Notes:
Administrivia: Special thanks to Brian Gaeke for help compiling this list. web browsing - mozilla for reasonable hardware - plugins for realplayer, flash, java, acrobat - interface using preferences-->applications to mplayer, etc. for other kinds of content - netscape6 is slightly faster version of mozilla, similar functionality, not updated very often with bugfixes or anything else - galeon, konqueror are popular alternatives - netscape4 is just not recommended unless your system is groaningly slow with mozilla - it crashes too much. session tools - screen - keeps your console programs running after you log out - ssh-agent - helps you not have to type things office tools - OpenOffice (free version of Sun's StarOffice) - microsoft converters - usually works for read-only - KOffice (KDE version) - Abiword - Gnumeric spreadsheet - Gnuplot (charting tools, commandline based) - mozilla Composer (web page authoring) - for the resolutely oldschool: emacs, xemacs, TeX - acroread, ghostscript (for reading, writing, & converting PDF and PS files) - xpdf - free pdf viewer, comes with pdftotext - xfig, tgif (vector drawing tools) - address books - gnome-pim - mozilla AddressBook programming tools - compilers (gcc, etc.) come with the system - KDevelop IDE for KDE - DDD, Insight (graphical debuggers) - emacs c++, "gud" (debugger) modes image tools - imagemagick (image display and conversion) - netpbm (image conversion) - xv, xli, or imagemagick's "display" to put up random backgrounds - gimp (image editing) - blender (3d rendering & modeling) instant messaging - gaim - AOL Instant Messenger - gnome-icu, licq - for ICQ - netscape6 for linux comes with AIM client - irc - xchat (gnome), epic (console), mozilla ChatZilla email - evolution - new GNOME mail reader from Ximian - mozilla MailNews - mutt - for xterm + console use - supports crypto - pine - procmail, spamassassin (for mail filtering) sound - picking which driver is right - oss vs alsa support - read the kernel documentation and documentation for your application - getting the volume levels right (gmix) audio - cdparanoia - for ripping CDs - lame - for encoding MP3s - cdrecord - for burning CDs - grip - interface to the above - xmms - playing MP3s - mpg123 - for command line - sox - for recording + playing arbitrary audio on your sound card - festival - speech synthesis video - mplayer - playing movies - linuxvideo.org - DVD tools - broadcast2000 - video editing (can be tricky to find; sacrifice chicken to google) - quicktime under wine window managers - simple - blackbox, twm - saves memory, faster, simpler to configure because there are fewer knobs - complex - gnome, kde - lots of fancy new apps depend on gnome and kde - run them under simple WMs too, but YMMV. - offers stuff like application bar, menu on desktop, file manager games - id software: quake, doom, quake2, quake3 Arena - various commercial + free addons + patches to the above generally work - wolfenstein - myth2 - the sims (transgaming, bundled with mandrake, uses WineX) - tuxracer - console games: nethack, etc. windows stuff - wine - for using windows apps, eg old versions of Winword, etc. - kind of medium to low reliability - for best results, use with O.G. Win95 or Win98 DLLs on a separate mounted DOS partition (some ppl even can run I.E. with this) - samba - for sharing your files with windows over the network - vmware - for running windows (or linux) inside of linux (pay $$$) - dosemu - for running dos inside of linux (free) c.2002, Devin Jones, 4/24/2002 - jones@csua.berkeley.edu |