Ubuntuland

What motivated you to start the PackageKit project?

Richard Hughes: Every distro re-invents the same type of package-management tools, and generally does it badly. Package management front ends are nearly always badly localized and translated as they are distro specific. Fedora has pup and pirut, Ubuntu has gnome-app-install and update-manager, and Suse has libzypp command line tools and the zen updater. The other distros basically throw some kind of GUI on top of the package tool rather than look at the use-cases and user interaction studies. To compete with Windows XP and OSX we need to improve what we offer for Linux, even with the wildly different systems such as gentoo with ebuilds and Fedora with binary rpms.

Robin Norwood: I couldn't agree more. Also, I'd add that application developers who want to install add ons but still play nicely with a distributions packaging system could benefit from a unified packaging API.

Could you elaborate a little bit about the work you've done with user interaction studies and use-cases?

RN: Personally, my only contribution to UI is to say what I don't like. I do know that, like a lot of open source projets, we could really use some UI/interaction experts.

How does it differ to the existing solutions?

RH: PackageKit works with distribution specific loadable modules and tries to abstract as much as possible between different distributions and packaging formats. GNOME and QT frontends talk to the daemon in a fully localized way, and do not require one "root" password to do most tasks.

The PolicyKit authorization to do tasks is fine grained, which means different users or groups can be authorized to do automatic updates, or install and remove packages. You can also run multiple instances of the front end tools without any "Another application is currently accessing package information" locking problems, and still continue to use the rpm and yum command line tools.

What work still needs to be done for it to reach a state where you feel its achieved its initial goals?

RH: The daemon needs to be faster. We are working on a new daemon where all interactions should be an order of magnitude faster. The front ends need to be complete and to comply to desktop HIG standards, and pushed upstream to be integral GNOME and KDE components. Projects like OpenOffice.org also need to hook into libpackagekit and use it to automatically install stuff like clipart if it's not installed.

RN: I think we also need to direct some attention to repository management. We have some tools, but it's not quite there yet. After that... polish. Lots and lots of polish. Making sure error messages are sensible, the UI is sane and helpful, and that everything Just Works.

That projects like openoffice.org will be able to work directly with the package manager is quite an exciting prospect. Has work started on this or is there much interest from upstream about this?

RN: I think it's something that a lot of application developers have wanted for a long time now, but we haven't really contacted them directly about this yet because we don't have all the tools and best practices in place quite yet.

RH: No, nothing yet. I'm hoping it will first be patched on the distro level like pulse audio was, and then pushed back upstream. I would imagine projects like scribus might be quicker to adopt this than openoffice.org.

How do you see this project in relation to others that have attempted to solve this problem, i.e. Klik (which has version 2 under development)?

RN: Well, first I should say I'm not terribly familiar with Klik. It looks interesting, but is a little bit different from what PackageKit is all about. The Klik idea seems to be 'one program, one file', sort of like Mac OS X's application bundles. This is an interesting idea, but it doesn't really work within the operating system's package management system at all. You have to have an entirely different system for getting security fixes and updates, for one thing. I have no idea how well the Klik folks have succeeded at this, but I think a solution that works within the powerful package management systems that Linux distributions already have is required.

Other projects, like Smart PM, take things from another angle. Smart tries to replace other package managers like yum wholesale. I think the problem you run into there is, until Smart or something like it replaces all of the features of the package manager it wants to replace, it will be almost impossible to get it into a given distribution. PackageKit sits on top of the existing package manager (like yum), which makes it a lot easier to gain acceptance. Power users can still drop down to yum and use that one magic feature that they must have that PackageKit doesn't provide a UI for.

I think PackageKit has hit the sweet spot between those two options.

How's the work going on getting this ready to be easily available for Fedora 9?

RH: Well, PackageKit and gnome-packagekit are already in rawhide, and we've heard lots of success stories. All of the core stuff works with a mostly-complete yum back end, and now we need to concentrate on optimizations and front end user interactions.

Do you ever hope to see it taken up as the default package management system in Fedora?

RH: I hope so. We'll still need pirut in anaconda for package selection, but it would be good to fully integrate PackageKit like we've done with PulseAudio and HAL.

Has their been interest from other distributions about incorporating this?

