Category: PC
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The 2026 Software List: 110 Applications I Actually Run
Four years ago I published a list of twenty. Nine of them are still here — and the other ninety-odd arrived to keep them company.
In September 2022 I wrote 20 Must Have Software Applications for Every PC. Dashlane, Chrome, Microsoft Office, Kaspersky, PuTTY, TeamViewer. It was a list of things you install on a laptop or desktop.
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Eight Months on CachyOS
It has broken my audio, refused to speak to my Bluetooth chip, and eaten thirteen seconds of my life every time I opened a settings window. It’s still my favourite operating system.
I run CachyOS on two machines, and they could hardly be less alike. gilgalad is a current all-AMD desktop that does photo work, gaming, and local AI. feanor is a second-hand ThinkPad X13 I found on a shelf in Japan for ¥45,800, whose CPU shipped in 2020. It’s my travel machine, and it’s also the one that carries my backups out of the house.
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Building Gilgalad Was Never the Plan
I have a regular cadence for building PCs. My first PC was bought in 1994. The next one was in 1999. A laptop in 2004. Then desktops in 2009, 2014, 2019 and 2024. A 5 year gap between PC builds, with frequent GPU upgrades along the way to keep up with hardware requirements. But sometimes, extreme situations and extenuating circumstances can change even the best laid plans. I wasn’t looking to build a new PC for another 3 years, because my existing Windows box already scored better than 87% of all results on 3DMark Time Spy:
This is the story of how and why I built Gilgalad in December 2025, right as DDR5 prices started climbing out of control. A 32GB kit of Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR5 6000 CL36 I’d bought for S$120 in 2024 was going for S$500 by the time it went in the machine, if it had gone in clean. Which it didn’t. Murphy’s law strikes again!