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Essentials, 2006 edition

essentials, linux, software, ubuntu

231 comments

1. […] Mark Pilgrim no tiene solución. Je, en su lista de software recomendado de su instalación pone: […]

   Pingback by Minid.net » Blog Archive » Ubuntu: muahahaha — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 2:51 pm

2. I use GNOME desktop so, most of your apps aren’t in my list. I use Linux mainly for work stuff: svn, ruby, lighttpd, liferea reader, gaim, firefox, google maps, and xmms. Evolution for e-mail, because i’m not a freak of e-mail (check twice a day). Oh, MPlayer Movie Player for movies every day, sweet.
   

   
   

   Comment by mini-d — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 3:00 pm




3. Hi,

   
   

   just wondering why you use GNOME, when half of your applications are KDE anyway and some of those missing are in KDE already (IIRC, Quicksilver = Katapult in KDE). And sorry, KMail is way more powerful than Thunderbird — I tried it just week ago and I am glad to be back in KMail.

   Best,

   Matej

   Comment by Matej Cepl — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 3:01 pm

4. I like Nautilus better than Konqueror, GNOME Terminal better then KTerm (edit: oops, it’s called Konsole), and GNOME Deskbar better than Katapult. But yeah, I end up with KDE libs loaded most of the time. :)

   Comment by Mark — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 3:05 pm

5. Pan-OS: Firefox (default browser outside of OS X).

   
   

   Windows: Paint Shop Pro, Trillian, ActivePerl, PuTTY, FlashFXP, EditPad Pro.

   
   

   Mac OS X: Apple Mail, iPhoto, iTunes (all three of them by active choice and not just settling for what ships), Flip4Mac (WMV QuickTime codec), VLC (because its Mac GUI sucks less than mplayer and appears to be actively developed), SubEthaEdit, NetNewsWire, Acquisition (made by Dave Watanabe, the Soup Nazi of independent Mac application developers), Inquisitor (ditto), Adium, Growl, Synergy (for showing iTunes bezels), Camino, OmniWeb (default browser), Safari, Opera (why yes, I am a web developer).

   
   

   Linux (and the command line parts of OS X): I look forward to installing Ubuntu when my MacBook gets delivered. Until then, some outdated and meager notions: nano/pico (and emacs over vi on the account of being slightly less insane if I have to choose), curl over wget (but not by much), Galeon over Konqueror (built-in vertical tabs; I prefer Firefox over Galeon), GIMP over… wait, just say GIMP, GAIM, apt-get.

   
   

   Many of those are proprietary applications. As a software developer, this bugs me more than I’d like to admit. As a user, old habits die hard, and by “old habits die hard” I really mean “not switching unless confronted with a better alternative or slightly worse but with available source” instead of “I’m a retarded bigot”.

   Comment by Jesper — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 3:08 pm

6. Here some other programs you might be interrested in:

   http://listengnome.free.fr/ - Listen which supports my iPod perfectly, has got a very nice gtk frontend. I even like it more then amarok since it fetches more lyrics, the wikipedia support looks a bit better. And I like it since GTK looks better than Qt.

   I havn’t tried diva by now (http://www.diva-project.org/) but it tries to create an easy to use, scalable, open-source video editing software for the GNOME desktop.

   Instead of Konversation I use X-Chat (http://xchat.org/) which just rocks :-) Check out tomboy. It’s a very cool way for managing notes on the desktop and don’t forget to install beagle since the deskbar supports it :-)

   And finally — use gvim instead of emacs :D *scnr*

   Regards,
   Armin

   Comment by Armin Ronacher — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 3:33 pm

7. SessionSaver is a “must install” Firefox extension.
   

   
   

   Comment by Sérgio Nunes — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 3:58 pm




8. Oh yeah, I have Beagle too. It’s very pretty, but I haven’t used it “for real” yet. I never used Spotlight either, or Google Desktop Search, or Copernicus, or whatnot. Don’t really know why; I guess they just don’t match up with how I want to find stuff. I’m not sure how I find stuff. They also tend to uncover a lot of stuff that I would prefer to keep buried. I don’t think it’s healthy to have your entire life’s work a constant distance away. This isn’t about excluding specific directories, I know Beagle can do that. It’s more about “show me all the email messages that contain these keywords, except the ones from Randi after 1999, Kim after 1998 or between 1989 and 1991, and the ones I sent to the info-mac moderators in 1993.” Is there a desktop search engine that helps you lose things? That would be very useful. Really.

