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Kubuntu is the Linux distro for people who never want to open a terminal

Linux has a reputation for being difficult or tedious to work with because it involves using a command-line interface all the time. Today, that reputation doesn't hold up. While some modern Linux distros are still very terminal heavy, many are every bit as approachable as Windows or macOSβ€”you only really use the terminal when you want to use it.

Here's how I replicated 3 of the Googlebook's best features on a $60 Linux laptop

Googlebook's clumsy launch made me wish that I wasn't a product reviewer. I had to spend two weeks using a laptop with what felt like an unfinished operating system (cue the world's smallest violin), and throughout the entire process, I just kept thinking how nice it would be if Google had taken all of its biggest Googlebook features and slapped them on a mainline Linux distro instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

I turned my favorite Linux terminal apps into desktop apps so I could launch them with one click

Terminal-based apps are awesome, but if you’ve ever tried to use them, you’re probably already aware of their biggest annoyance: you have to open a terminal and type a command every time. They don’t show up in your dock or app launcher the way regular desktop apps do. Thankfully, there’s a quick and easy fix for that. It’ll hardly take a few minutes, and you’ll be able to give your terminal apps their own icons and entries in your application launcher.

Adobe wants $840 a year for Creative Cloud. This open-source project is recreating it for free

Adobe Creative Cloud offers some of the best applications for creative jobs. The only drawback? You have to pay up to $70 a monthβ€”or about $840 per yearβ€”to access them. There are first-year promotions available, but even those add up to about $740 per year. That is a big commitment, especially considering the annual subscriptions come with hefty early termination fees.

I finally tried the best Linux web browser, and it’s my new default

Almost everything I do on my PC happens inside the browser, to the point that I feel like my operating system is basically a bootloader for my browser. Now, when you have an app that’s so central to your workflow, it’s natural to get a bit picky about it. Thankfully, Firefox has been more than enough as my daily driver for over a decade. Sure, I occasionally experiment with other browsers to see what’s out there, but I’ve always returned to Firefox β€” that is, until now.

Windows modding is back, and the open-source tools are better than Microsoft's own

While PowerToys is a fantastic open-source tool made by Microsoft, its Windows modding capabilities are fairly limited. When it comes to built-in Windows modding options, you can do stuff like bring back the Windows 10-style right-click menu (via Registry Editor), toggle transparency effects, use a limited selection of custom themes, finally move the taskbar again, and a few other things, which isn’t that bad considering they’re all available right from the get-go.

These 5 Linux apps make me feel like a '90s Hollywood hacker (also works on Windows)

There’s something undeniably cool about the way Hollywood portrays hackers at work. In fact, it’s actually one of the reasons I gravitated toward Linux in the first place. Of course, real-world hacking rarely looks anything like the movies, and Linux doesn’t magically turn your PC into a cybercrime command center. That said, if you want to recreate that cinematic techno vibe on your desktop, there are a few tools that can help. Here are five of my favorites.

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