Ask Slashdot: What Software Can You Not Live Without?

An anonymous reader writes "Whenever I install a fresh operating system on my computer, I immediately grab a handful of programs that I simply must have. After that, I generally wait and install other pieces of software as I need them. My list of known, useful programs has dwindled over the past few years as projects died, ownership transferred, and functionality changed. At the same time, I've begun to have use for certain types of software that I've never needed before. It can be time-consuming and risky to install and evaluate every single option. So, I'm curious: what pieces of software do you find the most useful and reliable? Don't feel the need to limit yourself by operating system, platform, or hardware. If you're so inclined, a brief description about what makes the software great would be helpful, too."

Comments

First!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pacemaker firmware.

Re:First!

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't a single piece of software that would cause me to die if it would cease to exist.
Although, it would be very inconvenient not having power plants, sewage treatment and other things like that.

Re:First!

[Zero__Kelvin]

"There isn't a single piece of software that would cause me to die if it would cease to exist. Although, it would be very inconvenient not having power plants, sewage treatment "

... which would almost inevitably cause you to die from dysentary or some other disease rather than "old age". I concede that dying from ingesting polluted water is very inconvienent.

Re:First!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy and costs almost nothing to filter your own water.

Just because you'd curl up and die if modern luxuries didn't exist doesn't mean we all would. Some of us have survival knowledge and experience.

Re:First!

[Festering Leper]

The software in your pacemaker perhaps?

Re:First!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

First systole?

Re:First!

[petes_PoV]

There isn't a single piece of software that would cause me to die if it would cease to exist

So your car doesn't have an engine management unit, then? If that ceased to exist at the wrong moment, I'm pretty sure you'd die. Likewise autopilot software (or pretty much any aeronautical software) if you were airborne when it happened.

Re:First!

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

When you put it that way emacs ,
It's even on my tablet.

Re:First!

[TapeCutter]

There's more than a few of us who survived the era before software took over the planet.

Re:First!

[jc42]

There's more than a few of us who survived the era before software took over the planet.

Maybe, but well over 99% of the people born before computers and software existed have in fact died.

(Ain't statistics wonderful?)

Re:First!

[funwithBSD]

No, my "car", a 75 CB550, has as it's most complex electronic device the humble diode, as part of the discrete component bridge rectifier.

Even the voltage regulator is electro-mechanical.

The 77 Vepsa P200, however, has a replacement Ducati CDI, which I believe has an actual IC in it, where the less reliable original was discrete.

Re:First!

[bbsalem]

But before GUIs and bitmapped graphics, you had text only. I still try to install emacs first to see if the OS will do it and second because for me it is still most powerfully useful with regular expression incremental search and for looking at binary files. I have used plenty of newer editors and vim. For Vi, even though I am not as comfortable with it as emacs in a barebones *NIX system it is always available and back in the day when I did system administration it was all that was there, and if the terminal software was also down, you might have had to know ex, or ed comands: 1,$s/foo/bar/g.

Emacs is really quite versatile because you can run analogs of things that often come as separate applications in it, including the shell, mail, and web browser. There was a time when emacs was an integrated environment designed for glass ttys. I still use 'emacs -nw' inside a terminal because I can make the terminal font large and edit with light colored characters on a dark background to acmodate poor eyesight. Even though I have the X11 client, sometimes editing in a terminal with a zoomed font is easier for me.

Of the newer editors, my favorite is Sublime Text 2, which works as a minimal editor for text editors or a very smart code editor. Emacs still forces you to turn on autofill on or to know enough elisp to add it to your .emacsrc file. Sublime Text 2 thinks that you just want to type in text and auto-fill if you say nothing else.

Minimally, I could do quite well with just a terminal emulation and a shell and a line editor, vi, nano, or some minimal Emacs clone. I have used tiny Linux distributions with not much more than this, but unfortunately font zooming is now more important to me that just minimal text-based operation. I tried to install Arch Linux by was defeated because I couldn't figure out how to configure the terminal for a larger font.

Re:First!

[Sam H]

Statistics are wonderful, but yours are most likely wrong. A better estimate of how many people born before computers and software existed have died would be 93%. I am using http://www.prb.org/Publication... as my main reference.

Search Software

[Anonymous Coward]

For Windows, I always install Agent Ransack. My job requires I work with a file type that doesn't lend itself to the standard file search. Agent Ransack really excels at finding needles in haystacks. I also use Beyond Compare on every work PC. After that, it USED to be the gchat app from google, but with them moving to Google talk / hangouts, I've changed over to Pidgen.

Re:Search Software

[gbjbaanb]

apparently pidgen s so full of security holes the Tor people looked at it and dismissed it as the basis for their messaging system. they're basing theirs on Instantbird

Re:Search Software

[bigal123]

I have not used Agent Ransack.... the free version does not look to search inside Office files.http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/features ...

I am curious have you compared Agent Ransack to either DocFetcher or Regain?
DocFetcher -- Open Source desktop search application: It allows you search the contents of documents on your computer (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://docfetcher.sourceforge....

Regain -- Search engine similar to web search engines like Google, with the difference that you don't search the web, but inside your own files and documents (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://regain.sourceforge.net/

Re:Search Software

[alantus]

If you are talking about pidgin, instantbird is based on pidgin's libpurple. So unless you mean the user interface part is full of security holes, I can't see the logic.

Re:Search Software

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Beyond Compare too - excellent bit of software.

Instead of Agent Ransack, I like Locate32 for finding things. Locate32 is free, which is a nice bonus.

Re:Search Software

[Immerman]

I use Everything quite often - it can only search file names, but does so literally as fast as you can type, winnowing down a list of every file on your computer to only those that include the word-fragments you've typed (reg-ex is also supported). If you get into the habit of appending key meta-tags to your file names it becomes even more powerful. The down side? It only works on NTFS and requires administrator access to scan the filesystem elements it exploits for its insane performance.

Re:Search Software

[Anonymous Coward]

Instantbird has been replacing libpurple with native XUL/javascript versions of each protocol for a while now, so I presume they've assessed the remaining parts in use as safe.

Re:Search Software

[sunderland56]

If I'm stuck using a Windows box, first thing I install is MKS Toolkit. That gives me a decent shell, vi, and grep - which will find anything in any file. No need for special search tools.

(And yes, I know about Cygwin; MKS is vastly superior to Cygwin, since everything just works in a standard DOS shell, it doesn't require it's own special environment).

Re:Search Software

[Anonymous Coward]

MobaXTerm: cygwin, putty and Xserver all in 1 portable exe.

Re:Search Software

[Anonymous Coward]

I gave up on Pidgin back when the arrogant developers took away the ability for people to size their chatbox themselves and refused to even make it optional.

Miranda IM and now Miranda NG is a much better client. It's Windows only, but it's open source so you could port it to your favourite OS.

Re:Search Software

[nabsltd]

(And yes, I know about Cygwin; MKS is vastly superior to Cygwin, since everything just works in a standard DOS shell, it doesn't require it's own special environment).

I don't know what tool you are using, but nothing I run in Cygwin requires a "special environment". All the standard utilities (grep, awk, sed, perl, ssh, git, etc.) work just as you'd expect. The X server also "just works". The tools also interface nicely with 4NT/Take Command, so I can sort the Windows clipboard with:

sort < clip: > clip:

Now, I'm sure if I tried to use things like cron or the SysV init scripts, then I'd have to do some tinkering, but the whole point of those is to run a complete Unix environment.

Re:Search Software

[zyche]

I would argue that a large factor to why I would install and use Cygwin is to get rid of the "standard DOS shell". Replacing that crap with something like rxvt or xterm makes for a huge improvement.

Re:Search Software

[mysidia]

I know about Cygwin; MKS is vastly superior to Cygwin, since everything just works in a standard DOS shell, it doesn't require it's own special environment

I would say Cygwin is vastly superior, because it's free, and I can download it today, and be up and running today and done.

MKS seems to be commercial, AND there is not even a price published just a "Request Quote" or "More Information" button.

Re:Search Software

[CaptQuark]

Have you tried WinMerge instead of Beyond Compare? Many of the same features and it's Freeware.

~~

Re:Search Software

[Dr_Barnowl]

Why not GnuWin32 - it too operates in a standard DOS shell but doesn't cost money (unlike MKS Toolkit)?

Having encountered the MKS version of a CVS / issue tracking server (written in Java, crashes when you check out too many files), I'd rather not touch any of their other products.

Re:Search Software

[Dr_Barnowl]

I've tried most of the diff / merge tools available but I keep coming back to Beyond Compare ; it's one of the few pieces of commercial productivity software on my machines (both Windows and Linux).

There are a couple of features (like kdiff3's "alignment hint file" feature) that I wish it would adopt, but otherwise it knocks most of the others, freeware and FOSS, into a cocked hat.

Re:Search Software

[GTRacer]

WinMerge is in my "stuff to install on a new PC" list. Along with 7Zip, FileZilla, VLC, Notepad++. FRHED, and Process Explorer.

I've used Beyond Compare and agree it's superior, but I don't need it so badly as to pay for it versus using WinMerge. Currently, my file compare needs are met by RAD (IBM's Websphere Eclipse fork) so WinMerge is a once-in-awhile thing. Still, very well done file compare tool!

Re:Search Software

[josiebgoode]

Same here minus FRHED (I don't know it) plus TextPad for very large text files and Irfanview for pictures.

Re:Search Software

[almitydave]

That's nearly identical to my list for Windows PCs. I also add Paint.NET, SumatraPDF, and DropBox. I didn't know about frhed, but will try it out - I've been lamenting my lack of a good "giant file" hex editor.

Also, Ninite is great (as has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread).

/. cookies

[L'Ange Oliver]

Always the first thing I install. It even works on all major OS. Keeps beta version at bay ;)

Re:/. cookies

[Anonymous Coward]

i turn off javascript to get the old look (i surf with javascript off)

Re:/. cookies

[jones_supa]

Apparently you surf with uppercase letters and punctuation turned off too.

Re: /. cookies

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously slashcode + soylentnews!!

Re:/. cookies

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Oh. Is that why I don't get the whole beta thing ( NoScript user here).

MS Office

[Trip6]

The fat client lives...

Re:MS Office

[geekmux]

The fat client lives...

fat?

Office 2003 was fat.

Office 2013 ate the OS and shit out Windows 8. Yeah, it's that morbidly obese. Should have named the release "Fat Bastard", but I heard that's being reserved for IE12.

Feedback: VLC is my first install regardless of OS. Damn thing just runs anything I throw at it. Used it for years now.

Re:MS Office

[MightyYar]

Yes, I end up putting MS Office on pretty much first thing - but also OpenOffice/LibreOffice because that's where I have my billing set up. I'd do without MS Office if I didn't have to work with others.

My other must-haves are MATLAB (not my first choice, but it's what my company uses), Pyzo (a scientific-oriented Python distro), jEdit (cross platform editor), Putty (Windows has no ssh), Firefox (I'm addicted to Tree-Style Tabs), IrfanView (on PC only), Inkscape, GIMP, an RPN calculator (XCALC on Windows, RPN Calc widget on Mac), VLC, Dropbox, CrashPlan (cross-platform backup), TeamViewer (cross-platform remote control replacing LogMeIn), Skype, Tortoise Git (on Windows), and finally WizMouse (on Windows, which has odd scroll wheel behavior without it IMHO).

Re:MS Office

[PetiePooo]

Feedback: VLC is my first install regardless of OS. Damn thing just runs anything I throw at it. Used it for years now.

I hope you're not running on Dell hardware...

Re:MS Office

[Anonymous Coward]

Until you accidently resize it in on your second monitor in a moment of extacy and then you can't get the damn thing to go back to default size until you delete your profile. VLC is great but that shit needs some work.

Re:MS Office

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC sucks. They still can't render subtitles properly.

Xine == win

Re:MS Office

[Anonymous Coward]

On Windows, at least, CCCP tends to be better in terms of getting things to display correctly (e.g., fancy subtitles, obscure formats, etc.).

Re:MS Office

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC is amazing. Still my fave all these years later.

Re:MS Office

[MonTemplar]

I must admit, I didn't buy a new version of Office for personal use for a long time (last PC version was Office 2000), and only got Office 2011 for Mac because I was found a cheap deal off eBay, plus Pages couldn't digest some of the Word documents I needed to use.

Given that there's no indication that Microsoft are going to do a new version of Office for Mac any time soon, I'm now looking into trying LibreOffice.

Worst part is that because I only occasionally need to crack open Word, Excel or Powerpoint, when I do want to do so I invariably have to wait whilst Microsoft AutoUpdate installs the latest update.

Best part, though, is that Office for Mac has an actual proper menu - I would probably go insane trying to use the fecking Ribbon!

Re:MS Office

[Dripdry]

Except for Blu-Ray discs. grumble grumble..

GCC etc.

[StripedCow]

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential

And also:
sudo apt-get -y install vim
sudo apt-get -y install git-core
sudo apt-get -y install tcsh
sudo apt-get -y install python
sudo apt-get -y install python-setuptools
sudo apt-get -y install libboost-all-dev
sudo apt-get -y install gdb
sudo apt-get -y install valgrind

Re:GCC etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but why TCSH? I've had to use it on some Solaris machines and didn't like it at all. It didn't have tab completion and home/end keys were broken. Although I guess that last one could have been something else.

Re:GCC etc.

[Above]

Uh, it has better tab completion than bash, and home/end works just fine. I think your Solaris install was broken.

Re:GCC etc.

[Chris Mattern]

tcsh fails to fix all of the awful syntactic problems with csh. Korn shell is the way to go, particularly now that it's truly free. Vim, yes (On Linux, there's rarely a need to add it manually, though). Password Gorilla, which I use to store all my passwords, is another.

Re:GCC etc.

[Blaskowicz]

Tab completion isn't a high end feature, you can even get it under DOS (using the 4DOS shell, which is now freeware).
That old system was probably in need of some configuration. Even worse is when you use a prompt where up/down arrows don't work, they show you a few garbage characters instead of acting as a command history feature. e.g. Ocaml interpreter does this, and in some circumstances a *NIX-llike prompt can do this I think.

