Stop Microsoft
Miscellaneous => Applications => Topic started by: H_TeXMeX_H on 1 August 2006, 06:25
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I've found it rather hard to find really good, useful, and stable applications ... well, not as much hard as time consuming. This might be a bad idea, but why not list some really good apps you've encountered, no particular category, just applications that you find to be exceptional or getting there. (They should at least be free if not open-source and capable of running on Linux and/or BSD)
Before I list mine, I'd like to say that I started out using the tools given to me ... GNOME as a wm, gedit to edit text, gnome-terminal as a terminal, nautilus as a file manager ... etc. But at one point it hit me that these are definitely not the most stable, useful, and usable applications. So I decided to change them ... and it took a lot of time (like a week or two), but I've found very good replacements for all that shit :) Of course there is variation as to what apps some people think are good or bad, but as long as the apps are stable, usable, and useful it's all good. Let's say list 5 or 6 apps, it might get out of hand if you list all the apps you use.
I try to focus on getting small, lightweight, and fast apps, but they should still look nice.
Paco (http://paco.sourceforge.net/downloads.html) 1.10.8 (the newer version 1.10.10 is somewhat unstable :()(I know Pirate Penguin mentioned this one some time ago) - invaluable for installing things from source, it keeps track of stuff you install from source and let's you uninstall it quickly and easily.
Terminal Emulator / XFCE Terminal (http://freshmeat.net/projects/xfceterminal/) - yup it comes standard with XFCE but I prefer fluxbox, it's lightweight, tabbed, much better than xterm, and it's cool :)
ROX Edit (http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/node/20) - ROX bundled text editor capable of syntax highlighting, spellcheck, unlimited undo/redo, show changes, and supports UTF-8
ROX / ROX Filer (http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/ROX-Filer) - A really nice file manager, and I listed ROX as well, cuz they have other useful apps bundled in. Really you could get more lightweight than this with mc (midnight commander) or others like it, but by far it is the lightest file manager that still has folder themes and thumbnails (useful if you have a lot of vids and trouble identifying them) :)
Fluxbox (http://www.fluxbox.org/) - It's not really an app, but it's small enough to count as one. A great window manager, I think.
P.S. I got really bored today, that's why I posted this :D
Oh, and I found all of these on freshmeat (http://freshmeat.net/) a relatively long time ago... a great place to find apps if ya didn't know.
EDIT: Replaced minimum profit with ROX Edit
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every now and again somebody starts a thread like this, and i always think the thread should be made into an obvious static page on the site somewhere for people to find all the best non microsoftie applications, especially newbies. it never happens though.
anyway, mine are all the usuals i suppose. i do like rxvt for a terminal, what else could i not live without? hmm, grip, is the best cd ripper i have found, and it can use blade or gogo easily, as well as lame (by the way gogo is worth a mention for being far superior to lame, it is essentially a "port" of lame, written in asm, it encodes for me at about 5 or 6 times playing speed) - while we're on that subject, there's a small collection of useful scripts for audio conversion at wma2mp3.501megs.com which void main helped me write, i only mention it because they are the best software for doing audio conversions easily that i have found, reason being that i couldn't find any so i made my own! does that qualify?
other best programs i use are totally unstunning, openoffice.org, xmms, firefox, gftp, audacity (now that it's fairly stable, and you can get a whack of plugins for it from ccrma), gtk-gnutella, vim, gedit (which is great, syntax highlighting and tabs, but as easy to use as "notepad" type programs)... nothing surprising. i have tried a lot of the alternatives to these, but things like beonex, zinf, epiphany and so on always have something wrong with them, limited filetype support, instability, bloated, inability to configure them properly, a lot of programs simply aren't designed properly.
anyway, i'll stop moaning now.
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Some software I recommend:
transcode: CL tool used to re-encode video/audio from one format to another. Best used in conjunction with...
dvdauthor: a CL set of tools to produce your own dvd menus
bluefish: a graphical syntax highlighting editor specifically designed for web development, it also does tag completion and site management
firestarter: gui interface to iptables, makes firewall configuration a breeze
mplayer, gimp, xmms, gaim: they may be common, but they're good
Of course there are some programs I don't like very much. Lately, ggv has been giving me a lot of problems. And the number of free hi-power vector programs is still lacking (no thanks to me!). So there's still a lot of work to be done.
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gedit (which is great, syntax highlighting and tabs, but as easy to use as "notepad" type programs)
gedit is great, except for one thing: it leaves those nasty ~temp files around :( then I have to clean em up, it's a hassle.
For svg I was gonna list Inkscape, it's helped me edit pdfs and postscript really nicely ... the output can be made very professional. But, I've only used it for a couple days, and if you add too many objects it starts to get laggy and use lots of CPU time.
