Favorite Apps in Ubuntu

A couple of friends have asked me what apps I'm running in Ubuntu since I posted Nine Months in Linux, no more Windows, so here comes a list of the stuff I'm running now and what else I have tested in each category.

OS: Linux Ubuntu 6.10, I also ran version 6.06 LTS (long term support) and the upgrade is very simple using either apt-get or the graphical update tool. Being a Debian variant is very stable, has a large development community and the new releases are frequent.

As I said on the other post I tried Fedora, Gentoo and Mandriva distributions as well, but liked Ubuntu's installation process better, it supports all my laptop features (Dell Inspiron 6400 Centrino Duo with Intel Graphics 945g and Intel Wi-Fi) , even the multimedia buttons in front, and the support forums available from the home page are a great help when you try to configure new drivers for new hardware. www.ubuntu.com

Window Manager: I'm currently running KDE, I switched from Gnome which I used for 4 months (you can just install the KDE packages, no need to install a fresh Kubuntu). I've found KDE to handle better the dual screens (dual head - in Gnome I had to fiddle around with the xorg.conf file quite a bit). KDE recognizes the dual screens right away. www.ubuntu.com

In the process I also tried Enlightenment, the interface is clean, but getting around wasn't very easy (maybe it's way too clean), didn't really like it. It wasn't very fast either, so after 2 or 3 days I switched to KDE.

Eye Candy Window Manager: I'm using Beryl, It gives you a rotating cube with your desktops, a Mac like exposé feature where you see all your open Apps at once, transparency, "elastic" windows, transparency, zoom plus a lot of other stuff. It comes with a skin manager as well. http://www.beryl-project.org/
I'm also using gDesklets to create a Apps panel, works fine requires some configuration. I understand Beryl also has one, but haven't tried it yet. http://www.gdesklets.de/

Note: I haven't been able to get the XGL graphics acceleration (required by Beryl) working with the dualscreens, only with my laptop LCD. If you have done this please post a comment explaining how, or leave your email so I can contact you.

Office: OpenOffice is fully compatible with Microsoft Office, and is quite faster and lighter, and free... (there's a version for Windows as well, this is where I started my migration process). The only thing I haven't found is dynamic tables like those Excel has, I don't use them that much, but if you do and still want to run unix, you can do so with Crossover (described below). OpenOffice comes as a part of the Ubuntu release. http://www.openoffice.org/

Mail: I'm using Mozilla's Thunderbird, it's fast, the spam filter is 90% to 95% effective, and Thunderbird can import your mailbox files from Outlook. Kontact seems pretty good, but I'm using it only for calendar...
http://www.mozilla.com/

Browser: Mozilla FireFox mainly. Comes with Ubuntu. You can run MS Internet Explorer using Crossover.
Update: A reader recommended SwiftFox a faster version of FireFox for Linux, it is quite faster. I recommend installing using the installer script (.sh) not the tar file.

Messaging: I use Gaim and connect with a single application with my friends using MSN, Yahoo messenger, Google Talk and AIM, it supports some others (ICQ among them). I also have installed Skype for voice communications.

Development: Well ... its linux, it's all there, C, C++, php, Perl, Python, and for database you have MySql... and your Apache web server... I even have installed the latest version of Squeak (Smalltalk) but haven't started using it yet.

Images: There are a bunch of tools, for photo album's I'm using F-spot and for editing The Gimp (sort a free alternative Photoshop), I do simple editing but the program seems quite fast and powerful. they are part of the Ubuntu release.
Update: The same reader recommended trying XaraXL, it's a pretty fast program for drawing (object based). A little bit hard to install yet, but worth it.

Music: XMMS is pretty good, identical to win-amp. You can run iTunes (not the last version yet) using Crossover. XMMS comes with Ubuntu.
Update: Rythmbox is as close to iTunes as we will get for a while. It's very good, the bad part is you have to compile it. They are not providing the precompiled packages yet.

Video: VLC Media Player, and Totem Movie Player are pretty good.
I haven't tried anything on Video Editing in Ubuntu yet. I'll post an update when I do. If you have done this already, please leave a comment.

Others:

• Crossover... Crossover is a compatibility layer for Windows applications that enables them to run over linux (they also have a version for Mac OS X). It supports apps as diverse as Excel, Lotus Notes, iTunes and Quicktime. I use it to run MS Project mainly, but if you need to Run Internet Explorer or want to play some Windows games, this is the way. http://www.codeweavers.com/products/
  
• Google Earth... just for fun, but since it's a cool app, I like that it is available in linux.
• Update: If you like stargazing, Stellarium is an awesome program, it requires graphics acceleration.
  
• GPSDrive to connect your GPS to the laptop, has moving map feature and navigation, it is not a good as OziExplorer but does the work and is very easy to setup the communication with the GPS.

As I said before, working in Ubuntu is reliable, doesn't crash, and it is fast, you will love your hardware again once you see it running with this agility. No more waiting for your apps to start, or your computer to shut down.

Nine months in Linux, no more Windows

It's been exactly nine months since I moved to Ubuntu linux and it hasn't been like giving birth or anything. Pretty painless Actually.

It started as an experiment and an attempt to cut in Microsoft licenses costs for Windows and Office both in my own software company, and in our customers.

I always kept a Windows partition though... just in case I needed to go back, something doesn't have a replacement, or I must use a windows only tool that a customer demands... Well, after nine months I'm happy to report this morning I had a strong cup of coffee and after a meeting I decided to go ahead and erase my Windows partition. My whole computer only boots in unix now, and I don't see any reason to go back.

What I'm running, Ubuntu 6.1 with the KDE shell (kubuntu), available from ubuntu.com, I found this was easier to configure for multiple displays (dualhead), wi fi and bluetooth support, and liked the interface better, but I used Gnome for about four months and it's pretty likable too.
I tried 4 different distributions of Linux (Mandriva, Gentoo, and Fedora were the others) and found that ubuntu (a variant of debian) was the most stable easier to configure and had the most active development and support group in case you needed help.

I'm using OpenOffice instead of MS Office and Mozilla's Thunderbird for Mail and Firefox as browser, everything works better than what I remember their counterparts did, and no program has tried to hijack my computer yet.

My Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop runs fast with 1 Gb of RAM, you can have 20 documents open and everything stays reliable. Doesn't crash, and starts and shuts down fast, no more need to go to the restroom to make time or plan to leave 10 minutes in advance.
Unlike sleepy kids and MS software these applications Quit when you instruct them to do so. Pretty amazing.

If you NEED to run some MS software, like in my case MS Project which is the best tool I've found for the job yet, you can still do so using a piece of software (not an emulator really, more like a compatibility layer) called Crossover. Which is good for certain tested programs. compatibility info is in their site.

Finally you can customize your desktop quite a bit. I use Beryl for rotating screens and Mac-like exposé effects and a application panel called gDesklets. Everything else available for download... from SkyPe to GoogleEarth, and installation is a snap, way easier and more predictable than on Windows.

As i said, I don't see any reason to go back. Four consultants from my company have moved part time to ubuntu, and I plan to move all the company within this year. Two of our servers are running linux already.

I guess "Hasta la vista Bill" must be used quite a lot these days, but is nice to be able to say it. I really hated waiting for Outlook to come alive or for my laptop to shutdown. I hate waiting for devices in general.

Marcelo.