Recommended applications

This page is intended to list Article description::applications recommended for use in a graphical (X) environment. See Recommended tools for administration-related commandline tools.

In most cases software designed for one desktop environment will work just as well with another desktop environment, sometimes with less integration. Installing software from a different desktop environment may pull in more dependencies than an equivalent native application.

Desktop environment

 * 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.

Window managers

 * Awesome - a highly configurable, next generation, dynamic window manager for X.
 * 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.

Taskbars / Panels

 * - a lightweight panel, works with any NETWM compliant window manager (eg xfwm4, sawfish, openbox, metacity, kde wm).
 * - a lightweight X11 desktop panel for LXDE, also works with other WMs.
 * Tint2 - a lightweight panel/taskbar specifically made for Openbox, but it can also work with other window managers.
 * - a fast, lightweight, quick launch bar.

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.

Clipboard managers

 * - 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 X.

Application launchers

 * dmenu - a generic, highly customisable, and efficient menu for the X Window System.
 * - a window switcher, run dialog and replacement.

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.

Terminal emulators

 * alacritty - a terminal emulator focused on simplicity and performance.
 * - 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.

Archive managers

 * - 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.

Chat clients

 * 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.
 * WebRTC - implemented in Firefox.

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

 * 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.
 * - 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 - an open-source image viewer that is mainly aimed at command-line users. 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.
 * - 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.
 * GIMP - the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It can be used as a simple paint tool, photo retouching and general image manipulation.
 * - a graphical user interface for the creation & processing of panoramic images.
 * - a graphical user interface for high dynamic range image composition and processing.

Video

 * 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.

3D

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

Document readers

 * - a PDF/EPUB viewer with vim like bindings.
 * - an e-book reader with a Qt interface.
 * - a simple document viewer for GNOME.
 * - an e-book reader supporting many formats.
 * Foliate - a free and open-source eBook reader that supports EPUB, Mobipocket, Kindle, FictionBook, and comic book archive formats.
 * - 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.

Document management

 * Calibre - an electronic book management tool.

Editors

 * GVim - a text editor based on the vi text editor.
 * Emacs - a class of powerful, extensible, self-documenting text editors.
 * - a very powerful editor for programmers.
 * Vim - a text editor based on the vi text editor.
 * - a vim fork focused on extensibility and agility.
 * - a WYSIWYM frontend for LaTeX, DocBook, etc.
 * - a desktop publishing (DTP) and layout program.
 * - a multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor for ePub format.
 * - a KDE text editor.
 * - a text editor for the GNOME desktop.

Note taking

 * - a desktop wiki as a graphical text editor used to maintain a collection of wiki pages.

Office suites

 * - a light and fast cross platform word processor.
 * - the KDE office suite.
 * Libreoffice - a full office productivity suite.

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.
 * - 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.

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.

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.

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).