Free and Open Source Software, howtos and Installations

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Feb 07, 2026

• Libro - terminal based book tracking tool - LinuxLinks

  Libro is a terminal-based tool to track your reading history, with your data stored locally in a SQLite database. It has an interactive TUI and a CLI.

  Libro separates books and reviews to give you flexibility in how you track your reading:

  Books: Store information about the book itself (title, author, pages, genre, publication year). Reviews: Track your personal reading experience (date read, rating, review text).

• marchat - terminal chat - LinuxLinks

  It’s built for developers who prefer the command line.

  marchat started as a fun weekend project for father-son coding sessions and has evolved into a lightweight, self-hosted terminal chat application designed specifically for developers who love the command line.

  This is free and open source software.

• Fastchess - manage chess games with engines - LinuxLinks

  Fastchess is a command-line tool designed to manage and orchestrate chess games between engines. It provides a range of options to configure game settings, engine parameters, concurrency, and output formats.

  With Fastchess, you can orchestrate chess tournaments, configure time controls, and execute matches concurrently for optimal time efficiency. Extensively tested for high concurrency (with up to 250 threads) and short time controls (0.2+0.002s), it exhibits minimal timeout issues, with only 10 matches out of 20,000 experiencing timeouts.

  This is free and open source software.

• Basalt - TUI program to manage Obsidian notes - LinuxLinks

  Basalt is a TUI (Terminal User Interface) application to manage Obsidian vaults and notes from the terminal. Basalt is cross-platform and can be installed and run in the major operating systems on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

  Basalt is not a complete or comprehensive replacement for Obsidian, but instead a minimalist approach for note management in terminal with a readable markdown rendering and WYSIWYG experience.

  This is free and open source software.

• Frogmouth - Markdown browser for the terminal - LinuxLinks

  Frogmouth is a Markdown viewer / browser for your terminal, built with Textual.

  Frogmouth can open *.md files locally or via a URL. There is a familiar browser-like navigation stack, history, bookmarks, and table of contents.

  This is free and open source software.

• riff - wrapper around diff - LinuxLinks

  Riff is a wrapper around diff that highlights which parts of lines have changed.

  Unchanged parts of changed lines are shown in yellow. File names and hunk headers are hyperlinked to the relevant source code lines where possible.

  This is free and open source software.

• Linux Candy: sigye - terminal clock - LinuxLinks

  There’s a diverse range of programs included in this series. Programs such as eDEX-UI and Variety are actually highly practical programs. ASCIIQuarium has soothing and relaxing qualities for your desktop. Other programs included in this series (such as lolcat, cacafire) are included purely for their decorative qualities. And then there’s some really fun software that just raises a smile or two.

  sigye is a terminal clock with ASCII art fonts. The name “sigye” (시계) means “clock” in Korean. It also offers Pomodoro functionality and lots of customization. This is free and open source software.

• Goose - database migration tool - LinuxLinks

  Goose is a database migration tool. It’s both a CLI and a library.

  Manage your database schema by creating incremental SQL changes or Go functions.

  This is free and open source software.

• Mastui - Mastodon client for the terminal - LinuxLinks

  Mastui is a modern Mastodon client for your terminal. Built with Python and the powerful Textual framework, it provides a highly efficient, multi-column layout that lets you keep an eye on all the action at once.

  Whether you’re a power user who wants to manage multiple accounts or someone who just loves the terminal, Mastui is designed to be your new favorite way to interact with Mastodon.

  This is free and open source software.

• grabIT - screenshot and screen recorder script - LinuxLinks

  grabIT is billed as a versatile screenshot, screen recording, and file uploader with OCR support for multiple services including Zipline, Nest, and others.

  It’s just a shell script that uses programs like spectacle.

  This is free and open source software.