Object 2

New cool list of Linux must-have programs

It's been approximately two years since I've written the first article, A (cool) list of Linux tools. The
article proved quite popular with my audience, as it allowed Linux users, new converts in particular, a
quick taste of some of the more useful programs available for Linux platforms, across a range of
categories.

Since, a lot has changed. Two years is a long time. I have decided to write a new article, from scratch,
cataloging an up-to-date collection of must-have programs. To make it even more interesting and
useful, I decided to add screenshots wherever I can and link to tutorials explaining the use of these
programs.
So, not only will you have a nice list compiled, you will also have a preview of what they look like and
detailed instructions how to configure them!
Like the last time, the programs will be sorted by categories. The list won't be too short, but it won't be
too long, either. It will contain just enough great stuff to get you started, without being scarce or
overwhelming. Considering the fact that almost anything in Linux can be done in fifteen different
ways, it is very easy to get lost in the ocean of choices. I will try to maintain a right balance between
quality and quantity.
Furthermore, it is important to add that I am using or have at least thoroughly tested all and any
application listed here. There will be no random entries.

Games
I will not be listing games here. They belong in a separate category, although I will make a few
references to several useful game-related articles I've written. If you're interested in learning more
about Linux games, I recommend you check the entire section dedicated to this goal, with some 30+
titles reviewed in detail.

Users' recommendations
Likewise, there's a users' recommendation sub-section, so you can send me your suggestions and ideas.
In general, the programs must be production-grade, no alphas or betas, easy to install and use, and
supported by main distributions. I can't promise to include your choices here, but if I do, you'll be
credited with your contribution.
So, if you're ready, plunge in and enjoy!
Table of Contents:

1. Backup software
1. File backup software
2. Imaging software
2. Browsers
3. Console (Terminal) utilities
4. Emulators
5. Encryption
6. Forensic tools
7. FTP clients
8. HTML editing
9. Image manipulation
1. Digital cameras
2. Image suite
3. Viewers
4. Web cameras
5. Instant Messaging & Video conferencing
10.Live CDs (best choices)
1. Other useful distributions
11.Mail clients
12.Multimedia
1. CD/DVD burning
2. Conversion tools - Audio
3. Conversion tools - DVD & Video
4. Conversion tools - all categories
5. Desktop recording & presentation software
6. Players - Audio
7. Players - Video
8. Players - all categories
9. Subtitles
13.Office applications
1. LaTeX-based text processors
2. Office programs & suites
14.Partitioning software
15.Peer-to-Peer sharing
16.Rescue & Recovery
17.Security
1. Firewalls
2. Network scanners
3. Rootkit tools
4. Traffic sniffers
18.Virtualization
19.Users' recommendation
20.Conclusion
Backup software
File backup software
Unison
Unison is a simple, lightweight backup program. It is GUI-driven, which makes it well suitable for new
Linux users. It is capable of backing up files and folders to local and remote locations (via SSH) and
can run scheduled. To learn more, you may want to read my backup tutorial.

TimeVault
TimeVault is a snapshot software, which, when activated will create copies of all files and folders that
change, retained a detailed archive of all revisions. It is very useful for keeping track of frequent
changes to important files. It also guarantees easy recovery of lost data. I have reviewed TimeVault
some time ago.
Imaging software
CloneZilla
CloneZilla is a fast, light imaging software that runs from a CD. It is well suited for desktop use, as
well as massive deployment in server environment. The program can backup and restore high-quality,
high-compression images on a variety of disk, partition and filesystem types, including NTFS.

Mondo & Mindi

Mondo is a text-driven system backup & restore utility. It is reliable and works well with a range of
filesystems. Mondo is the module responsible for creating backup archives. Mindi is the module that
packages archives into bootable .isos, so they can be burned and used on any machine. Please refer to
this tutorial for more details.

