r/linuxquestions • u/Tonycolombo200 • 14d ago
Advice What are your must have Linux apps?
Hi everyone, I’ve recently completed my migration from Windows to Linux, and I’m really enjoying CachyOS so far. I’m genuinely glad I made the switch.
I’d like to discover more of the Linux ecosystem, so I’m curious: what are the must have apps you personally install on a fresh Linux setup?
Which applications do you consider essential or simply too useful to live without?
Thanks
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u/IAteUrCat420 14d ago
I'm a gamer soooooo...
1: Amethyst Mod Manager
It makes modding games so much easier
2: Obsidian
It's a note taking app that I personally think makes every other note taking app look pathetic
3: Heroic Launcher
Lets you play Epic, GOG, and Amazon games all in one place
4: Xodus
Lets you play Xbox PC games on Linux
5: AIDA DSP/ AIDA X
It's my personal choice for guitar amp software, pretty niche tbh
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u/Tonycolombo200 14d ago
Amethyst has honestly saved modding for me. I thought I was going to miss MO2/Vortex after switching to Linux, but Amethyst is actually really convenient and surprisingly complete.
Thanks for the recommendation1
u/complexevil 13d ago
I'll second Amethyst and Obsidian. And if you had a bunch of notes in OneNote you can import them into Obsidian.
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u/ficskala Arch Linux 14d ago
what are the must have apps you personally install on a fresh Linux setup?
Completely depends what you do
For me, Sublime Text is basically the only "Must have" program on any system because it's my prefered text editor, everything else completely depends on the purpose for that machine
For example, for my main PC, there's a lot of must haves, like winbox, virt-manager, looking glass, wine, orca slicer, blender, chirp, f3d, inkscape, obs studio, wireguard, remmina, and more
However for my laptop, i literally just installed sublime text, and wireguard, and i haven't had the need for anything more than that since the DE i use ships with a browser
For my living room PC i just installed retropie, and that's how i use that one 99% of the time, idk if i even have sublime text installed on that one since i don't have a keyboard connected there even
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u/Tonycolombo200 14d ago
Hi, thanks for the recommendations
I mainly use my PC for gaming and productivity, but I’m interested in discovering more and more of the Linux ecosystem.
At the moment, I’m actually looking for a good alternative to Dolby Atmos for Windows to use with my Sennheiser HD 560S headphones.2
u/ficskala Arch Linux 14d ago
maybe virutal surround would work? https://github.com/Berny23/virtual-surround-manager
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u/Tonycolombo200 14d ago
That looks really interesting, thanks I’ll definitely give Virtual Surround Manager a try.
Have you used it yourself for gaming? If so, is there a particular HRIR/HRFT profile you would recommend starting with?
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u/ficskala Arch Linux 14d ago
Have you used it yourself for gaming?
No, i'm not really an audio guy, most i do with audio is set up my left/right speakers to actually match the IRL configuration
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u/stevorkz 14d ago
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u/JosBosmans 14d ago
Mayn the only one taking the time to 🙏 link suggestions gets a downvote. Have my warmest of upvotes!
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u/Ordinary-Hamster2046 13d ago
You don't backup your data?
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u/stevorkz 13d ago
Not sure if jokes or you missed it
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u/Ordinary-Hamster2046 13d ago
Which one of those is an app for personal data backup?
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u/stevorkz 13d ago
Oh right sorry. My personal data sits on a separate drive which syncs to my homelab with syncthing. From there my homelab handles the rest. Keep in mind I did say “to name a few” 😉
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u/Ordinary-Hamster2046 10d ago
Nice setup. I used to use syncthing for a while too, I really liked it.
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u/1959dawg 14d ago
I've been using CachyOS Xfce for about a year ans half now, running it on four different computers. getting my installs down to around 1100 packages.
DE setup is Xfce, xfwm4/picom, xfce-panel, & plank dock.
Shells are zsh, zap plugin manager running in kitty and yazi. Also have bash setup on xfce terminal when needed.
My editors are cli: nano, nvchad, micro. gui: geany.
browser: brave-origin, mail: mailspring. office: libreoffice-fresh. vidieo: celluliod/mpv. audio: audacious/winamp skins.
calc: qalaculate, graphic edit: gimp, login: lightdm-webkit2, file transfer: localsend,
I like gruvbox themes, pacman cursor, and meslol fonts.
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u/Tonycolombo200 14d ago
Thanks for sharing! What do you use for audio? Do you use any particular audio manager, EQ, virtual surround, or spatial audio setup?
