2009-07-05

Favorite Linux Applications

I thought I would change things up a little bit this time and talk about some of my favorite Linux applications.

  • Terminal Emulator - Terminator
    If you do very much from the terminal, you'll surely find scenarios where you would like to have multiple terminal windows or tabs open at once. Tabs are great, but if you want to be able to see the contents of multiple terminal windows as once, they don't help. If you keep opening up new windows, it can become a chore to resize and manage all the windows so that you can see all of what you want. Terminator takes care of that by allowing you to split your terminal window and drag the split to resize your frames however you want. The split windows in Terminator allow for more efficient use of screen real estate as you don't have so much space taken up by window borders and decorations. To install Terminator:

    # apt-get install terminator

  • Text Editor - Vim
    I feel that everyone should know how to use at least one real text editor, and Vim is a great choice because it can run on almost any platform. Vim, or at least Vi, is installed by default on all Linux systems, so, if you know Vim, you'll always be able to use a text editor on any Linux machine. Aside from being easily available, Vim is a very powerful and extensible text editor. Vim can do syntax highlighting and spell checking as well as allowing you to write macros and use regular expressions. In fact, I use Vim to write all of my posts on here. To make sure you've the latest version of Vim installed from your repositories:

    # apt-get install vim

  • Web Browser - It's a two way tie:
    • Firefox/Iceweasel - I like Firefox for the great set of add ons available for using it. Also, it is very easy to get Java and Flash installed for Firefox in Debian.

    • Links2 - I like using Links2 for when I'm reading a lot of text in a blog or when I'm reading web comics. Links2 is a great lightweight web browser and has a graphical mode. To install Links2:

      # apt-get install links2

      To launch Links2 in graphical mode:

      $ links2 -g

  • Chat Client - Naim
    I know that Pidgin is pretty much the standard favorite chat client, but I like the simplicity and the keyboard commands/shortcuts in Naim. I will admit that Naim does have a bit of a learning curve, as with most console apps, but once you get past that, I find Naim to be a great chat client. To install Naim:

    # apt-get install naim

  • Video Player - VLC
    From my experience, VLC can play just about anything you throw at it. It is by far the easiest video player I've used to play DVDs with menus, and the interface is very simple. To install VLC:

    # apt-get install vlc

  • Audio Player - Songbird
    I like the clean interface and the ability to install add ons to Songbird. Check out my earlier post on installing Songbird.

Well, that's a good start for my favorite Linux applications. What are your favorites?

See you next time

No comments:

Post a Comment