[Glastonbury] General purpose/must have packages

[tim hall]

Last Monday 13 December 2004 17:53, Greg Browne was like:
> I'd be interested in any thoughts you might have on general
> purpose/must have packages. As someone who is way off PHP as yet, I
> have found the following useful.
>
> Office - OpenOffice Suite - seems to have everything including simple
> data management, and presentation software

Yep.

> DTP - Open Office, tried scribus but it seems to have few output options
> Internet Browsing - Mozilla. 2nd firefox, but Mozilla includes and
> HTML editor and Konqueror does not seem to be accepted by all web
> sites.

No, Konqueror isn't a standards compliant browser, I don't care what KDE say. 
It's quite a useful general browser for filesystems, but only seems to work 
properly with a full KDE desktop. *burp* 'scuse me.

Firefox is the best. No contest.

> E-Mail - Thunderbird, easy to use, and set up, plus an effective spam
> filter Calendar - not used as yet
> Contacts - tried KAdressbook - easy import function, but takes time to
> find required information in a long list

Evolution is a nice gtk based replacement for MSOutlook, with the added 
advantage of not being a virus magnet / spammers backdoor. It does all that 
basic admin stuff.

> Phot editing - The Gimp, powerful but is there anything simpler
> around? Open Office draw is easier to use for the basics

I really recommend persevering with GIMP.

> HTML - tried NVu but found Open Office Writer easier

The only problem with OO.o Writer is that it outputs very messy HTML. Oddly 
enough KWord makes an excellent job of it. Quanta is probably the best 
wysiwyg editor, BlueFish is also worth investigating for more fine-grained 
control. Me, I still use nedit. ;-)

>     Others
>
> Sound - Audacity for recording and editing, simple and powerful

If you get on with Audacity, then go with it.
Also worth checking ReZound for wav editing.
Ardour - 'ProTools' style multitracking (yeah really) steep learning curve.
Rosegarden4 - MIDI sequencing with learning curve
MusE - MIDI sequencing for the impatient ;-)
Hydrogen - the best & simplest drum machine ever.
gamix - the only really useful mixer app.
XMMS - music player
JAMin - pro mastering app
Specimen - simple sampler
Softsynths - ALSA Modular Synth, AmSynth, ZynAddSubFX, PureData, SuperCollider 
JACKd - QJackCtl - essential daemon for allowing applications to share 
soundcard and sync.

> Video - not found the answer to DVD movies as yet

No, me neither. Xine crashes X :(

> CD/DVD burning - K3b, simplicity itself
> Finance - KCash looks good, but not got to grips with it yet
> Internet 'phone - skype - clear speech, can use on domestic phones at
> reasonable rates
> Network - samba with Komba2 - didn't know what I was doing, but these
> led me by the hand to set up a working, mixed network
> Package installation - Klik - OK, limited to the Klik package list,
> but wonderful click 'n install functionality.

I use synaptic (the debatags version). It rocks.

cheers

tim hall
http://glastonburymusic.org.uk