A mix of extra software designed to make transitioning to Linux easier
The Computer Recycling Project at The Working Centre has been installing Linux on computers as far back as late 2001. Back then Linux wasn’t the primary operating system we installed on computers, but even way back in 2001 we saw the usefulness of Linux on the desktop. (If you want a real throwback, check out the distribution we used back then: https://wclp.sourceforge.net/) Two years ago we decided to stop participating in the Microsoft Registered Refurbisher program and install only Linux on our computers. Linux can be a bit of a challenge to switch to, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience and are starting from a “vanilla” (stock) Linux distribution. In our case, we’ve been using Xubuntu Linux since 2010. To help with the transition to Xubuntu we came up with a list of extra software that we thought might help people transition over easier. Here’s some of the extras we install on all our Xubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 systems.
36. Office365webdesktop (snap)
The office365webdesktop program is one of the 3 “snaps” the project installs on our Xubuntu Linux computers. This isn’t a program per se, but a window that opens up and lets users log in to office.com. The same thing can be accomplished by opening up a web browser, like Firefox, and typing office.com into the URL toolbar then logging in, but the snap application has the advantage of looking like a program and operating in a separate sandbox from the web browsers. (If that makes no sense, don’t worry, it simply means the office365webdesktop program we include operates separately from Firefox or Chromium).
One thing that’s nice about the office365webdesktop program is that if you don’t have a Windows Live, Outlook, or Hotmail account, the app lets you create one without needing an email address–at least at the time of this writing. If you already have a Windows Live, Outlook, or Hotmail account, you can use those credentials to log into the office365webdesktop program.
35. Chromium (snap)
Chromium is the open source base for Google Chrome. Chromium is a web browser, much the same as Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome are web browsers – programs that let you browse the web (browse web sites). Chromium uses the Google Chrome web store for extensions, so if you’re used to Google Chrome, Chromium is nice because you get the benefits of Google Chrome without the same level of tracking (Browserstack: https://www.browserstack.com/guide/difference-between-chrome-and-chromium). For a full list of the differences, check out the browserstack link above.
We’ve included Chromium in our image because a lot of people like to use Google Chromium. Chromium provides much of the functionality and feel of Google Chrome without the direct tie to Google.
It’s worth mentioning that the browserstack web site mentions manual updates for Chromium, but updates are pushed through the “Software” store, or can be installed with: snap refresh (provided there’s an update on snapcrafters). We prefer to use Firefox as our default web browser, but this is out of habit from years of use.
34. Freac (snap)
I’ve mentioned Fre:ac before in the post about 22 programs I regularly use in Xubuntu. Fre:ac is a program for ripping music audio CDs. It has an automatic lookup that fills in the various meta-data fields for most discs. Fre:ac is fast, and it can rip to different formats with a bit of configuration.
33. OnlyOffice (deb package)
It wasn’t enough to have LibreOffice and the Office365webdesktop applications installed, we also included OnlyOffice in our Xubuntu Linux software. The OnlyOffice software included in our Xubuntu image is a bit more limited compared to LibreOffice, but OnlyOffice saves to Microsoft’s format standard (confusingly called the OpenXML format – .docx, .xslx, .pptx) versus the OpenDocument Format (.odt, .ods, .odp) used by LibreOffice. To be clear, LibreOffice can save to Microsoft’s OpenXML formats, it just doesn’t do it by default like OnlyOffice does. This makes OnlyOffice a nice choice for people who want an office suite installed on their computer (versus Office365webdesktop which runs and stores documents on office.com) that saves in OpenXML. Once loaded, the individual programs in OnlyOffice resemble the programs in Microsoft Office a bit closer when compared to the default look of LibreOffice.
Personally, I prefer to use LibreOffice as I find it tends to format documents better when I past web pages into it, but because it saves by default to another format, you have to remember to convert to OpenXML or click the create PDF button if you want to share with others. OnlyOffice is a great alternative to Microsoft Office, particularly if you want to use a program stored on your computer. It also doesn’t ask for a yearly subscription fee, at least that we’re aware of. If you really like Microsoft Office, then OnlyOffice is a nice alternative without the cost of Microsoft Office.
32. Zoom (deb package)
The world changed a lot in the past 3-4 years, with a lot more people meeting online. One of the more popular ways people have been meeting is over Zoom. While Zoom is proprietary and we generally like people to use free and open source software, we recognize that Zoom is used by a lot of organizations. If you’re trying to build a home business and have to deal with clients that use Zoom it’s nice to have Zoom already installed.
