First Ten Programs on New Install?

reddigitaldragon asks: "Some people re-install once a year, but if you're anything like me your machine is formatted at least once a month. After the OS is in, then come the favorite/must have/most used programs to install. My first installations for Windows (I use it; get over it): Trillian, Winrar, Firefox, Winamp, SmartFTP, Azureus, NMap, GKrellM, PowerDVD. What are your First 10 installed programs?" What are the first 10 programs you would install on a Windows machine? How about for a Unix machine?

forget winrar

[WhiteDragon]

I use 7-zip, it is free (speech and beer) and reads and writes most archive formats, including zip, rar, tar, tgz, etc.

linux/openbsd/freebsd

[quelrods]

bash less enlightenment wget vim screen nmap phoenix/firebird/firefox Eterm xmms

A list

[Richard_at_work]

Heres my list:

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet!
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(

Thats about it, everything I install after a reimage of my machines!! Other things get tagged on, but those are the core!

If anyone has suggestions for alternatives, im open. But they have to be good! Im currently looking for a new .net IDE as sharpdevelop has a few bugs, and since its written in c#, i cant help fix em :(

As for UNIX, I use OpenBSD so its got a pretty sane base install. I usually drag in a few custom admin scripts ive developed over the years, and my .profile for ksh, but thats about it. The box then gets configured for its custom job.

My choices

[avij]

I think you missed Windows security fixes [microsoft.com], Adobe Acrobat [adobe.com] and WinSCP [sourceforge.net].

Mine?

[grub]

Well, I use my PC as a game box with some browsing only (with SSH if I need to access one of the unixish machines) so here's my stuff:

10 : Spybot Search & Destroy [safer-networking.org] (Excellent spyware killer)
9 : Spyware Blaster [javacoolsoftware.com] (Recommended by Spybot author to run concurrently)
8 : Some form of browser. [mozilla.org]
7 : PuTTY [greenend.org.uk] (SSH client w/ tunnelling)
6 : Thief [eidosinteractive.com] (awesome game)
5 : Thief 2 [eidosinteractive.com] (more Thief!)
4 : Darkloader [thief-thecircle.com] (allows one to run custom fan missions in the Thief games)
3 : System Shock 2 [sshock2.com] (creepy sci-fi rp/fps)
2 : For those days I feel like a slug-fest? Doomsday [doomsdayhq.com] and the ol' Doom games. (adds real 3D and all the video card eye candy to Doom/Heretic/etc. A MUST HAVE!)
1 : Half Life [sierra.com] You know it! (still has one of the best stories of any game around)

Here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows:

Firefox
30 or so patches and 1 service pack
Trillian
bersirc
Office
visual studio
Thunderbird
Nero
C&C Generals: Zero Hour
gvim

Linux:

gnome
evolution
firefox
thunderbird
vim/gvim
synaptic
gaim
xchat
dashboard
xbill ;)

first few programs

[toast0]

On windows,

putty, gaim, mozilla

On linux,

aptitude, ssh, joe, gnome, gaim, epihpany-browser

For Windows...

[taped2thedesk]

0. OS updates
1. Putty
2. Firefox & extensions
3. Thunderbird
4. gVim (The 'edit with vim' that gets attached to context menus for all file types is one of my favorite tools)
5. RealVNC
6. Acroread/Flash/Java/etc.
7. Trillian
8. Norton Corporate Edition
9. SpyBot
10. Cygwin

The OpenCD

[Siener]

When installing a Windows PC, it's a good idea to have The OpenCD [theopencd.org] handy. It includes (among other things) CDEx, Mozilla, GIMP, PuTTY, TightVNC and WinPT.

Don't reformat: use Knoppix/Partimage/NFS

[Saint Stephen]

Do yourself a favor: next clean install, apply XP-SP1, then Clean=(Delete LocalSettings\Temp, Windows\Temp, Defrag) & boot Knoppix and backup your partition with Partimage (to a network location mounted with NFS), if needed.

Then apply all Windows Updates, and image again. Then install your drivers, and "core apps" (be very conservative), and tweak your profile a little, and image again.

Then restore one of these three images as needed, and update as needed. Install your games on a separate partition.

It gets tricky if you actually use your XP partition for real work (MSOffice, VStudio) instead of just for video editing and games and use the much superior Debian Sid for web browsing, email, and programming. Unlike games, its hard to put apps on a separate partition and simply "install" them with a .reg file or something. Imaging with 3 or 4 gigs of apps to back up takes a long time and gets to be a pain in the ass.

Re:For me..

[Mr. Bad Example]

Might I suggest that you burn a firewall program onto a CD? Then the next time you reload your machine, you can install the firewall and *then* connect to the Internet.

I don't reinstall, I update

[Vaevictis666]

I have a hard drive image (Ghost, but anything would work about as well) that I revert to every few months. It has all my essentials, configuration, and such. Windows is on its own partition, My Docs is mapped to D: partition, so the only thing I need to back up is Docs and Settings (I could map that to another partition too, but it's nice to have it be cleaned out as well).

So now I just do my mini-backup, revert to ghost image, apply pending windows/app fixes and upgrades (with a text file on my desktop to keep track as I do them the first time), install any new "needed" software, clean up stuff etc, and then make me a fresh image of that for next time.

Dump WinRAR for 7Zip

[Anonymous Coward]

Found this a few months ago and LOVE IT.

http://www.7-zip.org

7-Zip is free software distributed under the GNU LGPL

Supported formats: 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB

That's funny, I don't install Gator...

[plover]

The first programs I install on my own box include these:

• Mozilla [mozilla.orgx]
• Spybot S&D [safer-networking.org]
• AVG Anti-virus [grisoft.com]
• Microsoft Visual Studio [microsoft.com]
• ActiveState Perl [activestate.comx]
• America's Army [americasarmy.com] (gotta test the graphics card, you know.)
• Winamp 5.0 [winamp.com]
• Open Office [openoffice.org]

I install Mozzie first, then I download and run Spybot Search and Destroy and run the cleanup/immunize functions, and then I install AVG. Nothing else is an "absolute" but I usually install them. (I don't install Visual Studio on other people's boxes, of course!)

Install once, then ghost

[Seth Morabito]

Oh my goodness, I'm in pain just thinking about re-installing every month. I apologize for this not being a direct reply to your question, but it is (I hope) a piece of very useful advice nonetheless.

If you're re-installing on the same hardware every time, or even on identical but different hardware, I would very seriously recommend buying Norton Ghost. The personal edition is relatively inexpensive. Then, you can get your system installed in a fresh, clean way, patched up as you like it, with whatever programs you choose, and make an image of it. Store the image on a remote server, a DVD-R, split up across CD-Rs, whatever you like. The next time you want to reinstall, just boot up off the Ghost disk and restore the image.