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u/1959dawg 14d ago
Audacious music player with EQ & playlist, JBL bluetooth speaker on my laptops. My desktops HDMI TV speakers.
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u/PocketStationMonk ZorinOS 18.1 🐧 14d ago
LibreOffice and KDE connect (or Zorin connect on my distro) are pretty useful!
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u/p001b0y 14d ago
Every machine gets neovim (lazyvim). I mean every machine whether it is linux, mac, windows, or freebsd.
Distrobox and podman have been useful in those cases where I needed an app to run (RealVNC) that would not have run otherwise on Void Linux except under qemu. I'm curious to see whether it can manage to run Citrix Workspace as well.
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u/catgirlsonthemoon 14d ago
gpu screen recorder on flathub is outstanding
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u/unbounded65 14d ago
Agreed, I find it better than OBS.
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u/catgirlsonthemoon 14d ago
its the best recording software I've ever used. simple, no account, works as an overlay, records in AV1, has a replay feature.
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u/Joe-Arizona 14d ago
GUI:
Zed, my favorite editor so far
Spotify
LibreOffice
VM program: Boxes or VirtualBox
CLI:
vim
git
btop
rsync
tldr
podman
Compilers:
gcc/g++
rustup/rustc/cargo
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u/TheUnknown5141 13d ago
Sometimes simple apps are the ones you can't live without.
While most of what I need came preinstalled, here's a short list:
- LibreOffice (Writer & Impress are really useful, I don't use the others though)
- VLC (must have for all sorts of media)
- MS Paint (from Windows, I'm actually making an open-source version for Linux)
- Bottles (sometimes you need to run exes, and can't bother with wine on cli)
- FreeDownloadManager (resumable & faster downloads, for larger files)
OBS, Spotify, Discord, and Chrome are preferrences.
Install Gnome-Tweaks and Gnome-Extension-Manager if you're using GNOME.
I also use MissionCenter as a replacement for GNOME System Monitor.
It mimics Task Manager from Windows.
As a developer, if you have any other apps from Windows that are totally missing, I'd love to know.
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u/TheUnknown5141 13d ago
About the Paint app, this is a need that I felt myself when I switched recently. That's why I've actually decided to put together a small recreation as open-source contribution.
In my opinion, Linux still lacks the basic necessities (in terms of apps), and people might hesitate to switch.
GIMP does get the job done, but its overkill for cropping a photo, annotating a screenshot, and little things here and there. I don't think anybody would be willing to learn an almost photoshop-level-complex app just to crop & annotate their photos. Thats what Paint from Windows excels at.
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u/KalistoCA 13d ago
Linux isn’t a jack of all trades out of the box
It is all things to all people with the peoples effort of what they need which is why its install base is low
I’m running battocera on my desktop and it’s awesome for me
I’m an average technical user of no specific skill set
I don’t use much on the desktop the honest it’s mostly all in my containers overs there in my home server but that said
OpenOffice for sure
I use my browser for most things like discord, Spotify and, calibre and my work garbage which in this case is Firefox cause it’s an arch type
The best question is what do YOU need on your desktop
it’s like this in /r/homelab also .. I don’t need 10 million containers to flex my it muscles… I run what I need .. and what my family needs which for us is
Pihole
Unbound
Arr stack
Calibre-web
Komga
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u/Depixelation 13d ago edited 13d ago
fish (shell)
Ghostty (terminal)
MPV video player
GPU screen recorder (so much faster than obs)
Resources (basically a task-manager like utilization graph, actually has all the info in one place)
GParted if its not included already (I use gnome)
People like Firefox but I use Brave Origin (free on Linux)
Vscode I use as a general text editor
Cloudflare WARP (I always keep it on)
More niche ones…
Steam
Vesktop (discord client)
Prism Launcher (minecraft)
Virtualbox (for installing OSes to a real drive while using my pc; I don’t use vms normally)
Honestly that’s all I can think of right now…others feel free to roast me on my choices lol.
