Ask HN: New Ubuntu Desktop--what would you install? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: New Ubuntu Desktop--what would you install?

33 pointsericb61 comments

I'm shopping for useful linux programs. I've used linux mainly on servers, but now I'm switching so my dev environment matches production more closely,and installing ubuntu desktop. What would you install on a fresh Ubuntu desktop?

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* To install: These should be in the repository; use synaptic for keyword search.

GNOME Do: http://do.davebsd.com/ It's like Quicksilver for OS X, only more so.

Glipper: Clipboard history manager. A pale imitation of the old Klipper for KDE 3.5.

Banshee: Arguably a better music player than the default. Honestly, I was a big fan of the old Amarok, but KDE 4.0 in general has too many problems and lost functionality for me to use yet.

* To UNinstall:

Totem video player, or at least the Totem plugin for Firefox: It tends to be very crashy, at least for me. Replace the plugin with mplayerplug-in.

* New repositories to add:

Medibuntu: http://www.medibuntu.org/ has restricted and non-free software. Easiest way to get DVD playback, and I would recommend installing mplayer and win64codecs/win32codecs from here. Also, tools like Acrobat.

Wine: http://www.winehq.org/download/deb These are usually much more up-to-date than Ubuntu's repository, if you need Wine.

pidgin -- multiprotocol IM client

inkscape -- Vector Drawing

gobby -- collective editor

pgadminIII -- PostgreSQL GUI

EasyTAG -- mp3 tagging

dia -- diagram editor

GIMP -- photo editing (already installed most likely)

phatch -- batch photo manipulation

mercurial -- Distributed Version Control brings Meld which is a GUI merge program

emacs22-nox -- because I like it that way.

gnumeric -- because the numbers do matter.

python-${handy} -- my work environment has a swollen dependency tree :P

That's my list, but I'm a boring person who doesn't really play video games.

http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsOnUbuntu

Rails On Ubuntu < You cannot miss this.

I don't miss it; I avoid it.

//me likes to know what application is doing. Not guess.

If you use vim, vim-full is better than vim-tiny which comes installed.

A nice panel applet can be found in the repos under the package name "timer-applet", which I find comes in very handy at times.

This one always catches me out on a clean install of Ubuntu, if I remember correctly you can't use "vi file.txt" with vim-tiny.

I think "vi foo" works just fine with vim-tiny. If it didn't, it would be vim-empty.

I think you have to type "vim foo" with vim-tiny.

Htop for monitoring system resources in real time, VirtualBox for running different OSes, Wine for some Windows games and apps, Deluge as a BitTorrent client. Conky is a great productivity booster and nice on the eyes too. Then get the packages needed for playing all media files, and I think that's about it. Oh, I forgot, Pidgin rlz.

dmenu - launcher

dzen2 - simple (but very configurable) statusbar

screen and surfraw

w3m - excellent text-based web-browser

mpd and ncmpc - for music

mutt - for email (if you don't use emacs)

bitlbee - an irc proxy that handles most other instant messaging protocols

irssi - irc (or e.g. rcirc in emacs)

cowsay and figlet :)

xwrits - typing timer

rsync - for backups (set it up with cron)

git or mercurial (whatever, pick one)

good windowmanagers: xmonad, dwm, wmii, blackbox

Common theme: non-flashy, shell/keyboard-oriented stuff. If you like several of those, you will probably like most the rest.

Some of the apps I use frequently

XVidCap - if you want to make screencasts

KdenLive - for video editing

(and unstripped codecs, I re-compiled ffmpeg)

MySQL Administrator and Query Browser - for pokin around MySQL

VirtualBox - for running other OSes

Amarok--It's a KDE music player, and it's really good. It seems faster than rhythmbox, has good librarying, and even integrates with Last.fm

I like konversation (another KDE program) as my IRC client, but I've only dabbled in the other ones briefly.

(Note: your first few KDE programs take awhile to install because they have to install a lot of kde libraries and the like.)

Opera--It's not in the package manager, but it's an easy install from http://opera.com, and it's faster and in some cases better than FF. For example, Firefox doesn't like being disconnected and won't let you get even to localhost when it's in "offline mode" without some tweaking.

Your favorite editor, obviously (both emacs and vim are in the package manager).