It will save you so many painful hours of waiting, downloading patches, rebooting, downloading drivers, rebooting, rebooting again, installing programs, rebooting, rinse, repeat.

OS X

[mtm]

First Ten:

* LaunchBar - fast key-stroke based launcher
* OpenOffice.org
* IntelliJ IDEA - great refactoring IDE
* FireFox
* SubEthaEdit
* xcode
* Carbonized GNU/Emacs (insert joke here...)
* Propellerhead's Reason
* Omni Graffle Professional
* NetBeans

Most of the other stuff (unix tools) is already there.

On MacOS X

[numbski]

Fink
Sendmail
Bring Perl Current
SpamAssassin and SpamAssassin Milter
Microsoft Office (Yuck! Please get us an Aqua Native Open Office!)
Mozilla Firefox
RealMediaBurner (as close to Nero as you're going to get)
BitTorrent
MultiDesktop
CarbonCopyCloner

Win:Cygwin. Nix:vi/vim

[n1ywb]

On Windows it's definately the Cygwin suite. I guess it's really many programs, but they come with a single installer.

On 'nix, it's definately vi or vim. Bash is a close second.

Re:For me..

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words, broadband router with firewall. =) Then I go ahead and run Windows Update, update antivirus and install Kerio Personal firewall, and SpyBot Search and Destroy. This is the Belt and Suspenders approach. By avoiding Outlook, and IE, and not websurfing or checking email on my Windows pc, I don't get compromised. Then again, Windows is just a toy. I do all my real work on Mac OS X, or occasionally linux.

Re:forget winrar

[Mattintosh]

Try ICEOWS [iceows.com]. The interface kicks all sorts of booty, plus it works with every zip-ish format I've ever encountered, along with more than a few I haven't encountered.

Re:A list

[kworthington]

MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(

Try MySQL Control Center [mysql.com]. It's free and works a lot like Microsoft's Enterprise Manager for MS SQL Server.

Re:forget winrar

[notasheep]

Thanks for the 404 link, "idiot boy". :) Here's a link that isn't broken: link that works [7-zip.org]

Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen...

[Kenja]

Maybe if you stop laucnhing all those "hotgirlz.jpg.exe" attachments and downloading warez you wouldn't need to install an antivirus program right away? Beleve it or not, but a virus will not just sneak into your system. It has to be put there.

Yuck!

[Paul d'Aoust]

What an ugly list. I shoulda previewed first. Here it is, this time formatted.

I install Firefox right off the bat too. Here's my list:

1. Firefox
2. Thunderbird
3. AVG Anti-Virus
4. Mime handlers; e.g., Flash, QuickTime, Adobe Reader
5. Windows XP SP1, DirectX 9, and Windows Media Player 9
6. FilZip (or some other archiving program)
7. OpenOffice.org
8. HTML-Kit
9. GIMP
10. iTunes

And for Linux:

1. GNOME
2. Firefox
3. Evolution (along with fetchmail and an IMAP server
4. gAIM
5. GIMP
6. extra Xscreensavers (like Really Slick Screensavers' GLX port)
7. XMMS
8. OpenOffice.org
9. Inkscape
10. giFT

Forget 7-Zip

[cybermace5]

I don't like 7-Zip, there are some compatibility issues I've found with encrypted Zip files, and the user interface is really clunky.

Instead, use the other free alternative, IZArc [izsoft.dir.bg]. It handles everything, plus 7-Zip, actually. The user interface is very clean and contains at least as many features as WinZip. Gets a full recommendation from me!

My Top N.

[_bug_]

Besides what was stated in the news story, and what is grabbed on Windows Update...

Miranda [miranda-im.org]
Lightweight ICQ/IM app with plugin support for IRC/Jabber/etc..

FilZip [filzip.com]
Free zip, rar, etc... util

PuTTY [greenend.org.uk]
Best SSH client for windows, and it's free

WinSCP [sourceforge.net]
SFTP/SCP Client, free

Crimson Editor [crimsoneditor.com]
Text Editor / IDE, supports color-coding source code and such. Very handy.

Mozilla [mozilla.org]
FireFox is nice, but I need a decent mail app and I like Moz for that.

Media Player Classic [sourceforge.net]
Best. App. Ever. As long as you've got the codec installed, this handy thing will play the media files for you. This includes QuickTime, RealPlayer, and even Flash movies.

Nimo Codec Pack [everwicked.com]
A compilation of video and audio codecs as well as stream switchers, extra directshow filters, and nifty bits. Rather than hunting down individual codecs for XviD, 3vix, OGG, etc... this pack does it all in one operation.

Re:A list

[ichthus]

SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet!

I haven't tried SmartFTP, so maybe it's better, but I really like FileZilla [sourceforge.net]. It does sftp too - great for crypto xfers.

Textpad

[turnstyle]

I've long wished for WinBBEdit, but I've been quite happy Textpad [textpad.com] user for years.

A fine text editor!

On windows? Here's the whole interoperability kit

[rwa2]

1. Cygwin [cygwin.com] - get the POSIX environment on!
2. PuTTY [greenend.org.uk] - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
3. TightVNC [tightvnc.com] - get to some other computer
4. OO.o [openoffice.org]
5. vim [vim.org] - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
6. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. [mozilla.org] - and the plugins:
   • Flash [shockwave.com]
   • Acrobat Reader [adobe.com]
   • StumbleUpon toolbar [stumbleupon.com] - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
7. Winamp [winamp.com] - get the groove on
8. MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] - it handles just about all the codecs
9. MultiDesk [techsuperior.com] - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
10. Windows PowerToys [microsoft.com] - because every little option matters

Usually hit windowsupdate [microsoft.com] several times first, of course.

More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...

Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen...

[Kenja]

"So what you are saying is that Windows is completely secure from a fresh install?"

Secure from what? Unless you downloaded a warez copy of Windows odds are it wont have a virus. Network security has nothing to do with antivirus software. Get a firewall, dont rely on the OS to provide security.

First 10 Programs

[Monkeyboy0076]

1. Windows Updates 2. AIM 3. DeadAIM 4. iTunes 5. DivX 6. Microsoft Office 7. WinRAR 8. Newest ForceWare 9. Windows Media Encoder 10. Diskeeper

Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen...

[BagOBones]

Depends if you have open shares and are on a domain.

Also if you don't have your browser and email client patched there is a chance that a virus can be launched when you check your email or open a webpage.

Re:My First 10...

[Soko]

Myself, I prefer to roll those into my install CD via slipstreaming. (Google for "XP slipstream hotfix" for more) That way, I get as much protection as possible OOTB.

Slip-streaming isn't possible though with those confounded restore CDs from OEMs though. Grrrr....

Soko

Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen...

[Kenja]

"Depends if you have open shares and are on a domain."

True, if there is another system with a virus on your network it can infect any open shares you have. But then again, in that case you have problems that a single install of an antivirus program wont fix.

