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Tools description

Tools description

Tools usage


1. Audio

2. Backup

3. Banking

4. Browser

5. Burning

6. Cluster

7. Compressor

8. Database

9. Development

10. Emulation

11. File sharing

12. Graphic and photo

13. Instant messaging

14. Laptop

15. Mail

16. Mathematics

17. Multimedia

18. Network

19. Office

20. Palm

21. Portable Document Format (PDF)

22. Recover

23. RSS

24. SPAM and Virus

25. Security

26. System

27. UML

28. Utility

29. Video

30. Web

31. Last but not least


1. Audio


1.1. Audio burner


1.1.1. Mp3roaster (I haven't tried it yet)


A Perl hack for burning audio CDs out of MP3/OGG/FLAC files


Here an extract of the official description:


MP3Roaster is a Perl hack for burning audio CDs out of MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files. The main highlights of this application are an easy to use command line syntax and automatic volume leveling support for best audio CD quality.


In order to normalize the audio level of all files which will be burned on CDs MP3roaster requires some free hard disk space.


1.2. Audio composer


1.2.1. Hydrogen (I haven't tried it yet)


Taken from homepage:


Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.


Homepage: http://www.hydrogen-music.org


1.2.2. LilyPond (I haven't tried it yet)


Write music notes.


Homepage: http://lilypond.org


1.2.3. Rosegarden (I haven't tried it yet)


Taken from homepage:


Rosegarden is a professional audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.


Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.


Homepage: http://www.rosegardenmusic.com


1.3. Audio editor


1.3.1. Glame


Homepage: http://glame.sourceforge.net/index.var


1.4. Audio player


1.4.1. Amarok


This is a music player for KDE. It seems to be very powerful (download album covers, display text of played music, organize sound with MySQL, ...)


Homepage: http://amarok.kde.org


1.4.2. Gnomecd


Reads audio CD.


This tool is contained in gnome-media.


I'm not a fun of this programm, but it's the only that currently provides an applet for gnome (gnome 2.4).


1.4.3. Gxmms


Xmms applet for gnome.


Controls the main functions of xmms without having the corresponding windows opened.


1.4.4. Rhythmbox


This is the default GNOME music player. In fact, it can be found in the "Multimedia" menu and is called "Music Player".


The current version (0.8.8) does not support editing for info TAG. Use EasyTag for this.


Homepage: http://www.rhythmbox.org


1.4.5. Xmms


Versatile X audio player that looks like Winamp.


Reads ogg, mp3, wav, ...


1.5. Audio ripper


1.5.1. Grip


Gnome CD ripper.


Homepage: http://www.nostatic.org/grip


1.5.2. Kaudiocreator (I haven't tried it yet)


CD ripper and audio encoder (GUI).


Homepage: http://www.icefox.net/programs/?program=KAudioCreator


1.5.3. RipperX


Graphical mp3/ogg ripper and encoder.


With this tool it's possible to convert audio CDs to mp3 or ogg in a very simple way. Furthermore, it can try to get the informations relative to the CD directly from CDDB, so that you don't have to manually insert the authors and titles.


1.6. Audio tag editor


1.6.1. EasyTag


Nice tool (GUI) for viewing and editing tags for mp3, ogg, ...


Homepage: http://easytag.sourceforge.net


2. Backup


2.1. Amanda (I haven't tried it yet)


The Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver


AMANDA, the Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver, is a backup system that allows the administrator to set up a single master backup server to back up multiple hosts over network to tape drives/changers or disks or optical media. Amanda uses native dump and/or GNU tar facilities and can back up a large number of workstations running multiple versions of Unix. Amanda uses Samba or Cygwin to back up Microsoft Windows desktops and servers.


Homepage: http://www.amanda.org


2.2. Bacula (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a network backup solution supporting differential backups.


Homepage: http://www.bacula.org


2.3. Dar (I haven't tried it yet)


Disk Archive


dar is a shell command that backs up directory trees and files. It has been tested under Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, MacOS X and several other systems.


Allows differential backups.


A mini howto: http://dar.linux.free.fr/doc/mini-howto/dar-differential-backup-mini-howto.it.html.


Homepage: http://dar.linux.free.fr


2.4. Emirdiff-backup


This is a package made by me and is free downloadable at http://planamente.ch/emidio/pages/linux_download_list.php.


2.5. Kdar (I haven't tried it yet)


KDar is the KDE Disk Archiver.


Homepage: http://kdar.sourceforge.net


2.6. Konserve (I haven't tried it yet)


Little KDE tool for doing backup in the background.


Homepage: http://konserve.sourceforge.net


2.7. Mondo (I haven't tried it yet)


Mondo Rescue is a GPL disaster recovery solution. It supports Linux (i386, x86_64, ia64) and FreeBSD (i386). It's packaged for multiple distributions (RedHat, RHEL, SuSE, SLES, Mandriva, Debian, Gentoo).


It supports tapes, disks, network and CD/DVD as backup media, multiple filesystems, LVM, software and hardware Raid.


