Software recommendations

The LWP comes with some software preinstalled as it is based on a regular Ubuntu installation and we add some packages for convenience. As a one-fits-it-all installation, we can't add too much software by default to avoid bloat. You can however install most software yourself system-wide on personal machines or in your $HOME directory on shared machines.

Below you can find some recommended programs for various purposes.

Office

• LibreOffice: free and open source writing (LibreOffice Writer), presentation (LibreOffice Impress), drawing (LibreOffice Draw) and more programs similar to other *Office solutions. Largely compatible with proprietary document types, but promoting open document types (ODF/ODT) or export to PDF for portability and interoperability.

File editing, coding

• gedit: simple GUI editor, installed by default on Ubuntu
• Kate: GUI, split windows, syntax highlighting
• VIM: command line editor, heavily customizable and extendable
• Emacs: command line, "the extensible, customizable, self-documenting, real-time display editor"
• VSCode: popular development tool, but bloated (more of an IDE) and developed by Microsoft

Git

• lazygit: simple terminal UI for git commands

Desktop

• screenshots and screen recording
  • Spectacle: (full) window, time-delayed screenshot, rectangular selection, etc. with configurable keyboard shortcuts.
  • Open Broadcaster Software (OBS): free and open source software for video recording and live streaming

Maths, Visualization and Computer Algebra

• Mathematica
• MatLab
• Python: Matplotlib, Seaborn