"Also if you don't have your browser and email client patched there is a chance that a virus can be launched when you check your email or open a webpage."

By default even Outlook Express will prompt you before launcing an attachment. As for the webpage part, this has been claimed a lot, but no one has ever been able to point to a page that infects a computer.

Re:Gator!

[XorNand]

I recommend Weather Watcher [singerscreations.com] if you'd like a system tray weather icon. It's free (beer), spyware-free, lightweight and does everything I'd want it to do.

Linux essentials

[anthro398]

I always install Fprot antivirus [f-prot.com], ethereal [ethereal.com], nmap [insecure.org], and gftp [seul.org]. Installation of linux isn't complete without these tools. I use Nmap to test the firewalls on my network, Ethereal to look for unwanted traffic or communication problems behind my router, and gFTP is a nice GUI FTP client that never seems to come with default installs. Although, Linux isn't as susceptible to virus and trojan issues, it's nice to at least have a scanner available.

Re:My First 10...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about doing it this way?

Kerio Personal Firewall 2.0

DCOMbob

ShootTheMessenger

UnPnP

Windows XP SP2

Office 2000

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6

Mozilla

MinGW

FreeCIV

Re:That's funny, I don't install Gator...

[gnu-generation-one]

Office & Design
- OpenOffice.org
- AbiWord
- GIMP

Internet & Communication
- Mozilla
- FileZilla
- TightVNC
- WinHTTrack
- PuTTY

Multimedia & Games
- Audacity
- CDex
- Crack Attack!
- Sokoban YASC
- Celestia
- Really Slick Screensavers

Utilities & Other
- 7-Zip
- SciTE
- WinPT
- NetTime

Source: TheOpenCD [sunsite.dk]

Re:WTF are you doing to it?

[pogle]

WinXP pro put an end to the reformat cycle of windows, IMO. On Win98 you *had* to reformat regularly to keep performance up. With WinXP Pro I reformat when I do major hardware changes, and thats it. With spyware removal and virus protection it can stay running indefinitely without issues. On Win98 my games would become unplayable simply due to the system bloating and decaying.

Basically, if you're running XP Pro or maybe 2000, reinstalling isnt such a big deal. Win9x, ME, and XP Home (why why WHY is it allowed to exist) are a different story.

On MacOS X? Here's the whole interoperability kit

[rwa2]

1. Fink [sf.net] - get the GNU POSIX environment on!
2. OSXVNC [redstonesoftware.com] - get somewhere else
3. OO.o [openoffice.org]
4. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. [mozilla.org] - and the plugins:
   • Flash [shockwave.com]
   • Acrobat Reader [adobe.com]
   • StumbleUpon toolbar [stumbleupon.com] - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
5. MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] - it handles just about all the codecs
6. WS Manager [sourceforge.net] - Multiple desktop manager. I'm too cheap to pay to upgrade from OS 10.2 to 10.3 for Exposé, even with my wife's educational discount.

Of course there's all the stuff from their autoupdater too. Heh, notice it's a bit smaller than the Windows list :P

First 10

[exick]

1. Mozilla Firefox
2. Mozilla Thunderbird
3. Cygwin
4. WinRAR
5. Zoom Player
6. UltraEdit
7. Gaim
8. Spybot S&D
9. Adobe Acrobat
10. MS Office and/or OpenOffice

My List

[Corporate Gadfly]

Surprise, surprise, this is all free stuff.

1. PuTTY (secure client) [greenend.org.uk]
2. Cygwin (Linux emulation layer) [cygwin.com]
3. Gaim (instant messaging) [sourceforge.net]
4. Scite (editor) [scintilla.org]
5. Firefox (browser) [mozilla.org]
6. TortoiseCVS (version control) [tortoisecvs.org]
7. Spybot S&D (malware detector) [safer-networking.org]
   
8. Privoxy (filtering web proxy) [privoxy.org]
9. Gimp (graphics) [gimp.org]
   
10. CacheSentry (to fix IE's cache, in case I use it) [enigmaticsoftware.com]

Re:Textpad

[justMichael]

I used to be a TextPad user, but moving between Win/Mac/Linux depending on location I wanted something that was the same across the board.

I settled on jEdit [jedit.org] since it also supports regular expression search and replace and that was the "killer" feature in TextPad for me.

Re:My First 10...

[theo2520]

Yeah, but editing those config files is a b*tch if you don't have XPCREATE [msfnhosting.com].

Re:You forgot some essentials!

[RazzleFrog]

Nobody in their right mind installs either of those crapware apps. Quicktime Alternative [free-codecs.com] and Real Alternative [free-codecs.com] work great.

Re:My First 10...

[pnutjam]

I user partimage from the Linux Rescue CD, you can get it here [sysresccd.org]. Works like a charm and it's free.

Another take, one of very many

[AndyElf]

Windows:
- Cygwin (I'll count it as one, but it is, as we all know, many) http://www.cygwin.com/
- GNU Emacs http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
- Frefox http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
- Winkeys http://www.admiton.com/
- PuTTY http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
- Java http://www.sun.com/
- XXE and XFC from http://www.xmlmind.com/
- Tcl/Tk (the ActiveState ones) http://tcl.tk/
- PostgreSQL http://www.postgresql.org/

Linux/*BSD:
- X11 :)
- PostgreSQL
- GNU Emacs
- Tcl/Tl
- Firefox
- Mutt
- AOLServer
- OpenOffice
- tcsh if it is not there
- RXVT
- Sodipodi
- The Gimp

Re:My choices

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

After Windows and Drivers, and before it touches the network:

1) Anit-Virus
2) AdAware
3) Firewall (if necessary... if it's for home, it's behind 2 already)
4) SP xx (From a CD)
5) Security Updates (From CD)
6) Mozilla/Firefox/etc. (From CD)
7) Zip/RAR Proggie of the week (From the CD)
8) The Windows CAB files
9) From here on it depends on the purpose of the build, but the machine can now join my network

First Ten Linux/Windows

[haplo21112]

Windows:
1. AIM Gotta communicate
2. Ultraedit Gotta Edit stuff
3. putty Gotta talk to those Unix Boxes
4. Mozilla
5. FTPPro95 Tpp cheap to buy a new license
6. Office 2003/Open Office.org I use em both
7. Visual Studio 6/2000/2003 I count 'em as one
8. Winamp
9. Nero/EZ CD Creator again I count them as one
10. Unreal Whatever version is current

Linux:
1. Postfix since its not part of Slackware which is what I use
2. Custom config of apache/php/mod_gzip/etc
3. mtrr
4. Openwebmail
5. TMDA (Tagged Message deliverly agent)
6. shoutcast
7. config samba (does that count as an install)
8. proftpd ...Ithink thats it I generally don't that much extra I need for my Linux systems. Its really more of a configuration thing.