Homepage: http://www.mondorescue.org


2.8. Sbackup


Simple backup with GUI allowing differential backups and supporting gnome-vfs.


The installed files are called


  simple-backup-config


for the backup configuration and


  simple-restore-gnome


to restore.


Homepage: http://sbackup.sourceforge.net/HomePage


3. Banking


3.1. HomeBank


Homepage: http://homebank.free.fr


4. Browser


4.1. Firefox


A browser based on Mozilla, very fast, comfortable, multiplatform, extendible.


For some usefull tricks, click on the Examples link above (sorry, this is an auto generated page!).


4.2. Galeon


Forked from Mozilla.


4.3. Mozilla


One, or probably, the first graphical browser available for GNU/Linux.


I don't like it really. I prefere Galeon or Firefox instead.


4.4. Mozilla Firebird


An other browser based on Mozilla.


4.5. Kexi (I haven't tried it yet)


Something like MS Access.


Homepage: http://www.kexi-project.org


4.6. Epiphany


The default GNOME browser.


4.7. Konqueror


The default KDE browser.


I don't know it very well, but it seems to be very valid.


4.8. Plugins


4.8.1. Java


The package j2re1.4 provides a SUN Java Virtual Machine.


4.8.2. Flash


The flashplugin-nonfree package provides a flashplayer.


4.8.3. Personal Security Manager (PSM)


The mozilla-psm package provides access to SSL sites (https) and IMAP/S mail.


4.8.4. Collection of Mozilla based plugins


Plugins and extensions for Firefox, Galeon, Mozilla, ...


Homepage: http://addons.update.mozilla.org


5. Burning


5.1. Cdbakeoven


Completely based on KDE.


Homepage: http://cdbakeoven.sourceforge.net


5.2. Cparanoia


Convert audio CD to wav files.


5.3. Cdrdao


Copy CD on the fly.


5.4. Cdrecord


A very powerful command line tool for CDs and DVDs.


A lot of graphical tools use this programm to interact with the CDs and DVDs.


5.5. Eroaster


A nice and easy to use GUI for CD burning. Unfortunately, it can't do a lot of jobs!


5.6. K3b (GUI)


A very complete, nice and user friendly tool for doing all your stuffs with CDs and DVDs.


5.7. Gcombust (GUI)


A very powerfull tool for doing a lot of jobs. Not for beginners!!!


5.8. Gnometoaster


Official Gnome tool for burning CD and DVD.


Homepage: http://gnometoaster.rulez.org


5.9. Mkisofs


Create ISO filesystems (or if you prefere, ISO images).


5.10. NeroLinux


Never tried ... and probably will never try due its license.


Commercial tool for CD/DVD burning. Who has tried it reported that is not better as K3B.


WARNING! This tool is not Free Software!


Homepage: http://www.nero.com


5.11. WebCdWriter (I haven't tried it yet)


Write CD/DVD directly from net.


Homepage: http://joerghaeger.de/webCDwriter


5.12. Xcdroast


This is application is window manager independent.


Homepage: http://www.xcdroast.org


6. Cluster


6.1. ClusterKnoppix


This is a modified Knoppix distro using the OpenMosix kernel.


Homepage: http://bofh.be/clusterknoppix


6.2. OpenMosix


A very simple cluster, easy to install and configure.


The only disadvantage is that the 2.6 kernel is not supported yet and patches exist only for vanilla kernels.


Homepage: http://openmosix.sourceforge.net


6.3. Oscar


The big advantage of this cluster, is that it can configure all the nodes automatically.


Unfortunately, it does not support the 2.6 kernel.


Currently, it does not exist a Debian package.


Homepage: http://oscar.openclustergroup.org


7. Compressor


7.1. ARK


The default KDE archive manager.


Homepage: http://www.arklinux.org


7.2. File roller


The default GNOME archive manager.


Homepage: http://fileroller.sourceforge.net


7.3. p7zip (I haven't tried it yet)


File archiver with highest compression ratio.


Homepage: http://p7zip.sourceforge.net


8. Database


8.1. Storage


8.1.1. FirebirdSQL (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a multi platform database.


Homepage: http://firebird.sourceforge.net


8.1.2. MySQL


A very powerful database, so good as a lot of proprietary databases (or may be also better!).


8.1.3. PostgreSQL (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.postgresql.org


8.2. Tools


8.2.1. DBdesigner


A nice GUI to graphically design your database.


It can connect to a DB server, get already existing databases, edit them and restore them to the server.


8.2.2. Druid (I haven't tried it yet)


GUI to simply handle database tables.


Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/druid


8.2.3. Glom (I haven't tried it yet)


GUI to simply handle database tables.


Only works with PostgreSQL.


Homepage: http://www.glom.org


8.2.4. MySQLcc (I haven't tried it yet)


MySQL Control Center is MySQL's official platform-independent GUI client.


