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Best Free Software for Linux

Best Free Software for Linux - Page Index
 
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How To Use This List

This is a multi-page article. To quickly find what you want, either:

  1. Check out the Page Index above, or
  2. View everything as one huge page by clicking here .
 
Introduction

LinuxLinux, occasionally referred to as GNU/Linux, is an open source and free operating system predominantly known for its use in servers, but has increasingly become commonplace in desktop, notebook and netbook computers in recent years after newer and enhanced versions of Linux distributions, Ubuntu or Linux Mint for example, are developed and offered free to users.

While you can get the Linux system and use it for free, you can also run on the system a wide range of free applications such as well-known and commonly-used software including Firefox web browser and the LibreOffice application suite.

Among various free applications, here you might find the best free software for Linux, including those products reviewed and recommended by our editors in the various sections.

Other programs that work as potential alternatives to Windows applications or even perform better than them are also listed here for the benefit of users who migrate from Windows to Linux or run dual systems on their computers.

 
What's New

Items added or updated most recently:NewPipeWalker | Master PDF Editor | Areca Backup | Pingus | Skype | Numpty Physics | ffDiaporama | ClipGrab | Hugin | Artha

 
Summary

This list of Best Free Software for Linux now includes 141 applications in 95 categories. To read brief descriptions of the applications, click a page number or a category icon below.

  • Page 1. Introduction / What's New / Summary
  • Page 2. Home and Office
    Best Free Office Suite for Linux - LibreOffice | OpenOffice
    Best Free Word Processor for Linux - AbiWord
    Best Free PDF Writer for Linux - CUPS-PDF
    Best Free PDF Reader for Linux - Okular | Evince | Foxit Reader
    Best Free eBook Reader for Linux - Calibre
    Best Free Comic Book Reader for Linux - Comix
    Best Free PDF Tools for Linux - PDF-Shuffler | Sun PDF Import Extension
    Best Free PDF Editor for Linux - Master PDF Editor
    Best Free Personal Finance for Linux - GnuCash
    Best Free Personal Information Management for Linux - Evolution
    Best Free Dictionary and Thesaurus for Linux - Artha
    Best Free Project Manager for Linux - GanttProject
    Best Free Notes Organizer for Linux - KeepNote | Tomboy Notes
    Best Free Desktop Publishing Program for Linux - Scribus
  • Page 3. Image Tools
    Best Free Image Viewer for Linux - XnView
    Best Free Image Editor for Linux - GIMP | Pinta
    Best Free Paint Program for Linux - MyPaint
    Best Free High Dynamic Range (HDR) Software for Linux - Luminance HDR
    Best Free Photo Organizer for Linux - Picasa 3 | digiKam
    Best Free Vector Graphics Editor for Linux - Inkscape
    Best Free Digital Image Stitcher for Linux - Hugin
    Best Free CAD Program for Linux - Sweet Home 3D | Blender
    Best Free QR Code Generator and Decoder for Linux - QtQR
  • Page 4. Multimedia
    Best Free Media Player for Linux - VLC Media Player | SMPlayer
    Best Free Music Player and Organizer for Linux - Rhythmbox | Banshee | Amarok
    Best Free Media Center for Linux - XBMC
    Best Free Audio / Video Format Conversion for Linux - SoundConverter | Arista Transcoder | OggConvert
    Best Free MP3 Tag Editor for Linux - Kid3 | MusicBrainz Picard
    Best Free CD / DVD Burning Software for Linux - K3b | Brasero
    Best Free CD / DVD Emulation Software for Linux - Furius ISO Mount | AcetoneISO
    Best Free CD Ripper for Linux - Asunder
    Best Free DVD Ripper for Linux - HandBrake
    Best Free DVD Authoring Software for Linux - DeVeDe
    Best Free Photo Slideshow Software for Linux - ffDiaporama