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which apps I use depends on the distro...some just work better with the setup of the distro
with xubuntu I'm using scite or vi as an editor. xfmedia for music/video.
on vector linux i use kate, xine, amarok
on dsl I use nedit, xmms
on windows notepad2, MediaPlayerClassic and foobar2000. Windows seems to have the best apps :/
don't like using gedit because gnome is so damn slow so I don't have it installed.
gnumetric is very nice as is abiword.
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gedit is great, except for one thing: it leaves those nasty ~temp files around :( then I have to clean em up, it's a hassle.
Check the preferences. I'm pretty sure you can turn that off.
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Some software I recommend:
transcode: CL tool used to re-encode video/audio from one format to another. Best used in conjunction with...
dvdauthor: a CL set of tools to produce your own dvd menus
bluefish: a graphical syntax highlighting editor specifically designed for web development, it also does tag completion and site management
firestarter: gui interface to iptables, makes firewall configuration a breeze
mplayer, gimp, xmms, gaim: they may be common, but they're good
Of course there are some programs I don't like very much. Lately, ggv has been giving me a lot of problems. And the number of free hi-power vector programs is still lacking (no thanks to me!). So there's still a lot of work to be done.
You just listed every type of software you would ever need. I used Bluefish until i got a Mac :macos:. Now I use Textedit. But all good software.
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gnumetric is very nice as is abiword.
I agree on Abiword, but I regret to say that my experience with Gnumeric has been, at best, dismal. It's a beautiful program, and it does everything a spreadsheet ought to do and more (the best designed since Quattro4, in my opinion). But it crashes like a motherfucker. Can't work three minutes without it tanking. And I wasn't able to upgrade thanks to dependency conflicts. Last time I checked, Gnumeric had a long way to go before it gets to sit on a "best free apps" list.
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GAIM (http://gaim.sf.net), the instant messenger client.
amarok (http://amarok.kde.org/), best music application I've ever used.
k3b (http://www.k3b.org/), best cd/dvd burning application I've ever used.
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k3b (http://www.k3b.org/), best cd/dvd burning application I've ever used.
You use a cd/dvd burning application? Why?
:confused:
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You use a cd/dvd burning application? Why?
:confused:
Some people use those for burning vacation films on DVD instead of burning a ripped movie ;)
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Maybe I'm a bittorrent user, and maybe I'm not! ;)
I've never used any kind of graphical application to burn dvds or cds. For cds (and data dvds, when I make those), you just drag the files into a folder, and click the burn button (I guess Nautilus is my cd burning 'application' of choice). But for video home device compliant dvds, I use growisofs.
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Well, I burn the odd audio CD which currently isn't possible in nautilus afaik.
Even for data CDs/DVDs, I've had some crappy experiences with nautilus so I just use k3b which has never failed me. Plus it has more advanced options, including the verification check I only use for backups.
For burning ISOs I downloaded, I often just use cdrecord from the command line, since I'd be just after wgeting the ISO anyhow (usually).
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what transcoders do you use to make it dvd player compatible?
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Me? I follow this tutorial right here (http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=117709). Use transcode to get the file into separate audio and video files, usually in mp2 and ac3 formats. Then you slap em back together again. Make yourself some menus using the gimp and throw those together. dvdauthor, using an XML config file, turns the movie and menus into video object files (VOBs) that constitute the dvd filesystem, which you can then burn to disc.
transcode:
http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode (http://www.transcoding.org/cgi-bin/transcode)
dvdauthor:
http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/ (http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net/)
the dvd filesystem:
http://www.dvdburning.biz/dvd-file-system-specifications.htm (http://www.dvdburning.biz/dvd-file-system-specifications.htm)
ffmpeg:
http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/ (http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/)
mjpeg tools:
http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/ (http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/)
(note that if you want to use this tutorial, you might have to install a lot of stuff from source. Back when I first tried it a couple years ago, the transcode packages at Freshrpms were linked to an older version of libpng, which broke the damn thing. Proceed with caution)
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It's actually pretty easy to do ... here's a few other informative articles that helped me burn a VCD:
http://smorgasbord.net/convert_video_linux (http://smorgasbord.net/convert_video_linux)
http://georgetoft.com/linux/QAF/createvcd/index.shtml (http://georgetoft.com/linux/QAF/createvcd/index.shtml)
Many useful commands (vob2avi is the one I'm targeting)
http://www.tgunkel.de/it/software/doc/cmds_linux_unix.en
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nautilus is definitely a cd burning GUI by the way, one i was really pissed off with too till i finally found out how to deactivate it popping up the whole time i put in a blank cd!
i use xcdroast as i said, because it has all the options i need in one place, and it does its job reliably and predictably.
i really wanted to mention SIAG office by the way, it has a word processor, spreadsheet and some other stuff, is GPL and appears to be a lot less bloated than other office quites. http://siag.nu/
the only reason i didn't mention it till now is i haven't used it much so i don't know how good it is. it's a ridiculous 1.5MB download though, that has to be worth something!