PartImage
PartImage is another powerful imaging software. It comes bundled with a large number of system
rescue, recovery and backup distributions, like SystemRescueCD.
Both CloneZilla and PartImage are featured in my Free imaging software tutorial.
Remastersys
Remastersys is very handy application that allows you to clone and backup your Linux distribution,
including root, home, other partitions, and all personal, custom configuration to a fully deployable,
bootable live CD. Remastersys works for several distributions, including Ubuntu and its derivatives,
like Linux Mint and Klikit Linux. You may want to check a detailed usage tutorial.

remaster-on-the-fly
remaster-on-the-fly is a Remastersys-like utility, included with PCLinuxOS 2009. It has the same
function like Remastersys.
Browsers
Firefox
Firefox is my favorite browser, on all operating systems. It's robust, fast, safe, and most importantly,
extensible. With thousands of add-ons available, the basic Firefox functionality can be significantly
enhanced.
In fact, addons are what makes Firefox unbeatable when it comes to customization, flexibility and
security. Some of the addons I would like to recommend are Noscript, Adblock Plus, Scrapbook, Sage,
DownloadHelper, FEBE, CLEO, Zotero, and the very unique Ubiquity.
I have recently reviewed Firefox 3.1, including the many improvements and performance gains it
brings. You can also find articles on how to configure Flash in Firefox on Linux platforms, how to
install addons, how to backup the profile and extensions, SSL security, as well as some less known
stuff like how to open .mht files in Firefox.
IEs4Linux
This is an excellent utility that enables you to run Internet Explorer on Linux, using WINE for
emulation; it offers Internet Explorers 5 through 7, including Flash, making invalid the excuse of not
switching to Linux because your favorite site only loads in Internet Explorer.
I have written an extensive tutorial on IEs4Linux.

Opera
Opera is another solid browser. It is light, fast and includes built-in mail and a torrent client.

Console (Terminal) utilities

Guake
Guake is a semi-transparent drop-down console that you can use instead of your standard shell
programs by having it always ready at the tip of your fingers. Guake allows you to work faster and with
more fun.
Terminator
Terminator is a console (terminal) utility that allows you to freely manage the layout of several
windows inside a single frame, thus maintaining an unobstructed view of all workspaces.

Yakuake
Yakuake is a project very similar to Guake, except that is intended for KDE desktops. You can read a
review/tutorial on both these, if you're interested.
Emulators
DOSBox
DOSBox is an x86 PC emulator, complete with graphics, sound, mouse, and modem, allowing you to
run old DOS-based games that are no longer supported by modern operating systems. It also supports
IPX and Serial multiplayer modes.
You can read more about DOS games that I have tested in DOSBox in these two articles:
Games resurrected using DOSBox - Part 1
Games resurrected using DOSBox - Part 2
Furthermore, you may want to check this extensive Linux games review, for details not only about old
games, but also many exciting modern titles. QEMU
QEMU is a multi-purpose processor emulator, with many additional features. For example, you can use
it to create virtual machines or virtual hard disks and convert them.
WINE
WINE is not an emulator, according to the official information. It is a translation layer or a program
loader, capable of running Windows applications on Linux and other UNIX-based systems.
Nevertheless, I included it here, for the sake of simplicity.
A large number of popular programs, like Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and a slew of games are
supported, although success and experience may vary. WINE is also used to run IEs4Linux (see above).
An alternative to this approach is virtualization.
Encryption
TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt is a powerful, cross-platform real-time on-the-fly encryption software. It can be used to
create encrypted volumes (file containers), encrypt entire partitions or drives, and even encrypt the
entire operating systems (Windows only). TrueCrypt supports standard and hidden volumes and can
run from portable devices.
Forensic tools
BackTrack
BackTrack is one of the more popular distributions in the white hat circles. It is specially suited for
penetration testing, with more than 300 tools available for the task. Like both Helix and Protech,
BackTrack is based on Ubuntu. This means good stability and hardware detection and a whole lot of
software that can be easily obtained. I have reviewed BackTrack, if you're interested.
Helix
Helix is a dedicated rescue, recovery and incidence handling distribution, with both pure Linux live CD
and in-vivo Windows modes. Helix can be used for system diagnostics, profiling, auditing, security
checks, data collection, malware analysis, and a range of other Infosec tasks.
For more about Helix, please check the extensive tutorial I've written.