As we understand it, a Zoom account isn’t necessary if you just want to attend a meeting, but if you want to run a Zoom meeting you’ll need to use the client or a web browser to create an account. Once the account is created sign into zoom via the app and create the meeting. A basic zoom account currently doesn’t cost anything, but meetings are time-limited.
31. Webp-pixbuf-loader (apt repositories)
This is one of those programs you don’t see, but is useful to have installed on Xubuntu. Webp-pixbuf-loader is a library that enables more .webp format support in Xubuntu. If you’re not familiar, .webp is a new-ish format from Google that has better compression than .png. If you work with images on the web, .webp is an important format. I’ve started using .webp for most of the images on this site. Sadly, there are probably better formats (thinking jpeg xl: https://jpeg.org/jpegxl/) but behemoth’s like Google are behind .webp, so jpeg xl gets less exposure. GIMP can convert images with webp format without this library, the library is used by the Thunar file manager and a couple of other programs to display webp images.
32. Timeshift (apt repositories)
Timeshift is not a backup, but it can be used to restore your system to a previous state. Timeshift is really handy if you’re always installing things that could potentially break your Linux install. For example: some Nvidia drivers really mess up laptops with the mixed Intel/NVidia drivers. A couple of times I’ve run Timeshift and backed up the laptop before installing the proprietary Nvidia drivers. When those drivers messed up the (Xorg) desktop I just logged in at the command line and used the command line version of timeshift to restore things.
The graphical user interface for Timeshift is very simple to use (it’s pretty much clicking next when you first load it), but it can be used to back up non-critical parts of the system. By default, timeshift doesn’t take a snapshot of “user” directories, but they can be added if you choose to.
31. Steam (apt repositories)
While not everyone likes to game on their computer, Steam is one of the most popular game distribution systems. I think of Steam like a portable filing cabinet for all my games. The games all fit into the filing cabinet drawers, but the cabinet is so portable that I can carry it anywhere. This analogy is a bit of a stretch, but I think it works. I mentioned Steam near the top of my list in the 22 programs I regularly use in Xubuntu post.
Steam is great because I can change computers without needing to install from disc all the time. And unlike old distribution methods, I can play the game on more than one computer. I can have Steam installed on both my laptop and desktop. When I’m tired of sitting at my desktop, and want to blow off a little steam (see what I did there), I can load up Steam on my laptop and play some of the less graphic-intensive games while sitting anywhere at home.
Steam takes a bit of getting used to, and can be frustrating if you’ve never used a digital distribution service before, but once you get used to it, it’s nice to use.
30. Ttf-mscorefonts-installer (apt repositories)
This is another one of those programs that’s handy to have installed, but isn’t seen. Ttf-mscorefonts-installer is a package that downloads a number of free TrueType fonts that were once made available to the world by Microsoft. This program installs: Arial, Comic Sans, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Verdana, Webdings and a few other fonts that are handy to have installed.
29. Cheese (apt repositories)
Say “cheese.” Cheese is a camera program that lets you take pictures, small videos, and bursts of photos with a webcam. Cheese has a very simple interface, but also lets you apply a variety of effects to the photo/video before the shots are taken. Cheese won’t replace a program like GIMP for image editing, but it’s handy as a simple program for testing webcams or taking photos/videos with webcams.
28. VLC (apt repositories or snap)
VLC or Video LAN Client, is a popular video playback program capable of playing back a large number of video formats. VLC is a bit of a Swiss army knife in that it can do a lot more than just play back video, but for this reason we’ve also found that it can be a bit buggy sometimes.
On our older Xubuntu 20.04 installations we chose vlc as the default video playback program, going as far as setting it up to play DVDs by default. But we found VLC crashed on some systems when a DVD was placed into the system. We discovered that the issue lay with the version that was in the apt repositories at the time, so on some systems we removed the version of VLC installed via apt, and installed the newer version from the snap store. This solved the DVD playback crashing issue most of the time. Lately, I personally prefer to use the mpv playback client as it seems to see divisions in video better than VLC. See the post 22 programs I regularly use in Xubuntu for why I switched to mpv. VLC’s popularity still makes it an obvious choice to include in our installation.