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i really wanted to mention SIAG office by the way, it has a word processor, spreadsheet and some other stuff, is GPL and appears to be a lot less bloated than other office quites. http://siag.nu/ (http://siag.nu/)
the only reason i didn't mention it till now is i haven't used it much so i don't know how good it is. it's a ridiculous 1.5MB download though, that has to be worth something!
Oh yeah, SIAG, almost forgot about that. They have it on DSL ... it actually works pretty well and it's a really small download.
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Kate (http://www.kate-editor.org/kate), a kick-ass graphical text editor. Code folding, saved sessions, embedded terminal, split viewports, it rocks. And I'm liking the idea of having the tabs vertical rather than horizontal in a text editor. Another kick-ass KDE app..
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Most of the bundled and available ROX apps are very good:
http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/software (http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/software)
It's nice that you can easily edit and configure them (since they are python-based) and add new features by installing python modules.
Instead of minimum profit I've moved to ROX Edit (http://rox.sourceforge.net/desktop/node/20) ... it's capable of both syntax highlighting and spellcheck and undo and redo and view changes.
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bash FTW.
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GAIM (http://gaim.sf.net), the instant messenger client.
amarok (http://amarok.kde.org/), best music application I've ever used.
k3b (http://www.k3b.org/), best cd/dvd burning application I've ever used.
Kate (http://www.kate-editor.org/kate), a kick-ass graphical text editor. Code folding, saved sessions, embedded terminal, split viewports, it rocks. And I'm liking the idea of having the tabs vertical rather than horizontal in a text editor. Another kick-ass KDE app..
Ok, now I'm using Kopete, in GNOME, it's a fucking brill IM client, Pidgin (ex-GAIM) has nothing on it. Additionally Pidgin owns GAIM big time.
Sine now essentially 100% of the apps I consider best-ever (on any platform, and free or non-free) are KDE apps, I'm installing KDE (kubuntu-desktop) and checking it out. Probably won't be arsed to setup my panel and all again, though, and will stick with GNOME. It's great how the different DE apps work great outside their own DE. Freedesktop ftmfw.
Oh actually, the GNOME document reader evince is very, very good too.
Azureus, is an awesome BitTorrnet client, too.
edit: oh, and I simply MUST sing more praise for Amarok. I been using it to listen to some internet radio, and fucking sweet it is. Discovering so much cool music! This is what I love about so many of these KDE apps, they seem so focused on making things I'd usually never look at so simple - just sticking them in my face (yet, you can stay away if you wish), so that I use them, and fucking love them. I've also been using Amarok to manage my mother's ipod shuffle - and it's the bomb, the best. I must get on my brothers mac book pro sometime and see if iTunes can touch Amarok these days.
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piratePenguin, i agree w/ you for the most part but Azureus eats memory for breakfast ... ;[
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piratePenguin, i agree w/ you for the most part but Azureus eats memory for breakfast ... ;[
I'm glad my workstation has 1GB memory, I'm probably gonna get more sometime. It swaps ^^
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yeah ?
I managed to bog down Windows XP to using 90~95 mbs of memory and that's the total "os footprint"...
;]
I bet linux is even better at "_not_ wasting memory". I think I should look more into that os for my second HDD...
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Ok, now I'm using Kopete, in GNOME, it's a fucking brill IM client, Pidgin (ex-GAIM) has nothing on it. Additionally Pidgin owns GAIM big time.
Sine now essentially 100% of the apps I consider best-ever (on any platform, and free or non-free) are KDE apps, I'm installing KDE (kubuntu-desktop) and checking it out. Probably won't be arsed to setup my panel and all again, though, and will stick with GNOME. It's great how the different DE apps work great outside their own DE. Freedesktop ftmfw.
Oh actually, the GNOME document reader evince is very, very good too.
Azureus, is an awesome BitTorrnet client, too.
edit: oh, and I simply MUST sing more praise for Amarok. I been using it to listen to some internet radio, and fucking sweet it is. Discovering so much cool music! This is what I love about so many of these KDE apps, they seem so focused on making things I'd usually never look at so simple - just sticking them in my face (yet, you can stay away if you wish), so that I use them, and fucking love them. I've also been using Amarok to manage my mother's ipod shuffle - and it's the bomb, the best. I must get on my brothers mac book pro sometime and see if iTunes can touch Amarok these days.
Azureus started hogging the memory on me (only because, I think, I'm using GNU's java), so I started using KTorrent (http://ktorrent.org/) and I think it's just MUCH better! ANOTHER fucking class KDE app. Tis shameful that I still use GNOME :D