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This file is part of eRCaGuy_dotfiles: https://github.com/ElectricRCAircraftGuy/eRCaGuy_dotfiles

Table of Contents

(click to expand)
  1. See also
  2. Useful Applications
    1. My useful_scripts
    2. File managers
    3. Screenshot tools
    4. Color pickers
    5. Image editors
    6. Media: audio or video players, editors, or recorders
    7. Games
    8. Utilities
    9. Programming: text editors & IDEs
    10. Programming: version control tools, like git
    11. Word processors or business programs
    12. Terminals or terminal tools
    13. Serial terminals / terminal emulators
    14. Remote desktop or ssh applications
    15. File synchronization or backup

See also

  1. serial_terminals_README.md
  2. ../useful_startup_programs.md

Useful Applications

In addition to my useful_scripts, such as touchpad_toggle.sh and open_programming_tools.sh, the following are some of the applications, in no particular order, I find really useful that I like to set up and configure after each new Ubuntu install:

My useful_scripts

See in particular:

  1. touchpad_toggle.sh
  2. open_programming_tools.sh

File managers

  1. nemo file manager - MUCH better than the default nautilus file manager which comes with Ubuntu!

    1. See my answer here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1066752/how-to-set-nemo-as-the-default-file-manager-in-ubuntu-18-04/1173861#1173861
    2. Add actions to nemo's right-click menu.
      1. Example custom sample.nemo_action config file:
        1. https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/blob/master/files/usr/share/nemo/actions/sample.nemo_action
      2. Add "open_in_terminator.nemo_action" custom Nemo right-click menu action. See:
        1. ../nemo/open_in_terminator.nemo_action - follow the instructions in the top of this file.
        2. I first learned how to do this here: Unix & Linux: How to configure Nemo's right-click "Open in Terminal" to launch "gnome-terminal"
      3. Also: open the Nemo/"Files" program --> Edit --> Preferences --> "Context Menus" tab in the left-hand pane:
        1. Check the box for:
          1. "Make Link". This adds an entry to the right-click menu for "Make Link", which makes a symlink to the selected file or folder.

  2. thunar file manager and its accompanying "Bulk Rename" application

    1. sudo apt install thunar
    2. Very useful for its "Bulk Rename" application alone!

  3. pcmanfm light-weight file manager for seeing folders nicely sorted

Screenshot tools

  1. shutter screenshot tool
    1. sudo apt install shutter
    2. See here to re-enable its "Edit" toolbar tool once you've installed it: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1029085/how-to-enable-the-edit-button-in-shutter/1029101#1029101

Color pickers

  1. See: https://www.fossmint.com/color-picking-tools-for-linux/
  2. %%%%%+ gpick - [USE THIS ONE!] FANTASTIC color picker, with a zoomable preview to show you exactly where you are looking at pixels on the screen!
    1. sudo apt install gpick
  3. color-picker - it's OK; alternative to the above; may have some other features worth looking into perhaps
    1. sudo snap install color-picker

Image editors

  1. gimp
  2. inkscape

Media: audio or video players, editors, or recorders

  1. VLC Media Player
  2. Shotcut - excellent video editor. Download the latest Linux portable tar or Linux AppImage straight from their website here: https://shotcut.org/.
  3. OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software) - a really good, cross-platform, and free and open source screen recorder and screencasting/streaming tool for making video tutorials! https://obsproject.com/.
    1. See my detailed installation, setup, and usage instructions here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37040798/how-do-you-use-youtube-dl-to-download-live-streams-that-are-live/66838396#66838396.
    2. See also this really great quick setup tutorial here, by Kezz Bracey on 25 Jul 2020, where I learned how to use it and set it up, and learned how to write my instructions above: https://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/obs-for-screen-recording-quick-start--cms-28549
  4. mediainfo-gui - very useful tool to quickly see video or audio file metadata, such as bitrates and sample rates of audio, and video resolution, as well as encoding information.
    1. Install the GUI version with sudo apt install mediainfo-gui, or the CLI version with sudo apt install mediainfo.
    2. Then, right-click on any video or audio file in your file manager (ex: nemo) --> Open With --> MediaInfo.
    3. See here: https://www.fosslinux.com/1860/find-metadata-info-of-audio-and-video-files-using-mediainfo.htm
    4. Note that for images or pictures in nemo, just use nemo's built-in photo properties information instead of mediainfo-gui. Just Right Click --> Properties --> click on the "Image" tab for image information.
  5. exiftool - useful CLI tool to read, write, and update the metadata of various file types, including PDF, audio, video, and images. See: https://linuxhint.com/get_filea_metadata_exif_tool/.
    1. Install: sudo apt install libimage-exiftool-perl
    2. Use: exiftool <filename>. Ex: exiftool my_video.mp4.
    3. This tool shows far more information than mediainfo-gui above!