FTP clients
FileZilla
FileZilla is a fast, popular, cross-platform FTP client, although there's also a server module, albeit only
for Windows. The program supports FTP, SFTP and FTPS.
HTML editing
Bluefish
Bluefish is a powerful, multi-language editor, intended for use mainly by programmers and web
developers. It supports many programming and markup languages and focuses on dynamic and
interactive websites. Some of the many features included are unlimited undo/redo, automatic tag
closing for HTML and XML documents, syntax highlighting, and numerous external plugins.

KompoZer (formerly Nvu)

KompoZer is a simple, lightweight WYSIWYG HTML editor, a continuation of the Nvu project.
KompoZer solves a number of bugs that existed in the previous incarnation and introduces new
features. It is very easy to use, even by people who have little knowledge of web languages.
For more details, please check my Web development made easy with Bluefish and KompoZer article.
Image manipulation
Digital cameras
gtkam
gtkam is a simple utility that supports numerous devices. In most cases, you should just plug your
camera and start using it.

Image suite
GIMP
GIMP is a powerful, comprehensive image manipulation program. It offers an extremely wide range of
tools for graphic editing of images, although it does require extensive knowledge to be fully utilized.
Viewers
F-Spot
F-Spot is a photo management program for Gnome desktops; the program supports numerous file types
and allows easy editing and tagging of photos, simplifying cataloging of large batches of images.

GwenView
GwenView is a fast, east-to-use image viewer for KDE desktops, with quick-edit features that make it
ideal for lightweight manipulation of images, compared to the more serious GIMP. GwenView also
allows you to tag your images, rate them or present them in a slideshow.
Web cameras
Cheese Webcam Booth
Cheese is a very simple, powerful web camera utility that should work well and out of the box with
most camera devices, including built-in gadgets in laptops. It takes very little effort to setup and
configure, it can capture stills and add custom graphics to pictures.
This lovely applications comes bundled with several popular Linux distributions, including Fedora and
PCLinuxOS 2009; you can see a demonstration of its use in live CD session in both these tutorials. For
a general article on web camera support in Linux, you might be interested in this article; written
approx. six months ago.

Instant Messaging & Video conferencing

Ekiga (formerly GnomeMeeting)
Ekiga is a Voice over IP (VoIP), IP Telephony, and Video Conferencing application that allows you to
make audio and video calls to remote users with SIP or H.323 compatible hardware and software. It
supports many audio and video codecs and all modern VoIP features for both SIP and H.323. It also
integrates nicely with web camera devices.
Kopete
Kopete is an Instant Messaging program for KDE; Kopete supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber,
IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more, as well as message encryption and
archiving. Kopete also works with web cameras.
Pidgin (formerly GAIM)
Pidgin is a multi-protocol client and will allow you to connect to several networks, without using
several (often) bloated and unneeded IM programs. GAIM supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, IRC,
Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Silc, GroupWise, SameTime, and Zephyr networks.

Skype
Skype is a VoIP, video conferencing and instant messaging software that uses a proprietary format for
communication. In return, it offers encryption and good quality of service.
Live CDs (best choices)
This section is somewhat unusual. First, almost every single Linux distro comes as a bootable live CD.
Second, narrowing down the huge list of good possibilities to just a small number of extremely great
candidates is difficult. However, I have compiled a short presentation of the five smartest choices for
new and intermediate users. These distros are all widely popular, stable, simple and friendly to use,
easy to install and run, and offer a good mix of programs, security, updates, and support for their
audience.
While this list contains only five entries, you're welcome to check my Software collection for dozens of
distribution reviews and tutorials.
The tutorials, including the five distros mentioned below, all cover a broad range of topics in detail,
including Wireless, Bluetooth, Compiz, NTFS support, digital and web cameras, multimedia codecs,
installation, applications, software management and updates, and much more. You are most encouraged
to read them.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is the de-facto Linux distribution. It is the most popular distribution these last four years and
for a good reason. It has massive support and recognition, the forums are rich and lively, the
repositories are fast, and the distro itself is stable, secure and very easy to use.
openSUSE
openSUSE is a mature distribution, supported by Novell. The main highlights of the distro is the range
of new and innovative technologies included, centralized management using a powerful control center,
support for enterprise solutions, good security, and a very large selection of applications.