Homepage: http://unix.freshmeat.net/redir/mysqlcc/21529/url_homepage/index.html


9. Development


9.1. Content Management System


9.1.1. Postnuke (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.postnuke.com


9.1.2. Phpnuke (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: phpnuke.org


9.1.3. Flatnuke (I haven't tried it yet)


This tool can easily create WEB portals.


Doesn't need a database, because datas are stored in simple files.


Homepage: http://www.flatnuke.org


9.2. Debugger


9.2.1. Ddd


GUI for gdb and other debuggers.


Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddd


9.2.2. GDB


Debugger for C, C++, Java, Modula-2, and several other languages.


Homepage: http://sources.redhat.com/gdb


Document: GDB quick reference (gdbref.pdf)


9.2.3. Gubed (I haven't tried it yet)


Debugger for PHP (especially made for Quanta).


Here you can find a description about how to set it up for Quanta: http://www.hoernerfranzracing.de/kde/gubed.html.


Homepage: http://gubed.mccabe.nu/


9.3. GUI


9.3.1. Dialog


This is a very simple tool to create text based dialog.


Homepage: http://hightek.org/dialog


9.3.2. Xdialog


This is a very simple tool to create graphical dialog.


Homepage: http://www.chez.com/godefroy


9.3.3. Glade (I haven't tried it yet)


Something like Micro$oft Visual Basic.


Homepage: http://glade.gnome.org/


9.3.4. Gtkdialog (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a utility for fast and easy GUI building.


It can be used to create dialog boxes for almost any interpreted and compiled programs.


Homepage: http://linux.pte.hu/~pipas/gtkdialog


9.3.5. QtDesigner


Homepage: http://trolltech.com/images/products/qt/qt_designer_linux/view


9.4. Editor and IDE


9.4.1. Amaya


This is a WYGIWYS editor.


Homepage: http://www.w3.org/Amaya


9.4.2. Anjuta


This is a GNOME development IDE for C/C++.


Homepage: http://www.anjuta.org


9.4.3. Bluefish (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://bluefish.openoffice.nl


9.4.4. Boa constructor


This tool is a cross platform Python IDE and wxPython GUI Builder.


Homepage: http://boa-constructor.sourceforge.net


9.4.5. Eclipse


No Debian package available, yet!


Homepage: http://eclipse.org


9.4.6. Kdevelop


Homepage: http://www.kdevelop.org


9.4.7. PhpEclipse (I haven't tried it yet)


A java based development studio.


Homepage: http://www.phpeclipse.de


9.4.8. Nvu (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor by Lindows.


It has been forked from Mozilla Composer.


Homepage: http://www.nvu.com


9.4.9. Mozilla composer (I haven't tried it yet)


http://www.mozilla.org


9.4.10. OpenOffice.org Web


Good for who does not know nothing about html.


Homepage: http://www.openoffice.org


9.4.11. Quanta


A very nice development studio based on KDE.


For a lot of things, it's similar to Microsoft Visual Studio.


Homepage: http://quanta.sourceforge.net


9.4.12. Screem (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.screem.org


9.5. HTML specific


9.5.1. GMT


Homepage: http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu


9.5.2. Kimagemap


This is a plugin for Quanta that can create image mapping.


Alternativelly, it can be done with Gimp.


Homepage: http://www.nongnu.org/kimagemap/index.html


9.6. Version control system


9.6.1. Cervisia


CVS tool that can be used in Quanta.


9.6.2. CVS


Similar to Clearcase, but free!


9.6.3. CVSNT (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.cvsnt.org


9.6.4. gcvs / CVSgui


Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cvsgui/


9.6.5. GNUarch (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.gnuarch.org/arch/index.html


9.6.6. Subversion


Similar to CVS but with more features.


9.6.7. tkCVS


Homepage: http://www.twobarleycorns.net/tkcvs.html


9.7. Plugin


9.7.1. Kompare (I haven't tried it yet)


Diff tool that can be used in Quanta.


10. Emulation


10.1. Bochs


Homepage: http://bochs.sourceforge.net


10.2. Qemu


A very simple emulator without XWindow.


Homepage: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu


10.3. VirtualBox


A very good tool to emulate hardware. Thanks this functionality, it's possible to have one or more virtual machines eachone with a different OS (e.g.: Windows on a Linux box).


It is released under GPL!


Homepage: http://www.virtualbox.org


10.4. Vmware


A very good tool to emulate hardware. Thanks this functionality, it's possible to have one or more virtual machines eachone with a different OS (e.g.: Windows on a Linux box).


The only disadvantage, is that it's proprietary and not free of charge. :-(


10.5. Wine


A Windows emulator, that can run a lot of Windows application. There are also peolple who has run Microsoft Office on a Linux box thanks Wine.


10.6. Xen (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen


11. File sharing


11.1. Amule (I haven't tried it yet)


11.2. Azureus (I haven't tried it yet)


11.3. BitTorrent (I haven't tried it yet)


11.4. Bittornado (I haven't tried it yet)


11.5. Emule (I haven't tried it yet)


11.6. Gnome Bittorent (I haven't tried it yet)


11.7. LimeWire (I haven't tried it yet)


11.8. Mute (I haven't tried it yet)


Anonymous File Sharing.