Re:forget winrar

[sysopd]

I keep trying out new versions of 7-zip, but I always wind up ditching it in favor of WinRAR. I've tried everything under the sun, and used to use Powerarchiver until they took a dump on the face of their userbase and went from freeware to shareware.

The problem I have with 7-zip is that its slow, often non-responsive during decompression, and it crashes. The last powerarchiver freeware version (6.2) doesn't support the newer RAR format, or I'd use that.

WinRAR is good software. I don't see the problem with paying (only $29) for a quality piece of software. Especially if the argument is "Use this piece of software because its free not because its good." Then again I love free (as in beer) software and embrace the idea of an opensource multiformat compression utility for windows. I'm just not going to use it until it can actually compete and replace a well-written, quality piece of software.

Re:Forget 7-Zip

[Famatra]

"Instead, use the other free alternative"

If you are going to make that claim, at least say it is ONLY free as in BEER and NOT FREEDOM.

IZArc's Distribution License [izsoft.dir.bg] right from their own website:

"IZArc may be freely distributed on the Internet, on CD/DVDs or on disks, provided that the original files inside the distribution file are not modified, the program is not bundled with illegal or offensive material.. Feel free to contact us at anytime regarding the distribution of IZArc."

I'll take 7-Zip free (as in FREEDOM) program instead, thanks.

Re:My First 10...

[hummassa]

google for slipstream.
Now, serious: 7-zip is better and is Free Software.
I always install Mozilla and the PuTTY family.
Cygwin if I think I will use the machine a lot.
VIM !!!

Comments + Links!

[Famatra]

Some links to your great suggestions, and some comments at the end :)

• Putty [greenend.org.uk] - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip [winzip.com] - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC [videolan.org] - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org] - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows [gimp.org] - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop [icsharpcode.net] - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ [bloodshed.net] - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird [mozilla.org] - Mail client
• Firefox [mozilla.org] - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader [adobe.com] - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator [sourceforge.net] - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro [clickatell.com] (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware [lavasoftusa.com] and Spybot SS [safer-networking.org] - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle [bradsoft.com] - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP [smartftp.com] - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla [sourceforge.net] it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front [mysqlfront.de] - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus [editplus.com] - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC [videolan.org] -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla [sourceforge.net] which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

Re:That's funny, I don't install Gator...

[spiritraveller]

... Um. Does Mozilla's site instal spyware on your computer? Why would you possibly need to run Spybot after visiting just one site? -_-

No, Mozilla definitely does not install spyware on your computer. Most spyware is added on as part of software that you did intend to install.

However, the default Windows install does include some things that Spybot will pick up.

My list

[Bluelive]

- putty: ssh client - Cygwin: linux emulation - Avant Browser: tabbed ie browser - Norton Utilities - Norton Antivirus - Vitrite: transparany/allways ontop tool - Tray it: minimise to taskbar - Feedreader: rss feed reader - Deamon tools: virtual cd drive - TightVNC - Jcreator - Jdk - wincvs - winamp - mirc - vlc and graphedt - Firefox

Digital Music artist

[merlin_jim]

So my list might be different from most:

1. Creative App Center (if you have a SB Live! Platinum, this is required for the extra stuff to work)
   
2. Sound Forge
   
3. Mixman Technologies Suite
   
4. ProTools
   
5. Yahoo! Messenger
   
6. FTP daemon of the week (currently using guildFTP)
   
7. no-IP DUC (one of these days I'll configure my firewall to do it for me... I swear...)
   
8. J2EE SDK
   
9. Visual Studio
   
10. Kazaa Lite
    

Auto-Install DVD of Windows XP Pro

[Kevin98003]

I just finished creating an automatic install DVD of Windows XP Pro. On this DVD it installs Windows XP Pro, installs my programs silently, and automatically installs all patches and hotfixes. This saves me a bunch of times from doing this the manual way. Right before I wipe Windows and reinstall, I move all my important data to my second hard drive.

For more information please visit the MSFN Unattended XP CD at http://unattended.msfn.org/index.htm.

In keeping with the direction of the first post, here is my list of my first 10 installed programs...

1. Hotfixes and security updates galore!
2. .NET Framework
3. Windows Media Player 9
4. DirectX 9.0b
5. Office XP with Service Pack 3
6. TweakUI
7. Winamp 5.0.3a (no video codecs)
8. K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
9. WinRAR 3.30
10. ETrust Antivirus 6.0

I have a bunch of other installed programs on the DVD, but I thought I would share only a couple. ;)

Cheers!

Re:A list

[cybermace5]

I know...press T to get the thumbnail view...R and L for rotation, etc. The thumbnails and HTML export utility alone would be a good program. Then throw in the ability to make slideshows and even save them as screensavers...basically everything you could want to do with any image, aside from actual paint tools, is there in Irfanview.

Re:My First 10...

[CatKnight]

How about the first 10 things you UNinstall from a fresh WinXP install?

1) Drive Indexing Service
2) System Restore Service
3) MSN Explorer
4) MSN Messenger
5) Games
6) ISP Services (who uses prodigy anymore anyway?)
7) Outlook Express
8) Internet Explorer
9) QoS Packet Scheduler Service (I never figured out what this even does...)
10) Extra services (like WMP auto DRM retrieval, MP3 player auto detector, etc)

Re:forget winrar

[Felonious Ham]

I used to use 7-zip as an alternative to WinZip, but as another poster has mentioned, the UI leaves a little to be desired. The third way between naggy WZ and unfinished 7Z is UltimateZip [ultimatezip.com]. There's a 3 second "ad" (really just a splash for the authoring company) when browsing zips, but you get explorer integration for free.

Might as well get on with the rest of the list:

• SciTE [scintilla.org]
• Glint [scitechconcept.com]
• Cacheman [outertech.com]
• Process Viewer [teamcti.com]
• Cygwin

I've further comment on my wiki [suppressingfire.org]

Todd

Try Acronis TrueImage.

[Futurepower(R)]

Try Acronis TrueImage. Makes backups while Windows XP is running. Has scheduler.

Re:My First 10...

[semifamous]

I use a thing I found over at Neowin.net that some of the guys have put together.

Autopatcher [autopatcher.com] contains all of the current hotfixes and lets you change some other settings. It's great! Check it out if you have to reinstall Windows in the near future... One of the best parts for people who set up multiple puters is the ability to set all of your options as the Default settings before you burn the CD so that you don't have to check and uncheck all of your options on each computer.

So that's number 1 in my list of the first 10 things I install.