RH: Much. PackageKit is shipped by default in Foresight Linux and the GNOME Developer Kit. There's also interest from Ubuntu, openSUSE, openSolaris, Mandriva, OpenMOKO and a few more that we can't announce yet.

And perhaps, to finish, you could tell us a little bit about yourselves? What got you interested in free software originally? What do you like to do with your spare time when you're not working with computers?

RH: Well, I'm 25 years old and graduated this year from Surrey University with a Masters in Electronic Engineering. I work for a large defense company in Kent, UK. I enjoy eating good food and playing football.

My first contribution to free software was a kernel patch to fix non-UTF8 encoding on CIFS shares, and then I moved onto adding power management stuff in HAL. I then created gnome-power-manager and OHM, and then finally PackageKit. I guess working on free software gives me the feeling that I'm doing something useful and special, and is a great way to work in dynamic teams of people who are among the best programmers in the industry.

source: fedoraproject.org 

The mag-tape package is a collection of utilities for manipulating UNIX magnetic tapes, including copying and comparing tapes.

Mag-Tape 1.0

The mag-tape package is a collection of utilities for manipulating UNIX magnetic tapes, including copying and comparing tapes.

Files for Download

Mag-Tape is written and owned by Peter Miller and is freely distributable under the terms and conditions of the GNU GPL.

Mag-Tape is developed using Aegis, a transaction based software configuration management package.

There is more software by Peter Miller at his home page.

Now you have to add additional repositories , close synaptic package manager and type the following command in the terminal window (Application -> Accessories -> Terminal )

¨wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - ¨

sudo wget http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/sources.list.d/feisty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

after completing above steps type

Now your system should be ready for installing extra codecs .

IMPORTANT : In General i don't recommend adding unknown repositories it is risky and could pose a security risk to your computer , however the repository i am adding above is official repository(Medibuntu) whose reference i got from official Ubuntu website so you should not worry about adding repository i mentioned above .

Here is the offical Ubuntu documentation with reference to Medibuntu repository

1. Opera Web Browser

Opera is a excellent web browser available on a number of different platforms including Windows,Linux and Mac OS X . Now opera has a number of really good features it includes a download manager , bit torrent client has a excellent rendering engine and a number of other really good features .

To install opera type the following command in the terminal (Application -> Accessories -> Terminal ) window : -

wget http://opera.eurenet.net/linux/920/final/en/i386/shared/opera_9.20-20070409.6-shared-qt_en_i386.deb

After completing above step launch opera from (Applications -> Internet -> Opera )

2. Downloader For X

Downloader for X is a nice download manager that allows downloading files from Internet , pausing them and downloading them later . It also supports splitting file into number of segments so that files could be downloaded quickly . However one thing that i didn't like about is it's interface is somewhat difficult as compared to some of the download manager available on Windows.

Anyways to install " Downloader for X " type the following command in the terminal window.

After installation is over launch ¨Downloader for X¨ by typing ¨d4x¨ in the terminal window , or by going to (Applications-> Internet -> Downloader for X )

This is how Downloader for X looks

3. AmaroK

Amarok is one of the most popular music player on the Linux Platform , it based on KDE libraries but still it can be used independently on ubuntu too with little or no problem.It features a extremely user friendly interface and is extremely feature rich .

To install amaroK type the following command in the terminal window (Application -> Accessories -> Terminal )

sudo aptitude install amarok

and after completing above step go to (Application -> Sound & Video -> AmaroK) to launch amaroK audio player.

AmaroK running on Ubuntu

4. Skype Skype is a popular VOIP application , allowing one to make voice calls over the internet . To install Skype type the following command in the Terminal Window (Application->Accessories -> Terminal ),keep in mind that Skype is downloaded from Medibuntu repositories and not Ubuntu hence be sure you have activated the repositories correctly as described in first step of this article.

sudo aptitude install skype

After completing above step you could launch skype from (Applications -> Internet ->Skype)

Skype Registration page on Ubuntu

5. Scribus

Scribus is one of the most impressive Desktop Publishing application that is free and cross platform . Scribus is available on Windows , Mac OS X , Linux , OS/2 etc . It is highly suited for preparing file for professional quality image setting equipment .It has high end page layout features of the kind found in Adobe PageMaker, QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign.

