Ask Slashdot: What Software Can You Not Live Without? 531
An anonymous reader writes "Whenever I install a fresh operating system on my computer, I immediately grab a handful of programs that I simply must have. After that, I generally wait and install other pieces of software as I need them. My list of known, useful programs has dwindled over the past few years as projects died, ownership transferred, and functionality changed. At the same time, I've begun to have use for certain types of software that I've never needed before. It can be time-consuming and risky to install and evaluate every single option. So, I'm curious: what pieces of software do you find the most useful and reliable? Don't feel the need to limit yourself by operating system, platform, or hardware. If you're so inclined, a brief description about what makes the software great would be helpful, too."
First! (Score:5, Funny)
Pacemaker firmware.
pr0n (Score:3)
A computer is unusable without a pr0n collection installed, so VLC a lot of good movies a good picture viewer and pictures, and lastly a good joystick :)
Re: (Score:3)
... which would almost inevitably cause you to die from dysentary or some other disease rather than "old age". I concede that dying from ingesting polluted water is very inconvienent.
Requisite software (Score:4, Informative)
in the modern GUI realm, Omni Outliner. I have it under OSX and on the iPad. I use it *constantly* for all manner of information.
In the shell, midnight commander. first thing I do when I open a shell is "mc" or "sudo mc" and off I go.
Aside from those, the components of c and c++ application creation (can be compiler and linker only, mc has a nice editor and I don't require a debugging environment though I'm happy to use 'em when they are available), and Python. Without these, there would be little point in me even owning a desktop or laptop computer.
Coming in dead last, a web browser.
Re: (Score:3)
There isn't a single piece of software that would cause me to die if it would cease to exist
So your car doesn't have an engine management unit, then? If that ceased to exist at the wrong moment, I'm pretty sure you'd die. Likewise autopilot software (or pretty much any aeronautical software) if you were airborne when it happened.
Re: (Score:3)
When you put it that way emacs ,
It's even on my tablet.
Re: (Score:3)
There's more than a few of us who survived the era before software took over the planet.
Maybe, but well over 99% of the people born before computers and software existed have in fact died.
(Ain't statistics wonderful?)
Search Software (Score:2, Informative)
For Windows, I always install Agent Ransack. My job requires I work with a file type that doesn't lend itself to the standard file search. Agent Ransack really excels at finding needles in haystacks. I also use Beyond Compare on every work PC. After that, it USED to be the gchat app from google, but with them moving to Google talk / hangouts, I've changed over to Pidgen.
Re: (Score:2)
apparently pidgen s so full of security holes the Tor people looked at it and dismissed it as the basis for their messaging system. they're basing theirs on Instantbird [instantbird.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I have not used Agent Ransack.... the free version does not look to search inside Office files.http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/features ...
I am curious have you compared Agent Ransack to either DocFetcher or Regain?
DocFetcher -- Open Source desktop search application: It allows you search the contents of documents on your computer (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://docfetcher.sourceforge.... [sourceforge.net]
Regain -- Search engine similar to web search engines like Google, with the difference that you don'
Re: (Score:2)
I use Everything quite often - it can only search file names, but does so literally as fast as you can type, winnowing down a list of every file on your computer to only those that include the word-fragments you've typed (reg-ex is also supported). If you get into the habit of appending key meta-tags to your file names it becomes even more powerful. The down side? It only works on NTFS and requires administrator access to scan the filesystem elements it exploits for its insane performance.
Re:Search Software (Score:4, Informative)
If I'm stuck using a Windows box, first thing I install is MKS Toolkit [wikipedia.org]. That gives me a decent shell, vi, and grep - which will find anything in any file. No need for special search tools.
(And yes, I know about Cygwin; MKS is vastly superior to Cygwin, since everything just works in a standard DOS shell, it doesn't require it's own special environment).
Re:Search Software (Score:4, Insightful)
(And yes, I know about Cygwin; MKS is vastly superior to Cygwin, since everything just works in a standard DOS shell, it doesn't require it's own special environment).
I don't know what tool you are using, but nothing I run in Cygwin requires a "special environment". All the standard utilities (grep, awk, sed, perl, ssh, git, etc.) work just as you'd expect. The X server also "just works". The tools also interface nicely with 4NT/Take Command, so I can sort the Windows clipboard with:
Now, I'm sure if I tried to use things like cron or the SysV init scripts, then I'd have to do some tinkering, but the whole point of those is to run a complete Unix environment.
/. cookies (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
GCC etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential
And also:
sudo apt-get -y install vim
sudo apt-get -y install git-core
sudo apt-get -y install tcsh
sudo apt-get -y install python
sudo apt-get -y install python-setuptools
sudo apt-get -y install libboost-all-dev
sudo apt-get -y install gdb
sudo apt-get -y install valgrind
You lost me at vim (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You lost me at vim (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, that reminds me, I was meaning to ask on Slashdot if anyone has any advice as to which is the better editor, Vi or Emacs.
I'd love to know.
Re:You lost me at vim (Score:4, Funny)
Edlin.
Re: (Score:3)
Not biting....Nice try.
vim (Score:2)
vim is the better editor - there's absolutely no reason to choose emacs over vim
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You lost me at vim (Score:4, Funny)
Emacs is a great OS, but IMHO the editor sucks.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The fact that all the answers so far point to VIM is no coincidence: VIM is actually winning that war. [google.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Emacs killed my dog and Vi sold my identity to a Lebanese woman, i'm now homeless, broke and have no friends. Please be careful when choosing editors!
Re: (Score:3)
I hate to break it to you, but running an SSH server on the target is *not* lighter weight than running vim on the target
Bah, you kids with your fancy "encryption" and "privacy". In my day, we ran our vi sessions over telnetd with a default root password, and we liked it!
Re: (Score:3)
Each of those requires their own daemon.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
tcsh fails to fix all of the awful syntactic problems with csh. [perl.com] Korn shell is the way to go, particularly now that it's truly free. Vim, yes (On Linux, there's rarely a need to add it manually, though). Password Gorilla, which I use to store all my passwords, is another.
Re: (Score:2)
I completely agree that Korn is more pleasant to script in. But... for some reason I prefer tcsh at the command line.
Re: (Score:2)
Tab completion isn't a high end feature, you can even get it under DOS (using the 4DOS shell, which is now freeware).
That old system was probably in need of some configuration. Even worse is when you use a prompt where up/down arrows don't work, they show you a few garbage characters instead of acting as a command history feature. e.g. Ocaml interpreter does this, and in some circumstances a *NIX-llike prompt can do this I think.
Re: (Score:3)
4dos in does era was great. Had better completion than current shells, for Linux or windows.
Re: (Score:2)
Because I like tcsh most.
However, it has its flaws. For example the glob expansion has a hardcoded limit, which has often failed on me in folders with large amounts of files.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you that stupid that you can't figure out how to create your own .tcshrc file for the behavior you want in your environment?
Are you seriously fucking suggesting that one should manually create config to just make very basic things like tab completion and Home and End keys to work? That's just crap software.
Office productivity apps (Score:5, Funny)
Solitaire
Re:Office productivity apps (Score:5, Insightful)
Total Commander (Score:3, Informative)
Unable to use an computer without it, runs fine under wine ..
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Total Commander (Score:3)
Take a look at ZTree.
Like TC but totally keyboard driven. I can't live without it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Titanium Backup, other Android Apps (Score:3)
On a new Android phone, the first thing that I do is root it and install Titanium Backup.
Then there are a few other apps that I must have, though the specifics aren't as important as the functionality:
VNC client: I like Jump (which was a Amazon Free App of the Day a while back) because it has ssh integrated. It's a pain using middle and right mouse buttons, though, and it doesn't use public key authorization for ssh (though I think the iPhone version does).
Terminal: I like KBox (http://kevinboone.net/kbox2.html) so that I can write and use some scripts.
SSH Client: I think I use SSH Droid.
Hacker Keyboard: Having a keyboard with both numbers and symbols active at the same time as letters is really nice, even if it does use up half the screen.
Re: (Score:2)
As long as we're talking Android, Tasker is invaluable for getting your phone to configure itself based on location, or time of day, or whatever.
JuiceDefender helps increase battery life.
Nova Launcher is just better than the stock launcher and has a ton of features I can't live without.
You mean "install" like "manually install" (Score:2)
apt-get install task-desktop task-file-server task-laptop
Ninite (Score:5, Informative)
Pick your programs, install them all silently, with good defaults, and check(and install) updates for all with very effort.
Linux: Only the basics (Score:3)
On my regular Linux desktop and laptop systems, I just want the basic apps, and then have it get out of the way so that I can work:
emacs, xterm, OpenSSH, and twm (with a few patches I've added).
The only big apps that I use are Thunderbird and Chromium.
I make sure to not install Gnome or KDE.
Sweet, sweet emacs (Score:5, Funny)
Good web browsers. (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox and Opera are on my list of good ones so far.
@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers. (Score:2)
Firefox and Opera are on my list of good ones so far.
You can't live without having both of them ??
Re: (Score:3)
Opera 15 (now 19) isn't FireFox, it's Chrome.
The one fortunate thing is they're building back into Chrome what they lost when they stopped developing Presto. It's slow, but it's happening. I still miss things like Ctrl-Z re-opening closed windows, but they've regained a lot of the ground they lost in the changeover.
I still really miss per-site options, which haven't made it back into Chrome-based Opera.
You mean other than what is installed by Default? (Score:4, Informative)
Debian Linux testing (Score:2)
well... (Score:2)
Firefox (Score:2)
Sure, GCC, Linux, sendmail, SCCS, any many more are essential to the open software stack I would die for. But the importance of a modern, full-featured, open browser simply can't be overstated. Without Firefox, the web would be a much less trustworthy world, and I'd be much less willing to take part in it.
Re: (Score:2)
GKrellm or other system monitor (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing I install is a system monitor.
I like to keep a close eye on CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, and network usage. Without that information it feels like I'm flying blind. It is often important on a new system when I don't know what is running and consuming resources.
1Password (Score:2)
If it is a Windows 7 or later system: (Score:2)
MS Security Essentials
Malwarebytes
LibreOffice
Filezilla
Gimp
After that it depends on what I'm purposing the system for.
If it's for my use, I'll install VirtualBox along with a copy of my XP VM for some legacy software that doesn't play on any later versions of Windows
My List (Score:4, Informative)
Adobe Lightroom - does 95% of what I would do with photoshop, works on raw images and simplifies my workflow tremendously. I almost never use photoshop anymore.
Ubuntu, Windows 8.1, Libreoffice, Adobe Reader, - self explanatory.
Firefox with Adblock plus and Better Privacy and HTPS Everywhere installed.
KeepassX - Password manager. Multiplatform, much less buggy than Keepass2 (note to develepers: please take it out of alpha status!)
F.Lux - warms up the color of your monitor in the evenings so that it doesn't interfere with your circadian rhythm, hopefully improves sleep. (hey - it's free!)
Videolan (VLC) - excellent video player (despite the crappy name)
Sandboxie (paid $$) - Sandbox your browser and various other programs
FastOne Image Viewer - excellent, free sildeshow software
Secunia PSI - makes sure your programs are kept up-to-date
Tons (Score:2)
The very first thing I install on a home machine is an antivirus/antimalware app, since it's Windows after all. Followed by Chrome to download and install drivers/apps for my peripherals (printer, videocard, dsl camera, scanner, etc..). Once that's done comes Thunderbird, Mozbackup (to transfer my old emails/addons) and VirtualBox (With Ubuntu, Edubuntu). Followed by Photoshop and Premiere. Then Steam, Origin and World of Warcraft. The rest I do like you, install them as required.
Reposting/Fixing My List (Score:5, Informative)
This list is part of a much longer list that I maintain and sometimes publish.
* 7-ZIP -- Create/Extra ZIP and many other other file compression formats, very powerful. Note can open some installer EXE and MSI files (see Microsoft Orca for more MSI options) (free, open source, Windows, there may be Linux/Mac variants). http://www.7-zip.com/ [7-zip.com]
* CCleaner -- System optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. (free, closed source, Windows) http://www.ccleaner.com/ [ccleaner.com] **Alternate Tool** BleachBit -- Free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn't know was there. (free, open source Linux/Windows) http://bleachbit.sourceforge.n... [sourceforge.net]
* Greenshot -- Good Screen Shot tool with simple annotation options. (free, open source, Windows) http://greenshot.sourceforge.n... [sourceforge.net]
* IrfanView -- Image Program View, convert, crop, optimize, sideshow, batch Processing etc (free noncommercial, closed source, Windows) http://www.irfanview.com/ [irfanview.com]
Instantbird -- Multi Protocol Instant Messaging (IM) Client - AOL, MSM, Yahoo, etc (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) **Alternate Tool** Pidgin - Multi Protocol Instant Messaging (IM) Client - AOL, MSM, Yahoo, etc (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://pidgin.im/ [pidgin.im]
* KeePass Password Safe -- Good Quality secure password manager, stores passwords encrypted. (free, open source, Windows Linux/Mac with Mono) http://keepass.info/ [keepass.info]
* LibreOffice -- Power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production. Excellent replacement for other Office Suites, can open many different and sometimes odd file types -- (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://www.libreoffice.org/ [libreoffice.org]
* Mozilla.org FireFox -- Web browser for more security then Internet Explore (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://www.mozilla.com/ [mozilla.com] http://www.mozilla.org/ [mozilla.org]
* SpeedCrunch -- fast, high-precision and powerful cross-platform desktop calculator (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://www.speedcrunch.org/ [speedcrunch.org] & http://speedcrunch.blogspot.co... [blogspot.com]
* UltraEdit -- Probably the absolute best most powerful text editors around, edit huge files, FTP, column mode, and more (shareware, closed source, Win/Mac/Linux) http://www.ultraedit.com/ [ultraedit.com] **Alternate Tool** Noteppad++ -- Good Text / Source Code Editor replacement for Microsoft Windows Notepad/Wordpad (free, open source) http://notepad-plus.sourceforg... [sourceforge.net]
* VLC Media Player -- One of the best media players out there. Highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. (free, oen source, Linux/Mac/Windows)
http://www.videolan.org/ [videolan.org]
Re:Reposting/Fixing My List (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the above (thanks for the tip on Greenshot, since Printkey2000 doesnt work on Win7.)
Ultraedit is great but I'm hoping to do the same kind of scripting in Notepad++.
Firefox with noscript, adblock, request policy, ghostery, https everywhere, mobile barcoder, pluggin toggler and self-destructing cookies and a few others.
I have Keepass on my cpu and android phone.
Whatever anti-virus Im currently using (Webroot for the moment)
Add:
FileMenu Tools - various file utilities accessible via right-click in explorer, includes shredding and an excellent file renaming utility
CutePDF - lightweight PDF printer
CDRTFE - excellent open source optical media burner
RichCopy - Microsofts GUI replacement for robocopy, highly configurable and multithreaded
BareGrep - very light GREP search tool, doesnt require indexes, searches filename and content, quite fast.
MenuApp - make my own pop-up menus in the taskbar
Hotswap - enhanced control of storage devices
Jacksum - great hasher accessible via "send-to", Hashtab also works
Rainmeter because i hate not knowing what my computer is doing, Samurize when I need to monitor more than one CPU
PrismHUD for the same reason
and Audacity (and Lame), GIMP, Inkscape, Foobar2000, Foxit reader, RawTherapee.
What do install immediately? (Score:2)
Windows (Score:2)
Windows
Firefox
Filezilla
Putty
VirtualBox
My favorite apps (Score:2)
Firefox, Chrome
OS/X:
Terminal, Outlook, Word and Excel, Dropbox, Evernote, Geektool, todo.txt, Rido
Android
Feedly, Maps, Beat the Traffic, Evernote, bar code scanner, my grocery store's app, Rido, Sonos
Windows 7:
Putty, WinSCP, Notepad++, Rdio, Sonos Linux: vim, terminal, ssh, keystore, apt-get, yum, the list goes on.
My list (Score:2)
Firefox
LibreOffice
GIMP
Audacity
Pidgin
VirtualBox
Clawsmail
VLC/Mplayer
Audacious
Openssh
Lots of other things, but those seem to be a primary "core" for me (Linux, of course).
Re: (Score:2)
Some command line stuff (Score:4, Interesting)
There is some nice stuff to have, sometimes trivial and sometimes quite useful.
sshfs
openssh-server
GNU screen (some people will like tmux)
irssi (preferably it runs on an always-on box with screen and ssh server)
dtrx : perfect to extract archives from the command line. It solves the problem of tar -xzvf random_shit.tar.gz : the archive's content may or may not be in a directory, such as random_shit/. So if you extract the archive right away, you run the risk of polluting your current directory with loads of crap (like 10 directories + 105 files at the root of the archive). If you do mkdir random_shit, cd random_shit and tar -xzvf ../random_shit.tar.gz, you run the risk of having wasted your time : if files were at the archive's root, all is fine. If they were in a random_shit directory, now your data has been extracted to a random_shit/random_shit directory and you have to do mv random_shit/* . then rmdir random_shit. .zip, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2 and all others.
I used to do the mkdir random_shit method, or to open the archive in a graphical archive manager before deciding what to do. But dtrx automates this! and works equally for
When I used Windows I liked some command line stuff too : set the DIRCMD environment variable to /O, have the console default to 80x43 and right-click to paste (I think, not sure that worked), and have Windows versions of wget and less.
MediaWiki (Score:2)
MediaWiki. Before I created my note-taking wiki, my ideas went off in all directions.
I'm also pretty heavy into R/C/C++/zsh/ZFS/git right now.
basic createware (Score:2)
I use OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, so exceptions/substitutions are made when an app isn't available for a given platform.
DropBox - Because that's where all the stuff I'm working on at any given time is.
Firefox - Because I'm a same-browser-on-everything kinda guy, and I'm too stuck in my ways for that to be Chrome.
LibreOffice - Because I'm a same-wp-on-everything kinda guy, but not so stuck in my ways that it has be OpenOffice.
Manga Studio - Because I create comics as a hobby, and even on the mac
At wrok? or Home? (Score:2)
At home: firefox, chrome, quicken, picassa
A few things no one else has mentioned yet. (Score:2)
* Launchy: I switch from my sitting desk to a standing desk throughout the day. Instead of using a glitchy duplicate Start button, I use Launchy to run things. Now I don't use the Start button very often anymore, even when it's on the screen.
* Dual Monitor, for duplicate task bars. It's glitchy, though. Crashes a couple times a day, but at least it's not a destructive crash. I should write an AutoHotKey script to restart it when it crashes...
* AutoHotKey: There are a few things I use this for, and it really
Ninite (Score:2)
ssh (Score:2)
--- SER
List (Score:2)
This is what I use every day:
TurboTax
LightRoom
Chrome
Thunderbird
KeePass
Google Calendar
On Ubuntu... (Score:2)
(Beyond rthe base install which includes GIMP, Firefox and LibreOffice)
- A desktop environment that actuially is usable
- Inkscape
- Scribus
- Apache, PHP, MySQL, Aptana, PHPMyAdmin
- Picasa
- K3b
- Xine and whatever I need to play DVDs
- Ghex
- Adobe Reader
- Printer Drivers
- Synaptic Package Manager
- Gparted
KeePass (Score:3)
KeePass http://keepass.info/ [keepass.info] is the first thing i put on a new device.
Re: (Score:2)
KeePass is probably at the top of my list, too. There isn't much software I use on a daily basis that I'd really be annoyed at swapping out for an alternative, but this one would make things difficult.
on Mac OS (Score:2)
(I have not had to install a fresh OS of 10.x in years - knock on wood)
Firefox - lots of control thru add-ons
GraphicConverter - I shoot lots of digital pix and this piece of shareware does most of what I need to manipulate the bulk of them
BBEdit - just the best test editor
JAlbum - easy way to make web albums of hundreds of pix at a time
Transmit - most refined ftp client I've ever run into
LIttle Snitch - nice to know what's coming and going on your box
The rundown (Score:4, Informative)
Scratch
Synapse
Xpad
Geany
Qt 4 Designer
Python
Gimp
Inkscape
Shotwell
Filezilla
Chrome
Thunderbird
Brasero
Clementine
VLC
LibreOffice
gnome-system-monitor
I'm running Bohdi Linux (E17), a few favorite built apps and functionality:
Terminology
Enlightenment File Manager
eDeb
Configure secondary monitor workspaces as tiling (awesome - could not live without - and one of the primary reasons I run Enlightenment) primary tiling workspace dedicated to Chrome, Terminology, and Gedit
Of course it's Enlightenment so I spend the next two-days configuring all of the fine details.
My list for Macs (Score:3)
If I'm configuring a laptop that I'll use for both work and vacation:
Default Folder (an add-on/replacement for the Open File dialog)
Graphic Converter (photo manipulation application)
Aquamacs (very well done MacOS version of EMACS)
HDRtist Pro (HDR processing application)
OmniGraffle (Mac equivalent to Visio, drawing package)
Aperture (Photo organizing)
1Password (Password safe)
DiskWarrior (File system maintenance)
Syncovery (front end to rsync)
This doesn't include the stuff I find essential that's built into Mac OS X (and its Unix foundations, such as ssh and bash.)
And for what it's worth, I've been using Graphic Converter and Default Folder for at least 20 years, back to Mac OS 7 days. It says something about the quality/utility of these two applications that they've "stood the test of time."
FAULTY MEMORY (Score:3)
KeePass 2 is the one software I cannot live without.
I can't remember exactly why.
Off the top of my head (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows:
- microsoft security essentials
- windows firewall control (commercial)
- cygwin
- notepad++
- sysutils (procmon etc.)
- ultramon (commercial)
- launchy
- sharpkeys
- autohotkey
- visual c++ express
- 7-zip
Mac:
- little snitch (commercial)
- macports
- better touch tool
- keyremap4macbook
- iterm2
- alfred
- geektool
- menumeters
- caffeine
- xcode
Linux: ...)
- whatever distro-specific set of packages gets me all the dev stuff
- (if needed) whatever distro-specific repository gets me extra packages (say, epel)
- kde
- xfce
- various personal customizations done over the years (xmodmap,
Everywhere: ...
- firefox (noscript, requestpolicy, adblock, flashblock)
- emacs
- python / virtualenvwrapper / git
- bash customizations (powerline, bash completions, personal scripts)
- libreoffice and latex
- truecrypt
- virtualbox
- dropbox
- gimp
these are the baseline, beyond that it depends from what I am using the actual computer for
requirements to make my doings easier. (Score:3)
My list as close to the order they are installed. I would indeed suffer without them
Power Pro - tell me you know what that is and you'll be the first, I've used it since Win95
HOSTS file I drag around is set in place, not a program but a requirement of mine
COMODO firewall version 5.3.1767, as the newer versions almost require you to call for support.
Opera 12. - Browser - for as long as I can
UltraEdit - text editor
ACDSee - Graphic viewer
Agent version 1.93 Emailer/Usenet
Stunnel to allow an older Agent 1.93 to connect to a secure SSL connection
WhereIsIt - CD/DVD/BlueRay Data base creator and file finder
TreeSize Pro - better than a guess how large a directory or disk is
Agent Ransack - search program.
Bulk Rename Utility - an amazingly full featured program to rename files, Located in the directory below. My Cameras have stopped storing the date on the picture itself, this program adds the date taken to the file name for me.
I have one directory D:\MISGPRGS that I store stand alone's, programs that don't need to be installed or once installed fine on their own, that are too many to mention I don't require a lot of them or have even forgotten some that still there (210 directories now) but it's available to drag shortcuts to the desktop of my newest OS, As well as a few directories within, that are added to my path, Irfanview is there, Process Explorer, as is my Debugger (windbg.exe) and it's requirements.
BTW PowerPro is a jack of all trades type program. A bar of 8 boxes (at the moment), that takes care of the repetitive actions of using Windows. The same as AutoHotKey, and AutoIt. I believe all share the same history in the beginning, one splitting from the other. PowerPro started as Stiletto; a three button mouse program.
As a side note: I sent $25 to the author of PowerPro just before he released it as freeware, that was the third and finial time; for me to send money for software, they quit (no Zmodem), or go freeware.
I'm all setup to lose a system and be up in a few hours, until Win7 always had 3 or more OS's to fall back on. But still good to be up and running in a short time. Linux Mint is installed now for a dual system but (ducks) not a requirement for me.
Do notice no malware prevention other than the HOSTS file, and firewall, no AVG, NOD32 - Just a bit of common sense has kept me as in control as is possible any more.
One thing I miss very much is a very small program who's name I've forgotten (XP broke it) but it grabbed the strings from any program - I know Linux has this. but Windows is lacking in this department, I use Ultra Edit but it's not as easy nor as informative - no String command comes close.
Mixture of Paid, Free, and Open (Score:3)
For all, most platforms: Libreoffice, Speedcrunch (Calculator), 7Zip, Firefox with Scrapbook, and Thunderbird
Windows Utility: FreeFileSync, Nvidia Inspector, PSpad, and Speedfan.
Windows Multimedia: SMplayer, Virtualdub, Avidemux, CDex, Audacity, Winff (Ffmepeg front end),
Windows Games: Thief 2, Guildwars 2,
Graphics and Design: Rhino3D, Photoshop, Inkscape (Going downhill. Pixels is the only unit that makes not sense for vector, WTF), Irfanview (But and looking elsewhere)
Geekie: Arduino, Processing,
Very Geekie Gucs (Circuit Simulator)
Very Very Geekie, Salome (Science Pre/post-processing), Paraview/Volvire (Visualization), Code Aster (FEM)
Linux: Most covered elsewhere.
Android: Colornote (Postits), Papyrus (Vectror Notes), Osman (Maps), Quickpic, Androoffice, Realcalc, FBreader.
Android Music: DaTuner, Simple Metronome, GuitarTabviewer
Need for Android, but not made: Librioffice, Taskcoach
My list of essentials: (windows) (Score:3)
For all purposes:
Firefox, Chrome and Opera - I use separate browsers to keep home/work/porn separated. Install AdBlock on both Firefox and Chrome.
MPC-HC - I'm fine with WMP for music, but for video I need MediaPlayer Classic
LibreOffice - Because you can't do everything with plain text files
Notepad++ - Because there's a lot you *can* do with plain text files
7zip - Handles every compressed file format I've ever seen, except for one really old Mac-specific one I had to use once
Steam - Because at this point I have too many games to abandon Steam, and it really is good at managing such a big library
For work only:
Thunderbird - I used to be able to use GMail's web app, but now that I have two work email addresses I need a full-fledged email client
Paint.NET, GIMP, and Inkscape - for image editing. Paint.NET is useful for making quick edits, like rotating an image. I'm usually done before GIMP would have started up
PuTTY - Best way to connect to my fleet of Linux servers
Komodo - Best IDE for when files are stored on a remote server, as is common with web apps
MySQL Workbench + SQL Server Management Studio - Best way to test database stuff
If using Windows 8, also add Classic Shell Start Menu. It makes it *better* than the W7 start menu once you tweak it right.
And for a first install, Ninite will let you automatically install about 90% of these. Very useful program.
My list for Linux (Score:3)
My list (that's the command I run on all boxes I have). I think it has just about everything an average poweruser/developer would want.
apt-get install vim-gnome ssl-cert apache2 php5 postgresql php5-pgsql default-jdk libclass-dbi-perl libdbd-pg-perl libapache2-mod-perl2 libdate-manip-perl octave nmap irssi uptimed rsync subversion cvs build-essential mysql-server mysql-client php5-mysql virtualbox wine texlive-full openssh-server screen openssh-client ntp jhead imagemagick k3b libk3b6-extracodecs mplayer dict dictd dict-foldoc dict-gcide dict-devil dict-jargon dict-wn htop audacious audacious-plugins cmatrix r-base rKward ecryptfs-utils libimage-exiftool-perl finger ant git eclipse javahelper transcode libav-tools ucspi-tcp-ipv6 chromium-browser maven2 mercurial meld lame gnome-disk-utility ffmpeg sshfs dos2unix opencl-headers handbrake-gtk libapache2-mod-gnutls ia32-libs
Desktop utilities (Score:4, Interesting)
-Virtuawin - mature, stable virtual desktops for Windows. There's prettier alternatives, but this is the I've tried that has never caused any crashing or other issues.
-WinCompose - Gives Windows users a Compose key for entering unicode characters (plus-or-minus, subscripts, extended math symbols, etc) using the same mnemonics as are standard on *nixes, rather than having to remember their code point or use a character map.
-Everything - File search by name, winnows down a list of every file on your hard drive just as fast as you can type the word-fragments that should be in the file name (NTFS only)
-WinDirstat - Directory size information - interactive tree-view is available instantly and updated as the breadth-first scan proceeds, pillow-view is added once the scan is complete.
-BabelMap - far more powerful alternative to Character Map, including the ability to search by character name or browse by code page
-SpeedCrunch - good calculator that keeps a long calculation history
-GraphCalc - excellent 2D/3D programmable graphing calculator. Open source, but apparently pretty much abandoned.
I won't bother much with heavyweight apps, since others have listed them many times. Except for
Code::Blocks - cross-platform IDE. Not the best I've used, but it's available on all the major OSes.
EasyMercurial - super-simplified, "grandma suitable" GUI interface for the handful of most commonly used version control functions, including graphical visualization of the branch/merge graph. Whether you don't use version control as not worth the hassle, or want to introduce budding developers to the wonders of source control without getting them bogged down in the details, you need this. And if/when you outgrow it your archives are all standard Mercurial, so you can seamlessly upgrade to the command line or a more powerful GUI.
My List (Score:4, Interesting)
First things first:
aptitude so dependencies automatically get installed and uninstalled. Edit the configuration to not install recommended packages by default. Keep it lean!
Then:
openntpd (or some other ntpd) so the computer will know what time it is.
sudo so that I can log in as a regular user and still do system maintenance.
openssh-server (or some other SSH server) so I can log in remotely. I usually change the port number. Make sure root logins are disabled.
tmux so that I can have multiple shells in a single ssh session. screen works for this, too, but I recently switched to tmux.
rsync so that I can copy files around efficiently.
After that, it depends on what I want to do with the system. Usually, there will be at least some software development, so build-essential (libc-dev, gcc, make), irb, git. Usually ssh and some network debugging tools like ping and traceroute6.
I like zsh, so if I'm going to be using the system extensively, I'll install that. If this is my primary system, irssi and mutt. If the system has enough memory to run it, emacs24-nox.
If I want a GUI, xserver-xorg, xterm, whatever window manager I happen to like at the moment (wmii), some web browser (iceweasel).
It's been a while since I've last done this, so I may have missed some things, but this seems to be about it. The package names are for Debian-like systems and will likely be a bit different for other systems, but I don't generally maintain those.
Re:MS Office (Score:5, Funny)
The fat client lives...
fat?
Office 2003 was fat.
Office 2013 ate the OS and shit out Windows 8. Yeah, it's that morbidly obese. Should have named the release "Fat Bastard", but I heard that's being reserved for IE12.
Feedback: VLC is my first install regardless of OS. Damn thing just runs anything I throw at it. Used it for years now.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I end up putting MS Office on pretty much first thing - but also OpenOffice/LibreOffice because that's where I have my billing set up. I'd do without MS Office if I didn't have to work with others.
My other must-haves are MATLAB (not my first choice, but it's what my company uses), Pyzo (a scientific-oriented Python distro), jEdit (cross platform editor), Putty (Windows has no ssh), Firefox (I'm addicted to Tree-Style Tabs), IrfanView (on PC only), Inkscape, GIMP, an RPN calculator (XCALC on Windows, RP
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You misspelled "Faget"
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It's an investment (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wish I could +1 this.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to swear by LaunchBar, but now the built-in Spotlight is good enough for me.
Re:Windows file management ... (Score:4, Informative)
I find WinDirStat a much superior file/directory size analyzer - it offers a tree view with details that is continuously updated as the directories are scanned in a breadth-first order, with indicators for which directory trees haven't yet been fully scanned, allowing for useful analysis to be performed almost immediately instead of waiting for the scan to complete. Then, when the scan is finally finished, you also get a graphical "pillow view" overview of the entire file system, color-coded by file type.
Everything is another great search tool - it only works on NTFS drives, but typically takes only a minute or so to scan a large drive for the first time, seconds to update it's database on subsequent launches, and lists all files whose name contains your specified word fragments literally as fast as you can type. Hit "a" and you will be faced with a list of hundreds of thousands of files before you can type a second letter. It also supports regex if word-fragments are insufficiently powerful for your needs.