Things that are a part of my workflow & hobbies. Contains a mix of art & general use softwares Updates... when I remember to.
This section was a 'testing to-do' list in the past, but now that I'm running it on my main system I think it'd be better to use it as a 'linux-specific uses page'.
last updated: February 06, 2026
Software
The good thing is, I've made an effort to prioritize software that's also on Linux! So now there's only a few stragglers in terms of stuff I need replacements for
🔜= Haven't installed yet | ⚠️= Having issues
On Linux
- Krita (appimage) - Main drawing software. Appimage version has all dependencies ready out of the box.
- Obsidian (flatpak) - Notes apps & prefered word processor
- Syncthing - Local syncing solution for my notes. This quickly became a load-bearing-wall in my tech ecosystem.
- Libreoffice - Office Needs
- Kdenlive (appimage) - Video Editor. Run under X11 (bugs under XWayland)
- Inkscape (flatpak) - Vectors
- Gimp (flatpak) - For the few things Krita can't do
- Blender (flatpak) - Currently learning
- Anki - JP study. For a while, I used my secondary laptop a lot for this.
- 🔜Scribus - I don't like it but it's useful for desktop publishing
- Open Tablet Driver - Prefered tablet driver, as it lets me swap between tablets w/o completely re-installing drivers
- There's some quirks with artist mode but I'll have to do a full test session to see if it's intrusive to my art workflow
- KDE Connect - Quick file transfers & clipboard sharing w/phone. Preconfigured with KDE Plasma
- VLC - Swiss-army knife media player. Better for video, can do audio in a pinch
Found replacement
- Notepad++ | Kate - I used it before Notepad++. The main reason I switched is because of bugs on Windows. Easy to reconfigure to function closer to N++
- WinSCP (FTP) | Dolphin - FTP support seems to work fine. + If I need it more advanced features, I can always use Filezilla
- 7-Zip | Ark - KDE default. Does the job pretty well.
- ShareX | Spectacle - KDE's default screenshot tool. I do miss the versitility of ShareX (notably; special keybindings & commands) but it's not a huge loss
- Open MPT | Milkytracker - I don't produce, so this is just for playback & peeking at the files. Though I might just run OpenMPT via Wine.
- Musicbee - This one's a hard one to let go. It can run via Wine if it comes to it, but I think the best option here is to split functionality between multiple programs again
- Strawberry - Music Player & web radio client. Kinda dated feeling, but it's customizable & can pull info for my CDs. I'll keep it around for the latter if it doesn't stick
- VLC - For the unique audio files like mod files. I think you can get them playable in Strawberry with GStreamer Plugins, but it's always good to have VLC on hand
- Soundcloud (web) - I might have to cut my losses on this one. There isn't a good Soundcloud frontend outside of Musicbee.
Needs replacement (or unsure of status)
- WinSCP (Webdav) - Dolphin's webdav support is pretty weak. Though I guess as of right now I don't use webdav to push site updates. Filezilla has webdav support in their paid version
- Media Go - Used to transfer music to my walkmans. Had issues with other programs before, but I imagine there's a better option for this out there.
- Bandizip - Singular niche use: extracting Japanese locale zips for BMS. You want to do this to avoid crashing.
Cool New things I Found
- Skanpage - Neat scanning utility. Has tools for multi-page scanning.
- Fcitx5 and Mozc - IME setup for Japanese. I'm starting to like how I set it up here vs on windows (Meta + Space drops me right into hirigana).
- Asunder - CD Ripping tool. Not much to say here.
- MPV player - Barebones media player popular for scripts & plugin useage, but I just use it for single plays.
Other (OS Ambivalent, Runs through Wine)
- 11ty (Javascript tool) - what I use to build the site
- Manga OCR (python tool) - OCR tool I use for language learning. Tedious set-up process.
- 🔜Beatoraja (Java program) - BMS client.
Hardware
- Scanner - Works out of the box as long as I use the option labeled "USB"
- Printers
- Canon Printer - Prints without the need for drivers as long as the printer's awake... and cooperative. That thing is a finnicky bastard sometimes.
- 🔜 Epson Expression - Not tested
- Drawing Monitor - Not picked up by KDE's built-in tablet support, got running under OTD. There was freezing issues on my main laptop due to the HDMI port being handled by an NVIDIA GPU, but it was fixed by installing the right drivers.
- 🔜Game Controllers - Not tested (Various game controllers + Phoenixwan)
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