It can also create animated and interactive PDF presentations and forms. Example uses include writing small newspapers, brochures, newsletters, posters and books.

Anyways , to install scribus type the following command in the terminal (Application ->Accessories -> Terminal )

sudo aptitude install scribus

and after completing above step launch scribus by typing "scribus" in terminal window.

Scribus on Ubuntu

6. VLC Media Player

VLC Player is another of popular video player available under Linux . It is released under GNU General Public license and is available for different platform including Windows,Linux,BeOS,Mac OS X etc. VLC player is based upon free open source libraries like libdvdcss,FFMpeg for decoding various video formats.One Important feature of VLC Player is it's ability to play files over NetWork Protocols. The Frontend of VLC player is created using wxWidgets toolkit and it's appearance can be changed by using different skins. One Popular feature of VLC Player is it's ability to play files that are incomplete/broken or partially downloaded , making it useful for previewing file while downloading on file-sharing networks.

To install VLC Player type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install vlc
and after completing above step launch vlc player from

7. Google Desktop Google Desktop allows one to full text search of a user's e-mail, computer files, music, photos, chat, and Web pages viewed,OpenOffice documents , PDF files and more .

Now similar tools already existed on Linux like beagle (supported by novell ) , meta tracker etc . However Google Desktop search is not based on any of these tools and uses its proprietary algorithms to search for files on the computer ,also being 1.0 release and more stable then these products it could be preferred over tools like beagle .

To install type the following command in the terminal window : -

wget http://dl.google.com/linux/google-repo-setup.sh

sudo bash google-repo-setup.sh

Now after completing above steps to install Google Desktop Search type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install google-desktop-linux

After completing above step logout of gnome session and relogin you would find the following dialog window

select the appropriate option : -

Now after choosing appropriate option you would find Google Desktop icon in the bar at the top of the screen , now it would automatically scan and index files on computer and store it in local database which could be searched using web browser .

8. Google Picasa

Google Picasa is an extremely professional good looking photo management application available on Windows ,Linux and Mac OS (??) . Now Google Picasa has a number of features that many photo management software on Linux dont have further Google Picasa looks very user friendly as compared to similar open source application available on linux . Now Google Picasa for Linux is not a native linux application but runs on Linux thru application layer called wine which allows many windows application to run flawlessly on Linux.

Now to install Google - Picasa type the following command in the terminal window

wget http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/pool/non-free/p/picasa/picasa_2.2.2820-5_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i picasa_2.2.2820-5_i386.deb

After completing above step launch Google Picasa from

Some Tips to consider before running picasa (taken from google picasa website )

Tips

• If you use NFS, when Picasa first starts, tell it to scan just your desktop! Otherwise Picasa gets real slow while it scans all your NFS directories!
• To get Picasa to see pictures on your hard drive, click "File / Add Folder" (NOT "Import").
• When adding a folder to Picasa, the default action is to remove the folder from Picasa. You have to actively choose Scan once or Scan always.
• Picasa is not supported over remote X connections.

9.Thunar

Thunar is a file manager which is shipped by default with XFCE and is an integral part of XFCE desktop environment . It is similar to Nautilus but uses less resources as compared to Nautilus , and in fact one of the goals of creating Thunar was to create a file manager that was fast , clean and easy to use . It is much more responsive as compared to some other file managers available on Linux including Konqueror (KDE) and Nautilus (GNOME) . By default it is quite small and does provide a limited set of functionality , however it's functionality can be extended by using various plugins.

" sudo apt-get install thunar "

To install thunar type the following command at the command line (assuming you are running Ubuntu)

after completing this process you can launch thunar by going into (Applications -> System Tools -> Thunar File Manager )

This how thunar file manager looks : -

10. Adobe Reader

On Ubuntu/Linux a number of good pdf reader exist that are quite functional and less resource hungry as compared to Adobe Reader , However if you still want to install Adobe Reader 7.0 you can either download package from adobe website or type the following command in the terminal window .

However note , the following command would only work if Medibuntu repositories are configured properly so be sure you have installed it correctly as described in the beginning of article .