Re:GCC etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

By default tcsh only tab completes when your input is already sufficient to unambiguously auto-complete one item.
It doesn't list the options when it can't though.

Re:GCC etc.

[MightyYar]

I completely agree that Korn is more pleasant to script in. But... for some reason I prefer tcsh at the command line.

Re:GCC etc.

[StripedCow]

Because I like tcsh most.
However, it has its flaws. For example the glob expansion has a hardcoded limit, which has often failed on me in folders with large amounts of files.

Re:GCC etc.

[phrostie]

vim and mc

Re:GCC etc.

[MurukeshM]

Default on Ubuntu is vim-tiny which is a step above old vi in the evolutionary ladder, but can't hold a candle to vim proper. I usually install gvim, though - it has more patches and functionality enabled than plain vim.

Re:GCC etc.

[Above]

I would never write a script in tcsh, however I consider it's configuration flexibility and command line behavior to be much better for interactive use. Scripts should be in /bin/sh or perl, or similar.

Re: GCC etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

tcsh has got the best history function ever. You type the prefix and press cursor up.

Tab completion works. Maybe your distribution got it broken.

Re:GCC etc.

[innocent_white_lamb]

No ccache?

Re:GCC etc.

[aled]

4dos in does era was great. Had better completion than current shells, for Linux or windows.

Re: GCC etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Cow,

I don't have an account so I won't see your reply. However, you can do all of it in one shot like so:

sudo apt-get -y install vi git-core tcsh python python-setuptools libboost-all-dev gdb valgrind

Re:GCC etc.

[ShanghaiBill]

No offense, but why TCSH?

I use tcsh for two reasons:
1. I have been using it for thirty years, and I am too old to change.
2. I have never seen anything better.
Bash is just as good, but not better, and bash was released many years after I had already trained my fingers to use tcsh shortcuts.

Re:GCC etc.

[cobbaut]

First:
aptitude purge sudo ;-)

Then:
apt-get -y install vim tmux

Enter tmux and let it run forever!

Then:
for server: lvm2 rsync tcpdump nmap
for fun: sl cowsay fortune
for games: wesnoth freedoom
for desktop: xfce icedove libreoffice

Re:GCC etc.

[TeknoHog]

sudo apt-get -y install build-essential

And also: sudo apt-get -y install python

This is one of the reasons I use Gentoo, it already comes with real programming tools.

More generally, though, any Linux distro is fine as there is no particular barrier between using a computer and programming it. I don't really see the difference, because when you use a computer you are telling it what to do, and then it's only about different levels of abstraction and power. There is only a problem if the OS places artificial limitations.

Re:GCC etc.

[fisted]

tcpdump and nmap on a server --- what could possibly go wrong :).

you also should add 'figlet' to your fun section, works well in a pipeline with cowsay -n (IIRC)

Re:GCC etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just put them all into one install command. Splitting them can be useful if you want to use certain programs sooner.

Re:GCC etc.

[kefalonia]

the longer version of what you started above is here: http://hpcbios.readthedocs.org... (different people need different subsets, but the total is a safe bet)

I'd fuckin' die man

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely my pacemaker firmware. Can't think of much else.

Re:I'd fuckin' die man

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol why you grumps mod this down?
- Not OP

Re:I'd fuckin' die man

[gmhowell]

Same 'joke' (truth in my case) was the AC first post, just a little above this one. While funny, it is redundant. (FWIW, when I mod, I wouldn't waste a point on a redundant mod there. It's not spammy, it's not a post trying to avoid a down moderation elsewhere in a discussion. It's just someone a little slow on the trigger. But I guess spergs get mod points also.)

Office productivity apps

[Anonymous Coward]

Solitaire

Re:Office productivity apps

[qubezz]

Solitaire was initially included with Windows to train people how to use a mouse, now it's not included to train people how to use the Microsoft store and get them to enter their trackable credentials.

Total Commander

[Anonymous Coward]

Unable to use an computer without it, runs fine under wine ..

Re:Total Commander

[Meneth]

Me too, though I usually install SeaMonkey and/or FileZilla first, just so I can download Total Commander properly.

Re:Total Commander

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the end all and be all of 2-panel filemanagers.
I completely agree.

On *nix and OSX i use DC though.
Integrates better with the OS and the functionality is (mostly) the same.

Re:Total Commander

[Areyoukiddingme]

Unable to use an computer without it, runs fine under wine ..

It does? Hot damn. I've been spending more time on a Linux desktop lately and after years of Total Commander, I'm discovering that Midnight Commander is woefully out of date and under-featured. Total Commander alone is so very useful. Total Commander plugins make it spectacularly useful.

Re: Total Commander

[Glonoinha]

Take a look at ZTree.
Like TC but totally keyboard driven. I can't live without it.

Re:Total Commander

[Anonymous Coward]

Unable to use an computer without it, runs fine under wine ..

Close second - RIP Vern Buerg and his LIST.COM that got me through the 80s and 90s; I started to migrate away when XP's NTVDM couldn't handle the busy-waits properly, and shed a silent tear when 64-bit Windows would no longer run 16-bit apps. Sometime last year I discovered ZBLIST, a 64-bit compatible, long-filename-understanding rewrite.

Most of the time I live in Cygwin, but any time I have to drop to an actual DOS prompt to do something, I can navigate faster with ZBLIST than I can with cut/paste, and the speed advantage is only magnified on "modern" Windows systems with their ridiculously long pathnames. All the LIST.COM muscle memory was still there, dormant after all those years in the wilderness.

Re:Total Commander

[Trax3001BBS]

Unable to use an computer without it, runs fine under wine ..

You mention of Total Commander got my interest going again. So many times I've started to use Total Commander only to forget about it the next day using Windows Explorer again. Figure I'll give it another attempt. Much more serious about it now that I've downloaded all of it's plug-ins - T C offers quite a bit more than I thought it was capable of (with the plugins).

Re:Total Commander

[AmiMoJo]

I prefer Directory Opus. Unlimited file list panes, massive amounts of power. I have the lister windows cut down fairly cleanly, not like most of the demo screenshots that are "kitchen-sink" affairs.

It started out on the Amiga which is where I used to use it, and then migrated to Windows.

Re:Total Commander

[Trax3001BBS]

I prefer Directory Opus. Unlimited file list panes, massive amounts of power. I have the lister windows cut down fairly cleanly, not like most of the demo screenshots that are "kitchen-sink" affairs.

It started out on the Amiga which is where I used to use it, and then migrated to Windows.

Then your aware Dopus was a direct rip off of his friends (buddies for years) DiskMaster. DiskMaster was free, Dopus want(s)ed big bucks; for Windows that comes to $90 for something you can get for free. Dude rips off his friend for a fast buck - I wouldn't touch Dopus with the Amiga, damn sure ain't gonna get near it with the PC.

Re: Total Commander

[Trax3001BBS]

Take a look at ZTree.
Like TC but totally keyboard driven. I can't live without it.

I checked ZTree out and was thinking of some DOS comments, this being the GUI age and all.

Working with Total Commander your told up front that the program FAR is much better, has more support (plugins), and free http://www.softpanorama.org/OF...

So I checked out FAR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... and there it was; Norton Commander, yet FAR impressed me on it's first outing.

A, 7z x far.7z, then moved the output to a D:\MISGPRGS\FAR directory, ran FAR, right clicked on the display and it asked if there was something I wished to run in my Comodo firewall's sandbox, there was no delay the sandbox options was one of many options available.

- It knew of Comodos sandbox, meaning it hit the registry reading what it needed very quickly. Total Commander is actually pretty sluggish, to copy a large directory with TC is to find something else to do in the mean time, it's slower than windows copy. You can increase the buffers but it's not just it's copying that's slow; for it to hit the registry the way FAR did would I feel would take TC too long or even hang it for a bit.

I'm at a loss at the moment, I'd like a dual pane explore but right now just not sure which one.

Just saying if you like Ztree check out FAR http://www.farmanager.com/plug...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Titanium Backup, other Android Apps

[crow]

On a new Android phone, the first thing that I do is root it and install Titanium Backup.

Then there are a few other apps that I must have, though the specifics aren't as important as the functionality:

VNC client: I like Jump (which was a Amazon Free App of the Day a while back) because it has ssh integrated. It's a pain using middle and right mouse buttons, though, and it doesn't use public key authorization for ssh (though I think the iPhone version does).

Terminal: I like KBox (http://kevinboone.net/kbox2.html) so that I can write and use some scripts.

SSH Client: I think I use SSH Droid.

Hacker Keyboard: Having a keyboard with both numbers and symbols active at the same time as letters is really nice, even if it does use up half the screen.

Re:Titanium Backup, other Android Apps

[The MAZZTer]

As long as we're talking Android, Tasker is invaluable for getting your phone to configure itself based on location, or time of day, or whatever.

JuiceDefender helps increase battery life.

Nova Launcher is just better than the stock launcher and has a ton of features I can't live without.

Re:Titanium Backup, other Android Apps

[crow]

I use Llama to configure based on location. I've heard nothing but good things about Tasker, other than not being free.

Re:Titanium Backup, other Android Apps

[Anonymous Coward]

Titanium was first install. Now after Cyanogenmod O. S. is installed, first install is F-Droid, second is App Backup, third is And Bible. Hacker Keyboard is in too. Gapps (Google Apps) is not installed. Open Street Maps is. The origianal music player Music is in too. Gone are all the Samsung, T-mob,. & Google battery sucking trackingwares, bloatwares & adwares.
All those apps for battery saving are not needed with Cyanogenmod without Gapps. Without Google having access to GPS, cellular, WiFi, microphone & camera 24-7, battery use in 16 hours may be only 16%.

Everything

[Anonymous Coward]

Really fast search tool.

spel check in a brower

[Anonymous Coward]

But seriously - I think the older I get, the more I lose my mind. Spell check helps me at least hide it better (and keeps my mind off Beta).

You mean "install" like "manually install"

[drolli]

apt-get install task-desktop task-file-server task-laptop

Basic productivity CLI and GUI apps

[dberstein]

CLI tools: vim, curl, wget, aptitude on Debian based distros.
GUI tools: Chrome, (Libre/Open)Office, Thunderbird. Any other is as required at "runtime".

Ninite

[Anonymous Coward]

Pick your programs, install them all silently, with good defaults, and check(and install) updates for all with very effort.

Re:Ninite

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree, except shockwave flash was removed as one of the options

Re:Ninite

[Anonymous Coward]

May I ask how Shockwave is related to Flash?

Re:Ninite

[Anonymous Coward]

Such streamlined! So ease! Wow! ;-)

Linux: Only the basics

[crow]

On my regular Linux desktop and laptop systems, I just want the basic apps, and then have it get out of the way so that I can work:

emacs, xterm, OpenSSH, and twm (with a few patches I've added).

The only big apps that I use are Thunderbird and Chromium.

I make sure to not install Gnome or KDE.

Re:Could your question be more generic?

[F. Lynx Pardinus]

It's just an excuse to have an open thread and chat. If that's not your thing, that's fine.

vlc, need I say more... (Sqore:200,000: Super)

[Anonymous Coward]

vlc, mplayer, ffmpeg, vim, gcc, devel headers, kernel devel, nvidia driver, yumex, gimp, snes9x,
firefix + noscript + forcastfox, thunderbird, wine, kid3 + easytag, okular, gnostscript, gdb, ddd; vmplayer.

Bunch of other important but less used utilities: liveUSB builder, inkscape, ksensors, wmcalclock.

Pretty sure none of the above really need an explanation. Note that when major apps are installed,
their dependencies bring in a whole bunch of other libraries (vlc brings in many) too numerous to list.

I generally run Fedora, but I think these might be staples for most everyone.

Re:vlc, need I say more... (Sqore:200,000: Super)

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidently you did need to.

Good web browsers.

[Z00L00K]

Firefox and Opera are on my list of good ones so far.

Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not after they dumped Opera for Opera Next.

Re:Good web browsers.

[Trax3001BBS]

Not after they dumped Opera for Opera Next.

I still use Opera 12 for at the least the bookmarks and shortcuts or nickname ie "Fish" takes me to Google translate. /. to guess where (and it's a default).

You just get a copy of Opera12 or not deleted the version you downloaded (damn did I get lucky). Every once in awhile your hit with a requester to download the latest version, (I think it's hard wired into Opera), which you just click on NOPE.

I installed Opera 15 once and noticed it was firefox. Opera.com made mention of closing down April 2014, and to grab anything you had on site - just a really sad demise to an excellent browser.

If you have a (new) feature you really like, there's a very good chance it was on Opera first.

Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

My Opera might be closing down in April, but not Opera Software itself. The browser is not dying (though it is taking an annoyingly long time to get all the good features back into this new version... I really miss Opera 12).

Re:Good web browsers.

[Fjandr]

Opera 15 (now 19) isn't FireFox, it's Chrome.

The one fortunate thing is they're building back into Chrome what they lost when they stopped developing Presto. It's slow, but it's happening. I still miss things like Ctrl-Z re-opening closed windows, but they've regained a lot of the ground they lost in the changeover.

I still really miss per-site options, which haven't made it back into Chrome-based Opera.

Re:Good web browsers.

[Trax3001BBS]

The one fortunate thing is they're building back into Chrome what they lost when they stopped developing Presto. It's slow, but it's happening. I still miss things like Ctrl-Z re-opening closed windows, but they've regained a lot of the ground they lost in the changeover.

I still really miss per-site options, which haven't made it back into Chrome-based Opera.

Ctrl-Z does that eh? I've always just used the triangle under the X (close button) and like it better (just tried the keyboard way).

Really going to miss Opera it was a safe browser to use because so few used it, When Opera was first released, I'd install it to a 3.5 floppy and have my browser and bookmarks with me when I visited another geek.

I just don't wish to use Chrome.

I don't trust anything that's being pushed on me as hard as Chrome is. It's past the point of being obnoxious and right up there with mcafee; miss an option separate from the others and find yourself installing it.

I don't like the fact Chrome has (two, at the time I used it) services to install, change or remove anything at anytime, even if it's limited to Chrome's up keep. I not only disabled them but blocked access to the directories they used. I like to at keep a semblance of having control of my own system.

Re:Good web browsers.

