After I install Linux Mint (which is the distro I have settled on), I replace:
- Thunderbird with Betterbird
- Firefox with Librewolf (I also install Brave for web services that need a chromium browser).
- Celluloid / Rythmbox with VLC player
- Default Libreoffice with latest Libreoffice from source.
- ClipIt/Parcellite with xfce4-clipman
I find this to be my optimal setup and these software give me the extra quality of life that make my workflows easier.
What software do you replace and install on your distro of choice?
Edit: I forgot to say I replace sudo with doas. That’s something my friend told me to do although I personally don’t find any immediate working advantage with it.
As a former Windows SUPERUSER, I always change the desktop wallpaper, just to show off. 😋
But jokes aside and apart from things already mentioned, I always install the Speedcrunch calculator, and xbindkeys so I can copy all my keyboard shortcuts.
Nothing. I picked a distro that works for me out of the box. On top of that I only installed stuff, instead of replacing stuff.
Arch, so pretty much nothing.
Except maybe ZSH (but it’s ‘added’, I guess; not ‘replaced’).
I install the minimal version and go from there.
Apps I replace with newer versions (on Mint too):
- LibreOffice, with the latest .deb from their website
- Celluloid, with mpv. I cannot tell how much I appreciate mpv even though it sucks with DVD, for which I use VLC ;)
- yt-dlp, with the latest version available from git
- Screenshot, with Ksnip.
- Whatever the default image viewer is, with Pix.
mpv FTW!
I still haven’t found a web service that really needs a chrome browser or that you cant’ just trick with changing the user agent
First thing I install is git, followed by emacs.
Then I download my init.el and my PC setup is complete.
Default terminal -> Kitty
Gnome Files with Thunar.
It’s the perfect file manager for a user like me.
I replace the <default, slow, annoying to use> image viewer with qimgv, which is ergonomic and very fast.
On Ubuntu, replacing Firefox/Thunderbird snap version with actual deb version.
Terminal -> foot Text editor -> neovim, or more recently I’ve been trying Helix.
Those are the biggest two. I also recommend mpv over VLC.
- bash -> fish
- default text editor (like Kate) -> geany
- firefox -> firefox-esr
- chromium -> ungoogled-chromium
- nano -> micro
- top -> htop, btop
- default PDF reader -> Okular
Do you really replace bash though? I also use fish but even as a relatively deranged minimalist I haven’t removed bash as it has so many dependents.
Replacing doesn’t mean removing in this case.
It still needed for the system scripts, etc.More like fish is my daily driver, bash if needed (I can write a script in bash faster then in fish).
Personally I wouldn’t call that replacing. But that’s probably because I am a deranged minimalist. I can’t answer this thread because technically I didn’t remove anything that my installation started out with.
- bash -> zsh
- Gnome terminal -> Ghostty/Alacritty
- Adwaita -> My custom adwaita build with smaller sizes
- Default UI/Mono Font -> Inter/Meslo
- Default browser -> Zen Browser
I’ve recently started using https://www.nushell.sh/, and while it’s not bash compatible, which can lead to some annoyances, it’s really excellent for working with terminal data in a clean and useful manner