Then:

Firefox
Winamp
Miranda
UltraVNC
StrokeIt (because Mouse Gestures are too cool to be limited to Internet Browsing.)
Filezilla
OpenOffice.org
Media Player Classic
Slowview

Top Ten for the Mac

[Arkham]

I don't install very often because I use a Mac running OSX. When i get a new machine though, here are my top ten:

1) Menu Meters [ragingmenace.com] -- I couldn't live without it
2) SQLGrinder [advenio.com] -- great DB programming tool
3) SubEthaEdit [codingmonkeys.de] -- great editor, supports collaborative development via Rendezvous
4) Little Snitch [obdev.at] -- lets me know when a program tries to go out on the network on its own.
5) BBEdit [barebones.com] -- the ultimate editor. How does anyone ever live without it?
6) Timbuktu [netopia.com] -- great for managing all those Macs and PCs remotely.

HOSTS file

[Naito]

HOSTS file from
http://someonewhocares.org/hosts [someonewhocares.org]

Fresh Installs

[Gangis]

I just reinstalled the OS on my laptop (WinXP Pro) after a year of constant operation. Here's what I did:

Office 2003
Photoshop CS
Trillian
Video decoder packs (DivX 5, XviD, etc)
SmartFTP
Nero Burning ROM
CloneCD
Grand Theft Auto Vice City
mIRC
and of course, the Goldfish Aquarium. Can't live without my fishies!

Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen...

[dhasenan]

Unless you're on a university LAN, in which case you're lucky to go an hour without getting new versions of Netsky, Blaster, and half a dozen others. So I installed Linux, and everything's running about 10% faster, doing only what I tell it to, and no viruses. Except I occasionally get an email saying I've been spreading Netsky--and I just laugh.

Re:Mac OS X

[jared_hanson]

It is simple:

When Microsoft does it, they don't give the computer manufacturer an option to remove it. When Apple does it, you are buying an Apple system from Apple, so they determine the features of the product. If Microsoft sold computer systems they could literally ship them with a kitchen sink and not cross any legal lines.

I hope, for your sake, that you are never confused about this argument again.

top programs.

[Foresto]

NETWORKING

* Mozilla Firefox
* Firefox extensions: RadialContext, User Agent Switcher, bookmarklets, Magpie
* Filezilla (an ftp client that looks a lot like CuteFTP)
* Klipfolio (a news ticker / rss viewer)
* Trillian (an instant messenger, with the microscopic skin)
* PuTTY (a set of SSH clients)
* Cygwin/X (a port of X11, including an X server)

MEDIA

* BSplayer (a media player that handles DivX files well, even on SMP machines)
* foobar2000 (an audio player, uglier but leaner than Winamp)
* AC3Filter (a DirectShow filter for decoding AC3 audio)
* Subtitle Workshop (for converting between subtitle files of different formats)
* HACP (a lightweight cd player that understands CD text and online CD databases)
* IrfanView (an image viewer similar to ACD See)
* XnView (another image viewer)
* Exact Audio Copy (an excellent CD audio extractor)
* Real Alternative (a replacement for Real Player, without the bloat)

UTILITY

* Ad-Aware (for finding and removing spyware from your computer)
* Spybot - Search & Destroy (another spyware removal program)
* AVG Anti-Virus (not crashy like Norton AV, but updated less frequently)
* IZArc (an archive & file compression utility similar to WinZip)
* pdf995 (for easily converting your documents to Adobe PDF files)
* ListXP (a lightweight raw file viewer modeled after Vernon D. Buerg's list for DOS)

Partimage works fine on NTFS

[waferhead]

I reinstalled my sons Win2k box, (dual boot Linux) applied all patches, defragged, and shut down.

Booted into Knoppix, made a bz2 compressed image of both his installs in ~5 minutes. Burned to 2 CDs.

Wrote it back to disk, worked fine. Took ~3 min to overwrite.

Re:Are y'all nuts?

[pla]

are all y'all nuts? Reinstalling the OS once a month or even once a year? Holy shit! My current box is 4 years old and I've never reinstalled the OS and hope I never have to.

Once a month I consider rather excessive, but for a Windows box, reinstalling at least once a year greatly reduces the kruft. After a clean install, you can feel the improved responsiveness.

Anyway, my list of the first ten (+1 x2):

0) Turn off half of the default Windows crap (services, the recycle bin, CD autostart, etc), and perform assorted registry tweaks to stop Windows from acting like a crippled DOS-box-with-GUI (ala Win95) with only 64MB of RAM (such as LargeSystemCache, NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate, CompletionChar, and DisablePagingExecutive).
1) PageDefrag [sysinternals.com], which keeps your registry and pagefile in a single contiguous file (though you should always have your min and max pagefile the same, so that doesn't get fragmented in the first place).
2) AntiVir [free-av.com]. No sane person goes without an AV program, and IMO, this counts as the best of the free ones (for that matter, I consider it better than Norton as well - Slightly more awkward autoupdates, but it doesn't hog system resources). Best of all, as a non-USian program, it doesn't deliberately ignore "official" virii such as the FBI's Magic Lantern.
3) AdAware [lavasoft.de]. We all know what it does.
4) SpyBot [safer-networking.org]. Ditto, and it catches some things that AdAware doesn't (and vice-versa).
5) Mozilla [mozilla.org], of course.
6) Winamp [winamp.com]. I still prefer the v2.x series, but, gotta have at least one of them.
7) TeraTerm Pro [vector.co.jp] and TeraTerm SSH [zip.com.au]. Technically two installs, but only a moron would use unencrypted telnet these days.
8) Calypso [rosecitysoftware.com], a really nice (and free-as-in-beer) email program. Want the latest, greatest features in your email program, making it all but indistinguishable from a full-featured web browser and media player? Don't use this. Want a safe medium for text communication, with fairly powerful regexp filtering? You'll consider Calypso a godsend.
9) The GIMP [gimp.org]. 'nuff said.
10) Finally, a compiler (or three... The next dozen installs after this one would include various other dev tools). Currently I still prefer Borland C 5.02, sadly not free. Although advancing technoology has already made it basically obsolete, it has what I consider the most straightforward IDE of any development suite out there.
0, part 2) Repeat step 0, since by this point Windows will have tried to undo half of my changes from the first time.

Okay. Ego-post of the day done.

My 10 most important programs

[NiklasD]

1. Acrobat Reader
2. XP Antispy
3. Mozilla Firefox
4. Mozilla Thunderbird
5. OpenOffice.org
6. Crimson Editor (one of the best free Windows text editors)
7. WinAmp
8. SSH client (from SSH com, my university has a campus license)
9. IrfanView (Image editor/viewer/thumbnail browser)
10. TweakUI

Re:Most important of all on Windoze Boxen...

[Anonymous Coward]

> As for the javascript, can't be done ... you cannot write to the local file system.

You are ignorant of all of the "local machine zone" vulnerabilities in IE. It can be and is done all the time.

Re:Mac OS X

[OgGreeb]

I love Mac OS X as much as you and find it equally easy, but I do have a short list of must-have programs:

• Konfabulator
  
• At least one Ambrosia Software game (usually Escape Velocity) and OttoMatic from Pangea.
  
