what apps/pluggins do you use/recommend?

paradisiac · 20 May 2011 at 08:20

ok, so, once you have picked which version you are going to use, what now?
to get the internet fully working, what pluggins do you recommend? i guess java needs to be installed, but what else? i understand shockwave isnt available, or atleast it wasnt on mandriva, so is there an alternative?
then there is instant messaging, i have tried a few and think kmess and amsn seem to be the closest to live messenger, but neither are what i would call direct replacements. so does anyone recommend anything else?
i believe openoffice comes installed on some if not all. but i heard libreoffice is the better version as its made by the people that originally made openoffice before it went bad (if indeed it did go bad, i havent really used it a lot) so do people have a preference, or is there a better office suite available?
VLC seems to be the best all round mediaplayer i have come across, but its not really what i would class as a mediacentre replacement, more of a mediaplayer one, so is there a good all round mediacentre app?
finally, is there any other apps that people recommend?

sorry for all the questions but i really believed i would try linux and hate it, but i didnt, so i am keen to learn about it and take full advantage of it.

Evil-I · 20 May 2011 at 13:37

I'll try and answer as much as I can

ok, so, once you have picked which version you are going to use, what now?

I'm assuming you mean now you've chosen which distribution you're going with. Well once you've chose, install it on your machine and chose during installation which applications you want to install

to get the internet fully working, what pluggins do you recommend? i guess java needs to be installed, but what else? i understand shockwave isnt available, or atleast it wasnt on mandriva, so is there an alternative?

I use Fedora as my prefered distribution and theres a littl script/ app called easylife which is basically a program with a lot of tick boxes that make initial setup much easier by allowing all the commonly installed extras to be installed quickly and easily (Flash, skype, Nvidia drivers etc etc. Usually similar programs for most distributions.

then there is instant messaging, i have tried a few and think kmess and amsn seem to be the closest to live messenger, but neither are what i would call direct replacements. so does anyone recommend anything else?

Don't really use IM

i believe openoffice comes installed on some if not all. but i heard libreoffice is the better version as its made by the people that originally made openoffice before it went bad (if indeed it did go bad, i havent really used it a lot) so do people have a preference, or is there a better office suite available?

Most distributions have a package manager of some description that allows you to install any of the software available in thier repositories. I use YUM in fedora, and through this you can easily try and remove any software so you can work out what you prefer. e.g. yum install openoffice would install openoffice. yum remove openoffice would remove, theres usually a GUI to go with that as well (yum extender)

VLC seems to be the best all round mediaplayer i have come across, but its not really what i would class as a mediacentre replacement, more of a mediaplayer one, so is there a good all round mediacentre app?
finally, is there any other apps that people recommend?

Check out XBMC its a completely cross platform media centre, or if you want to get more involved, then theres always mythtv, but thats a bit of a bitch to setup in my experience (still struggling with my mythtv setup)

sorry for all the questions but i really believed i would try linux and hate it, but i didnt, so i am keen to learn about it and take full advantage of it.

I've been tinkering with linux for ten years or more now, and love it, I can do most of the things I want to at home, but still struggle every now ang again. I came across the idea of a TV Tuner farm and have been trying to set that up at home using MythTV, I'm struggling to get it working correctly, but its not a simple project, its two step foward one step back but it keeps me amused

paradisiac · 20 May 2011 at 13:52

thanks for that

i went for mint 10 debian 64 bit, but there doesnt seem to be an official XBMC for debian

Huw · 20 May 2011 at 14:27

paradisiac said:
thanks for that i went for mint 10 debian 64 bit, but there doesnt seem to be an official XBMC for debian

It isn't in the official repositories, no, but it is in the Debian Multimedia repository. Fire up Synaptic Package Manager, go to Settings -> Repositories and add this one:

http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

Then search for XBMC in Synaptic and you should be fine.

paradisiac · 20 May 2011 at 14:31

Huw said:
It isn't in the official repositories, no, but it is in the Debian Multimedia repository. Fire up Synaptic Package Manager, go to Settings -> Repositories and add this one:

http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

Then search for XBMC in Synaptic and you should be fine.

thanks, all installed

Huw · 20 May 2011 at 14:35

paradisiac said:
then there is instant messaging, i have tried a few and think kmess and amsn seem to be the closest to live messenger, but neither are what i would call direct replacements. so does anyone recommend anything else?

