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Wednesday February 07, 2007

I Want A Linux/Unix Utility To ... - Update 7th February 2007

Another quick update. Busy, busy, busy! Thanks to everybody who helped out this time.

The following changes have been made to the list since the last blog post:

Integrated in suggestions via comments to the 1st Feb 2007 blog post.
Added an entry to the Todo: list to:
"Add an indication when any of these applications aren't open source."
Added a new category (I20), suggestion by Sebastian Pölsterl: "draw vector graphics" - Inkscape - http://www.inkscape.org/
Added a new category (M30), suggestion from Aidan Delaney:
"backup my data"
"There's cron, Amanda, backula, but is there a nice (simple) graphical Gnome tool?"
From Joanmarie Diggs:
Added tooltips for the key items.
Moved the Key section near the table.

Most of the red balls are gone. Here's the categories that are still looking for a suggestion or two:

A4 - stop/cleanup homepage hijacking
B13 - cut wav files into small parts
C11 - duplicate a block of text with some programmed variables
E13 - automatically take screenshots at regular intervals
E14 - change my cursor shape/size
E15 - manage icons
E16 - manage wallpapers
G21 - add a comment field for file/folders
G23 - display all shared folders
G27 - print the directory/folder tree list (and optionally, file list)
H2 - budget and track expenses
H3 - calculate retirement cash flow
I18 - extract icon files from applicatio/library files
I19 - find any duplicate photographs in a folder
M20 - audit all hardware and software installed
M21 - automatically adjust cpu loads
M22 - display all startup programs that run on my computer
M23 - display and automatically optimize memory usage
M24 - display motherboard system information
M25 - display which programs are accessing the gconf database
M27 - stress test the system
M29 - act as frontend for Firewall (ip_tables)
N8 - write a business plan
N9 - write a daily diary

There are still a lot of applications in "unknown" status. If you know that they are, GNOME, KDE, command line, X11 or "other", please comment.

Alsolooking for pointers on which of these applications aren't open source. In other words, they just make their application freely available.

Thanks!

[Technorati Tag: Freeware]

[Technorati Tag: Unix]

[Technorati Tag: Linux]

( Feb 07 2007, 09:12:04 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [11]

Comments:

In regards to M30, Conduit looks to be a good tool for Backup/Synching data and files. Their Status and Roadmap pages appear to be fairly extensive.

Posted by Patrick on February 07, 2007 at 10:32 AM PST #

Rich,
a couple suggestions for your list.
For B13, cutting WAVs, I'd suggest Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).
Firestarter (http://www.fs-security.com/) may cover M29 - but I've not used it for a long time. Maybe some other readers can provide an opinion?
Nick

Posted by Nick O'Leary on February 07, 2007 at 10:41 AM PST #

For M30 - Backup my data - there is a gnome application that's in Ubuntu's repositories called "Simple Backup Suite". It is simple -- but it's gui and works pretty well. "apt-get install sbackup" to install it. homepage: http://sbackup.sourceforge.net/HomePage B13 - Cut wave files - Audacity will work, but so will avidemux. E16 - Manage wallpaper - wp_tray (search my blog for a ubuntu package, I talk about it in _Ubuntu Hacks_ too - but it's no longer supported) or Desktop Drapes (http://drapes.mindtouchsoftware.com/) will fit the bill. M21 - Manage CPU loads? Does this mean you want to use CPU throttling? The kernel's got different performance governors and there's a gnome applet to switch between them... also mentioned in _Ubuntu Hacks_ (another plug!) M24 - Display motherboard information - use dmidecode. This program will tell you more info about a system than you care to know. I use it to find out what the motherboard model is and which RAM slots are populated, usually. :) M27 - Stress test - there's a program called, appropriately enough, "stress". Also in Ubuntu's repositories. M28 - Frontend for iptables - I use firestarter and it does what you ask of it. It's great :) Hope this helps populate your list, Rich. - Bill

Posted by Bill Childers on February 07, 2007 at 11:29 AM PST #

Aw, bummer, my last comment was marked as spam. :(

Posted by Bill Childers on February 07, 2007 at 11:30 AM PST #

No problem Bill. I've just approved it. Thank! (and to everybody else who has or will respond).