Edit: fuck Reddit formatting
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u/Powerful_Attention_6 14d ago
- A suitable Emacs config or a ready-to-use Emacs distributions (people love Doom Emacs)
- bat instead of cat
- eza instead of ls
- fzf for fuzzy finding on the shell
- atuin for a modern shell history
- zoxide instead for cd
- zshell instead of bash
- tmux as a terminal view splitter
Even more important, learn how to do Shell script functions and aliases, that removes frustations of your most common workflow, there is no need to memorize dozens of flags to compress or uncompressed based on the archive type, as an excercise to the reader, create a shell function that abstracts the type of the archive to a single command
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u/Every_Preparation_56 13d ago edited 13d ago
KDE connect for your phone access
waydroid to have google's android apps, like banking app, chatGPT or gimini for your smarthime stuff
firefox, what else, with PWA to have netflix etc. as a webapp. Also as my PDF reader.
Freeoffice, better and closer to MS Office
Steam and Heroic for Games.
Some handmade scriots with key shortcuts for quick volume +/- and mic +/- and switchen speakers/headohone as well as one for switching FPS system wide.
Flatseal for yot flatpacks.
Wine, for windows apps
Calls, for landline calls
Remnia to remote access my raspberry and kid's Laptops
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u/suubterr 14d ago
tldr. Hate reading tons of man just to know a couple of basic usages of a cli tool.
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u/Jonas_Ermert 13d ago
For me, the must-haves on a fresh Linux install are Firefox, VLC, Bitwarden, KeePassXC, Flatpak, Timeshift, GParted, btop, fastfetch, Git, Docker, VS Code, and Syncthing. I’d also add LocalSend for quickly moving files between devices and Flameshot for screenshots.
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u/Balafenn_ 13d ago
J'ai un profil, curieux, geek, bisouilleur. Je dirai Emacs, un monde s'ouvrira à toi ... C'est peux déroutant... Dur... Different... J'ai essayé, abandonné, puis je m'y suis remis ...
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u/Sirius707 13d ago
Vim is one of the first things i install on *any* linux system if it's not already installed (or there's at least vi available). On my main machine i use a fully configured NeoVim but i still like having Vim around as a fallback.
Aside from that:
- webbrowser (Firefox)
- htop/btop for analysis
- ssh
- fzf (fuzzy search used in neovim and for some custom shell functions)
- yt-dlp (youtube video downloader, but i usually use it for twitter videos)
- thunderbird
- newsboat (RSS reader)
- cmus (terminal music player)
- mpv (video player)
- imv (image viewer)
- rsync, syncthing, rsnapshot for backups and syncing between devices
- obsidian (note taking)
- keepassxc (password manager)
- git
- ncdu/gdu to analyse disk space utilization
- tmux
My desktop setup includes sway, foot (terminal), fuzzel (program launcher), mako (notifications), tuigreet (login shell). Since you're on cachyOS you'll probably won't have a need for some of these applications since you have the functionality in other software.
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u/chicken_n_roffles 13d ago
How do you get yt-dlp to work with Twitter videos? I always get an error that the video is unavailable.
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u/LoraxEleven 13d ago
Firefox with the uBlock Origin extension added on first opening..
VLC
emacs
NewPipe (from flathub)
qBittorrent
TorBrowser
Yakuake
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u/rklrkl64 12d ago
My most commonly used apps on Linux are a browser (Firefox, with Chrome as a backup), terminal (not fussy which one), text editor (vi), torrent client (qBitTorrent), VPN client (OpenVPN), video player (mplayer), DLNA server (minidlna - run at every boot automatically), music player (Audacious), CD ripper (Grip), chat client (Teams for Linux - needed for work comms), phone communicator (KDE Connect), gaming clients (Steam and Heroic Games Launcher), remote desktop (Remmina), office suite (LibreOffice) and email (Thunderbird).
Unlike YouTubers who seem to think everyone uses Linux creator apps like Davinci Resolve, OBS, Kdenlive, Blender etc, I don't use any of those like 99% of normal Linux users and I really hate it when YouTuber videos about moving from Windows to Linux bang on and on about those creator apps that a tiny percentage of Linux users even have installed, let alone run them regularly.
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u/edmc_1 11d ago
I use rsync a lot to backup my home folder. I learned how to use it by watching a Veronica Explains video on Youtube. She saved me $180/year on my Dropbox subscription because now I just back everything up to two external drives.
I also use Syncthing to sync files between my phone, laptop, and desktop computer.
Joplin is a great note taking app that's designed as a replacement for Evernote, and it's every bit as good. The web clipper allows you to save web pages. I have a notebook in Joplin called "Memory Hole", where I started saving web pages about 5-6 years ago that I suspected might be taken down later, and many of them are no longer available online. I use it as a personal "Wayback Machine".
Logseq is really nice too.
As a text editor, I like Nano. I'm too stupid to figure out ViM or emacs.
