this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Free and Open Source Software

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If it's free and open source and it's also software, it can be discussed here. Subcommunity of Technology.


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submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by brie@beehaw.org to c/foss@beehaw.org
 

Edit: Updated the page with some cleanup and better navigation. It can now be filtered by OS and GUI/CLI.

Making posts for individual apps tends to only make sense when there's some actually notable event that takes place, so I figured why not just make a page that lists most of the open source applications that I use? So here is that listing. The webpage version has a nice table of contents for at a glance viewing; below is the page translated to Markdown, powered by Markdownr:

Writing

Joplin (Notes)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

I haven't been using it for very long. I used to use Logseq, but I've been finding that the more document/page oriented style of note-taking works better in some cases.

LyX (Math & Documents)

WebsiteSource Code

LyX is, without a doubt the best writing program. That's probably an exaggeration, but I do really like LyX. It's great for math, and even generates HTML; the first version of this page was drafted in LyX.

Saber (Handwriting/Drawing)

Honestly, I don't use this that much, however it does come in handy for writing/drawing on PDFs and for quickly jotting down equations.

Reading

KOReader (PDF/Documents)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

KOReader has a fairly minimal interface, but is quite versatile. It supports a lot of different document formats (and can also be used as an image viewer).

Tachiyomi (Web Comics)

Not much to say, it reads comics. It even has xkcd.

App Management

App Manager

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

It's rather aptly named.

Aurora Store (Google Play Store)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

Somewhat ironically, this is only useful for installing apps that aren't on this list. However, it does come in handy if you don't have the Google Play Store.

F-Droid (App Store)

WebsiteSource Code

The quintessential FOSS software center for Android.

Termux (Android Terminal)

Not all software is packaged for Termux, but those that are can be quite handy. For example, Lyx is in the main repositories, and Code-OSS is available in the Termux User Repository

Audio/Video

PipePipe (YouTube)

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

It plays video from YouTube. The non-YouTube services it supports are different, but for those who only use YouTube, the primary differentiator I use it for is the ability to view comment replies.

VLC (Video Player)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

ViMusic (YouTube Music)

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

A straightforward YouTube Music client. It supports offline playback, though there is no way to get songs cached apart from playing through them. It can also be somewhat feature-bare at times.

Internet

Fennec F-Droid / Firefox (Browser)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

The quintessential FOSS browser. Well, maybe Chromium is, except everyone and their aunt has made their own proprietary spinoff of that.... On Android in particular, support for addons is a big plus.

K-9 Mail (E-Mail)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

"Thunderbird for Android" shenanigans aside, it's a nice email client in its own right.

WG Tunnel (Wireguard)

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

It's a Wireguard client for Android. It is mostly quality-of-life features that make it nicer than the official Wireguard client, such as being able to put spaces in tunnel names, search in app exclusion, and being available on F-Droid.

Games

AAAAXY (Platformer)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

A "simple" platformer. I recommend just trying it and exploring how it works yourself.

Forkyz (Crossword Puzzles)

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

You can play crossword puzzles with this app.

Puzzles

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

A description is obviated by the name; it is a puzzle collection. I'm just going to be blunt and say I don't like most of the puzzles, however there are a few that I do quite like, and I recommend giving each of the sub-games a go.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

A fun roguelike. I'm not very good at the whole "stay alive" bit.

Programming

Code-OSS (Editor)

Source Code

It's VSCode, but without proprietary bits. Telemetry may still be enabled by default, however.

Nim (Language)

WebsiteSource Code

Nim is hands-down my favorite programming language. The documentation is admittedly not the greatest, but it combines a lot of interesting ideas, and it gives a lot of freedom in terms of programming style.

Files

gdu (Disk Usage)

Source Code

It's basically ncdu but in Go. I find that it works better than ncdu on Android/Termux

Syncthing (File Sync)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

Technically it is intended for file syncing, but I ended up using it for backups for the sake of convenience.

Miscellaneous

Arity (Calculator)

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

It's a calculator. Note: There are two applications on F-Droid. One is “Arity,” the original version, and the other is “ArityCalc,” an updated fork (which is listed here)

Barcode Scanner

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

In addition to the obvious capability of scanning barcodes, it can scan and produce QR codes, Aztec codes, Data Matrix codes, and many types of barcode. Admittedly, there's not much to scan QR codes for, but one (bad?) way I use it is as a lazy way to send a short string to another device.

Bitwarden (Password Manager)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

It's a password manager.

Krita (Drawing)

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

I must admit, I'm not much of an artist. However, it's pretty good for basic image editing.