Linux Mint
This distribution is based on Ubuntu, with additional support for multimedia codecs and third-party
software, which makes it instantly usable out-of-the-box and very appealing for Windows converts.
PCLinuxOS
PCLinuxOS is a smaller distribution, which nevertheless delivers an almost perfect experience out of
the box. The distribution comes with a huge collection of programs and utilities, with a focus on
multimedia and audio-video processing.

Knoppix
Knoppix is a pure live CD distribution, however you should definitely consider using it, even if you do
not intend to install it. This is because Knoppix offers phenomenal hardware detection and good
stability, making it perfect for testing Linux.
As an appetizer, I've created a Compiz wall below, demonstrating 3D effects on each of these
distributions:

Other useful distributions

Some other worthy candidates you may want to consider are Mandriva, Wolvix, SimplyMEPIS, Puppy,
and Dreamlinux. The fact they are not listed here does not make them bad; it's simply that with the
level of development and forum support that they offer and their general usability mode, they are less
suitable than the other candidates.

Mail clients
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is a cross-platform mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Thunderbird can manage multiple accounts, including email, newsgroups and RSS feeds, and supports
encryption. Like Firefox, its basic looks, functionality and security can be extended through the use of
add-ons.
Multimedia
CD/DVD burning
Brasero
Brasero is a simple, lightweight CD/DVD burner software for Gnome desktops. It supports all types of
media and can create data, audio or video discs, as well as burn images. It can also access files across
the network and integrates with the Nautilus file manager, allowing users to drag 'n' drop files into their
projects.

K3B
K3B is a CD burning utility for KDE, with lots of excellent features, including support for multiple El
Torito boot images, audio CD burning, VCD, SVCD, mixed-mode CDs, eMovix CDs, CD copy and
CD/DVD ripping, DVD burning, DivX/XviD encoding, blanking of CDR-Ws, writing of ISOs, and a
whole lot more.
Conversion tools - Audio
Audacity
Audacity is a powerful cross-platform sound editor, allowing you to edit and record audio files. It also
has a number of plugins available, including LAME mp3 encoder.
You can read about Audacity in detail in my Working with multimedia files - Audio tutorial.

SoundConverter
This simple utility allows you to convert various audio formats, including MP3, MPC, Ogg, FLAC,
WMA, and others. It also supports batch conversion, allowing you to recurse through entire directories
of music files.
Two similar applications are audioKonverter (mainly for KDE) and audio-convert script, which are
covered in this tutorial: Converting music file formats in Linux.
Conversion tools - DVD & Video
DeVeDe
DeVeDe is a program that can create video DVDs and CDs (VCD, sVCD or CVD), suitable for home
players, from any number of video files, in any of the formats supported by MPlayer. You can read
more about DeVeDe in yonder tutorial.

Handbrake
Handbrake is an open-source, cross-platform DVD to MPEG-4 converter. Again, you may want to take
a look at my tutorial explaining basic Handbrake usage.

Conversion tools - all categories

ffmpeg
ffmpeg is a Jack o' all Trades conversion utility, available on Linux and other operating systems,
capable of converting just about anything to anything. It is a command line utility. You can read more
about it in my Working with Multimedia - Flash tutorial.
Among many things that ffmpeg can do is: change bitrate, extract audio from Flash files, convert audio,
video and flash formats, record streams, extract streams, and so much more.