• DejaVu (backup syspref) and CarbonCopyCloner
  
• Fugu (secure FTP client)
  
• Graphic Converter (just in case)
  
• LimeWire
  
• MacStumbler (WiFi search tool)
  
• Microsoft Remote Desktop Client
  
• Timbuktu Pro
  

Plus everything in the Software Update syspref.

On OSX

[alfredo]

Fink
Fink Commander
Cocktail
FireFox
Thunderbird
Gimp
T ex-Edit Plus
OO
GraphicConverter
Mu Commander

Re:Drivers anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I run win2k and still haven't installed any service packs

They don't make critical updates for W2K gold anymore. Hopefully you've disabled SMB, RPC, IIS, etc.

Re:My First 10...

[aldousd666]

two things here. One: the bzipped image is a file, just as 'easy to work with' as a .gho file, and Two: Ghost doesn't make disk images, it only copies files into that monolithic .gho. That's actually one of the primary differences between ghost and dd -- you don't get anything but allocated files with ghost, and for this reason ghost only supports certain filesystem types (though indeed they get most of the big ones, ntfs, fat, fat32, and ext2) but dd doesn't care what it's copying -- filesystem or not -- "Them's all just bits" God forbid that you would try to use a ghost image for forensic analysis, but dd, that's the good stuff for that. If you just want a backup of your working hard drive, ghost or a like alternative 'file' imaging program is probably what you're looking for. If you want the story that the unused portion of a hard drive can tell you, then dd it. Also, to my knowledge, bzip2 doesn't only 'not know enough about ntfs' it simply compresses an input data stream to an output datastream, so it's not supposed to 'know enough about' any filesystem at all, it doesn't know about ext2 or 3 or ReiserFS either...

Re:My First 10...

[persaud]

After drivers and OS patches:

1. PowerDesk (free [v-com.com] file mgr )
2. ZoneAlarm
3. Ecco Pro (info mgr, free [netmanage.com])
4. Intellimouse / TweakUI (clicklock, default button)
5. PerfectDisk (defrag, commercial)
6. RegSafe (registry backup, commercial)
7. RoboForm (password mgr, free)
8. SurfSaver (web page archive & search, free [surfsaver.com])
9. ToolsWorks (mouse/kb macros, commercial [pitrinec.com])
10. SSH client

Re:Drivers anyone?

[cat5]

Have a look at Autopatcher [autopatcher.com] Includes LOTS of addtions/tweaks/hotfixes.
No need to download everything.. it's already there.
With an XP slipstreamed CD, and Autpatcher burnt to a CD... it saves installing a lot, including Codecs.

On GNU/Linux boxes

[BrianWCarver]

...most of these are already installed for me in the standard installs of the various distros I try, but I consider these ten pretty crucial:

1. Mozilla
2. OpenOffice.org
3. Straw [nongnu.org] (RSS Aggregator)
4. Thunderbird (w/ Enigmail [mozdev.org])
5. Evolution (which may soon be replaced by the amazing Mozilla Calendar [mozilla.org])
6. Gaim
7. Gimp
8. XCDRoast
9. xmms
10. Xine/gXine

first 10

[oyenstikker]

When I set up windows machines for friends:
1. Cygwin
2. VNC server
3. Bash script for cygwin to SSH tunnel to my machine so I can access VNC server.
4. Gaim (so I can chat while waiting for #5 to download)
5. OpenOffice.org
6. Firefox
7. Flash plugin
8. SpyBot
9. Winamp (version 2)
10. Realplayer (free version 8)

Re:For me..

[jonbrewer]

I _race_ furiously to download and get a firewall installed, then do the windows updates. I've had machines be comprimised while downloading the firewall for the first time, damn those subnet scanning kids move fast :)

Considering the price of "Cable/DSL" "Routers" sold by Linksys, D-Link, and others, why would you *not* use one? I can't think of a better way of doing firewall/nat for $50 USD and ten minutes of setup time.

WinSCP and WS_FTP32

[Anonymous Coward]

WinSCP for secure FTP and remote scp.
Good old classic WS_FTP32 also, just because it works great and has that cute "Uh-Oh" sound when it errors.

Re:My First 10...

[lga]

You need to get yourself a copy of Windows XP 120 day evaluation edition. It's free to order from the website and you can activate it and update it online as it's a legitimate version with its own product key. It is licensed for 10 computers, so I figure I can install it 10 times in a row on the same computer instead!

If you're in the UK you can order just about every microsoft product from free from this page [microsoft.com]. I can't find the US link, but search for windows xp evaluation edition.

While you're there, order yourself a security update CD [microsoft.com], it saves a hell of a lot of downloading. (I don't know why MS isn't forced to post these to every windows user.)

Re:My First 10...

[omicronish]

How about the first 10 things you UNinstall from a fresh WinXP install?

2) System Restore Service

I used to wonder what System Restore does, but apparently it saves backups of your registry on your hard drive when various things happen, such as installing a hotfix or Windows Installer package. This has saved me a couple times when the registry got corrupted; a simple boot into recovery mode and copying over the HKLM registry file fixed things (of course, the problem of corruption still remains). Keep that in mind when you disable System Restore.

Top 10 Windows/Linux software

[tutwabee]

Windows:
Winkey
Spybot S&D
Mozilla
ZoneAlarm
OpenOffice
ZoomPlayer
Filezilla
Gaim

NoteTab Light (for web designers)
Emule (for downloads)
Shad0w's Experimental (for downloads)
Bersirc (IRC Client)

Linux:
Firefox
Thunderbird
OpenOffice
mp3blaster
the Gimp
Prozilla
Mozilla Mult-Window shell script (My own creation) [cleanmycomputer.net]
Kate or Gedit
gftp
Gaim

Re:My First 10...

[standing_still]

I reinstall Win2k approx. every 3 to 4 months. I just find that the thing starts to slow down after a while of using -- which is odd because I install all the software I need within two days, and it seems faster for for awhile.

What do I install after a fresh Windows 2k install.

i. Service Packs
ii. IE 6 SP1
iii. Patches, Patches, Patches, more patches
iv. Disable Windows Services (at boot up my system uses 40.3MB of RAM).
v. WinAmp 2.9 - version 5 stinks
vi. Mozilla Latest Build
vii. OpenOffice
viii. SecureCRT
ix. YahooPops! So that I can use Mozilla Mail to check My Yahoo Mail
x. WS-FTP LE to transfer files between my primary Linux Machine.

The only other appz I use are Kazaa Lite, Acdsee4, Nero 6

Re:My First 10...

[Frogbert]

It's a huge index of all your files designed to help you search them faster, how often do you need find? Can you wait an extra 15 seconds or is it worth a couple of hundred meg of space on your disk?