Organic Maps

WebsiteSource CodeGet from F-Droid

Maps are based on OpenStreetMap and can be downloaded for offline usage.

PDF Doc Scan

Source CodeGet

Self-explanatorily, it scans documents.

Simple Gallery

Source CodeGet from F-Droid

It's a gallery app. Unfortunately, SimpleMobileTools has been acquired by ZipoApps. Although the F-Droid version will probably not be affected, it doesn't seem likely that they will remain maintained. Hopefully one of the forks will be successful.

Unexpected Keyboard

WebsiteGet from F-Droid

Quite a basic, no-nonsense keyboard. It can take some time to get used to the positioning of the symbols and how to swipe for them.

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[–] hellfire103@sopuli.xyz 22 points 11 months ago (3 children)

A very nice list. I believe the entire Simple Mobile project has been forked to preserve the brilliant apps before their new owner completely butchers them. However, I don't have a link handy right now.

[–] Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] halm@leminal.space 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The original developer probably couldn't make ends meet on donations, and he sold the entire Simple suite to a shady commercial outfit that is notorious for filling their apps with ads and trackers.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Everyone wants FOSS but so few want to donate a little to keep the whole enterprise afloat. It’s a bummer. I can’t blame the dude for selling it unfortunately.

[–] halm@leminal.space 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, you're right. I donated through the Thank You app he made, but I also realise what I can afford amounts to a pittance if only a fraction of users do the same.

I do think there should be more and easier available means of funding FLOSS through grants, and the developer could have tried crowd funding before simply selling to ... a less than reputable party. But if there is rent to be paid, sometimes you only have bad options.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I don’t mean to blame you or anyone in particular. I’m more just expressing sympathy because, as you said, people have to eat ultimately. And if they are putting time into a FLOSS project they’re generally not getting paid.

I’m also just a little salty because I saw yet another thread the other day where people said that Reaper, a fantastic DAW, is free (it isn’t). When I explained to them that they just don’t have any sort of security or licensing requirements and instead use an honor system where you can try the program fully fledged and then pay the $40 when you decide you want to keep it, they started argue with me about how it’s still free and they don’t have to pay anything if they don’t want to and all companies are evil blah blah.

Those are the kind of people I just don’t understand and it makes me really bitter because a team is truly trying to make a professional grade tool available to everyone and these people are actively sabotaging that effort, whether they know it or not.

[–] halm@leminal.space 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I loathe to say that stuff like this is an example of "the tragedy of the commons", because that whole concept is biased against the notion that people might just altruistically provide others with great tools without motive of profit. Let's say instead that FLOSS development would really, really thrive under a system that provides universal basic income 😉

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

Amen brother

[–] dhhyfddehhfyy4673@fedia.io 2 points 11 months ago

Happen to know if the forked versions are going to be available on f-droid?

[–] SeaOfTranquility@beehaw.org 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

As a lemmy client, I would add Eternity (APGL-3.0).

For latex documents I would highly recommend Overleaf (APGL-3.0). You can selfhost it on an old PC or raspberry pi and have crossplatform access on all your devices

A better alternative to F-Droid would be Neo Store (GPL-3.0) which has a more modern design and is less broken in general.

For apps that are only available as github releases (e.g. hypeBard) I would recommend obtainium (GPL-3.0) which automates the update process.

My personal preference for calculator apps is NCalcLibre (GPL-3.0) which has a slightly different set of features than your suggestion but has a more structured UI imo.

Text Tools Pro (Apache-2.0) is another awesome tool that can improve your typing experience dramatically.

If you have a degoogled device you might want to install FMD (GPL-3.0) in case you lose it.

For rooted devices, I would also add BCR (GPL-3.0) + BCR-GUI (GPL-3.0) to keep a record of important calls.

Another app that is especially useful on rooted devices is AdAway (GPL-3.0) which is a system-wide ad blocker that doesn't require any resources.

[–] ChildEater@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 11 months ago

Had no idea about eternity, but as someone that used to use Infinity for Reddit before the "incident" I immediately switched to it so thanks lol

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 1 points 11 months ago

I use some old version of ACR phone that still has the call recording. Works on GrapheneOS without root. The Dev thought about opensourcing but didnt do because of recommendations against it for some reason.

But thats enough for me to trust the app, and it also has no internet access. Its way too advanced but call recording is nice.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is incredible timing. I just downloaded F-Droid for the first time this evening and thought "Wow, there's so much here, I don't even know where to start. I bet I could ask Lemmy for app recs."

Opened Lemmy, saw this post.

[–] halm@leminal.space 3 points 11 months ago

At this point, there are so many apps om F-droid, it would be really helpful to be able to sort through them by interest in a more granular level than search and categories...