¨sudo aptitude install acroread ¨

11. aMule

aMule is alternative to popular eMule program on windows platform , amule supports/works with eDonkey2000 Network or Kadnetwork and allows P2P sharing of files . aMule is available on number of platforms , Current supported systems include Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Windows and Solaris.

To install aMule type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo aptitude install amule

After completing above step launch aMule from (Application -> Internet -> aMule )

12. Nvu/Kompozer
Nvu is one of the most popular WYSIWYG HTML editor available on Windows and Linux and is open source and free . Nvu is based on Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite . Nvu allows novice or beginners who have little or no knowledge of CSS/HTML to create attractive web pages .Nvu was started by Linspire . As of now Nvu development has ceased and there is a project called Kompozer which if fork of Nvu and is unoffical bug-fix release of Nvu .

To install Kompozer type the following command in the terminal window : -

wget -c http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/kompozer/kompozer-077-i686.tgz 

 

sudo ln -s /opt/kompozer/kompozer /usr/bin/kompozer

After completing above steps type : -

kompozer

In the terminal window to launch Kompozer .

Kompozer in Action

13. Leafpad
Leafpad is extremely lightweight and simple text editor written using GTK 2 . As development focuses on keeping weight down to a minimum, only the most essential features are implemented in the editor.Leafpad is simple to use, is easily compiled, requires few libraries, and starts up quickly.

To install Leafpad type the following command in the terminal window :-

sudo apt-get install leafpad

and after completing above step launch Leafpad from (Application -> Accessories -> Leafpad)

Leafpad in action

14. gLabels
gLabels is a program for creating labels and business cards for the GNOME desktop environment. It is designed to work with various laser/ink-jet peel-off label and business card sheets that you'll find at most office supply stores.

To install gLables type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install glabels

After completing above step launch gLabels from (Application -> Office -> gLabels

gLabels in Action

15. Dia

Dia lets you create and edit technical diagrams and plans. Whether its wiring diagrams, simple maps or a plan of your kitchen, Dia has all you need to produce a precise, professional-looking graphic.

To install Dia type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install dia

And after completing above step launch Dia by typing "dia" in the terminal window

Dia

16.Pingus

Pingus has started at the end of 1998 with the simple goal to create a Free (as in freedom, not as in free beer) Lemmings^tm clone.if you don't know Lemmings^tm, here comes a short introduction. Its a puzzle game developed in 1991 by DMA Design. The player takes command in the game of a bunch of small animals and has to guide them around in levels. Since the animals walk on their own, the player can only influence them by giving them commands, like build a bridge, dig a hole or redirect all lemmings in the other direction. The goal of each level is to reach the exit, for fix multiple combination of commands are necessary. The game is presented in a 2D site view.

To install type following in terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install pingus

then to launch pingus go to (Applications -> Games ->Pingus )

17. Super Tux Kart

SuperTuxKart is an enhanced version of TuxKart, a kart racing game, originaly done by Steve Baker, featuring Tux and a bunch of his friends.

To install type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install supertuxkart

After installation launch it from (Applications -> Games -> SuperTuxKart )

18. Pysol

PySol is an exciting collection of more than 200 solitaire card games. Its features include very nice look and feel, multiple cardsets and table tiles, samples and background music, unlimited undo/redo, load/save games, player statistics and log files, hint system, demo games, support for user-written plugins, integrated HTML help browser and lots of documentation

To install type the following command in the terminal window

sudo apt-get install pysol

after completing above step launch pysol from (Applications -> Games -> Pysol )

Pysol in action

19. Super Tux
SuperTux is a jump'n run like game, with strong inspiration from the Super Mario Bros games for Nintendo. Run and jump through multiple worlds, fighting off enemies by jumping on them or bumping them from below. Grabbing power-ups and other stuff on the way.

To install Super Tux type the following command in the terminal window .

sudo apt-get install supertux

after completing above step run supertux from (Applications -> Games -> Super Tux )

20. Google Earth

To install Google Earth type the following command in the Terminal Window (Application->Accessories -> Terminal ),keep in mind that googleearth is downloaded from Medibuntu repositories and not Ubuntu hence be sure you have activated the repositories correctly as described in first step of this article.

