It's the weekend again, which means I'm here with another set of Linux apps I think are worth installing.The free and open source software I found this week includes an audio editor, a game maker, and Bash replacement.I always try to find a common thread with these app roundups, and this week I think they all are apps that take an existing thing and make it better.
Distorted and low-quality audio clips, the game series, and the Bourne Again Shell are all getting fixes and remixes today.KWave A simple audio editor Do you often make small edits to audio files or need to make voice recordings that are easy to clip and export? The conventional free choice for that type of work is Audacity, including on Linux.But Audacity has grown into a much more complex and, some might say, bloated app.
Audacity has also had its share of controversies over the years.One potential replacement is KWave.It's an app developed by the KDE team that's meant for simple audio editing.
There are features for common edits like adding a low-pass filter, editing sample rates, fading, and normalizing volume.You can insert silence and noise, or record directly from your microphone.It supports WAV, MP3, OGG, OPUS, FLAC, and ASCII coded audio.
Like I said, it isn't as fully-featured as Audacity, so it won't accomodate everyone's needs.But if you're looking for something that's simple and easy to use, I recommend trying KWave.KWave is widely available across Linux distros, so you can likely find it by searching your distro's software manager.
You can get KWave from Flathub and on Snap Store.You can also easily install it from the command line: sudo apt install kwave #Debian and Ubuntu sudo dnf install kwave #Fedora sudo pacman -S kwave #Arch sudo zypper install kwave #openSUSE Open Surge A running platform game creation engine Do you dream of making your own open source games? Is Sonic the Hedgehog one of your favorite franchises? Then you should check out Open Surge.It's a fully open source game engine for creating and playing Sonic runner-type platform games with a retro pixel art look.
It comes prepackaged with a complete game called , along with a built-in editor for modifying the levels or building your own game from scratch.The engine is designed to be moddable, too, and has its own scripting language, increasing the potential for creativity.It gives you free game assets with Creative Commons licenses so you don't need to be an artists to create characters and other game elements.
Related These gaming Linux distros are teaming up to fix bigger problems [Updated] The Open Gaming Collective, among other projects, is building a single kernel optimized for gaming.Posts 2 By Jordan Gloor I'm not personally a huge fan of the Sonic series or its gameplay dynamics, but I did enjoy trying out Open Surge.It brought me back to the feeling I had making my own games with and its built-in object-oriented scripting language in the 90s.
I also liked Open Surge's editing tutorial, which is in the form of a playable demo.Give it a try and I'm sure you'll have fun—even if it's just playing the bundled Sonic clone.You can get Open Surge on Flathub and on Snap Store.
It's also available through itch.io where you can easily donate to the project.You can also install through the command line from Linux repositories: sudo dnf install opensurge #Fedora paru -S opensurge #Arch AUR sudo zypper install opensurge #openSUSE Zsh A powerful Bash substitute On most Linux distributions, the default shell is usually Bash.It's so conventional that if you're not experienced in Linux or the terminal, you may not realize there's a difference between the shell and the command line.
The truth is, Bash is not all that's out there, and in fact some of its alternatives are a lot more powerful.Meet Zsh, one of those alternatives.Zsh is an extended version of Bash that gives you access to power user features you're missing out on like syntax highlighting, automatic path expansion, and robust command completion.
You also get sensible quality-of-life improvements like spelling corrections and an automatic cd command—just name the directory you want to enter, and Zsh will do it for you without the need for cd.Related Supercharge Your Command Prompt with Zsh and Oh My Zsh Teach your boring old Linux or MacOS command prompt new tricks.Posts 1 By Matt Klein Zsh is also extensible, with plugins and themes that you can get to customize your workflow and environment to match your needs and personality.
Its mature ecosystem has thousands of plugins and frameworks on offer, just waiting for you to discover them and use them to optizimize your terminal experience.How-To Geek Report: Subscribe and never miss what matters Unlock your tech-savvy potential and master the digital world with How-To Geek.Subscribe By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
You can unsubscribe anytime.You can find Zsh in most Linux repositories: sudo apt install zsh #Debian and Ubuntu sudo dnf install zsh #Fedora sudo pacman -S zsh #Arch sudo zypper install zsh #openSUSE Once you install it, you can run zsh to switch to it, and you can run this command to make it your default shell in place of Bash: chsh -s $(which zsh) Still looking for more useful software? Check out last week's roundup of Linux apps I found.They included a drawing app for ASCII art, a network monitor, and a Wikipedia browser.
Read More
