This is an organized list of all the software mentioned in the most recent incarnation of the perennial "post some cool software" thread in SH/SC. In particular, the thread this list was based on was "Share your recent 'cool programs' that are keepers". A previous thread can be seen here [requires archives access], or here as an html document.
Note that the previous thread was for all operating systems, and this one was specifically Linux software. As such, please keep this article to Linuxsoftware only
- taken from UsefulWindowsSoftware, bold is edited.
This page will be for Linux what UsefulWindowsSoftware is for Windows, or what the one butan wiki article "Software_Gold" is for OSX software. All software in this article will be free (as in price) unless otherwise noted.
Chat Clients
It's a guilty pleasure. Some of us enjoy frequenting internet chatrooms, hoping to find that rarest of creatures, a GIRL FROM TEH INTARWEB. Others have a lesser addiction, talking with random confederates over the internet about random topics, wasting the day away. Regardless of what your disfunction is, the programs below will certainly give you your fix, you filthy slime.
Gaim - GPL - GUI - Gaim is a multi-platform multi-protocol chat client. It supports "AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, IRC, Napster, Gadu-Gadu, Zephyr, and SILC", among others.
naim - GPL - CLI - naim is a text-based IM client that supports AIM/ICQ, IRC, and lily.
CenterICQ - GPL - CLI - CenterICQ is a text-based IM client that supports the standard set of every IM network worth using [AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, IRC, etc]. Further information, docs, how-to's, news, etc can be found at the unofficial site CenterICQ.com. Also for some reason includes an RSS Reader and a LiveJournal interface.
irssi - GPL - CLI - irssi is a powerful, text-based, IRC client. It can be scripted in Perl.
BitlBee - GPL - CLI/GUI - BitlBee is a multi-protocol IM client that works by running as an IRC server. Once you run the BitlBee server, you can use any IRC client to connect to it and chat with your friends, manage your buddy list, IM accounts, etc. Supports ICQ, MSN, AIM, Jabber, and Yahoo! Messenger.
File Transfer Programs
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, but it is far from being the standard for copying files. There are far more protocols than this article could ever hope to cover available, and the programs below utilize a few of them.
gftp - GPL - GUI - A nice GUI-based FTP program. Supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, IPv6, bookmarking useful sites, and many languages.
lftp - GPL - CLI - lftp is a file transfer program, which supports (among other things) HTTP, FTP, FXP, and SFTP. It also possesses IPv6 support.
FileZilla - GPL - GUI - FileZilla is a GUI FTP client that's been around for windows for aeons. For Version 3 the entire project has been rewritten from scratch using wxWidgets, with the goal of becoming cross-platform. Right now, alpha nightly builds of the Linux version are available, and are really worth checking out. Despite still having some bugs and a good number of missing features, it's already the best Linux GUI FTP client I've ever used. The main site at filezilla.sf.net has documentation written for the current windows version, but most of it still applies in the rewrite.
Mail Clients
Here you will find programs for that most mundane of tasks, reading your e-mail. From simple downloaders to all-in-one suites, there's always a pletora of choices available.
mutt - GPL - CLI - A simple, stable, customizable mail client. Supports everything the average (and not so average) Linux user could want.
pine - nonfree - CLI - A mail client older than time itself.
Mozilla Thunderbird - MPL - GUI - (Mail|News|RSS)-reading counterpart to Mozilla Firefox. Does everthing you'd want a mailreader to do, and then some. Conveniently reads from and stores to mbox files.
Sylpheed - GPL - GUI - A lightweight, stable, and fast mail client designed to be both powerful and friendly.
Media Players
Here you will find things to play back any format you can imagine. Whether it's those MIDIs you thought were cool in 1995, or your hip new FLAC rips, you'll find software to play it here.
Amarok - GPL - GUI - A nice all-in-one media player. Possesses iPod connectivity, Smart Playlists, Alarm Clock functionality, grabbing album covers from Amazon automatically, and more. Only requires KDElibs.