Desktop recording & presentation software

recordMyDesktop
recordMyDesktop is a simple, friendly movie recording software, which allows you to easily create
high-quality, impressive animations of your desktop. You may want to refer to my detailed tutorial,
which also contains a demonstration video.
XVidCap
XVidCap is another interesting, useful desktop recording software. I have used it to create my Compiz
demonstration movies when I reviewed Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. Xvidcap is very similar to
recordMyDesktop. You can also read more about how to use the program in my video tutorial.

Wink
Wink is a tutorial and presentation creation software. It allows you to capture screenshots of the actions
you take on the desktop, wrap them into an animation and export them as beautiful, classy Flash, PDF
or even executable packages. Again, take a look at the detailed tutorial, which also contains a Flash
animation demo.

Players - Audio
Amarok
Amarok is an excellent media player. Although it is mainly intended for KDE desktop, it will work well
on other platforms. Some people argue whether the Amarok 2.0 is indeed better than the older Amarok
1.4, so you should check for yourself before deciding. I've listed Amarok as one the recommended
applications in my Audio tutorial.
Rhythmbox
This is another great Linux music player. It works with a range of media formats and will naturally
"plug in" to Web radio stations. For example, you can stream music from Last.fm directly into
Rhythmbox.
Players - Video
MPlayer
MPlayer is a highly versatile media player for Linux, with a very good support of audio and video
formats. It will play most MPEG/VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4,
RealMedia, Matroska, NUT, NuppelVideo, FLI, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, and PVA files, supported
by many native, XAnim, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX
3/4/5, and even WMV movies.

Players - all categories

Miro
Formerly known as Democracy Player (which featured in the last collection), Miro is a good-
looking Internet TV platform; the player incorporates video RSS feeds, automatic downloads of videos,
BitTorrent, and other exciting features.
I've recently tested Miro and found it to be a very useful application.
Totem
Totem will also play a large assortment of audio and video formats. It can also stream podcasts,
including Youtube. Totem is practical, elegant and with lots of great functions, including screenshot
capture, slideshow and more.

VideoLAN (VLC)
VLC is an amazing open-source, cross-platform player, supporting a staggering collection of supported
media formats, including Audio, Video and Flash. It should be one of your top choices whenever it
comes to playing any sort of media. It is also a region-free DVD player.
Subtitles
Subtitle Editor
This handy application allows you to add subtitles to movies. It comes included with the latest
Slackware-based Wolvix 2 distribution. We will review Subtitle Editor, and several other subtitle
editing tools in a dedicated tutorial soon.
Office applications
LaTeX-based text processors
Kile
Kile is a KDE frontend for the almighty LaTeX text processing language. The application look good
and has many useful features. Using LaTeX allows you to create stylish, professional-looking
documents in half the time it will take you by conventional means of office utilities. More about Kile
here.

LyX
Alongside Kile, LyX is another tremendous powerful LaTeX GUI. It allows you to create impressive
documents in HTML, PS or PDF format rendered with unbeatably beautiful Computer Modern fonts.
LyX is also available for Windows and is a little less difficult to use, in my opinion. I have reviewed
LyX not that long ago.

Office programs & suites

AbiWord
This little word processor is much more powerful than it seems. It is lightweight, fast and has lots of
rich features. AbiWord supports numerous file formats, including DOC, DOCX, ODT, and RTF. It is
also extensible with plugins. Best of all, AbiWord comes with the ultra-sexy Computer Modern fonts
included by default!
You may be interested in a review: AbiWord - the underestimated word processor.

OpenOffice
OpenOffice is a powerful office suite, with word, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, database, and
other applications. It runs on Linux, but you can also use it on Windows as a replacing for Microsoft
Office. Like Firefox, OpenOffice has extensions, which further enhance its capabilities. I have recently
reviewed the latest OpenOffice 3.

Partitioning software
GParted
GParted is a partitioning software that can be run from live CD or inside installed systems. It can be
used to create, resize, move, delete, reformat, or check partitions, including NTFS filesystem. GParted
is robust, reliable and safe.
I have written a thorough, detailed tutorial about GParted. You're welcome to read it.