Games

  1. Super Tux 2 (Super Nintendo Mario-like game)
  2. Super Tux Kart (N64 Super Mario Kart-type racing game) - https://supertuxkart.net/Main_Page

Utilities

  1. gsmartcontrol - for checking the disk health of HDDs (Hard Disk Drives) and SSDs (Solid-State Drives).
  2. Ookla speedtest CLI.
    1. For full installation instructions, see the main readme's "Misc. Install Instructions" section.

Programming: text editors & IDEs

  1. eclipse - see my PDF in the eclipse folder here for full setup instructions
  2. Arduino
  3. Sublime Text 3 - a powerful GUI text and code editor
  4. micro - a poweful mouse-supported CLI text and code editor
    1. For configuring its settings, see here: eRCaGuy_dotfiles/home/.config/micro/README.md
    2. https://micro-editor.github.io/
    3. https://github.com/zyedidia/micro#installation
    4. My installation process: 
      mkdir -p ~/bin 
# download the `micro` executable and move it to ~/bin
curl https://getmic.ro | bash
mv micro ~/bin
# re-source shell configuration to add ~/bin to your PATH variable if in Ubuntu and
# using the default ~/.profile file
. ~/.profile
  5. Potential mouse-enabled CLI file managers to use:
    1. Google search for "linux mouse enabled cli file manager"
      1. ***** https://www.tecmint.com/linux-terminal-file-managers/
    2. mc - GNU Midnight Commander - seems really good! 
      sudo apt install mc  
mc
      • Open the program with mc.
      • Once in the program, press Ctrl+o to toggle back and forth between the main terminal and Midnight Commander, or press F10 to exit.
      • show a compact type view by going to Left/Right --> Listing mode... --> "Brief file list"
    3. ranger 
      sudo apt install ranger
ranger
      • Ctrl+C, then Q, to quit.

Programming: version control tools, like git

  1. git gui: sudo apt update && sudo apt install git-gui - useful for adding changes to be committed in git, graphically in a GUI, line-by-line or code chunk-by-chunk, rather than just file-by-file.
  2. git sizer: analyze your git repos for size; this is an official tool used and supported by GitHub to help enforce repo size limits.
    1. Install info: https://github.com/github/git-sizer#getting-started
    2. GitHub's official repo size documentation: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/working-with-files/managing-large-files/about-large-files-on-github
    3. [my ans] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38768454/repository-size-limits-for-github-com/70427664#70427664

==== THIS SECTION IS INCOMPLETE--START ====

  1. BFG Repo-Cleaner (bfg) - "Removes large or troublesome blobs like git-filter-branch does, but faster. And written in Scala [which compiles down to Java bytecode]

    1. https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/

    2. https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/working-with-files/managing-large-files/removing-files-from-git-large-file-storage

      1. https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/removing-sensitive-data-from-a-repository
        1. How to use bfg to clean files out of your repo: https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/removing-sensitive-data-from-a-repository#using-the-bfg

    3. Installation instructions:

      1. What first helped me: rtyley/bfg-repo-cleaner#255 (comment)
      2. My own instructions with the content below: rtyley/bfg-repo-cleaner#255 (comment)

      In short:

      Tested on Ubuntu 20.04.