[Fjandr]

Well, the current incarnation of Opera is based on Chrome, but they've made a lot of positive changes to the code base. I don't really use Chrome much though, so I'm not sure exactly how Deep the differences go.

Re:Good web browsers.

[Trax3001BBS]

Well, the current incarnation of Opera is based on Chrome, but they've made a lot of positive changes to the code base. I don't really use Chrome much though, so I'm not sure exactly how Deep the differences go.

Just today I updated my Motorola Xoom (google) Tablet to Android version 4.4.2 thanks to hax, and installed Opera on it. It's the first full version of mobile Opera I've seen since 12 (not a mini), it uses pieces of everything, lots of Chrome, lots of Google stuff (analytics), a bit of Netscape, Mozilla, MSDN, Apple (sample code), Apache, Linux and even GIMP. Those are just a very few, just pages and pages of redistribution license.

As if they grabbed the best of all that's available, one could hope. But they still don't get it, there's still no bookmarks; but a bookmark import utility to turn your bookmarks into Speed Dial icons, that would give me 3337 icons, and a lot of time searching through them.

If you've used Opera you know it exports bookmarks as formatted text (ADR file) and as a HTML page.
I can use the HTML page to get around to places I've thought special enough to bookmark, even have it as my start up page.

You mean other than what is installed by Default?

[DadLeopard]

That would be Thunderbird, followed by Calibre and Skype. I don't care for Evolution, so Thunderbird which is nice and simple to use! Calibre since I have a Sony Reader which uses epub format, since Calibre can convert just about any eBook format to just about any other one, as long as they are not DRMed, it also keeps my eBook library nicely organized. Skype is because one son lives 800 miles away and another 6,157 miles away right now, and Skype works with MS, Apple and Linux OSes so we can keep in touch and see each others faces once in a while!

Debian Linux testing

[Johnny Loves Linux]

CRAN, and PYPI. I pretty much have everything I need with the 3 repositories.

Emacs and GCC

[Anonymous Coward]

They are the Alpha and the Omega.

Re:Emacs and GCC

[smittyoneeach]

Also, the alphabet in between.

Re:Emacs and GCC

[Ken_g6]

I prefer GVim and Clang.

Well, OK, I prefer GCC too, but that doesn't make the debate as interesting. Let's say many prefer Clang and see how they fall out on the merits.

I like GVim for its regular expression support. And I don't see why Emacs should run stuff like compilers from the editor - that's what multiple xterms are for.

Re:Emacs and GCC

[Anonymous Coward]

And I don't see why Emacs should run stuff like compilers from the editor - that's what multiple xterms are for.

Because you can then just click on error messages and go from one error to the next using M-g M-n and M-g M-p and Emacs will keep track when you insert/delete material to fix an error?

Or have an even wilder mash-up of source code and output and error messages like preview-latex?

well...

[buddyglass]

Since I switched to Macs, its basically Excel, Eclipse and Firefox. And gcc, which I get by installing the Xcode command line tools.

Re: well...

[Anonymous Coward]

On OS X 10.9 /use/bin/gcc is just clang. If you want gcc you have to install it yourself.

Re:well...

[alexandre_ganso]

I could swear that the "gcc" on current macs is just a shortcut for clang.

Yep, it is:

$ gcc --help
OVERVIEW: clang LLVM compiler

Re: well...

[buddyglass]

Gcc front-end. Which is all I need for the occasional project.

My list

[Anonymous Coward]

I mostly use mac & linux via ssh

Windows:
Irfanview - Always first thing I do.
Putty
Powerarchiver
All major browsers
Openvpn client

Mac:
All major browsers
Textwrangler
Snapndrag (best screenshot tool ever)
Textual
Remote Desktop (Mac & windows)
Tunnelblick (openvpn)
Adium

Linux:
Random tools as needed

Re:My list

[Jarik C-Bol]

And then spend an half an hour configuring Adium and looking for, installing and tweaking and a style pack that makes Adium not take up 2/3rds of the screen...

Don't get me wrong, I love Adium, but its default style pack is pretty hideous.

Re:My list

[Anonymous Coward]

shameless: http://www.adiumxtras.com/inde...

Re:My List

[Anonymous Coward]

I am interested in a fast image viewer, but could not find FastOne Image Viewer - google turned up FastStone. Do you have a link for FastOne?

Re:My List

[felipou]

Your high user id is totally not compatible with your software choices!

Re:My list

[CCarrot]

Irfanview is nice, I used to default to that, but I switched over to XNView a while back and like it much more. Just a more polished interface than IView, simple but very powerful batch tools, quick, responsive and customizable.

Unfortunately, the main desktop version is buggy under Windows 8 (was wonderful under Windows 7 and XP), and the cross-platform java version isn't nearly as powerful as the main one, although at least it works with Windows 8...

Core sysadmin toolkit.

[Anonymous Coward]

wget and nano

Random Windows and Programming tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Notepad++
7zip
Python
Visual Studio
Wireshark
HashTab - simple shell extension for checking hashes via properties
HxD - really any basic hex editor would do
Sysinternals
Chrome
Office, Adobe, etc... - sadly required for work

Re:Random Windows and Programming tools

[Marginal Coward]

Good list. It overlaps many of mine:

    Vim
    7-zip
    Python
    Visual Studio
    BeyondCompare
    Sysinternals
    Firefox, Chrome, and Opera
    grep (I use a really ancient one from Borland C - I've tried GNU's version but simply don't like it)
    git, Tortoise Git, and msysgit
    OpenOffice or LibreOffice
    Adobe Acrobat and Flash (sadly)

and last but not least (drum roll, please)...

    Classic Shell

Note that my list contains a few key things that only run on Windows, notably Visual Studio and the ancient Borland grep. I keep hoping that the "GNU/Linux System" will catch up in both regards, but I'm not holding my breath. ;-)

Re:Random Windows and Programming tools

[the_cosmocat]

First and mandatory, install chocolatey http://chocolatey.org/ to easily and quickly install most of these software :

Notepad++
GitExtensions (better than Tortoise Git) or sourcetree
P4merge (one of the best merge software)
ConsoleZ (a descent console for windows)
sumatrapdf (quickest pdf reader)
clover (tabs in file manager)
speedcrunch (a good calc)
greenshot (screenshots)
paint.net
foobar2000
vlc
windirstat
7zip
Sysinternals
Firefox ...

And do a bat file to install automatically all that with chocolatey!!!!!

Re:Random Windows and Programming tools

[CaptQuark]

Many of those go on my system first:

Firefox with Adblock Plus
Thunderbird
7zip
Paint.NET
WinMerge
Paint Shop Pro

~~

Firefox

[RandCraw]

Sure, GCC, Linux, sendmail, SCCS, any many more are essential to the open software stack I would die for. But the importance of a modern, full-featured, open browser simply can't be overstated. Without Firefox, the web would be a much less trustworthy world, and I'd be much less willing to take part in it.

Re:Firefox

[angel'o'sphere]

Unfortunately yes, just saw a job offer a few days ago where SCCS skills was a requirement (not a nice to have) ... and I really wonder anyway why job offers 'require' knowledge about a certain SCM tool ... for that we have invented manuals a fe years ago.

Re:Firefox

[JazzHarper]

Genuine question: people still use SCCS?

I have one data file, started over ten years ago, still under SCCS. The downstream flow uses the metadata. It's not worth changing. The whole flow will be replaced RSN.

GKrellm or other system monitor

[DrJimbo]

The first thing I install is a system monitor.

I like to keep a close eye on CPU usage, memory usage, disk usage, and network usage. Without that information it feels like I'm flying blind. It is often important on a new system when I don't know what is running and consuming resources.

On Windows...

[Anonymous Coward]

TotalCommander.

since the 80's....

[Anonymous Coward]

Emacs.

I learned one editor in the 80's, and it's still as or more powerful than anything else out there. Runs on every OS, in every environment, edits every kind of text file, even things fancy new IDEs like Visual Studio don't know what to do with and fall back to treating as plain text. Integrates with source control, and has more powerful editing abilities than any other editor I've ever encountered.

In recent years, it's even trivial to install: "apt-get install emacs".

But it has a steep learning curve, something that's out of style.

Re:since the 80's....

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, I take it you've never learned to use vi.

Re:since the 80's....

[Anonymous Coward]

(Same AC here)... I am actually quite good at vi! It's useful to know both.

Re:since the 80's....

[Anonymous Coward]

I know enough vi to get my favourite editor installed...

Re:since the 80's....

[Anonymous Coward]

Emacs is pretty much unusable without exchanging Ctrl-L and Tab-Stop in the OS settings. After doing so, it's very very ergonomic to use.

Re:since the 80's....

[colinrichardday]

But is vi learnable in the first place?

1Password

[cbreak]

It's not like I'd die without it, but I wouldn't' get into any of my accounts. I also use a lot: Firefox, TextWrangler, Xcode, clang, quicksilver, Mac OS X, ...

LinuxCNC

[Anonymous Coward]

Linuxcnc. I would not be able to run my business without it.

Re:LinuxCNC

[SirTicksAlot]

I agree. Very powerful although I wish it wasn't so tied to a really old Ubuntu release.

say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fresh operating system?

minimal installation includes...

[Anonymous Coward]

post OS install, the list goes :
Avast AV (free edition)
Comodo Firewall (free edition)
Malwarebytes (free)
PuTTY
WinSCP

Productivity

[denisbergeron]

Last version of LibreOffice
Gimp
inkscape
and a buch of font.
All linux come with ssh and telnet, who need more.

vi

[fsck-beta]

vi or vim, must have, everything else is gravy

Re:vi

[Anonymous Coward]

In the name of Emacs, avaunt!

If it is a Windows 7 or later system:

[the_rajah]

Firefox Chrome
MS Security Essentials
Malwarebytes
LibreOffice
Filezilla
Gimp

After that it depends on what I'm purposing the system for.

If it's for my use, I'll install VirtualBox along with a copy of my XP VM for some legacy software that doesn't play on any later versions of Windows

Re:Could your question be more generic?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you or I tried to do that, our comments would be marked as "Troll". Wouldn't it be nice to be able to mark a summary that way?

(and guess why I'm posting this as AC?...)

Windows file management ...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are too lazy to organize data properly, these tools are extremely helpful:

TreeSize - calculates the sizes of all your directories, quickly
Beyond Compare - diff for directories. Very powerful and fast.
Locate32 - desktop search, but doesn't send info to your favorite advertizing companies. Also lightening fast.

Re:Windows file management ...

[Anonymous Coward]

> TreeSize - calculates the sizes of all your directories, quickly

I decided that WinDirStat works at least as well for me and is OpenSource (which besides ideological reasons means it's easier to get blanked approval for in certain companies)...

Re:Windows file management ...

[Immerman]

I find WinDirStat a much superior file/directory size analyzer - it offers a tree view with details that is continuously updated as the directories are scanned in a breadth-first order, with indicators for which directory trees haven't yet been fully scanned, allowing for useful analysis to be performed almost immediately instead of waiting for the scan to complete. Then, when the scan is finally finished, you also get a graphical "pillow view" overview of the entire file system, color-coded by file type.

Everything is another great search tool - it only works on NTFS drives, but typically takes only a minute or so to scan a large drive for the first time, seconds to update it's database on subsequent launches, and lists all files whose name contains your specified word fragments literally as fast as you can type. Hit "a" and you will be faced with a list of hundreds of thousands of files before you can type a second letter. It also supports regex if word-fragments are insufficiently powerful for your needs.

Re:Windows file management ...

[MonTemplar]

I used to use Beyond Compare for work purposes back when I was involved in USB flash device duplication - great for checking master copies prior to duplication, and double-checking selected duplicate sticks during duplication.

Along those lines, I'd also recommend TeraCopy - fast file copying with the option of CRC checking to spot any corrupted or missing files.

pr0n

[lord_rob the only on]

A computer is unusable without a pr0n collection installed, so VLC a lot of good movies a good picture viewer and pictures, and lastly a good joystick :)

Re:pr0n

[davester666]

I find installing VLC on my pacemaker makes it run too slow.

Re:pr0n

[Anonymous Coward]

You should overclock it.

Don't forget to raise the voltages!

LaunchBar

[pianophile]

On any new Mac (and NeXT) since the 90's. I've seldom launched an app any other way in years.

Re:LaunchBar

[Brian Kendig]

I used to swear by LaunchBar, but now the built-in Spotlight is good enough for me.

@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[nukenerd]

Firefox and Opera are on my list of good ones so far.

You can't live without having both of them ??

Re:@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Firefox and Opera are on my list of good ones so far.

> You can't live without having both of them ??

Yep (I'm not that guy, but can answer the question):

gs.statcounter, maps option, only working in Opera right now (flash bad rendered in FF, site complains javascript is off with Chrome, though it's on). I use X11 with intel driver... maybe a browser/driver issue.

Also, Opera worked when FF refused (for java security reasons, probably FF was right) and I had minutes to complete a time-limited task.

Opera proved its need; Chrome and FF are on a serious competition regarding new tech -- must keep both.

Re:@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW gs.statcounter appears to work if you disable then re-enable javascript - I'm using "Quick Javascript Switcher" extension.

Re:@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the tip, will try.

Just clarifying, I seem to be bitter but actually think their map feature is an awesome idea. And they're not the only site with flash problems on Linux -- on Windows it works ok.

Re:@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Z00L00K]

For some F-ed up reason the Outlook Web interface works best in Opera, and doesn't work well in FF - and doesn't work at all in IE!

(My work uses the Outlook Web interface, so I have no choice...)

And Opera has better privacy.

Re:@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Confirmed to work; better yet, a single de-reactivation is preserved forever. It seems thus to be a Chrome(ium) problem.

Thanks for the workaround.

Re:@Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly no one browser works for _all_ websites. If only there was a mandatory standard and a way to enforce it...

Re: @Z00L00K - Re:Good web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn on compatibility mode in recent IEs (just for that one url) to make outlook web (the 2003 one) work. I have do this constantly at work...

You lost me at vim

[smittyoneeach]

There are two kinds of editors; emacs, and lesser.

Re:You lost me at vim

[jolyonr]

Actually, that reminds me, I was meaning to ask on Slashdot if anyone has any advice as to which is the better editor, Vi or Emacs.

