For me, it was perhaps simple-scan, a very simple and efficient GUI to scan documents. I used it with my Brother printer / scanner and it works like a charm. Especially since I do not scan stuff often, so a program with more complex UI would have the effect that I forget how to use it until the next time.
LocalSend.
No more USBs ever (outside of install media). So so simple, fast, and works on all devices and FOSS.
It is really the best UX of any file sharing app I have experienced (outside of airdrop I guess, but obvious problems there)
Okular is also a favorite of mine.
I really like LocalSend as well, but it’s very inconsistent with me. I think it has to do with one device being on a VPN, but I’m not totally sure. Basically I have some “one way” connections where one device can see and send to the one connected to a VPN but not the other way around. Is there some way I can specify LocalSend connections to ignore the VPN? I’m on NixOS and installed LocalSend in my user package declarations in my Nix config.
Surprised? IE/Edge. Like, why?
My work mandates Edge as a browser on the company PC. With Edge on Linux I can have a “work” browser on my private PC with bookmark sync etc.
Surprised no one has mentioned OBS. I don’t use it for streaming, but afaik it’s one of the more popular options for that. So it’s really cool that not only is it available for linux, but it’s open source and works great. I’m sure every linux user has had audio, general hardware, or GPU acceleration issues at some point, but OBS is seamless in my experience. Pretty cool to see a piece of software live at the crossroads of all that and get it right.
MagicQ
Used to be Skype but MS just killed that so…
Microsoft Edge was a recent surprise. It’s surprising both that Microsoft would create it and that any Linux users would run it. Since its Chromium based, there should be no need for developers to test Edge separately.
A very unwelcome surprise, too.
I’m pretty neutral about the mere existence of software I’m not interested in using.
I think MS assumes no one will use it. But having Linux builds of some of their software enhances their “MS loves Linux” marketing.
Teams is another example.
i’m forced to use teams, though. not edge.
Fair – what I meant was more about the Teams binary kind of not being needed at all (you can use the web version without it). So having a Linux binary explicitly just seems a little weird, marketing aside.
You can also get Teams on Linux
That’s a little less surprising to me. Organizations are likely to pick competing communication software if Teams is not available to everyone. Web browsers are generally interoperable after Microsoft lost the war to popularize one that wasn’t.
Really? All I’ve seen is a Flatpak that’s really just a wrapped web view. Is there now a native version of Teams for Linux?
The native windows version of teams is also only a glorified web view.
I agree simple-scan is awesome.
I just like when I do an update and my computer uses less data…and its a bit faster. Thats happened a couple of times. Feels good.
Probably my answer will not concern what I will tell about the program, but about what I liked about Linux, that there is freedom of action and everything is under my control
My answer is also not on topic, but I’ve always liked orange creamsickles
^^
KDEConnect, probably the best (only?) to do what it does in such a magnificent way
Out of curiosity, what is it you use it for? I pretty much only use it for SMS, for which it is kinda janky and unstable. Doesn’t always get contact names, doesn’t load everything from conversations, misses messages that I sent or that were sent to me, crashes if I scroll too fast, etc. I have Connect installed just to use SMS (cause I hate typing on my phone keyboard), but I’m honestly not even sure what the base software does.
Sharing files and clipboard is a nice feature. Media control might be pretty neat in some scenarios (party jukebox, htpc).
What completely blows my mind every time is when KDE Connect time pauses my music on my PC when I get a call on my mobile.
Well I basically never use SMS, so I have no idea if they work for me or not.
At the moment I’m using it to connect my two laptops and phone, mostly for notifications, file and clipboard sharing and remote trackpad.
It’s so good that it absolutely killed my will to maintain a project I had that does something like this once I discovered it. They even support Windows too.
Been there, doing that, cf https://git.benetou.fr/utopiah/offline-octopus
It’s wonderful.
I do miss being able to send stuff from my PC to my iPhone though, but that’s Apple’s fault.
The entire KDE Community is incredible. From KDEConnect to Kdenlive, Krita, and Plasma I am a very happy nerd.
