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Slackware was my first distro too can't remember the version, but it was pre version 1 - old man :-(.
I've just installed Vector Linux 4.0 on my laptop and on an older desktop - it's a good way into a fast efficient no-frills linux system. I'm a windows developer so my work laptop is a w2k machine, to make it bearable I've installed niceties such as bash, gvim and perl. You could use Bochs machine emulator to run w2k under linux. If you dual boot, you can use thunderbird email on a dual boot system with a single mailbox.

Vector linux is easy to install and configure, forget all the folks who think a gui is essential for everything, as a windows developer you'll already know how to hack your way through the registry and various config files. That's all you need to do with slackware too.

I'm still aghast at the number of developers who think that they need Visual Studio, or any IDE for that matter, to develop in .NET/Java/whatever.

I'll be sticking with Visual Vim 2004, Nant, and the SDK, thank you. My decrepit mouse-wrist really appreciates the fact that with vim my fingers rarely have to leave the keyboard, too.

Those without the time to understand the various quirks of the various new forms of VS may be glad of this update: at time of writing, vim is still free.

I do approve of C# and .NET though. One interesting thing is that the _more_ someone likes/needs Visual Studio, the _less_ they tend to actually know about CLI and COM...

Do they not know about vim?

In fact, it was a Linux machine at a company called Mainsoft that got hacked which resulted in that Windows source leak.

I've seen no evidence about it being hacked, it's also possible that somebody who had access to the machines copied it deliberately, or that the hard drive was stolen or thrown away without first thoroughly deleting it. There's a lot of disinformation around, including the claim that this was caused by "Linux crashing". First, the core dump that circulated is not from Linux crashing, but from a user land application (more specifically, ViM) crashing on a Linux box, and secondly, you can't hack a crashed box, so this is just complete BS. You would have to hack it after it goes up and online again.

Addendum: It's hard to get first-hand information on the web, but I've just run into a claim that an unpatched wu-ftpd running on Linux was hacked. If that's true, then first of all, it's just damn careless to put critical information like this on an Internet server, and second, it wouldn't be the fault of Linux, but of the notoriously insecure wu-ftpd, which happens to run on Windows as well.

This popped up six windows which installed both the default-homepage-network hijacker and also some nasty stuff [...]

This crashed Windows Media Player and then it was overwritten with a small windows executable (I have it if you want it) - this was called wmplayer.exe and was in the Windows Media Player folder. The real Windows Media Player had been deleted. [...]

The next time a WMP media file was accessed the new wmplayer.exe file ran and installed lots of adware, junkware, spyware etc, etc. [...]

AVG free edition sygate personal firewall and Spybot seach and destroy (site down) will complete your collection nicely. Might want to have a look at Hijack this and this tutorial as well.

Yes, this is a lot of work for the price of keeping windows running. Some people don't have a choice... Me, as soon as my favourite IDE gets ported to Linux, I'll swap ;-)

Seriously though, if there are any other tools you guys use to try and keep windows secure, please share.

• shell: bash
• editor: vim
• email: mutt
• audio playback: cplay front-end
• mixer: aumix
• irc & im: irssi
  • im/irc gateway: bitlbee
• web browser: w3m
• p2p:
• • client:giFTcurs
  • daemon:giFT
• news aggregator: raggle

One does not wonder if something exists for Emacs. One believes.
Same goes for vim: vimirc is quite usable and very "stealthy" for IRCing at work, because it is hidden in vim ...

I live in text mode. Here's a selection of my preferred apps. Most of these are still in active development (though some are more active than others).

screen. Simply indispensable. It slices and dices console sessions. Pretty much everything I do, I do in screen. I've a page elsewhere that describes everything screen does for me.

zsh. My shell of choice. Think of all the good features of bash, ksh, and tcsh rolled together. (Without much of the ickiness, particularly the csh heritage.) Personally, the killer application of zsh was that fact that not only did it have context-sensitive completion but (unlike tcsh) it shipped with hordes of completion definitions right out of the box. Type 'dpkg -L fo<tab>' and zsh will autocomplete on the Debian packages currently installed on your system. With an ssh-agent running, type 'scp otherhost:fo<tab>' and zsh will ssh to the other system and autocomplete on the files available on that host.

irssi. The best IRC client I've come across, certainly beating out IrcII, BitchX, and even epic. Multiple windows, extensible, tons of plugins available.

bitlbee. This is actually an IRC-to-Instant-Messaging gateway. It allows me to use irssi and the IRC environment with which I am so familiar to also deal with those of my friends and family who insist on using the various IM services.

snownews. curses-based RSS aggregator. I shopped around a bit before finding an aggregator that I liked. snownews does everything I need.

mutt. Possibly the best mail client around, GUI or not. While pine is okay (and simpler to use), mutt is much more customizable and scales better to large volumes of email.

procmail. Again, not exactly command line, but essential to my email usage.