I'd love to know.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, thems be fighting words!

I work a lot on embedded Linux. Every embedded Linux install has vi. Emacs is few and far between. As I can easily install vi/vim/gvim anywhere that you use emacs, and since it's always included in embedded systems where it's difficult to add extra programs, this means it's more versatile and as such is better.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

You clearly don't do embedded systems development. I can assure you, emacs is fine for some things, but if you don't know it in addition to rather than instead of vim, then you better not start trying to play with the big boys. You''ll find yourself sans an editor that you can use on the target system.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Stormwatch]

Edlin.

Re:You lost me at vim

[pcjunky]

Not biting....Nice try.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

You clearly don't do embedded systems development. [Emacs] You''ll find yourself sans an editor that you can use on the target system.

That's what Tramp is for.

C-x C-f /username@target.host.localnet:src/gaga.c RET

You never leave the Emacs on your host system and still edit stuff on the target system that is transparently shuffled to and fro using ssh, scp and other stuff. Including M-x compile RET and/or M-x shell RET. It does not get lower-impact on the target system, and you don't get to fight tty settings and terms and other things.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

EPIC FAIL (assumes you have an ssh server running on your target). I hate to break it to you, but running an SSH server on the target is *not* lighter weight than running vim on the target, and furthermore is not always even possible.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Ed is the only real editor in town. Vim and Emacs are for noobs.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

It sounds like a fundamental limitation on the target system the fact that it only has a garbage text editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

You weren't paying attention. It doesn't have emacs.

Re:You lost me at vim

[MacTO]

According to my brain, emacs. According to my fingers, vim. Since my fingers are controlling the keyboard, guess who wins.

Re:You lost me at vim

[marcovje]

Emacs is a great OS, but IMHO the editor sucks.

Re:You lost me at vim

[hughweilun]

Indeed. When I first got into the UNIX world (14 years ago), I saw emacs and thought, "how utterly logical, how utterly complete is this editor". When I first saw vim I thought, "how utterly cryptic, how utterly hidden from view are the features of this editor" so I opened emacs and learned a bunch of keystrokes.

After a few hours of C-x C-s, C-x C-n, C-x C-q, C-h, my left wrist starts burning. Last year I finally took the vim tutorial and found my hands are quite comfortable with the keystrokes. Committing the keystrokes to muscle memory also helps quite a bit. And pressing Ctrl-[ instead of Esc to get out of input mode lets you stay in home row.

Re:You lost me at vim

[angel'o'sphere]

You are mixing something up!
We all know that Emacs is indeed a very decent operating system, unfortunately it lacks a decent editor. So the answer is vim or nano ;)

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

EPIC FAIL (assumes you have an ssh server running on your target). I hate to break it to you, but running an SSH server on the target is *not* lighter weight than running vim on the target, and furthermore is not always even possible.

Uh, no? Tramp assumes any kind of shell connection into your target system. You'd have a hard time running Vim on your target system without being able to reach a shell.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Nano is best editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

Uh, yes. From the emacs manual from GNU:

"There are two basic types of transfer methods, each with its own advantages and limitations. Both types of connection make use of a remote shell access program such as rsh, ssh or telnet to connect to the remote host. "

Each of those requires their own daemon.

Re:You lost me at vim

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Scite is my favorite now.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Jeremi]

I hate to break it to you, but running an SSH server on the target is *not* lighter weight than running vim on the target

Bah, you kids with your fancy "encryption" and "privacy". In my day, we ran our vi sessions over telnetd with a default root password, and we liked it!

Re:You lost me at vim

[Njovich]

The fact that all the answers so far point to VIM is no coincidence: VIM is actually winning that war.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

emacs is irrelevant - vi(m) is everywhere.

Re:You lost me at vim

[jones_supa]

Emacs and Vim are both terribly unproductive text editors. I've walked the walk and actually learned the cryptic keystrokes, but I still ended up with software that was just incredibly clunky to use. In the end I found myself very carefully thinking what control keys I must press next or I would otherwise mess up my text or end up in some wacky state in the editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simple -- always use the right tool for the job. Sometimes emacs is the right tool, sometimes vim is.

For example, you should use emacs to write code for a large software project.

Once you're done with that, you should use vim to write a letter to your doctor regarding the repetitive stress injury to your left pinkie.

Re:You lost me at vim

[LoRdTAW]

Emacs killed my dog and Vi sold my identity to a Lebanese woman, i'm now homeless, broke and have no friends. Please be careful when choosing editors!

Re:You lost me at vim

[semi-extrinsic]

Ah, well you see, this used to be true, but Emacs recently gained a Vim mode. I'm actually not joking. Vim rules BTW.

Re:You lost me at vim

[ppc_digger]

Evil, obviously.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Recently? It has had vi-mode, vip-mode and viper-mode for eternities. One of them is supposed to be quite the best but I don't remember which. And of course, you can always run the "real" vim in an M-x term RET command if you really must. It also has wordstar-mode and a few others.

This is Emacs, short for "Editor macros". It is whatever it wants to be. It is the being one.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Vim is better of course

Re:You lost me at vim

[colinrichardday]

And you're not paying attention: emacs isn't garbage.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

It's not a text editor either, but I digress.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zeio]

I dont need emacs because I already have an operating system.

Re:You lost me at vim

[colinrichardday]

Wrong again. Emacs is a very good text editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

OK. I understand that you aren't particularly bright, so I'm going to let you slide on this one. Off you go now ...

Re: You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Vim is definitely heavier than SSH. Count the SLoC.

You must be thinking of Vi. The BSDs have traditional Vi. Most Vim users would tear their hair out trying to use it.

Re: You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

Unlike you apparently, I know that SLoC has nothing to do with its "weight" in this context.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you... I laughed so hard I shed a tear. Best laugh of the month. :)

Re:You lost me at vim

[chipschap]

Emacs and Vim are both terribly unproductive text editors. I've walked the walk and actually learned the cryptic keystrokes, but I still ended up with software that was just incredibly clunky to use. In the end I found myself very carefully thinking what control keys I must press next or I would otherwise mess up my text or end up in some wacky state in the editor.

After some experience (something more than three months and less than 20 years) the keystrokes come naturally, without much need to think about them.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

nano shits all over both of them...emacs and vim can go die a fiery death.

Re:You lost me at vim

[colinrichardday]

Off you go now

Really, do you expect me to leave?

Re:You lost me at vim

[thogard]

Editor Wars? Do you have a cat that walks on keyboards? If so, vi can be very deadly to open files.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. I expect you to die.

Re:You lost me at vim

[The Grim Reefer]

There are two kinds of operating systems; emacs, and lesser.

FTFY

Re:You lost me at vim

[alexandre_ganso]

pff. Vi is great when all you have is a 300/75 baud connection and your "terminal" is an electronic typewriter with a two-lines display (one for the line being edited, one for modal)

To be honest, my impression is that vi was DESIGNED for that use case.

Re:You lost me at vim

[mysidia]

There are two kinds of editors; emacs, and lesser.

The text editor is called Pico or Jed. EMACS is short for Eighty% Memory and Constantly Swapping

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, you kids with your fancy "encryption" and "privacy". In my day, we ran our vi sessions over telnetd with a default root password, and we liked it!

I have friends in the networking department who STILL do that.

"You're still using telnet?"

"It's on the private network", so goes the rebuke, to any complaint about not using SSH.

Re:You lost me at vim

[mysidia]

Wrong again. Emacs is a very good text editor.

No... Emacs is a very good e-mail reader.

Your e-mail reader should never be used as your text editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[colinrichardday]

Your e-mail reader should never be used as your text editor.

But I never use Thunderbird as a text editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Thanosius]

Notepad++ on Windows, Geany on Linux.

Vi vs Emacs is an outdated battle, a relic of a time where Vi and Emacs were the only real options for quality editors. Nowadays there's a heck of a lot more quality editors to choose from, and overtake Vi/Emacs in terms of usability, discoverability and power. Not to take away from the power of Vi/Emacs - they're just used due to people having learnt them in the past and finding no reason to change. Which is great if you're a power user who knows how to make magic, but there's no real reason for an aspiring programmer to use either.

Re:You lost me at vim

[mysidia]

But I never use Thunderbird as a text editor.

Where can I get a version of Thunderbird that I can run in a SSH terminal window?

Re:You lost me at vim

[jones_supa]

Yeah, but that's months of training for a text editor that just does simple unformatted text.

Re:You lost me at vim

[vtcodger]

Emacs and Vim are both terribly unproductive text editors.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I've loathed vi since before many of the folks posting here were born and I've never really warmed to emacs although I did give it a serious try once. Look (dammit), I have to learn a set of keystroke conventions (CUA pretty much) to use my web browsers. What possible reason would I have to learn a different set conventions for code editing? I use kwrite in x-windows and jed on the rare occasions that X isn't available. When I used Windows, I used some enhanced Notepad or other that doesn't work right under Wine. I've long since forgotten its name. I use Windows as infrequently as possible, and in the one or two hours a year I have to work in Windows, Notepad seems to be adequate.

IMHO, vi was a crummy text editor -- only a slight improvement over ed -- in 1980 and although modern vi-s are vastly improved, they really aren't anything special. I think I see the point to emacs, but I think you either love it or you don't. I don't.

Re:You lost me at vim

[CadentOrange]

pico

Re:You lost me at vim

[jones_supa]

You mentioned Jed, and that is indeed pretty sane one. Nice balance between easy usability and some special features.

When looking at graphical editors, Sublime Text is quite spiffy too, although it does not have proper configuration dialogs, which gives it a bit unpolished appearance.

Re:You lost me at vim

[fisted]

Email readers which integrate a text editor are a failure to start with. Same goes for text editors which integrate email readers, of course.

Re:You lost me at vim

[i ate my neighbour]

Not anymore. It does have vi-mode, although not feature-rich as vim.

Re:Re:You lost me at vim

[NAFV_P]

It depends entirely on your mood. You could be very productive if you were adept at both.

Re:You lost me at vim

[angel'o'sphere]

That is funny, and likely it has indeed!

Re:You lost me at vim

[just_another_sean]

Ed is the standard text editor

Re:You lost me at vim

[colinrichardday]

The mail account on which I run Thunderbird is web accessible. Why would I need to run ssh? Besides, it runs fine under ssh -X.

Re:You lost me at vim

[mysidia]

The mail account on which I run Thunderbird is web accessible. Why would I need to run ssh?

Vi is a terminal-based text editor, and Emacs is a terminal-based mail reader.

Neither of these are web-based tools.

If web-based is the only kind of interface you prefer to use, then you don't need either of the two tools.

Re:You lost me at vim

[colinrichardday]

I didn't say I only preferred web-based applications. It's just that my email accounts are web accessible. I would not particularly care for a web-based text editor.

Re:You lost me at vim

[Anonymous Coward]

cat

Re:You lost me at vim

[Saanvik]

Interesting. The number of searches for VIM remains relatively constant over time, while the number of searches for emacs has been decreasing.

I personally find myself searching for VI commands much more often than emacs. I use emacs every day and I know how to do what I want using it. When I'm stuck on a system without it, I fall back to VI, but I never learned it well enough to do more than simple editing.

Re:You lost me at vim

[rpstrong]

Turbo Edlin - with mouse support.

Re:You lost me at vim

[coolsnowmen]

makes sense, but Hilarious. Kind of reminds me of that +1 standards xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/

Re:You lost me at vim

[bbsalem]

Doesn't it, or elisp, garbage collect?

My List

[Hrrrg]

Adobe Lightroom - does 95% of what I would do with photoshop, works on raw images and simplifies my workflow tremendously. I almost never use photoshop anymore.

Ubuntu, Windows 8.1, Libreoffice, Adobe Reader, - self explanatory.

Firefox with Adblock plus and Better Privacy and HTPS Everywhere installed.

KeepassX - Password manager. Multiplatform, much less buggy than Keepass2 (note to develepers: please take it out of alpha status!)

F.Lux - warms up the color of your monitor in the evenings so that it doesn't interfere with your circadian rhythm, hopefully improves sleep. (hey - it's free!)

Videolan (VLC) - excellent video player (despite the crappy name)

Sandboxie (paid $$) - Sandbox your browser and various other programs

FastOne Image Viewer - excellent, free sildeshow software

Secunia PSI - makes sure your programs are kept up-to-date

Sweet, sweet emacs

[smittyoneeach]

If your editor doesn't have its own church, how can it be a serious piece of code?

Re:Sweet, sweet emacs

[Zero__Kelvin]

His editor does have its own church as well as its own evangelist, or did you miss that he uses emacs?

Re:Sweet, sweet emacs

[Anonymous Coward]

If your editor doesn't have its own church, how can it be a serious piece of code?

Ah, the Church-Turing Thesis.

Re:Could your question be more generic?

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled "Faget"

emacs

[yotam]

Emacs is a necessity for me.
For editing local and remote (via tramp) files.
Run simple shells, compile, grep, diff, clean directories. All within emacs.

Re:emacs

[helixcode123]

Emacs is a necessity for me.
For editing local and remote (via tramp) files.
Run simple shells, compile, grep, diff, clean directories. All within emacs.

Long time Emacs user here. Can you expand on "clean directories" please? Parent posters have mentioned Tramp, the ability to (nearly) seamlessly edit files on remote system. This is a wonderful feature, along with ediff, for merging updates on my development system (i.e. my laptop) with my deployed code on my remote VPS.

Re:emacs

[yotam]

Clean directories, change file permissions, etc. can be easily done using the 'dired' function of Emacs.

It's an investment

[smittyoneeach]

Every time you level up, and try something new, there is some pleasant surprise, like TRAMP mode.

Tons

[Sandman1971]

The very first thing I install on a home machine is an antivirus/antimalware app, since it's Windows after all. Followed by Chrome to download and install drivers/apps for my peripherals (printer, videocard, dsl camera, scanner, etc..). Once that's done comes Thunderbird, Mozbackup (to transfer my old emails/addons) and VirtualBox (With Ubuntu, Edubuntu). Followed by Photoshop and Premiere. Then Steam, Origin and World of Warcraft. The rest I do like you, install them as required.