      Go here: https://rtyley.github.io/bfg-repo-cleaner/ --> right-click on the "Download" button on the right --> "Copy Link Address" --> paste and use that address below. Ex: https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/madgag/bfg/1.14.0/bfg-1.14.0.jar

      # download it
wget https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/madgag/bfg/1.14.0/bfg-1.14.0.jar
# mark it as executable
chmod +x bfg-1.14.0.jar

# copy or symlink it to ~/bin

mkdir -p ~/bin

cp -i bfg-1.14.0.jar ~/bin/bfg          # copy
ln -si "$PWD/bfg-1.14.0.jar" ~/bin/bfg  # symlink [my preference]

# add ~/bin to your path by re-sourcing your `~/.profile` file.
# This works on Ubuntu if you are using the default ~/.profile file, which can also be found
# in /etc/skel/.profile, by the way.
. ~/.profile

# Now run it
bfg             # help menu
bfg --version   # version

    4. Usage: remove files from being tracked by git lfs:

           If using `bfg` to remove `git lfs`-tracked files from your repo, you can list all files tracked by `git lfs` with `git lfs ls-files`. Then, manually [TODO]

==== THIS SECTION IS INCOMPLETE--END ====

Word processors or business programs

  1. LibreOffice

Terminals or terminal tools

  1. terminator terminal - allows easy splitting and tiling of multiple terminals in one single window! A good local terminal alternative to gnome-terminal + tmux for splitting windows. You can right-click in the terminal and split the window horizontally or vertically.

    1. Quick summary: how to install and configure terminator to have the settings that I like:

      # install it

sudo apt update
sudo apt install terminator

# copy over my configuration settings

cd path/to/eRCaGuy_dotfiles
cp -i ~/.config/terminator/config ~/.config/terminator/config.bak

# Option 1 (what you should do / recommended for most users): **copy** my settings so you
# can keep and modify your own, unique copy of settings
cp -i /home/.config/terminator/config ~/.config/terminator/config
# OR Option 2 (what I usually do / for advanced git users who understand what this
# means): **symlink** to my settings, so you can easily synchronize your changes with mine
# by pulling and merging my changes into yours periodically
ln -si "$PWD/home/.config/terminator/config" ~/.config/terminator/config

# Add the "Open in Terminator" right-click menu option to the Nemo GUI file manager! 
# See also:
# - the `nemo` section above.
# - the top of the "eRCaGuy_dotfiles/nemo/open_in_terminator.nemo_action" file. 
# - this answer I helped edit and write here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/582462/114401
ln -si "$PWD/nemo/open_in_terminator.nemo_action" ~/.local/share/nemo/actions

# set Ctrl + Alt + T to open `terminator`
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec terminator

    2. Details:

      This is the gist of how I changed my terminator settings to produce the ~/.config/terminator/config file above. These are my misc. and scrambled notes and instructions. For fast, easy, robust, tutorial-like instructions to follow instead, see my "Quick summary" just above!

