Recommended applications

This page is intended to list applications recommended for use in a graphical (X) environment. See Recommended tools for commandline tools.

Note
This is intended as a "best of kind" list. Use eix or browse packages.gentoo.org to find all applications available on Gentoo.

Desktop environment

• Enlightenment
• FVWM-Crystal – transparent desktop for your Linux box
• GNOME
• KDE Plasma
• Lumina
• LXDE – light-weight GTK+ DE
• LXQt – light-weight Qt DE
• MATE – GNOME 2 fork
• Xfce

Window managers

• Awesome
• Bspwm
• dwm
• Fluxbox
• FVWM
• i3wm – improved tiling wm
• Openbox
• Sawfish

Taskbars / Panels

• lxde-base/lxpanel – Lightweight X11 desktop panel for LXDE, also works with other WMs
• x11-misc/fbpanel
• x11-misc/tint2
• x11-misc/wbar – quick launch bar

Cross-toolkit themes

• x11-themes/qtcurve

Desktop utilities

Clipboard managers

• x11-misc/parcellite
• x11-misc/qlipper

File managers

• kde-apps/dolphin – A KDE file manager focusing on usability
• kde-misc/krusader – Advanced twin-panel (commander-style) file-manager with many extras
• kde-apps/konqueror
• x11-misc/pcmanfm – Fast lightweight tabbed file manager
• x11-misc/spacefm – A multi-panel tabbed file manager
• xfce-base/thunar
• x11-misc/xfe – Another Xfce based file explorer

Application launchers

• x11-misc/rofi – A window switcher, run dialog and dmenu replacement
• x11-misc/dmenu – A generic, highly customisable, and efficient menu for the X Window System

Optical disk burners

• kde-apps/k3b – KDE's fully-featured CD/DVD burner
• app-cdr/xfburn – GTK+ disc burner from Xfce
• app-cdr/brasero – CD/DVD burning application for the GNOME desktop

Terminal emulators

• kde-apps/konsole – KDE's terminal emulator
• kde-misc/yakuake – Quake-style dropdown terminal based on kde-apps/konsole
• lxde-base/lxterminal – Lightweight vte-based tabbed terminal emulator for LXDE and other WMs
• rxvt-unicode – A fork of the well known terminal emulator rxvt
• x11-terms/terminator – Multiple GNOME terminals in one window
• x11-terms/tilda
• x11-terms/terminology
• x11-terms/xfce4-terminal

Internet

Chat clients

• WebRTC – implemented in Firefox
• net-im/qtox Qt5-based Tox client
• net-im/pidgin – GTK Instant Messenger client
• net-im/psi – Qt Jabber client
• net-irc/hexchat – Graphical IRC client based on XChat
• net-irc/quassel – Qt IRC client supporting a remote daemon

Email clients

• mail-client/trojita – A fast Qt IMAP e-mail client
• Claws Mail – An email client (and news reader) based on GTK+
• Thunderbird – "Software made to make email easier."

P2P

• net-p2p/qbittorrent – Qt BitTorrent client
• net-p2p/transmission – BitTorrent client with GTK+, Qt, CLI, and web front-ends
• net-p2p/rtorrent – net-libs/libtorrent-based server/client with www-apps/rutorrent front-end
• net-p2p/deluge – net-libs/libtorrent-based server/client with GTK+, text console, and web front-ends

Web browsers

• www-client/chromium – open-source version of Google Chrome web browser
• www-client/dillo – lean minimalist web browser for resource-starved systems
• www-client/falkon – a web browser based on QtWebEngine which was previously known as QupZilla
• Firefox – Mozilla's flagship web browser
• QupZilla – Web browser based on QtWebEngine
• www-client/qutebrowser – A keyboard-driven, vim-like browser based on PyQt5 and QtWebKit

Multimedia

Audio

• MPD – music player daemon
• media-sound/qmmp – Qt-based audio player with Winamp/XMMS skins support
• media-sound/rhythmbox – Rhythmbox is a music playing application for GNOME framework
• media-sound/clementine – Amarok 1.4 based audio player
• media-sound/audacious – An advanced audio player
• media-sound/gmusicbrowser – An open-source jukebox for large collections of MP3/Ogg/FLAC files
• media-sound/guayadeque – Music management program designed for all music enthusiasts
• media-sound/moc – Music On Console: ncurses interface for playing audio files

