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Wednesday January 17, 2007

I Want a Linux/Unix Freeware Utility To ... - Update 17th Jan 2007

Thanks again to all the new commenters to the last update. I've hopefully incorporated all the suggestions in the new version.

I've made the following changes:

Adjusted the document title so it's obvious that this refers to Linux/Unix and not to Windows.
Added a maintainer line, a version number and a "last updated" date to the document, so you can determine if you have the latest version.
Added in a "thanks" section for all the people who have helpfully commented.
Simplified the Categories list "removed the redundant "Freeware Utilities" parts.
Removed a couple of duplicate entries in the list. The original Windows list had this, but it's really not needed.
Expanded the key. There are now little graphics icons for GNOME, KDE, command line and "other" applications and a catchall "unknown" icon for the ones I haven't fixed up yet.
Added in a "Todo" section.

Lots of changes in the main body of the document. Lots of cutting and pasting. I could easily have made some mistakes. Please let me know if I have.

For the next iteration (in about a weeks time), I'm looking for help with the following:

For all the entries which currently have a graphical icon showing them to be in the "unknown" state, I'd like to adjust them to indicate whether they are GNOME, KDE, CLI, X or "other" applications. If you are familiar with these applications, please comment and save me some time looking them all up. In some cases, their home pages don't make it obvious what they are.
Are there better links for each application then the ones that I am currently using? For the ones that are missing hyperlinks - what's the best link to use?

The next version of the document will probably also add in some of the other entries (the ones that make sense for a Linux/Unix platform) from the original Windows list that were not really of interest to me.

This list has now got much bigger than just me.

[Technorati Tag: Freeware]

[Technorati Tag: Unix]

[Technorati Tag: Linux]

( Jan 17 2007, 07:29:41 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [19]

Comments:

Rich, I can't help but feel that most entries are obsolete: Most of the tasks you present can be solved with pre-installed tools found on most linux distributions. There is no need to install a new "freeware utility" for every thing you'd like to do, as you would have to on windows. This is also one of the few advantages an average software consumer will perceive after installing linux for the first time: Everything is built-in, and there's no need to search the internet for your favourite tools! We should make this advantage *very* clear when marketing free software. That is why I suggest to mark every task that can be accomplished with functions normally found on a common linux distribution in a special way. Maybe a green background colour for the table cells would do the trick? Maybe even an icon saying "it's built-in!"? Cheers, Fred

Posted by Frederic on January 17, 2007 at 08:04 AM PST #

K3b is a KDE application. It is alos part of the KDE extragear package.
For Office-Tasks where you added OpenOffice you can add KOffice as well - for example converting or database stuff. Actually, the KOffice database tool can even handle Access databases.
Fonts can be listed in KDE via fonts:/ in Konqueror
Changing background images automatically is part of the normal KDE wallpaper dialog
The normal way to launch apps in KDE is Alt+F2 as well - katapult is just an additional app with more features.
kate is an editor for programming code as well, and has a huge set of syntax highlighting possibilities as well as session management
OOo's ooimpress can export presentations as a flash thing
Kivio, part of Koffice, can create flowcharts and diagrams
in part "manage galleries of photographs:" digikam should be a KDE app, not a GNOME app!
KDE's kate editor has also XML markup
kmail/kontact can also handle encrypted e-mails with various encryption standards
fish:// from konqueror can also be used to log onto a ssh machine!
knetstats can monitor bandwith usage, knemo as well

And so on... I think it would be better to make one list for KDE, and one list for GNOME. And there you should probably only list the top application - one entry is enough. :)

Posted by liquidat on January 17, 2007 at 08:16 AM PST #

Hi Fred,

Then perhaps the title should be changed to something like "How do I do ... under Linux/Unix?" and the first entry in each category should be the common built-in command (with some icon or color background to indicate that)

I started putting this together because coming from Solaris, not all of the commands or functionality are automatically available. As I now use Ubuntu a lot, I was trying to find out how to do a specific task. I think others would find this information useful too.

As for "obsolete". If there are built-in commands for all this functionality, why are people giving me so many alternate choices? Sorry, it's a rhetorical question. It's because they've found alternatives that they like better over the built-in command, or there was no built-in command.

It's clear that for some of the categories, there aren't built-in commands available. Or if there are, they aren't obvious to everyone. That's why we've still got some red balls in the tables.

Posted by Rich Burridge on January 17, 2007 at 08:23 AM PST #

A few corrections: 1) GIMP is X11, not just Gnome. 2) jEdit should also be listed as a text editor - amongst many other things.

For the missing applications: 1) to manage/resume downloads, why not just use Firefox's built-in download manager? 2) to optimize TCP/IP settings you'll need to read and analyze your own environment; no automated tools can do this well that I am aware of. Perhaps some browser-based tools at DSLreports.com can help?