¨sudo aptitude install googleearth"

After downloading is over you will get a screen like this press ¨Yes¨ to accept the license agreement and complete software installation.

Now you can launch Google Earth from (Application -> Internet -> Google Earth)

A Picture of Google Earth Running on linux

21. Azureus

Azureus is one of the more popular bittorrent client available on both Windows and Linux , based on java it is one of the most powerful bittorrent client.

To install azureus type the following command in the terminal window : -

¨sudo aptitude install azureus ¨

This is how azureus looks

22. RealPlayer

Realplayer is one of the most popular cross platform media player available on Windows,Linux , Mac OS and a number of other platform . RealPlayer plays popular .rm ,rmvb,.mp3 and other media formats.

To install RealPlayer first download RealPlayer10GOLD.bin file from the following website assuming you have downloaded it to your home directory .

After downloading the file go to the directory where you have downloaded the file in terminal window and type

After installation is over type

¨chmod +x RealPlayer10GOLD.bin¨

and ¨sudo ./RealPlayer10GOLD.bin¨

for installation to begin . Follow the instructions as presented to complete installation

After installation is over you can launch Real Player from (Application -> Sound & Video -> Real Player 10 ).

Real Player for Linux

23. Lyx

Lyx is a document processor which can be used for making professional looking documents , lyx uses LaTeX to generate good looking documents .the user only has to care about the structure and content of the text, while the formatting is done by LaTeX, an advanced typesetting system.LyX is popular among technical authors and scientists for its advanced mathematical modes.

To install lyx type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install lyx

After completing above step launch lyx from (Applications -> Office -> Lyx Document Processor)

Lyx Document Processor

24. XPDF & ePDFview - A lightweight PDF Viewing tool

If you have used Adobe Reader 7.0 on Linux or Windows you must have seen that it takes a lot of time to render pdf files especially if they use high resolution images or the documents have been scanned in high resolution . Besides this , it's interface is also slow. A Nice alternative to Adobe Reader 7.0 is XPDF, xpdf is one of the first pdf viewer available on the Linux Platform , it's interface may not be very user friendly being created using Motif toolkit which gives it a less friendly look but it takes a significantly less amount of memory and renders pdf files quickly .

To install XPDF type the following command in Terminal

" sudo apt-get install xpdf "

Now you can launch xpdf by going into (Applications -> Graphics - > XPDF)

ePDFView : - This is also a lightweight PDF viewer that is based on poppler library ( Same library that xpdf uses for rendering of PDF files), it's interface is neat and fast and renders pdf files quickly .

To install ePDFView type the following command in Ubuntu : -

" sudo apt-get install epdfview "

after above step is completed you can launch epdfview from (Applications -> Office -> ePDFViewer) .

ePDFViewer rendering some random document

25. Abiword
Abiword is a lightweight word processor created using GTK libraries , it is part of Gnome Office and have been available on Linux platform for a long time . It is crossplatform and is available on Windows , MacOS X ,BeOS and other Operating System . It's interface is similar to Microsoft Word and new users of Abiword should not have any significant difficulty in moving from Microsoft Word to AbiWord.

AbiWord is packaged with several import/export filters, including Rich Text Format, HTML, OpenDocument and LaTeX (export only). Plug-in filters are available to deal with many other formats, notably WordPerfect (wpd) documents. The native file format uses XML .

To install AbiWord

sudo apt-get install abiword

After completing above step launch abiword by going to (Application -> Office -> Abiword Word processor) .

AbiWord is also included with many lightweight linux distributions like Xubuntu and DSL.

Abiword supports the following features:

• Speed and size efficiency.
• Microsoft Word-like interface.
• Support for tables, footnotes, and endnotes.
• Support for tables of contents.
• Equation editing.
• Grammar checking.
• User interface and spell checking in 49 languages.

This is how AbiWord Looks

26. PCMan File Manager

PCMan File Manager is extremely small and Fast file manager that supports Tabbed Browsing , it may not be as feature rich as Nautilus however it does the job of file manager well . It has been created using GTK2 Libraries and it's website claims it can start in one second .