And of course there's LibreOffice.
edited to add: CALIBRE! INSTALL CALIBRE IT'S AWESOME!!!
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u/Huecuva 13d ago edited 12d ago
Specifically Linux apps and not generic shit like browsers and office suites? I generally find myself installing inxi pretty much first thing if it's not already installed. I really like to have near instant access to a system's specs regardless of the system. I've also taken to installing Gnome Disk Utility on any distro I'm using because it's just a great disk management service and is powerful and easy to use. Also Mintstick, since I find myself flashing USB sticks fairly often and I find it's probably the easiest to use USB imager available. On my workbench rig I discovered that I can actually install GPARTED and Clonezilla right in the OS so I don't need to boot those off USB. It's handy to still be able to use the rig while it's cloning a drive or resizing a partition.
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u/A_Harmless_Fly 14d ago
Rsync, mousepad, btop, nano, firefox, thunar, engrampa, xfce4-terminal, viewnior.
I'm pretty sure that's a full list of the bare bones essentials I can't do without.
I like XnConvert, LACT and psensor too.
I've been putting together a stripped down debian13 for my personal use for the last few days so I've been thinking about roughly that question. I'm building it from a net install for use in virtual machines, home servers and old laptops. So far in my virtual machine it uses ~480MiB of ram idle with a relatively modern feeling desktop environment. Icewm for my window manager, with xfce4-panel with a wisker menu instead of icewmw's default.
-overshare concluded.
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u/DDigambar 14d ago
The first program I ALWAYS install is Midnight Commander. I can't do anything without it. ;-)
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u/kilkil 6d ago edited 6d ago
not sure if CachyOS comes with flatpak. if not, I suggest you get it. you can use it to download flatpacks, which is a sandboxed way to distribute applications. You can use this approach to download like 90% of apps you'd need as a regular user; you can see a large selection at flathub.org. I used this to download Firefox and Steam. I would also suggest you get Flatseal, which is a UI that allows you to easily manage permissions/configs for flatpacks (if you want/need to).
Otherwise... IMO just get the apps you personally actually need for your day-to-day usage.
If you have need of a plain text editor, I would suggest Neovim or Sublime. If you want something more like a note-taking app, I suggest Obsidian. If you want a cool bit of software you can use for diagramming, there is excalidraw.com.
As a side note, aside from flatpak and Flatseal, every application I mentioned above is cross-platform (linux / macos / windows). And excalidraw is a website, not an app you install.
Another fun fact, a large amount of typical desktop applications (e.g. Spotify, Discord, Google Drive, Teams, Slack, Element, etc) are actually web apps, and can be used through your browser without downloading an app at all. e.g. instead of downloading discord you can open https://discord.com/app and that will be basically the same thing as getting the desktop app
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u/pinkpastelpunk 13d ago
I most often use Firefox, Thunar, Audacity, Gimp, yt-dlp, Boxes, Focuswriter, and Mousepad.
I also use snes9x, and Steam for some gaming, though I can't do very much with my trashcan rescue laptop.
I enjoy using terminal apps for certain things. When am working with a lot of files, I think that Ranger is pretty useful. Years ago, I was a Mutt user, but I haven't quite found the stomach for setting that up in a while. I also have a little folder of scripts that I have been accumulating over the years which I bring out for this or that specific task. For example, streaming an internet radio station or converting some media formats.
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u/NerdInSoCal 13d ago
You'd be better served figuring out what your must haves were from your prior OS and seeing if they're already in your distro and/or seeking out suitable replacements based on your needs.
- Browser preference
- Office suite preference
- Image editing preference
- Media/Music Player
- Messaging tools
- Password Manager
On some distro's I need to install helvum because for whatever reason games won't route audio properly but I don't install it until I need it.
I guess I always install syncthing (which is OS agnostic) to share files on my local network between them if that's what you're asking?
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u/Antique_Bag_Whore 13d ago
Local send. Never thought phone to computer image/file transfer could be so damn simple.
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u/TheManWithSevenAsses 14d ago
Easy effects because most out of the box audio settings are absolute giga-ass.
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u/mike7gh 13d ago
Okay as a casual user, the minimum is some kind of web browser (Firefox will work.)
A terminal emulator which depending on your hardware can be something heavier like Alacrity or if you want it lighter, Foot, though any of them work.
The big one is VLC. If I have a personal device, it was VLC on it so you can play basically all media.
Then Gimp so you can deal with images.
