Favorite Appz


Here's a list of some applications that I use on a regular basis. Most of the software mentioned here is available for free download. I've provided some links to the applications, if there are no Mandrake specific rpm's to be found there then try searching: TuxFinder or Rpmfind.

Backup


Ghost

I used Symantec's Ghost utility to create a backup image of my root partition, the procedure took about 7-10 minutes, beating my tape drive by about 50 minutes. The version of Ghost I used was Ghost 2001, the current version is 2002.

Ghost is not free, the current version is about $69.95. I personally have no problems paying for software as long as it's written well and worth the price (which I believe Ghost is). Ghost will work quite well with your Linux partitions (ext2, reiserfs etc..) however there is no Linux version so you'll need to use a machine running Windows to create the Ghost disks. Go here for more details.


Partition Image For Linux

Is a utility to backup and restore Linux partitions (ext2, reiserfs). Partition Image is similar to Ghost in that it creates an image of your partition and then gives you the option to compress the image in .tgz or bz2 format. That's where the similarity ends, I found Partition Image not as easy to use as Ghost and it takes me about an hour to back up my root partition, you'll also need to unmount the partition(s) that you backup first.

Graphics

Compupic

A free commercial image viewer/indexer/editor.


The Gimp

The Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is great for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Basically a Photoshop type program for Linux.

Kooka

Kooka is a KDE program for your scanner. Kooka autodetected and setup my Epson USB scanner. The current version has a bug with the geometry making it difficult to find the "Scan" and "Preview" buttons in the lower left corner but they are there. The developer assured me this would be fixed in the next version. Kooka's part of the kdegraphics package and should be already installed. Sane required.

Email

Kmail

Kmail is a fully-featured email client, it has features such as support for IMAP, POP3, multiple accounts, powerful filters, PGP/GnuPG privacy, inline attachments, if you use KDE it's already installed.

Aethera

A KDE Outlook Express type email client

Evolution

A Gnome Outlook Express type email client

Office Suites

OpenOffice  

This is an open source version of Sun's excellent StarOffice suite. Sun is about to release version 6.0 of StarOffice and intends to charge around $100. OpenOffice is free, very stable and runs great. By default documents are saved in the new XML format and has improved MS import/export filters for MS Word (97, 2000 & XP) .doc and .xls files.

Koffice

A nice office suite with alot of potential, however at this time it has only MS Word import filters, no export filters, not good if you have to use MS at work and need to transfer .doc files back and forth between home and office.

Crossover Office

If you already own a copy of Office 97-2000 and would like to use it in Linux then your in luck. Codeweavers sells a modified version of wine called Crossover Office. Crossover will let you install and run MS Office 97-2000 in Linux. I installed it and Office 2000 runs as fast as it does under windows. Office XP is not currently supported and it probably won't be due to a clause in the license preventing users from running it on a "non-MS" OS. Go here to see some screenshots of CrossOver runnging Office 2000 as well as various other MS appz. If you don't own or need MS Office, then I'd recommend downloading the excellent OpenOffice suite for free instead.

Wordperfect Office 2000

A commercial office suite that I used briefly and do not recommend. I found it to be unstable and slow, difficult to install and requires you to jump through hoops to get it running again after a system upgrade. Like Codeweavers Office, this version of WordPerfect is not a true native Linux app and runs with the help of a modified version of wine.

After the purchase of Corel stock by MS, It appears Corel has pulled the plug on it's Linux version of WPO 2000, they've made it very hard to find the updated install script necessary to install on Mandrake 8.x. All links on Corel's site refering to Linux now point to the Xandros website (Xandros is the company that purchased Corel-Linux). If you see a copy of this for sale, download the excellent OpenOffice suite for free instead.

Usenet Newsreaders

Knode

A simple usenet news reader from KDE. If you use KDE, it's already installed

Pan

Pan is an advanced newsreader loosely based on Agent and Gravity. It has all the typical features found in newsreaders, and also supports offline reading, multiple connections, and a number of features for power users and alt.binaries fans.

HTML Editors

I use Mozilla's "Composer", I like it because it's fast and easy, it's a true (WYSIWYG) graphical html editor. There are better graphical editors out there no doubt but Composer does a decent job and works natively in Linux.

I also use Bluefish to edit html, it's not a true WYSIWYG editor, but it has a lot of automated bells and whistles that makes the job alot easier. Bluefish also has support for Tidy and Weblint plugins. Tidy attempts to automatically fix error's in your html code with a click of a button and Weblint will scan and identify error's allowing you to fix them manually.

FTP

IglooFtp-PRO

The best Ftp client for Linux that I've tried so far, it's really fast, easy to use and is very similar to CuteFTP. This is a commercial product with an evaluation version available. It costs $29.95 and includes lifetime upgrades. Tip - install the dynamic version, it's faster than the static version.

Web Browsing


There are three great web browsers available for Linux, all of which are improving with every day:


Konqueror

Pros: The Konq browser's Anti-Aliased fonts can't be beat, the Kde3 version is much faster and has improved java support.

Cons: Needs more options when it comes to customization.

Wish list: I'd like to see the browser separated from the file manager and theme support added. I'd also like to see more options in the browser's preferences.


Mozilla

Pros: Nice looking, themes available, built in Mail, News, Html creator and you can get it to use Anti-Aliased fonts, find out more from here.

Cons: Can't think of any.


Opera

Pros: It's blazingly fast, very customizable and has themes support.

Cons: No font anti-aliasing right now. The free version is ad supported, the ads are removed when you purchase a license.


Junkbuster

Internet Junkbuster is an Banner Ad-Cookie blocker that works quite nicely. Just download and install the junkbuster rpm and from a console type: /etc/rc.d/init.d/junkbuster start, then go to your browsers proxy settings and under http add: localhost then set the port to 8000 then restart your browser. Don't forget to update the blocklist and cookie files periodically.

Multimedia Appz

Qtella

Qtella is an excellent gnutella P2P file sharing clone (.mp3, .mov etc...), you can download a Mandrake rpm from Texstar's website under the "Favorite Files" section.

RealPlayer

The popular internet audio player for linux

Xmms

An mp3 player, similar to Winamp and is compatible with Winamp skinz. It should be already installed.

RipperX

RipperX is a program to rip CD audio and encode Mp3s. To use this you'll also need to install an encoder like BladeEnc, Lame or GoGo.

CD Burning

Eroaster

A graphical front end for cdrecord and mkisofs that makes data, music and .iso file burning easy. Eroaster has a nice user interface and supports "BurnProof" technology, drag-n-drop support for KDE and Gnome, automatic conversion of mp3 files to wav and sound level normalization.

CD Bake Oven

Another graphical front end for cdrecord and mkisofs that makes data and .iso file burning easy. CdBakeOven is the most user friendly interface I've seen so far in Linux Cdburning appz. It has drag-n-drop support, however support for mp3/ogg is still not done yet, so "Create New Audio CD" section is pretty much useless in the current version.

Network Neighborhood

LinNeighborhood

A Network Neighborhood clone for linux. Basically a graphical front end to Samba, enabling the user to easily communicate with a Windows pc over a network.