Homepage: http://mute-net.sourceforge.net


11.9. Xmule (I haven't tried it yet)


12. Graphic and photo


12.1. 3D


12.1.1. Blender


Graphics and animations in 3D.


Homepage: http://www.blender.org


12.2. Album


12.2.1. Albumshaper (I haven't tried it yet)


Photo album creator and photo manipulator.


Homepage: http://albumshaper.sourceforge.net


12.2.2. F-spot (I haven't tried it yet)


Photo organizer for GNOME


Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/projects/f-spot/


12.2.3. KAlbum (I haven't tried it yet)


Creates albums from a collection of images.


Homepage: http://www.paldandy.com/kalbum


12.3. Image editor


12.3.1. Gimp


A very powerful image manipulation program.


Homepage: http://www.gimp.org


12.4. Photo viewer


12.4.1. Gthumb


Image (photo) viewer and browser for GNOME2.


It can also add comments, organize and catalog your images, create web pages with your photos.


12.5. Scanner


12.5.1. Xsane scanner


SANE stands for "Scanner Access Now Easy" and is a very easy to use tool working for a lot of scanners.


Homepage: http://www.xsane.org


12.6. Web album


12.6.1. BBGallery


Perl script generating a number of HTML files from jpeg images that make up a image gallery to browse with any html browser.


Homepage: http://bbgallery.sourceforge.net


12.6.2. Gallery2 (I haven't tried it yet)


Web based photo album. This means, you can create web pages with your photos.


Homepage: http://gallery.sf.net


12.6.3. Gimp gallery


Plugin for Gimp that creates static HTML image galleries from a directory of images.


Homepage: http://skylab.org/~plumpy/gg/


12.6.4. Igal


Perl script that generates a web album.


Homepage: http://www.stanford.edu/~epop/igal


12.6.5. Swigs (I haven't tried it yet)


Perl script for creating hierarchically organized web image galleries.


Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/swigs


12.6.6. Zgal (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://zgal.sourceforge.net


13. Instant messaging


13.1. Gaim vv (I haven't tried it yet)


This IM supports web cams!


Homepage: http://gaim-vv.sourceforge.net


13.2. Gizmo (I haven't tried it yet)


This is an internet telephone, that is as simple as instant messaging.


Homepage: http://www.gizmoproject.com


13.3. Open Wengo


This is a GPL tool like Skype.


Homepage: http://www.openwengo.com


13.4. Skype


This tool can be used to converse via text and/or audio.


Additionally, it can be used to make calls to fixed phone network (you have to pay for this!).


Homepage: http://www.skype.org/


14. Laptop


14.1. Laptop detect (I haven't tried it yet)


Laptop mode attempts to determine whether it is being run on a laptop or a desktop and appraises its caller of this


14.2. Laptop mode tools (I haven't tried it yet)


Laptop mode is a Linux kernel feature that allows your laptop to save considerable power, by allowing the hard drive to spin down for longer periods of time. This package contains the userland scripts that are needed to enable laptop mode. It includes support for automatically enabling laptop mode when the computer is working on batteries.


14.3. Laptop net (I haven't tried it yet)


Automatically adapt laptop ethernet.


Install also laptop-net-doc for more info.


14.4. Laptop netconf (I haven't tried it yet)


This tool can automatically determine, from a set of preconfigured alternatives, the network to which your laptop is connected and can run arbitrary scripts to configure the services.


15. Mail


15.1. Evolution


This programm is very similar to Microsoft Outlook. It's very easy to use and it's very comfortable.


Interesting fetaures:

  - gpg signatures

  - palm syncronization (requires gnome-pilot)


16. Mathematics


16.1. Octave


This tool is similar to Matlab, but free!


16.2. Units conversion (I haven't tried it yet)


Converts between different systems of units


Here an extract of the official description:


units '328491ft' 'm'

      * 100124.06

      / 9.9876097e-06


units -v '328491 ft' 'm'

      328491 ft = 100124.06 m

      328491 ft = (1 / 9.9876097e-06) m


units

2084 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units


You have: 328491ft

You want: m

        * 100124.06

        / 9.9876097e-06


17. Multimedia


17.1. Dyne (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a serie of multimedia Linux CD distributions: dynebolic, MuSE, LIVES, FreeJ.


Homepage: http://www.dyne.org


17.2. Geexbox (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a standalone media player.


Homepage: http://www.geexbox.org


17.3. Movix (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a serie of three different tiny Linux CD distributions: eMoviX, MoviX and MoviX2.


Homepage: http://movix.sourceforge.net


17.4. MythTV (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a set top box for watching and recording TV, listening to music, etc.