My List

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows only List:
Putty,
7zip,
  AnyDVD

On All Machines
eclipse
Office Libre
Mysql / mysql workbench
Firefox
nano
VLC
tomcat

I'd have to say Linux

[EzInKy]

From productivity to timewasters, I'd be bankrupt if I had to pay for all the free software available to me due to it being being part of a Linux distribution. Yes, I know that much of the same software has been ported to proprietary systems such as Microsoft's and Apple's, but with Linux I know that from the ground up I can depend on the software in the base distro being free.

Reposting/Fixing My List

[bigal123]

This list is part of a much longer list that I maintain and sometimes publish.

* 7-ZIP -- Create/Extra ZIP and many other other file compression formats, very powerful. Note can open some installer EXE and MSI files (see Microsoft Orca for more MSI options) (free, open source, Windows, there may be Linux/Mac variants). http://www.7-zip.com/

* CCleaner -- System optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. (free, closed source, Windows) http://www.ccleaner.com/ **Alternate Tool** BleachBit -- Free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files, delete logs, and discard junk you didn't know was there. (free, open source Linux/Windows) http://bleachbit.sourceforge.n...

* Greenshot -- Good Screen Shot tool with simple annotation options. (free, open source, Windows) http://greenshot.sourceforge.n...

* IrfanView -- Image Program View, convert, crop, optimize, sideshow, batch Processing etc (free noncommercial, closed source, Windows) http://www.irfanview.com/

Instantbird -- Multi Protocol Instant Messaging (IM) Client - AOL, MSM, Yahoo, etc (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) **Alternate Tool** Pidgin - Multi Protocol Instant Messaging (IM) Client - AOL, MSM, Yahoo, etc (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://pidgin.im/

* KeePass Password Safe -- Good Quality secure password manager, stores passwords encrypted. (free, open source, Windows Linux/Mac with Mono) http://keepass.info/

* LibreOffice -- Power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production. Excellent replacement for other Office Suites, can open many different and sometimes odd file types -- (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://www.libreoffice.org/

* Mozilla.org FireFox -- Web browser for more security then Internet Explore (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://www.mozilla.com/ http://www.mozilla.org/

* SpeedCrunch -- fast, high-precision and powerful cross-platform desktop calculator (free, open source, Linux/Mac/Windows) http://www.speedcrunch.org/ & http://speedcrunch.blogspot.co...

* UltraEdit -- Probably the absolute best most powerful text editors around, edit huge files, FTP, column mode, and more (shareware, closed source, Win/Mac/Linux) http://www.ultraedit.com/ **Alternate Tool** Noteppad++ -- Good Text / Source Code Editor replacement for Microsoft Windows Notepad/Wordpad (free, open source) http://notepad-plus.sourceforg...

* VLC Media Player -- One of the best media players out there. Highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. (free, oen source, Linux/Mac/Windows)
http://www.videolan.org/

Re:Reposting/Fixing My List

[SpaceGhost]

Most of the above (thanks for the tip on Greenshot, since Printkey2000 doesnt work on Win7.)
Ultraedit is great but I'm hoping to do the same kind of scripting in Notepad++.
Firefox with noscript, adblock, request policy, ghostery, https everywhere, mobile barcoder, pluggin toggler and self-destructing cookies and a few others.
I have Keepass on my cpu and android phone.
Whatever anti-virus Im currently using (Webroot for the moment)

Add:
FileMenu Tools - various file utilities accessible via right-click in explorer, includes shredding and an excellent file renaming utility
CutePDF - lightweight PDF printer
CDRTFE - excellent open source optical media burner
RichCopy - Microsofts GUI replacement for robocopy, highly configurable and multithreaded
BareGrep - very light GREP search tool, doesnt require indexes, searches filename and content, quite fast.
MenuApp - make my own pop-up menus in the taskbar
Hotswap - enhanced control of storage devices
Jacksum - great hasher accessible via "send-to", Hashtab also works
Rainmeter because i hate not knowing what my computer is doing, Samurize when I need to monitor more than one CPU
PrismHUD for the same reason

and Audacity (and Lame), GIMP, Inkscape, Foobar2000, Foxit reader, RawTherapee.

Re:Reposting/Fixing My List

[RJFerret]

Many of my choices covered above, but more important for me is AutoHotKey. Computers are supposed to do the work. (I've had key/mouse recording/scripting utilities back from my Amiga days, then old Macintosh at work, and so on, nothing beats being able to shortcut/automate any repetitive thing.)

Re:Reposting/Fixing My List

[Aeyan]

And I recommend Ninite when you need to do this sort of thing. Doesn't cover everything but it has enough to make it very handy.

Re:Reposting/Fixing My List

[Anonymous Coward]

All OS: Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, VLC, GIMP, TrueCrypt, python
extra for Windows: Notepad++, 7-zip, IrfanView, putty

Re:Reposting/Fixing My List

[CCarrot]

Excellent list!

FYI, most of these programs (i.e., 10 out of the 12, if you count the alternate text editor Notepad++) are available as Portable Apps that you can keep on (and even run from) a USB thumb drive.

Might save you some installation and configuring time :) I'd bet plenty of programs on your full list are available too...

GNU HURD

[boolithium]

I don't use it, never used it, and never plan on using it, not even sure it really exists, but I feel my life would be incomplete without it.

Mine

[Anonymous Coward]

foobar2000
Bitcoin-Qt
Hexchat
Pidgin
Mozilla Firefox
VLC
Rufus (USB flash drive image writing tool)

What do install immediately?

[Culture20]

screen and vlock. Most everything else I need is installed by default.

Re:windows user picks

[Hylandr]

Wish I could +1 this.

Not much

[Thraxy]

I don't do any coding these days, so I basically get by with Firefox and Skype. I'm thinking of getting rolling again in the creative field though, so if anyone wants to recommend decent video editing software for Linux and/or Windows please leave a comment.

Re:Not much

[SpaceGhost]

For very simple work the FOSS Avidemux is quite nice.

Windows

[Lawrence_Bird]

Windows
Firefox
Filezilla
Putty
VirtualBox

Re:Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Must-have software for any Windows PC that I use: a Linux Live CD (any version).

Re:Windows

[Lawrence_Bird]

while i do have a couple old ones floating around some where, I have not used a linux cd for anything to do with windows since XP.

My windows software list.

[Rainwulf]

My current OS is server 2008 R2 Standard Edition.
Winrar.
AcdSEE32 bit 2.42 (Yes. OLD AS THE HILLS)
Bullzip PDF Printer.
WinSCP (ftp program)
Foobar2000
Office 2010 (outlook required for work)
A whole whack of registry and hacked system files.

Re:My windows software list.

[Rainwulf]

Oh and Chrome, and Media Player Classic HC.

Windows

[Killerfishmonkey]

First off... Windows 7 is the only way to go. It is stable, and you get to access all those sweet videogames. But before all that, the standard software. Your specific hardware drivers. The latest ones. set the schedule now. Defrag should run once a week, I run mine in the night on Wednesday. if you shut the PC down after every use though. get AUSLogics Defrag. It will run if the computer is idle for 15 mins. Google Chrome - https://www.google.com/intl/en... Google Picasa - https://www.google.com/picasa/ Ccleaner - http://download.cnet.com/CClea... Try and find a version of Office that does not require a monthly bill. Office 365 is a very horrible idea and I have no idea why someone would pay for it monthly. then again there is open office which is free.

On Windows....

[Anonymous Coward]

Skipping past the inane flamebait responses about how much Windows sucks and just answering the question since I am required to use Windows for work.

* Wizmouse - Gotten a little quirky lately, but scrolls any window under the mouth without the window needing focus
* Ninite Updater - Best way I've found to "forget" about having to update many individual apps
* MWSnap - Great, simple and free screenshot tool. Hasn't been updated in ages but still works great
* Mouse Speed Switcher - Automatically changes numerous mouse settings whenever I switch devices
* SecondCopy - Numerous options for automatic/manual backup
* EditPad Lite (JG software's version of notepad on steroids)
* FastStone Image Viewer - Replaces the abortion of an image viewer that MS includes in the OS.
* Handbrake - duh
* AnyDVD - because sometimes I still do get physical DVDs
* Chrome - Often better than IE (though not always)
* Chrome extension: Empty New Tab Page - Fixes horrible security & privacy issue with Chrome startup showing recent tabs
* FireFox - Annoying, bloated and slow, but useful with extensions such as Adblock Plus, BetterPrivacy, DownloadHelper, NoScript, RequestPolicy
* Last Pass - password manager
* Xmarks - bookmarks synchronizer
* MS Office - Open/Libre just doesn't cut it for interacting with the real corporate world
* Thunderbird with Lightning extension for Google calendar - email & personal calendar

That's pretty much it for "must have". Things like Skype didn't make it onto the list because although I use them frequently for work, I'd still be productive without them.

Re:On Windows....

[iacek]

First thing on my must-have list is enso launcher. I'm surprised that no one mentioned it

My favorite apps

[ALeader71]

Multi-platform:
Firefox, Chrome

OS/X:
Terminal, Outlook, Word and Excel, Dropbox, Evernote, Geektool, todo.txt, Rido

Android
Feedly, Maps, Beat the Traffic, Evernote, bar code scanner, my grocery store's app, Rido, Sonos

Windows 7:
Putty, WinSCP, Notepad++, Rdio, Sonos Linux: vim, terminal, ssh, keystore, apt-get, yum, the list goes on.

My list

[markdavis]

Firefox
LibreOffice
GIMP
Audacity
Pidgin
VirtualBox
Clawsmail
VLC/Mplayer
Audacious
Openssh

Lots of other things, but those seem to be a primary "core" for me (Linux, of course).

sudo apt-get install

[Anonymous Coward]

sudo apt-get install vim ksnapshot vlc chromium-browser eog htop openssh-server apache2 mysql-server php5 build-essential virtualbox clementine

The only things I might not install are the KDE based ones (ksnapshot, clementine?) because they bring along 200+ MB dependencies with them.

While the order varies...

[Anonymous Coward]

But generally...

Winders:
Firefox (Used to be chrome - but I'm in a de-Google-ing phase)
7zip
UltraVNC
1Password
Notepad++
Sublime Text
VLC
Balsamiq Mockups
Mumble Client
X-Mind
Unity
Eclipse
Steam
Dropbox
HexChat
Paint Shop Pro 7.02
Paragon HFS+ for Windows
VMWare Workstation (Stability & enterprise compatibility wins)
FRAPS
SecureCRT
hg/TortoiseHG
JDK

Mac:
As windows minus Notepad++
sub VMWare Fusion Pro (Stability & enterprise compatibility wins)
sub Pixelmater for PSP
sub Snak for HexChat
Paragon NTFS for Mac
Remote Desktop Client for Mac
MenuMeters
Hazel

Linux:
(Debian if mine, RHEL/OEL if for the current day job)
- Just what's needed for the boxes purpose

What no virus scanner?
Correct. Learn to firewall and distrust everything on the internet, and you will have a lot less issues with viruses. On Windows I still occasionally get around to installing one of the free ones + MSE even though its balls.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but whatever they might be they get installed as I notice they're missing

Re:My list from a larger list i keep

[bigal123]

sorry this post is messed up ... see next post down for better formatting .... i could not delete it after posting.

Just a web browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any modern one will do.

None

[stooo]

Basically, i could live without any software at all.
But if you insist, perhaps i would respond : "Linux"

Re:None

[Tseax]

Ditto (line 1)
Windows (line 2)
Probably wouldn't hurt to re-visit books. Go offline. Get off the grid (dream on).

My choice too

[Anonymous Coward]

First things, first. Total Commander, and then keep installing other stuff.

Most things might already be there

[houghi]

Depending on the distro, some things I really need might already be there. So installing or checking if it is installed are the same to me. I often have no idea if it is default or my selection.

The first I will always install or at least check is mc
Espercially for a new install, I think it is easier then using cd, ls and what not as I will be going around a lot and copy files from other places.
vim will be already installed and so will be others, like bash, apt or yast or other software to install.

On the GUI I will always go for XFCE and add the plugins.
I use the NVidea drivers on my 4 screens that run not in xinerama.

Then mplayer and a gui for it. Last in the top of things I will check or install is yad as I have several scripts that depend on it.

I will then copy my scripts and run them one by one to see what is missing.

Can anybody live without MC?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is Midnight Commander for those not into abbreviations.

Some command line stuff

[Blaskowicz]

There is some nice stuff to have, sometimes trivial and sometimes quite useful.

sshfs
openssh-server
GNU screen (some people will like tmux)
irssi (preferably it runs on an always-on box with screen and ssh server)

dtrx : perfect to extract archives from the command line. It solves the problem of tar -xzvf random_shit.tar.gz : the archive's content may or may not be in a directory, such as random_shit/. So if you extract the archive right away, you run the risk of polluting your current directory with loads of crap (like 10 directories + 105 files at the root of the archive). If you do mkdir random_shit, cd random_shit and tar -xzvf ../random_shit.tar.gz, you run the risk of having wasted your time : if files were at the archive's root, all is fine. If they were in a random_shit directory, now your data has been extracted to a random_shit/random_shit directory and you have to do mv random_shit/* . then rmdir random_shit.
I used to do the mkdir random_shit method, or to open the archive in a graphical archive manager before deciding what to do. But dtrx automates this! and works equally for .zip, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2 and all others.

When I used Windows I liked some command line stuff too : set the DIRCMD environment variable to /O, have the console default to 80x43 and right-click to paste (I think, not sure that worked), and have Windows versions of wget and less.

Re:Some command line stuff

[semi-extrinsic]

Thanks for the dtrx tip! :)

Dolphin

[Anonymous Coward]

That's it...

VirtualBox

[Anonymous Coward]

At which point my "real" desktop, browser, email, and other critical stuff is instantly usable without me needing to spend the next 2 weeks re-fixing all the "1000 papercuts" stuff that i've tweaked over the last x years. It doesn't even matter if I "re"installed a completely different OS on the host.

Mostly

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome, 7zip, Visual Studio, Paint.Net, Gimp, Blender, Java SDK, WAMP, VLC.

Pretty sure thats my basic list. Plus some C++ libraries.

Always Total Commander first!

