BONUS: here’s some command-line toys that are not useful or necessary, but are just real fun to take a look at especially if you’re new to linux:

• cmatrix (does the matrix code rain thing)
• cowsay (ascii cow with speech bubble)
• sl (steam locomotive in your terminal)
• cbonsai (generate bonsai tree)
• neofetch (this one is actually very useful and will print system information in an aesthetically pleasing way)

Here’s some creative software that replace the functionalities of Adobe software & more.

• photo editing: GIMP
• vector images: Inkscape
• drawing/painting: Krita (GIMP also fine for this)
• video editing: kdenlive
• 3d modelling, animating, etc.: Blender
• audio editing: Tenacity (Audacity fork made after the buyout without telemetry)
• DAW: LMMS
• media player: VLC or mpv

if there’s any other specific software you’re looking for a FOSS alternative to, don’t hesitate to ask. You always have more options on Linux than you’d think.

• Calibre - eBook manager/reader
• Gparted - disk tool
• Keepass - password manager
• VLC - the greatest video/music player
• Waydroid - run android apps

KeePassXC (there’s a Firefox extension too) and Syncthing are the first things I add to a new install.

Another nice-to-have is KDE Connect, it connects your desktop with your phone to sync notifications, send files, control media playback, use as remote input, share clipboard, send commands, and more

random suggestion but do you play guitar? take a look at guitarix if so, you won’t be disappointed

MPV, although you could also have used it on windows already. Also freetube, you can also combine those two with a little bit of internet search.

I personally recommend LibreWolf over Firefox. It is a fork of Firefox, but it includes some additional settings for better privacy.

Flameshot is a pretty useful screenshot tool that functions similar to the Snip tool on Windows.

If you’re going to be installing apps via Flatpak, I recently learned of an app called Warehouse that allows you to view all the Flatpak apps you installed, the user data associated with each app, and their file location.

If you want another option for LibreOffice, you can try OnlyOffice, but I personally prefer LibreOffice.

If you’re looking for a text editor that’s like Notepad++, I recommend checking out NotepadQQ.

Finally, if you want a notebook app similar to Microsoft OneNote, I’d like to recommend Joplin.

Flatpak for all *possible installs of user apps. But if there’s an app I respect most, it has to be MPV.

Welcome! Some of my must-have FOSS software for GNU/Linux are:

• ONLYOFFICE: Similar functionality to that of MS Office, but free and open-source, very nice compatibility with .docx documents and all the excel formulas I use are still there.
• Boxes: If you like or need virtual machines, Boxes is one of the best FOSS solutions out there, I have made Windows, BSD and Linux virtual machines using Boxes and they work flawlessly, and the drag-drop feature to send files from the host to the guest machines is absolutely nice.
• Konversation: In my opinion the best graphical IRC client, with HexChat also worth noting.
• Kdenlive: I have used many video editors in my life, both FOSS and proprietary, but Kdenlive is the one who made me stay. I have even remastered old 80s Betamax videos using only Kdenlive.
• TeXstudio: If you like LaTeX, this editor is absolutely wonderful and it works out of the box.
• Prism Launcher: If you like Minecraft, this is the only launcher that actually worked on my Fedora installation, and it’s so easy to install mods, resource packs, shaders, etc. that I already consider it to be the best FOSS launcher for both premium and non-premium instances.
• HandBrake: I just love this open-source video transcoder so much.
• fre:ac: I have used this FOSS audio encoder since I was a kid when I wanted to convert mp3 music to a format that my DSi could read. Nowadays I still use it to convert from and to any type of audio and it just never fails.
• RaccoonLock: A modern-looking and private password manager that is wonderful if you just want to store your passwords locally in your PC and you do not care about syncing them with other devices (although such feature is partially possible through the creation of backups).

It’s also worth mentioning other FOSS software like VLC, VS Code (though it’s not entirely FOSS, with Codium being an actual FOSS version), OBS Studio, GParted, PDF Mix Tool and FreeTube. Welcome to the GNU/Linux world! I hope you enjoy it and you find these utilities useful :).

• helix (vim like text editor)
• kate (kde text editor)
• dolphin (kde file manager)
• supertuxcart (most modern linux game)

KiCAD for PCB design.
PulseView for USB logic analyzers.
DSRemote for remote control of Rigol oscilloscopes.
FreeCAD for 3D CAD.
SDR++ and SDRangel for SDR.
Fldigi, wsjtx & QSSTV for ham radio digital modes.

Logseq is a pretty nice FOSS alternative to Obsidian I came across recently. Tmux is absolutely necessary for any terminal work. Wezterm is my favorite terminal emulator because you can easily disable all of the shortcuts except very few you want (tmux handles most of terminal stuff for me). Some new alternatives to old command line utilities:

• bat is cat but 1000 times better. I love it so much!

• fd is better find
• rg (ripgrep) is better grep
• zoxide is better cd
• dust is better du

I always start with Syncthing, which is a cross-platform p2p syncing client I use to share documents between devices

I’m surprises no one has mentioned the ones I use most days.

• git (version control software development)
• openssh (for ssh connections to other devices)
• handbrake (video transcoding)
• Element (matrix client)