Emacs. My text-mode editor of choice. Feel free to substitute XEmacs or vi (preferably vim) at your own preference. I prefer emacs to vi, though I know a decent amount of vi, as any sysadmin should. I actually like XEmacs a little better than GNU Emacs, but GNU Emacs has better UTF-8 support.

w3m. There's also links; I'm not tremendously familiar with it because w3m fills all of my needs and it used to be the case that w3m had better HTML support than links, but I don't believe this is any longer the case. Of note is the fact that w3m can do tabbed browsing, though it's not multithreaded, so you can't read one tab while another is loading. Also, if you run w3m with a valid $DISPLAY, it can even show images in the pages it displays.

moosic. This is a music jukebox. The features that distinguish it from other such programs are twofold. First, it runs as a standalone server; you interact with it via a command line client. (In theory, a curses or GUI client could be written, but to my knowledge none yet has.) Second, it's customizable with regards to how it plays music. It has a config file where you tell it what programs to use to play various music formats (it does come with reasonable defaults). Someone elsewhere in this article pointed out mpd; I'll have to look at that, but it at least doesn't appear to support the various MOD formats.

mplayer. It does more or less require some graphical output (X, framebuffer, whatever), but it's run and displays it status in text mod

1. Dev Todo is a wonderful outliner and task manager. Today I ported it to win32 using mingw to use at work (it pisses me off that windows dropped ANSI color support in their crappy CMD! I knew it was bad, but I still use it more than msys or cygwin because it is quicker on my slow box). Dev Todo stores everything in beautiful XML. I intend to make a filter for XSLT for my biweekly progress reports. My boss wants me to list things I've gotten done & what I plan to do & this great app can store all of that.
2. Pine-I don't care if RMS doesn't consider it free. It is the best IMAP client. I do like Mulberry as well, though.
3. GNU Screen-I mostly just detach/reattach. I'd like to learn to use it more.
4. VIM-My editor. Again, need to learn it better.
5. Lynx on windows and ELinks on Linux for browsing.
6. I have aliased "fuck" to use cowsay to tell me to calm down. Great stress relief.
7. GPG
8. LaTeX. I hesitated to include this, but I use it on both linux and windows & it is technically interactive. I have started using it more than standard word processors (WordPerfect>OpenOffice>MS Word) and I want to use it instead of impress/powerpoint/whatever.
9. OpenSSH because my box is so much better than the one I use at work
10. NcFTP best ftp client I found, though I have been having much less need to use it.

For IRC, I use irssi. It's neat, small, fast, and does what I need it to. Also, I haven't had the need to change any of its stock options yet - I like it the way it is. Other candidates are BitchX (annoying autoaway etc.), ircII (too much configuring, maybe?), or CenterICQ (don't like the interface for IRC).

CenterICQ is my app of choice for IM. It's quirky sometimes, and once segfaulted, but other than that, I have had 0 problems with it. Also, it supports a variety of protocols.

For web-browsing, I use links. I've tried lynx and w3m, but links just "does it" I guess :). It's got support for more stuff. Also, I find the -g option nice, something the other two don't have IIRC.

I've tried Emacs, Pico, Nano, ed, etc. etc. etc., but so far, nothing has replaced my addiction to Vim. Maybe I'm a masochist, I don't know.

When I'm at home in console mode, I usually use Alt+Fx to switch between different apps, and use screen to keep irssi and centericq running. When over ssh, I use screen. Sometimes, I run out of VTs, so I use screen to group things inside the VTs. When in X, I just keep things in separate rxvt windows.

