[Glastonbury] General purpose/must have packages

[Martin Wheeler]

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, tim hall wrote:

> I really recommend persevering with GIMP.

Seconded.  It doesn't have the sort of interface windows users expect; but 
once you get your head round it, it's unbeatable.

>  Quanta is probably the best
> wysiwyg editor

Agreed.  (Make sure you install all the help add-ons.)
Plus conglomerate if you're doing XML.
But only if you must.

> BlueFish is also worth investigating

Yeeuch!

>  Me, I still use nedit. ;-)

Likewise!  (With a touch of emacs.)
[Windows users and Un*x users have totally different expectations and 
working methods. It shows in the way they approach problem-solving.]

>> Video - not found the answer to DVD movies as yet
>
> No, me neither. Xine crashes X :(

Totem.  Does it all.
Plays DVDs, CDs, .au files, .wav files, my avi files from the digital 
camera -- serves all my audio/video playback needs.  (Can't remember 
offhand if it does oggs though.)  I've now dumped xine and xmms.


'Must have' is very dependent on what you use a particular workstation 
for.  My main occupation is text-editing, and pre-print origination.

I hardly use Scribus at all (still prefer to use Ventura under Windows for 
long, structured documents) -- it's a very good replacement for PageMaker, 
though. (Best for single-page unstructured flyers, brochures, graphic 
design intensive stuff.)

I use OpenOffice to produce all my long reports that I can't be bothered 
to mark up, as it will export directly to PDF -- fundamentally what my 
punters want.
Looking forward to version 2 and database incorporation.

All markup is done using (x)emacs21+psgml -- unbeatable, in my opinion.
(I can't use so-called 'wysiwyg' markup editors -- they slow me down 
horrendously, and mostly only work properly with their own supplied DTDs 
-- not much use when you're working out of a catalog of over 200 from all 
sorts of origins. Windows users tend to be lost without the support of 
such packages, though.)


MySQL is a 'must-have' for me -- I also always have postgres installed as 
well.  I interface with it via command-line or phpmyadmin (when a need a 
'big pciture' view of the data) -- MySQL_CC and MySQL_Navigator I threw 
off the system ages ago as unusable.


And for spreadsheet work I always use gnumeric (the spreadsheet in OO.o 
sucks).  Statistical analysis with the R library of add-ons is apparently 
the best going.  I don't use them; but everyone I respect in the field 
urges me to do so.


And of course, on any workstation, I simply *must* have my own webserver 
to test out all the stuff I'm writing (most of which is web-published in 
one form or another, whether primarily produced for hard-copy purposes 
or not) -- which means Apache, MySQL, Perl, Python, PHP -- and some form 
of ability to 'edit from the web' [CMS, wiki, weblog or whatever].

Plus xpdf and ghostview to read pre-packaged documents and PostScript 
files.


And of course, I usually have a full set of documentation on any 
workstation I use for day-to-day tasks.  (That's both system and 
applications documentation.)

One package I *cannot* do with now is dpkg-www -- a superb piece of 
software for debian systems which gives you a complete list of all 
packages available to you (yes folks, all fifteen-and-a-half thousand of 
them); or only those installed on the current system; or only those you're 
interested in (e.g *ruby*) -- and gives you a hotlink from the list 
produced to //full// package details (dependencies, maintainer, libraries 
-- the LOT, quoi).
I just can't do without it these days.


That any use, Greg?
-- 
Martin Wheeler   -   StarTEXT / AVALONIX - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
mwheeler at startext.co.uk                http://www.startext.co.uk/mwheeler/
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