   Comment by Mark — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 4:05 pm

9. Tab Mix Plus has a SessionSaver feature, and Firefox 2 will have one built-in.

   Comment by Mark — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 4:06 pm

10. Well, I’m still on a Mac. But this is pretty strong stuff.

    
    

    I’d really miss OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner though.
    

    
    

    Comment by Robert Brook — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 4:38 pm




11. Feel free to stop calling us “fanboys.”
    

    
    

    Comment by Joe Clark — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 5:14 pm

12. GNOME Terminal a KTerm are bloatware. Any X Terminal Emulator that lets you change the background “picture” is bloatware - xterm is powerful, simple and chaperons 90% of communication with my computer.

    
    

    GNOME looks nicer than KDE and is easier to use IMO but Ion3 is a graphical usable interface for people who value keyboard navigation and hate the mouse.

    
    

    I have found amaroK to be slow and buggy - no GNU/Linux application has yet to handle my medium to large music collection with ease, though I like Rhythmbox the most.

    
    

    At any one time it is guaranteed that I will be using xterm and Firefox and Gaim. Everything else is by the by.
    

    Comment by Noah Slater — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 5:57 pm

13. I have a couple of Ubuntu installs with all manner of things crammed on them. I have a new one I’ve been using for 2-3 weeks, and it turns out this stuff is what I *really* need in addition to the stock install:

    * GNU Emacs + my modes and such
    * GAIM
    * Firefox + Firebug
    * Ethereal
    * Chatzilla + XULRunner 1.8.0.4 tarball (no stability warnings yet)
    

    * Erlang + yaws
    
    * Thunderbird
    
    * Lots of non-free codecs and such
    
    * Netbeans 5.x for J2ME
    
    * Wine for J2ME codegen scripts
    
    * IDEA for other Java
    
    * All the dev packages needed for building mozilla
    

    
    

    Comment by Robert Sayre — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 6:03 pm

14. Stuff I use that you don’t:
    
    * WMI - (nee WMII) a window manager optimized for switching between windows. Nothing else comes close. It sucks for anything else, so ymmv.
    
    * vim7 - I
    

    
    

    Comment by Karl Guertin — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 6:14 pm




15. ah well, comment eaten.

    
    

    I prefer “Macolyte” or “the faithful” over mac fanboys.

    Comment by Karl Guertin — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 6:17 pm

16. > Lots of non-free codecs and such

    Oh yes, I forgot the obligatory link to EasyUbuntu, an application designed to take all the pain out of violating patents, breaking laws, and compromising the very principles that led you to Linux in the first place, in exchange for being able to watch a recreation of the latest box office hit in 30 seconds with bunnies.

    Yeah, I installed that too.

    Comment by Mark — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 6:39 pm

17. EasyUbuntu is so last year! I found Automatix to be a big improvement.

    Comment by Robert Sayre — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 6:44 pm

18. I looked at Automatix (even installed it while testing off a Live CD while waiting an interminable length of time for Lenovo to ship me my computer) but ended up going with EasyUbuntu because I only need like 1/10th the stuff that EasyUbuntu does and 1/100% of what Automatix does. But either way, who could resist getting their software from a group that calls themselves the Penguin Liberation Front? Not to be confused with the Penguin Freedom Front, the Penguin Front of Liberation, or the Liberation Front of Penguins. Fucking Penguin Front of Liberation. What a bunch of wankers.
    

    
    

    Comment by Mark — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 6:53 pm




19. I actually love Epiphany as my default web browser. It’s even got some extensions such as AdBlock, although it doesn’t support those that Firefox uses. Epiphany may look like a dumbed-down version of Firefox at first, but it’s well integrated into GNOME (which also means having a session manager built in as long as you don’t close it both manually AND cleanly (you have to either have GNOME quit it or be evil and kill it using a signal; I know that’s dumb, but it makes sense in a weird kind of way)) and a real pleasure to use. I especially like its highly usable tab-based interface and its search bookmarks.

    It’s simple, it’s efficient and It Doesn’t Suck (or at least not as much as other browsers do ;)). I’d be even happier if it used the GNOME keyring in order to store web passwords. Oh well. Will have to wait for that feature, I guess.