For entertainment, I have either NetHack, fortune -o, or bash.org (aww shit, slashdotted them, they're down enough as it is!) in links. :)

-- Chris

Vim to edit text

Mutt for email

elinks to browse the web

MPlayer to play any media file (even videos in text mode)

mICQ for ICQ (also centericq for a multi-protocol IM client)

BitchX for IRC

lftp for ftp

This might be a troll, but I'll bite.

Don't like GNOME? Use windowmaker. If that's still too fat for you, use oroborus. Still too big? Try setting your window manager to "twm".

Don't like OpenOffice? MS Office isn't much better...maybe you'd better stick to HTML and CSS with Bluefish. Or maybe vim or Emacs.

FireFox still too slow? As long as you're dropping features by moving away, try w3m or lynx...two very capable text-based browsers.

Don't have a 3D accelerator? Play software-rendered Quake. Or (using that same project) use the SDL's aalib target.

I'm certain it's something that can be manipulated via the vimrc file. I'll even wager that the change is in the mswin.vim file that is sourced by default installs on Windows. That's what this thread leads me to believe. (See March 27, 2004 21:57 comment)

Although I personally use VIM with a handful of macros to drive my own todo list, I found the following tools to be really great todo managers (cross platform, console based):

Developer ToDo - http://swapoff.org/DevTodo

ToDo List Manager - http://www.rrbcurnow.freeuk.com/tdl/

HNB (which is also great for many other purposes) - http://hnb.sourceforge.net/

Attack the problem with vim and vigor , but note that KOrganiser has a pretty good to do section.

Im often ammused at people who seem to think vi and grep etc is all they need for programming.

Then continue to be amazed, because every programmer--since, I think we're human--has a different frame of mind on how to approach programming. Count me as a person who sticks with Vi and grep, not because I'm stuck-up or stupid, but because that's how I work.

Pretty much 100% of the time these people have never tried VS, and it shows.

I have. Have you tried Vi?

Being able to use tab completion, seeing all members of a class/struct as you type

There are ways to make life easier.

Be sure to check out this for additional perspective. See, there's this little thing called "tags" or ctags that's been around a lot longer than VS.

little wavy lines under invalid variables (with addins)

Even in Microsoft Office, I turn off the automatic spell check--what a blinding mess. Besides, if you're writing C, the compiler will help. If it's a loosely-typed language, then hats off to VS if it can make this determination.

being able to just place a breakpoint anywhere in their code as they are typing

In my opinion, there is a design problem or a gross misunderstanding if this approach is used at the get-go. But, whatever floats your boat.

the little things that they are continuing to add are so minor it is clear they are nearing perfection.

There is no Utopian software. Repeat that ten times. But, besides that, I'm happy that it's working out great for you!

And when debugging, you can drag the current execution spot up a few lines, change some code, then let it run over the spot again without re-compiling or restarting the process!

gdb. ddd if you need "visualization". ...an environment that is very highly unlikely to be replicated under a free OS...

Again, it's neat that it works for you. And, yes, we do try these tools.

Im often ammused at people who seem to think vi and grep etc is all they need for programming.

Then continue to be amazed, because every programmer--since, I think we're human--has a different frame of mind on how to approach programming. Count me as a person who sticks with Vi and grep, not because I'm stuck-up or stupid, but because that's how I work.

Pretty much 100% of the time these people have never tried VS, and it shows.

I have. Have you tried Vi?

Being able to use tab completion, seeing all members of a class/struct as you type

There are ways to make life easier.

Be sure to check out this for additional perspective. See, there's this little thing called "tags" or ctags that's been around a lot longer than VS.

little wavy lines under invalid variables (with addins)

Even in Microsoft Office, I turn off the automatic spell check--what a blinding mess. Besides, if you're writing C, the compiler will help. If it's a loosely-typed language, then hats off to VS if it can make this determination.

being able to just place a breakpoint anywhere in their code as they are typing

In my opinion, there is a design problem or a gross misunderstanding if this approach is used at the get-go. But, whatever floats your boat.

the little things that they are continuing to add are so minor it is clear they are nearing perfection.

There is no Utopian software. Repeat that ten times. But, besides that, I'm happy that it's working out great for you!

And when debugging, you can drag the current execution spot up a few lines, change some code, then let it run over the spot again without re-compiling or restarting the process!

gdb. ddd if you need "visualization". ...an environment that is very highly unlikely to be replicated under a free OS...

Again, it's neat that it works for you. And, yes, we do try these tools.