27. Gstreamer-plugins-ugly (apt repositories)
Yet another of the programs that shall be named but not seen. Gstreamer-plugins-ugly, or more accurately gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly on Xubuntu 22.04, adds support for a number of proprietary audio formats to Xubuntu. To quote from apt show gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly:
Applications using this library can do anything from real-time sound processing to playing videos, and just about anything else media-related. Its plugin-based architecture means that new data types or processing capabilities can be added simply by installing new plug-ins.
apt show gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly
26. Inkscape (apt repositories)
Another program from my 22 programs list, I really LOVE Inkscape. Next to GIMP, Inkscape is my favourite graphics program. I love Inkscape because it’s great to use for creating logos, simple layouts, or anything that needs to be scaled. Inkscape uses math (vector graphics) as opposed to bitmap images, so when things are scaled up they ten to look much better than non-vector images (that are scaled).
While Inkscape doesn’t have the popularity of Adobe Illustrator, it’s come a long way, and some professionals are using Inkscape for their work. Logos by Nick has an excellent introduction to Inkscape on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6a7oz7vEE.
24. Handbrake (apt repositories)
Handbrake is another program I mention on my 22 programs list. I have a large collection of DVDs and Blu-rays and Handbrake is one of the best ways to rip, compress, and pull out all the features of those discs and store them in a file.
23. Winff (apt repositories)
Winff is an audio/video conversion program. Its interface is simpler than Handbrake (because it’s only really used for converting audio/video).
Winff is basically a graphical front end to ffmpeg, a command-line compression program. Just add the video/audio you want to convert, choose the format you want to convert to and click convert. Winff opens a terminal window in which it runs ffmpeg along with the appropriate switches to convert the file to another format. At the end the window stays open, but prompts you to to press Enter to continue (at which time it closes the terminal window).
Batches of video files can be converted at once.
22. Lbreakout2 (apt repositories)
One of the games that briefly caught on in the Arcade era was the 1986 brick-breaking game Arkanoid. Arkanoid was in turn inspired by the 1976 Steve Wozniak-designed game Breakout. Lbreakout2 isn’t quite as fancy as Arkanoid, but looks better and has more features than Breakout. Lbreakout2 was initially released in 2003, making it 20 years old this year. It’s still an awesome game that’s not particularly gory, yet still has an element of destruction in it.
Lbreakout2 looks simple, and game play is simple, but there are a number of options for Lbreakout2 that let you expand the game. A level editor is built into Lbreakout2 and accessible from the main menu. You cannot create your own bricks, but you can make a variety of different levels that include different types of bricks.
If you’re handy with the command line you can run an lbreakout2 server and host many players on the server for lbreakout2 matches. In the screenshot below the player on top is a “bot” (robot player played by the game) and the bottom player with the longer paddle is me (I actually scored the bonuses for the paddle, no editing here).
21. Lincity-ng (apt repositories)
Lincity-ng is one of those programs that had a lot of potential, but kind of falls short. At one time Lincity-ng was a “polished” city building game in the vein of the classic Maxis game Sim City. Sadly this 18+ year old program has fallen a bit by the wayside, and while we’ve included it in our list of programs we install, it will likely be removed in the near future because it tends to crash, even on systems with lots of resources.
20. Kobodeluxe (apt repositories)
Another simple game, set in space. In Kobodeluxe enemy ships try to hunt you down while you try to destroy labyrinth-shaped bases. Kobodeluxe was originally written in 1995, before I even started using Linux, but has had several authors over the years. The last changes to Kobodeluxe appear to be from around 3 years ago (2020): https://github.com/olofson/kobodeluxe. The version in Xubuntu Jammy appears to be the last version created. While you cannot run a server like Lbreakout2, not edit the game in an editor, it does have options to resize the game window, or go fullscreen, if you prefer to not see the Xubuntu desktop below the game.
19. Freedroid classic (apt repositories)
Freedroid (or Freedroid classic), not to be confused with FreedroidRPG by the same author, is a remake of an old video game from the Commodore 64 era: Paradroid. Paradroid was hands down one of my favourite games on the Commodore 64 back in the mid-1980’s. Despite the primitive graphics, Paradroid was a tonne of fun to play. In Paradroid (and freedroid) you start out as a lowly robot on a massive ship. As you switch between hallways and floors you encounter other robots of various levels of power. You can either attempt to destroy the robot with whatever weapons you’ve acquired (none when you first start out), or attempt to take over the robot.