Homepage: http://www.mythtv.org


18. Network


18.1. Automatic network card configuration (I haven't tried it yet)


ifplugd - A configuration daemon for ethernet devices


Here an extract of the official description:


ifplugd is a daemon which will automatically configure your ethernet device when a cable is plugged in and automatically unconfigure it if the cable is pulled. This is useful on laptops with onboard network adapters, since it will only configure the interface when a cable is really connected.


18.2. Micro$oft


18.2.1. LinNeighborhood (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a GUI frontend for browsing M$ machines and mounting SMB shares using Samba.


Note: Samba needs to be correctly configured!


18.3. NetWhistler


Auto detects networks and presents them on graphical maps.


Homepage: http://netwhistler.spb.ru


18.4. Nmap


This is a network exploration or security auditing tool.


Homepage: http://www.insecure.org/nmap


18.5. PPP


Utility to dial with analog/ISDN modem.


18.6. PPPconfig


Utility to configure PPP.


18.7. Remote access


18.7.1. DirectVnc (I haven't tried it yet)


VNC client using the framebuffer as display


Homepage: http://www.adam-lilienthal.de/directvnc


18.7.2. Krfb (I haven't tried it yet)


Needs a running KDE daemon.


18.7.3. NoMachine (I haven't tried it yet)


Here an extract of the official description:


NoMachine NX is a fast terminal server system based on the X11 protocol. In addition, NX also translates and embeds the MS Windows Terminal Server and VNC protocols into X/NX. NX is an order of magnitude faster than VNC or X11 and can run on bandwidth as narrow as 10 kBit/sec. By embedding RDP and RFB, it enables users to compress and accelerate remote Windows and VNC sessions. NX lets you work fluently even across slow links like modems. The NX project provides a suite of libraries and X11 proxying agents implementing efficient compression and optimized transport of X11, SMB, IPP, HTTP, and arbitrary protocols like audio over the Internet.


Homepage: http://www.nomachine.com/developers.php


18.7.4. Rdesktop (I haven't tried it yet)


Rdesktop is an open source client for Windows NT Terminal Server and Windows 2000/2003 Terminal Services, capable of natively speaking Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) in order to present the user's NT desktop. Unlike Citrix ICA, no server extensions are required.


Homepage: http://www.rdesktop.org


18.7.5. TightVnc


TightVNC is an improved version of VNC, great free remote-desktop tool. The improvements include new bandwidth-friendly "tight" encoding, local cursor support on the client side, enhanced GUI, many bugfixes, and more.


The following packages are available:

- tightvncserver (server)

- tightvnc-java (for accessing via browser)

- xtightvncviewer (for accessing via application)


Homepage: http://www.tightvnc.com


18.7.6. Tsclient (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a frontend for rdesktop and other remote desktop tools.


Homepage: http://www.gnomepro.com/tsclient


18.7.7. VNC


Works also between the Linux and Windows world.


18.7.8. X11VNC (I haven't tried it yet)


A VNC server which uses your current X11 session


Here an extract of the official description:


With x11vnc you can export your currently running X11 session to any VNC client. You do not have to launch another session as the regular VNC server does. So it's very useful, if you want to move to another computer without having to log out, or to help a distant colleague to solve a problem with their desktop.


18.8. Rpcinfo


Reports RPC informations.


18.9. Showmount


Show mountpoints of a remote NFS server.


Very helpful tool to find out what are you exporting outside your PC!


18.10. Unison-gtk


GUI for unison.


18.11. Unison


File syncronitation tool.


Homepage: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison


18.12. Wireless


18.12.1. Aircrack-ng


Wireless WEP/WPA cracking utilities.


Homepage: http://www.aircrack-ng.org


18.12.2. Gkismet


Gnome version of 'kismet'.


No Debian version is currently available. :-(


18.12.3. Kismet


Tool for monitoring a wireless network.


18.12.4. Kwifimanager


Tool for configuring and monitoring a wireless card.


Homepage: http://kwifimanager.sourceforge.net


18.12.5. Madwifi


Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi.


Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/madwifi


18.12.6. NdisWrapper


This tool provides a kernel module that can load Ndis (Windows network driver API) drivers. It can be used when the hardware vendor doesn't provide a linux driver.


An other and better solution is to buy a card supported for linux also.


Homepage: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net


18.12.7. Wellenreiter (I haven't tried it yet)


Wireless network discovery and auditing tool.


Homepage: http://www.wellenreiter.net


18.12.8. Wireless-tools


Set of tools to manage a wi-fi adapter


18.13. Wireshark


The ethereal network analyzer tool has been renamed to Wireshark, since Gerald Combs, the founder of the project, has changed job and left the Ethereal trademark behind.


Homepage: http://www.wireshark.org


19. Office


19.1. Gnucash


Personal of business finance manager.


Homepage: http://www.gnucash.org


19.2. Gnumeric


Gnome version of Microsoft Excel.


Homepage: http://www.gnumeric.org


19.3. OpenOffice.org


The best office suite available in the free software. For most things, it's really better as Microsoft Office.