Image viewers

• display — part of media-gfx/imagemagick
• media-gfx/eog – Image viewer and browser for GNOME
• kde-apps/gwenview – KDE image viewer
• media-gfx/feh – fast and light-weight image viewer
• media-gfx/geeqie – light-weight GTK+ image viewer
• media-gfx/gpicview – GTK+ LXDE light-weight image viewer
• media-gfx/gthumb – Image viewer and browser for GNOME
• media-gfx/fbida – Image viewers for the framebuffer console (fbi) and X11 (ida)
• media-gfx/nomacs – light-weight Qt image viewer

Photography

• media-gfx/darktable – RAW photography workflow oriented GTK+ application
• media-gfx/digikam – powerful, feature-rich KDE digital photo management application
• media-gfx/hugin – graphical user interface for the creation & processing of panoramic images
• media-gfx/luminance-hdr – graphical user interface for high dynamic range image composition and processing

Video

• Mpv – video player successor or fork of MPlayer/mplayer2
• media-video/smplayer – fully-featured Qt front-end for media-video/mplayer
• VLC – video player and streamer

3D

• Blender – 3D Creation/Animation/Publishing System

Documents

Document readers

• app-text/apvlv – Alf's PDF Viewer Like Vim
• app-text/coolreader – E-book reader with a Qt interface
• app-text/evince – Simple document viewer for GNOME
• app-text/fbreader – ebook reader supporting many formats
• app-text/kchmviewer – Qt CHM viewer
• app-text/llpp – a graphical PDF viewer which aims to superficially resemble less(1)
• MuPDF – the heart of llpp
• app-text/qpdfview – light-weight tabbed PDF viewer with a Qt5 interface
• zathura – highly customizable, minimalist, keyboard-driven document viewer
• kde-apps/okular – KDE universal document viewer

Document management

• app-text/calibre – fully-featured ebook management application

Editors

• app-editors/gvim – GUI version of the Vim text editor
• app-editors/emacs – A powerful, extensible, self-documenting text editor
• app-editors/scite – A very powerful editor for programmers
• app-editors/vim – An improved vi-style text editor
• app-editors/neovim - Vim-fork focused on extensibility and agility.
• app-office/lyx – WYSIWYM frontend for LaTeX, DocBook, etc.
• app-office/scribus – Desktop publishing (DTP) and layout program
• app-text/sigil – epub editor
• kde-apps/kate – KDE text editor
• app-editors/gedit – A text editor for the GNOME desktop

Note taking

• app-text/keepnote – A note taking application
• x11-misc/zim – desktop wiki

Office suites

• app-office/abiword – light and fast cross platform word processor
• app-office/calligra
• app-office/libreoffice

Programming

Diff/Merge tools

• dev-util/meld
• dev-util/quilt – quilt patch manager
• kde-misc/kdiff3 – Qt frontend to diff3
• kde-apps/kompare

IDEs

• app-editors/bluefish – GTK+ HTML editor for the experienced web designer or programmer
• dev-util/codeblocks – The open source, cross platform, free C++ IDE
• dev-util/eric – fully-featured Python IDE using PyQt5
• dev-util/geany – GTK+ based fast and lightweight IDE supporting many different languages
• dev-util/kdevelop – Supporting KF5/Qt, C/C++ and much more
• dev-qt/qt-creator – light-weight C++/Qt IDE from the Qt Project

Science

Astronomy

• sci-astronomy/celestia – OpenGL 3D space simulator
• sci-astronomy/stellarium – renders 3D photo-realistic skies in real time

Nanoscience

• sci-visualization/gwyddion – View, convert, and analzye scanning microscopy data (e.g. atomic force microscopy)
• sci-electronics/klayout – View, edit, and convert electron beam lithography files

Network

Network Management

• Dhcpcd-ui
• Gentoo Network Interface Management Scripts
• systemd-networkd
• wpa_supplicant — a wifi supplicant to handle network authentication.

File Sharing

• Nfs-utils
• Samba – A re-implementation of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol.

See also

• Games — a landing page for many of the games (especially open source variants) available in Gentoo's main ebuild repository.
• Qt Desktop applications — a list of recommendations for a light-weight, non-KDE, Qt-only desktop environment