When you attempt to take over a robot a screen opens up with your robot on one side and the computer controlled robot on the other. Each side has a number of circuits and logic gates. The idea is to take over the robot by completing the circuits that favour your robot (turn the circuit your colour). Once you take over the robot you gain it’s abilities/weapons/strength. This is more challenging as you take on higher level robots. The stronger the robot, the more chances it has to complete circuits.
When starting out you generally want to avoid levels with high level robots as they can easily “one shot” your starter robot, or take over because they have a lot more chances at completing a circuit. (note the 8 chances the level 476 robot has compared to my 3 chances in the screenshot above – I didn’t win despite having the gate advantage on my side). The basic strategy is to take over robots closer to your strength and build up until you’re strong enough to take on the level 999 robot.
18. Frozen Bubble
Another arcade-inspired classic, Frozen Bubble, is inspired by the arcade game Puzzle Bobble. Frozen Bubble has a level editor baked into the game, and can be used to host and play both single player and networked games. While development on Frozen Bubble stopped many years ago (2010) the game is still as fun as Puzzle Bobble was years ago, with the added benefit of being able to create and play your own levels and play up to against 4 players on the network.
17. Aisleriot (apt repositories)
Aisleriot is a collection of 80 card games with a clean, simple interface. Klondike is the default game Aisleriot loads when it first starts.
There is no default solitaire game in Xubuntu, aisleriot provides solitaire and a whole lot more. One of my favourite games in Aisleriot is “Thirteen” a game where cards are stacked in a pyramid and you have to remove cards by matching two free cards that add up to 13. We included Aisleriot because people are used to having card games in their operating system. Card backs and designs can be changed in the menu.
16. Gnome-mahjongg (apt repositories)
Gnome-mahjongg is not the 4 player tile game some might be used to, but the pyramid stacked tile game where you attempt to remove tiles by matching up identical free tiles. A tile is free if it’s on the outer edge of the group of tiles. I previously found gnome-mahjongg in early versions of Ubuntu Linux.
The type of layout, theme and background can all be changed in the preferences for gnome-mahjongg.
15. Pysolfc (apt repositories)
Pysolfc is a large (1000+ is the claim on the web site) collection of card/tile games. Pysolfc has a less polished look compared to Aisleriot, but pysolfc also has many more games and options. Looking under Options > Cardset there are at least 50+ card types listed. A neat feature of Pysolfc is the ability to add the currently selected game to “favourites.” Rather than go through the extensive menu each time looking for your favourite pysolfc game, you can just assign it as a favourite, then select it from favourites each time pysolfc is loaded. Pysolfc keeps a running total of games won and lost and compiles them into statistics that includes the number of moves it took to win a game.
If you like card games like Aisleriot and Mahjongg, rather than installing both Pysolfc includes both types of games in one program. It’s not quite the same as running the two games separately, but having both types of games, and many variations of each, under one game, shows just how extensive Pysolfc is.
It’s worth mentioning that pysolfc is also available as a “snap.” I noticed the apt version of pysolfc doesn’t run in Xubuntu 22.10 (which only has a 9 month lifecycle), but the snap version works just fine. The name is a bit different. To install the snap in Xubuntu 22.10 open a terminal and type sudo snap install py-sol-fc.
15. Icebreaker (apt repositories)
I’m not sure how I first came upon Icebreaker, or why I decided to include it in the extra programs we install on Xubuntu, except that it’s a simple puzzle-like game that works on just about any hardware.
In Icebreaker you attempt to isolate moving penguins by using the right and left mouse buttons to cut off sections of the grid the penguins are moving around in. The larger the section of grid partitioned off, the longer it takes, and the more likely a penguin is to hit the line moving to section off the grid. Once you’ve completed at least 80% of the grid the game moves to the next level and adds more penguins and challenge. Icebreaker does have a few options in the menu (which is in the bottom right corner for some strange reason). There’s a “Hello Kitty” icebreaker theme if you prefer cartoon kittens to penguins.
I found the version if Icebreaker in Xubuntu 22.10 did not save my high score despite the fact that it was greater than the 100 points listed in the high scores. There doesn’t appear to be a “local” high score file in Xubuntu, but there is a configuration file, .icebreaker, in the home directory of the currently logged in user. The configuration file doesn’t appear to contain any information about the high score file. It’s still a fun, simple game despite the bug.