    Comment by Matthias Benkard — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 7:34 pm

20. i’ll second pretty much everything on that list. my additions:

    * mutt + gnupg
    

    * gkrellm2
    
    * ion (the windowless window manager)
    
    * screen
    
    * xsane (for scanning drawings)
    
    * gimp (for cleaning up the scans)
    
    * bittorrent (just the plain vanilla commandline version straight from Bram)
    
    * and i prefer rox as a file manager when i want to click around my files instead of opening an xterm
    

    
    

    Comment by Anders — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 7:36 pm

21. […] Mark Pilgrim is the most recent in a series of people to mention the practice of putting one’s home folder into Subversion, CVS, or another versioning system. The practice seems to have originated with Joey Hess. Versioning allows you to track every change you make to your data, to revert to old copies, and to shuttle data between computers effectively. […]
    

    
    

    Pingback by Paralysis by Analysis » Subversion Home Folder — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 7:36 pm




22. Take a look at urxvt for terminal emulation. Faster with less CPU load than xterm (never mind the desktop-enabled emulators), even when using Xft+AA, and smaller memory footprint. Loads up instantly.

    Another vote for mutt ( + fetchmail + procmail + esmtp), too. (Though it seems to be a Vim-er’s thing; being an Emacsian, you’re more likely to want Gnus.)

    Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 7:57 pm

23. Thanks, Aristotle. urxvt looks nice. I think it might work.

    Gnus is fabulous feature-wise, but it’s just so *slow*, especially accessing remote inboxes over imap. I tried really hard to use it instead of mutt for a few months since I have emacs open 24/7 anyway, but then one day I started up mutt by accident and was reminded how much faster it was and just couldn’t go back.

    Comment by Anders — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 8:39 pm

24. With all due respect…
    And call me a fanboy for all I care…

    I use a Mac. I don’t like sentences with “It’s like…”. I like using the “…”

    I don’t mind if the software is closed-source or propriety, my *data* isn’t.

    Comment by Musti — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 9:56 pm

25. btw. What about a screeshot? ^^

    Regards,
    Armin

    Comment by Armin Ronacher — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 10:21 pm

26. MPlayer (and MEncoder). Compiled from source, yo. It’s the only thing I’ve felt the need to recompile, or indeed compile in the first place.

    
    

    Any particular reason you had to compile? Or just ‘cos it’s fun? :-)
    

    
    

    Comment by antrix — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 10:53 pm




27. Mark,

    
    

    I really respect and admire your decision to switch to linux. I have been using Linux full-time for about a year now havn’t looked back once. I absolutely love it.

    From your post, I realized that Linux really needs something like quicksilver: something that will change the way they use their computer. “Openoffice.org does what Word does”, etc, IMO does not want to make people change their operating system. Stuff like amarok and Xgl/Compiz are getting there, but isn’t quite that “killer app” that you can barely live without once you’ve used it (much like quicksilver).

    So here’s to GNOME3 and KDE4, hoping that they’ll innovate upon the modern desktop and truly change the way a person uses their computer.

    Comment by Evan — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 11:06 pm

28. Dirvish is cool for keeping more than just the last backup in a space-efficient manner.
    

    
    

    Comment by Brent — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 11:15 pm




29. I was trying to find out what “chingada madre” translates into English because a very close friend of mine says it all the time yet refuses to tell me what it means so I set out to find out on my own. I came across this site in my search and saw your comment about how you said you would love to learn how to say “I have the fire of the sun in my pants.” in Spanish. I don’t know if you’ve already found out the translation but it’s “Tengo el fuego del sol en mis pantalones”. Just thought I’d help you out. Nicole

    Comment by Anonymous — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 11:22 pm

30. […] Essentials, 2006 edition [dive into mark] (tags: software) Sin comentarios […]

    Pingback by Proletarium — links for 2006-06-27 — Monday, June 26, 2006 @ 11:33 pm

31. great list! ubuntu of course. i have been all over the place in a decade - windows, freebsd, linux, osx…ubuntu is the first distro that cured me of wanting to try other distros. maybe suse is better - i have no idea, until ubuntu disappoints me, i am sticking with it.

    
    

    my firefox set up is almost identical. i rarely see ads at all. the filtering tools are amazingly effective.

    
    

    emacs, natch.

