Best Linux apps 2017; These are the must-have apps for Linux Ubuntu Desktop. Some of these are the best Linux command line tools; best Linux apps to install for developers, common users or a newbies.
Gimp, VLC, LibreOffice, Firefox are already installed on Ubuntu Linux Systems. Which means, these comes pre-installed when one install Ubuntu OS. So I will be talking about other apps that aren’t installed be default on Ubuntu System.
Wine
Wine (originally an acronym for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”) is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.
Run the following commands in Terminal to install Wine:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/wine
sudo apt update
sudo apt install wine-stable
There is also another method to install WineHQ on Ubuntu Systems. This method is described by the official Wine team. If your system is 64 bit, enable 32 bit architecture (if you haven’t already):
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:wine/wine-builds
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends wine-staging
sudo apt-get install winehq-staging
That’s it. Wine is installed on Ubuntu System.
Unity Tweak Tool
Unity Tweak Tool is a great Ubuntu Desktop customization tools to change and edit the overall look and feel of Unity (Ubuntu Desktop). It comes with many customization options.
Run the following command in terminal to install Unity Tweak Tool on Ubuntu 16.10 and other Ubuntu Systems:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install unity-tweak-tool
You can also follow the link apt://unity-tweak-tool to install Unity Tweak Tool from Ubuntu Software Center.
Chrome
Google Chrome 55 now uses HTML5 video instead of Flash. It was in August that Google announced its plane to de-emphasize Flash in favor of HTML5. HTML5, giving you improved security, reduced power consumption and faster page load times.
Please note that since March 2016, Ubuntu users can only install Google Chrome on 64 Bit Systems. All 32 Bit Ubuntu Linux Systems cannot install and use Google Chrome’s latest stable version.
The easiest way to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu is via .DEB package. Ubuntu users can download Google Chrome’s latest stable version from https://www.google.co.in/chrome/browser/ and manually extract and install it using dpkg command. You can also download and install it using following Terminal commands:
sudo apt-get update
wget https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get update
Opera
Opera is a fast and secure browser. It comes with a built-in ad blocker, in-built currency converter and free VPN. One can install the latest release of Opera on Ubuntu Linux Systems. The new version comes with the network installer for 64-bit builds, which installs the best option for you. In other words, it detects the architecture it’s run on and installs either Opera 64-bit or Opera 32-bit.
To install Opera in Linux Ubuntu, simply download the installer package from Opera website. Once the DEB file is downloaded, Open with the Software Center to download it automatically. Once installed, open Opera from Ubuntu Dash.
Geary Email Client
Geary is an email application built around conversations, for the GNOME 3 desktop. The Geary Email client is fully compatible with GMail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com and other IMAP servers. It allows you to read, find and send email with a straightforward, modern interface. Conversations allow you to read a complete discussion without having to find and click from message to message. Geary Email client comes with a quick email account setup. The app shows related messages together in conversations and brings a full-featured HTML and plain text message composer. On Linux Ubuntu Systems, it shows Desktop notification of a new mail.
Run the following commands in Terminal to install Geary Mail:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:geary-team/releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install geary
Once installed, open Geary form Ubuntu Dash. For the first time the Geary app will ask you to imput the email id and password. Once the data is fed, it automatically configures the mail server settings.
XDM Download Manager
XDM Download Manager for Ubuntu Systems increases download speed up-to 500%. XDM can accelerate downloads by up to 5 times due to its intelligent dynamic file segmentation technology. XDM can download FLV videos from popular sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Google Video. After installing XDM, “Download This Video” button pops up whenever you are watching a video anywhere in the Internet. Just click on the button to start downloading clips. It can capture videos from YouTube, Metacafe, DailyMotion, Google Video or any other website and schedule downloads.
Please note that to use XDMAN, you need to have Java installed on your Linux system.
Ubuntu users can install the latest version of Xtreme Download Manager 2016 manually. Follow the link given below to download the latest release of the Xtreme Download Manager and install it manually.
- Xtreme Download Manager 32 Bit
https://sourceforge.net/projects/xdman/files/xdm-6.0-i386.tar.xz/download - Xtreme Download Manager 64 Bit
https://sourceforge.net/projects/xdman/files/xdm-6.0-amd64.tar.xz/download
Once downloaded, extract the folder and install it manually.
Run the following commands in Terminal to download and use Xtreme download manager on 32-bit Ubuntu Systems:
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdman/files/xdm-jre-32bit.tar.xz
tar -xvf xdm-jre-32bit.tar.xz
cd xdm
ls -l
./xdm
Run the following commands in Terminal to download and use Xtreme download manager on 64-bit Ubuntu Systems:
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdman/files/xdm-jre-64bit.tar.xz
tar -xvf xdm-jre-64bit.tar.xz
cd xdm
ls -l
./xdm
Nemo File Manager
Nemo is a powerful file manager application for Linux Ubuntu Systems which allows users to “open as root” and “open in terminal”. It comes with elevated privileges and is a wonderful tools to manager files without worrying about permissions.
