called exports) from a host system.
 * Samba - a re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol, a Microsoft Windows alternative to Network File System (NFS).

Network Management

 * Dhcpcd-ui - a Qt and GTK monitor and configuration graphical user interface for dhcpcd.
 * Iwd - an up-and-coming wireless daemon for Linux.
 * Netifrc - Gentoo's default framework for configuring and managing network interfaces on systems running OpenRC.
 * systemd-networkd - a part of systemd useful for simple configuration of wired network interfaces.
 * Wpa_supplicant - a wifi supplicant to handle network authentication.

Astronomy

 * - a space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions with a real-time 3D visualization of space.
 * - an open source planetarium for your computer with a realistic sky in relaitme 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

Nanoscience

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

Diff/Merge tools

 * - a Qt frontend to diff3.
 * - a KDE tool for viewing the differences between files.
 * - a visual diff and merge tool targeted at developers, under GNOME.
 * - a patch manager to easily manage large numbers of patches by keeping track of the changes each patch makes.

IDEs

 * - a GTK HTML editor for the experienced web designer or programmer.
 * - the open source, cross platform, free C++ IDE.
 * Eclipse - Java based IDE that can be used for other languages via plugins. Not in the Gentoo repository but can be installed from an overlay according to the the instructions.
 * - a GTK based fast and lightweight IDE supporting many different languages.
 * - supporting KF5/Qt, C/C++ and much more.
 * - a lightweight C++/Qt IDE from the Qt Project.

Programming text editors

 * GVim - a text editor based on the vi text editor.
 * Emacs - a class of powerful, extensible, self-documenting text editors.
 * - a KDE text editor.
 * - a vim fork focused on extensibility and agility.
 * - a very powerful editor for programmers.
 * Vim - a text editor based on the vi text editor.

Adding to this page
This page is a work in progress. If you regularly use a desktop software package from the Gentoo repository and can confirm it is of excellent quality, stable and of broad appeal for common tasks, please add it to the list ! The software should at least be maintained (i.e. relatively recent commits to the source; have periodic releases; not have too many reported bugs; most bugs should be getting fixed rather than accumulating, etc.), and preferably be well documented and from the stable branch. Please don't use this page just to promote a package because you like it, are an author or have other interest etc.

External resources

 * linuxlinks software directory - large, well organized catalogue of software with good descriptions. Software that is not in Portage can sometimes be installed by other means, such as being downloaded and complied after installing the appropriate dependencies.