I wonder if it would be possible to add a federated overlay of user comments and app recommendations that uses their APIs.

[–] slice@feddit.de 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for taking the effort to create and share that list. For sure worth a bookmark :)

[–] brie@beehaw.org 4 points 11 months ago

Thanks! I highly recommend making your own lists as well; there are many high-quality pieces of open source software that I would have never heard of had it not been recommended.

[–] hyperspace@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

FYI the Simple Mobile Tools suite sold out to a scam company: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGr4H7QLVRs
One of the contributors was going to start a fork, but it's something to keep in mind.

[–] masimatutu@nerdica.net 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks a lot for this list! My only comment is that I prefer Mull over Fennec because it's a lot more hardened.

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@feddit.ch 2 points 11 months ago

And updated faster

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Dude. Thank you. I have been using my steam deck as my first step into going all in on Linux/FOSS. This is such a great list of things to test out. Really want to make it my daily driver.

Yeah I know steam OS isn’t FOSS but I want to play my games and I also want to be outside of MacOS/Windows so it’s a great fit at present!

[–] RmDebArc_5@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The OS part is open source, the Steam part isn’t. This is also true for Chimera OS and similar distros

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago
[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@feddit.ch 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Try ChimeraOS or Bazzite instead of SteamOS

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I want to get a little more used to running all these alternate applications before I enter an even more troubleshooting-oriented world but thanks for the reccs! What do you like about each of those?

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis@feddit.ch 1 points 11 months ago

I haven't used them but see lots of praise for them being plug and play Linux gaming OS'. Both have a Steam Deck friendly UI too

[–] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My opinion: change the unreadable blue-on-black text on your website... Other than that, great list!

[–] brie@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

What browser are you using? I'm currently just using browser built in styles for the color scheme.

[–] BotCheese@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

I think they may be using something like dark reader that is changing the background color but not the color of hyperlinks

[–] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

macOS Safari. No extensions or CSS modifiers, but my system is in Dark Mode.

[–] brie@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Could you upload a screenshot of this page?

[–] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] brie@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Whoops, I forgot to enable the dark theme on the page; maybe the need to explicitly enable using the browser's dark theme is why Safari doesn't really bother. I've switched the dark theme to use Firefox's colors, let me know if there's anything that is still broken.

[–] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago

Much better now 👌

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah, OP must have some weird user style or something applied. Looks fine here

[–] Kaldo@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've been using logseq for a few months now, can you go into more detail why you switched to Joplin? You can also just stick to pages rather than the journal with logseq (it's mostly what I've been doing) so I'm not sure from just that comment what's the benefit of Joplin.

[–] brie@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

With Logseq, it leans more towards using a nested bullets style rather than a series of paragraphs. Although it has a document mode that hides the toplevel bullets, it feels like more of an afterthought (and with long paragraphs navigating tends to get wonky). They're both great pieces of software, but the writing styles they are aimed towards are different.

[–] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have never used lyx, but how good is the macro support, for example is \DeclareMathOperator properly supported? Also say I am using a custom style file like acmart, is it supported?

[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago

In my minimal experience, LyX handles macros and arbitrary LaTeX quite well.

[–] toothpicks@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

Never knew VLC was open source! Been using it for years, it's literally the only thing worth using

[–] Sabata11792@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Holy crap, ViMusics UI looks amazing.

[–] BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Huh, didn't know Krita had a mobile port.

Also would never recomend Simple Gallery. Not cause of the recent purchase but because its poorly programmed. Stupid thing botched the images on my phone.

[–] mariah@feddit.rocks 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] cafuneandchill@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I use Aves Libre, personally

[–] mariah@feddit.rocks 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Some pictures i have it doesnt see

[–] cafuneandchill@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah, it's rather inconsistent with what it can or cannot see

Try making an Aves album and then moving the pictures in it using a file manager

[–] AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

my memory might be fuzzy but didn't development on Nimlang cease after people started calling out the lead developer for being a shithead

[–] brie@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

Nim is still being developed. I can't remember there being any major controversies regarding the creator of Nim; the worst I can think of is his rather strong opinion regarding the grammar of singular they. Here's the context for his post, make of it what you will.

[–] Reil@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Had syncthing gotten better? When I tried it like... Years ago before moving to the more centralized Nextcloud, it has a habit of "restoring" files I had deleted from the other instances.

[–] brie@beehaw.org 2 points 11 months ago

I'm not sure, I've heard it can have trouble with bi-directional sync so I have a single send-only device as an authoritative copy. It does seem to struggle a lot with syncing ~70GB.

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