First 10 on Debian GNU/Linux

[jay-be-em]

1. vim - Best. Editor. Ever.
2. zsh - with apt-get completion this makes apt-getting the rest of stuff nicer.
3. screen - start a screen session.
4. iptables - secure the machine
5. irssi-text - irc is a good way to kill time while you're waiting for things to install.
6. bzip2 - for kernel.
7. kernel-package - upgrade to the latest stable kernel the Debian Way(tm).

At this point it really depends what I'm using the machine for. Is it a firewall/router? Then probably nmap, snort or some other security utils.
If it's my desktop probably gnome2, python, gcc, gdb, valgrind, etc.

Re:My First 10...

[csirac]

ghost.exe -ir

... is all you need to do sector-sector copy.

A few more vital windows programs

[bencvt]

First of all? Best. Ask. Slashdot. Ever. Through these responses, I've found dozens of free programs that are damn useful. Even better, many of these programs are open-source, too. Sourceforge.net is absolutely hopping today! In fact, I think their UNC mirror got slashdotted at one point. Also, a number of non-sourceforged program download sites are also hammered... guess I'll have to download from them later. Damn. :-)

Second, my list. Almost all of my favorite programs are already mentioned in the +5 posts, so I won't list them all (there are a lot). Here's what's left of my top 25 or so programs I definitely install on a fresh Windows reinstall, in no particular order. Everything is free, unless otherwise noted. I don't think any of these are open-sourced, though.

• ObjectDock [stardock.com] - OS X's sexy toolbar that expands when you mouseover is now available for windows, too. Tons of useful plugins available, such as a weather tracker and system monitor.
  
• Yz's dock - no link for this one because Apple killed it with a C&D letter. Same basic concept as ObjectDock; marginally better IMHO. If you really want it, google for yz_dck0083.zip [google.com].
  
• StyleXP [tgtsoft.com] - I can't believe no one's mentioned this one yet. Windows skinning, anyone?
  
• Crimson Editor [crimsoneditor.com] - yet another lightweight (i.e., fast) file editor with extended functionality such as automatically coloring source code files.
  
• MetaPad [liquidninja.com] - extremely lightweight file editor, a replacement for notepad.exe.
  
• Sothink SWF Decompiler [sothink.com] - good for when I want to grab an image or sound out of a flash file.
  
• Google Toolbar [google.com] - yes, it's created by Google, the next Big Brother, but I like the pop-up blocker, and the privacy issues are moot if you take the time to uncheck one box.
  
• Middle Man [krunchsoftware.com] - for people like me who still use AOL's bread-and-butter AIM client, this is a great unofficial plug-in. Removes ads and adds a ton of new functionality.
  
• Peer Guardian [methlabs.org] - another biggie that I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned before. Blocks the RIAA and its ilk from connecting to your machine.
• Total Recorder [highcriteria.com] - (shareware/demo) captures all audio output and logs it to a wav or mp3 file. Good for stream ripping.
  
• NetLimiter [netlimiter.com] - (shareware/demo) limit your maximum upload/download speeds, optionally on a program by program basis. Some firewalls already have this functionality, though... but not all.
  

Re:My First 10...

[jaylene_slide]

Wow, that was the second on topic-post... :-)

For myself, running OS X (Panther), it's:

1. LaunchBar [obdev.at]
2. Default Folder [stclairsoft.com]
3. ASM [vercruesse.de]
4. LiteSwitch [proteron.com] (I use Adobe apps and don't want to learn new selection-tool-switching habits)
5. FruitMenu [unsanity.com]
6. WindowShade [unsanity.com]
7. Little Snitch [obdev.at]
8. Net Monitor [mac.com]
9. Eudora [eudora.com]
10. Mozilla [mozilla.org]


slide

Cygwin

[einhverfr]

Does nobody else install Cygwin, Bash, PostgreSQL, etc. first?

Also, how many people on UNIX systems reformat their systems often enough to make this question meaninful? Of course maybe this shows how different the UNIX and Windows worlds really are.

Re:My top 3

[Asmodean]

I use Shareaza, it's like the Trillian of the P2P world.

Re:My First 10...

[tricops]

Well, fair enough. It likely has *some* sort of schedule. Unfortunately, it always seems to be using CPU time, and from the description from this site [theeldergeek.com] and most other sites I have seen, it sounds pretty close to effectively random :P. It's not like you can specifically choose when to run it anyway....

I don't reinstall nearly that often, but...

[Kris_J]

...I do setup new PCs a bit more rapidly than most, so here's a list

• Mozilla
• Proxomitron
• Eudora
• 7-zip
• VNC
• OpenOffice.org
• Nero Burning
• Pop-Mouse and Xmouse2k, but not on a gaming PC
• MusicMatch (for my iPod)
• Diablo II

And some anti-virus software. The last two bullet points are more for home PCs than anything I might setup at work. I also have a C:\programs folder of applications that don't need to be installed, just copied onto the hard drive. That folder just gets copied across wholesale.

I'm looking for a good WinXP disk defrag utility if anyone can suggest one.

Just as a closing comment, why do some people feel the need to re-install Windows so often? All of my Windows XP PCs are still using the first install. The oldest is just under two years old.

Mine are kind of vague

[cgreuter]

Assuming a sufficiently Unixy system (where Windows or OS/2 with their respective open-source POSIX-ish layers count), I usually go with, in no particular order:

• Emacs or (preferably) XEmacs built to use the system GUI.
• bash/zsh/tcsh or whatever Unix-like shell I can get so long as it has good filename completion and command history.
• Some terminal emulator. I usually default to rxvt but I'm not too picky as long as it can show more than 50 lines.
• A collection of Unix command-line tools. GNU coreutils are my favourite but I'll take any sufficiently non-sucky toolkit.
• Perl. I absolutely need this.
• A decent web browser, usually Opera or Mozilla.
• mutt
• vim (preferred) or nvi, because classic vi just sucks.
• GNU make, because so many things depend on it.
• Some decent command-line-drive C compiler/linker/debugger, ideally gcc if only because I know it well.

This is all kind of moot on major Linux distros (which are what I mostly use) since you get everything you could ever possibly need with those and I just install it all instead of wasting time picking the packages I want.

Under the SysV Unix systems I've used, the core utilities are usually good enough for my tastes as is the C compiler (although you often have to buy it separately). Getting a decent web browser has been tricky so I make do with lynx or an old version of Netscape, depending. Perl is mostly standard these days.

Under Windows, I don't bother with firewalls or antivirus software. I just use an external router to block all ports, then make sure to never, ever use IE or Outlook Express. This has worked for me so far, although I don't use Windows very much and so it could just be the law of averages in my favour so far.