Here is the list of features (Taken from it's website ) :-

• Extremly fast and lightweight
• Can be started in one second on normal machine
• Tabbed browsing (Similiar to Firefox)
• Drag & Drop support
• Files can be dragged among tabs
• Load large directories in reasonable time
• File association support (Default application)
• Basic thumbnail support
• Bookmarks support
• Handles non-UTF-8 encoded filenames correctly
• Provide icon view and detailed list view
• Standard compliant (Follows FreeDesktop.org)
• Clean and user-friendly interface (GTK+ 2)

To Install PCMan File Manager download the debian package from here : - http://pcmanfm.sourceforge.net/download.html

Now You can install it graphically by double clicking it and launching the Graphical installation tool or issuing the following command in the terminal window after moving into directory where you have downloaded the debian package : -

Graphical installation of PCMan File Manager

or from Terminal window

" dpkg -i pcman* "

Now launch PCMan File Manager by going to (Applications -> System Tools -> PCMan File Manager )

Here is a screenshot showing PCMan File Manager

27. Sylpheed - A Fast Email and News Client

Sylpheed is a Email and News client created using GTK libraries , Sylpheed is a simple, lightweight but featureful, and easy-to-use e-mail client.

Now personally i havent been able to to try Sylpheed since i dont use POP accounts anyways to install it type the following command .

sudo apt-get install sylpheed

After the above step is completed launch sylpheed by typing "sylpheed " at the command line .

Default Window of Sylpheed

For more information visit Sylpheed Website : - http://sylpheed.sraoss.jp/en/

28. Gnumeric

Gnumeric is part of Gnome Office and provides Spreadsheet capabilities , Gnumeric is a lightweight alternative to OpenOffice Spreadsheet program , besided occupying very less amout of memory it's installation files are only 2-3 Megabytes in size , based on GTK Libraries it integrates well with Gnome Desktop .Gnumeric was created and developed by Miguel de Icaza , and is now maintained by Jody goldberg .

Gnumeric has the ability to import and export data in several file formats, including Applix, CSV, Data Interchange Format, Microsoft Excel, HTML, LaTeX, Lotus 1-2-3, MultiPlan, GNU Oleo, OpenDocument, OpenOffice.org 1.x, Plan perfect, Quattro Pro, SpreadsheetML, Xspread and Xbase. Its native format is the Gnumeric file format, an XML file compressed with gzip

To install Gnumeric type the following command at the Console Window(Applications->Accesories -> Terminal)

" sudo apt-get install gnumeric "

After installation is over click (Application -> Office -> Gnumeric Spreadsheet) to launch Gnumeric Spreadsheet.

This is how Gnumeric Looks

29. Bluefish
Bluefish is a free software/open source text editor Its use is suitable for many programming and markup languages, with particular focus on their use for web development. Bluefish is extremely useful for making webpages from scratch using HTML/CSS and other markup language. Bluefish has been created using GTK2 and uses GTK libraries .

To install Bluefish type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install bluefish

and after completing above step launch Bluefish from (Application -> Programming -> Bluefish Editor )

Bluefish

30. aMSN

aMSN is a MSN Messenger clone for Linux operating system , it tries to emulate look and feel of MSN messenger as close as possible allowing linux newbies to use aMSN easily .

aMSN has features not present in MSN Messenger. Users can set alarms, are able to see others who have removed them from their contact list, and are able to open many profiles at once. It is also very customizable, with extensions and themes available at the main site.

To install aMSN type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install amsn

and after completing installation launch aMSN from (Applications -> Internet -> aMSN )

31. Gimpshop

GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source graphics program GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

This is what developer had to say : -

"My original purpose for GIMPshop was to make the Gimp accessible to the many Adobe Photoshop users out there. I hope I’ve done that. And maybe along the way, I can convert a Photoshop pirate into a Gimp user."

GIMPShop tries to replicate Photoshop's interface as close as possible , hence many tutorials designed for Adobe Photoshop could be followed for GIMPshop !! . Now besides all the interface change it adds naming convection similar to photoshop to Gimp . Other than this all the features of GIMP are preserved .

Like GIMP which is crossplatform and runs on Windows , Linux , OS X ,Solaris GIMPshop too is crossplatform .

Since GIMPshop is based on GIMP so it has all the features of GIMP .

