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Debian Linux

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[edit] Linux offers Many choices

A wonderful thing about Linux is that there are many competing software packages - the best features of each end up rolled into even better software in the end. Due to the nature of GPL/OSS and the large number of eyes that iron out any bugs in the code the quality just keeps getting better. The Linux desktop is now starting to pass M$'s Windows in quality in some areas i.e. auto-detecting printers, package management, multi-national support, better file browser functions and of course cost and a much more stable underlying kernel and file system. The most important program in a operating system is the file browser - Linux has definitely left M$ in the dust with the konqueror file system browser. And - Remember installing debian takes less key strokes than just typing-in the windoze license key!

[edit] Distributions

Linux comes packaged by many companies as distributions - that is combinations of versions of the GNU code with a little glue code and some install routines that form a complete operating system. We have tested several distributions and spent some time using Redhat - but now I can only recommend Debian. (There is no one system in the M$ world that comes close, as this verifies not only system files but applications as well.) The incredible power of the debian apt-get system is something you will want to learn about. Be aware that many Linux systems are intended to prvide future lock-in ( See: http://boycottnovell.com ) - This is the biggest reason to stick with Debian.

[edit] Hardware to avoid

  • Brother
  • Novel

[edit] Debian Links


[edit] Packages

The first thing to know is that overall the installation process is easier than Windows! OK, it is different and you have to learn how. When you are finished you will have spent about the same amount of time required for a Windoze installation - but you will have also installed your applications! You only reboot once!!!!

(How many man-lives of time have been wasted waiting for M$windows to reboot? Let's see, three times for install and then another 6 times counting installing a bit of software and all the updates that they don't see fit to sending out as a new disk.)

Debian install support is available, from your local Linux users group. It takes just as long to install Debian as Windows, but when you are finished you have also installed 95% of the software you will likely use (Ok, I usually install 150% of the software I will ever use - but some day I really will try that math package out)

The task bar supports applets that run on it - like the ones on the far right side of a windows task bar - sort of. My favorite is kweather. It goes out and gets the local weather from a nearby airport and displays the temperature and a little sun that sometimes has a bit of cloud over it. If you click on it you can read the latest detailed weather report. There are others that are just for fun, and a sticky-yellow-notes-simulator and of course a clock - well actually you have lots of choices when it comes to clocks. I lost track how many there are -but I like the stock one that has the just the date and time.

[edit] KDE / GNOME Desktops

KDE has the better file browser for the time being. You can run Gnome apps from KDE - Gnome is working hard to get better. Competition is a great stimulus, the lack of which has caused the stagnation of the Windows world.

[edit] Browsers

For Flash player 

wajig install flashplugin-nonfree ttf-xfree86-nonfree 
update-alternatives  --auto  flash-mozilla.so

[edit] Email MUA

[edit] Word processing

  • openoffice.org also will edit text, and open M$word documents, Excell documents, has an HTML editor, paint database capabilities and glue functions. It has one more feature that is a killer; it will run on both windows and Linux - thus OpenOffice is the perfect migration office suite for those who want out of the Redmond strangle hold!
  • kate is a great text editor and includes kwrite and faster word processor.
  • abiword is smaller lighter - but sadly tends to always have bugs
  • For Desktop publishing look at scribus.

[edit] HTML editors

  • nvu Nothing else comes close at this time. Has in-line spell check for every day page creation!
  • Quanta - not WYSIWYG but has a lot of nice features - between nvu and quanta you have what you need.
  • Openoffice - creates extreme bloat code that isn't human friendly - as bad as frontpage. Don't use it for html!

[edit] Spreadsheet

  • gnumeric - excellent - so good there is no reason to even talk about anything else.

[edit] Simple text editing

  • Kate works for me - for shell editing try e3

[edit] Graphics programs

[edit] Calculator

[edit] PDF Viewers and Editors

  • evince
  • pdfedit
  • pdftk PDF tool kit - you can split pdf's delete pages - reorder pages and more. Command line tool.
  • xpdf-tools is really good too

[edit] Signature rotator

  • ksig is my choice after trying several - most are overly complex

[edit] Ebay sniper

[edit] FAX software

  • Hylafax is great - more stable than any of the M$ platform fax systems I ever tried (I tried four different one including M$ own!)
  • Debian-print2fax Print to fax using the cups printing system, hylafax and Faxfrontend.