MPlayer - GPLv2 - GUI/CLI - When properly configured, it will play anything you can think of, and lots of things that you haven't. Requires some variant of ffmpeg to be installed to reach full potential. rincebrain loves it.
Xine - GPL - GUI - Another all-in-one media player. Plays DVDs, VCDs, and everything else, just as MPlayer does.
Newsreaders
News. Most people get it from newspapers, web sites, word of mouth, or television. Some people get it from the Internet News service, AKA Usenet. These are the programs which traverse the dark, musty paths of Usenet.
slrn - GPL - CLI - slrn is a simple, clean, efficient newsreader. It supports offline reading of previously-acquired newsfeeds.
Pan - GPL - GUI - Powerful but easy-to-use newsreader. Supports offline reading, yEnc decoding, article filtering, multiple connections, and a whole bunch of stuff I don't feel like listing. Also good for acquiring DA FILEZ.
nzbget / nzbperl / hellanzb - GPL - CLI - I'm lumping these all together because they all do exactly the same thing in slightly different ways. They're all newsreaders specifically made to take .nzb files and output wonderful wonderful binaries with little or no human interaction required. They are written in C++, Perl and Python, respectively. Take your pick.
Text Editors
Linux users, owing to the plethora of available programs which all, when the day is done, accomplish the same tasks, have a tendency to become diehard fans of one particular program or another, and this is stereotypified by the choice in text editor. You'll find all the classics here.
vim - custom (GPL-compatible) - CLI/GUI - Vim is "an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto Unix editor 'Vi', with a more complete feature set." For those of you who like a slightly more interactive text editor, Vim is also available in a GUI version. gVim, in its latest incarnation, also includes such frightening modern features as "tabs". But we all use screen for that, don't we?
nano - GPL - CLI - Nano was designed from the ground up to be an extensible clone of the Pine Composer (pico). It was designed to emulate the functionality of pico as closely as possible, while at the same time offering features not available in pico.
joe - GPL - CLI - Joe's Own Editor is reasonably powerful, extremely compact, and has easily accessible online help. Its keybindings are similar to those of WordStar; and presets for Emacs- and Pico-style keybindings are also available.
Image Editors
gimp - GPL - GUI - There is a great deal of controversy in whether or not The Gimp can replace Photoshop as an image editing tool. Regardless, it's the premier image editing tool for linux and various unixes.
xfig - Non-Free - GUI - Vector graphics editing tool. Saves as its own format, or exports as a variety of formats from encapsulated postscript to PNG. Supports layering and comes with a library of premade images.
Inkscape - GPL - GUI - Think "the-gimp-for-vectors". Full featured vector editing, cross platform, exports primarily to SVG, etc etc etc. Significantly more modern than xfig.
Web Browsers
As with every other type of software on Linux, there are a virtually infinite number of web browsers available. Here are the ones SH/SC members cited.
elinks - GPL - CLI - elinks is a fully capable HTTP/FTP browser which runs entirely within a terminal window. It can "render both frames and tables, is highly customizable and can be extended via Lua or Guile scripts." It differs from the program it was forked from, links, notably in that it supports color.
Mozilla Firefox - MPL - GUI - Mozilla Firefox is descended from the noble bloodline of Mozilla, which is, in turn, descended from the even nobler bloodline of Netscape 4.0. In short, it's an awesome standalone browser. Don't leave 127.0.0.1 [or ::1/128] without it!
Miscellaneous
These are the tools that don't fit into the above categories, but are some of the integral parts that compose the advanced *ix toolkit.
screen - GPL - CLI - Screen is "is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells"; in other words, you can create a screen, disconnect from it, and reconnect to it from another terminal. Incredibly useful. This writeup is a pretty good starting point for learning to use Screen.
subversion - custom Apache-style license - CLI - subversion is a multi-platform source version management tool. It is supposed to be "a compelling replacement for CVS."