Sepero's- Underrated/Unusual but Useful LINUX Software

[Sepero]

Incase you haven't noticed, the original "Underrated/Unusual but Useful LINUX Software'" appears to have been deleted from the forums. Because of this, I have started a new thread. Hopefully this thread can grow to be as helpful, if not moreso, than the old thread.

Some people posted to the old thread a little bit haphazardly, so I feel that a little more structure would be beneficial. Please post your Software Descriptions similarly to this:


Name of Software

This is what type of program it is.

This is why I like the program.

A URL or two, pointing to the website or something relevant.




EXAMPLE:

screen

"screen" is a terminal multiplexor. Basically it creates many virtual terminals from a single term or xterm. Also, it can be run without a GUI.

One reason why the program is awsome because if you're logged into a remote computer and you get disconnected, normally you have lost the terminal you were using. Not so with screen. Simply log back in, then type "screen -R" to re-attach to the terminal(s) you were using. Another great reason to use screen is if Xwindows crashes. If Xwindows crashes, that doesn't mean that screen crashed. Just restart your GUI and a new xterm, then re-attach your session. Almost never accidentally lose a terminal again.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/screen/
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6340

[teeitup]

Some has to be first.

USBView

USBView is a GTK program that displays the topography of the devices that are plugged into the USB bus on a Linux machine. It also displays information on each of the devices. This can be useful to determine if a device is working properly or not.

Lists all of the USB ports and all devices attached to them. Output layout is very nice and gives all kinds of data to help you use your differnet USB devices.

Homepage (http://www.kroah.com/linux-usb/)
Freshmeat (http://www.kroah.com/linux-usb/)

[hard candy]

It's not underrated, not sure if it qualifies as software, but it is sure underused,
"man"

also along the same line,
"info" command/program

[TDZach]

PSDoom

This is an awesome GUI for Killing and Renice-ing processes.

What's more fun that blowing up a process with a BFG?

http://psdoom.sourceforge.net/

Blender

3D modeling and animation program.

Free, open-source, and pretty comprehensive. Not only that, it's available on multiple platforms. Great fun to play around with.

http://blender3d.org

[gehidore]

serpero

mind if i make a spread sheet or htm page for all of them then update it periodicly on this thread?

[keyshawn]

Originally posted by gehidore
serpero

mind if i make a spread sheet or htm page for all of them then update it periodicly on this thread?

Good idea.; And\or you could put it in the Help Files Library :)

[IsaacKuo]

trn

trn is a Usenet newsreader with a unique interface making it possible to read and navigate more newsgroups faster than any alternative.

I love trn because of its efficient screen based interface. First, it automatically goes to the next newsgroup with unread articles--a small thing, but one which lets one subscribe to and keep up with many low bandwidth newsgroups. Upon entering the newsgroup, trn puts up a screenfull of threads--NOT A SCROLLING LIST. IT IS NOT A SCROLLING LIST! YOU CAN SEE THE WHOLE LIST WITHOUT SCROLLING!!! What's the big deal? It means you can quickly select just the threads you're interested in and then press a key to instantly mark all the OTHER onscreen threads as read, and just read those threads you marked. After reading those threads, you return to the thread selection listing with the next screenfull of threads.

See, the whole reason this works so well is that you can very quickly just cherry pick a few threads you're interested in and mark as read a bunch you're not interested in. You do this one screenfull at a time, rather than tediously scrolling up and down a full list of unread threads. This feature alone makes trn newsreading far more efficient than anything else. As you get accustomed to using trn, you find yourself subscribing to more and more newsgroups, simply because it's possible to read them so much faster.

Then there's trn's article reading interface. It features a unique compact tree view which makes it easy to see where the article you're reading is in relation to where you just were, and all of the articles around it--including "missing" articles. "Missing" articles are ones which are referenced in existing reference headers, but are not on the server for some reason (not yet arrived, expired, out of area, whatever). Other newsreaders have bulky Explorer-style tree views which fail to display these absent articles. Anyway, trn's article navigation keys let you either just scroll/read in default order by repeatedly pressing space, or navigating up/down/sideways in the tree structure. It also features keys to read/unread the thread OR subthread, or just that one article. A lot of times there's a thread where you can tell that a subthread has gone off tangent and will no longer be interesting to you, but the rest of the thread may be of interest. It's great to just kill that subthread.

The slick subthread killing mechanism makes reading newsgroups that much faster, because you're able to sift past the uninteresting parts of large branching threads so quickly and home in on just the interesting parts. trn's ability to "see" missing articles is a great boon here, because a lot of times missing articles cause other newsreaders to be unable to properly encompass subthreads.

Other things I like about trn is how relatively easy it is to learn. The interface is very consistent. SPACE always represents a good "default" action such that repeatedly pressing space will eventually cause the user to read every page of every unread article and then quit the program. Pressing "h" always gives a help listing showing what commands are available. Those two keys alone are enough to get going in trn.