Although your effort is appreciated Rich, as you can see, this list can get out of hand quickly. It would be nice to have a site where users could directly contribute, vote, and suggest items - of course, oversight would have to be tightly controlled. This type of "live" site it the only way I could thing such a list to remain relevant by being updated and kept current...let it be FREE!

Posted by Wes W. on January 17, 2007 at 09:22 AM PST #

You shouldn't imho recommend Nomachine NX or mention it. The reason is that the development of FreeNX has ceased and there is no really free server. What you should recommend instead is this http://www.2x.com/ thing that is a fork of Nomachine NX but they are more open source friendly.

Posted by dorn on January 17, 2007 at 09:36 AM PST #

Okay. Thanks dorn. Fixed in the next version.

Posted by Rich Burridge on January 17, 2007 at 09:42 AM PST #

K8)a - KGet (KDE) This is the visible face of the FTP component of Konqueror (the invisible face is a click+drag panel-2-panel downloading capability); b - SDM is the "Sun Download Manager" which is java-based and platform agnostic.

Posted by Robert Sugg on January 17, 2007 at 10:44 AM PST #

Hey Rich, I noticed that You are using an old version of GNOME logo...

Posted by Priit Laes on January 17, 2007 at 10:56 AM PST #

Hi rich. nice effort. here are my suggestions: ## (B-11) tag/fix mp3/audio file tags: xmms its an x11 application AFAIK.(www.xmms.org) ## (J-3) see 3d space simulation: stellarium since its a 3D application, its pretty independent of GNOME or KDE.(www.stellarium.org)

Posted by Sarath MS on January 17, 2007 at 10:57 AM PST #

Hi Priit. I'd be happy to change it. Please just point me at a 16x16 new GNOME icon, and I'll substitute.

Posted by Rich Burridge on January 17, 2007 at 11:04 AM PST #

manage/resume file downloads gwget http://www.gnome.org/projects/gwget/screenshots.html Downloader for X http://www.krasu.ru/soft/chuchelo/ (site seems to be low on info currently)

Posted by sam tygier on January 17, 2007 at 02:06 PM PST #

Good work Rich! If I had the motivation, I'd point out a couple more things, but for now I'll just note that Drupal, Joomla! and Plone are not KDE applications. In fact, they are not even desktop agnostic, because they run on a web server and produce plain HTML, so they don't have to do anything with desktops at all (but are important to list anyways).

Posted by Jakob Petsovits on January 18, 2007 at 03:59 AM PST #

The KDE and GNOME favicons are now fixed up. Thanks to Jiri for pointing me at a couple of sites where I could find images of the new logos I could use in conjunction with the favicon generator site.

Posted by Rich Burridge on January 18, 2007 at 08:07 AM PST #

Awesome list, Rich!!!

I want a Linux/Unix utility to image/clone systems so that I can easily restore them (a la Norton Ghost). And, come to think of it, being able to OCR a document would be nice.

Given the incredible feedback and contributions you've received, mind adding blanks for such utilities in your next revision? Hopefully the community will then chime in with some options. :-)

Posted by Joanie on January 18, 2007 at 01:38 PM PST #

Hi Joanie. That seems reasonable. If others have any additions, just let me know.

Posted by Rich Burridge on January 18, 2007 at 01:46 PM PST #

Well, this isn't a Windows program to replace on Linux, but when I switch from Mac OS X to Ubuntu, I really miss an easy-to-use, visually attractive presentation program like Apple Keynote. The most distinctive feature of Keynote is that it helps you create a good presentation by using awesome visuals, and by only allowing a small piece of text on each slide. And of course it has magnificient themes. I think we could do this as well, might be a good addition to Gnome Office. We have the artists (Jimmac, Tigert, Garret) to pull off the themes. Eye-candy visuals and animations could be done by Cairo (probably OpenGL-accelerated).

Posted by Jo Vermeulen on January 18, 2007 at 11:33 PM PST #

Jo, have you tried the Open Office Presentation application? I'll admit it's not Keynote, but it might be a good start for you.

Posted by Rich Burridge on January 19, 2007 at 07:40 AM PST #

Hello Rich, Yes I do use OpenOffice.org Impress. Unfortunately it reminds me a lot of Powerpoint :-) I know a presentation program isn't a application we are lacking on GNU/Linux, but it would be cool to have a small, eye-candy presentation program à la Apple's Keynote besides the monolithic OO.o Impress. Of course, this smaller program would save it's presentation in the OpenDocument format as well...

Posted by Jo Vermeulen on January 19, 2007 at 01:08 PM PST #

There is a program to split up mp3 files for GTK called mp3splt-gtk http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/home.php

Posted by Jason on January 25, 2007 at 01:02 AM PST #