Peer-to-Peer sharing
aMule
aMule is the Linux version of eMule, a highly popular and successful P2P sharing application. While it
may not be as fast as most BitTorrent clients, you're more likely to find less popular, older content than
anywhere else. Using aMule takes patience, but it is rewarding. aMule uses ED2k servers and the KAD
network.

Vuze
Vuze is the successor to Azureus (a candidate in our last list). It's a BitTorrent client, which allows
users to access shared content using a pleasant, interactive interface. In a way, it's similar to Miro. If
you're interested, you may want to read this article.

Rescue & Recovery

Super Grub Disk
Super Grub Disk is intended to run from a floppy disk or CD and is used for system rescue. Most
importantly, it can be used to restore boot loaders, including GRUB, LILO and even Windows boot
loader.

SystemRescueCD
This is a live CD specifically geared toward rescue and recovery. The tools package includes some of
the most important tools available for Linux user, like GParted, PartImage, Grub, Lilo, sfdisk,
TestDisk, and more.

TestDisk
Another extremely important tool is TestDisk. This tool allows to recover lost partitions, make not-
bootable disks boot again and restore delete files. It is one of the more effective and powerful utilities
on the market. When everything else fails, TestDisk won't. TestDisk is included with the
SystemRescueCD.

Security
Firewalls
gufw
gufw is a simple and friendly GUI frontend for the powerful iptables kernel module on Ubuntu distro.
It allows an easy management of the inbound and outbound rules using wizard-like graphical menus
and is extremely suitable for new or less knowledgeable users.
For more details, please take a look at a short tutorial on gufw.

Network scanners
nmap
nmap is probably the most popular network scanner in the whole world. It was even used with
surprising accuracy by Trinity in Matrix against a Windows 2000 in a successful attempt to discover
vulnerable services and gain entry. nmap is a command-line utility, but it can be used with a GUI; there
are several versions available, including zenmap and others.
Rootkit tools
chkrootkit
chkrootkit is a shell script that can check the system binaries for signs of rootkit modification. It is a
useful tool in an environment that requires lax firewall rules and multiple installations from
externalsources.

