New to Linux. Any useful programs for Linux?

lightrider · n00b Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 1

Hey

First i would like to say hi since im a new member at the Gentoo Community Boards. I would also like to ask you if there are any useful programs i can get. For Example:

Winzip/Winrar is a useful for Windows

I previously installed Redhat9 for a short time, anyone heard of a program called wine? and what does it do? (cant remember

)

Thanks

Edit: Also.. im wondering... How Far can i tweak Gentoo.. and how hard can it be? :oops:

Edit2: Oh wine converts exe files too... :S

Mekoryuk · Apprentice Joined: 17 Sep 2003 Posts: 174

How hard can it be? As hard as you want it to be. :wink:

It really depends on what you want to do. For example, I do a lot of graphic design/web work, so I have programs like The Gimp (http://www.gimp.org), Sodipodi (http://www.sodipodi.com), and Quanta (http://quanta.sourceforge.net/) to help me out.

http://www.kde-apps.org is a great place to go if you're running KDE. I'm sure others could toss in lots of other suggestions, but I wouldn't wait up for 'em. Try doing a little searching on your own to see what's available, and visit http://packages.gentoo.org to search through all the programs that are just an "emerge" away.

As for WINE (http://www.winehq.com), well, I don't find much use for it as I've been able to track down Linux equivalents of pretty much everything I use.

Welcome to Gentoo!

smiley · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 Dec 2003 Posts: 127

Welcome to Gentoo!

I'm not going to suggest an particular apps, however you should check out a website called www.gentoo-portage.com It has a browsable and searchable database of all packages in portage along with information such as dependancies and useflags, and links to package websites. An other way that it's useful is it shows when packages are updated or added to portage, so you don't need to do an emerge sync just to see whats new.

smiley

Nicom · Guru Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 380

The KDE desktop comes standard with a winzip-like thing called Ark, and the Gnome desktop has file-roller for win-zip funtionality. Mplayer is the best video player, and k3b for Cd burning.

tactless · Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2004 2:27 pm Post subject:

I guess the single most useful application would be Emacs... though I'm a VIM guy myself

(Those two, along with their various GUI versions, are the popular text editors). Another very useful one would be the all-in-one system monitor gkrellm. Mozilla is very useful, although most people prefer its split-up components - Firefox (browser) and Thunderbird (Mail/News).
I think Xine is every bit as good as mplayer (both using Windows codecs now). Also, nobody mentioned xmms, which is pretty much a straight Winamp2 clone (skin-compatible).
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