    Best Free Audio Editor / Splitter for Linux - Audacity | mp3splt-gtk
    Best Free Video Editor for Linux - Avidemux | OpenShot Video Editor
    Best Free Video Downloader for Linux - ClipGrab
    Best Free Music Creator for Linux - LMMS
    Best Free Music Notation Software for Linux - MuseScore
  • Page 5. Disk and File Tools
    Best Free File Manager for Linux - Dolphin
    Best Free Duplicate File Detector for Linux - FSlint
    Best Free Drive Imaging Program for Linux - Clonezilla | G4U
    Best Free Backup Program for Linux - LuckyBackup | Areca Backup
    Best Free Folder Synchronization Utility for Linux - FreeFileSync | Grsync
    Best Free File Comparison Utility for Linux - KDiff3
    Best Free File Archiver / Zip Utilities for Linux - PeaZip | File Roller | Ark
    Best Free Partition Manager for Linux - GParted | Parted Magic | TestDisk
    Best Free Secure Erase Utility for Linux - Darik's Boot and Nuke
    Best Free File Encryption Utility for Linux - TrueCrypt | GNU Privacy Assistant (GPA)
    Best Free CD Recovery Utility for Linux - Dvdisaster
    Best Free Online Backup Sites for Linux - Dropbox
    Best Free File Copy Utility for Linux - UltraCopier | Unstoppable Copier
  • Page 6. Desktop and System
    Best Free Screen Capture for Linux - Shutter
    Best Free Program Launcher for Linux - Launchy | GNOME Do | Cairo-Dock
    Best Free Desktop Search Utility for Linux - Recoll
    Best Free Screen Session Recorder for Linux - Wink | recordMyDesktop
    Best Free Font Manager for Linux - Fontmatrix
    Best Free Wallpaper Changer for Linux - Wally | DesktopNova | Webilder
    Best Free Color Picker for Linux - gcolor2
    Best Free Windows API for Linux - Wine
    Best Free Cleanup and Tuning for Linux - BleachBit | GtkOrphan | SUM
    Best Free System Backup for Linux - Remastersys
    Best Free Other System Tools for Linux - PySDM | CCSM
  • Page 7. Security and Privacy
    Best Free Password Manager for Linux - KeePassX
    Best Free Internet Safety Check for Linux - WOT
    Best Free Anonymous Surfing Service for Linux - JonDo
    Best Free Antivirus for Linux - ClamTK Virus Scanner
    Best Free Firewall for Linux - Gufw | Firestarter
  • Page 8. Internet and eMail
    Best Free Web Browser for Linux - Mozilla Firefox | Google Chrome | Opera
    Best Free Email Client for Linux - Mozilla Thunderbird | Evolution
    Best Free Download Manager for Linux - Uget | FatRat
    Best Free BitTorrent Client for Linux - Vuze | Tixati | Transmission
    Best Free File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Client for Linux - FireFTP | FileZilla
    Best Free Instant Messaging Client for Linux - Pidgin
    Best Free Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) for Linux - Skype
    Best Free RSS Feed Reader or Aggregator for Linux - Liferea
    Best Free Remote Access Software for Linux - TeamViewer
  • Page 9. Programming
    Best Free HTML Editor for Linux - KompoZer | Netbeans
    Best Free Programming Editor for Linux - Bluefish | Kate
    Best Free NFO Viewer for Linux - NFO Viewer
  • Page 10. Games
    Best Free Sandbox Game for Linux - Phun
    Best Free Computer Chess for Linux - PyChess | HOXChess
    Best Free Match-3 Puzzle for Linux - Frozen Bubble
    Best Free Physics Game for Linux - Numpty Physics
    Best Free Jigsaw Puzzle for Linux - Picpuz
    Best Free Pipe-Building Puzzle for Linux - PipeWalker
    Best Free Lemmings Game for Linux - Pingus
    Best Free Computer Go for Linux - PANDA-glGo
    Best Free Hearts Game for Linux - Gnome Hearts
    Best Free Sudoku Puzzle, Generator and Solver for Linux - HoDoKu
    Best Free First-Person Shooter for Linux - Urban Terror
    Best Free Breakout Game for Linux - LBreakout2
    Best Free Reversi for Linux - KReversi
    Best Free Backgammon for Linux - GNU Backgammon
    Best Free Billiards and Pool Game for Linux - BillardGL
 