Run the Nemo file manager for Ubuntu Systems:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/nemo3
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nemo
Atom
Atom is a wonderful multi-platform text editor known for its powerful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. The Atom text editor supports macros, auto-completion and split screen.
Run the command given below to install the latest Atom from WebUpd8 PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/atom
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install atom
Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is a wonderful audio player for Linux Ubuntu Systems that plays and helps organize digital music. Rhythmbox uses the GStreamer media framework for actual playback and a lot of other functionality, so in general Rhythmbox plays exactly those formats that are supported by GStreamer.
Run the following commands in Terminal to install Rhythmbox 3.4 on Linux Ubuntu Systems:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rhythmbox
SMPlayer Media Player
SMPlayer media player for Ubuntu comes with built-in codecs and play all audio and video formats. SMPlayer is a free media player for Linux, with built-in codecs that can play virtually all video and audio formats. It doesn’t need any external codecs. Just install SMPlayer and you’ll be able to play all formats without the hassle to find and install codec packs.
Run the following commands in Terminal to install SMPlayer 16.4.0, via PPA, on Ubuntu:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install smplayer
VirtualBox
Oracle VirtualBox is a popular cross-platform virtualization application designed for desktop and server. The Oracle VirtualBox application can be used on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows Systems. It can be used to run virtual machines on various platforms.
Run the following commands in terminal to install Virtualbox 5.1.12 on Ubuntu 16.10 Systems:
sudo apt-get update
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian yakkety contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list'
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-5.1
According to your distribution, replace ‘xenial’ by ‘vivid’, ‘utopic’, ‘trusty’, ‘raring’, ‘quantal’, ‘precise’, ‘lucid’, ‘jessie’, ‘wheezy’, or ‘squeeze’.
Kdenlive Video Editor
Kdenlive, the KDE Non-Linear Video Editor is an open source video editor built on Qt and the KDE Frameworks libraries. Based on the powerful FFmpeg libraries, Kdenlive can use almost any audio and video formats directly without the need to convert or re-encode your clips. Through the MLT framework, Kdenlive integrates many plugin effects for video and sound processing or creation. Kdenlive brings multi-track video editing and can work on almost any audio and video formats directly without the need to convert or re-encode your clips.
Run the following commands in Terminal to install Kdenlive Video Editor on Ubuntu Linux Systems:
sudo apt update
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install kdenlive
Record My Desktop
Recordmydesktop is a desktop session recorder for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. The recordmydesktop application can record either the whole screen or a predefined area within it. It is a very useful application which can be very helpful when one needs to record and share desktop activities to someone else. recordmydesktop can capture both – audio and video of a desktop screen.
Although recordmydesktop is a command-line tool, Ubuntu users can install GUI frontend for the application – gtk-recordmydesktop. Run the following commands in Terminal to install:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop
Dropbox
Dropbox is a wonderful application that enables storage and access of files online. Users can easily share files, video, images. Simply create a link to share any file in your Dropbox. Then send the link by email, chat, or even text message. The best part is that when you send someone a link to a file, they can preview and download a copy — even if they don’t have a Dropbox account. All the files are synced across all the devices and enables offline access. Which means, all the files are available on your computer even when you’re offline, so you can work from anywhere. For security reasons, Dropbox includes 30-day version history, in case you accidentally delete a file or want to restore a previous version.
Ubuntu users can install the latest version of Dropbox via https://www.dropbox.com/install
Franz Messaging Client
Franz is a free messaging app that supports more than 21 messaging apps. Franz allows you to add each service many times. This makes Franz the perfect tool to manage multiple accounts all at the same time. Users can easily use five different Facebook Messenger accounts at once. Franz supports a great variety of business and private messaging & chat services like Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe, Skype and many more.
To install Franz messaging app, simply download the compressed tar.gz file and extract it. Now simply double click the Franz icon to open the app. Download it from here http://meetfranz.com/
Corebird Twitter
Corebird is a wonderful Twitter client for Linux Ubuntu Systems. Users can easily compose and publish tweets from Ubuntu Desktop using Corebird.
Open terminal and run the following commands to install Corebird 1.3 on Ubuntu Systems:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/corebird
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install corebird
Shutter Screenshot Tool
Shutter is a powerful screenshot tool for Linux Ubuntu Systems. Shutter allows you to take screenshots, edit them, apply various effects, upload them online and more. Shutter is a feature-rich screenshot program using which one can take a screenshot of a specific area, window, your whole screen, or even of a website, and then upload it online.
Run the following commands to install Shutter screenshot tool:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shutter/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install shutter