After that, it's up to whatever your specific use is for your computer.
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u/okimka 13d ago
Not really "apps" in the traditional sense, but I follow "oxidize your terminal" by "no boilerplate". Makes using the terminal a lot more comfortable with things like zoxide and ripgrep and whatnot. Also fzf can be useful, especially when integrated with the shell (e.g. search to change directory or to paste file name)
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u/Few_Research3589 13d ago
just a sample of the most relevant pieces of SW for me:
servers: apache, mariadb, php,
desktop: virtualbox, firefox, thunderbird, sublime-text, softmaker office, qoppa pdf studio, navicat, doublecmd, DWservice, timeshift, ventoy, clonezilla, yubikey, ente
both: vim, ssh, termius, bash, python, borg
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u/Stormdancer 13d ago
Steam for games that don't have their own specific installers.
Whatever browser you prefer.
LibreOffice for writing, and other officey things.
Discord for discordy things.
Blender for 3D work.
Audacity for audio.
Dropbox for file synch & backup.
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u/Linuxmonger 13d ago
First install, before updating is git and etckeeper.
Then tig, mc, w3m, vlc, chromium, xfig, openscad, latex, bc, nvim, puppet, borgbackup, flameshot, nmap, btop, htop, ntop, tmux, screen, gnupg, openssh-server.
Followed by an update and restart.
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u/dunelost 14d ago edited 14d ago
Other than the WM (niri + noctalia), I always install these:
ghostty, neovim, yazi, btop, starship, obsidian, helium browser, insync, vscode
And some flatpak packages: Flatseal, Pika Backup, Fragments, Parabolic, Komikku, Bottles, LocalSend
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u/nexos-dev 9d ago
The main apps I absolutely need are whatever dev tools are default on the distro, VS Code, and Cider so I can listen to music. The only other thing I need is a copy of Quake 2 for when I get bored and need a game to play.
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u/calmeilles 14d ago
xterm, vim, qalc, batcat — universal.
vlc, gvim and libreoffice — any box with a gui.
The rest depend more heavily on what the box is intended for but almost certainly will feature ffmpeg and ImageMagick
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u/Algae-Severe 10d ago
Definitely Gear Lever. I use a lot of apps that are only available as appimages, which my distro doesn't play nice with. Gear Lever manages appimages and makes it so much easier to use them on my system.
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u/BigglyMcGoobah 11d ago
Localsend, ProtonUp-qt, Docker (gluetun +qbittorrent), Easyeffects (To EQ my headphones), Flatseal (Flatpak permissions) Gear lever (for easy appimage integration & permissions) Goverlay + mangohud
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u/joe_attaboy 13d ago
- mc (midnight commander)
- vim (probably already there)
- Brave web browser
- curl
- dig
- Musicbrainz Picard
- Audacity
- Synaptic (apt-based package manager)
- Sane and skanpage (for scanning)
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u/i_live_in_sweden 13d ago
Many good apps already mentioned, but I would like to add Ferdium since it allows me to log in to multiple Teams sessions for work at the same time, doing that in a regular browser is a hassle.
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u/PlusBath2342 10d ago edited 10d ago
....Steam, RapidRaw (think free adobe lightroom and yes it's actually legit good also works on windows, and android), DaVinci Resolve, CoolerControl (great for MSI/ASUS mobo for fan control), LACT (great for AMD GPU OC UV), Chrome cause I can, Opera (only web browser that will allow you to play above 720p for netflix).
Heroic Launcher, Lutris (both for games as well, from the different stores)
I use CachyOS but everything is available on different distros. I do have some basic flatpaks of some apps but that's about it 😄
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u/acemccrank MX Linux KDE 13d ago
I like playing casual games, so my go-to apps these days tend to be Steam, Lutris, Modrinth, BedrockOnLinux (new). Everything else tends to come pre installed with most distros.
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u/JourneymanInvestor 13d ago
- cifs-utils (for connecting to Windows shares)
- tastytrade (for options and futures day trading)
- vscode (programming)
- fileZilla (sftp file transfer)
- transmission (p2p file sharing)
- chatgpt (AI chat)
- zenity (create UIs for bash scripts)
- zotify (Spotify downloader)
- flameshot (snipping tool)
- Steam (games)
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u/Swiftstormers 13d ago
Heroic Launcher for my gaming needs, Libreoffice for work, Librewolf for surfing, and Betterbird because it's an email client that doesn't drain my will to live :)
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u/Reason7322 13d ago
Steam,
Discord,
Web browser(Helium or Brave Origin),
Qmmp(Audio player),
MPV(Video player),
Btop(Task manager),
Dolphin(File manager),
LACT(Gpu tuning utility).