My top 10

[Anonymous Coward]

1. BlackboxLean - Swank fork of BlackBox4Win
2. Opera - My favorite browser for years
3. Directory Opus - Easily the best and most customizable file manager I've ever used
4. Miranda IM - Nice lean IM client
5. AllSnap - All windows snap to each other
6. Media Player Classic - Light media player
7. Virtual Daemon - Virtual CD software
8. mIRC - Crappy IRC client
9. Winamp 2 - Too lazy to upgrade
10. Photoshop 6 - God I hate the GIMP

Here ya go...

[Anonymous Coward]

In order:

Windows 2000 SP3
The rest of my drivers (Example: Logitech mouse)
WinZip
Office 2000
Adobe Acrobat
PHP4
MySQL
SecureCRT SSH
PCAnywhere
WinMX

Windows Indexing Service

[Roman_(ajvvs)]

Judging from the fact the info page [microsoft.com] in the indexing service applies to professional and server editions of windows and the fact there's an SDK for the indexing service [microsoft.com], I'd say that it's not intended for your average everyday use. It seems to be a different to unix locate (if I glean correctly from the other posts), because it's an idling process [microsoft.com], rather than a scheduled job.

I usually turn it off, since files I'm looking for are rarely indexed when I'm looking for them.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Ghost Images

[WuphonsReach]

Is this the case with Ghost these days? I know when I used Ghost years ago it had both options, either copy the files it saw on a disk to an image file, or copy the entire disk to an image without caring what the filesystem was. I used to have to do exactly that before Ghost supported NTFS natively, and you could also tell it whether or not you wanted to do that with something it did support, like FAT.

It still does both (just used Ghost2003 a few days ago). Sorry, don't remember the command line flags to do it...

Re:My First 10...

[Reteo Varala]

cp? *shrug* dd? Meh.

cat's my tool of choice.

cat /dev/hda | bzip2 > Image.bz2

Image-based Backup and compression, without the hefty expense. Add in gpg to that chain, and it's encrypted, too.

__

Okay, back on-topic.

1: OpenOffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org

2: Winamp
http://www.winamp.com

3: Mozilla
http://www.mozilla.org

4: SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com

5: Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org

6: Trillian
http://www.trillian.cc

7: 7-Zip
http://www.7-zip.org

8: Really Slick Screensavers
http://www.reallyslick.com

9: X-Setup
http://www.xteq.com

10: BigFix
http://www.bigfix.com

I know number 4 is two proggies, but I figure that they're closely related enough to be considered one solution.

Re:My First 10...

[dublin]

Here are the ones I find essential (I use Windows unapologetically on the desktop - it makes my life much easier):

1) Mozilla, for both Browsing and Mail - and all the stuff Mozilla is going to want:
a) Sun JRE
b) Adobe Acrobat Reader
c) Macromedia Flash (disgusting, but needed too often to ignore...)
d) Piro's Tabbed Browser Extensions

2) Antivirus and antispyware programs, plus firewall if the machine will have a wireless network connection.

3) Palm Desktop (worth having as a local PIM even if you don't have a Palm device, but indispensible if you do: there is no alternative that's anywhere near as good...)

4) SpaceMonger (Absolutely essential once version 2 is out soon...)

5) PuTTY (excellent SSH client)

6) Vim (*When* are they going to let this thing deal with spaces in pathnames and install into "Program Files" like it should??)

7) CyberKit (nslookup, traceroute, NTP, and a few other essentials for Windows.)

8) VNC (I'm trying out UltraVNC now, and I like it so far - the built-in file transfer is handy, although I understand Tridia's added that to their new version, too...)

9) Microsoft Office (Still indispensible, and there is no adeqately capable alternative quite yet...)

10) Unix toolkit: Cygwin (big, piggy, buggy shell, but more complete) or U/Win (cleaner, more stable, far better shell, but missing some utility pieces.) Usually I install both. I'm not much of a programmer, but the Unix text utilities and awk are vital for *so* many things...

11) SysInternals Tools, especially Filemon and Process Explorer

12) Unison (File Synchronizer, works between both Windows and Linux, so it's especially handy for syncronizing between a laptop (Windows, of course) and a Samba Server.)

13) Visio (*Definitely* no alternative, free or pay, open or closed source...)

14) HTMLDOC (HTML to PDF filter)

15) Copy of Knoppix-STD CD to boot into for all those other tools you need every once in a while.

16) And last, but definitely not least (because it will save your sanity from assualt by stupid algebraic calculators), the Excalibur32 RPN Calculator.

Top ten for Linux (one boot into Win2k in 6 mths)

[Tayto]

1. GNOME 2.6 - everything feels nice - from http://www.gnome.org/ or (for DEB packages) http://pkg-gnome.alioth.debian.org/
2. Totem - fullscreen capability, great GNOME-based interface, DVD playing - http://www.hadess.net/totem.php3
3. Video + sound codecs - DivX, Windows Media, etc. - http://mp.dev.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html or from a DEB source listed at http://marillat.free.fr/
4. muine - queue-style music playing interface - http://muine.gooeylinux.org/
5. gaim - multi-protocol IM - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
6. evolution 1.5 - much more stable for IMAP than 1.4, though a close call with Mozilla Thunderbird - http://www.ximian.com/products/evolution/
7. azureus - bittorrent client, essential for those anime fansubs - http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
8. im-ja - Easy to use Kana/Kanji input (Japanese), I'm learning Japanese so I like to add in bits of every so often - http://im-ja.sourceforge.net/
9. Acrobat Reader - PDF viewer, gpdf doesn't render fonts very well yet - from http://www.acrobat.com/ or (as DEB) from http://www.marillat.fr/
10. OpenOffice - Sometimes I need to do presentations at work... - http://www.openoffice.org/

This isn't a "morally pure" list - but really, using non-free software isn't a crime. And I do install Java as well - there are DEB packages available from http://z42.de/debian/.

And I do install Mozilla, but it's a dependency of GNOME 2.6 - I've been using Epiphany as my browser since 2.6 was installed.

Hmm, there are 8 pages of comments for this article, who's going to read this :-) But as I said, 6 months without booting into Windows, both in work and at home (that's three machines). DVD watching, DivX watching, music playing, web browsing, chat. What else do you need?

Well for a complete geek machine, you need the latest 2.6 kernel, udev , D-BUS and hal - see http://www.freedesktop.org/ for details - there are, of course, Debian packages of all these, and they work quite well on all three desktop systems I use.

Re:Partimage works fine on NTFS

[pnutjam]

I use The Linux Rescue CD to do essentially the same thing. It has a slightly newer version of qtparted and partimage that seem to work better with fragmented NTFS files.
I highly recommend it for imaging, it's free, my images take 5 minutes for a 2GB image on a 40GB disk, and the bz2 compression takes the 2GB image down to roughly 800MB, the partimage software will even automagically split the image file so you can fit it on a CD.

Re:Are there even 10?

[GlobalEcho]

Can I suggest Tomato Torrent [sarwat.net] instead? Excellent program. Caveat: the author says it's open source, but the links are broken and appear to be out of date anyhow.