I noticed that this section of my blog hadn’t been updated since a long time. And thought what better way to start this section with a quick list of things that I have installed and/or would like to use on a daily basis. Lets get on with it then.
What softwares to use is really a matter of personal choice. Factors like ease of use, configurability, tweak-ability will matter. Someone might just want things out of the box while someone will want to tinker till things are perfect.
My Crunchbang installation came with quite a few things out of the box and for most daily use, things are sufficient. The installation comes with a post install script, which runs in the terminal and offers interective approach to install some more additional things onto your system. I chose to install Java and LibreOffice from the options, skipping the ones I did not need.
Internet
Crunchbang comes with Iceweasel which is a rebranding of Firefox. So all the FF goodies come along with it. You can install your favorite add ones onto this one as well. Few addons that I have installed and use so far are –
- Ad Block Plus – to keep those annoying pop ups away.
- Block Site – keep a list of sites which I dont want to show up. Youtube makes the list. I find myself wasting a lot of time there, so installing Block Site helps.
- Flashgot – useful download manager
The list is pretty small but suits my needs.
A good alternative to Iceweasel is Midori, which is very lightweight and fast.
I have tried Opera and Chromium as well, but settled for Midori since its easy on resources.
The default torrent client – Transmission is good and serves well. No need for keeping a second one. But Vuze or Deluge would be worthy names to mention here.
Pidgin messasing client is available upon installation as well.
For FTP, i have gFTP preinstalled but went for FileZilla as well. These dont find use that often, but are good to have. I sometimes use them to transfer files over wifi onto my android device which has a ftp server app installed.
For downloading files, I have installed uGet and FlareGet download managers. They work well with the FlashGot addin in Iceweasel.
Installed Dropbox client as well. It pulled in nautilus file manager and other dependencies with it while installing so beware of bloat.
Graphics
GIMP rules the Linux landscape when it comes to image editing. It is also almost always commonly installed in whichever distro you use. Though getting around with Gimp requires some practise and can be daunting for newbies. A simpler alternative is Pinta. It takes care of your day to day image editing needs, mostly cropping, rotation, resize etc.
For people comfortable with command line, I would recommend installing ImageMagick. ImageMagick includes a number of command-line utilities for manipulating images. Very useful for batch operations like resize or bmp to jpg conversion etc. It supports pdf conversion as well. So go ahead give this a try.
If the installation is missing a scanning utility, then Xsane scanner is worth looking at. It also comes with a GIMP plugin so that the scanned images can be imported and edited in gimp.
Besides these I stunbled upon LightZone found here. This is a very intuitive tool with many filters and options to edit the images. Still getting used to this one.
Try and install a Font Manager as well to manage different fonts on the system. There are several free fonts avaiable on internet for download and use. Visit here for more
Office
For all document processing needs, Libre Office is the one to turn to. This fork of OpenOffice has found popularity and suits daily needs. Libre can be installed via the interactive post installations scripts.
Crunchbang also already has a pdf reader (Evince) which is handy. It also reads cbr files, so comic book readers will find it useful.
Sound and Video
I use Audacious as my default music player. Its lightweight and fast. Simple controls and no frills. It does not manage music or organize library. If thats what is desired look for Banshee or Rhythmbox. DeadBeef is also another alternative here.
For video playback, VLC is the one. No doubt about that. But while trying to find lightweight alternatives, I came across UMplayer and Gnome Mplayer, which work equally well. Unless you are stuck with some proprietory video format which only VLC can play, giving the other two a try will be worth it. Simple and functional.
For the occasional audio editing, Audacity is it. I generally find it useful to trim mp3 files, remove some leading or lagging silence, amplify sounds if the original is too low, edit/cut my favorite tracks to make cellphone ringtones etc. The uses are limitless and the tool helps you do it. I havent tried any other audio editor on Linux yet.
I have installed Asunder for my cd ripping needs. Dont use it regularly, but if something comes up, I have it handy.
For cd/dvd creation, the Xfburn is installed by default. It does the job. Though sometimes I have found it has troubles wiping out a RW cd. If it cant blank it, it wont write it over! For that I have also installed Brasero. Day to day use for this is to burn some iso file, create an iso back up etc.
I guess that wraps the list of things that I have on my side. This by no means is an exhaustive one and one can always find better alternatives based on functionality or purely on preference.
I will revisit this post and try to add more details.
Leisure Linux 