Im often ammused at people who seem to think vi and grep etc is all they need for programming.

Then continue to be amazed, because every programmer--since, I think we're human--has a different frame of mind on how to approach programming. Count me as a person who sticks with Vi and grep, not because I'm stuck-up or stupid, but because that's how I work.

Pretty much 100% of the time these people have never tried VS, and it shows.

I have. Have you tried Vi?

Being able to use tab completion, seeing all members of a class/struct as you type

There are ways to make life easier.

Be sure to check out this for additional perspective. See, there's this little thing called "tags" or ctags that's been around a lot longer than VS.

little wavy lines under invalid variables (with addins)

Even in Microsoft Office, I turn off the automatic spell check--what a blinding mess. Besides, if you're writing C, the compiler will help. If it's a loosely-typed language, then hats off to VS if it can make this determination.

being able to just place a breakpoint anywhere in their code as they are typing

In my opinion, there is a design problem or a gross misunderstanding if this approach is used at the get-go. But, whatever floats your boat.

the little things that they are continuing to add are so minor it is clear they are nearing perfection.

There is no Utopian software. Repeat that ten times. But, besides that, I'm happy that it's working out great for you!

And when debugging, you can drag the current execution spot up a few lines, change some code, then let it run over the spot again without re-compiling or restarting the process!

gdb. ddd if you need "visualization". ...an environment that is very highly unlikely to be replicated under a free OS...

Again, it's neat that it works for you. And, yes, we do try these tools.

Im often ammused at people who seem to think vi and grep etc is all they need for programming.

Then continue to be amazed, because every programmer--since, I think we're human--has a different frame of mind on how to approach programming. Count me as a person who sticks with Vi and grep, not because I'm stuck-up or stupid, but because that's how I work.

Pretty much 100% of the time these people have never tried VS, and it shows.

I have. Have you tried Vi?

Being able to use tab completion, seeing all members of a class/struct as you type

There are ways to make life easier.

Be sure to check out this for additional perspective. See, there's this little thing called "tags" or ctags that's been around a lot longer than VS.

little wavy lines under invalid variables (with addins)

Even in Microsoft Office, I turn off the automatic spell check--what a blinding mess. Besides, if you're writing C, the compiler will help. If it's a loosely-typed language, then hats off to VS if it can make this determination.

being able to just place a breakpoint anywhere in their code as they are typing

In my opinion, there is a design problem or a gross misunderstanding if this approach is used at the get-go. But, whatever floats your boat.

the little things that they are continuing to add are so minor it is clear they are nearing perfection.

There is no Utopian software. Repeat that ten times. But, besides that, I'm happy that it's working out great for you!

And when debugging, you can drag the current execution spot up a few lines, change some code, then let it run over the spot again without re-compiling or restarting the process!

gdb. ddd if you need "visualization". ...an environment that is very highly unlikely to be replicated under a free OS...

Again, it's neat that it works for you. And, yes, we do try these tools.

Does it have Vim 6.3?

Why not just use Vim? It has a client-server feature as well. Plus, the license is truly free, as in no restrictions on commercial use.

link. It has been for a long time.

vim does support folding, though it's a little quirky to get just right. Most editors based on Scintilla (which is very popular with the Python crowd) do as well.

I think you're confusing "easy to learn" with "easy to use". An interface that is simple and intuitive can often get in the way of productivity.

No matter where I go, I use Vim as my editor of choice. Easy to learn? Hell no. Easy to use? Hell yeah, once you learn it :-) I do not want to start vi/emacs wars here but once you learn Vim you have tons of power literally at your fingertips. It just is not easy to learn. Oh, it is cross-platform, too. I use it in Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows. With version 2.0, Gimp is truly cross-platform too, and despite my difficulty using it, I congratulate the Gimp team for their monumental efforts.

VirtuaWin - Virtual desktop manager

PuTTY - SSH client

WinSCP - GUI-based SSH file copier

Mozilla - The Web browser

CygWin - UNIX-like command line tools and environment

FuhQuake - QuakeWorld client with advanced rendering.

Vim - text editor extraordinaire

VoodooLights - screen saver (alas, no longer supported or available)

TweakUI - Allows tweaking of various Windows UI details

DeliPlayer 2 - music player, including support for "MOD" formats

Schwab

1st, the "asker" did not have to specify that he used Windows. To my knowledge, that OS is the only one that needs a booster shot every 12 months or so. Disclaimer: I don't know much about Windows, but I did use it for a while a few years ago. Anyway, the top 10 software installs are very different depending on who you are, and I would guess that you know better than I or anyone else what you need to install.

