3 obscure but cool Linux apps to install this weekend (October 23-25)

Published Oct 22, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT Jordan is an open source software enthusiast and full-time Linux user. He explores the world of *nix, FOSS, and other technologies at How-To Geek. Jordan's technology experience goes all the way back. As a kid, he learned object scripting through the MS-DOS game engine ZZT, and he later taught himself the basics of Python programming. He's repaired his own smartphones, hosted home cloud servers, and revived old computers with open source operating systems. Prior to getting started at How-To Geek, Jordan published articles for MakeUseOf about Linux commands, free and open-source software, and online privacy. Beyond technology, he's also professionally written on agriculture business for Ozarks Farm & Neighbor, edited proposals for non-profits, and presented at a writer's conference on superheroes and culture. Jordan earned a bachelor of arts in English in 2016, and he's coached college students on writing effectively and utilizing education technology. He also wrote and edited product descriptions for an e-commerce store for four years. These days you'll find Jordan hosting movie streaming simulcasts with his friends over Discord, tinkering with NASes and single-board computers, or just trying to brew the perfect cup of tea. You can follow him on Mastodon. It's the weekend again, which means it's time to break out those Linux workstations and use them as computers were intended: solving problems and having fun. I've found a few more native Linux applications that range from practical to niche in usecase. These apps have a common thread of media consumption and management. I didn't intend it that way, but maybe it's just because I've been working on my movie watchlist lately. Regardless, I hope you find at least one Linux tool that's useful to you. Constrict: Wrangle Those Big Video Files We've all been there. You're trying to upload a video, be it in an email attachment or to a chat discussion, and the upload fails. The video's simply too darn big. You don't want to open it in a video editor and try to configure the rendering output, and all the knobs and dials that full-blown converter apps like VLC give you are too intimidating. In that case, just open Constrict. It's a lightweight video compression (as in, file size shrinking) tool that's also wildly simple to use. No need for memorizing FFmpeg flags here. Just select the video file (which can include GIFs) and tell Constrict what size you need the file to be. For example, if your email client restricts you to files of no more than 20MB, just set the target size to 20MB or below. There are sane defaults for the rest of the options Constrict gives you, but they are there for fine-tuning the output if the first run doesn't produce acceptable results. One feature I especially like is the "Extra Quality" toggle. Compression always takes time, but if you have extra time on your hands, you can tell Constrict to produce a higher quality video while still reaching your target file size. As far as I can tell, the only way to install the app is to look up Constrict on Flathub. You can pull it via the terminal with this command: flatpak install flathub io.github.wartybix.Constrict cranny: Play Hourly Music in the Terminal I was very excited to come across cranny this week. It's a terminal-based app for playing music, but only for one way of listening: looping individual songs that change on the hour. If that sounds like a strange thing to be excited about, then I'll clarify that I listen to a lot of ambient music on repeat. I also listen to different music depending on my mood and activity, so I almost felt like this project was made specifically for me. The cranny app is actually a spiritual successor to one of the developer's previous projects, Nook. It was a browser extension designed for playing hourly music from the game Animal Crossing specifically, but eventually it was converted to a desktop app for Linux. The developer abandoned the project after that, but they've returned with a terminal-based version. Unfortunately, cranny isn't available in any popular repositories. Instead, you need to download the code from the GitHub repository and build the app from source, while also making sure you have the right dependencies installed. Follow the official cranny installation instructions for the details. It'll also help to be familiar with creating symlinks since that's how you point cranny to your music. That said, cranny's developer did a good job explaining the process in the documentation linked above, so don't be too intimidated. Ticket Booth: Keep a Private Movie and TV Watchlist If you're like me, you like watching movies and TV shows but struggle to remember what you want to watch and what you've watched recently. The Ticket Booth app offers a simple graphical solution for that. It has just one goal, to let you keep track of your favorite series and movies. You can add every movie and series you plan to watch and then check them off as you watch them so you have a record of your viewing history. With TV shows, you can track individual seasons and episodes, and thanks to its TMDB integration, it's even able to send you notifications when new episodes are released. You also get note box for every item in your list so you can write down your thoughts as you watch. What I really like about Ticket Booth is that it offers a way to keep a watchlist with little or no internet connectivity. It helpfully fetches content metadata like posters, descriptions, and release dates from TMDB. Yet there's no account registration required, and you can toggle online connectivity off and use Ticket Booth completely offline if and when you want to do that. You can also export your data to back up and move your watch list and history as needed. I typically rely on Letterboxd's movie tracking abilities, but Ticket Booth gives me a more private experience. It does all of this in a clean and modern interface, too. You can install Ticket Booth from Flathub, either through your graphical software manager or using this command: flatpak install flathub me.iepure.Ticketbooth If you missed last week's roundup of Linux software, be sure to take a look. There were some real gems I don't think anyone should overlook.