rkhunter
Like chkrootkit, rkhunter can be used to check system files for unwanted changes. The two tools
complement each other nicely.
Traffic sniffers
(formerly Ethereal)
Wireshark is a powerful pWiresharkacket collection and analysis suite, capable of capturing network
data on all levels of the TCP/IP stack. It can collect data from Ethernet, IEEE 802.11, PPP, and
loopback, supports hundreds of protocols, has rich traffic analysis filters, and can be enhanced with
plugins.
Virtualization
Kiwi
Kiwi is a system imaging software for openSUSE. It is a tremendously versatile program that allows
you to create custom-build images of openSUSE or other Linux distributions and convert them to
virtual machine images, live CD/DVDs, bootable USB images, PXE thin install, OEM preload images,
Amazon machines, and even migrate existing physical installations. Kiwi uses the extremely simply
Image Creator and Product Creator wizards to manage image building, making it a breeze for just about
anyone to roll professional custom distributions in a matter of hours.
Kiwi is a component of the complex, vastly powerful Build Service, which also covers the SUSE
Studio. The Kiwi tutorial covers Image Creator; we'll learn about the Product Creator and the Studio in
a separate article.
VirtualBox
VirtualBox is a versatile, cross-platform virtualization software that allows you to run multiple guest
operating systems on top of your existing desktop. VirtualBox is a must for software enthusiasts, testers
and researchers, or people who want to try new operating systems without altering their existing setups.
One of the possible uses is to run Windows software that has no alternatives on Linux.
VirtualBox also supports limited 3D acceleration for Windows and recently Linux guests. It also has a
Seamless mode, which allows integration on virtual machines onto your desktop. VirtualBox can also
run from USB drives, in portable mode and can even be installed in MojoPac. The last two flavors are
for Windows, though.
VirtualBox comes in two flavors - OSE and PUEL. PUEL is a closed-source version, with USB
support. OSE version has less features, but it comes included in most repositories.
VMware Player
VMware Player is a simple, adequate virtualization solution for desktop use. It is less powerful than
either VirtualBox or VMware Server (see below), but it allows home users to test new operating
systems or new software for their existing platforms in guest machines, without altering their base
setup. It also comes included in numerous repositories, so it is quite easy to install and maintain. You
can check a review here.
VMware Server
VMware Server is another powerful desktop virtualization software. Alongside VirtualBox, it makes a
great combo for exploring and testing new stuff. VMware Server has many useful features, including
the ability to connect to remote machines, a mighty network stack, and offers 3D support for DirectX
on Windows guests, complementing OpenGL on VirtualBox.
VMware Server also contains the VMware Player, so you are better off trying the Server in the first
place. The Server can also create new virtual machines and supports VMware Tools, which enhance the
guest performance significantly.
Users' recommendation
All software listed here has been recommended by fellow forum members, friends and readers via
email. While I sincerely believe that these programs are benign and easy to use, I cannot fully
guarantee your satisfaction. Nor can I be held reliable for these third-party suggestions, although, I
repeat once again, I think they are perfectly safe and quite useful.
Before you send me any suggestions, I must emphasize several things: all emails must be in plain text,
no attachments whatsoever, with text links to author's or vendor's website. The suggested software must
be free for personal use, production quality, easy to install and use, preferably with .rpm or .deb
installers and GUI frontend, open source is a bonus although not a must. Furthermore, you need to tell
me why you think the specific product deserves special attention. That's it. Fire away.
Here are the names of users who contributed to this list, they deserve a big thanks:
chronomatic, Ocky, clansman77, Christos, Vadim, Phil, and rbo2 (so far ...).
Here's the list of user recommended software:
KOffice: KOffice is a fully fledged office suite for the KDE, although you can run it on other desktops,
and even on Mac and Windows. You have the usual assortment of programs available, including word
processor, spreadsheet and presentation modules, plus some extras like flowchart, vector drawing,
paint, report and chart generators, formula, database, and project management. We will have a review
soon.
digiKam: digiKam is an advanced photo management program. It allows you to view, manage,
enhance, edit, and tag your images, and also has an interface to connect to digital cameras. We will
have a detailed tutorial soon, focusing on digital camera software.
K9Copy: This is a simple, friendly utility for DVD manupulation. It can rip or burn DVDs, create
images, slectively copy audio and subtitle tracks, and preserve original menus.
Kdenlive: Kdenlive is a free open-source video editor for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD, which supports
DV and HDV editing, with experimental support for AVCHD.
WinFF: This utility is a frontend for the highly popular and versatile ffmpeg command-line multimedia
convertion utility, which we have seen earlier. WinFF allows less knowledgeable users to comfortably
lease the full power of ffmpeg.
Transmission: Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client.
luckyBackup: This program is frontend for the rsync utility. luckyBackup is intended to be fast and
reliable and easy to use. It is also fast, as it performs differential backups. luckyBackup features a
simulation mode for testing your backup procedure before running it for real, profiles, scheduling, and
more.
Shutter: This is a powerful, versatile screenshot program. Shutter allows you to take screenshots of a
specific area, window, whole screen, or even entire web pages. It can also print and delete screenshots
and auto-generate thumbnails.
Picasa: Picasa is a friendly, easy to use image management utility. It allows you to manage and edit
digital photos, by sorting them into albums, tagging them and performing basic manipulations, like
resizing, rotation, cropping, and a range of other visual effects.
I will periodically update the user-recommended list, so hop by once in a while if you're interested.
Conclusion
That's it. A beautiful, thorough list of essential, must-have programs for Linux. Like I promised, the list
is neither too short, nor too long; it has just a few programs in each category, to keep your appetite
whetted.
I know I have missed a few programs (deliberately, maybe?), including 3D graphics software like
Blender or educational software like Marble and Stellarium, but this is where you step in with your
suggestions!
It has taken me almost a week of my time to carefully prepare and write this article. I would truly
appreciate a word of feedback, comments, suggestions, and typo and link fixes. And if you do find this
list useful, spread the word.