Kicad is up there with the paid options for electronic schematic drafting / PCB design. I don’t use a lot of KDE stuff since I also don’t use KDE, but Kicad is absolutely essential for me.
Despite the K in its name, KiCad is nothing to do with the KDE project. It’s an independent program started (iirc) at a French university. I agree it’s awesome, though.
Well now… TIL!
I cannot recall any specific programs besides a game called Feudal Tactics, but I swear I’ve seen software while looking through EasyFlatpak that surprised me.
Kdenlive. I used Adobe Premiere professionally and Kdenlive completely replaced it for me.
Bitwig and Reaper. Two of the best music DAWs on the market and they each have a Linux native version.
I have been experimenting with Reaper a bit, but I am a sort of DAW noob, so it’s kind of hard to get in to. I’ve done a tiny bit using Lmms though, but I am missing synthesizer stuff in Reaper. I’ve tried installing plugins by putting them into the proper folders and let Reaper attempt to resolve it, but it doesn’t really work as expected.
Any tips? Especially for Linux of course. Many of the tutorials are Windows oriented.
Reaper is like the Arch Linux of DAWs. It’s power is in its flexibility and customization. That said, I found it to be uninspiring in its complexity out of the box. That said, the Reaper community is amazing. If you want to mod and customize it into your ideal DAW,y recommendation is to hit the community forums, Discord, etc.
Personally, I bounced from Reaper almost instantly in favor of Bitwig and Renoise on Linux.
I would start from the docs. There is pretty good reaper manual available from its homepage, covers everything from basic “how does one creates the prohect?” to relatively advanced topics.
Most of the plugins I encountered have no native Linux version, but yabridge deals with most of them quite good. I personaly use it paired with Play on Linux to logically separate different groups of plugins and everything works like a charm.
As a guitarist ToneLib and Carla are also up there for me.
Yeah, Reaper is surprising! It’s in the Arch repos and Flathub.
I would have been happy if I had to build it from source or download a random deb from their website. But, damn. It’s on Linux and easily installable!
Bash. It has enabled me to automatize a lot of sh*t I wouldn’t do just because it would take me a lot of time/efford to do. There’s a LOT you can do with a few simple scripts, a few examples:
- Remove files I don’t need (images, rip/conversion logs, empty folders…).
- Compress and optimize folders of photos recursively.
- Apply watermarks to photos recursively.
- Convert filetypes (flac2mp3, pdf2cbr, webm2mp3,web2jpg…).
- Configure input devices (keyboards, mouse, graphic tablets).
- Autorename files (spaces to _, . to _, _ to spaces…).
- Remove audio from videos recursively.
- Remove audio/subtitle tracks from videos.
- Download images/videos/audio from websites.
- Update appimages automatically.
- Update/cleanup system/repos.
- Use different theming for different applications.
- Mount iso/bin… images.
- Extract zip|rar|tar.gz|… files automatically.
- Modify pdfs.
- Get the weather for my location.
- Get stats from my PCs to be shown in panel applet.
- Alias program names to ones of my choosing.
- Open CUPS config in firefox.
- Refresh font caches and other management tools I don’t care to remember.
- Fix permissions.
- Make a backup.
- Restore a backup.
- Copy files safely (rsync).
- Change volume level.
- Install all the packages and configs I need to make the OS/apps behave/look the way I like.
…you name it…
…in most cases just by typing one word in the terminal. It was kind of a mindblow coming from the crappy window$ crappysystem eons ago.
Which program is the one that surprised you most that it is available on Linux?
Bash.
I find that the least surprising, but ok…
Tux racer was neat.
There was also a weird space game that started with a Q. I never progressed and it gave me existential crisis as it felt like nothing was out there. I’d get lost in space every time.
Yeah that looks like it
Mixx is a cool free dj software, didn’t expect davinci resolve to have an official version, stremio also I didn’t think would have an app for whatever reason. I like inkscape for vector art, didn’t realize it was a thing til I swapped to linux. I use software and apps more in general because it’s stuff I’ve installed and its not hidden by bloat, even if there is more windows stuff out there, its way easier to discover actual useful software using linux through linux appstores compared to windows.
