What lightweight apps are you using for browsing, files, multimedia etc

General Discussion
1

I want to make my system as smooth as possible so any tips about lighter apps would be useful

2

Just a few examples:

  • Browsing: firefox-esr / torbrowser
  • Files: thunar
  • Images: gthumb (not as light as other alternatives – like feh – , but at least a somewhat complete package)
  • Videos: celluloid / vlc
  • Text: scite (gedit is nice but heavier I think)
  • Torrents: transmission

What apps are you looking for? What are your goals?

3

I want to see what people are using to make their system faster. I am interested in all daily use apps.
I want to see what different people use.

I use my system mostly for browsing, banking, and multimedia like music, movies, series etc
Maybe some small gaming like 2d games , only Linux games, there is enough emulation going on , no need to add more :smile:

4

Fair. You may benefit from creating different minimal templates for each use: Understanding Qubes: Why is it not a problem to have many apps in the template? - #5 by BEBF738VD

This is probably gonna help you more in keeping things light (and more secure), than cherry picking light apps and putting them all in one template.

At the end of the day a system has to be usable, and here you get to choose your compromises.

5

I am planning on doing so by making minimal templates, and from there qubes,
but also I want to use lightweight apps to run in these qubes.
If I want this setup with more qubes running for different purposes, it is difficult with 16gb ram without possibility to upgrade on my device.
Whrn half of my ram is used by dom0 and sys-net and sys-firewall

6

How much ram are they using? I created minimal templates for both and they’re running at 400M and 300M. You could also most likely get away with way less with Mirage Firewall.

7

I haven’t made minimal templates yet. Still gathering info about.

So I can make minimall templates for sys-net and firewall. That’s great. Any pointers links where I can find more about it?
Or I just clone my sys-net and sys-firewall and change template

8

No need to clone. Simply shut them down if they’re running and switch template. You can always revert if necessary.

Qubes doc (quick): Minimal templates | Qubes OS
Forum guide (in depth): Automate debian-minimal based template creation

9

My processor is 10gen intel i5-1035G4

So any lighter app helps a lot to my setup.

10

Maybe try some terminal based apps? I use for example:

  • Files: ranger or vifm
  • Images: sxiv, or feh
  • Videos/music: mpv
  • Text: vim (of course)
  • Torrents: transmission (or rtorrent?)

For browsing I find qutebrowser a nice alternative, with vim-based key bindings etc.

1 Like
11

Files: cd and ls
Text: nano masterrace is superior
Videos: vlc or jellyfin in the browser
Browser: firefox-esr or torbrowser
Torrents: qtorrent
Pictures: firefox-esr for editing gimp
Gitstuff: gitea

However instead of slickening the applications, maybe limiting concurrent qubes and using minimals help, as already pointed out.

1 Like
12

Ditch firefox-esr. Try librewolf.
If not sure why, use an app firewall (OpenSnitch) and inspect firefox’ requests on open and close.