What are the first things you install on a new computer?

When I do this it’s usually a Mac. Some of my essentials on that platform are 1Password, Firefox + uBlock Origin, Homebrew, iTerm, BetterTouchTool, BBEdit, Transmit, and Sequel Pro.

Any needed drivers, then Keepass and a pre-downloaded Nanite installer to get most software in. Then VirtualBox and copy over my dev VM from external backup, then some more things I'm forgetting, and then Steam/BNet/GOG/etc.

I haven't had to do this much but setting up basic security measures like encrypting the hard drive, making or importing password manager, downloading VPN launcher, as well as setting up DNS crypt and adblockers all take priority.

I already have my system with too much bloat, i need to reinstall, anyway, plasma/kde, firefox, hexchat+otr, steam, lutris, libreoffice and some other stuff i installed as i needed

For android, firefox, f-droid, newpipe, aurora store, orbot, slide (for reddit)

For my main machine under Debian: vim, wajig, redshift, dropbox, tilda, htop, showfoto, calibre, signal-desktop, chrome, kdenlive, slic3r, freecad, darktable then everything else as and when I remember I want to use it.

Under Windows I really can't remember. I know there's some assortment of stuff I need to make Traktor work right with my MIDI mixer but I boot Windows so rarely and reinstall it even less, I'd probably just install Chrome and google how to make Traktor work. Then install Traktor because that's the only reason I have windows at all any more.

On my phone: Strava, Mio GO, Kore (Kodi remote), Slide (reddit client), Podcast Addict, BBC iPlayer Radio, Neato, Instagram, Signal, Sell on Etsy.

Keepassxc, weechat-curses, tmux, and fish (don't judge me)

Homebrew, VS Code, DBeaver, Telegram.

Linux: Firefox (Developer Edition), Neovim with my config, i3wm, KeePassXC, Spotify, pavucontrol

Android: F-Droid, Firefox (Fennec on F-Droid), Firefox Focus (Klar on F-Droid), NewPipe, Relay for Reddit, Spotify, Neutron music player, Android Download manager (ADM), Amaze file explorer, andOTP (2FA), AntennaPod (podcasts), Fasthub (Github client, Fasthub-libre on F-Droid), K-9 Mail, KeePassDroid, Keyboard 69 (Nintype), Netflix, One Calculator, Padland (Etherpad client), Pocket, Riot.im, Rotation Control (much better control over rotation), Serial Reader, Silence (encrypted over plain SMS, no Internet required), Strafe (esports tracker, mainly CSGO), Snapseed (photo editor), Syncthing, Twidere (amazing open-source Twitter client), Twilight (blue light filter & screen dimmer), Twitch (still looking for a good replacement for the official app), VLC, Waze, Anyme (anime app that integrates really well with MAL and lets you watch in or download directly the app), AIMP (very lightweight music player), Genius, MuPDF, LingoDeer (learning Japanese), uMath+ (math notebook). Most of these are open-source and on F-Droid.

Firefox/Chrome, ublock origin, notepad++, 7zip, vlc, (open/libre)office

Here is my list of packages. That tree has some scripts that I use for installation (well actually I've just moved to Arch from Debian and those scripts haven't been tested and refined yet). The repo is almost the entirety of my configuration.

After running my post-installation setup scripts, the first thing I do is to compile Emacs and emacs pdf-tools. I run weekly builds of the Emacs master branch. Under the bin/ directory of the linked repo there's a script for building Emacs. That's the most important thing and kinda what all the setup serves.

Firefox, Inkscape, GIMP, Sublime Text, Filezilla, qBitorrent, Telegram, the LAMP stack.

Though Firefox comes installed on my goto OS (Ubuntu).

For Debian my essential packages include (in no particular order): dselect, aptitude, sudo, vim, renameutils, htop, slay, git, etckeeper, chase, rsync, ssh, molly-guard, fail2ban, shorewall, mtr-tiny, tor, privoxy, unbound, ntp, ntpdate, p7zip, backupninja, rdiff-backup, rdiff-backup-fs, sshfs, meld, rpl, secure-delete, usbguard, mpd, xfce, firefox (w/ addons: privacy badger, ublock origin, tranquility reader, shorten me, stylus), vlc, filezilla, libreoffice, gimp, keepassxc, gtk-redshift, qalculator, gpick, gcolor2, pandoc, retext.