Useful Programs

Linux Distributions I've used

• I used Gentoo for over 5 years. I switched to Linux Mint for about 4 yrs, and now I'm using Arch. I don't plan on switching. MX Linux is great for laptops, but not for my main box.
• Arch Linux - This distribution is very modular and you can make it as complicated or as simple as you want. I'm currently using it. It's better than Gentoo in my opinion because you don't have to compile everything every week. A lot of the packages are binary instead. It also has the awesome AUR (Arch User Repository) with lots of packages contributed by users.
• Math and Science packages This contains a fantastic number of FREE and OPEN SOURCE packages for doing math. I am amazed at what is out there! The quality of the programs are amazing!!!! Use this as a starting point!
• MX Linux This is an amazing lightweight distribution perfect for notebooks. It uses xfce for its windows manager. Fast bootups!! Based on Debian so you can use apt for software managing.
• Linux Mint This is the BEST distribution for just WORKING out of the box. I install this for my kids to use on old laptops. It's awesome for that purpose. I've also used it on my desktop for several years (not currently).
• Gentoo Linux - a very easy linux distribution to install. Installation of packages is very simple. All you need to do is type "emerge <package name>". I've stopped using it because I was tired of my computer being out of date. It would be broken if I didn't emerge sync my system every week.

  Various Linux programs

  • OpenSSH
  • MPD (Music Player Daemon) (The best music player/organizer) Works with the following clients (not a comprehensive list)
    1. mpc, ncmpc, ncmpcpp, gmpc, sonata, phpmp, phpmp2, EMMS, qmpdclient, pympd, cantata, sonata
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • VNC/Teamviewer
  • Ghostscript and Ghostview
  • Emacs with Auctex and Latex.
  • R/Rstudio
  • LibreOffice
  • GIMP
  • Wine (allows you to run window programs on Linux!)
  • Gnucash - A open source accounting software program
  • The list goes on and on...

Windows

Various Windows programs:

• Putty- a free SSH2/SSH1 client.
• WinSCP - a free GUI client for SCP or SFTP.
• RealVNC - a free remote desktop server/client. Download the free version.
• Filezilla - a free FTP client/server and SFTP client.
• PDFCreator - a tool to create PDFs from almost every application. just select the PDFCreator "printer" when you print something.
• Mozilla Firefox - a free new browser - now my favorite browser.
• LibreOffice - a free office suite. can open up microsoft word, excell, and powerpoint files. can download for linux, unix, or windows.
• The GIMP for Windows - the gnu image manipulation program - a nice free substitute for an image editor.
• Winamp - nice, free, music player
• CDex - CD extractor - extracts your music CD's to your harddisk.
• Colinux - Colinux is a port of the Linux kernel, which allows you to install Linux inside a Windows installation. I have a running Gentoo Linux installation installed on my Windows XP box at home. I have gnucash, as well as mpd installed and running on my Windows XP box!
• Cygwin - cygwin is a UNIX-like operating system for windows 95/98/ME/2K/XP. it has lots of very useful unix-commands including:
  • rsync
  • openssh server (works on 2000 and XP)
• You can now install Ubuntu and/or the OpenSUSE terminal window on Windows as well. I haven't tried it much, but my son installed in on Windows. I'm used to the cygwin way of doing it.

Various Windows Zip archivers

• Various Zip archiver programs are a must when trying to install Emacs or other programs that come as either a *.tar.gz file or a *.zip file.
  • 7-zip. 7-zip is released under the GNU LGPL license, so is the most free zip archiver program. It specifically says it supports *.tar.gz files (important for the emacs distribution).
  • Iceows. Another free extractor. It also says it supports *.tar.gz files.

Windows Latex Programs:

• I currently use TexLive as I'm on Linux full time now. No need for Windows.
• Miktex - a free windows version of MikTeX
• Ghostscript & Ghostview - a free postscript interpreter (GhostScript) and postscript viewer (GhostView).
• Emacs - the best way to edit latex files when used with AucTeX. Versions for Windows exist.
• AucTeX - lisp programs to make editing latex files very, very easy. A package for Emacs.