I keep a list on my backup partition:

$ cat packages.list

appimagelauncher
base-devel
aws-cli
aws-session-manager-plugin
bat
bob
direnv

discord
docker-compose
dog
dotnet-sdk
erdtree
eza
fastfetch
github-cli
httpie
k9s
krita
kubectx
lazygit

mariadb-clients
megacmd
minikube
mpd
mtr
mumble
nvtop
obs-studio
ollama-rocm
qalculate-gtk
restic
siege
speedtest-cli

steam
terraform
tig
timeshift-autosnap
tree-sitter
virt-manager
virt-viewer
yazi
yq
ttf-jetbrains-mono-nerd
ttf-liberation
ttf-meslo-nerd-font-powerlevel10k
ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols
ttf-nerd-fonts-symbols-common
ttf-roboto
wine
wine-gecko
wine-mono
winetricks
playerctl
php
php-gd
php-sodium
streamdeck-ui
speedtest-cli
zoxide
zsh
ripgrep
fd
dry-bin
kitty
xdotool
tmux
tmux-plugin-manager
sublime-text-4
trash-cli

At the very least:

Yazi Eza Kitty Fish Fastfetch Feh Trash-cli Micro Spotify-player Nmcli Polybar Rofi (fuzzel for wayland) Librewolf

LocalSend for quick local network file sharing from my phone that just werks. I prefer it over kde connect because the latter uses lots of random ports that kinda bloat my firewall whitelist. I know there is an alternative called warpinator, but I don't see a reason to change my preferences for now.

I'm going to try to mention things I haven't seen already written, though I may repeat some of the more important ones to me.

(In no particular order)

Terminal:

• Kitty (Main Terminal)
• Fish (Terminal Prompt)
• Neovim (Code/Text editing)
• Zoxide (a directory changer; once you go to a directory, you can type z and a partial name to go back to it)
• Atuin (a command history lister, can get a key and bring over commands from other systems)
• Midnight Commander (CLI file manager)
• Btop (CLI system monitor)
• Palette (I do a lot of theming in different configs as well as HTML/CSS, so its nice to have something to quick convert hex to RGB).

GUI:

• Timeshift (backup/restore)
• Eddie (for AirVPN)
• novelWriter (my FAVORITE writing tool for my books)
• Floorp (Firefox fork browser)
• Conky Manager 2 (desktop monitoring widgets)
• Rofi (keyboard launcher)
• firewalld (tried this out recently, good firewall)
• Flameshot (ALWAYS; its my favorite screenshot tool)
• MPV (I still get VLC, but opt for MPV most of the time for videos/streaming)
• Speedcrunch (A+ calculator)
• Steam
• Lutris
• Protonup-QT (to inject GE Proton into Steam/Lutris)
• Stremio (a great little streaming tool)

I would like to add that I do use Arch, but I'm fairly sure 99% of these packages, if not all of them, are available for most other distros.

For CLI lovers: Check out Terminal Trove

Edit: I did see that someone mentioned no explanations on the apps, so I tried to put a little blurb on each.

There's a lot of letters here, but nobody is explaining what they mean. How do I know what I need? I'm not gonna install everything, or look up every single program to see.

Qalculate

If you use the terminal and have a tendency to fat finger commands, I would recommend "The Fuck".

It always makes me smile to type fuck into the terminal. 🙂

I'm a former Windows user, so I install activate-linux for similar experience.

Fortune. Cowsay.

• GIMP (with photogimp patch)
• Steam
• Librewolf (I could also opt for a chromium based browser)
• Tor Browser (to browse onion links/throwaway browser)
• Heroic Games Launcher
• Prism Launcher
• latest Java lts (either from adoptium or openjdk i dont care about flashy new features)
• Libreoffice Still (similar to the second reason above and onlyoffice in appimage due to Libreoffice weird handling with ppsx files and powerpoints)
• QEMU/KVM with virt manager
• Gnome evolution (if it's gtk desktop I could opt for other email clients)
• Proton-GE
• WINE
• Ghostty(Kinda sucks it's based on libadwaita and gnome forces this theme on you no matter your desktop)
• Fish/ZSH(fish not having posix compatibility is kinda annoying)
• MPV (I could still use vlc but I prefer mpv because it can stream youtube links)
• ytp-dl(I can opt for a gui for convenience sake)
• BTOP
• Fastfetch

Whatever you need to be productive.

• Kate
• Yakuake
• Brave, Vivaldi, Chromium
• LibreOffice (I use Calc a lot)
• Kate
• Ocular
• DoH-client
• htop
• ncdu
• Windscribe
• virt-manager

... and more I can't remember right now, because it's too early in the morning.

EDIT:

• nano
• mc (midnight commander)

For me personally I install kitty terminal and integrate it with fish asap. Then I waste a bunch of time customizing it to my liking. My preferred text editor is Kate regardless of what DE I'm using and I usually get bleachbit for basic cleanup.

Darktable. A replacement for adobe lightroom.

Helpful answer: vlc, libreoffice, gimp, inkscape, zathura, obs-studio

Real answer: gnome, run-or-raise, foot, fish, tmux, fzf, silver-searcher, neovim, neomutt, vifm

People replying - how about telling us why you consider your answer a must-install tool?

neovim, basic development utilities (gcc, make...), zsh, ssh, btop, nvtop, kitty, river, git, cargo, nix, flatpak, ytdlp, ffmpeg, firefox, chromium, python

• Shell: Fish
• Resource monitoring: Btop
• Browser: Librewolf
• Text editor: Vim (unless you do heavy programming then neovim)
• Basic tools: git and wget
• Themeing: GTK customizer
• Terminal: Foot

guix and/or nix

Both are functional package managers and manage dependency trees better than flatpak IMO (also the package description languages mean you can manipulate the package definitions at install time much easier)

If you can't find a package in guix/nix then it behooves you to use flatpak

Timeshift is number 1

Also it's recommended to not reinstall a bunch of stuff and just install the app when you needed it that's the power of Linux. Unless you just want to learn the software then disregard

Potentially unpopular opinion: a bunch of rust replacements for the common terminal utilities: eza, bat, dust, fd, helix. Also fish and nushell, yt-dlp, and some of my favorite programming languages.

I believe Firefox is installed by default on Mint, so install uBO.

Transmission.

Veracrypt.

Audacious.

mpv
pdftk
yt-dlp

sl and KDE plasma

Flat seal if you are a flatpak gamer. Also gamemode

Portmaster if you want to manually control each network connection. It has nice lists that blocks a lot of trash by default but it can break websites and games.

CopyQ is an advanced clipboard manager. Gimp is great but Pinta is easy for quick, minor image adjustments. System Monitor is an applet that displays system information by double clicking on a taskbar icon. If you use VPNs, the IP Indicator applet shows the country of your public IP or customized icon when matching ISP is found.

kitty, nvim, fish, zed, mpv, btop, borg. Weird how all the gone ones have short names. Depending on the system, I would add tlp as well.

Probably would run into these things needed in this order:

• The text editor kakoune
• Add uBlock Origin to Firefox
• KeepassXC
• tmux

Then nodejs if it's a laptop, or Steam if it's a desktop.

• Anki
• Beyond Compare
• Discord
• GIMP (Not sure if it's installed by default on Linux Mint) with PhotoGIMP patch.
• GnuCash
• GParted
• KeePassXC
• KWrite + Kate
• Pinta
• qbittorrent
• Steam
• Telegram
• Thunderbird
• virt-manager
• VLC
• Wine