      1. Config settings to change:
        1. See my notes here: eRCaGuy_dotfiles/home/.config/terminator/README.md
          1. See especially my comments here and below it: GitHub: micro: Fixed: how to disable interfering shortcut keys in terminator
        2. Get my config settings direcly from here: eRCaGuy_dotfiles/home/.config/terminator/config
      2. https://gnome-terminator.org/
      3. To change your default terminal application now between gnome-terminal and terminator, see:
        1. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1096329/how-to-change-my-default-terminal-to-gnome-terminal-rather-than-terminator/1096331#1096331
        2. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/336368/how-to-configure-nemos-right-click-open-in-terminal-to-launch-gnome-terminal/336587#336587
      4. [DO this] Now set Ctrl + Alt + T to open terminator: 
        # set Ctrl + Alt + T to open `terminator`
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec terminator
# OR, set Ctrl + Alt + T to open `gnome-terminal` again
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec gnome-terminal
      5. [Do NOT do: optional--actually, do NOT do this! Instead, add the additional right-click menu to Nemo to "Open in Terminator"--see nemo section above!] To make the right-click option in Nemo for "Open in Terminal" open terminator instead of gnome-terminal: 
        # [Don't do this, actually] set terminator as the default right-click terminal option in nemo
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec terminator
# [Do this instead]: keep gnome-terminal as the default right-click option in nemo
gsettings set org.cinnamon.desktop.default-applications.terminal exec gnome-terminal
      6. [Do NOT do: no need to do this] Some answers talk about doing this too, but it's also NOT necessary: sudo update-alternatives --config x-terminal-emulator - then choose the desired option from the CLI menu. Instead, do the Ctrl + Alt + T setting above, and add terminator to the right-click menu in nemo following the directions in the nemo setion above.
      7. [DO this] COLORS: the default colors in terminator are kind of ugly. Make the background and font colors the same as gnome-terminal instead. Using gpick, I determined the gnome-terminal colors are as follows:
        1. text: #FEFFFF (rgb(254, 255, 255): almost white--ever-so-slightly cyan)
        2. background: #2D0922 (rgb(45, 9, 34): dark purplish/magenta-ish-grey)
        3. SET THESE COLORS IN TERMINATOR: Right-click --> Preferences --> "Profiles" tab --> "Colors" sub-tab --> choose "Custom" from the "Built-in schemes" drop-down menu -->
          1. --> click the "Text color" color swatch --> click the "+" under the "Custom" section to create a custom color --> type #FEFFFF into the box --> press Tab to make it show up --> click the "Select" button.
          2. --> click the "Background color" color swatch --> click the "+" under the "Custom" section to create a custom color --> type #2D0922 into the box --> press Tab to make it show up --> click the "Select" button.
          3. --> when done with both steps above, click "Close". Done!
      8. To use the built-in logger in terminator: see my own ans. here: How to activate Automatic Logging in Terminator?
      9. [DO THESE THINGS TOO!]
        1. Enable the Terminal bell sound: right-click on the terminator screen --> Preferences --> click the "Profiles" tab at the top --> ensure the "General" sub-tab is chosen --> check the box for "Audible beep" under the "Terminal bell" section in the bottom-right. See my ans here: https://askubuntu.com/a/1253800/327339.
        2. Disable the window dimming when the terminator terminal is not in focus: right-click on the terminator screen --> Preferences --> click the "Global" tab at the top --> in the center-left under the "Appearance" section drag the slider for "Unfocused terminal font brightness" to the far right (from 80% to 100%) --> click "Close".
        3. Increase scrolling/number of scroll-back lines: right click on screen --> Preferences --> "Profiles" tab at the top --> "Scrolling" sub-tab --> either increase the lines from 500 to like 50000 or 500000, or check the box for "Infinite Scrollback" [my preferred choice]. Source: https://askubuntu.com/a/618469/327339.

  2. tmux remote terminal tool - keeps remote sessions alive even after disconnecting or closing the local terminal window

Serial terminals / terminal emulators

  1. Serial terminals
    1. See also:
      1. ***** serial_terminals_README.md
      2. ../git & Linux cmds, help, tips & tricks - Gabriel.txt - and search the file for "serial", "Serial terminal tools", "USB, serial, devices, etc.".
    2. picocom [my favorite!]
      1. My installation instructions: serial_terminals_README.md#picocom
    3. minicom
    4. Arduino Serial Monitor and Serial Plotter
    5. eRCaGuy_PyTerm
  2. See also PuTTY, below.
  3. Potential terminal emulators to use:
    1. alacritty - a new terminal emulator which supports the OSC 52 terminal clipboard needed to make micro's copy/paste features work easily over ssh.
      1. https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty
      2. https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/blob/master/INSTALL.md
      3. Why one might consider using the alacritty terminal in the first place (it supports copy/paste operations in the micro editor over ssh): [see my comment here--see also the discussion just above my comment]: zyedidia/micro#538 (comment)

Remote desktop or ssh applications

  1. NoMachine - for graphical remote desktop connections to a remote server or computer
  2. Remmina - for graphical remote desktop connections, including to Windows rdp hosts
  3. PuTTY - for tunneling, reverse tunneling, and SOCKS 5 proxy forwarding
    1. OpenSSH should also work fine (the default ssh-related series of terminal commands which come pre-installed on Ubuntu), but sometimes the GUI setup in PuTTY is nice, even on Linux

File synchronization or backup

  1. rsync - see my answer here to get started.
  2. FreeFileSync - see my answer here to get started.
  3. Potential file syncrhonization tools to try out:
    1. See my notes: #24 (comment)
    2. https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing - very highly-rated
    3. https://github.com/lsyncd/lsyncd
    4. My answer, mentioning my git-based sync script: https://stackoverflow.com/a/61109889/4561887