List of Useful Software
These are some of my favorite operating systems and applications. The main reason for writing this was to create a single place where I can just look and see which apps I might want to install on a freshly installed OS.
Every application or operating system is in its latest version unless it's specified otherwise. Usually it's sorted by my preference, which may differ from anyone else's.
- Created
- June 29, 2016
- Updated
- April 26, 2023
Operating Systems
I don't have only one single favorite operating system. Every OS has its pros and its cons.
- Recent and Modern Workstation
- Fedora Workstation [GNU/Linux]
- macOS [UNIX]
- Windows [Windows NT]
- openSUSE Tumbleweed [GNU/Linux] (There are too many apps installed by default, mixed 32/64-bit)
- Ubuntu [GNU/Linux] (obsolete packages, inconsistent package versions (e.g. GNOME Shell and GNOME apps), not so much stable)
- Rock-Solid Workstation
- openSUSE Leap [GNU/Linux] (default installation is a little bit bloated)
- AlmaLinux/RHEL/CentOS [GNU/Linux] (some newer changes are backported to existing releases)
- Debian GNU/Linux (the stable branch; it provides only security updates — this may be a huge disadvantage)
- FreeBSD [BSD] (no Wayland yet, limited HW support)
- Old PC (~2004)
- Debian GNU/Linux (with a lightweight window manager)
- FreeBSD [BSD]
- Windows 2000 Professional [Windows NT] (disconnected from the Internet, faster than Windows XP, no activation required)
- Haiku [BeOS-like]
- FreeDOS [DOS]
- ReactOS [Windows NT-like] (it's not stable yet)
- RISC OS (Raspberry Pi)
- Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger [Mac PowerPC] (disconnected from the Internet)
- Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard [Mac PowerPC] (disconnected from the Internet)
- MorphOS [Amiga PowerPC]
- Archaic PC (~1990's)
- MS-DOS [DOS] (latest version is 6.22)
- FreeDOS [DOS]
- Windows 95 OSR 2.5 [Windows]
- Windows for Workgroups 3.11 [Windows]
- Server
- Fedora Server [GNU/Linux]
- AlmaLinux/RHEL/CentOS [GNU/Linux]
- Debian GNU/Linux
- FreeBSD [BSD]
- openSUSE Leap [GNU/Linux]
- If You Like Having Troubles and Don't Care About Your Data or Security
- Linux Mint [GNU/Linux] (it's like Ubuntu with security updates disabled)
- OpenIndiana [illumos]
- Debian GNU/HURD (missing USB, AUDIO, 64-bit support; crashes)
- ReactOS [Windows NT-like]
- Windows ME [Windows] :-)
Applications
This is a list of the most useful applications. At least for me. It is sorted by my preference. This list contains mixed free/paid and Linux/Windows apps. Windows apps not available on Linux are marked as [Windows].
- Internet Browser
- Google Chrome, Chromium
- Mozilla Firefox
- Safari [macOS]
- Microsoft Edge
- Opera
- Vivaldi
- Epiphany
- Midori
- FTP Download and Upload
- FileZilla
- BitTorrent Client
- Transmission
- Hex editors
- GHex
- Text Editors
- Visual Studio Code, VSCodium, Code - OSS
- GNOME Text Editor
- Gedit
- Atom (discontinued)
- Notepad++ [Windows]
- nano
- vim
- Office Suite
- Microsoft Office [Windows] [Paid]
- LibreOffice
- ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors
- WPS Office
- SoftMaker FreeOffice (modifies icon themes on Linux)
- Apache OpenOffice
- Bitmap Graphics
- GIMP
- Krita
- Darktable
- Pinta
- Zoner Photo Studio [Windows] [Paid]
- Vector Graphics
- Inkscape
- LibreOffice Draw
- Panorama Stitching
- Hugin
- 3D Graphics
- Blender
- Audio or Video player
- Media Player Classic - Home Cinema [Windows]
- mplayer
- mpg123
- AIMP [Windows]
- VLC
- MPV
- Celluloid
- Audio Editing
- Audacity
- Ardour
- Audio Converter
- GNOME SoundConverter
- ffmpeg
- Audio Tag Editing
- EasyTAG
- Video Cutting
- Blender
- PiTiVi
- Cinelerra
- ShotCut (crashes)
- Kdenlive
- OpenShot (crashes)
- Flowblade
- Video Editing
- Adobe After Effects [Windows] [Paid]
- Blender
- Natron
- Screen Recording
- OBS Studio
- Remote Desktop Client
- Remmina
- Virtual Machine
- KVM/QEMU (with virt-manager on Fedora)
- VirtualBox
- Gnome Boxes
- VMware Workstation Player
- VMware Fusion Player [macOS]
- Disc Burning
- ImgBurn [Windows]
- Ashampoo Burning Studio Free [Windows]
- CDBurnerXP (mixed mode CDs) [Windows]
- Brasero
- Audio Disc Ripping
- Exact Audio Copy [Windows]
- Archives
- 7-Zip
- p7zip-full
- WinRAR [Windows] [Shareware]
- Backups
- rsync
- rclone
- borgbackup
- HW Diagnostic
- hwinfo [DOS]
- msd (in MS-DOS)
- hwinfo64 [Windows]
- CrystalDisk Info [Windows]
- CrystalDisk Mark [Windows]
- Memtest (DOS)
- Memtest86
- Memtest86+
- memtester (Unix)
- lm_sensors
- Media Formatting, Surface Testing
- SDFormatter (official SD card format tool sdcard.org) [Windows]
- MHDD (Disk test, erase, ...)
- H2TESTW (flash drive real capacity check) [Windows]
- Rufus (Windows bootable USB creation) [Windows]
- badblocks
- Website Download
- HTTrack [Windows]