The things I find good:

  - supports more formats than Microsoft Office (very good conversion filters)

  - can generate PDF documents just with a click

  - can handle very large documents (e.g.: books)


The project is relatively new (I thinks it was started in 2000) but has enhanced its functionality very fast.


It is a valid alternative to Microsoft Office (also for Windows users because there is also a Windows version) and in the future it will probably become the office suite of reference.


OpenOffice is very stable, flexible and gives to the user working features (have you ever tried to make a book with Microsoft Word?).


Homepage: http://www.openoffice.org


Dictionary:


Since version 1.0.1, openoffice uses "myspell" as dictionary. Therefore, to have for example the italian dictionary:


  apt-get install myspell-it



Thesaurus:


This is the package that provides synonyms.

To install the english thesaurus:


  apt-get install openoffice.org-thesaurus-en-us


Note: at the current state (August 2004), this package exists only for a few languages.



Hyphenation:


This is the package for splitting words at the end of a line.

To install the italian hyphenation:


  apt-get install openoffice.org-hyphenation-it



Help:


This is the manual where you can take a look if you have simple trouble about using openoffice.

To install the italian help:


  apt-get install openoffice.org-help-it


19.4. StarOffice


Sun version of Microsoft Office.



20. Palm


20.1. Jpilot


This tool is similar to the official Palm tool.


It is possibile to make syncronitations and backups.


20.2. Jpilot backup


This is a plugin for jpilot.


This program enhances jpilot's own backup, making it much more flexible, handling automatic backups, configuring which applications/databases to back up and which to ignore, etc.


Homepage: http://jasonday.home.att.net/code/backup/backup.html


20.3. Jpilot syncmal


This is a plugin for jpilot.


Here an extract of the official description:


Jpilot-syncmal is a MAL (Mobile Application Link) plugin for jpilot. The real job to synchronise over the Internet is done by malsync.


The most famous MAL site is AvantGo (www.avantgo.com).


jpilot-syncmal-prc-install(1) can be used to fetch and install AvantGo Palm application (.prc) on the Palm pilot.


Homepage: http://jasonday.home.att.net/code/syncmal


20.4. Gnome-pilot and Evolution


Installing gnome-pilot, it's possible to syncronize the palm with evolution and do backups in a specified directory.


Suggested package: autopilot


20.5. Autopilot


Palm daemon.


Start the syncronitation directly from cradle. The datas are stored according the configuration of gnome-pilot.


21. Portable Document Format (PDF)


21.1. Acroread


This is the official tool of Adobe. Since short time, they have started supporting a GNU/Linux version.


Homepage: http://www.adobe.com


22. Recover


22.1. Compressor


22.1.1. Bzip2recover (I haven't tried it yet)


Recover damaged .bz2, .bz, .tbz2 and .tbz compressed archive.


This tools is delivered with the package bzip2.


Homepage: www.bzip.org


22.1.2. Gzrecover (I haven't tried it yet)


Recover damaged .gz and .tgz compressed archive.


Homepage: http://www.urbanophile.com/arenn/coding/gzrt/gzrt.html


22.2. DVD


22.2.1. DVDisaster


Adds error correction data to DVD. In case of DVD corruption, these data can be used to try to recover the DVD.


Homepage: http://www.dvdisaster.com


23. RSS


23.1. Liferea


http://lifera.sourceforge.net


24. SPAM and Virus


24.1. MailScanner (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.mailscanner.info


24.2. SpamAssassin (I haven't tried it yet)


Extensible email filter which is used to identify spam.


Homepage: http://spamassassin.apache.org


25. Security


25.1. Encryption


25.1.1. GPG


This tool can be used to encrypt and sign files, email, ...


A lot of tools use it to encrypt datas (evolution, Nautilus, ...).


Homepage: http://www.gnupg.org


25.1.2. Outguess


This tool can hide a crypted message in a picture file. Same way, it can extract the crypted message.


Homepage: http://www.outguess.org


25.1.3. Stegdetect


This tool can be used to try to find out if a picture contains crypted messages.


This package contains the following program for this purpose:


  stegdetect


  stegbreak


Homepage: http://www.outguess.org/detection.php


25.1.4. Stegfs


This crypted filesystem provides the capability to encrypt confidential datas on more levels.


In this way, if you are forced to show your encrypted datas, you can just show the data encrypted on the lowest level, keeping secret the very confidential datas.

Furthermore, it is not possible to find out if there are more encrypted data as them just showed.


There is the limitation that this filesystem is only working on ext2.


Homepage: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ih99-stegfs.pdf


25.2. Firewall


25.2.1. Frazierwall


The goal of the author was to create a preconfigured router/firewall already built to provide DHCP and time services to any home or small business LAN. It's very small (one single 1.44MB floppy disk) and easy to use.


I just discovered the homepage is not anymore present. I have decided to keep anyway this link.


