I’m new to Linux, been using it for the past couple weeks now and I’m on CachyOS. I absolutely love it.

I’m curious as to what must haves or fun/great things to install? just wanted to hear the communities opinions on what they like to use.

Edit: for me personally I’m on a laptop with a focus on gaming and general content watching like streams, listening to music, etc. Right now i’m using cmus for music and I really like it but I would like tips on enhancing the performance on my laptop. It has nvidia so it’s running great with cachyos right now but any suggestions for improvments would be appreciated.

Thanks.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
    15·
    4 months ago

    Just figure out what you want to do. Its not like Windows where you need to run scrub scripts, or turn specific things on or off. It’s very subjective.

    Examples:

    • are you in a laptop? You want specific tools for battery and performance tuning.
    • are you gaming?
    • are you working audio or video?

    Just edit your comment and throw a few things out that you’d like to do, and you’ll get a much more complete list of suggestions and tips.

    • rotopenguin@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Localsend only does files/pictures/a quickie bit of text, but I find it more convenient and reliable than kdeconnect. Localsend’s iphone app is in better shape too, if you need that.

    • IsoSpandy@lemm.ee
      715·
      4 months ago

      IDE? Are we nazis? All you need is a text editor. Luckily vim and na o came preinstalled

      • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
        201·
        4 months ago

        If this was 1988, I’d agree with you, but I didn’t buy a 12 core CPU and modern GPU so that I could program in 80 column text mode. To my fellow Linux users: it’s okay to use a GUI. Really. True power lies in being able to leverage that AND the terminal at the same time.

        • onlooker@lemmy.ml
          4·
          4 months ago

          To my fellow Linux users: it’s okay to use a GUI. Really.

          As a contrbuting member of Society of Linux Users on Terminals I am aghast, AGHAST at the very proposition of using *shudder* graphics on your Linux system. I mean, the very idea! If you can’t browse the web in console mode, then why even bother using Linux? GUIs are for quitters.

        • bamboo@lemm.ee
          2·
          4 months ago

          VSCode’s vim plugin is pretty great for full-color graphical terminal users

      • thepiguy@lemmy.ml
        3·
        4 months ago

        Using or IDE or vim is entirely up to preference. True skill lies in being able to ike out every bit of productivity you can when using it. And I am saying this as a hardcore neovim user.

        I won’t go to a mechanic who uses imperial measurements for their tools and rant about how they should use metric. As long as they get the job done, it’s all good.

        Just because someone does not copy you does not mean they are in the wrong.

  • bbbhltz@beehaw.org
    8·
    4 months ago

    cmus is great for music

    mpv for videos, there are different extensions to automatically open YT videos with it.

    beets for sorting music

    nicotine plus for looking for music

    syncthing

    zathura

    improving performance isn’t easy if you feel like things are running smoothly, but there are a few laptop specific things like tlp that you could look into although I suspect that distro uses them out of the box

  • chameleon@fedia.io
    7·
    4 months ago

    qalculate. It’s a calculator. A good one, though. You can put in 2 * x = 5.5 or 100 inches to meters and get an answer, it loads fast, it keeps history, the arrow keys work and it has all the fancy scientific buttons you’d ever want too.

  • bsergay@discuss.online
    6·
    4 months ago

    Distrobox for accessing any package from any other repo; including those belonging to other distros.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      Your description is a bit misleading. Distrobox allows you to run a container that is integrated with the system. This means you can have a command line that is basically the other distro but you can still access files and run GUI apps.

  • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    Also setup a bootable USB stick with a backup program like clonezilla to do full machine backups.

    You’ll get the hang of OS vs data backups later, but for now, do a full backup, play around installing / removing stuff and if you break it, you’re back in business in no time

  • Kaity@leminal.spaceEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    For gaming - https://github.com/sonic2kk/steamtinkerlaunch1 It bundles a few useful things as well like another suggestion: https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode as well as quite a few others, tinker is especially useful if you want to mod too, making mod organizer 2 very easy to use, taking a lot out of the otherwise manual set up

    Also in general, look for custom launchers, Genshin has a custom launcher, runescape as well, I believe gog does too. If you can’t use foss at least use a better launcher.

    for media honestly you can’t beat VLC, but I run a plex server I typically use, for music I use strawberry, and for asmr desktop noise Blanket is a super cool package, and I like Cozy for audio-books.

    Edit: Oh and for gaming I saw another comment recommending retroarch and I totally agree, retroarch works amazing on linux, so much better performance than I ever had emulating on windows before I switched.

    • NaiP@lemmy.world
      1·
      4 months ago

      Sorry what’s this about Genshin? I was under the impression I could not play it on linux at all.

  • Jonas@lemmy.world
    3·
    4 months ago

    tree, screen, and wget have for a long time been the three packages I’ve always added on a fresh install.

    Other packages are mainly connected to the use of the system at hand, like zellij, helix, and git on a development setup, or fish on any system where I do my doings mainly in a terminal och over ssh.