URL's? Hmm...Google brings up:

http://trn.sourceforge.net/

But perhaps, it's better just to "man trn".

[gehidore]

i had setup a template for the first one but it disappeared (the thread did) as we all know so i got rid of the template but ill make a new one and get started on the page

which would be better htm or spreadsheet?

[bwkaz]

Depends. Which spreadsheet format? If XLS, then prepare to be flamed. :p If OpenOffice's spreadsheet, then that's marginally better (I'd still have to find a way to compile OO, but at least I'd have a chance).

However, HTML can be rendered by anybody that's browsing these forums, so that has my vote. If my vote matters... ;)

[gehidore]

it does and i think i may create a poll just to find out what ye all want i can do htm or spreadsheet with oo
goodoll emerge openofice

[Sepero]

gnumeric

Spreadsheet program.

Its relatively small compared to OpenOffice. Good for lower end systems.

http://freshmeat.net/projects/gnumeric/

[nabis]

it's too bad, that the original thread has been deleted, but I think it's our fault after all :)

see this: http://www.swift-tools.net/
a stand-alone flash player (you can use it with xscreensver)
Instructions:
Just download it, tar xvzf it, cd it and `make`.
In case you don't have KDE installed, the make will exit while compiling Kflash, not a big deal, you still can copy the Player/swfplayer to /usr/local/bin ,or remove Kflash subdirectory alltogether to avoid compiling it (see Makefile why).
to test it:

wget http://www.swift-tools.net/Flash/ScreenSaver.swf
swfplayer ScreenSaver.swf

[hard candy]

Along the lines of the flash player is:
Ming (http://ming.sourceforge.net/)

"Ming is a C library for generating SWF ("Flash") format movies, plus a set of wrappers for using the library from C++ and popular scripting languages like PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby." From reading the docs it does not seem as hard for non-programmers as it sounds.
See the Tutorial:
Tutorial (http://www.opaque.net/wiki/index.php?TutorialPage2)

[JohnT]

I use PEKWM so no Koqueror, Nautilus file managers. I started using ROX which has its advantages, but I came across this one based on MC, that has to be used to believe. Its ugly but powerful and configurable. The options are almost endless. This is a keeper.:D
Worker (http://www.boomerangsworld.de/worker/wdownload.php?lang=en#addsoft)

[tucolino]

Originally posted by bwkaz
Depends. Which spreadsheet format? If XLS, then prepare to be flamed. :p If OpenOffice's spreadsheet, then that's marginally better (I'd still have to find a way to compile OO, but at least I'd have a chance).

However, HTML can be rendered by anybody that's browsing these forums, so that has my vote. If my vote matters... ;)

i agree with that. why not use xml to store the content? then rendered in browser using xsl css. just a suggestion.

tuco

[Ildjarn]

Originally posted by Sepero
gnumeric

Spreadsheet program.

Its relatively small compared to OpenOffice. Good for lower end systems.


It also has kinda better support for xls files.

[hard candy]

Streamtuner (http://www.nongnu.org/streamtuner/)
for those who do not know about it connects to shoutcast and enables you to access at least 150-200 internet radio stations with a range from pure talk/comedy to "who-knows-what-that sound-is". It uses a gtk interface so it will show up in kde if you have gnome or the gtk libraries installed. When you tune in a station, the default is to start up XMMS, but you can modify this and use noatun (not sure about zinf though). also has some plugins available to use python and can capture a local stream.

[keyshawn]

any news on the impending spreadsheet/html file to be made ?!?!?

My nomination is for::

DansGuardian.

- a web filtering software via proxy

- Similar to proxomitron for windows, it's an extremely customizible and configurable ad, java, banner, flash blocker and whatever other web content that bothers you, you can block. Dansguardian doesn't mess with your hosts file either, and you don't download any of the crap that's filtered out.

Pick it up @ www.dansguardian.org

[canon006]

I found this by chance one day, I haven't really explored the additional features but it works just the same as cat and I like dogs better anyway!

dog

"Dog is intended as a replacement for the obscure utility "cat". In addition to emulating all of the behavior of cat, dog also has some extra functionality, including extracting ranges of lines of text and strfry()ing text."

Freshmeat (http://freshmeat.net/projects/good-dog/)
Homepage (http://jl.photodex.com/dog/)

[JohnT]

"Scribus"...Desktop publishing fo Linux...similar to Adobe PageMaker.

http://www.scribus.org.uk/

[Dark Ninja]

My input...

Name: abcde

Type: CD Ripping Program

Why I Like the Program: It's command-line and it's highly configurable and its fast. After setting up the configuration file (which is straightforward) I throw in a CD, type abcde, and CDDB is queried, and the CD is ripped right to my local hard drive using my favorite codec. I don't need to touch a thing. It can rip WAV, OGG, MP3 and a couple other formats if you download the supporting libraries. Definitely a nice little program.

URL: http://www.hispalinux.es/~data/abcde.php