this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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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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[–] [email protected] 112 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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

And yes, I run Arch btw. :D

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
  • Firefox -> Edge
  • Libreoffice -> Gsuite PWAs
  • kernel -> Azure Linux kernel (added trust of Microsoft)
  • nano -> vim
  • vi -> Emacs
  • GNOME -> Deepin
  • Bash -> Powershell >=7.0
[–] RmDebArc_5 42 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think you forgot to add /s

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Probably should have added yeah. Based on the amount of downvotes, some people took it too seriously

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

I still can't get why people should downvote your comment, but fine.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

nano -> vim

This one is extremely consistent with the others because once you have made the switch, it becomes harder to escape.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks 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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

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

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago

Arch, so pretty much nothing.

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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

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.
[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

bash -> fish

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (10 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks 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.

[–] zarkanian 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (8 children)
  • 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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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Defaults hehe

I use arch btw

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago

I install the minimal version and go from there.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks 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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)
  • bash -> fish
  • default text editor (like Kate) -> geany
  • firefox -> firefox-esr
  • chromium -> ungoogled-chromium
  • nano -> micro
  • top -> htop, btop
  • default PDF reader -> Okular
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks 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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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

VLC player with mpv

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

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

[–] Jumuta 7 points 2 weeks ago

pdf reader with okular

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Gnome Files with Thunar.

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

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

Default terminal -> Kitty

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks 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.)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Isn't that just one of the perks of Linux? Unlike windows where your pretty much forced to use Microsoft software on Linux you have a plethora of choices.

You can choose pretty much whichever Desktop you want, whichever default packages you want you can even choose between Default, Snap, Flatpak, app image and build from source.

There's no one size fits all on Linux, we all have our own unique set up

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