    
    

    for backups of data, i use DAVs connecting to my boutique email provider, fastmail.fm ($ but worth it), who provide IMAP, DAVs, file storage, etc etc. i can use mutt or thunderbird with it…with IMAP my client is a matter of daily whim.

    
    

    i replaced open office with abiword and gnumeric, but honestly i very rarely use these.

    
    

    i go between mocp and rhythmbox for music. mocp is nice, as mutt is to thunderbird, mocp is to graphical music players.

    
    

    i also use elinks from time to time. its nice to know you can live in a console if you have to.
    

    
    

    Comment by grumpY! — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:33 am

32. I know it would be considered blasphey because it’s closed source, proprietary (costs very little money) AND java but over the years of looking for proper Quicken replacement that runs on Linux (short of running Quicken under VMware) I have yet to find one which is more useable than MoneyDance.
    
    My first concern is QIF file import because this is what all the financial institutes provide to download but beyond that its interface seems the most understandable and “make sense”.
    

    
    

    Comment by Amos Shapira — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 1:07 am




33. Nice list of Ubuntu applications Mark! For blocking ads and micromanaging my HTTP stream like a swiss papercutter on benzedrine, I use Privoxy with FireFox. Yeah, it’s old but I’m used to tweaking it and it’s flexible enough to deal with new marketing insults.

    Comment by Pace Arko — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 4:24 am

34. […] Mark Pilgrim сделал ход конем, и перешел с Mac OS X на Ubuntu Linux. Примечательная цитата: digiKam + Kipi plugins. It’s just like iPhoto except it calls albums “tags”, exports to Flickr for free, exports to HTML that validates, stores my important metadata in a SQLite database, can be operated entirely with a keyboard, and doesn’t suck. […]

    Pingback by Мысли о… » Blog Archive » The state of Open Source, 2006 — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 5:01 am

35. Great list, and great suggestions in the comments. There’s not muhc left for me to add. But I would definitel add:

    
    

    screen (like tabbed consoles without the [visual] tabs, and also keep on running in the background when detached/logged off)
    
    irssi + Bitlbee (all IM protocols on irc on a console)
    
    Alltray (which allows you to tray any application)
    
    linux-phc (undervolt your Pentium M and enjoy cooler and fanless working)
    
    truecrypt (kiler-feature: it’s cross-platform)
    

    
    

    Comment by Sencer — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 5:20 am

36. Errr… if somebody can recommend me a spell-checker…
    

    
    

    Comment by Sencer — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 5:21 am




37. Sencer, emacs has one built in - press `M-x ispell-buffer’.

    
    

    From the console:

    $ ispell filename.txt

    Comment by Noah Slater — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 6:52 am

38. Thumbs up for another linux user!

    Comment by Bas Westerbaan — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 7:00 am

39. > Any particular reason you had to compile [mplayer/mencoder]?

    Because a major new release came out about a week after Dapper shipped, and I wanted to try it. Also, I wanted support for more video codecs than the prebuilt binary included.

    Comment by Mark — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 7:43 am

40. So did you buy a new camera?

    extra credit:
    Have you tested it with your shiny new install?

    Comment by David Dean — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 9:24 am

41. I’m contemplating the setup of a Linux box. These lists of software options are incredibly helpful. Elsewhere, I’ve been reading of the benefits of the ZFS file system in OpenSolaris. For a rookie in the Linux realm, will the app’s listed here run on OpenSolaris and how does OpenSolaris compare or contrast with Ubuntu? Ultimately, it boils down to which of the OS’s allows a newbie to get up and running with minimal Tylenol consumption?
    

    
    

    Comment by Steve — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 10:09 am




42. > So did you buy a new camera? extra credit: Have you tested it with your shiny new install?

    
    

    Yes, as I noted a few weeks ago, I bought the Canon PowerShot SD450. When I plugged the camera into my shiny new install, Ubuntu immediately recognized it and offered to import the photos, which I did, and it worked. I believe this is the work of libgphoto2, which is one of those amazing little libraries that does one incredibly useful thing incredibly well and just keeps getting better for free. Someone out there *really* cares about interfacing with digital cameras, in much the same way that I *really* care about parsing RSS and Atom feeds.

