[ .software ]                   | .multimedia | .internet | .art | .web development | .office | .programming | .miscellaneous |
Applications & tools to help you get the most out of Linux®. The applications listed here are meant to give you an idea of what is available along with a brief description of what features you can expect from each application. Some applications have direct links to their respective websites while others do not. The reason for this is that special installation instructions or packages are available for many different distros and, if at all possible, it's best to get the packages from your distros official repository. Mixing packages from other distros imay not be the wisest move and has the potential to cause system instability. Take care when downloading packages from third party sources, and, if at all in doubt, ask questions in the appropriate forum.

[ .multimedia ] - multimedia

Amarok - Amarok is a KDE multimedia player featured with:
            
             o fresh playlist concept, very fast to use, with drag and drop
             o plays all formats supported by the various engines
             o audio effects, like reverb and compressor
             o compatible with the .m3u and .pls formats for playlists
             o nice GUI, integrates into the KDE look, but with a unique touch
Amarok can use various engines to decode sound : gstreamer, arts, helix and xine (disabled by default for patent reasons) To use the helix engine, you'll have to install either HelixPlayer or RealPlayer.

Audacious - Audacious is a media player for Linux or Linux based systems. It is a fork of Beep Media Player 0.9.7.1.
Audacity - Audacity is a cross-platform multitrack audio editor. It allows you to record sounds directly or to import Ogg, WAV, AIFF, AU, IRCAM, or MP3 files. It features a few simple effects, all of the editing features you should need, and unlimited undo. The GUI was built with wxWindows and the audio I/O currently uses OSS under Linux. Audacity runs on Linux/*BSD, MacOS, and Windows.
Beast - Beast is a powerful music composition and modular synthesis application released as free software under the GNU GPL and GNU LGPL, that runs under unix. It supports a wide range of standards in the field, such as MIDI, WAV/AIFF/MP3/OggVorbis/etc audio files and LADSPA modules. It has excellent technical abilities like multitrack editing, unlimited undo/redo support, real-time synthesis support, 32bit audio rendering, full duplex support, multiprocessor support, precise timing down to sample granularity, on demand and partial loading of wave files, on the fly decoding, stereo mixing, FFT scopes, MIDI automation and full scriptability in scheme. The plugins, synthesis core and the user interface are actively being developed and translated into a variety of languages, regularly assimilating user feedback into the codebase.
Beep media player (bmp) - BMP (Beep Media Player) is a media player that currently uses a skinned user interface based on Winamp 2.x skins. It is based on ("forked off") XMMS.

Cantus - Cantus is a program for renaming and tagging mp3 files.

            Features:
           o Defining flexible filename filters for mass renaming.
           o Mass tagging of mp3, ogg and flac files.
           o Generation of a tag out of the filename or directory name.
           o Renaming of files through FreeDB (no CD needed!)
           o A nice GUI for GNOME using the GTK2.
           o Multiple language support
           o Several other features
Grip - Grip is a GTK+ based front-end for CD rippers (such as cdparanoia and cdda2wav) and Ogg Vorbis encoders. Grip allows you to rip entire tracks or just a section of a track. Grip supports the CDDB protocol for accessing track information on disc database servers.
K3b - K3b provides a comfortable user interface to perform most CD/DVD burning tasks. While the experienced user can take influence in all steps of the burning process the beginner may find comfort in the automatic settings and the reasonable k3b defaults which allow a quick start.

Mplayer - Mplayer is a movie player which runs on many systems (see the documentation). It plays most MPEG/VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska, NUT, NuppelVideo, FLI, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, 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.

VLC - VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
Xine - Xine is a fully-featured free audio/video player for unix-like systems which uses libxine for audio/video decoding and playback. For more information on what formats are supported, please refer to the libxine documentation.
Xmms - Xmms is a multimedia (Ogg Vorbis, CDs) player for the X Window System with an interface similar to Winamp's. Xmms supports playlists and streaming content and has a configurable, skinnable interface. xmms is capable of using most winamp skins.
Wired - Wired aims to be a professional music production and creation software running on the Linux operating system. It brings musicians a complete studio environment to compose and record music without requiring expensive hardware. wired supports unlimited audio/midi tracks playback and recording, and introduces a plugin system for instruments and effects. It can also read AKAI CDs and import 18 different wave formats.
The following instruments are being developed for wired :

          o Loop sampler, with time-stretching
          o Beatbox with a new editing concept, to create reallistic and complex drum sequences
          o MIDI controlled sampler, which can read AKAI program and sample files.
          o High-pass, Low-pass and Notch filters
          o Compressor/Limiter
          o Delay

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[ .internet ] - internet
aMule - aMule is an easy to use multi-platform client for ED2K Peer-to-Peer Network. It is a fork of xMule, whis was based on eMule for Windows. aMule currently supports (but is not limited to) the following platforms: Linux, *BSD and MacOS X.

