Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Mar 17, 2026

• Trolley - run terminal apps anywhere - LinuxLinks

  Trolley lets you bundle any TUI executable together with a terminal emulator runtime, allowing you to distribute TUI applications to non-technical users.

  Trolley targets Linux and MacOS, with Windows compiling but untested.

  This is free and open source software.

• Djot - light markup syntax - LinuxLinks

  Djot is a light markup language. It takes inspiration from CommonMark but aims to provide a cleaner, more expressive syntax that is easier for both humans and parsers to work with.

  Djot is intended for plain text authoring and publishing, with support for rich structural elements while avoiding some of the ambiguity and parsing complexity associated with traditional Markdown implementations.

  This is free and open source software.

• charcoal - command line dictionary - LinuxLinks

  charcoal is a command lien dictionary that’s an alternative to wudao-dict.

  charcoal caches up your queries, both text and audio. While it’s nice for repetitive queries, it takes up some space.

  This is free and open source software.

• TRCC Linux - port of the Thermalright LCD Control Center - LinuxLinks

  TRCC Linux is a Linux application for controlling and customizing supported Thermalright LCD displays and LED segment displays found on CPU coolers, AIO pump heads, and fan hubs.

  It provides native Linux support for managing display content, themes, overlays, RGB lighting, and device settings through graphical and command-line interfaces, and is intended as a community-developed alternative to the vendor’s Windows-only software.

  This is free and open source software.

• Open RV - image and sequence viewer for VFX and animation artists - LinuxLinks

  OpenRV is an image and sequence viewer for visual effects and animation artists. It is designed for high-performance, hardware-accelerated media playback and review, while also being pipeline-friendly for studio environments. OpenRV is the open source version of RV, the Sci-Tech award-winning media review and playback software.

  This is free and open source software.

• Bino - 3D video player focused on stereoscopic video and virtual reality - LinuxLinks

  Bino is a 3D video player focused on stereoscopic video and virtual reality. It supports a wide range of 3D video formats, can play both 180° and 360° video with or without 3D, and works with different 3D display modes.

  Bino also supports immersive environments including SteamVR, CAVEs, powerwalls, and other multi-display, multi-GPU, and multi-host systems.

  This is free and open source software.

• PhaseFetch - calculate the current moon phase with artwork - LinuxLinks

  PhaseFetch is a lightweight Bash script that calculates the current moon phase and writes matching artwork to a file for use in terminal environments.

  It is designed to integrate with fetch utilities such as FastFetch, giving users a live moon phase display that can refresh automatically in the background, with support for both text-based and image-based output as well as custom artwork modes.

  This is free and open source software.

• m33mu - Cortex-M33 emulator - LinuxLinks

  m33mu is an emulator for ARMv8-M Cortex-M33 microcontrollers with TrustZone awareness. It is designed to emulate Cortex-M targets with support for secure and non-secure execution, debugging, interrupt handling, and memory-mapped peripherals.

  The project is aimed at firmware development, testing, and experimentation for modern Cortex-M33 systems, including supported targets from STMicroelectronics, NXP, Nordic Semiconductor, and Raspberry Pi.

  This is free and open source software.

• Aurora - modern, native GUI package manager for Arch Linux - LinuxLinks

  Aurora is a graphical package manager for Arch Linux designed to provide a modern interface for managing software from both the official repositories and the Arch User Repository (AUR). It offers a GTK4-based desktop application that integrates common Arch package management tools into a single interface.

  The application is designed as a Wayland-first GUI and focuses on providing a simple and visually modern experience for installing, updating, and removing packages. Aurora works alongside existing Arch tooling such as pacman and popular AUR helpers like yay or paru, allowing users to manage packages without relying solely on the command line.

  This is free and open source software.

• hypr-rdp - native Remote Desktop Protocol server for Hyprland - LinuxLinks

  hypr-rdp is a native Remote Desktop Protocol server for Hyprland that lets users connect to a running Hyprland desktop from standard RDP clients such as Windows Remote Desktop and FreeRDP.

  hypr-rdp is built on top of IronRDP for the RDP protocol/server layer, but it adds its own Hyprland/Wayland integration, capture, input, audio, clipboard, and runtime glue.

  This is free and open source software.

• Turso - in-process SQL database - LinuxLinks

  Turso is an in-process relational database engine designed to be compatible with SQLite. The project aims to evolve the SQLite architecture for modern applications by introducing a new implementation focused on performance, scalability, and distributed workloads.

  The database is intended to run anywhere including servers, embedded devices, browsers, and edge environments while maintaining compatibility with SQLite’s SQL dialect and APIs. Turso incorporates modern features such as asynchronous I/O and vector search capabilities, making it suitable for modern workloads including AI applications and distributed systems.

  This is free and open source software.