    Comment by Mark — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 10:28 am

43. […] So, I’m tinkering with Linux and Ubuntu these days. Mark also made the jump, not from Windows but from Mac, and he has a good write-up of his must-haves under Ubuntu. Very cool list. […]

    Pingback by For What It’s Worth » Blog Archive » Around the web: 27 June — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 10:43 am

44. I just wish my laptop’s network card would work with Ubuntu… I spent about 6 hours I didn’t have working on it the other day, to no avail. Grrrr… I love Ion, but I can’t be wired up all the time.
    

    
    

    Comment by Bill Mill — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 11:14 am




45. […] Now that Mark Pilgrim has switched to Ubuntu he’s updated his essential software list. Here’s mine: […]

    Pingback by PlasticBoy » Blog Archive » Essential Software — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 11:25 am

46. http://www.sebpayne.com/2006/06/27/one-thing-apple-did-right/ might help Mark! The Linux ‘version’ of the iLife suite but this may not suit you!

    I’m considering making the jump - albeit with Linux on PowerPC laptop as I couldn’t afford a new laptop at the this point but I have plenty of spare desktop boxes! Would you recommend it? Is it worth it?

    Comment by Seb Payne — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 11:27 am

47. I’d give some thought to using something other than Gnome. I use the Ice Window Manager (IceWM) with nautilus turned off, (but available from the taskbar when I need a file/icon manager.) If you don’t mind hand-editing some configuration files, Idesk will manage your icons and do absolutely nothing else. It saves a lot of overhead.

    Comment by Troutwaxer — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:26 pm

48. Mark, did you partition your disk /, /home, /usr, etc…? If so, can you point to a good recommendation for sizing? If not, why?
    
    Thanks for sharing your insights into your recent switch. I’m running both Tiger and Ubuntu at home. I’m trying to spend more time on my Ubuntu box though. Some things just seem easier to do in Ubuntu than OS X.
    
    Thanks.
    

    
    

    Comment by Yokimbo — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 2:48 pm




49. (parted) print
    

    Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0kB - 750GB
    
    Disk label type: msdos
    
    Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
    
    1 32kB 107MB 107MB primary ext2
    
    2 107MB 3323MB 3216MB primary linux-swap
    
    3 3323MB 25GB 21GB primary ext3
    
    4 25GB 750GB 725GB primary xfs
    

    
    

    Comment by Mark — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 3:06 pm

50. Oops, that’s missing the mount points. 1 is /boot, 2 is swap, 3 is /, 4 is /home. I ln -s /tmp to /home/tmp since things like k9copy like to store DVD images in /tmp.
    

    
    

    Comment by Mark — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 3:08 pm




51. @Steve: If you really want to play with an OpenSolaris-based distro, there’s Nexenta (gnusolaris.org), which attempts to bring an Ubuntu-ish GNOME desktop, Debian packages, and the GNU userland to OpenSolaris. It’s still a work in progress — they’ve got a little more than half of the Ubuntu packages in their repositories, but it’s not as polished or tightly integrated as more mature distributions. Probably not for most rookies, though.

    If you want a distro that Just Works, the answer is at the top of this page: Ubuntu. (In my case, I use Kubuntu with a few GNOME apps like Gaim, though in the end, my list is similar to Mark’s.)

    Comment by Ian King — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 3:31 pm

52. Thanks, Ian. With further digging, I see that OpenSolaris with ZFS might be the ticket for a web server, but for a newbie learning Linux, clearly Ubuntu is the better desktop choice. Mark’s discussion of his software decisions just paves the way for those of us who are clueless.

    Comment by Steve — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 4:13 pm

53. I’m a long-time Debian desktop and server user and I recently installed Kubuntu on my main desktop, just to see what it was like. I have no problems installing Debian (because I’m used to it and I built all my machines so I don’t have any hardware compatibility issues) however I spent the rest of the day in shock as Kubuntu installed while I was making coffee, and just worked. Wow. I’d second the recommendation to try out KMail, it’s the only mail application that seems to handle my massive IMAP mailboxes properly, I use a Mac at home and Mail on OSX is intolerably slow.
    