To install GIMPShop type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo wget http://www.plasticbugs.com/blogimg/gimpshop_2.2.11-1_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i gimpshop_2.2.11-1_i386.deb

gimp

in the terminal window.

Splash Screen of GIMPshop

GIMPshop in Action (Note this screen shot was taken from GIMPshop website and running on Mac OS X)

32. Comical

Comical is extremely user friendly comic reader allowing you to read CBR and CBZ comics easily on your linux desktop . It has been created using wxWidgets .

To install Comical type the following command in the terminal window : -

wget http://debian.xmixahlx.com/packages/unstable/comical_0.4-1_i386.deb

sudo dpkg -i comical_0.4-1_i386.deb

Comix : -

A Number of people are having trouble with comical , so you may try comix .
Comix is a very good Comic Book Reader with ability to read .cbr , .cbz files.

Here is the text taken from comix website abt comix :-

Comix is a user-friendly, customizable image viewer. It is specifically designed to handle comic books, but also serves as a generic viewer. It reads images in ZIP, RAR or tar archives (also gzip or bzip2 compressed) as well as plain image files. It is written in Python and uses GTK+ through the PyGTK bindings.

To install Comix type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install unrar

sudo apt-get install comix

after completing above step launch comix from (Applications - > Graphics -> Comix )

33. Tuxpaint
TuxPaint is extremely simple graphical bitmap editor for children as young as 3 years old . The user interface is intuitive with bright icons , audible feedback, textual hints and brightly colored. Also there is cartoon Mascot to keep children interested .

It has a number of really interesting features , including one which allows teachers to turnoff certain features of TuxPaint . Also there is an option for allowing slideshow to be seen as flip book animation .

To install Tuxpaint type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install tuxpaint

and after completing above step launch tuxpaint by typing tuxpaint in the terminal window .

TuxPaint in action

34. Audacity

Audacity is open source cross platform software for recording and editing sound files . The Graphical interface of Audacity was created using wxWidgets library .

some of Audacity's features include:

• Importing and exporting WAV, AIFF, MP3 (via the LAME MP3 Encoder, downloaded separately), Ogg Vorbis, and other file formats
• Recording and playing sounds
• Editing via Cut, Copy, Paste (with unlimited Undo)
• Multi-track mixing
• Digital effects and effect plug-ins. Additional effects can be written with Nyquist
• Amplitude envelope editing
• Noise removal
• Support for multichannel modes with sampling rates up to 100 kHz with 24 bits per sample
• The ability to make precise adjustments to the audio's speed, while maintaining pitch, in order to synchronise it with video, run for the right length of time, etc.
• Large array of plug-ins available

To install Audacity type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install audacity

After completing install launch audacity from (Applications-> Sound & Video -> Audacity )

Audacity Interface

35. GCompris

GCompris is a educational software for children and has a number of activity to keep children engaged , activities like : -

• Computer discovery: keyboard, mouse, different mouse gesture, ...
• Algebra: table memory, enumeration, double entry table, mirror image, ...
• Science: the canal lock, the water cycle, the submarine, electric simulation, ...
• Geography: place the country on the map
• Games: chess, memory, connect 4, oware, sudoku ...
• Reading: reading practice
• Other: learn to tell time, puzzle of famous paintings, vector drawing, cartoon making, ...

To install type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install gcompris

After completing above step launch GCompris from (Application -> Games -> Educational Suite GCompris )

GCompris in Action

Notable additions (Added Later) : -

Deluge-Torrent Client

deluge is a nice Bittorrent client for Linux and Unix , it has been created using Python and GTK+ . It was created with intentions of providing a full featured bit torrent client for GTK based environment like Gnome and XFCE infact it was initally called gTorrent but then name wa slater changed as gTorrent gave indications it was only Gnome based torrent client .

Some of the features of Deluge Torrent is : -

• Torrent creation built into main client

• Plugins implemented as modules

• Supports network features such as Peer_exchange , UPnP and NAT-PMP

• Encryption in many ways at many levels

To install type the following command in the terminal window : -

wget http://www.dipconsultants.com/ubuntu/feisty/deluge-torrent_0.5.2-1_i386.deb

However if u find some dependency error type

sudo apt-get -f install

To correct dependencies

After completing above step launch deluge from (Application -> Internet -> Deluge Bittorrent Client )

Deluge bittorrent client

Wine Doors 0.1 & Wine

Wine Doors is an application that is still in early stage of development but allows easy installation and managing of Windows application on Linux desktop .

