Install Popular apps on Linux at once
Every Linux user knows the fresh install ritual.
You've just wiped a drive, set up a new distro, made it through partitioning and the first boot, and now you're sitting in front of a clean desktop feeling briefly triumphant. Then the list starts forming in your head. Browser. Media player. Office suite. Screenshot tool. Password manager. Download manager. Virtualisation. The game compatibility layer. The custom terminal.
One by one, you start typing install commands. Some of them you remember instantly. Others send you back to the browser to look up the right package name. A few need a PPA, or a Flatpak remote, or a manual download. Half an hour later you're still going, and the feeling of a clean fresh start has quietly curdled into mild tedium.
I've done this enough times that I eventually stopped tolerating it.
Penguin Popular Apps Installer is a GUI checklist that installs your apps for you — all of them, in one pass, without a single manual command.
The Idea Is Simple. Annoyingly So.
You run the script. A Zenity window opens with a list of 26 popular Linux applications. You tick the ones you want. You click OK. The script detects your package manager, installs everything you selected, and tells you when it's done.
That's it. There's no complexity hidden behind it, no clever abstraction, no configuration system to learn. It's a checklist and an installer. It does exactly what it looks like.
The elegance isn't in the code. It's in removing the repetition.
📦 What's in the List
The 26 apps cover the full range of what most Linux users actually reach for after a fresh install:
Browsers — Librewolf and Brave, both privacy-focused alternatives to Chrome with strong reputations in the Linux community
Media — VLC and MPV, the two players that between them handle every format you'll ever encounter, with zero fuss
Office — LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and OnlyOffice, covering the full spectrum from the mature open-source standard to the modern interface that's closest to Microsoft Office in feel
Development — Visual Studio Code, the editor that became the default choice for a reason
Privacy & Security — Bitwarden for password management, Librewolf and Brave already mentioned above
Creative tools — Inkscape for vector work, Pinta for quick image editing, Flameshot for screenshots with annotation built in
Gaming & Compatibility — Lutris for game library management, Wine for running Windows applications and games that don't have native Linux versions
Virtualisation — QEMU and VirtManager, the pair you need for running other operating systems inside your Linux installation
Utilities — GParted for disk partitioning, Grub Customizer for managing boot entries, XDM (Xtreme Download Manager) for anything that needs a real download queue, LanExchange for local network browsing
Entertainment — Spotify, FreeTube for YouTube without the tracking, Konsole as a capable terminal alternative
Productivity — Espanso and its GUI companion for text expansion, saving you from typing the same phrases and snippets repeatedly
It's an opinionated list, but it's not arbitrary. These are the tools that come up again and again in Linux community recommendations for newcomers — the ones that cover the most ground with the fewest compromises.
🗺️ Cross-Distro, Zero Configuration
The script detects which package manager you're running and uses the right one automatically:
- APT for Debian and Ubuntu-based systems
- DNF for Fedora and RHEL-based systems
- Pacman for Arch-based systems
You don't declare your distro. You don't pass a flag. It figures it out and uses the appropriate commands behind the scenes. The experience is identical regardless of which flavour of Linux you're on.
And if zenity isn't installed yet — which it might not be on a truly fresh system — the script detects that too, asks your permission, installs it, and then carries on. It clears its own path.
🎯 Who Reaches for This
Fresh-install regulars — people who reinstall frequently, whether because they're distro-hopping, setting up new machines, or just like starting clean. The Penguin installer turns a 30-minute manual setup into a two-minute checklist.
Linux newcomers who just made it through their first install and are now staring at a bare desktop wondering what to put on it. This is a curated answer to "what should I install first?" — presented as a visual menu rather than a forum thread to read through.
People setting up Linux for others — if you've ever configured a Linux machine for a family member, colleague, or friend, having a script that walks through a reasonable app selection automatically is a meaningful time saver, and it means the setup is consistent.
On the Limitations
The release notes are honest about V1's scope, and that honesty is worth repeating here: this version installs from each distro's default repositories only. No Flatpak, no Snap, no AppImage, no AUR. That means a couple of entries on the list — Librewolf and Brave in particular — may need a repository added first, since they're not always in the default repos depending on your distro.
Flatpak and Snap support are planned for future versions, which will expand the reach considerably. For now, V1 covers what the native package managers can handle directly, which is still the majority of the list.
It's also worth noting: the app list is a starting point, not a definitive catalogue. The script is open to fork, and easy to modify. If your personal fresh-install list differs from what's included — add your tools, remove the ones you never use. The structure is simple enough that customizing it takes minutes.
Getting Started
# Download the script, then:
chmod +x penguin-app-installer.sh
./penguin-app-installer.sh
The Zenity window opens, you make your selections, and the installer handles the rest. One pass, everything you ticked, done.
The Bigger Picture
There's a pattern across this whole EasyLinuxScripts project: take the tasks that new Linux users have to figure out through trial, error, and forum searching, and make them accessible without that prerequisite. The Command Center does it for system maintenance. The All-in-One Updater does it for keeping packages current. The Penguin installer does it for getting set up in the first place.
None of these tools require you to already know Linux. They're designed to remove the friction at the exact moment it's most likely to discourage someone who's trying to make the switch — the first few hours and days on a new system, when every small obstacle feels bigger than it actually is.
The checklist window that opens when you run this script is, in a small way, a welcome mat. Tick what you want, click OK, and start using your computer.