    
    

    Comment by Rachel — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 5:11 pm




54. […] His essentials include several open source Lifehacker favorites, like Thunderbird, Firefox and GAIM, and a couple that are on my “to try” list, like KMyMoney, and open source Quicken alternative. A nice resource for anyone else who’s ready to bid farewell to Gates and Jobs. — Gina Trapani Essentials, 2006 edition [Dive into Mark] […]

    Pingback by Ubuntu essential software - davecentral Planet David Central & Dave Central Planet — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 5:26 pm

55. […] Site - http://diveintomark.org […]

    Pingback by Travelling Through The Wire » Blog Archive » Ubuntu essentials 2006 edition — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 6:25 pm

56. I tried to make the switch to Linux with SuSE 8.0 a few years back, but it didn’t stick. I tried Ubuntu on a whim about a month ago and I love it. I’ve tried several distro’s live CD’s and I keep coming back to Ubuntu. I also have PCLinuxOS and opensuse installed. I’ll probably sh**can suse. Just too much bloat that I don’t need. About the only thing I miss from Windoze is xplorer², which rocks.

    Comment by buzz — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 6:25 pm

57. What about the Airport card in my iBook G4? Is that fully supported?

    Comment by Autrelle — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 7:31 pm

58. Regarding zfs, just wait a bit longer for it to be open sourced and ported to linux/ubuntu.
    I imagine with Sun backing ubuntu on its server line you will see zfs on ubuntu before other linux distros. There was something on the net recently about open sourcing zfs so it is probably a done deal. Rock on!

    Comment by Daver — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 7:33 pm

59. > What about the Airport card in my iBook G4? Is that fully supported?

    No. I believe it just made it into the latest kernel last week. Better wait until the next release of your favorite distribution; recompiling your own kernel is a lousy introduction to Linux. I believe the next version of Ubuntu is due out in October.

    Comment by Mark — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 7:48 pm

60. Mark: about your photo manager application, have you tried f-spot( http://f-spot.org/ )? Since i don’t have a camera i can’t really recommend it, but all people i know that use linux just rave about this application.

    What i like about your list is the mix of applications from both Gnome & KDE. Most people, like myself, tend to use only applications avaiable to the Desktop Environment they use and somehow end in restricting themselves. You on the other hand went and picked the best of each one and seem to be doing ok :)

    Btw, another mention for Tomboy. So simple, yet so amazing.

    Comment by Andre Costa — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 8:14 pm

61. Nice list. Thanks. FWIW, I run OpenSuSE, and before that SuSE, as far back as 7.3, as essentially a desktop system / power user. Haven’t run Windows for other than games for something like three years. two years.

    Additions:

    - I like a mind mapping tool. Freemind is a good one.

    - I also like having a very generic “stonepile” manager for collecting notes to self, and pieces of writing in progress (referring to the metaphor in Weinberg’s book on writing, subtitled “the Fieldstone Method.) A personal wiki workes nicely for that. I’m using MoinMoin at the moment.

    - Don’t see OpenOffice. There’s some griping about it, here and there. Don’t get that. It works just fine for me.

    - Firefox extensions: Bookmark Duplicate Detector, Dictionary search, Sage (vs. feeds other places), and StumbleUpon, for extra time wasting fun.

    Comment by Jim Bullock — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 8:19 pm

62. Gaim encryption? Weak tea. It’s time to go _Off the Record_.

    Comment by Nuthatch — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 9:15 pm

63. […] … Mark Pilgrim’s great, snark-filled Essentials 2006, listing his critical pieces of software after switching from Mac OS X to Linux. My faves: […]
    

    
    

    Pingback by genehack.org » Blog Archive » You’ve probably already seen… — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 9:38 pm

64. Ha! Thanks for the tips and the humor all wrapped up for me to discover & chortle my way thru.

    
    

    I don’t get the whole Gnome/KDE divide, either. I use a mix as well; some programs are simply Better regardless of what desktop they’re based on, and if you’re running one, there’s no obstacle to running stuff based on the other, so wtf is the problem?

    
    

    I had no clue gaim has plugins! And now finally I can get rid of those obnoxiously stupid WARN and BLOCK buttons that I’m forever accidentally hitting…

    
    

    I need to learn more about Quicksilver and why it is that all macboys (ha) wax rhapsodic about it regardless of their relationship otherwise with mac…

    
    

    Cheers,
    

    Cindy
    

    
    

    Comment by cindy — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 10:16 pm




65. […] Essentials, 2006 edition [dive into mark] (tags: linux) […]
    

    
    

    Pingback by greencrab capsules » links for 2006-06-28 — Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 11:20 pm

66. Quite an extensive set of jibes and the software list ain’t bad neither. Would add… Application: qtparted. Firefox extension: FireFTP; Spellbound had become quite nice, so of course it’s broken again.
    