On windows, can't you just do a print screen or something with the "Installed Applications" section of the control panel? Go through that list and simply put a check besides the ones that you "need" and chalk the other apps as something that was just an experiment. You could also take a look at your "Program Files" folder if thats any easier or different than the control panel.

I also found it interesting what programs you picked to install. I havn't heard of Trillian, Azureus, GKrellM, or PowerDVD. Most windows users throw Office on there in minutes of an install. A small percentage install a more featurefull web browser. Many throw a bunch of games. On a Windows system, I personally had to install VIM, UN*X toys like ncftp, cygnus, Perl, and whatever the latest mozilla variant that does web stuff. Of course Putty so I can go to other machines too. Oh yeah, I also think its necessary for windows to have antivirus software and that antispyware stuff too. (Fun!)

Instead of asking millions of strangers what software you should install on your computer that you use all the time and apparently have been for multiple years to know what kind of maintence that you have to do to keep your system running, maybe you should ask yourself if its really worthwhile to spend this much time annually to do such a thing. I have never reinstalled Solaris, Linux, or anything for that matter besides Windows and DOS. I have only done minor OS/kernel upgrades, its not worth my time to upgrade or fix somthing that is not already broken. I get a new personal machine every 2.5-5 years, and spend about a month or two tweaking it to how I want, and its a pain. During that time I'm always finding something that I missed, and need to go out to download it. I like getting new hardware, but I hate the time spent to get it up to par. So, can anyone else help this guy figure out what software he needs to put on his computer? (Ask Slashdots are getting worse here laterly).

1. Proxomitron - awesome web filter.
2. mSys+mSysDTK+MinGW (extremely useful *nix tools that don't require a Cygwin shell)
3. Winroll -Next best thing to a useful Windows desktop manager
4. Sysinternals utilities
5. Vim!!

Of course others, but they've been mentioned above.

• gentoo linux
• FreeBSD
• bash
• vim
• perl
• ruby
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• Apache
• PHP
• links www browser
• wget
• K Desktop Environment
• Mozilla Firefox
• xchat
• gimp
• Openoffice.org

1. Cygwin - get the POSIX environment on!
2. PuTTY - the only terminal I've found that handles colors and stuff right.
3. TightVNC - get to some other computer
4. OO.o
5. vim - I'm not even a VI guy, but it's fast and has nice hooks into explorer and I'm too lazy to deal with registering TextPad or whatever. JEdit's also nice, but way too slow for casual use... I usually go straight to emacs for that kind of editing.
6. Mozilla / Firefox / etc. - and the plugins:
   • Flash
   • Acrobat Reader
   • StumbleUpon toolbar - it's like having your own personalized fark (not that I read fark, but this is probably why)
7. Winamp - get the groove on
8. MPlayer - it handles just about all the codecs
9. MultiDesk - usable multiple desktops for Windows... like getting that 10% productivity improvement for having dual monitors without having to pay 100% more in displays. If only it had a visual pager...
10. Windows PowerToys - because every little option matters

More on Linux and MacOS X later, I guess...

The vi equivalent? gvim.

Vi(m) can be used on Windows - I use it all the time.

Vim can be used as the editor in Visual Studio.

Plenty good enough to get started with, WYSIWYG and all. Produces much nicer HTML if started in HTML mode rather than writer mode, but even so in writer mode, it's chalk-and-cheese better than the abominations MS-Word spits out.

My own website, while hardly a paragon of usability or graphic design, is mostly built on OOW-edited HTML that's been fed to a gawk script which rips off the head and tail, replacing them with PHP calls to generic top-and-tail scripts which do the preamble, headings, menu, links-here, translation form (thanks Google) etc.

This makes consistency much easier, it's quick to edit stuff up (I use Linux, but that remains true even on MS Windows) and massaging MS-Word docs and the like to suit (precious few of those on my site but I do this elsewhere too) is fairly straightforward, although I usually have sed discuss some of the resulting HTML's shortcomings up close and personal before feeding it to the top-and-tailer. You'll notice that all of the W3C buttons work.