BitchX - BitchX was started by Trench and HappyCrappy as a script for the ircII client. Around Christmas of 1994, the script was patched directly into the client by Colten Edwards, aka panasync (this was around the time of bitchX-36). Now, nearly ten years old in its client form, bitchX continues to expand and change around the IRC of today. A big shout out goes to Colten for taking the time and effort to continuing to further this excellent program.

            Features:
          o Built-in ANSI color.
          o Ease of use. bitchX adds dozens of useful command aliases to reduce typing.
          o Built-in notify, protection, bot, shit, and user lists.
          o Built-in mass commands and tools.
          o Extended set of DCC commands and built-in CDCC/XDCC file offering.
          o Extended scripting functionality, including functions found nowhere else.
          o Huge installed user base, an abundance of scripts.
          o Built-in screen client, allowing you to detach and re-attach to an irc session.
Bittorrent - BitTorrent is a tool for distributing files. It's extremely easy to use, downloads are started by clicking on hyperlinks. Whenever more than one person is downloading at once they send pieces of the file(s) to each other, thus relieving the central server's bandwidth burden. Even with many simultaneous downloads, the upload burden on the central server remains quite small, since each new downloader introduces new upload capacity.
Evolution - Evolution is the GNOME mailer, calendar, contact manager and communications tool. The tools which make up evolution will be tightly integrated with one another and act as a seamless personal information-management (PIM) tool.

Firefox - Firefox is an open-source web browser based on mozilla, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability.
Gaim - Gaim allows you to talk to anyone using a variety of messaging protocols, including AIM, ICQ, IRC, Yahoo!, Novell Groupwise, MSN Messenger, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Napster, Lotus Sametime and Zephyr. These protocols are implemented using a modular, easy to use design. To use a protocol, just add an account using the account editor. Gaim supports many common features of other clients, as well as many unique features, such as perl scripting, TCL scripting and C plugins.

note: Gaim is NOT affiliated with or endorsed by America Online, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Yahoo! Inc., or ICQ Inc.

Mozilla suite - Mozilla is an open-source web browser, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. It also has a built in web development program (mozilla composer) which allows the user to create, edit, publish and manage web pages and a mail reader.

Opera - Opera is another useful  web browser. opera includes pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, integrated searches, E-mail, RSS, Newsfeeds and IRC chat. Opera supports all major Linux distributions. RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, etc. Intel, PowerPC and Sparc versions.

Syphleed - This program is an X based fast email client which has features like:
           
            o user-friendly and intuitive interface
            o integrated NetNews client (partially implemented)
            o ability of keyboard-only operation
            o Mew/Wanderlust-like key bind
            o multipart MIME
            o unlimited multiple account handling
            o message queueing
            o assortment function
            o XML-based address book

Thunderbird - Thunderbird is a free, open-source and cross-platform mail client based on the mozilla codebase. It is a robust and easy to use client, similar to competing products like Outlook Express, but with some major advantages such as junk mail classification.

Xchat - Xchat is an easy to use graphical IRC chat client for the X Window System.

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[ .art ] - art / paint and graphics

Blender - Blender is the essential software solution you need for 3D, from modeling, animation, rendering and post-production to interactive creation and playback.
The gimp - The gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a powerful image composition and editing program, which can be extremely useful for creating logos and other graphics for webpages. The gimp has many of the tools and filters you would expect to find in similar commercial offerings, and some interesting extras as well. The gimp provides a large image manipulation toolbox, including channel operations and layers, effects, sub-pixel imaging and anti-aliasing, and conversions, all with multi-level undo.
Inkscape - Inkscape is a vector-based drawing program, like CorelDraw® or Adobe Illustrator® from the proprietary software world, and Sketch or Karbon14 from the free software world. It is free software, distributed under the terms of the Gnu General Public License, Version 2. Inkscape uses W3C SVG as its native file format. It is therefore a very useful tool for web designers and as an interchange format for desktop publishing. It has a relatively modern display engine, giving you finely antialiased display, alpha transparencies, vector fonts and so on. Inkscape is written in C and C++, using the Gtk+ toolkit and optionally some Gnome libraries.
Sodi podi - Similar to inkscape sodipodi is a vector-based drawing program, like CorelDraw® or Adobe Illustrator® from the proprietary software world, and Sketch or Karbon14 from the free software world. It is free software, distributed under the terms of the Gnu General Public License, Version 2. Sodipodi uses W3C SVG as its native file format. It is therefore a very useful tool for web designers. It has a relatively modern display engine, giving you finely antialiased display, alpha transparencies, vector fonts and so on. Sodipodi is written in C, using the Gtk+ toolkit and optionally some Gnome libraries.