This what Wine Doors Website has to say : -

Wine-doors is an application designed to make installing windows software on Linux, Solaris or other Unix systems easier. Wine-doors is essentially a package management tool for windows software on Linux systems.

Since Wine-Doors is basically to manage applications installed through wine and simplify their installation through wine so installing wine is must (provided you dont have wine installed already)

To install Wine : -

sudo apt-get install wine

And after completing above step type the following command in the terminal window to install Wine-Doors

wget http://www.wine-doors.org/releases/wine-doors_0.1-1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i wine-doors_0.1-1_all.deb

After completing above steps launch Wine-Doors from Applications -> System-Tools -> Wine-Doors

Now Wine-Doors would download and install some necessary apps and when all this inital confiuguration is over you would find a dialog like this providing you a easy way of installing a number of popular windows application.

I Was highly impressed by the ease with which it is possible to install many popular application using wine-doors really impressive .

Wine-Doors in Action

XMMS

This is the WinAmp alternative for the Linux platform and has been in existence for quiet some time now , it is based on mpg123 library for playing mp3 files . The application has look similar to winamp application and can be beautified with a number of skins , also XMMS supports a large number of plugins that add extra functionality to the player. Besides having ability to play mp3 files it can be used for plying WMA files also by installing external plugin.(http://mcmcc.bat.ru/xmms-wma/)

To install XMMS type the following command in the terminal window :-

sudo apt-get install xmms

and after completing above step launch XMMS from (Applications -> Sound & Video -> XMMS )

XMMS in Action

Synfig

Synfig is open source 2D animation and graphics program , Synfig allows easy creation of animation on Linux platform . It is still in early stages of development but still feature set it provides now is very impressive .

Text taken from Synfig website : -

2D Animation has traditionally been very expensive because every frame must be drawn by hand. Even with today's digital inking and painting software, the process still relies on individuals hand-drawing each frame. This laborious task is called “tweening”.

Our animation technology eliminates the task of manual tweening, producing smooth, fluid motion without the animator having to draw out each frame individually.

This allows you to produce 2D animation with fewer people while producing a product of a higher quality.

To install Synfig type the following command in the terminal window : -

sudo apt-get install synfig

and after completing above step launch Synfig from (Applications -> Graphics -> Synfig Studio )

Synfig in Action(Taken From Synfig Website )

Songbird
Songbird is a extremely user friendly music player based on on Mozilla's XULRunner platform and is cross platform it has a number of really good features and also has integrated web browser .

You can read more about Songbird here in one of my previous post

Quod Libet : -

Quod Libet is an extremely versatile music player based on GTK+ that is extendible via plugins , has a rich feature set and has really unique feature of building playlist by searching for particular kind of music files based on search terms or regular expression . It has been programmed in Python programming language and hence it's plugin are also created in Python. A number of plugins are available including ones that help in copying songs to digital audio players , last.fm plugin , advanced editing features and many more .

Quod Libet uses GStreamer framework of GNOME to play audio files and hence integrates quite well the the GNOME desktop environment , also audio format supported would be same as the one supported by GStreamer so you may want to install mp3 support since by default many linux distributions these days dont come with mp3 support installed.

To install Quod Libet type the following command in the Terminal Window : -

sudo apt-get install quodlibet

and after completing above step launch quod-libet from (Application -> Sound & Video -> Quod Libet )

Quod Libet Website : - http://www.sacredchao.net/quodlibet

Inkscape

Inkscape is very powerful vector graphics editor available on Windows , Linux and Mac OS X . It is free and open source . Its stated goal is to become a powerful graphic tool while being fully compliant with the XML, SVG and CSS standards.

Here is what inkscape website has to say abt inkscape:-

Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3CScalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats. standard

For more details abt Inkscape visit this website

To install inkscape type the following command : -

sudo apt-get install inkscape

and after completing install launch inkscape from (Application -> Graphics -> Inkscape Vector Illustrator )

Inkscape

For more information about inkscpae visit their website :- http://www.inkscape.org/