14. Supertux (apt repositories)
The last of the game extras we included in our image includes a Super-Mario-like game that uses a Penguin, rather than a plumber, as the main character. As with Super Mario, the object of Supertux is to progress across several levels in order to res
Supertux is still under active development, many of the details of which can be found on the Supertux web site: https://www.supertux.org/. We installed Supertux from the apt repositories, which are sometimes a bit behind other methods, but in this case the latest stable version of Supertux was installed under Xubuntu 22.04.
Besides a level editor, Supertux also features add-ons. No add-ons were installed in our version of Supertux, but clicking check online, downloaded a whole bunch of indexes for extra worlds and woldmaps. Below is a screenshot from Rob’s Forest, one of the add-on worlds downloaded through the add-ons.
13 & 12. Hydrogen & Hydrogen-drumkits (apt repositories)
One of our goals including extra software was to make people aware of the wealth of different software available for free in Linux. The range of free software available is pretty large, and Hydrogen is a good example of the kind of diverse software available in Xubuntu. Hydrogen is a drum machine that aims to be professional, yet simple to use. We’ve tacked on a number of extra drum kits to further expand hydrogen. The hydrogen web site http://hydrogen-music.org/ has documentation on using hydrogen, but there are a number of Youtube tutorials on hydrogen around to help new users get up to speed. The hydrogen web site also has an number of forums users can post questions to.
11. Audacity (apt repositories)
Audacity is an open source multi-track audio editor. Whether you’re recording a podcast, or need to edit audio for a video, audacity is a feature-rich editor with a lot of effects, add-ons, and tools to shape audio. Whether you’re trying to create sound effects for a video game, apply compression and noise removal to speech, or mix several tracks, audacity is a great tool.
Controversy arose in 2021 around Audacity when a Russian company, Muse, bought the trademark for the free software. There was talk of adding telemetry to Audacity in order to report issues back to the company, but this was quickly reversed, and the company continues to develop Audacity as free and open source software. Still, this happens sometimes, and the code base was forked to another project, Tenacity. When we first checked on Tenacity they hadn’t released any software, but it looks like they’ve since released versions for Windows and Linux. Tenacity is still beta software. We’ll keep our eyes on it and if it looks good we may end up switching out Audacity for Tenacity.
For now Audacity is still a great audio editor. The code is still freely available for anyone to look at on the project github page: https://github.com/audacity/audacity
10. Neofetch (apt repositories)
Neofetch is a command line program that displays a bit of information about the computer it’s installed on. Information includes: Operating system, hostname, the version of the Linux kernel (core) installed, the amount of time the computer has been on, the number of packages installed, the shell (for example: BASH) being used, the resolution of the monitor(s) (it detects if multiple monitors are connected), the desktop environment (for example: XFCE), some theme information, the terminal program being used and font size, CPU installed, graphics card installed, and Memory information.
Neofetch can take a number of arguments, for example, the –ascii_distro argument can be used to display the ascii logo from a different flavour of Linux. In the screenshot below this argument is used to display the logo from RedHat Linux on a Xubuntu Linux system. (Note: the OS still identifies as Xubuntu, it’s just the logo that has changed). It’s a fun, but a bit less useful tool compared to the next few tools we’ve also included.
9. Hardinfo
You won’t find the name hardinfo in the Xubuntu whisker menu, instead when you type the name the program System Profiler and Benchmark appears along with Run Hardinfo. Clicking either result opens hardinfo, a program that displays more extensive information about a computer than neofetch.
Hardinfo can be used to benchmark a system’s CPU, though the benchmarks it includes are particularly old, as are the comparative results (comparing a 4th gen i7 to a Pentium D). Still, one of the more useful tools in hardinfo is the generate report button which examines the hardware and creates a report of the information in a browseable HTML format. There is a lot of information in the generated report, it’s overkill for most Linux users who just want to know what their hardware is. But if you’re the type who wants to recompile their kernel, or know which kernel modules are loaded, the generated report shows this information. Hardinfo has a command line version, but it doesn’t take as many switches as neofetch.
8. CPU-x (apt repositories)
If you’ve used other operating systems for any amount of time you’ve probably heard of the program CPU-Z. CPU-X is a CPU-Z-inspired program for Linux systems. CPU-X displays roughly the same amount of information as CPU-Z in the same rectangular format. CPU-X displays CPU, cache, motherboard, RAM, Graphics, and general system information. CPU-X can also be used to stress test a processor by clicking on the Bench tab (hidden to the right), selecting the duration (number of runs), and the number of threads to be used during the prime number test.