[edit] Webcast radio tunner

[edit] Video player

  • Mplayer will need an entry in /etc/apt/sources.list : 
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org etch main

[edit] Package chooser

This is something not found in windows - if you need some software you just launch this application and it finds it, installs it (free of course) with just a click or two.

  • For the Desktop use Synaptic - great for searching through the 13,000 packages available.
  • Sometimes gjig is better.
  • Command line you want to use wajig.
  • apt-spy find best mirror server

Sometimes you will get an error about a key

[edit] ATP key magic

gpg --recv-key --keyserver pgp.mit.edu <key number>
gpg --export A70DAF536070D3A1 | apt-key add -

[edit] Odds and ends

  • Check out kweather!
  • Check out hpoj-xojpanel (if you use a network HP laser printer)
  • kicad is an excellent schematic capture to printer circuit board CAD system - should get a best of Linux EE software award.

[edit] Run-level editor

  • sysv-rc-conf - also curses based - shows all run levels - recommended
  • rcconf - very simple shell -curses based - not sure it works right??

[edit] Disk usage

Ok, You know your have been there. you go to back up your stuff and find out it is 16G too big. So how do you find the big file that you meant to delete?

  • gmap is a gui program that makes finding large clinkers easy.
  • KDE has filelight

[edit] Renaming tool

  • If you need to rename files look at mmv

[edit] File compare and meld

  • meld - If you have customized code and need to update, there isn't anything better I've yet seen. You can look at two files side by side - clearly see the differences and copy parts by clicking the arrow.

[edit] Multi-file find and replace

  • regexxer Powerful regular expression GUI tool that lets you change strings in multiple files all at once!

[edit] Networking

[edit] Wifi

You need to install network-manager-kde. Start knetworkmanager and play with the new icon. Seems to work pretty well with WEP haven't played with WPA yet. The user needs to be a member of the 'netdev' group. The network devices need to be set to auto in /etc/network/interfaces Atheros and Intel now have open source drivers. avoid Broadcom, as their drivers are closed.

[edit] DHCP

Not sure why Debina defaults to dhcpd instead of pump - pump works with DDNS and wireless settings where the standard won't unless you edit the config so it gives the host name (don't include domain).

[edit] Graphics command line packages

  • exiftran - jpg manipulation - lossless jpg rotations via exifautotran *
  • autotrace - convert bitmap to vector

[edit] Programming tools

  • kregexpeditor Helps you create regex (Regular expressions) the easy way.
  • Building package from manually downloaded source???

[edit] More Debian packages

  • Raid How to get move to a RAID system working with Debian
  • asterisk phone system in software
  • jpilot palm desktop for Linux!
  • hylafax fax server
  • mysql mysql database
  • exim email server MTA
  • kicad EE cad system - Schematic capture to PCB layout and more. Kicad is the future for PCB CAD - it is GPL!
  • bash The common shell

[edit] Sound, MIDI and Sheet-music generating packages

  • Debian Sound How to get sound working on Debian
  • alsa feeds things to your sound card. ALSA stands for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. It is a suite of hardware drivers, libraries and utilities which provide audio and MIDI functionality for the Linux operating system.
  • arts KDE sound daemon
  • gnuplot Plotting system - change data into nice graphs.
  • jackd Inter plugging sound daemon
  • timidity Timidity Converts MIDI to sound out your speakers if you don't have a MIDI sound card
  • rosegarden Rosegarden lets you import/export MIDI, you can even play a keyboard to input music - advanced features - impressive.
  • noteedit Lets you edit scores and imports/exports MIDI files as well as common sheet-music formats such as lilypond to produce printed content.
  • hydrogen - drum machine Simple drum machine/step sequencer

list of most sound applications in Debian

[edit] Server Damons and system programs

  • IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol
  • logcheck look for funny business in your logs automatically and have them emailed to you.
  • shorewall firewall config

[edit] Mediawiki stuff

mediawiki customization

[edit] OSS not part of Debian

[edit] Google Earth

  • Googleearth can be installed - be aware that it leaves huge cache files behind
  • WW2D download site - you can snag topographical maps of anywhere in the USA - plus much more - Really hope WW2D becomes part of Debian.

[edit] new stuff not yet sorted

Add your about favorite Linux program I missed or email me at inform@xtronics.com - be sure to tell me WHY you like it better than the others.

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