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Tags

best, top, free, software, applications, freeware, Linux, Ubuntu, Mint, distros, multi, cross, platform, list, listing

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Comments

by Panzer on 14. May 2013 - 8:10  (107737)

"... LiVES is a Video Editing System. It is designed to be simple to use, yet powerful. It is small in size, yet it has many advanced features ...":
http://lives.sourceforge.net/

by Panzer on 11. May 2013 - 8:57  (107654)

kissdb - (Keep It) Simple Stupid Database

Features:

* Tiny, compiles to ~4k on an x86_64 Linux system
* Small memory footprint (only caches hash tables)
* Very space-efficient (on disk) if small hash tables are used
* Makes a decent effort to be robust on power loss
* Pretty respectably fast, especially given its simplicity
* 64-bit, file size limit is 2^64 bytes
* Ports to anything with a C compiler and stdlib/stdio
* Public domain

https://github.com/zerotier/kissdb

by Panzer on 10. May 2013 - 7:48  (107626)

TreeLine stores almost any kind of information in an organized tree structure. Each node in the tree can contain several fields, forming a mini-database:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/treeline/

by Panzer on 9. May 2013 - 7:47  (107584)

"... Prey lets you keep track of your laptop, phone and tablet whenever stolen or missing -- easily and all in one place. It's lightweight, open source software that gives you full and remote control, 24/7 ...":
http://preyproject.com/

by Panzer on 8. May 2013 - 7:56  (107545)

pdf2htmlEX renders PDF files in HTML, utilizing modern Web technologies. It aims to provide an accuracy rendering, while keeping optimized for Web display:
http://coolwanglu.github.io/pdf2htmlEX/

by Panzer on 7. May 2013 - 7:50  (107508)

BZFlag is a free online multiplayer 3D tank battle game:
http://bzflag.org/

Blinken is the KDE version of the well-known game Simon Says. Follow the pattern of sounds and lights as long as you can! Press the start game button to begin. Watch the computer and copy the pattern it makes. Complete the sequence in the right order to win:
http://edu.kde.org/blinken/

StepMania is a free dance and rhythm game:
http://www.stepmania.com/

by Panzer on 6. May 2013 - 8:46  (107483)

Kile is a user-friendly TeX/LaTeX editor for the KDE desktop environment:
http://kile.sourceforge.net/

by Panzer on 24. April 2013 - 7:56  (107305)

Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform video editor:
http://www.shotcut.org/bin/view/Shotcut/WebHome

by Panzer on 23. April 2013 - 9:54  (107283)

"... xxxterm is a minimalist web browser with sophisticated security features designed-in, rather than through an add-on after-the-fact. In particular, it provides both persistent and per-session controls for scripts and cookies, making it easy to thwart tracking and scripting attacks.

In additional to providing a familiar mouse-based interface like other web browsers, it offers a set of vi-like keyboard commands for users who prefer to keep their hands on their keyboard.

The default settings provide a secure environment. With simple keyboard commands, the user can "whitelist" specific sites, allowing cookies and scripts from those sites ...":
https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/XXXTerm

by Panzer on 23. April 2013 - 9:48  (107281)

Bitfighter is a fast-paced team-based outer-space multi-player combat game:
http://bitfighter.org/

Cyphertite Basic - online backup:
https://www.cyphertite.com/

Platinum Arts Sandbox Free 3D Game Maker is an open source easy to use standalone 3D Game Maker and 3D Game Design program currently based on the cube 2 engine being used in many schools throughout the world that allows kids and adults to create their own video games, worlds, levels, adventures and quests, even cooperatively:
http://www.sandboxgamemaker.com/

"... RabbitVCS is a set of graphical tools written to provide simple and straightforward access to the version control systems you use. We provide multiple clients and extensions designed to give you a uniform experience no matter what development tools you use ...":
http://www.rabbitvcs.org/

by Panzer on 23. April 2013 - 9:27  (107279)

Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one session and a multi-user chat:
http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/

Geeknote — non official command line client for Evernote:
http://www.geeknote.me/

Phatch is an user friendly, cross-platform Photo Batch Processor and Exif Renamer with a nice graphical user interface:
http://photobatch.wikidot.com/

Ocenaudio is a cross-platform, easy to use, fast and functional audio editor. It is the ideal software for people who need to edit and analyze audio files without complications:
http://www.ocenaudio.com.br/

Geary is a lightweight email program designed around conversations and built for the GNOME desktop:
http://www.yorba.org/projects/geary/

Glances is a cross-platform curses-based monitoring tool:
http://nicolargo.github.io/glances/

Format Junkie is a Graphical User Interface application with lots of options, which can convert your media files to all the popular formats:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/ya3u4/format_junkie_fully_featur...

ReText is a simple editor that reads your text with MarkDown or HTML markup and saves it as plain text, HTML or PDF:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/retext/

by Panzer on 23. April 2013 - 8:46  (107277)
by Panzer on 20. April 2013 - 9:09  (107221)

"... Monitorix is a free, open source, lightweight system monitoring tool designed to monitor as many services and system resources as possible. It has been created to be used under production Linux/UNIX servers, but due to its simplicity and small size can be used on embedded devices as well ...":
http://www.monitorix.org/

by Panzer on 20. April 2013 - 6:48  (107213)

XnSketch allows you to turn your photos into cartoon or sketch images:
http://www.xnview.com/en/xnsketch/

XnRetro allows you to create stunning images with vintage or instant effect on your Desktop:
http://www.xnview.com/en/xnretro/

by Panzer on 13. April 2013 - 7:34  (107042)

"... LFTP is a sophisticated ftp/http client, and a file transfer program supporting a number of network protocols. Like BASH, it has job control and uses the readline library for input. It has bookmarks, a built-in mirror command, and can transfer several files in parallel. It was designed with reliability in mind ...":
http://lftp.yar.ru/

yEd is a powerful desktop application that can be used to quickly and effectively generate high-quality diagrams:
http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html

by Panzer on 12. April 2013 - 7:53  (107014)

zuluCrypt is a front end to cryptsetup, a Linux native solution for hard drive encryption. As a GUI frontend, zuluCrypt makes it easy to use cryptsetup to manage PLAIN,LUKS as well as TRUECRYPT encrypted volumes.