Posted by Rich Burridge on February 07, 2007 at 11:35 AM PST #

For N7 take a look at Notecase (http://notecase.sourceforge.net)

Posted by Miro on February 08, 2007 at 12:29 AM PST #

B1: Nautilus is a Gnome app
B2: Nautilus is a Gnome app
B3: Banshee is a Gnome app
B4: Totem is a Gnome app
B6: Totem is a Gnome app
B10: Banshee is a Gnome app, not KDE
D1: Xchat and Gaim are GTK apps
D2: Gaim is a GTK app
D3: Evolution is a gnome app
D3: Thunderbird is an "other" app
D5: Skype is a (very bad) QT app
D7: Ekiga is a gnome app
G5: tkdiff is an "other" app
G9: FSlint is a GTK app
G12: Beagle is a Gnome app

Posted by Pádraig Brady on February 08, 2007 at 03:05 AM PST #

For M2: Brasero (http://live.gnome.org/Brasero) is a Gnome app.

Posted by Colin Marquardt on February 08, 2007 at 07:03 AM PST #

A1: Rootkit Hunter (http://www.rootkit.nl/projects/rootkit_hunter.html)
A2: F-PROT (http://www.f-prot.com/)
B1: gcombust (GTK+, http://www.abo.fi/~jmunsin/gcombust/)
B2: gcombust (GTK+, http://www.abo.fi/~jmunsin/gcombust/)
B4: play *.mp3 (SOX, http://sox.sourceforge.net)
B4: xmms *.mp3 (http://www.xmms.org/)
B4: xine *.mp3 (http://www.xinehq.de/)
B5: xmms (http://www.xmms.org/)
B5: xine (http://www.xinehq.de/)
B5: grip (http://nostatic.org/grip)
B6: play (SOX, http://sox.sourceforge.net)
B6: xmms (http://www.xmms.org/)
B6: xine (http://www.xinehq.de/)
B8: MiMMS (http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/mimms/)
C1: xwd | convert - myimage2.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xwd and convert from ImageMagick http://www.imagemagick.org/)
C3: a2ps -o - in.txt | ps2pdf - out.pdf (a2ps, http://www.gnu.org/software/a2ps/, ps2pdf, http://www.ps2pdf.com/)
C8: fc-list (fontconfig, http://www.fontconfig.org/)
C12: Tesseract OCR (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/tesseract-ocr)
D1: BitchX (http://www.bitchx.org/)
E13: cron + xwd?
E14: gnome-mouse-properties
G4: touch -d "Feb 7 2007 12:00:00" file
G5: vimdiff/gvimdiff
G12: find / -iname \*filename\*
G15: grep -r PATTERN [FILE]
G16: perl -pi -w -e 's/search/replace/g;' *.txt
G17: vsftp (http://vsftpd.beasts.org/)
G20: less FILES
G20: more FILES
G20: cat FILES
G20: vim FILES
G23: cat /etc/exports (nfs mounts?)
I17: gqview (http://gqview.sourceforge.net/)
I20: skencil (http://www.skencil.org/)
I20: gimp (http://www.gimp.org/)
J6: Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/)
K3: Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks...; File > Export...
K15: iftop (http://www.ex-parrot.com/pdw/iftop/)
M2: growisofs (combined mkisofs frontend/DVD recording program, http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/)
M2: gcombust (GTK+, http://www.abo.fi/~jmunsin/gcombust/)
M2: mkisofs (http://freshmeat.net/projects/mkisofs/)
M6: defrag (which will defragment your ext2 filesystem, http://e2fsprogs.sourceforge.net/ext2.html)
M14: lsof
M19: kill/killall
M19: top
M20: lspci [-v]
M20: dmidecode (http://www.nongnu.org/dmidecode/)
M20: hwinfo (http://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/suse/src/)
M24: dmideode (http://www.nongnu.org/dmidecode/)
M24: hwinfo (http://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/SL-OSS-factory/inst-source/suse/src/)
M27: memtest86+ (for memory, http://www.memtest.org/)
M30: tar
Q1: dvdbackup (http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/)
Q3: dvdbackup (http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/)
Q4: dvdrip (http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/)
Q4: dvdbackup (http://dvd-create.sourceforge.net/)
Q5: dvdrip (http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/)
Q10: avisplit/avimerge (http://www.transcoding.org/)
Q11: gtkpod (transfer to ipod, http://gtkpod.sourceforge.net/)
Q11: ffmpeg (convert, http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/)
Q11: transcode (convert, http://www.transcoding.org/)

Posted by Thomas Garner on February 10, 2007 at 06:08 PM PST #

what exactly did you want your retirement income program to do? you had made mention that you wanted it to "calculate retirement cash flow" but do you have any more details than that?

Posted by aaron on February 13, 2007 at 11:39 AM PST #

Hi aaron,

I'm using the equivalent category as the Windows list did here. They point to Forecaster, so I guess we are looking for similar functionality to this on the Linux/Unix platform.

Posted by Rich Burridge on February 13, 2007 at 11:48 AM PST #