Testing
newly released operating systems gives me pleasure and thus I am
jumping to many of the OSs right from the day I have got my new
laptop. I started the year 2011 with ubuntu 10.10 and windows vista
as the dual boot. Soon I jumped to windows 7 and after the release of
Natty Narwhal, I switched to it keeping the windows 7 with me. During
my summer vacation I installed Opensuse 11.4. whatever Linux
distribution I may install I always kept windows with me. But this
September I made up my mind to keep the windows out of my box for
always and my machine had only ubuntu. After the release of Oneiric
Ocelot, I upgraded to it. I have virtual box but windows has no place
in it also. Arch linux has got that throne to rule the virtual box's
world.
I
have installed a plethora of apps in ubuntu and tested them. I am
posting my experience so that you may get some help in choosing the
best app for the particular job.
I
have chromium, chrome, opera, firefox and conqueror installed to
crunch my browsing desires. I mostly use google chrome for browsing
purpose. Chrome and chromium work similar since they have got the
same soul with different body. Chromium is the open source project of
google for its browser. I think chrome is best for browsing however
opera also works nice. I use mozilla firefox for downloading the
stuffs. The reason behind using the firefox is the presence of
'downthemall' a firefox add-on which accelerates the downloading
speed by 400%.
I
am doing a lot of chatting for last few weeks. My earlier weapon for
chatting was empathy. It has nice look, support almost all popular
protocols and has nice theme. Last week I shifted to pidgin and I'm
in love with it. The power of pidgin lies on its plugins. Its buddy
pounces and ability to add custom smileys out of your image, rocks! I
welcome my friends over chat by hitting them with my smiley made of
my own image. I have 'Kopete' also but I never use it. For irc, Xchat
IRC works great for me and I think it is best in its category. With
ubuntu 11.10, I have got Thunderbird as my default email client which
is really good move by cannonical. I like it more than the Evolution.
But Evolution have got the calender with it which makes it to compete
with Thunderbird. But don't worry if you love Thunderbird, just
install the Sunbird plugin for it using Ubuntu Software Center.
For
watching videos, playing songs and other media playback, VLC works
great for me. It opens up to play media much faster than banshee
media player. VLC can play almost anything you throw in it. Banshee
sometimes hangs but never the vlc. I have 'gmusicbrowser' also but I
have used it rarely. Similarly I rarely throw a look at totem and
parole. For video editing 'Pitivi' is best out there. For handling
the plethora of photographs which I have clicked; 'Picasa' is there
to help me.
Like
applications I teated most of the prominent desktop environment
available for linux based operating system. I started with unity
which was the default one. Then I gave a shot to Kde. It was eye
catching but it kept my machine's fan running always. Most of the
time I found the cpu uses more than 60% which used to jump over 90%
in case of running any application. Gnome looked nice for me however,
many find gnome 3.2 a crap including the Linux creator, Linus
Torvald. Only irritating thing I found in it is the absence of
minimize and maximize button however I liked it at all its corners. I
also tested xfce, lxde and enlightenment 17. I was amazed by the look
and feel of enlightenment 17. It is light on resources but great on
look. I found lxde better than xfce. I will suggest you to go for
lxde, if you want less resource hog and better interface both. You
decide yourself for the best apt environment for your linux machine.
Similarly
I have got extremely large number of apps of other purposes and I
think to discuss them all is not a healthy choice so I am telling the
best working app( at least they work best for me)
email
client Thunderbird
web
browser google chrome & mozilla firefox
office application LibreOffice
clipboard
manager Glipper
screenshot
app Shutter
searching
app Gnome Do
photos
manager Picasa
offline dictionary Artha
internet
messenger Pidgin
Tex file editor Kile
media
player vlc
text
editor emacs, vim, gedit
irc
client xchat
IDE Eclipse,
Qt creator
Terminal
emulator yakuake
virtual
machine virtual box
Image
editor Gimp
2D
modeling app Blender
Audio
editor Audacity
video
editor Pitivi
File
sharing LinuxDC++ ( a DC++ port for linux)
Nerwork
protocol analyser Wireshark, traceroute
Python
web framework Django
typing
tutor tux typing
File
searching CatfFish
compression
tool Archive manager, 7zip
calculator Gcalculator
virus
scanner ClamTk ( amazed !!!!)
JRE OpenJdk
ebook
library management calibre
chm
reader xCHM
sniffer ettercap
Download
manager kGet
Internet
Telephony Skype
other
apps : window manager tweaks, CompzConfig setting manager, ubuntu
restricted extras.
If
you are among those who don't fascinated by the 'ease of use'
provided by the operating system or the desktop environment but look
for the power and terminal is your best friend then I will suggest
you to go for the Arch Linux. I assure you that you will get enough
knowledge and insight of Linux from the first meet with it.
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