7. Xscreensaver-data-extra (apt repositories)
This isn’t a program per se, but a bunch of extra screensavers that can be accessed by typing the word screensaver into the whisker menu and opening the Screensaver program. Normally, Xubuntu comes with almost no screensavers installed, the xscreensaver-data-extra package installs dozens of extra screensavers that don’t require OpenGL (in English, work better on lower end systems). If you have a fancy graphics card it’s possible to install even more screensavers, that are even more fancy.
6. Putty (apt repositories)
There really is no reason for Putty in Linux as most Linux distributions, Xubuntu included, support SSH from the command line. But for those who want a program to manager their SSH sessions, or are used to using Putty on Windows, we’ve included it in our extra programs for Xubuntu. Putty is a graphical SSH/Telnet client that can save settings for different SSH connections. I almost never use it as I use Xubuntu on my workstation and tend to use SSH from the command line. If I need to sftp something, I use Filezilla instead. Putty is here for Windows admins that are used to using it on Windows.
5. Gnome-disk-utility (apt repositories)
Gnome-disk-utility is in the Xubuntu whisker menu as simply “Disks.” At first glance gnome-disk-utility doesn’t appear to have much function other than to list and modify information about disks on the system, but one of the nice things it can do is create bootable USB keys from ISO images (via the restore disk image menu option in the vertical ellipsis at the top right of the window).
Gnome-disk-utility is installed by default in the full version of Ubuntu Linux, but not Xubuntu. We found it simple and handy, so we included it in our extra software for Xubuntu.
4. Adobe Reader 9.5 (deb package)
Xubuntu includes a PDF reader called Atril in the default installation of Xubuntu. Atril is great, but it will not open some secure PDF documents generated by the Canadian government. While it’s BAD practice for any government to force people to use a particular piece of proprietary software, especially for important documentation such as immigration applications, complaining about the problem doesn’t solve it. We initially included an old version of Adobe’s Acrobat Reader 9.5 because it was the last version to run under Linux natively, and at one time could open some of the secure Adobe documents. I’ve since been updated that it no longer is capable of opening documents like the immigration application, so we’ll likely be removing this package in the near future. We’ve looked at several solutions, including automating the installation of the latest Adobe Reader for Windows under Linux, but there isn’t an easy way to do this. For the moment, unless the Canadian government changes their methods, you’re forced to use proprietary software to fill out some (not all) of their forms.
3. lm-sensors (apt repositories)
Lm-sensors is another one of those programs that isn’t normally seen. We use lm-sensors to check out the temperature of hardware devices in Xubuntu. In particular we’ll use lm-sensors if we’re finding hardware behaves oddly (random reboots). After lm-sensors is installed it’s necessary to run sensors-detect. Normally the script we use to install extra software does this extra step.
2. Plank (only on Xubuntu 22.04, apt repositories)
Our installation of Xubuntu 20.04 is based on some configurations that date back to much older versions of Xubuntu (12.04). In all our older versions of Xubuntu we added an extra “panel” to the bottom of the screen because most people who have some computer experience are used to seeing a bar at the bottom of the screen. For Xubuntu 22.04 we decided to go a bit of a different route and install a slightly flashier program, plank, as a quick launch bar at the bottom of the screen. As with other programs of it’s kind it’s possible to drag a program out of the whisker menu and drop it into a free space on the plank to permanently include it as a quick launch icon. Plank also displays programs that are currently running (on the right side of the plank bar).
- tlp and powertop (laptops only, apt repositories)
If you’ve happened to purchase a laptop from us with Xubuntu installed we’ve included a couple of laptop-specific programs in our Xubuntu image: tlp and powertop. TLP is a command line tool to help with power saving on Lenovo Thinkpads and a selection of other laptops.
Powertop is a really interesting tool because it can be used to assess how much power each program you run uses. From that information powertop can be used to create power management profiles to better utilize battery power for your individual program usage patterns.
A very brief overview
I’ve skimped on a lot of details for many of the programs I listed here. This post is already incredibly long, but I wanted to make sure people have a chance to see some of the extra work we take to setting up our Xubuntu systems to be a bit more utilitarian. As always feel free to reach out to me on Mastodon: @chaslinux@techhub.social or via The Working Centre’s Computer Recycling Project: https://www.theworkingcentre.org/cr/.