Homepage: http://www.frazierwall.com


25.2.2. Gibraltar (I haven't tried it yet)


Gibraltar is a Debian GNU/Linux-based firewall package which boots up and runs completely from CD-ROM, so hard disk installation is not necessary. The configuration data is optionally stored on hard disk, floppy disk or an USB storage device.


Homepage: http://www.gibraltar.at


25.2.3. Gray World (I haven't tried it yet)


Unusual firewall bypassing techniques, network and computer security. This programm can be used to access your home PC from internet also if it's protected behind a firewall.


Homepage: http://www.gray-world.net/index.shtml


25.2.4. Linux Router Project


LRP is small enough to fit on a single 1.44MB floppy disk, and makes building and maintaining routers, access servers, thin servers, thin clients, network appliances, and typically embedded systems next to trivial.


Homepage: http://www.linuxrouter.org


25.3. Password cracking


25.3.1. John


Fase password cracker. Detects weak Unix passwords.


Homepage: http://www.openwall.com/john


25.4. Rootkit


25.4.1. Chkrootkit


Homepage: http://www.chkrootkit.org


25.4.2. Tripwire


Homepage: http://www.tripwire.org


25.5. Secure data deletion


25.5.1. THC SecureDelete (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.thc.org/releases.php?o=1#038;s=4


25.5.2. Shred (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?shred+1


25.5.3. SafeShred (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.codetek.com/safeshred


25.5.4. Ultimate boot CD


Homepage: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com


26. System


26.1. Administration


26.1.1. Kcron


This is a GUI for easily configuring cron jobs.


26.1.2. Kuser (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a GUI for easily configuring users and groups in your system.


26.2. Bootloader


26.2.1. Grub


This is the newest bootloader and is slowly replacing lilo.


Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub


26.2.2. Lilo


This is the first very large used GNU/Linux bootloader. I prefere Grub.


26.2.3. QGrubEditor


This is a GUI for easily configuring the GRUB bootloader.


Homepage: http://www.qt-apps.org/content/show.php/QGRUBEditor?content=60391


26.2.4. Startup-manager


This is a GUI for easily configuring the GRUB bootloader.


Homepage: https://sourceforge.net/projects/startup-manager


26.3. Hardware detection


26.4. Xwindow


26.4.1. Mdetect (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a tool for autoconfiguring the mice.


26.4.2. Xresprobe (I haven't tried it yet)


This probes both laptop and DDC-compliant screens for their standard resolutions, and returns a specifically-formatted, easy-to-parse output.


26.5. Installation


26.5.1. Checkinstall (I haven't tried it yet)


If you want to install a not Debian package from the source, this utility will take a trace about the installed files, so that they can easily be removed.


Homepage: http://checkinstall.izto.org


26.5.2. Dh_make (I haven't tried it yet)


This is a tool like checkinstall but for Debian only.


26.5.3. Installwatch (I haven't tried it yet)


If you want to install a not Debian package from the source, this utility will take a trace about the installed files, so that they can easily be removed.


26.5.4. Stow (I haven't tried it yet)


Manages the installation of software packages, keeping them separate (/usr/local/stow/emacs vs. /usr/local/stow/perl, for example) while making them appear to be installed in the same  place (/usr/local).


Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/stow


26.6. Package management


26.6.1. apt-get


This is the most important tool to install, remove and upgrade packages in your system.


If you like a GUI version, see synaptic.


26.6.2. dpkg


This is the base tool used from Debian to install, remove and upgrade packages. It's normally better to use apt-get, because it can manage and solve dependencies problems.


26.6.3. dpkg-scanpackages


This tool sorts through a tree of Debian binary packages and creates a "Packages" file, used by dselect and other tools to tell the user what packages are available for installation.


26.6.4. gdebi (I haven't tried it yet)


This tool installs local deb packages resolving and installing its dependencies.


The same task is done by apt-get, but this last only works for remote packages.


26.6.5. wajig


Easy interface to many Debian administrative tasks.


Homepage: http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/Wajig_Packages.html


26.6.6. synaptic


GUI for apt-get, apt-cache and more. Very nice and confortable.


26.7. Partitioning


26.7.1. Cfdisk


Easy to use console tool.


26.7.2. Parted


This tool is not for beginner, but is very powerful.


Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/parted


26.7.3. Qtparted


GUI for parted.


Homepage: http://qtparted.sourceforge.net


26.8. Printing


26.8.1. Cups


This is a very powerful print server.


Homepage: http://www.linuxprinting.org


26.9. Removable device (USB, ...)


26.9.1. Mountpy


Script for quick mounting removable devices.


Mountpy scans all devices connected to the system, and tries to mount them, creating mount directories as needed.


Warning: this runs setuid root and allows ordinary users to mount external filesystems. Do not install it on multiuser machines with untrusted users!


26.9.2. Udev


This is a program which dynamically creates and removes device nodes from /dev/. It responds to /sbin/hotplug device events and requires a 2.6 kernel.


See also my udev-microhowto: http://www.planamente.ch/emidio/docs/linux/udev-micro-howto.txt.