    
    

    Comment by jcwinnie — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 12:17 am




67. Mark,

    
    

    I was astonished to see such an excellent list. Good choices! k3b should definately be in there ;)

    Now.. I may have to start rediscovering software! :) Congradulations on remaining OS X free. Those Apple bastards…

    Comment by Brice Burgess — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 12:37 am

68. RE: “Tengo el fuego del sol en mis pantalones”. Trousers are generally not as funny.

    I think it is therefore “Tengo el fuego del sol en mis mutandes”

    Comment by mick angel — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 2:02 am

69. […] Everyone has a set of essentials. Through Lifehacker, I was able to read Mark Pilgrim’s essential software. There are some apps that I also find essential from his list. Those would be: […]

    Pingback by Open Source Business » Essential software - Open Source Business News — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 2:49 am

70. “GNU Emacs, for people who think that the main problem with XEmacs is that it’s too user friendly.”

    
    

    Uh, I guess you are 4 years behind times, approximately. User friendliness of Emacs went par with 21.1 (at least if you are using X11). But catching up another 4 years is still nice to do, so take the emacs-snapshot-gtk package (it’s even in Ubuntu universe). While this is “unreleased developer software”, it works quite better than what other people call released.

    
    

    The main problem with XEmacs nowadays probably is that it can’t deal well with utf-8.
    

    
    

    Comment by David Kastrup — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 4:09 am




71. Mark, if you like rsync for backups, you might love rsnapshot - give it a looksie. Uses rsync underneath, but adds a helping of brains on top.
    

    Comment by Alex Hudson — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 5:30 am

72. > emacs-snapshot-gtk

    Yeah, I already have that. HTML needs a sarcasm tag.

    Comment by Mark — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 7:22 am

73. I’ll just add that Ze Frank Rocks!!! But some people just don’t seem to get it. Muy Fabuloso!!!
    

    
    

    Comment by Eric — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 9:40 am




74. I used to be a XEmacs zealot, but a killer app came along and I learned to love emacs for its differences. The app is ‘nxml-mode’. I adore it to bits. Fractional bits, perhaps even.
    

    
    

    Comment by emacs vs. XEmacs — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 9:41 am

75. Is missing to the list, PlanetaMessenger.org, Universal Java messenger for win/Linux/Solaris/ …..

    
    

    www.planetamessenger.org

    
    

    Juan
    

    
    

    Comment by Juan — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 11:02 am




76. well, why not? everyone is listing their favs anyway…

    
    

    can’t live without:
    

    * vim
    
    * bash
    
    * grep
    
    * elinks (to read html docs)
    
    * gcc
    
    * python

    
    

    yea. i also have a few standalone command-line audio players for particular formats: timidity, nosefart, mikmod etc

    
    

    why fancy costly GUIs? you should all learn to see beyond the Matrix illusion… :P

    hey, nice “comment preview”… ;)

    Comment by namekuseijin — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 11:11 am

77. The XEmacs beta does support utf-8, as long as we’re comparing snapshots. The only XEmacs features that keep me from moving to Gnu Emacs (particularly Gnu Emacs CVS with Xft support) are buffer tabs and clickable line numbers in Python exception output.

    Comment by Daverz — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 11:47 am

78. […] Ubuntu essential software Important software for the new trendy Linux distro. (tags: software opensource toread) Technorati Tags: This entry is filed under Links. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave a Reply […]
    

    
    

    Pingback by Attack of the Rob Bot! - proof that I use the internet » links for 2006-06-28 — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 11:53 am




79. I’ve been using Ubuntu for nearly two years now and these software lists appear stranger and stranger over time. Nowdays I’d have to stop and think about which program I was using for any particular task, or even look it up. Instead it’s just “whatever program runs when I open this file”. The lists are also strange because they’re nearly all programs that you can try out in the Applications->Add/Remove menu or via Synaptic. If you have too much time on your hands and a reasonable internet connection you can try every music player in the repository to see which one suits your personal tastes best, then remove the ones you don’t like just by selecting them from the menus. An actual comparative review of some category would be much more useful than a list of titles.

    PS: If you’re switching and you want to help out, keep a journal of all the annoying/confusing things and bugs that you find and when you get a better feel for what you’re doing send the items off to those who can fix them for the next person.