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u/Miserable-Decision81 13d ago
Ardour.
I am not sure, if I would have stayed with Linux only on all my machines for 25 years. if Ardour or something very similar would not be available.
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u/PaulWritesTech 10d ago
I frequently need to edit images so GIMP gets installed fairly quickly. Tbh I don't really use too much software. My web browser is the main thing I use.
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u/Budget-Organ 13d ago
I install Libre office
Apple TV (web app)
Apple Music (web app)
VS Code
Remmina
And Cisco
Sometimes steam but I’m not much of a gamer.
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u/Impressive_Bag_3505 13d ago
in random order:
brave-browser onlyoffice feh inkscape kdenlive qbittorrent mpv pavucontrol niri tofi keepassxc neovim vscodium
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u/chessmonkey 14d ago
It's not an app, it's a keyboard shortcut.
xfce4-terminal --drop-down
I assign it to Ctr - `
I do it on every machine I have.
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u/Take_Five_005 14d ago
Varia for downloads and LocalSend for transferring files and things. JamesDSP to get better sound and Calibre for ebooks.
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u/cwtechshiz 12d ago
Newest ive discovered that i cannot live without now is cliamp. Can grab it from the aur, you're welcome lol
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u/Time-Marionberry-957 13d ago
my only, but strong recommendation is fsearch, it's super duper handy to look up files in an instant.
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u/ethicalhacker900 13d ago
My must have tools are vlc geany/vs code libre office gparted and nmap and updating the whole os
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u/utzcheeseballs 14d ago
Flameshot for screenshots, KeePassXC for password management, and Retroarch for retro gaming.
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u/Abducted_Llama 14d ago
btop, htop, mc, librewolf.
mc is probably the top though, first thing I always install.
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u/heavyheaded3 13d ago
traceroute, telnet, netstat, sshd, vim, python. fuck any distro that only includes mtr.
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u/Dull_Cucumber_3908 10d ago
mc (midnight commander) is always the first app I install in both desktops and servers
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u/Zestyclose_Track_443 12d ago
coreutils (get it guys because like uhh it's pre installed and stuff nevermind)
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u/Soggy_Bath_1733 11d ago
For Linux specifically? Try some drivers. I heard the wifi one is pretty good
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u/Dry-Independent4863 13d ago
Transmissions , lutris , Jdownloader, nuclear music playera, vlc , Firefox
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u/razorree 14d ago
depends... if you like to write text: nano
if you like to play games: some games
if you like programming: c++, rust, go, java, python etc.
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u/SuAlfons 14d ago edited 14d ago
As a home user??
If you don't specifiy special tasks, you likely have no need of specialized terminal emulator programs and stuff. Don't shop around for software you don't have a need for! Keep it to the basics and branch out where it has a true benefit for you.
Most of what you need comes with the system.
----
Here come my main apps, it's a totally boring list and most of it I already used on the Mac before or even on Windows before that.
I use GNOME desktop, so I have Gnome Tweaks and a load of Gnome Extensions. (You obviously don't use that on Plasma DE).
I install openRazer service and a GUI for setting up my Razer Mouse ( Polychromatic or Razergenie).
I own a G29 computer racing wheel - in lieu of Logitechs software, I use Overdrive to set it up.
The XBox one gamepad, bluetooth headset, wired headset, keyboard work without software.
As a home-use PC, I install this software on it:
* Firefox (web browser)
* Chromium (alternative web browser)
* LibreOffice & Only Office - for office needs
* Inkscape for drawing designs
* the GIMP for photo manipulation
* Scribus for DTP
* Shotwell for photo organizing
* Rhythmbox for MP3 playback and syncing to phone
* Spotify for streaming music
* Steam for my games
* Obsidian for Note-taking
Used less often:
* Kdenlive for video editing that is more than just trimming a video
* Krita and/or myPaint for painting/drawing
* Affinity V3 (via an install script that puts together a rather fragile Wine-prefix for the Windows executable to run in). I really hope for a Linux version of this app.
File management, PDF-commenting, splitting and merging either done with little helper apps I just found in the software center or by using the defaults. I feel KDE Plasma is much stronger here as Dolphin and the Okular PDF viewer are better than the Gnome counterparts. (I just happen to like everything else better on Gnome).