Essential applications (Linux, Android, Windows)

A list of all the applications that I use, on various platforms.

Linux Applications

Packaging Systems (on Gentoo)

• emerge

  THE only one tool that you will ever need.

Console Applications

• htop

  Small utility to monitor your system's resource usage (CPU and RAM).

• nano

  Good console text editor.

• nopaste

  Excellent small utility to post to an online paste service.

Internet

• Thunderbird

  Good open-source email client from Mozilla.

• Firefox

  The standard open-source browser that you can trust. Emerge netscape-flash to get Flash support.

• Opera

  Another good web browser. Less development tools available than Firefox.

• Konqueror

  The integrated FTP/SFTP client is very good. And as a file browser, Konqueror is also very useful.

• Filezilla

  Best fully featured FTP client currently available on Linux.

• X-Chat

  Open-source IRC client.

• Kopete

  Excellent, ultra-customizable multi-protocol IM client.

• Pidgin

  Open-source multi-protocol IM client. Not bad.

• TightVNC

  VNC client.

• Skype

  Non free VoIP communication tool. The Linux client is of very poor quality.

Development

• GCC

  The whole GNU tool chain will be of course included in the system.

• Eclipse

  Excellent, complex IDE for Java and other languages as well with plugins.

• Kate

  Lightweight text editor.

• Quanta

  Good text editor oriented towards web development (PHP, Javascript, HTML).

• KDevelop

  Very good IDE for C/C++ development.

• Subversion with KDEsvn

  Excellent source management system. KDEsvn is the best GUI front-end available currently under KDE. It has Konqueror integration.

• KHexEdit

  This is an hex editor, sometimes useful.

Office

• Adobe Acrobat Reader

  To read PDF files.

• Kpdf

  Free PDF viewer. Lighter than Acrobat Reader. Can reload files instantly, so very useful for LaTeX development.

• OpenOffice

  Necessary to open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files.

• KAddressBook

  Good address book / contact manager.

Graphics

• Inkscape

  Excellent SVG editor. Same as Adobe Illustrator.

• The GIMP

  Excellent graphics manipulation program. Can be automated via scripts.

Multimedia

• K3b

  Nice GUI to burn CDs/DVDs.

• Amarok

  iTunes like audio player and collection manager.

• MPlayer

  This is the player that will play almost all your media files. On Linux the built-in GUI is OK.

• VLC

  It will play less files than MPlayer, but is still good. Allows streaming over a network.

• Picasa

  Photo organizer from Google. Not good for viewing single files.

• Showimg

  Excellent image viewer.

• Comix

  Really excellent viewer for reading comics.

• Kdenlive

  A video editor with advanced features.

• Avidemux

  A tool that allows you to split videos with a GUI (among other things).

Utilities

• Ark

  With the Konqueror plugin, it has a nice integration into your system. Allows you to uncompress archives directly from Konqueror / your desktop.

• CDCat

  Organizes a CD/DVD collection. Free as in speech, multiplatform, uses Qt3. Not in Portage.

• smartmontools

  Tool to monitor the SMART status of your hard drive.

• bonnie / bonnie++

  I/O (hard drive) benchmarking tool.

Emulation & Virtualization

• Wine

  This is absolutely necessary to play Blizzard games (Warcraft III), and many other Windows games as well. Latest versions are really impressive.

• VirtualBox

  A free and excellent virtualization software. Allows you to run Windows natively on your Linux guest OS.

• DosBox

  Emulator for the DOS operating system, allows you to play old PC games.

• GXMame

  Front-end for the XMame Linux version.

• Gens

  Sega Genesis emulator.

Games

• Battle for Wesnoth

  wargame similar to Warlords.

• Majesty

  Native port of the great fantasy kingdom simulation game.

• Pingus

  Free clone of Lemmings, excellent.

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein

  Native port of the FPS game.

Utilities I am looking for

• A better media indexer than CdCat (which development is halted). I have tried cdcollect (too simple), katalog (cannot get it to work), cdnavigator (looks promising but installer is broken, could not get it to work). gwhere also seems worthwhile but it's not in Portage. Collection managers like Tellico, GCStar are not really what I need (although they can be useful on their own).

Mac OS X Applications

Packaging Systems

• SoftwareUpdate

  Built-in (from Apple), will only update the OS and Apple applications. Very easy.

• Fink

  Large repository of UNIX open-source software.

• DarwinPorts

  Other package manager. The repository has a lot of server software. Easy to use.

Internet

• Mail

  Free as in beer (from Apple), good client except for the Spotlight search feature taking hours (and not returning anything useful, generally).

• Thunderbird

  Good open-source email client from Mozilla.

• Firefox

  The standard open-source browser that you can trust.

• Safari

  Probably the best browser available for OS X (very fast). Based on Konqueror so should be open.

• Cyberduck

  FTP client, open-source. I don't like it that much but it seems one of the best for the Mac.

• X-Chat Aqua

  Open-source IRC client. Not awesome, but ok.

• Fire

  Open-source multi-protocol IM client.

Development

• GCC

  Included in the system from Apple.

• X-Code

  Good IDE for C++/Objective-C/Java, unfortunately only available on the Mac. It manages its own build system, but this is not portable.

Multimedia

• iTunes

  Excellent audio player.

• MPlayer

  Best video player available on the Mac, but should be compiled from source. The binaries versions are not maintained it seems. Also, the GUI sucks. Update: new binaries seem available directly from the official site.

• VLC

  It will play less files than MPlayer, but the Mac port is official and better.

• Adobe Photoshop

  Best image editing program.

• Roxio Toast

  Good CD/DVD-burning software, but not free.

Office

• Adobe Acrobat Reader

  Essential to read PDF files.

• Address Book

  Nice contact book manager.

Utilities

• Built-in Unarchiver

  It will decompress .tar, .zip, and other formats. Nice integration into the Finder.

• CDFinder

  Organizes a CD/DVD collection. Good but not multiplatform nor Open-Source.

• CDCat

  Organizes a CD/DVD collection. Free as in speech, multiplatform, uses Qt3. But you must compile it yourself.

• smartmontools

  Tool to monitor the SMART status of your hard drive. If you install using the Apple installer, the daemon will be automatically launched at startup (remove the StartupItem to prevent that).

Windows Applications

Development

• MinGW

  This allows you to use the GCC compiler on Windows, allowing your applications to be portable.

• Eclipse

  Excellent, complex IDE for Java and other languages as well with plugins.

• TortoiseSVN

  Excellent GUI front-end for Subversion.

Utilities

• Avira

  Free antivirus tool.