---
title: "Software"
description: "What Federated CoreDesktop installs: pacman packages, AUR packages, 48 Flatpaks, Ruby and Rails with mise, and a full set of development tools."
sections:
  - type: hero
    compact: true
    eyebrow: "pacman · AUR · Flathub · mise"
    title: "The software you'd install anyway."
    subhead: "CoreDesktop installs a lot of useful software, mostly for work at Federated Computer, but you may find it useful too. Missing something? Suggest it, or send in a PR."
    tiles: ["neovim", "Firefox", "Element"]
    ctas:
      - label: "Suggest a title"
        url: "/contribute/"
        style: primary

  - type: table
    kicker: "Four sources"
    headline: "Where the software comes from."
    lede: "Each source has its own list in the repository, so you can see exactly what's installed."
    headers: ["Source", "What it installs", "Where it's listed"]
    rows:
      - ["pacman", "[Arch's own packages](https://archlinux.org/packages/): neovim, tmux, Go, Rust, Docker, Tailscale, Element, LibreOffice and more", "[packages.conf](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop/src/branch/main/packages.conf)"]
      - ["AUR", "Community packages, built and kept up to date with yay: Helium Browser, Winboat and more", "[packages.conf](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop/src/branch/main/packages.conf)"]
      - ["Flathub", "48 desktop apps in their own sandboxes", "[install-flatpaks.sh](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop/src/branch/main/install-flatpaks.sh)"]
      - ["mise", "Ruby and Rails", "[install-mise-ruby-rails.sh](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop/src/branch/main/install-mise-ruby-rails.sh)"]

  - type: cards
    kicker: "From Flathub"
    headline: "48 desktop apps, ready on first login."
    lede: "Want more? Visit [flathub.org](https://flathub.org)."
    columns: 3
    items:
      - label: "Browsers"
        title: "Every browser you test against"
        body: "Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Brave, Zen and Vivaldi, plus Helium from the AUR as the default. Pick another in Settings › Apps › Default Apps."
      - label: "Messaging"
        title: "Talk to anyone"
        body: "Signal, Telegram, Discord, Revolt and FluffyChat, Element from pacman, and Zoom for meetings."
      - label: "Email & notes"
        title: "Write it down"
        body: "Thunderbird and Evolution for email; Obsidian, Logseq and Xournal++ for notes; Apostrophe for Markdown writing."
      - label: "Media"
        title: "Make and play media"
        body: "Kdenlive for video editing, OBS for recording, Audacity for audio, Inkscape for vector graphics, Scribus for page layout, Spotify and Jellyfin."
      - label: "Developers"
        title: "Code and data"
        body: "VS Code and VSCodium (VS Code without the Microsoft telemetry), Postman, DBeaver and Beekeeper Studio."
      - label: "Local AI"
        title: "Models on your own machine"
        body: "Alpaca and LM Studio run language models locally, with nothing leaving your computer."
      - label: "Remote"
        title: "Reach other machines"
        body: "Remmina and RustDesk for remote desktops, LocalSend to send files to nearby devices, and Trayscale for Tailscale."
      - label: "Utilities"
        title: "The useful little things"
        body: "Boxes for virtual machines, Impression to write ISOs to USB sticks, Warehouse to manage Flatpaks, Extension Manager for [GNOME](https://www.gnome.org), and Helvum for audio routing."
      - label: "And more"
        title: "Downtime included"
        body: "qBittorrent, RetroArch and others. See [install-flatpaks.sh](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop/src/branch/main/install-flatpaks.sh) for the full list."

  - type: split
    kicker: "Development tools"
    headline: "A full toolchain, out of the box."
    lede: "Everything you need to build, run and ship, including three terminals: the GNOME console, kitty and ghostty."
    columns:
      - title: "Languages & runtimes"
        items:
          - "Go, Rust, Python, Node.js, npm and Bun"
          - "Ruby and Rails, through mise"
          - "Hugo and Dart Sass for websites"
          - "Docker, Docker Compose and lazydocker"
          - "pandoc and TeX Live for documents"
      - title: "In the terminal"
        items:
          - "neovim (with kickstart.nvim), vim and tmux (with tpm)"
          - "herdr, lazygit and difftastic"
          - "ripgrep, fd, fzf, bat, eza, zoxide and yazi"
          - "btop, htop, fastfetch and hyperfine"
          - "nmap, mtr, sniffnet and whois"

  - type: checklist
    kicker: "On the desktop"
    headline: "Also from pacman and the AUR."
    items:
      - "**LibreOffice** for documents, spreadsheets and slides"
      - "**Bitwarden** for passwords"
      - "**Element** for Matrix chat"
      - "**GIMP**, **Flameshot** and **ImageMagick** for images"
      - "**VLC** and **mpv** for video"
      - "**Winboat** to run Windows apps"
      - "**Cline Desktop**, in the AI sandbox"
      - "**GNOME Tweaks** and the extra GNOME apps"

  - type: final-cta
    headline: "Something missing?"
    body: "Tell us which titles or services you'd add, or send in a pull request."
    ctas:
      - label: "How to contribute"
        url: "/contribute/"
        style: primary
      - label: "packages.conf"
        url: "https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop/src/branch/main/packages.conf"
        style: ghost
---