A Complete Guide to Xubuntu Default Apps and Their Purposes
This is a full list of all Xubuntu default applications (or list of Xubuntu components) with their explanations for first time users. Xubuntu is the official variant of Ubuntu with Xfce as the technology of the desktop environment and default apps. We use Xubuntu 22.04 LTS “Jammy Jellyfish” as a basis to write it so you can learn and adapt it easily. Now let’s explore!
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Atril is the PDF reader program. It is able to view a wide range of document formats including pdfs, ebooks and comic books. Historically, Atril is a derivative of GNOME Evince (the Ubuntu reader) that comes from MATE Desktop.
It is a dictionary program. Its official name is Xfce4 Dictionary and it is used as an online dictionary search, with additional features such as online searching and speed reader. Enter a word “learning” for example and it will return “To gain knowledge or information of.” from the internet.
Its official name is GNOME Disk Utility and it is used as the disk management of Xubuntu to do all tasks related to hard disk drives and other storages such as SSD NVMe and usb flash drives. It is able to do all partitioning jobs such as formatting, deleting, resizing, renaming, relabeling as well as maintenance such as automounting, disk benchmark and bad sector checking. It is also used as the disk management on Ubuntu GNOME.
Thunar is the file manager. Xubuntu user relies on Thunar for all tasks related to files, folders and disk storages. It is small and fast and not slow to show a folder with tens of thousands photos. It works together with Catfish program to do file search.
Firefox is the web browser. It is the de facto browser of the free/libre open source software family of the official Ubuntu Flavors. It is actively developed, its privacy and security are continuously maintained, as well as extensible with tens of thousands add-ons with long history no other browser can hold a candle with.
Gigolo is the disk/filesystem mounter program. It works for internal disks as well as external disks on the local network.
Hexchat (replacing formerly Pidgin) is an internet group chat program. With Hexchat, Xubuntu users can contact Xubuntu developers directly in form of text chat.
Calc is a spreadsheet program (alternative to Excel) part of LibreOffice. It is capable to open, save, edit, create spreadsheet documents in a wide range of formats including Excel 2003, 2007-365 and others.
Impress is a presentation program (alternative to PowerPoint) part of LibreOffice. It is capable to open, save, edit and create presentation (also known as keynote) documents in a wide range of formats including PowerPoint 2003, 2007-365 as well as OpenDocument Presentation, its own official format.
Writer is a word processor program (alternative to Word) part of LibreOffice. It is capable to open, save, edit and create text documents (like books and mails) in a wide range of formats including Word 2003, 2007-365 as well as OpenDocument Text, its own official format.
A calculator program. It is able to do four modes Simple, Financial, Scientific and Programming. Its purpose is clear enough to help user calculate daily tasks such as simple math, transactions, as well as complex things such as converting decimals to binaries etc.
Parole is the video player. It is able to play both audio as well as video recordings in many formats including mp3 and mp4. It is small and fast.
Shortened Pavucontrol, it is the system sound volume controller. It is capable to control four channels at once Playback, Recording, Output Devices and Input Devices enhanced with audio profiles.
Ristretto is the image viewer. It is small and fast to open any photos and pictures. It is even able to view vector graphics SVG (Inkscape). It does not include editing features such as crop nor resize.
Simple Scan (from GNOME) is the scanner utility program. Its purpose is to help user connect, detect, and scan paper documents using scanner devices.
GNOME Software is the place to install applications and games. In Software, Xubuntu user can search, find, install, remove applications and games and even update the whole system. Technically, it is a browser to both Ubuntu repositories the traditional debs as well as the modern snaps.
Task Manager is the real-time system resource viewer. Its purpose is to show CPU and RAM and Disk loads continuously in form of numbers and graphs.
Terminal Emulator is the place to type command lines and control the whole system. Xubuntu user can run Terminal both from start menu as well as right-click context-menu in Thunar.
Transmission is the bittorrent client / download manager program. Xubuntu user can use it to get large size files such as ISO images as well as movies or games freely available on the net. Xubuntu itself is made available as torrent and every release can be downloaded by using Transmission.
Xfburn is a CD/DVD disc writer program. Xubuntu user who has a CD/DVD writer device in his/her computer can use Xfburn to write data to CD or DVD, make backups, make video or audio CDs
Xfce is a set of both desktop environment and applications that builds Xubuntu. All visible visuals on the desktop from login to logout are Xfce. The name Xubuntu itself comes from Xfce + Ubuntu. Among Xfce applications are Thunar and Xfburn.