If you have a slower computer, I suggest looking into other windowing systems. Up until a month ago, my main computer was an ancient computer with 384MB of RAM and a 1.6GHz single-core processor. Awhile ago my productivity was being hurt so much that I looked into minimalist window managers. I chose icewm, but there are other good ones. It really did make a big difference.

I'd suggest looking at xmonad for the other windowing system. You never need to use your mouse again (though you can if you want to).

It's also written in Haskell, so it has enhanced coolness as well. No ubuntu package as far as I know, but it isn't hard to build from source.

Dwm and wmii are along the same lines, but written in C, in case you happen to be running an architecture whose GHC port is lagging.

Xmonad has an Ubuntu package.

I wouldn't install Amarok (avoid loading Qt in Gnome and vice versa). RhythmBox does not handle an iPod well if that matters for you, but Banshee does. Banshee relies on Mono.

Zim is a little-known note-taking tool that relies on text files and uses a Wiki format.

AbiWord and Gnumeric are good programs to have around when you don't want to start MS Office. Copy the .ttf and .otf font files from your Windows machine and install them in Linux if you want them available.

Inkscape is good to have around for drawing.

What else do you think you'll need?

Also, how about any equivalent to the os x desktop widgets? I like having time, weather and a calendar right there.

The text editor that comes pre-installed

I like gedit for this purpose, but I think its standard on ubuntu.

Just got to it... Looks nice. Have yet to find one on OS X I really liked.

I would recommend TextWrangler or Smultron for basic text editing with some nice extra features thrown in.

Well, the Mac equivalent is TextEdit. I use xPad to take notes, and it has a file drawer. Nice freeware app.

Mac equivalent to gedit would be TextMate, not TextEdit, which isn't a programmer's editor.

He was asking about NotePad equivalents. And to call GEdit comparable to TM is ridiculous. Emacs is a much better comparison.

Our parent seems to have edited his post to be abouit desktop widgets, so you may be right about him referring to notepad equivalents (or not).

But why do you think comparing GEdit to TM is ridiculous? Both have syntax highlighting, auto indentation, inbuilt terminals, tabs, and other programmer specific features. Neither are emacs style user environments with mail checkers and other unrelated stuff. Also GE and TM have far more discoverable configuration tweaking.

Be sure to check out the plugins available to gedit (http://live.gnome.org/GeditPlugins), especially the File Browser Pane, Session Saver, etc. They really add a lot of functionality.

I believe it is called gedit, kate if you are kubuntu

Mousepad is a feature equivalent, but GEdit hs more functionality. Both are good to have, I think.

Oops... meant to reply to my own post above, not edit it. For clarity sake, it used to ask for notepad equivalents. (I know see the installed editor is very nice, unlike os x). I'd fix it, but the edit link is gone...

Google Gadgets.

Does anyone here use Guake? I have an addiction for Quake style dropdown console terminals. http://guake-terminal.org/

I've started using Tilda recently, its alright not quite as polished as Visor for Mac (Both of these are Quake style dropdown terminals) I'll have to try out Guake.

I use Yakuake, the KDE equivalent. I'm addicted too.

Thanks for this, just installed!

Well, here's exactly what I install on a fresh Ubuntu desktop machine (it's my script, copy/pasted).

sudo apt-get install subversion git imagemagick oprofile ssh manpages-dev g++ gcc libtool autoconf automake emacs vim compizconfig-settings-manager valgrind inkscape

Might be something interesting in there for you with a little googling.

Unison - http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

Tellico - my favorite book manager

VLC Movie Player

VMWare(take your pick)

XChat

HPLIP Fax Utility

Azureus

IDEs(KDevelop, Netbeans, DrScheme, Quanta, IDLE)

Also, I have not played with compiz, and I'm wondering if people have found it to be straightforward and easy to live with? It looks fun, but if it makes my life harder. Thoughts?

Eh. It's shiny and nice, but in the end, it's pretty useless. I lived with it for a month, then figured that it didn't do much good, and disabled it.

(I still enable it to show off to friends about how cool Linux is though, sometimes :D)

Yeah, it is good for that. Especially when you tell them that it predates Vista by several years.

Same here. Thought it was pretty neat at first, but it doesn't do a good job of balancing functionality and bling.