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[ .web development ] - web development
Bluefish - Bluefish is a powerful editor for experienced web designers and programmers. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages such as html, php and css, but it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.
Mozilla editor - Mozilla editor is an open-source web design tool included in the mozilla suite, designed for standards compliance, performance and portability. Its built in web development program (mozilla composer) allows the user to create, edit, publish and manage web pages.
Nvu - Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a "new view") is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web page editing. Nvu is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

Quanta+ - Quanta plus is a highly stable and feature rich web development environment which allows for editing CSS, HTML, and PHP among other web programming languanges.

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[ .office ] - Office applications
Adobe acrobat - The adobe® acrobat® family of products provides the power to deliver documents that give business, creative, and technical professionals an intelligent way to get the job done. Create and exchange documents, collect and compare comments, and tailor the security of a file in order to distribute reliable and polished Adobe PDF documents.
Gnucash - Gnucash is a personal finance manager. A check-book like register GUI allows you to enter and track bank accounts, stocks, income and even currency trades. The interface is designed to be simple and easy to use, but is backed with double-entry accounting principles to ensure balanced books. It also supports importing Quickbooks® files.
Open office - Openoffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
Star office - Sun® star office® powerful and integrated word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database capabilities. star office® can be downloaded freely from the Sun® website under the individual or institutional educational license program.

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[ .programming ] - Programming suites

Anjunta - Anjuta is a versatile Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C and C++. It has been written for GTK/GNOME, and features a number of advanced programming facilities. It is basically a GUI interface for the collection of command line programming utilities and tools available for the GNU system.

Eclipse-platform - The eclipse-platform (and its corresponding dependent packages) is a powerful GUI based programming environment.

Kdevelop - The kdevelop Integrated development dnvironment provides many features that developers need as well as providing a unified interface to programs like gdb, the C/C++ compiler, and make. kdevelop manages or provides:

All development tools needed for C++ programming like Compiler, Linker, automake and autoconf; kAppWizard, which generates complete, ready-to-go sample applications; class generator, for creating new classes and integrating them into the current project; file management for sources, headers, documentation etc. to be included in the project; the creation of user-handbooks written with SGML and the automatic generation of HTML-output with the KDE look and feel; automatic HTML-based API-documentation for your project's classes with cross-references to the used libraries; internationalization support for your application, allowing translators to easily add their target language to a project; kDevelop also includes WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) creation of user interfaces with a built-in dialog editor; debugging your application by integrating KDbg; editing of project-specific pixmaps with KIconEdit; the inclusion of any other program you need for development by adding it to the "Tools" menu according to your individual needs.

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[ .miscellaneous ] - miscellaneous

Celestia - Celestia is a real-time space simulation which lets you experience the universe in three dimensions. Celestia does not confine you to the surface of the earth, it allows you to travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy. Travel in celestia is seamless; the exponential zoom feature lets you explore space across a huge range of scales, from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a few meters across. A 'point-and-goto' interface makes it simple to navigate through the universe to the object you want to visit.

Stellarium - Stellarium is a real-time 3D photo-realistic nightsky renderer. It can generate images of the sky as seen through the earth's atmosphere with more than one hundred thousand stars from the Hipparcos Catalogue, constellations, planets, major satellites and nebulas.

Gkrellm - Gkrellm charts SMP CPU, load, Disk, and all active net interfaces automatically. An on/off button and online timer for the PPP interface is provided. Monitors for memory and swap usage, file system, internet connections, APM laptop battery, mbox style mailboxes, and cpu temperatures are also included. Gkrellm also includes an uptime monitor, a hostname label, and a clock/calendar.

              Additional features include:
            o Autoscaling grid lines with configurable grid line resolution.
            o LED indicators for the net interfaces.
            o A gui popup for configuration of chart sizes and resolutions.