If I've just got to add an item to a menu or whatever, simple little tasks, it's vim all the way, and of course for a larger, more complex site I'd take a completely different approach.

I totally agree with the last 3 parent messages, XHTML es great, html and CSS are pretty much the same used with careful, but XHTML strict is quite great for a good hyperdocument.
I think there is a missconception about using TWO different languajes of a single document, but is like vim, once you get to know how to use it, it's as good as it can get.

No spell check? Maybe not in Vi, but there's more than one for Vim. Complete with red underlining of errors, if required.

There are no decent HTML/PHP Editors - something that even remotely compares to HTML-Kit or Homesite.

vim.

I prefer GNOME apps

Fine, gvim then.

Boy, if this isn't a case of, "I know what I know," I'm not sure what is. But then I just said that. ;^)

Folks, it's all zeroes and ones. All we're really talking about here is running & interacting with programs from standard input and reading from standard output. I imagine you could gentoo together a nice, bare version of Linux that had as few (or many, as your half-filled glass may appear to you today) applications available as there are by default in Win2k.

Personally I quite enjoy cmd.exe and use it as much as I do the Terminal (or iTerm or X11 with xterm (with an "&" no less)) in OS X. You can get vim running from cmd.exe very easily with syntax highlighting and full integration with the Windows clipboard.

To sum quickly, I can... change active directories, view directory contents, copy, delete, & move files, edit text, create scripts, call any app I want, interact with anything that has a standard in/out interface, print, schedule repeated/timed tasks, reboot other machines on your network, find & replace strings in files, and install any app I dang well please from either cmd.exe or bash or tcsh or whatever you prefer.

And hey, in any event, it's a far cry better than the command line in Mac OS 9-. (Which, for those who didn't know, you could get in the Mac Programmers' Workshop (MPW), but sure wasn't installed by default.)

I hope that instead of a save button, some programs will constantly save work and provide a timeline-like feature to go through all changes in the document if neccessary.

I use vim and RCS for this purpose.

RCS allows me to check in and out revisions, and each revision has a change log. I can roll back changes, check differences, and even make my own branch of a file.

Subversion, CVS, Arch and many others also can fill the same role. Heck, you can even make a directory named backup and rename a copy of the file to 'myfile_date'. The reason why I settled on RCS is that its relatively simple to use and its cross platform (Linux, BSD, Windows-via-Cygwin, etc). I've been tempted to adopt one of the larger revision control systems for additional features, but haven't gotten around to it.

As for Vim, its cross platform, rather full featured, and if the power goes out, I still can recover the file. Plus its easy to use with RCS through a few simple aliases and/or keymaps. There is also Gnu Emacs or XEmacs and a host of other good text editors.

Sure, there could be one program that would do both, but that wouldn't be as useful. The unix philosophy of "do one thing, and do it well" is less of a pain in the long run. This way, I can reuse my $editor_of_choice in many other unix applications - slrn, mutt, etc. If I had one integrated program, sooner or later I'd become fed up with one part of it or another, and I would be forced to continue using it.

Just my $.02.

YMMV.

" It's funny that you mention this, because I spent this morning searching for a text editor on Windows that does not suck."

