The weekend is the best time to actually sit down and mess with your Linux setup.This time, I have for you a selection of three apps that are aimed at improving your quality of life and using Linux that much more convenient.Each app solves a different kind of friction you've probably just accepted as part of your workflow.
VacuumTube A better YouTube TV experience on your Linux desktop If you want the best YouTube experience on your Linux desktop, VacuumTube is hard to beat.It's an unofficial wrapper for YouTube's Smart TV and console interface, packaged as a proper desktop app.Just install the app, use the QR code to seamlessly log in to your account, and you’ve got instant access to your subscriptions, playlists, watch history, and more.
You’ve got full controller and gamepad support to navigate the interface.This makes VacuumTube particularly great for Linux HTPC setups where you want to sit back on your couch and browse your recommendations.Of course, you’ve also got mouse and keyboard support—it’s a desktop app after all.
However, the main reason you’d want to use VacuumTube is the plethora of extra usability features it throws into the mix.Here are a few that you should find impressive: SponsorBlock: Skips sponsor segments in YouTube videos using a crowd-sourced database.DeArrow: Replaces clickbaity thumbnails and titles with more accurate, less sensationalized versions.
Return Dislike: Uses the Return YouTube Dislike API to show a rough estimate of the dislike count on a YouTube video.Hide Shorts: Removes shorts from your YouTube experience.Force H.264: Forces YouTube to stream videos only in H.264 codec, which can help improve performance on low-powered machines.
You can grab VacuumTube as a Flatpak from Flathub.Related I Became a Better Linux User by Watching These YouTube Channels There's no end to learning Linux.Posts 7 By Zunaid Ali Quickemu The fastest way to try virtual machines Trying out a new Linux distro usually involves a bunch of steps: find the ISO, download it, verify the checksum, set up a VM in VirtualBox or QEMU, and figure out the right amount of RAM and CPU cores to allocate.
Quickemu collapses that into two commands.The first is quickget, which takes an OS name and downloads the right ISO for you, then creates a config file for the VM.The second is quickemu, which reads that config, figures out the best settings for your hardware, and launches the VM.
That's genuinely it for the basic workflow.That said, if you dislike working through the terminal, there’s also a Flutter-based graphical interface to help you download and run all the supported operating systems.Speaking of which, a huge collection of distros are supported, including other proprietary operating systems like Windows 10 and 11 (with TPM 2.0 support), Windows Server, and macOS.
There's also support for BSDs and some more obscure systems like Haiku, ReactOS, and FreeDOS.The only caveat I’ve found is that new VMs created using Quickemu get around 20-30 GB of storage space.That’s okay for testing purposes, but if you want to use those VMs for a serious workflow, you might want to expand the storage.
To add more storage, head into the VM’s folder, open the terminal there, and enter this command: qemu-img resize disk.qcow2 +20G to add 20 GB of extra disk space.Of course, feel free to add more or less storage based on your requirements.Quickemu is available in the official repos of most Linux distros.
Related Virtual Machine Beginners Should Try These Operating Systems First Some are smooth, some are strange, all are worth a spin.Posts 7 By Patrick Campanale Wordgrinder A word processor that lives in your terminal Wordgrinder is a terminal-based word processor—yes, you heard that right.It’s a TUI (terminal user interface) replacement for Microsoft Word and LibreOffice.
It can read any file saved in OpenDocument (.odt) format, as well as HTML, Markdown, and plain TXT files.It also supports a native .wg file format, which functions like a container for your documents.It lets you store multiple documents in a single file—which is a great way to organize your documents based on a project.
Now, of course, it’s not as powerful as fully-featured graphical apps—but power is not the point here.It’s designed to give you a minimal, distraction-free writing experience, so you can focus on your work—while at the same time, giving you the flexibility to work with actual document formats instead of simple text files.By default, you get a blank interface with just your text and a status line at the bottom showing the file name and word count.
You get access to basic text editing through standard keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+I for italics, and Ctrl+U for underline.For everything else, you can hit the ESC key to open the Main Menu.From here you’ll find options to help you manage, edit, and style your files.
Subscribe to the newsletter for curated Linux app picks Discover more tools like VacuumTube, Quickemu and Wordgrinder by subscribing to the newsletter.Get curated Linux app recommendations, practical setup tips, and clear usage notes that help you improve your desktop and workflows.Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
You can unsubscribe anytime.However, the main reason I love Wordgrinder is because it’s blazing fast.Just open the terminal, type wordgrinder, and your document editor is up and running.
In comparison, on the same system, LibreOffice tends to take at least a few seconds to load—which can be annoying, especially if you want to quickly reference something or add a line to a document.Wordgrinder is available in the official repos of most Linux distros.The best finds are the ones you didn't plan for Three apps, one weekend—that's really all it takes to find something you didn't know your setup was missing.
All three apps have earned a permanent spot on my system, and even if just one works for you, that was an afternoon well spent.Kubuntu Focus M2 Gen 6 8 Operating System Kubuntu 24.04 LTS CPU Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX (2.7GHz up to 5.4GHz) This laptop is purpose-built for developers and professionals who want a Kubuntu Linux-powered portable workstation and gaming platform.It features an Intel processor capable of hitting 5.4GHz and both integrated graphics and a dedicated NVIDIA 5070 Ti GPU for when you need extra power for machine learning or games.
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