Features:

- Create encrypted volumes in files and in partitions.
- Create LUKS and PLAIN encrypted volumes
- Open encrypted volumes residing in both files and partitions.
- Add keys to luks based encrypted volumes residing in both files and partitions.
- Delete keys from luks based encrypted volumes residing in both files and partitions.
- Open encrypted volumes using a passphrase, a keyfile, a combination of passphrase and keyfile, a gpg encrypted keyfile.
- Retrieve volume keys from either gnome's keyring or kde's kwallet.
- Encrypt stand alone files, a la gpg (no compression and integrity check though).
- Erase data on partitions.

http://code.google.com/p/zulucrypt/

by Panzer on 11. April 2013 - 7:52  (106987)

GoAnywhere OpenPGP Studio is a free desktop tool that makes it easy to protect sensitive files using the popular Open PGP encryption standard:
http://www.goanywheremft.com/products/openpgp-studio

by Panzer on 10. April 2013 - 9:12  (106957)
by Panzer on 10. April 2013 - 7:43  (106953)

XnViewMP is the enhanced version to XnView. It is a powerful cross-platform media browser, viewer and converter. Compatible with more than 500 formats (both 32 and 64 bit versions are available):
http://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/

by vandamme on 10. April 2013 - 13:22  (106961)

XnView is a great photo editor. Fast, easy, yet powerful.

by Panzer on 8. April 2013 - 9:39  (106899)

Jitsi (formerly SIP Communicator) is an audio/video and chat communicator that supports protocols such as SIP, XMPP/Jabber, AIM/ICQ, Windows Live, Yahoo! and many other useful features:
https://jitsi.org/Main/HomePage

by Panzer on 8. April 2013 - 8:51  (106895)

Radio Tray is an online radio streaming player that runs on a Linux system tray. Its goal is to have the minimum interface possible, making it very straightforward to use:
http://radiotray.sourceforge.net/

Great Little Radio Player - A robust internet radio station streamer for Ubuntu and Fedora based Linux distributions. It connects to web sites offering radio streaming and lets you play radio stations directly from that locations. With Great Little Radio Player, you will have collection of 300 radio stations worldwide:
https://sites.google.com/site/glrpgreatlittleradioplayer/home

by Panzer on 8. April 2013 - 8:33  (106893)
by Panzer on 5. April 2013 - 8:27  (106832)

Tor Browser Bundle for GNU/Linux - Everything you need to safely browse the Internet. This package requires no installation. Just extract it and run:
https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.en#linux

Instructions:
https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

by Panzer on 4. April 2013 - 9:58  (106811)

FSGamer runs games in their own X server, which can improve the speed, reduce annoying interruptions, and make switching between fullscreen games and your desktop easy and reliable (still in alpha):
http://michaelb.org/projects/fsgamer/

by Panzer on 4. April 2013 - 8:33  (106806)

The Connection Manager (ConnMan) project provides a daemon for managing internet connections within embedded devices running the Linux operating system.

ConnMan is designed to be slim and to use as few resources as possible, so it can be easily integrated. It is a fully modular system that can be extended, through plug-ins, to support all kinds of wired or wireless technologies. The plug-in approach allows for easy adaption and modification for various use cases:
http://connman.net/

by Panzer on 2. April 2013 - 8:24  (106739)

"... Quod Libet is a GTK+-based audio player written in Python, using the Mutagen tagging library. It's designed around the idea that you know how to organize your music better than we do. It lets you make playlists based on regular expressions (don't worry, regular searches work too). It lets you display and edit any tags you want in the file. And it lets you do this for all the file formats it supports ...":
http://code.google.com/p/quodlibet/

by Panzer on 30. March 2013 - 8:51  (106651)

Zero Install is a decentralised cross-distribution software installation system. Other features include full support for shared libraries, sharing between users, and integration with native platform package managers:
http://0install.net/

by Panzer on 28. March 2013 - 10:31  (106596)

"... AstroMenace is a brilliant 3d scroll-shooter allowing you to feel the adrenalin rush of a fierce space battle against relentless swarms of alien invaders. Immerse into a decisive battle against tons of cunning foes, face the terrifying bosses and protect your homeland throughout 15 diverse levels of the game. The hardcore gameplay of AstroMenace, packed with pure non-stop action, will become a full scale test for your basic instinct of survival ...":
http://www.viewizard.com/

Blobby Volley 2:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/blobby/

by Panzer on 27. March 2013 - 8:52  (106573)

With SubiT, you can download subtitles to your favorite movies and serieses by just right clicking them and executing SubiT:
http://subit-app.users.sourceforge.net/