I turn it off most of the time. The medium setting is OK, but I generally prefer fast, and plain to fancy.

Well, so do I so I am using xubuntu + WMII, plain and fast.

Someone else has already mentioned installing compiz-config-manager. This is crucial if you want to do any kind of customization with Compiz; a lot of little annoyances I've found with it can be fixed.

I can't exist without Compiz and I'm amazed that HN audience is unaware of the benefits. Here are just a few:

1. Expose-like effect for quickly tiling all windows and picking the right one with the mouse/touchpad. Works MUCH faster for s witching between apps when you have many of them.

2. Very useful and informative animations for tossing windows between virtual desktops and switching between them: without Compiz there's no animation and you're left wondering which desktop you're on.

3. Window groups - a fairly advanced feature which also helps navigating among too many windows.

4. On some video drivers Compiz speeds up 2D graphics (especially scrolling) in regular everyday apps like Firefox.

5. Ability to quickly glance at your desktop (whenever all windows fly offscreen until you release a hot key).

6. Ability to "pin" certain windows into predefined positions automatically or by a configured hotkey. Helps enormously with buggy apps that can't remember their last position.

Basically it all comes down to window management. Without Compiz all you have a basic and primitive Alt+Tabbing plus basic virtual desktop functionality. I switch between Ubuntu and OSX and I use these tools on both very heavily. When I get a hardware which doesn't run Compiz I tend to stick to OSX until the issue is resolved. When I do have Compiz-enabled machine my Mac becomes a backup - OSX isn't as powerful/flexible at managing windows as Metacity/Compiz.

Besides, I find that windows without shadows look very flat and somewhat antiquated in 2008 :-)

Compiz-fusion also has a nice widgets layer (similar to dashboard) that makes making python widgets a breeze.

Also the desktop cube helps when you're using 4 virtual desktops and can't remember which desktop had what running

There's a nice list from a previous thread here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132082

Arch Linux :-D

As much as I like ubuntu, Arch linux just makes more sense to me. It doesn't do anything you don't want it to.

Seriously though, zsh is nice bash replacement. VLC is a great media player and Enlightenment is a nice GUI.

Actually, check out Etoile (etoileos.com) too; its a really nice GUI that's based off of OpenStep and its really pretty and usable.

I prefer console apps:

1.) Music: moc (Music on Console)

2.) Irc: irssi

3.) Editing: vim

4.) Mail/News: mutt

Pidgin - IM client

PHP, Apache, Postgresql, pgadmin III

SongBird - Media player

Eclipse - IDE

Xchat - IRC Client

VLC - Video player

RTorrent - Torrent downloader

Subversion - Version Control

I've been using Thunderbird, and I hate it. I want a more functional UI and better search. Gmail is great, but I want my own local mail store. Any suggestions for a better mail client?

Have a look at Kmail (or Kontact which intergrates Kmail with Korganiser & KAddressbook). Evolution ain't too bad either, but seems to have gotten buggy (or buggier) in recent years.

i prefer xubuntu

installed: vim-full dwm mercurial lighttpd mplayer mpg123 xpdf ImageMagick qiv vifm (there's a vim-like photo manager, but i forget its name) wink vnc (server and client) ssh server gftp (the ftp cli sucks big time, unlike one in openbsd ... and no axyftp) opera swiftweasel java 6 jre (for ameritrade) adobe flash (for google analytics)

uninstall: basically games, default bloated software, useless hypocrate softwares that only play free format, etc

Don't install things until you're ready to use them; otherwise, you'll find yourself spending too long browsing packages.

Yeah but I don't know what the good stuff is, and knowing is half the battle.

since nobody mentioned them before:

* workrave (similar to xwrits, but IMHO less annoying and better GUI support)

* swiftfox (has debian package, customized ff build for your CPU)

* worker (directory opus clone -- i don't use it that often, but it comes in handy from time to time)

here's a post I wrote last month on what I do every time I install a new linux system. The same steps apply to any recent gnome distro. http://mapleoin.bluepink.ro/perma/after-install-work

Exaile is my media player of choice.

I'd install my depenguinator. :-)

bubblemon - bubbling load monitor

errr.. Wine? J/K =P

emacs

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