this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024

182 points (94.2% liked)

Linux

49713 readers

602 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

182

Which default software do you replace after you install your distro? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

155 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After I install Linux Mint (which is the distro I have settled on), I replace:

Thunderbird with Betterbird
Firefox with Librewolf (I also install Brave for web services that need a chromium browser).
Celluloid / Rythmbox with VLC player
Default Libreoffice with latest Libreoffice from source.
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.

(page 3) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Terminal -> foot Text editor -> neovim, or more recently I've been trying Helix.

Those are the biggest two. I also recommend mpv over VLC.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

There isn't much in a default Gentoo install to replace. In most of the cases where a decision is possible, you make it during the install process. Thus, I have nothing to remove afterwards (but a lot to add!)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I have a script that makes a list of every package and binary into an output file of packages as a list. I can just cat the output of the file in a subshell and pass that off to pacman -S. Pacman might complain here and there, but I can just edit the list. Then its just cp -r my config files that I've backed up and run my backups for movies, music, pics, games, etc.

And yeah, it's not perfect, but it's good enough for me. I still have to do other stuff like switch out bash for zsh, etc. Gotta love bash scripts and backup configs though. That plus actual backups makes restoration from catastrophic failure at least bearable, albeit still time consuming.

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

I usually replace these:

Bash with Fish
Neofetch (if there is) with Fastfetch+Hyfetch
Firefox with Floorp
Mkinitcpio with Dracut
GRUB with systemd-boot

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month 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

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Fish for shell everywhere

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (2 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] 23 points 1 month 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 1 month ago (1 children)

KDE <3

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I prefer KDE >3

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month 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] 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Celluloid does much less than vlc, why not just using mpv (which celluloid uses as backend) so you have a full player

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I’ve recently started using https://www.nushell.sh/, and while it’s not bash compatible, which can lead to some annoyances, it’s really excellent for working with terminal data in a clean and useful manner

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month 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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month 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] 43 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think you forgot to add /s

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

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

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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] 8 points 1 month ago (2 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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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] 2 points 1 month ago

Personally I wouldn't call that replacing. But that's probably because I am a deranged minimalist. I can't answer this thread because technically I didn't remove anything that my installation started out with.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month 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).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I stared using Zen Browser instead of Firefox lately and i find it really good.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Zen browser gang 🗣️

load more comments (1 replies)

[+] [email protected] -9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

I leave Firefox installed, but I download and use Chrome. Chrome is much faster than Firefox in many websites I use (not only youtube where Google might be using a secret sauce, but also Photopea and other js-heavy websites). Also, Chrome is using way less RAM than Firefox. I have a bunch of older laptops with 4 GB of RAM, so these "small" differences in speed between the two browsers is VERY evident on these older computers (not so easily seen on very fast PCs). Many people don't like me writing all that, and often downvote me for having written that in the past, but it's god's honest truth. I looked into installing a totally degoogled chromium, but it's not updated asap for security updates, so it's a no-go for me.

I also prefer VLC for videos, and OnlyOffice instead of LibreOffice (better MS compatibility). Also, because it's Linux Mint and comes preinstalled with warpinator, I prefer LocalSend instead of Warpinator. Easier to use.

Edit: just as predicted, downvotes. People seem to prefer a live in a lie. Do your own tests guys before you press the trigger!

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

I doubt you're getting downvoted for saying that chrome is faster than firefox, but for the irony of using Linux with a Chromium based browser, while being on lemmy.

Chromium, while open source, is controlled by Google and a lot of browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Samsung Android, Vivaldi) are built on it, giving it a market share of around 75%.
Electron apps are frameworks based on Chromium (ie VSCode).
Google is evil and with Manifest V3, Adblockers like uBlock Origin, will eventually stop working for all derivatives (even for Vivaldi).
The future: Because Chromium got the de facto monopoly there is no need for Firefox support anymore and the big corpos (ie Microsoft is a sucker for Chromium/Electron) can turn what's left of the "old" Internet into apps without the ability to block ads or tracking.
No "?", just Profit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'm aware of all these things, and I agree with you. But the FACT remains: Chrome works on a 2 or 4 GB old laptop much faster and with less ram than Firefox. The one thing you don't want in your desktop experience is to be hitting the swap constantly, because your hdd or ssd will be killed very fast, and the experience will just be slow. The whole point of removing Windows from these laptops is to find efficient software that will bring a new life to them, instead of ending up in a landfill. And that means the following:

For PCs with 4 GB of ram, Linux Mint is the best choice (or with XFce if the cpu is slow, or with debian+xfce if the ssd is only 16 gb as in some chromebooks).
For PCs with 2 GB of ram, Q4OS is the best choice. It has the best balance between low ram usage and a cohesive DE with good desktop preferences (it's a fork of KDE 3.5).

But in both cases, Chrome/ium is the best case, because it's, a. Faster, b. Uses less ram.

What do you want me to do about it? Change the status quo? Stop using it and go with firefox regardless, even if it ends up in an abysmal desktop experience and dead ssds? Why should I do that? The people I install Linux for them on their old laptops want a good desktop experience to replace their now slow Windows, they don't care if it's Linux or Gnu/linux. Now tell me, it's still my fault for people dowvoting?

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 month ago

There is no irony. Like, at all. Ironically Firefox is de facto controlled by the evil Google, the very evil Google which pays a huge share of Mozilla's bills. Also, MV3 is a non-issue for in-built adblockers, as these are not extensions. You people often (and conveniently) seem to forget this detail.

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

What about regular Chromium? Pretty much exactly like Chrome but open source and with less google (still a bunch, otherwise ungoogled chromium wouldn't exist). Also one question to the RAM part, is the amount of available RAM actually slowing down other applications? Because Firefox reserves a proportionally larger part of RAM than Chromium so the amount of available RAM shown in the taskmanager is larger, but a larger part of RAM can be freed if required. Also in benchmarks (and my experience) Brave is faster and lighter than Chrome and updates within 24h of Chromuim security fixes, also open source and more privacy friendly, so why not use that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Chromium is ok in my opinion, but it's also a few days away from getting updated in the repo for security updates. I don't like Brave because of its crypto ties.

As for RAM, on low RAM machines Firefox is hitting the swap way earlier than Chrome/ium does. It really is a problem on low end PCs. It's definitely not as optimized. And it's not juset the RAM, as I explained, it's just slower. I use Photopea to edit photos, and there's an order of magnitude difference in speed on a PC with about 4000 passmark cpu points (and some of my laptops have only 500 points!!). Probably not noticeable on fast machines (machines with over 10k passmark points). Also, where Firefox could do 480p without dropping frames on youtube, Chrome can do 720p on the same video. So for slow machines, I'll always suggest chrome/ium. For fast PCs, I guess it doesn't really matter what you choose.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments