What applications do you rely on most these days:

rfquerin · 2009-03-12 16:50:15

I'm sort of stealing a page from the last Lottalinuxlinks phone in podcast with this one, but the other day I realized that I've really become dependent on a few key applications (both desktop and web based):

Not necessarily in order of importance:

1. Gmail - so much so that I mirror all the email coming into my work machine (Outlook on XP) into Gmail because the searching and filtering is *so* much better than Outlook.

2. Dropbox - a relative latecomer. But I now rely on this service to a fault. I use it to store files for my work or for my part time teaching job as well as the bulk of graphics work that I do in my spare time. I'm assuming that if the service goes away nothing will happen to the files in every location I'm synced to. Please tell me I'm right about that. wink

3. Inkscape - I use it here of course for fun stuff. I use it at work for modifying and editing PDF files, and recently I've used it to create a couple of soon to be seen ads for an upcoming linux conference that should appear in a couple of magazines in the next month or two.

4. Gimp - While I don't do as much photography as I should, I recently used Gimp alot for creating CMYK separations and CMYK-> PDF conversions. Yes, you can do that in the Gimp.. with a couple of extra plugins.

5. RecordMyDesktop - for creating various screencasts

6. Blender - I've recently been exploring how to use Blender as a home video editor. It truly rocks at this. So much more easy, intuitive, stable and capable than anything else I've tried (Kino, Kdenlive, Pitivi, etc.). I no longer think that the weak spot in Linux's armour is video editing. I'm completely satisfied with it and I've barely scratched the surface of what it can do. I've been playing with the video editing capabilities of Blender probably more than Inkscape lately and for me, that says something! smile

7. Mencoder - while we use various command line scripts to encode our screencasts to avi and flash with mencoder, I've also found it really useful for getting my Flip Camera video (and more recently my Kodak Zi6 video) into a format that Blender can use. While the parameter list of the scripts can seem daunting, once you get it set up right it works flawlessly. I'm thinking of getting back into wxpython and coding up a simple gui for it.

An interesting thing is that almost all of these apps (RecordMyDesktop being the exception) are all cross platform, so I don't miss a beat at work on my xp box (even though I've got #! running in Virtualbox), but they all seem to work better in Linux. smile

hillsoft · 2009-03-12 17:45:06

Haven't played with recordmydesktop any. Will have to check it out.

I looked at Blender from a video editing standpoint but couldn't quite figure it out. Any recommendations for a screencast or video tutorial on how to use Blender for this?

My top 10 used applications in no particular order

1) Firefox

2) Dropbox (great for syncing multiple systems)

3) ssh ( for remote secure access )

4) gcc ( love the whole GNU development suite of tools)

5) xmms (audacious). My favorite music player. Fast, small footprint.

6) VirtualBox ( makes it so nice to try out other distros, and be used when I need to run Windows)

7) Truecrypt

glasses VLC ( pretty much plays everything)

9) mc (call me old school, but I love doing file maintenance this way)

10) Scummvm (bought a ton of Humongus entertainment games for our first child when she was little, now our youngest can play them in a Windows free environment)

rfquerin · 2009-03-12 18:04:36

hillsoft wrote:

I looked at Blender from a video editing standpoint but couldn't quite figure it out. Any recommendations for a screencast or video tutorial on how to use Blender for this?

As a matter of fact I was so surprised at how nice it was that I've created two of them so far to explain the process. I plan to do others as I learn more:

http://screencasters.heathenx.org/_misc/bve/bve_01.html

http://screencasters.heathenx.org/_misc/bve/bve_02.html

Troy Sobotka (someone who has real talent when it comes to shooting and editing video - unlike me) created a music video with a cheapy video camera and Blender to kind of show what's possible. He's helped me out quite a bit, pointing me in the right direction on some things. He used a Kodak Zi6 camera (about $160.00), 2 hrs of shooting , and 4 hours of 'distracted' production in Blender to get this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_XwOQELT20

kBang · 2009-03-12 18:10:29

1) Firefox
2) Claws Mail
3) Terminator (could be any term program really, just using #!'s default)

Less used but at times important are mocp and last.fm player.

I have reached the point in my "computer" life where I am down to basic user'ness. Next up will be a netbook so I can break the chair/desk umbilical chord.

Mehall · 2009-03-12 18:16:05

1) Firefox
2) Thunderbird (via. GMail mostly, though with others in there too. All IMAP)
3) Yakuake
4) Irssi (via ssh)
5) Gwibber
6) Liferea
7) Wordpress (via My Blog )
8 ) Rhythmbox (Songbird when on Windows)

EDIT: And I'd just like to say that Yakuake remains when I'm on Windows. Yes, it's not used, but I keep going to press F12 to check if anything has happened in irssi!!!

Last edited by Mehall (2009-03-12 18:16:44)

pitje · 2009-03-12 21:09:12

in random order:

firefox
geany / gedit
gmail (prism-google-mail)
terminal (terminator)
virtualbox (for flash-development)
mocp
vlc
pidgin
ssh ( + sshfs )
rsync
subversion
gimp
inkscape
swat
!#

a few of these are old friends (vlc, firefox, gmail) and a few are relatively new to me (subversion, swat, inkscape), and I'm sure I've forgotten a few, but these are from the top of my head tongue

red devil · 2009-03-12 22:04:29

Firefox
Claws (for collating my Gmail accounts)
Gwibber (for Twitter/Identi.ca)
Leafpad (writing/pre-post blogging)
Rhythmbox and occasionally Songbird
Inkscape - learning the ropes
Totem for movies and BBC podcasts
Terminator
GIMP
And finally, although they're not apps but websites, drop.io and Imageshack

Edit: Forgot a few:

Deluge - for getting, you know, stuff
Skype - for talking to my mum in Spain and the in-laws in England
Brasero - burning ISOs so I can review Linux distros

Last edited by red devil (2009-03-13 12:28:40)

anonymous · 2009-03-12 22:19:07

Firefox - For browsing the web, its extensions and functionality are invaluable.

Tilda - Having a dropdown terminal is just so convenient compared to opening a normal windowed terminal.

SMPlayer - Based on mplayer, this thing plays everything and its has themes.

GIMP - Great for cropping and preparing screenshots as well as any art stuff.

san · 2009-03-12 23:22:32

In semi-random order:

Free:
terminal (any)
ssh
firefox/gmail
rhythmbox + audacious
blender
inkscape
gimp
rawstudio
gqview
xine + vlc
djv_view
pidgin

Commercial:
Nuke compositing (Using it at work)

I like that 99% of all software I rely on is FLOSS big_smile

Off Topic:
@ rfquerin: I just saw your screencasts. They very good, and you have a calm and natural voice smile I hope you don't mind (maybe you learned more by now), but I couldn't help noticing your troubles, so here's some quick shortcut that can help you:

ctrl+u = save user defaults, after setting up default settings (video format, layout, etc.)
shift+select ends of audio/video -> multiple grab, just like clips but just the end arrows.
shift+s = snap start of clip to frame. Also work with multiple "arrow ends" if they can extend.
ctrl+grab = incremental move, and snapping to frame.
b = bounding box select
k = cut clip at frame.

About the viewer that cropped your title-screen, it's because it is zoomed in a little. You can zoom out with scroll as usual. And also, most of the above shortcuts are universal, so they also work in 3D.

Hope that helps! I also agree that Blender is the best video editor on linux right now. Unfortunately that does help much, when a professional editor need more functionality and/or smoother workflow, and the only alternative on Linux is the ultra highend software with the price of a nice car..! I'm ok happy with working with video in Blender (not that I do it much..), and for nice and simple stuff it's perfectly fine.

shortcipher · 2009-03-12 23:34:36

These are what I rely on everyday:

Firefox - Did some tweaks to make it faster. I liked Google Chrome on Vista though.
gedit - Already comes with highlighting for all sorts of format. No need to tweak another editor since this one is lightweight enough. Was thinking about adding grun and/or terminal capabilities to it though.
Claws Mail - I just didn't feel like dl'ng Thunderbird. Claws Mail takes care of my basic email needs. I also have a Gmail account even though I depend more on Claws Mail for filtering.
XChat - Easy IRC client to understand and to script for.
Google Reader - Doesn't matter how many rss readers I try, such as Liferea, or how many podcasters I try, such as gPodder. I always go back to Google Reader. It does both and gives me all the Google search options along with trend analysis, sharing, notes, tagging, comments, and suggestions.
VLC - First tried it on Windows when Media Player didn't have the right codecs for a DVD I wanted to watch. I think it was a foreign DVD or something. So, I like it having the right codecs right out of the box instead of looking for the right codecs.
Thoggen - Slow for a DVD ripper, but it rips most everything. I don't mind it ripping to .ogv format, but it would be nice if it could rip it to other formats.
Terminator - I guess it wouldn't be Linux if you didn't have a terminal up more than 90% of the time.
dmenu and grun - Quicker for me to start a program with either than navigating through a menu.
MoC - Listening to music doesn't require a fancy gui.

I love Blender, GIMP, and Inkscape, but haven't worked with either of them much lately.

Some programming projects just work better with an IDE. I use KDevelop and QtCreator for different projects. I'm usually program in Java though, so I don't use QtCreator much.

Last edited by shortcipher (2009-03-12 23:35:33)

rfquerin · 2009-03-13 01:26:39

san wrote:

Off Topic:
@ rfquerin: I just saw your screencasts. They very good, and you have a calm and natural voice

When I first started screencasting I couldn't stand hearing my own voice. I thought I sounded dorky. As a matter of fact, a couple of years on and I still feel the same way. smile

san wrote:

I hope you don't mind (maybe you learned more by now), but I couldn't help noticing your troubles, so here's some quick shortcut that can help you:
ctrl+u = save user defaults, after setting up default settings (video format, layout, etc.)
shift+select ends of audio/video -> multiple grab, just like clips but just the end arrows.
shift+s = snap start of clip to frame. Also work with multiple "arrow ends" if they can extend.
ctrl+grab = incremental move, and snapping to frame.
b = bounding box select
k = cut clip at frame.
About the viewer that cropped your title-screen, it's because it is zoomed in a little. You can zoom out with scroll as usual. And also, most of the above shortcuts are universal, so they also work in 3D.

Thanks, while I had figured out the zooming, the cutting with k and couple of the other things, the shift and ctrl selections and grabs you mention are news to me. I'll definitely give them a try. I plan on doing several more screencasts and blog posts about it with new tips introduced as I learn.

san wrote:

Hope that helps! I also agree that Blender is the best video editor on linux right now. Unfortunately that does help much, when a professional editor need more functionality and/or smoother workflow, and the only alternative on Linux is the ultra highend software with the price of a nice car..! I'm ok happy with working with video in Blender (not that I do it much..), and for nice and simple stuff it's perfectly fine.

If I knew a lot about video editing I'd likely agree with your point about the need for smoother workflow. wink However compared to the other stuff I've tried, it is miles ahead IMO. This was the one thing that everyone kept saying was missing on Linux, but in all that time, it is only *very* recently that I found out Blender could even do this type of thing.. and right now hardly anyone in the Linux home user community even knows it can. I'm hoping that the screencasts and blog posts will help get the word out and maybe help close the deal for many people reluctant to switch from Windows for that one apparently missing capability.

san · 2009-03-13 02:07:06

Yeah, compared to the other video editors on Linux, Blender is far better. I still use Kino for the dvgrab and quick trims, but I don't think it supports HD formats yet... It's right that too few know about Blenders capabilities, among that the Video Sequence Editor . It is kinda hidden, and Blender is usually associated with 3D animation and rendering. I'm most interested in that aspect, and it helps to know the universal shortcuts! Many good things are happening know with 2.50 refactoring, which will help a lot with usability. The sequencer will also evolve, so the future is bright smile

I plan on doing several more screencasts and blog posts about it with new tips introduced as I learn.

Great! There's not many tutorials on the VSE, so I'm sure people will find them informative.

Sorry for the OT... and let me get back with one app I missed before:

RSYNC! What should I do without rsync? wink

greenguru · 2009-03-15 10:29:08

Generally:

Opera - for general web browsing.
Firefox - Because there are still some sites that do not function correctly with Opera and the Ant downloader is invaluable!
Thunderbird - I can see all my email accounts and rss feeds.
VLC - One stop media shop.
WINE - For running Memory Map and Spotify.
Gnome Commander - Works well for me.

But, most importantly:

Cowsay and Fortune - Boosting morale a little bit at a time each and every day!
Fuzzy Clock - Few enough remnants of the British Empire exist, at least my computer can tell the time in the correct manner!

Rob

aeiah · 2009-03-16 16:04:46

terminals, firefox, scite, python, ssh (or putty), mplayer, exaile, gimp, vnc

thats both at work and in the office, although my office pc at work runs windows xp so i dont use mplayer or exaile on that.

CrunchBang Linux

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#1 2009-03-12 16:50:15

What applications do you rely on most these days:

#2 2009-03-12 17:45:06

Re: What applications do you rely on most these days:

#3 2009-03-12 18:04:36

Re: What applications do you rely on most these days:

#4 2009-03-12 18:10:29

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#5 2009-03-12 18:16:05

Re: What applications do you rely on most these days:

#6 2009-03-12 21:09:12

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#7 2009-03-12 22:04:29

Re: What applications do you rely on most these days:

#8 2009-03-12 22:19:07

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#9 2009-03-12 23:22:32

Re: What applications do you rely on most these days:

#10 2009-03-12 23:34:36

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#11 2009-03-13 01:26:39

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#12 2009-03-13 02:07:06

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#13 2009-03-15 10:29:08

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