I don't really IM but when I do I use either Kopete or Pidgin. Both are fine.

i believe openoffice comes installed on some if not all. but i heard libreoffice is the better version as its made by the people that originally made openoffice before it went bad (if indeed it did go bad, i havent really used it a lot) so do people have a preference, or is there a better office suite available?

Libreoffice was a fork of the project, which was a result of Oracle buying Sun. I doubt they've been forked for long enough for there to be much difference between the two yet to be honest, although a recent issue of Linux Format reckons Libreoffice has the edge. Oracle have just announced they're going to open-source Openoffice again though, so you never know, the two projects may merge again.

VLC seems to be the best all round mediaplayer i have come across, but its not really what i would class as a mediacentre replacement, more of a mediaplayer one, so is there a good all round mediacentre app?

I agree with Evil-I here; XBMC or MythTV.

finally, is there any other apps that people recommend?

Clementine. It's a media player and it's fantastic (and also available in the Debian Multimedia repo). It's simple and intuitive but packed with features, and it even comes pre-loaded with some excellent streaming radio stations!

Kontact. This is the heavyweight KDE-based PIM and I couldn't do without it. It can do pretty much anything you want a PIM to do. The Kmail component is a superb email application.

Digikam. An absolutely superb photo management app.

Yakuake. This curious little app is a lot more useful than you'd think. Basically it's a drop-down console. You hit F12 (by default, configurable of course) and bang! Down comes a console from the top of your screen. Do what you want to do, hit F12 again, and off it goes. I love it!

sorry for all the questions but i really believed i would try linux and hate it, but i didnt, so i am keen to learn about it and take full advantage of it.

No need to apologise. I love welcoming people to Linux. It's great when they realise for the first time how powerful and slick Linux really is, and more to the point, completely free too!

russ0r · 20 May 2011 at 18:38

paradisiac said:
then there is instant messaging, i have tried a few and think kmess and amsn seem to be the closest to live messenger, but neither are what i would call direct replacements. so does anyone recommend anything else?

I don't use IM much but Pidgin is meant to be good.

i believe openoffice comes installed on some if not all. but i heard libreoffice is the better version as its made by the people that originally made openoffice before it went bad (if indeed it did go bad, i havent really used it a lot) so do people have a preference, or is there a better office suite available?

Pretty much only libreoffice and openoffice. I usually just stick with Abiword unless I need everything else in the suite (spreadsheet, database etc.)

VLC seems to be the best all round mediaplayer i have come across, but its not really what i would class as a mediacentre replacement, more of a mediaplayer one, so is there a good all round mediacentre app?

In addition to XBMC and MythTV, Boxee is worth a look.

finally, is there any other apps that people recommend?

More love for Guake here, also Tilda which is the same thing minus the tabs.
Terminator for a full fledged terminal: It will let you split one window into as many terminals as you like.
Banshee for music (are you running KDE?)
Digikam for photo management, GIMP for photo editing (Photoshop is better in wine though)
Thunderbird for e-mail and general PIM stuff.

sorry for all the questions but i really believed i would try linux and hate it, but i didnt, so i am keen to learn about it and take full advantage of it.

No problem.

Best thing to do is set aside an hour or so, fire up synaptic, and read the description of every app, category by category. Install anything that sounds interesting. That's what I like to do when I'm trying a new distro.

Huw · 20 May 2011 at 19:07

Speaking of office suites, I read in the most recent Linux Format that the Koffice team are heading in a new direction and are making a real, concerted attempt to revive the package. Sounds interesting. I think I'll try it out every few months and see what's what.

I haven't used Abiword or Gnumeric much; how are they for compatibility with Microsoft files?