    Comment by Michael — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 12:41 pm

80. first: nice list.

    however, it’s ‘konsole’ not ‘kterm’. or maybe that’s your problem: you’re running some mutant app called kterm instead of konsole? ;) oh, and if you want something truly neat and handy in the terminal world, check out yakuake:

    http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=yakuake&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

    or just `apt-get install yakuake` in *buntu

    start it from the Run Command dialog (session management will take care of starting it on subsequent log-ins) and when it’s up hit F12. ooooH! =)

    Comment by Aaron J. Seigo — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 3:34 pm

81. *sigh* i guess it helps to paste the correct tab’s url, doesn’t it? yakuake is actually: http://yakuake.uv.ro/

    Comment by Aaron J. Seigo — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 3:35 pm

82. The ChatZilla problem you were running into was nothing to do with data corruption. It was a firefox bug with timers and has been fixed.

    Comment by a ChatZilla developer — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 5:26 pm

83. I see it mentioned elsewhere by others, but I’ll 2nd or 3rd Tomboy notes. On Windows I used a combo of MS OneNote and ActionOutline, but I find I get more done in less time with Tomboy. Bonus: It’s free (as in speech AND beer)!

    Comment by Jonathan — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 7:17 pm

84. […] Essentials, 2006 edition [dive into mark] (tags: lists) […]

    Pingback by Like Your Work » Blog Archive » links for 2006-06-29 — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 7:28 pm

85. […] Essentials, 2006 edition [dive into mark] (tags: Software OpenSource) Posted by seahawk Filed in Uncategorized […]
    

    
    

    Pingback by Jet Grrl » Blog Archive » links for 2006-06-29 — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 8:10 pm




86. […] Essentials of Ubuntu, 2006 edition [dive into mark] (tags: linux OS addons Software) […]

    Pingback by Nerd. and so much more! — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 9:22 pm

87. G’day from a developer of the GNOME Deskbar.

    You say “Quicksilver, only without the plugins”. Well, the GNOME Deskbar does plugins, but it just doesn’t have that many of them… yet. And plugin management currently sucks (it’s copy this .py file that you downloaded from some random geezer’s website into this secret directory) - we’re working on it.

    Since Santa has yet to give me a Mac, could you elaborate on what I’m missing out on with QS plugins (or just QS in general)?

    P.S. +1 re Epiphany and Tomboy.

    Comment by Nigel Tao — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 9:41 pm

88. […] Essentials, 2006 edition [dive into mark] Now that I’ve completed my move to Linux (sorry Mac fanboys, the install was flawless and everything worked out of the box), someone emailed me to suggest that I update my essential software list. (tags: linux ubuntu software applications) […]

    Pingback by onwalking.org » Blog Archive » links for 2006-06-29 — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 10:07 pm

89. […] Mark Pilgrim gives his list of essentials for 2006. Not too surprising. Here’s a few of my essentials and why. I’ll only list the non-obvious ones (for instance, you can probably assume that I’m using iTunes and iPhoto and you’d be right). […]
    

    
    

    Pingback by From Concentrate Software — Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 10:39 pm




90. […] Essentials, 2006 edition [dive into mark] Excelente lista de programas excenciais para o Ubuntu, feito por um ex-MacManiaco! Via: http://br-linux.org/linux/uma_lista_de_aplicativos_desktop_essenciais_para_linux (tags: Ubuntu Linux) […]

    Pingback by Bruno Alves » links for 2006-06-28 — Thursday, June 29, 2006 @ 12:20 am

91. “I was trying to find out what “chingada madre” translates into English… and saw your comment about how you said you would love to learn how to say “I have the fire of the sun in my pants.”

    The literal translation of “chingada madre” is “fucked and/or raped mother”. (not “fucked-up mother”) It’s a versatile exclamatory speech-act similar to “bloody hell”, “fucking hell”, “mother fucker!”,etc.
    

    My renditions of “I have the fire…” vary according to the meaning I want to convey:”Siento en la entrepierna la energía de una potente bomba de hidrógeno”; “Tengo la verga achicharrada por la insolación que cogí en la playa”, “Me han dado por el culo con candela… solar”, “Quiero coger contigo.Mi aparato es un gigante rojo”.(as in stellar red giant)