[Anonymous Coward]

On Windows: Total Commander, putty, Firefox, Thunderbird, winamp, gimp, mplayerc

Directory/File Name Changer

[Anonymous Coward]

Unbelievably useful.
Rename by ~, recursive, change pre and suffix. etc. etc.
The first time you don't have it and want to manually rename more than a few non-accurate filenames.
Wether it's a script or an app MUST HAVE. :-)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

MediaWiki

[epine]

MediaWiki. Before I created my note-taking wiki, my ideas went off in all directions.

I'm also pretty heavy into R/C/C++/zsh/ZFS/git right now.

basic createware

[tverbeek]

I use OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, so exceptions/substitutions are made when an app isn't available for a given platform.

DropBox - Because that's where all the stuff I'm working on at any given time is.

Firefox - Because I'm a same-browser-on-everything kinda guy, and I'm too stuck in my ways for that to be Chrome.

LibreOffice - Because I'm a same-wp-on-everything kinda guy, but not so stuck in my ways that it has be OpenOffice.

Manga Studio - Because I create comics as a hobby, and even on the machines that don't have stylus input, I like to be able to open the projects I'm working on, and work on lettering or coloring. I don't use the GIMP because I think it's worth buying myself nice software sometimes, and I don't use Adobe Creative Shite anymore because that doesn't have to mean wasting money.

CyberDuck - Because a simple drag-and-drop ftp client is handy for getting my stuff where it's going.

vim

[kvvbassboy]

vim is the better editor - there's absolutely no reason to choose emacs over vim

Re:vim

[Anonymous Coward]

vim is a nice and useful program to edit plain text.

Emacs is a system to do much, much more. The two are not really comparable at all. It would be like comparing a shovel to a hardware store.

Re:vim

[duckgod]

vim is the better editor - there's absolutely no reason to choose emacs over vim

Unless you want an operating system built into your test editor :)

Re:vim

[colinrichardday]

Except that modal text editors are annoying.

Re:vim

[funwithBSD]

You mean Word 2013?

Re:vim

[fisted]

yeah, they are annoying. for about a week, then suddenly non-modal editors feel annoying.

Re:vim

[colinrichardday]

Oh, vi annoyed me more than a week, and emacs didn't annoy me at all. In my original post, I should have said that I find modal text editors annoying, rather than they're just annoying.

Screen and Emacs

[Anonymous Coward]

I often need to configure new back-ends for my various mobile app projects, typically on Linode or EC2 instances. One of the first programs that I install is screen, then I'll copy over my .screenrc file. And then I'll install Emacs. While I'll use vi for quick in-and-out edits, I depend on Emacs for most of my back-end script writing (using Python mostly, these days).

I'd be so much less productive without screen's session persistence. And Emacs quick macro capability saves me a huge amount of labor.

My OS Agnostic First Install List

[Anonymous Coward]

These 4 get installed on every desktop PC I use (Currently 5):

Firefox
GnuCash
LibreOffice
Steam Client

goodbyemicrosoft.com

[lkcl]

yeah if it's a windows computer, the only piece of software i need is the one which was formerly available under the domain name goodbyemicrosoft.com. now it's available directly from the debian.org web site.

grep

[Anonymous Coward]

but more seriously, as android/ios have pushed in so hard, my desktop favs seem way less relevant. someone mentioned titanium backup, which i would agree but i think clockwork recovery or twrp are probably more important on arm devices i use. 7zip of course is good but the list used to be quite rigid for a windows install, which is why i built custom windows install discs for years. winnt.sif or whatever (its been years) but now i just blow it all out once in a while. my 4 linux machines all run different distros and not much additional is common between them beyond basic command line tools

At wrok? or Home?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

At work: chrome, cygwin, visual slickedit, git extensions. (msdev, msoffice and firefox preinstalled by IT)

At home: firefox, chrome, quicken, picassa

Re: At wrok? or Home?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Cygwin

Research tools

[Anonymous Coward]

LOIC, Hydra and CAIN.
I must use Tor and Vidalia (to keep an eye on the connection).
Bash comes by default on XUBUNTU and I like that shell so that's what I use.
Gedit is the editor I like to write scripts.
Last thing I do is open a Libre Office document so I can keep that open in Desktop #2 and switch the screen to that when I detect "curious" eyes looking at my screen whenever I work from Starbucks or McCaffe.

A few things no one else has mentioned yet.

[Gondola]

* Launchy: I switch from my sitting desk to a standing desk throughout the day. Instead of using a glitchy duplicate Start button, I use Launchy to run things. Now I don't use the Start button very often anymore, even when it's on the screen.

* Dual Monitor, for duplicate task bars. It's glitchy, though. Crashes a couple times a day, but at least it's not a destructive crash. I should write an AutoHotKey script to restart it when it crashes...

* AutoHotKey: There are a few things I use this for, and it really comes in handy to do those little things that make life easier, like cheating in Cookie Clicker. Actually, its primary use for me is to move all my windows from my 2-screen sitting desk layout to my 1-screen standing desk layout with a simple key combo. But, it comes in handy when I need to quickly automate any repetitive task.

* KeyNote NF: It's a hierarchical note-taking app like Evernote used to be. It's lightweight and intuitive to use, although I'm still looking for something that works with mobile and web that isn't heavy like Evernote is now.

* LICEcap for capturing GIFs easily, cleanly, with a small-ish file size. Better than GifCam, and GifCam is pretty great.

Re:A few things no one else has mentioned yet.

[Blaskowicz]

Autohotkey is great, and I especially liked the old-style help that covers everything, has examples and is local (not on the web).
I used it to control sound volume with hotkeys, even gamma correction (rivatuner allowed to great shortcuts to set gamma at 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 etc. and then I ran that with Autohotkey) and miscellaneous stuff like win+s opened a command prompt in like 0.1 second.

I sort of miss it on linux, where you seemingly have to do window manager specific stuff manually, sometimes with a limited GUI if you happen to have one and it's just harder to do stuff (I could write in detail about what sucks in my current environment but I'll let it at that).

Ninite

[Minwee]

If you are using Windows then start with ninite. It not only handles installation of a bunch of useful things, it also does the job of the package manager that Windows still doesn't have.

ssh

[srussell]

I think I literally couldn't manage without ssh. I always install tmux and vim on any machine I use, if they aren't already there. One of the varieties of KeePass is also mandatory for me.

--- SER

List

[the eric conspiracy]

This is what I use every day:

TurboTax
LightRoom
Chrome
Thunderbird
KeePass
Google Calendar

Re:List

[mysidia]

TurboTax

Every day? You must be a tax preparation professional.... :)

vim

[cgum]

I know this post was designed to create a Slashdot civil war, but I was always a Notepad++ lover until I saw someone coding in a modern IDE with vim keybindings. Now, in addition to using vi, vim, gvim and macvim, I use vimium in Google Chrome, and vim plugins for both Visual Studio and IntelliJ (Windows and Mac). It is just crazy how much faster you can code without going to the mouse. When I get on someone else's computer, I just die inside a little. Also, don't forget to remap your Caps Lock key to Esc. It's a registry setting on Windows and there's a little program called PCKeyboardHack on the Mac.

On Ubuntu...

[JoeCommodore]

(Beyond rthe base install which includes GIMP, Firefox and LibreOffice)
- A desktop environment that actuially is usable
- Inkscape
- Scribus
- Apache, PHP, MySQL, Aptana, PHPMyAdmin
- Picasa
- K3b
- Xine and whatever I need to play DVDs
- Ghex
- Adobe Reader
- Printer Drivers
- Synaptic Package Manager
- Gparted

KeePass

[gitano_dbs]

KeePass http://keepass.info/ is the first thing i put on a new device.

Re:KeePass

[Soulskill]

KeePass is probably at the top of my list, too. There isn't much software I use on a daily basis that I'd really be annoyed at swapping out for an alternative, but this one would make things difficult.

Re:KeePass

[Buchenskjoll]

KeepAss?

on Mac OS

[PuddleBoy]

(I have not had to install a fresh OS of 10.x in years - knock on wood)

Firefox - lots of control thru add-ons
GraphicConverter - I shoot lots of digital pix and this piece of shareware does most of what I need to manipulate the bulk of them
BBEdit - just the best test editor
JAlbum - easy way to make web albums of hundreds of pix at a time
Transmit - most refined ftp client I've ever run into
LIttle Snitch - nice to know what's coming and going on your box

Re:on Mac OS

[bhiestand]

I felt the same about BBedit, until I got good with textmate... I'd never go back, at this point.

Making Mac usable:
Path Finder - Finder replacement
TotalSpaces 2 - improves workspaces.. instant switching, very customizable.
Unclutter - better than leaving files on desktop, stores notes very well
Bartender - tidies the menu bar
Quicksilver - launcher
Xee - image viewer

Productivity:
Parallels
MS Office
TextMate
OmniFocus

For admins, I'd also add:
Apple Remote Desktop
VPN Tracker (if you need a bunch of IPSec vpns)
Tunnelblick or Viscosity (OpenVPN)
lots of aliases, setting up .ssh, etc.

The rundown

[wjcofkc]

Gedit
Scratch
Synapse
Xpad
Geany
Qt 4 Designer
Python
Gimp
Inkscape
Shotwell
Filezilla
Chrome
Thunderbird
Brasero
Clementine
VLC
LibreOffice
gnome-system-monitor

I'm running Bohdi Linux (E17), a few favorite built apps and functionality:

Terminology
Enlightenment File Manager
eDeb
Configure secondary monitor workspaces as tiling (awesome - could not live without - and one of the primary reasons I run Enlightenment) primary tiling workspace dedicated to Chrome, Terminology, and Gedit
Of course it's Enlightenment so I spend the next two-days configuring all of the fine details.

My list for Macs

[david.emery]

If I'm configuring a laptop that I'll use for both work and vacation:

Default Folder (an add-on/replacement for the Open File dialog)
Graphic Converter (photo manipulation application)
Aquamacs (very well done MacOS version of EMACS)
HDRtist Pro (HDR processing application)
OmniGraffle (Mac equivalent to Visio, drawing package)
Aperture (Photo organizing)
1Password (Password safe)
DiskWarrior (File system maintenance)
Syncovery (front end to rsync)

This doesn't include the stuff I find essential that's built into Mac OS X (and its Unix foundations, such as ssh and bash.)

And for what it's worth, I've been using Graphic Converter and Default Folder for at least 20 years, back to Mac OS 7 days. It says something about the quality/utility of these two applications that they've "stood the test of time."

Re:My list for Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

I also install :
perian - fairly universal codec
a keyremapper - (laptop only) I think it is keyremap4macbook, so I can have a forward delete and an option key on both sides
miniVmac - so I can play dark castle

FAULTY MEMORY

[PopeRatzo]

KeePass 2 is the one software I cannot live without.

I can't remember exactly why.

Re:Not a developer, but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not libre, but it is gratis mIRC-style nagware, and makes for a fantastic IDE. Sublime Text.

The ones I would love to ditch but can't

[Laconique]

In order of importance for my work 1. Adobe Acrobat Pro (repeat the above line eight more times) 10. MS Word I can almost do all MS Word stuff with freeware alternatives, but almost. Acrobat alternatives? For pdf power users there is no alternative. None. I don't do graphics much but I can see that GIMP is no photoshop. It *seems* to me that Acrobat vs alternatives' gap is even bigger. But may just be because I don't do graphic works. MS Word

Far Manager (Windows)

[aruffino84]

This tool is a nice command prompt replacement. It has two panes for directory listings. It has auto-complete, programmable macros, file search and a lot more features that I don't use but may still be useful. It also has a built in text editor/ file viewer that is nice for opening very large log files where some other windows programme might complain.

I have simple needs.

[technomom]

Chrome, Notepad++ and Eclipse if I'm doing any development work.

For WINDOWS users!

[the_cosmocat]

Another reply to be sure that no WINDOWS user missed it!!!!

The first thing that a windows user should install to gain a LOT of time installing and updating software:
http://chocolatey.org/
http://chocolatey.org/
http://chocolatey.org/
http://chocolatey.org/
http://chocolatey.org/
http://chocolatey.org/

And the list of all the available software
http://chocolatey.org/packages

After, you could install your other software using chocolatey ;) (even using a bat script!)

Re:For WINDOWS users!

[gbrayut]

>Another reply to be sure that no WINDOWS user missed it!!!!
>The first thing that a windows user should install to gain a LOT of time installing and updating software:
>http://chocolatey.org/

Yep... here is my Chocolaty setup script:

cinst binroot #Sets installs to c:\chocolatey\bin and c:\chocolatey\lib
cinst notepadplusplus.install
cinst 7zip.install
cinst GoogleChrome-AllUsers
cinst GoogleChrome.Canary
cinst putty
cinst winscp
cinst sysinternals
cinst fiddler4
cinst paint.net
cinst dropbox
cinst SkyDrive
cinst resharper
cinst tortoisesvn
cinst linqpad4
cinst wireshark
cinst evernote
cinst nmap
cinst Cygwin
cinst PowerGUI
cinst trillian
cinst rdcman
cinst imgburn
cinst diffmerge
cinst aspnetmvc
cinst treesizefree
cinst tomboy
cinst cpu-z
cinst curl
cinst baretail
cinst reflector
cinst grepwin
cinst tfpt #TFS 2010 power tools
cinst stylecop
cinst githubforwindows
cinst MicrosoftSecurityEssentials
cinst ultravnc
cinst Gallio
cinst CutePDF
cinst daemontoolslite
cinst smplayer2
cinst skifree
cinst webpicmd

#the last one gives access to anything in web platform installer, like:
webpicmd /install /Products:WDeployNoSMO /AcceptEULA #For Web Deploy

Re:You mean other than what is installed by Defaul

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the need to communicate with non-nerds via video chat, but you might want to check out Jitsi, as it does encrypted truly peer-to-peer video chat, and has OTR support built in for the text chat side of things, and will work with existing xmpp accounts. Only drawback I have with it is that it's java (one of the two programs I keep java installed at all for), but generally it's bug-free enough that t hat doesn't cause much issue.

You first

[safetyinnumbers]

An anonymous reader writes "Whenever I install a fresh operating system on my computer, I immediately grab a handful of programs that I simply must have.