27. UML


27.1. Dia


Homepage: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia


27.2. Gaphor (I haven't tried it yet)


27.3. Umbrello (I haven't tried it yet)


28. Utility


28.1. Automatically activate Num Lock key


To have the "Num Lock" key activated after have been logged in, just install the following package:


  apt-get install numlockx


28.2. Converting DOS <-> UNIX


To convert a file from DOS to UNIX:


  dos2unix yourFile


To convert a file from UNIX to DOS:


  unix2dos yourFile


28.3. Converting BINARY <-> ASCII


To convert a BINARY file to an ASCII file:


  uuencode yourFile /dev/stdout > yourFile.ascii


To convert an ASCII file to a BINARY file:


  uudecode -o yourFile.binary yourFile.ascii


28.4. Disk usage


28.4.1. Filelight (GUI)


Recursive graphical display of disk usage.


Homepage: http://www.methylblue.com/filelight


28.5. File comparison


28.5.1. Meld


Graphical tool to diff and merge files, directories, ...


Homepage: http://meld.sourceforge.net


28.5.2. Tkdiff


Nice tool to graphically compare two files and easily find out the differences between them.


I find the tool meld better.


Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tkdiff


28.6. Finding stuff


28.6.1. Beagle (I haven't tried it yet)


Quickly find the stuff you care about: documents, emails, web history, IM/IRC conversations, source code, images, music files, applications, ...


Homepage: www.gnome.org/projects/beagle


28.6.2. FreeMind


Tool to create mind-mappings.


Homepage: http://freemind.sourceforge.net


28.6.3. Harvest (I haven't tried it yet)


Collect info and make them available via browser.


Homepage: http://harvest.sourceforge.net


28.6.4. Regexxer (multiple find/replace)


This tool can find/replace a given string more time recursively.


29. Video


29.1. DVD decoder


29.1.1. CSS


In order to see DVDs on your system, you need a CSS decoder. Since the law is not so clear about if it's allowed to use it, you won't find an official Debian package.


Instead, take a look at http://apt-get.org and search for a package like libdvdcss2. Install it and that's it.


29.2. Video burner


29.2.1. DVDauthor


Create DVD video filesystem. See also QDVDAuthor.


Homepage: http://dvdauthor.sourceforge.net


29.2.2. DVDrtools


DVD writing program.


Homepage: http://www.nongnu.org/dvdrtools


29.2.3. QDVDauthor


GUI for creating DVD video filesystem.


Homepage: http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net


29.3. Video editor


29.3.1. Avidemux


Video editing tool. Actually, I prefere Kino.


Homepage: http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux


29.3.2. Cinelerra (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3


29.3.3. Kino


Nice tool to transfer videos from a videocamera via firewire to PC, make some video editing and store the result in many formats.


Very simple to use.


Homepage: http://kino.schirmacher.de


29.4. Video player


29.4.1. Gnash (I haven't tried it yet)


Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash


29.4.2. Gxine


Gnome version of Xine.


29.4.3. Mplayer


Homepage: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html


29.4.4. Ogle


Homepage: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~dvd


29.4.5. Ogle-gui


GUI for ogle.


Homepage: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd


29.4.6. Totem Movie Player


Official gnome movie player.


Homepage: http://www.gnome.org/projects/totem


29.4.7. VLC


Homepage: http://www.videolan.org/vlc


29.4.8. Xine


The best audio/video player I have never seen. It supports a very wide range of codecs.


29.4.9. Xine-ui


Same as xine but with interchangable skins.


Homepage: http://xinehq.de


29.5. Video ripper


29.5.1. DVD::Rip


Homepage: http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip


29.5.2. K9copy


Homepage: http://k9copy.free.fr


29.5.3. GMencoder


Gnome GUI to mplayer/mencoder.


Homepage: http://gmencoder.sourceforge.net


29.5.4. Mencoder


Homepage: http://www.mplayerhq.hu


29.5.5. Transcode


The most powerful encoder I have ever seen.


Homepage: http://www.transcoding.org


29.6. Video on mini DV


29.6.1. Dvgrab


Command line tool to get videos via firewire from a videocamera.


This functionality is normally already integrated in the video editing programms.


30. Web


30.1. Apache Web Server


This is surely the best web server existing on the World.


30.2. Cget (I haven't tried it yet)


Small web page downloader based in the Cherokee client library


30.3. Gftp


Gnome File Transfer Protocol.


Homepage: http://www.gftp.org


30.4. HTTrack


This is an offline browser. It downloads the desired homepages.


Homepage: http://www.httrack.com


30.5. Wget


Easily retrieves files using HTTP, HTTPS and FTP.


Homepage: http://wget.sunsite.dk


31. Last but not least


31.1. Equivalents Windows tools in GNU/Linux


Homepage: http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html


31.2. Others


For other tools, have a look at my packages: http://www.planamente.ch/emidio/pages/linux_download_list.php. You might find something useful.



Tools description

Tools usage


Emidio Planamente

Last modified on 2024-08-02