www.vim.org

• #1. Get FlashDesktops, you have to pay for it, but it is utterly wonderful. Multiple desktops on windows as fast as Xwindows.
  http://flashdesktops.com/
• #2. Get UxUtils, NATIVE ports of lots of great unix apps.
  http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
• #3. Get The Bat!, it is a wonderful email client, fast, simple, can be totally driven by keyboard. http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/
• #4. Get FireFox, it is a wonderful browser on linux AND windows (I actually prefer the windows version). http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
• #5. Get gVim, vim is great on linux, great on windows too! http://www.vim.org/
• #6. Get OpenOffice, great on both platforms. http://www.openoffice.org/
• #7. Get WinSCP, a wonderful SCP/SFTP client for windows. http://winscp.sourceforge.net/eng/
• #8. Get Putty (and friends), wonderful ssh client and other utils. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
• #9. Get everything from sysinternals, a ton of wonderful stuff here, too much to mention, but will let you track every file access, every registry write, every debugging message. Look around, it gives you control of your box like you expect on a *nix. Ton of great command line tools too. http://www.sysinternals.com/
• #10. ClearTweak, a tool to let you customize your ClearType settings (a must for LCDs). http://www.ioisland.com/cleartweak/
• #11. Daemon Tools, lets you mount up to 4 ISO's as drives, and can emulate security protection. http://www.daemon-tools.cc/portal/portal.php
• #12. Memstat XP, lets you monitor memory usage in tray, small and simple. http://memstat.sourceforge.net/
• #13. NetMeter, lets you monitor network usage in the tray, small and simple. http://readerror.gmxhome.de/
• #14. TrayMeter, lets you monitor cpu usage in the tray, small and simple. http://www.thmundt.com/traymeter/
• #15. TweakUI, get control over some things you might want (like hover-to-focus, autologin, other). http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/p owertoys.asp
• #16. WinRoll, lets you roll up windows just like in lots of windows managers on linux. http://www.palma.com.au/winroll/
• #17. XP Log Reader, lets you watch the XP firewall logs. http://www.winxpcentral.com/windowsxp/fwlog.php
• #18. WinRAR, unzip anything you want, supports tar.gz, zip, rar, arc, and much more. http://www.rarlab.com/
• #19. Beyond Compare, best tool for comparing directories or files, great for syncing backups. http://www.scootersoftware.com/
• #20. Nero, the best CD writer for windows. http://www.nero.com/us/index.html
• #21. WinDVD, watch movies! http://www.intervideo.com/jsp/Home.jsp
• #22. WinImage, create images from CDs, very

(obligatory response) you need to use vim, not crappy-ass default install vi!

plain vi sucks. hard. i can't understand how anyone can defend single-level undo, crappy auto indent, etc etc etc. it's junk. how can people program in plain vi? edit config files, sure, but program? damn! masochism.

":set nocompatible" long live vim! i love vim! vim forever! vim forever! huzza vim!!!

VIM MUTHAFUCKAZZZ!!! VIM!!!

UltraEdit is 3000x better than notepad

Vim is better.

Out of interest, would you name some better IDEs..?

You mean, besides vi ? :-)

Thomas Miconi

You sure don't need emacs with this MS-DOS editor ;-]

• Cygwin Linux emulation
• Mozilla
• Vim
• XFree86
• OpenOffice
• MinGW gcc
• Apache
• KDE

1. Paste some random bullshit, if you excuse my lingo, into a running vim session
2. Select a big region of text with the line-wise C-V selection (in NORMAL mode)
3. Pipe the region through the encode-base64 command: with the region still selected, enter

   :'<,'>!encode-base64<RETURN>

Except that it still doesn't have autocomplete for Java (though it now does for Objective C). No wonder it's so fast, relatively speaking. It's not really doing much SubEthaEdit can't.

If you want a glorified text editor with access for running Ant scripts, may I suggest VIm, instead?

If you want a great Java IDE, go with Eclipse. If you want a text editor, use VIm (or BBEdit if you have to). If you want to code Objective C, use PB/Xcode.

souped up "Edit"

It's called vim...
You'll want to go here.

souped up "Edit"

It's called vim...
You'll want to go here.

I could easily imagine a productive environment based around GNU screen and a terminal-based editor, mail client, news client, and IM client. Throw in something like w3m, and other for images, its good.

Yup, that's pretty close to the way I've worked for most of the last year or two. For me it's screen, of course, along with:

• editor - vim,
• mail client - mutt,
• news client - tin,
• web client(s) - a combination of w3m, lynx, and wget for most downloading tasks,
• spreadsheet - sc, which is surprisingly useful,
• P2P client - mutella, though I think there are console options for other protocols,
• IM/IRC client - irssi along with the fantastic bitlbee (and if you haven't heard of bitlbee before, take a look).

...and then I use good 'ol ratpoison for my window manager in X for the occasions that I need graphics (ie. some web browsing, viewing PDFs, playing graphical games).

Strike that. In most cases, multi-tasking can be very counterproductive. Shell escapes and $EDITOR_OF_CHOICE is good enough.

It varies :-), though I agree generally speaking. I'm using KDE3.2beta at the moment for a bit of a change, though most of the action is still inside my screen(1) terminal(s). You do tend to (or at least I tend to) find yourself more productive when you don't have stray graphical bits and pieces around the place to distract you.

Of course if you need the GUI for your normal working environment (ie. you're developing a GUI app), then, well there's not much you can do but live with it. :)