And yet won't tell us what they are?

SystemD

[Anonymous Coward]

systemd. Key to everything.

SYSTEMD!

USB and video but no terminal server

[tepples]

In order to interact with a text editor running on the target, you need either A. an entire USB and video stack on the target or B. a terminal server such as SSH on the target. Which targets are you talking about that have A and lack B?

Re:USB and video but no terminal server

[Zero__Kelvin]

"In order to interact with a text editor running on the target, you need either A. an entire USB and video stack on the target or B. a terminal server such as SSH on the target. . Which targets are you talking about that have A and lack B?"

When you start with a false premise your conclusion will always be in error. Try learning about RS-232 and TTYs.

Re:USB and video but no terminal server

[rthille]

There's no reason why you can't use tramp over serial. I never have to leave emacs, it'll even transparently bounce thru a 'beachhead' system to get to systems "on the other side".

Emacs is a pain to setup/learn for some things, but automation wins in the end.

Re:USB and video but no terminal server

[Zero__Kelvin]

Your claim directly contradicts the official emacs documentation to which I linked. Maybe you should inform them that they are wrong?

Re:USB and video but no terminal server

[xophos]

Actually when you start with a false premise your conclusion can be anything, it can even be true.

Re:USB and video but no terminal server

[Zero__Kelvin]

It depends on what you mean by a conclusion. As far as I am concerned the conclusion and premise are so tightly inter-woven that you may come up with the correct answer, but your conclusion is still dead wrong. In other words, I consider the actual conclusion to be: A is true because of B, note merely "A is true". If you think the terms "answer" and "conclusion" are straight synonyms then you are correct. I don't believe they are.

Re:USB and video but no terminal server

[rthille]

Learn about terminal servers: http://blog.philippklaus.de/20...

Serial ports have been gatewayed to telnet for years.

Re:Not a developer, but.....

[TechNeilogy]

Geany on Linux; a nice little editor reminiscent of Notepad++.

On Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a bash script that installs a list of essential software on any new Debian installation. Here's the list:
        - Google Chrome
        - Firefox
        - Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/)
        - Matlab
        - Blender
        - CMake
        - GIMP
        - Audacity
        - ImageMagick
        - Skype
        - MeshLab
        - Open office suite
        - CUDA
        - TeXLive 2012 (http://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire.html)
        - Emacs 24+
        - build-essentials
        - astyle (http://astyle.sourceforge.net/)
        - Doxygen
        - gedit
        - sloccount (http://www.dwheeler.com/sloccount/)
        - Subversion
        - git
        - Valgrind
        - gdb
        - VirtualBox
        - Python
        - VLC Media player
        - ffmpeg
        - mencoder
        - Non-free codecs for multimedia (MP3, MPG4, H.264, and other modern video codecs)
        - Eclipse
        - Dropbox

As a composer and writer ...

[bfootdav]

emacs (apt-get ...)
Lilypond (latest development version from the site)
TeXLive (never use your distro's version of TeX/LaTeX -- always just install TeXLive)
Timidity (playback of the MIDI files that Lilypond creates and convert them to FLAC)
mplayer

Re:As a composer and writer ...

[colinrichardday]

TeXLive (never use your distro's version of TeX/LaTeX -- always just install TeXLive)

Why not use your distro's version?

Re:As a composer and writer ...

[bfootdav]

Sorry I'm so late to reply. Most distros are horribly out of date with the version they package thus missing out on bug fixes and new packages. But even if it is up-to-date it's unnecessary. TeXLive has its own method for upgrading that's similar to apt-get. Basically every day I run: tlmgr update --all which lists and updates everything that needs an update as well as installing any new packages. Every year there's a new version of TeXLive so you just install it into a new directory, change a link to point to it instead of the old one and you're ready to go.

The Software off Button

[SuilAmhain]

Followed closely by the silence that it brings.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I'm sure there's awesome and easy to find documentation that is friendly to new users. Not some obscure config file that you first have to find without anyone telling about its existance.

Re:Seriously?

[maevius]

It's not about stupidity, anonymous troll. It's about time having some actual value.

Off the top of my head

[MarcoAtWork]

Windows:
- microsoft security essentials
- windows firewall control (commercial)
- cygwin
- notepad++
- sysutils (procmon etc.)
- ultramon (commercial)
- launchy
- sharpkeys
- autohotkey
- visual c++ express
- 7-zip

Mac:
- little snitch (commercial)
- macports
- better touch tool
- keyremap4macbook
- iterm2
- alfred
- geektool
- menumeters
- caffeine
- xcode

Linux:
- whatever distro-specific set of packages gets me all the dev stuff
- (if needed) whatever distro-specific repository gets me extra packages (say, epel)
- kde
- xfce
- various personal customizations done over the years (xmodmap, ...)

Everywhere:
- firefox (noscript, requestpolicy, adblock, flashblock)
- emacs
- python / virtualenvwrapper / git ...
- bash customizations (powerline, bash completions, personal scripts)
- libreoffice and latex
- truecrypt
- virtualbox
- dropbox
- gimp

these are the baseline, beyond that it depends from what I am using the actual computer for

Re:Off the top of my head

[Anonymous Coward]

Halfway down the page I finally see Truecrypt mentioned. That's almost step 1 for me, since most of my apps are the 'portable' versions which I keep in archived Truecrypt containers. After installing a fresh copy of Windows, I just mount the container as Z:\ and make some shortcuts to all my apps.

requirements to make my doings easier.

[Trax3001BBS]

My list as close to the order they are installed. I would indeed suffer without them

Power Pro - tell me you know what that is and you'll be the first, I've used it since Win95

HOSTS file I drag around is set in place, not a program but a requirement of mine

COMODO firewall version 5.3.1767, as the newer versions almost require you to call for support.

Opera 12. - Browser - for as long as I can

UltraEdit - text editor

ACDSee - Graphic viewer

Agent version 1.93 Emailer/Usenet

Stunnel to allow an older Agent 1.93 to connect to a secure SSL connection

WhereIsIt - CD/DVD/BlueRay Data base creator and file finder

TreeSize Pro - better than a guess how large a directory or disk is

Agent Ransack - search program.

Bulk Rename Utility - an amazingly full featured program to rename files, Located in the directory below. My Cameras have stopped storing the date on the picture itself, this program adds the date taken to the file name for me.

I have one directory D:\MISGPRGS that I store stand alone's, programs that don't need to be installed or once installed fine on their own, that are too many to mention I don't require a lot of them or have even forgotten some that still there (210 directories now) but it's available to drag shortcuts to the desktop of my newest OS, As well as a few directories within, that are added to my path, Irfanview is there, Process Explorer, as is my Debugger (windbg.exe) and it's requirements.

  BTW PowerPro is a jack of all trades type program. A bar of 8 boxes (at the moment), that takes care of the repetitive actions of using Windows. The same as AutoHotKey, and AutoIt. I believe all share the same history in the beginning, one splitting from the other. PowerPro started as Stiletto; a three button mouse program.

As a side note: I sent $25 to the author of PowerPro just before he released it as freeware, that was the third and finial time; for me to send money for software, they quit (no Zmodem), or go freeware.

I'm all setup to lose a system and be up in a few hours, until Win7 always had 3 or more OS's to fall back on. But still good to be up and running in a short time. Linux Mint is installed now for a dual system but (ducks) not a requirement for me.

Do notice no malware prevention other than the HOSTS file, and firewall, no AVG, NOD32 - Just a bit of common sense has kept me as in control as is possible any more.

One thing I miss very much is a very small program who's name I've forgotten (XP broke it) but it grabbed the strings from any program - I know Linux has this. but Windows is lacking in this department, I use Ultra Edit but it's not as easy nor as informative - no String command comes close.

Re: requirements to make my doings easier.

[srg33]

"Power Pro - tell me you know what that is and you'll be the first, I've used it since Win95"
Windows PowerPro gives you the power to control your system and how you access programs because it allows you to choose the combination of how to activate and what to activate.

Re: requirements to make my doings easier.

[Trax3001BBS]

"Power Pro - tell me you know what that is and you'll be the first, I've used it since Win95"
Windows PowerPro gives you the power to control your system and how you access programs because it allows you to choose the combination of how to activate and what to activate.

You'd think it was a fishing line, it's now delegated to the second page of resultshttp://powerpro.cresadu.com/

Thinking of subject after posting to it, I have programs that I use all the time without them being "to die for", just damn handy to have around like.

SndRec32 - open it up and play small sound bytes as fast as you can drop them on top of it, or use VLC (excellent in it's own right) to take it's sweet time to play a 2 second clip. SndRec32 isn't part of Win7, I had to bring it over from XP.

Just about anything by sysinternals http://technet.microsoft.com/e... or nirsoft http://www.nirsoft.net/

HTTRACK - website copier

PEEK is the program I couldn't remember that was handy as heck.
PEEK Version 1.1 for Windows95 and WindowsNT 4.0
Contextmenu Extension providing simple text extraction for any file.
XP broke it; but the read.me just might be enough to walk me through editing it to work with any Win OS (one can hope).

I found a program called "Universal Viewer" that claimed the same ability as PEEK, I tried it out on a batch of jpg's that are corrupt to see what I could find, It printed out: JPEG error #53 - I miss PEEK! :}

Windows 7 boxen need only 1 thing installed

[raymorris]

there is only one thing I install on a box that already has windows. Linux!

Calibre!

[nospam007]

Don't know about reliable but for people with e-readers it's a must.

Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot live without the beta site. Long live beta!

I have a Mac so that is easy

[angel'o'sphere]

I boot my old Mac in "target disk mode"(I believe it is called like that), that degrades the Mac into a simple fire wire disk.
During installation of my new Mac it will ask if and what to copy over from that fire wire mac disk pro. (That means it copies my User and all my Data and all the Apps that are not newer on the install DVD)

However as you asked about Applications: Open Office or Neo Office, Omni Outliner, Omni Gaffel, Parallels or vmware virtual machine (sometimes Virtual Box), "The Brain" a brain storming / knowledge management tool (runs on Linux and Windows, too)
Eve Online ofc.
The latest Java edition for that OS, Eclipse and IntelliJ, a few Apache tools, like Tomcat and Ivy, Maven, Ant, a Subversion and/or Git Server. Groovy and Scala, and since last year I'm playing with Squeak SmallTalk.
Standard unix tools, like vim and Apache httpd are preinstalled.
However if Mac OS X is continuing to mutate into an oversized iOS, my next Computer will run something else ... no new 17" Mac Book Pro in sight anyway :-/

Re:I have a Mac so that is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Target disk mode is one of the best computer features of all time.

I tend to not do complete migrations for 2 reasons:

1) The migration is so complete that it brings all the cruft with it. I like clean and new installs not a new place where I get the expert moving company to move all the hoarder crap in. I have found that the occasional wipe and reload is good for OSX too.

2) I'm a hackintosh guy now so though I have firewire I do not have TDM.

After the developer essentials are installed....

[mark-t]

cups-pdf is usually one of the first ones I put on./

Mixture of Paid, Free, and Open

[BrendaEM]

For all, most platforms: Libreoffice, Speedcrunch (Calculator), 7Zip, Firefox with Scrapbook, and Thunderbird

Windows Utility: FreeFileSync, Nvidia Inspector, PSpad, and Speedfan.
Windows Multimedia: SMplayer, Virtualdub, Avidemux, CDex, Audacity, Winff (Ffmepeg front end),
Windows Games: Thief 2, Guildwars 2,
Graphics and Design: Rhino3D, Photoshop, Inkscape (Going downhill. Pixels is the only unit that makes not sense for vector, WTF), Irfanview (But and looking elsewhere)

Geekie: Arduino, Processing,
Very Geekie Gucs (Circuit Simulator)
Very Very Geekie, Salome (Science Pre/post-processing), Paraview/Volvire (Visualization), Code Aster (FEM)

Linux: Most covered elsewhere.

Android: Colornote (Postits), Papyrus (Vectror Notes), Osman (Maps), Quickpic, Androoffice, Realcalc, FBreader.
Android Music: DaTuner, Simple Metronome, GuitarTabviewer
Need for Android, but not made: Librioffice, Taskcoach

Could do, but wouldn't want to live in a world...

[buttfuckinpimpnugget]

Without BSD UNIX.

according to the definition of software

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I say ... Windows? ... Please

My Apps List

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows:
VLC
Plex
Notepad++
TreesizeFree
Speedfan
Calibre
Oracle VirtualBox with CentOS and Debian VM
Replay media catcher
VMware vSphere
Keepass2
Newsbin
Handbrake
FreeMake
TeamViewer
Steam
utorrent (Looking for alternative)
Firefox/Chrome
putty
AutoHotKey
InfraView
XAMPP
Microsoft visual studio
Aptana studio
Git
CCLeaner
Malwarebytes
MSE
Flux
Multiplicity
AutoIT

How about favorite web sites?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Free software that I use and enjoy

[Anonymous Coward]

*Internet
Mozilla Firefox (MPL)
Mozilla Thunderbird (MPL)
Pidgin IM (GPL v2)
PuTTY (MIT)

*Productivity
LibreOffice (LGPL v3)
Sumatra PDF (GPL v3)
Notepad++ (GPL v2)

*File Utilities
7-Zip (LGPL v2.1)
WinDirStat (GPL v2)
Cyberduck (GPL v2)

*Multimedia
VLC media player (GPL v2)
foobar2000 (Not open, freeware)
Clementine Music Player (GPL v3)
MP3 Diags (GPL v2)
EasyTag (GPL v2)
or Mp3tag (Not open, freeware)

*Encryption
TrueCrypt (Semi-free, TrueCrypt License)
KeePassX (GPL v2)

*Misc.
WinMerge (GPL v2)
Redshift (GPL v3)
or f.lux (Not open, freeware)

my list

[Xicor]

thunderbird, skype, chrome, win rar, truecrypt and notepad ++

GNU software with Linux kernel

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a full system I can get for free (as in free beer), with GPL protected source code that I am free (as in freedom) to learn from is a wonderful gift.

