Tech
6 Linux apps I always run at startup (and why they’re worth it)
If you’re like me, you don’t like unnecessary friction when trying to accomplish tasks on your Linux PC. The following desktop software is so useful to me, I want them to be running when I start using my computer so that I don’t have to manually launch them.
Windows, in my opinion, has given startup apps a bad name. When I hear people talk about startup apps, it’s almost always in the context of trying to remove bloat from Windows and speed up its performance. It’s understandable, because they tend to slow down the boot-up process, but sometimes an automatic launch is worth the wait—with the right apps.
CopyQ: A versatile clipboard manager
If there’s one thing I can work without on a desktop computer, it’s a clipboard manager. I’m copying, pasting, recopying, and re-pasting all day long. Forgive me if I don’t have the patience for a single-item clipboard.
Typically, I rely on KDE Plasma’s clipboard manager for its multi-entry pasting abilities, but I’m not always operating in KDE Plasma. In other desktop environments, like Xfce, I install CopyQ, and I set it to run right at start-up so I never have to think about whether the content I’m copying is being properly saved or not.
The desktop-agnostic app has advanced features you certainly won’t find on Windows 11’s built-in clipboard manager, and some even KDE’s rendition is missing. You can keep multiple tabs with persistent clipboard items, there’s a built-in screenshot function, and you can even set it to automatically back up clipboard content.
KeePassXC: Password management, but offline
KeePassXC is my password manager of choice, and I can’t operate with any online accounts without it. The nice thing about KeePassXC is that it’s offline; there is no remote server where my passwords are being stored by someone. Instead, there’s a password-protected vault file stored locally on my computer.
I have KeePassXC set to open and prompt me to unlock the vault file as soon as my PC starts so I can hit the ground running with my logins. Even though it’s not online-based, KeePassXC is supported in Chrome and Firefox by first-party browser extensions, so I can have my logins automatically typed wherever I go.
Why KeePassXC is the only password manager I trust on Linux
It’s about as offline as you can get when managing online accounts.
KDE Connect: Make your PC and phone work together
Like almost anyone with a job in the modern day, I rely on my phone for some of my work. That’s why it’s so useful to keep my phone and computer connected, which is what KDE Connect lets me do. It lets me quickly transfer files between devices, ping my phone from my computer when I lose it, and share links to articles and other websites. It even integrates with Dolphin file manager, so sending files to my phone is a cinch.
If you’ve ever used Phone Link on Windows, it’s a similar experience, though it has more features (which can be toggled off and on as “plugins”) and supports way more devices. You can even use KDE Connect directly between computers and leave your phone out of the question, if you want to.
KTeaTime: Brewing tea in the desktop
When I start up a computer in the morning, I’m also starting myself up with a cup of tea. The KTeaTime app lives in the KDE system tray and can set steeping timers. That way, I don’t accidentally overbrew my tea as I am known to do.
Like any good tea app, you can customize KTeaTime with custom timers for special teas and adjust the steeping duration of any tea the way you prefer. It also features a visual progress animation in the taskbar so you always know how far you are from that first sip.
Nextcloud: Integrated cloud storage
I stopped relying on Google Drive a long time ago and switched to my own self-hosted Nextcloud file storage to keep files backed up and synced across my computers and mobile devices. I want the desktop client to start at the moment I boot up so that all my files get synced and at my fingertips.
Those files include my KeePassXC vault file, meaning I can add a password to my database on my laptop and then instantly use that new password on my main desktop. Easy as pie.
If you’re interested in replacing Google Drive with Nextcloud but you aren’t interested in self-hosting, you can actually get a free Nextcloud account through third party hosts like Tab.Digital. Regardless of how you get your account, Nextcloud integrates with Linux desktops far better and more reliably than Google Drive or OneDrive.
Yakuake: A fast drop-down terminal
Do you ever wish you could make switching between graphical desktop apps and the Linux terminal even faster? I wrote recently about Yakuake and the lightning-fast access it gives me to a terminal emulator.
Since then, I’ve continued making even more use of it, setting it to launch on startup. I keep multiple tabs going in Yakuake, typically with SSH sessions for various devices I manage on my network. When I need to troubleshoot one of those devices, it’s super convenient to browse the web for answers in Firefox and drop the console in and out of the screen as I make fixes.
The Best Free Software to Install on Ubuntu Right After Setup
Make your Ubuntu journey smoother and more enjoyable.
If you’re setting a lot of applications to autostart on your Linux PC, you may want to learn other ways to optimize for speed. Consider making some performance optimizations on KDE Plasma, and you also may want to learn how to keep a Linux device tidy.
