3 Fun and Cool Linux Apps to Install This Weekend (September 19 - 21)
Not sure how to get the most out of your Linux device? This weekend, I'm back with another set of free and open source apps Linux fans will want to try installing.
This batch of apps I'm particularly excited about because they're on the decidedly flashy side. They're fun, yet they offer true utility while also being a little off the beaten path in terms of popularity. I hope you find one you like.
GNOME Drum Machine: Beats by Tux
I'm going to preface this by admitting I'm not a musician. I might get some terms wrong or overlook something important about this app. That said, the fact I know very little about music creation might be a testament to how great this software is, because without much knowledge it let me build a fun and funky beat in under a minute.
An official GNOME app, Drum Machine is a very simple and intuitive tool for creating drum sequences. Just click the square for each sound you want at the point in the meter grid you want it to play, adjust the BPM for the speed you want, and hit the play button. You can edit the beat as it plays, fooling with the rhythm until it's just right.
When you finish making a beat, you can export it as a song, along with metadata including the artist name and cover art of your choosing. For works in progress, you can save your sequence as a MID file to pick up again and continue tweaking later. If my understanding of MIDI is correct, you can also open the file with other music-making to do even more with the beat you made.
Advanced musicians and DJs will want more than just the 10 sounds this drum machine offers and more control over how the audio too. If you're new making beats, though, or just need to throw together something basic and quick, this drum machine app might be just what you need.
To install it, find Drum Machine on Flathub . You can also install the Flatpak via the terminal using this command:
Marble: The Supreme Maps App
Geographers running Linux take note, because the Marble app might be one of the most impressive and versatile geographical apps you'll find in Linux repositories. It presents the world as a 3D globe you can rotate with your mouse. Marble features several globe skins, including a classic atlas view, a street view via OpenStreetMaps, and a view of nighttime city lights. There are weather maps for the entire globe, plus old historical maps that show you how people used to envision the world.
That's just the start though. Marble is jam-packed with features and plugins, including route planning and printing, constellation views, upcoming eclipse projections, satellite tracking, weather reports, and Wikipedia integration. It's a truly powerful app with a lot of utility for anyone who wants to virtually explore the planet we live on.
Even that's not the limit, though. Marble lets you get extraterrestrial and switch to the moon to explore its surface. Use the built-in video recording tool to report back when you find the man on the moon.
If you're ready for a bird's (or space station's) eye view of our world, you can download Marble from many Linux repositories.
WTF: A Personal Dashboard in the Terminal
You've probably used various dashboards in your terminal before, maybe for monitoring network stats or server availability. But what if you had a terminal customized just for you, your workday, and your interests?
Enter WTF (also called wtfutil) , a personal dashboard that runs in any terminal and can be configured just about any way you want it. The target audience for WTF is developers, but I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates a slick terminal user interface .
You're no doubt wondering what the name stands for. The developer, Chris Cummer, explains that it might be what you expect, but it's also somewhat relative:
An acronym for "What The Fsck?", as in "What the fsck are all these browser tabs open for?" and "What the fsck am I doing today?"
(And if you're not a fan of that, then it stands for "What are The Facts?", or "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", or "Where to, Frodo?". It's up to you.)
Regardless, the purpose of WTF is to show you data that interests you. While it comes with a default configuration, it's endlessly customizable and extensible. WTF supports a number of "modules," such as current weather, Google Calendar, RSS, git commits, cronjob montioring, and more. The modules you choose produce the widgets that appear in your dashboard when you run wtfutil, and you can adjust the layout using the YAML configuration file.
Unfortunately, WTF isn't officially available in any Linux repos. Someone is maintaining a wtfutil package in the AUR for Arch users , but I can't vouch for it. The safest way is to follow the official WTF installation instructions that involve downloading and running the binary or building the app from source .
If somehow none of these apps tickle your fancy, head back to last week's Linux app roundup to see what other FOSS treasures you might have missed.