Attack vector survey?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this from an anonymous submitter? This Ask Slashdot seems like it's for gathering attack vectors.... Just like not giving personal information to FaceBook, why would you tell slashdot anything about yourself that could be used against you?

must haves (for linux users)

[Anonymous Coward]

LibreOffice - latest version, not the old one from your distro
http://www.libreoffice.org/ (install with dpkg -i *.deb)

Dia https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Dia (poor mans visio)
Lyx http://www.lyx.org/ (easy latex editor) with modern-cv to keep my CV up to date
Metasploit, Nessus, ettercap, wireshark, nmap, etc. just for fun

Avidemux, ffmpeg and VLC media player for everything related to video and audio
Gimp and Blender (latest version) for photo editing and 3D-stuff

Mathmatician/Professor perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

During my 15 year long career, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of:

Latex
Ghostscript
Octave/GNUplot
Emacs
Xfig
Firefox

In fact, there are only two proprietary programs I rely on heavily: The first is MS Office (can't budge on that, docx is unfortunately the language of communication at my workplace)....LibreOffice works fine in a pinch, but anyone who deals with templated documents in the latest MS format can vouch that its not 1:1. The other is Adobe Acrobat Reader. I very rarely use it, but if I'm making a PDF for widespread dissemenation to my students or colleagues, I like to run it through since I've had issues in the past with docs looking good in Acrobat but no in OSS PDF readers (or vice versa).

Re:Not a developer, but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Tools for Windows:
- ProcMon.exe, ProcExp.exe, autoruns.exe from SysInternals
- Wireshark, windirstat.exe
- notepad++, firefox,
- ilspy.exe, pythonWin
- grep.exe from cygwin plus it's 4 dll dependencies
plus a GUI tool to right-click on any file in Explorer to provide "copy this path" functionality

Re:You mean other than what is installed by Defaul

[Hognoxious]

It may have been an old version I tried, but I was singularly unimpressed by Calibre.

It silently failed to convert some files, plus it insisted on copying every file I opened with it to its own directory.

Software I need.

[Anonymous Coward]

A browser, a spreadsheet, a pdf reader, a epub reader, a mp3 player, a video player.

My list of essentials: (windows)

[gman003]

For all purposes:
Firefox, Chrome and Opera - I use separate browsers to keep home/work/porn separated. Install AdBlock on both Firefox and Chrome.
MPC-HC - I'm fine with WMP for music, but for video I need MediaPlayer Classic
LibreOffice - Because you can't do everything with plain text files
Notepad++ - Because there's a lot you *can* do with plain text files
7zip - Handles every compressed file format I've ever seen, except for one really old Mac-specific one I had to use once
Steam - Because at this point I have too many games to abandon Steam, and it really is good at managing such a big library

For work only:
Thunderbird - I used to be able to use GMail's web app, but now that I have two work email addresses I need a full-fledged email client
Paint.NET, GIMP, and Inkscape - for image editing. Paint.NET is useful for making quick edits, like rotating an image. I'm usually done before GIMP would have started up
PuTTY - Best way to connect to my fleet of Linux servers
Komodo - Best IDE for when files are stored on a remote server, as is common with web apps
MySQL Workbench + SQL Server Management Studio - Best way to test database stuff

If using Windows 8, also add Classic Shell Start Menu. It makes it *better* than the W7 start menu once you tweak it right.
And for a first install, Ninite will let you automatically install about 90% of these. Very useful program.

my list

[Anonymous Coward]

lastpass
firefox
office
itunes
notepad++
putty
filezilla
pandora
winauth
photoshop
skype
avg free antivirus

Re:1 I wrote myself for GOOD reason(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Why's the post I replied to minus moderated for? He's as entitled to reply here as anyone else is with his thoughts and I don't see anyone proving what he said is false either.

SW

[Anonymous Coward]

SMS, iMessage, a web browser, email, calendar, address book, Notes, Picasa and Eve-Online. Done.

My list for Linux

[Prof.Phreak]

My list (that's the command I run on all boxes I have). I think it has just about everything an average poweruser/developer would want.

apt-get install vim-gnome ssl-cert apache2 php5 postgresql php5-pgsql default-jdk libclass-dbi-perl libdbd-pg-perl libapache2-mod-perl2 libdate-manip-perl octave nmap irssi uptimed rsync subversion cvs build-essential mysql-server mysql-client php5-mysql virtualbox wine texlive-full openssh-server screen openssh-client ntp jhead imagemagick k3b libk3b6-extracodecs mplayer dict dictd dict-foldoc dict-gcide dict-devil dict-jargon dict-wn htop audacious audacious-plugins cmatrix r-base rKward ecryptfs-utils libimage-exiftool-perl finger ant git eclipse javahelper transcode libav-tools ucspi-tcp-ipv6 chromium-browser maven2 mercurial meld lame gnome-disk-utility ffmpeg sshfs dos2unix opencl-headers handbrake-gtk libapache2-mod-gnutls ia32-libs

Re:My list for Linux

[semi-extrinsic]

Missing (IMHO):
zsh most ack gfortran mlocate keychain latexmk mupdf feh corkscrew

Re:My list for Linux

[Blaskowicz]

beware, "apt-get install virtualbox" leaves you without the GUI and without the kernel module these days (on ubuntu 13.10 derivate), so you need "apt-get install virtualbox-qt" instead. Right after I learnt not to want to install "virtualbox-ose".. It is weird. Also audacious is nice but you may want to try deadbeef (distributed as a statically linked tarball. that sucks in some way, but it works.)

Re:My list for Linux

[Prof.Phreak]

added. thank you :-)

I think I've forgotten what advertising is....

[Dartz-IRL]

Quite simply, Adblock Plus. It's made the internet a much less annoying and aggravating place.

First Installs

[amxcoder]

These are the basics I go with for starters:

AntiVirus Software of Choice (Vipre)
FreeCommander (similar to TotalCommander)
FireFox
NotePad++
Office/Email Software (Microsoft for main PC, or Openoffice/LibreOffice for other PC's)
PDF XChange Viewer
Dropbox
VLC
NetSetMan (awesome for quick changing of network settings for connecting to different networks)


then I start installing development software and other neccessary software for work.

Desktop utilities

[Immerman]

-Virtuawin - mature, stable virtual desktops for Windows. There's prettier alternatives, but this is the I've tried that has never caused any crashing or other issues.
-WinCompose - Gives Windows users a Compose key for entering unicode characters (plus-or-minus, subscripts, extended math symbols, etc) using the same mnemonics as are standard on *nixes, rather than having to remember their code point or use a character map.
-Everything - File search by name, winnows down a list of every file on your hard drive just as fast as you can type the word-fragments that should be in the file name (NTFS only)
-WinDirstat - Directory size information - interactive tree-view is available instantly and updated as the breadth-first scan proceeds, pillow-view is added once the scan is complete.
-BabelMap - far more powerful alternative to Character Map, including the ability to search by character name or browse by code page
-SpeedCrunch - good calculator that keeps a long calculation history
-GraphCalc - excellent 2D/3D programmable graphing calculator. Open source, but apparently pretty much abandoned.

I won't bother much with heavyweight apps, since others have listed them many times. Except for
Code::Blocks - cross-platform IDE. Not the best I've used, but it's available on all the major OSes.
EasyMercurial - super-simplified, "grandma suitable" GUI interface for the handful of most commonly used version control functions, including graphical visualization of the branch/merge graph. Whether you don't use version control as not worth the hassle, or want to introduce budding developers to the wonders of source control without getting them bogged down in the details, you need this. And if/when you outgrow it your archives are all standard Mercurial, so you can seamlessly upgrade to the command line or a more powerful GUI.

Re:Seriously?

[jones_supa]

Are you that stupid that you can't figure out how to create your own .tcshrc file for the behavior you want in your environment?

Are you seriously fucking suggesting that one should manually create config to just make very basic things like tab completion and Home and End keys to work? That's just crap software.

Total Commander

[Anonymous Coward]

I am absolutely used to any kind of nc clone - midnight commander on *x, Total Commander on windows.

Software I can't Live without...

[hackus]

operating system software that doesn't have source code.

I swear I will quit the computing field if I can't use source code any more, for example my OS kernel.

I will open up a Indian restaurant or something.

basics

[Anonymous Coward]

for gnu_app in [ 'bash', 'gcc', 'kernel', 'vim', 'glibc', 'ldd', 'make' ] :
      make install gnu_app
print('that is all you need!', the rest is bloat!!)

--python ;-)
http://goodcode.co.uk

My List

[inglorion_on_the_net]

First things first:

aptitude so dependencies automatically get installed and uninstalled. Edit the configuration to not install recommended packages by default. Keep it lean!

Then:

openntpd (or some other ntpd) so the computer will know what time it is.

sudo so that I can log in as a regular user and still do system maintenance.

openssh-server (or some other SSH server) so I can log in remotely. I usually change the port number. Make sure root logins are disabled.

tmux so that I can have multiple shells in a single ssh session. screen works for this, too, but I recently switched to tmux.

rsync so that I can copy files around efficiently.

After that, it depends on what I want to do with the system. Usually, there will be at least some software development, so build-essential (libc-dev, gcc, make), irb, git. Usually ssh and some network debugging tools like ping and traceroute6.

I like zsh, so if I'm going to be using the system extensively, I'll install that. If this is my primary system, irssi and mutt. If the system has enough memory to run it, emacs24-nox.

If I want a GUI, xserver-xorg, xterm, whatever window manager I happen to like at the moment (wmii), some web browser (iceweasel).

It's been a while since I've last done this, so I may have missed some things, but this seems to be about it. The package names are for Debian-like systems and will likely be a bit different for other systems, but I don't generally maintain those.

In the past...

[rnturn]

... when I kept an emergency DOS boot floppy I would have included a smallish text editor like 'edlin' and a hex editor (for editing binaries, screwed up wordperfect files, etc.). Later on I replaced 'edlin' with 'point', a nifty editor that came with Logitech's mice that could edit files of any size that would fit in memory. Probably not exactly what the OP was asking about but those were my go-to tools back in those days.

Nowadays, I try and install Emacs (yes, vi is everywhere but I started out with the Perfect suite on DOS and then microemacs on Coherent so Emacs key bindings are permanently burned into my brain and if I'm going to be working on something all day, I find Emacs to be more useful), PostgreSQL, a slew of Perl modules, rcs, make, and R. Yeah, yeah... a C compiler is required for the Perl modules so I'll want that on at least one system. If I have the space I'll toss TeX (and a couple of closely related -- for me at least -- tools like ps2pdf, etc.) on my primary system so I can pound out documentation, especially for things that change fairly often (MS Office and LibreOffice drive me crazy). I use rcs for tracking changes in those .tex files; don't need anything heavier than that. Even if I'm stuck on a Windows system, I'll be downloading Cygwin and including those tools.

Now let the flames begin!

VIM

[Anonymous Coward]

*Debian (preferrably from Sid)
*Blender
*VIM with some python markup niceness. (If you want to be productive with programming take the time to learn this.)
*Yakuake (quake style console).
*Python and various packages like Django, SQLAlchemy, python-virtualenv.
*Most of the linux command line tools, grep, awk, more, less, cat, dog, top, ls, find, ps, kill, bg, fg.
*Little tools like clipman
*ffmpeg
*k3b
*Firefox, chromium (both with all the addons to block ads etc eg: stop the internet being s**t).
*VLC
*GIMP and Inkscape (by no means good with these but i dont care they work well enough).

I could have listed a whole web stack but i can live without it. (my job). Its all FOSS and every time i have to go back to Windows/Mac i think how can anyone stand the rubbish OS'es those two companies produce now.

I can live without all of it

[rla3rd]

Things I can't live without: Air, Food, Water, Shelter

Re:I can live without all of it

[sabbasolo]

The revised maslow hierarchy of needs: Food, water, internet, clothing, shelter, ...

Emacs

[Anonymous Coward]

A computer person without Emacs is like an astronaut without Tang.

FreeHand

[eclipticart]

First thing for me always is FreeHand MX because it simply is still the best graphics design software ever. As it is PPC software, I stay on Mac OS X 10.6.8. And with every new version of OS X I am more glad I did, when I see all the crap Apple has produced since.

Most used software

[Anonymous Coward]

1. nedit - program editor
2. openvpn - lets me connect to networks that are otherwise locked out from access, such as company AWS (Amazon cloud) clusters.
3. Chrome (and/or Firefox)
4. VirtualBox (virtual machine manager)
5. Wine - lets me run many Windows apps on Linux directly
6. VLC - best overall audio/video player out there - supports the widest range of audio/video types.
7. K3b - best for burning audio/video discs and ripping audio discs to mp3 files. The options it supports are awesome.

For a rodent-free environment

[Anonymous Coward]

vim-common, tmux, i3wm, urxvt, dmenu-desktop, mutt, w3m, vimperator Firefox plugin, moc, Finch, ctags-exuberant, GCC, make, Oracle Java, android sdk,Ruby, Perl, php, and any other interpreters I am working with at the moment.

CLI power user

[Anonymous Coward]

- openssh
- mosh
- tmux
- mutt
- rsync
- vim
- vim-outliner
- GNU toolchain
- wyrd
- orpie
- sc
- links2
- bitlbee
- irssi

+ gui:
firefox-aurora
gimp
openshot
Xmonad
Xfce
rox
audacity
audacious
vlc

My rig has so much damn RAM I needs an EMM!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obivously HIMEM.SYS and then Phar-Lap's EMM. Phar-Lap is the only way to go, Quarterdeck total squandered that gold.

Essential

[BlackHawk-666]

apt-get
nano

For Programming:

Sublime 3

MobaXTerm

[hessian]

This looks cool:

http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

Visual demonstration on page.

These Tweaks Help my Productivity

[WheezyJoe]

I use Windows 7 at work, lots of word processing and PDF documents. These are now essential to me:

Winroll (right-click on X pushes window behind other windows)
do-PDF
Handyfind (must-have find-text-as-you-type tool, works in most apps incl. Office)
Cygwin (rsync, fortune messages in a periodic loop)
ClassicShell
PDF-Xchange Viewer (free OCR)
7-zip
Actual Window Manager (Commercial, but worth it. Sizer is a less capable but free substitute).
T-Clock 2010
Office 2003 (white-hot hate for the Ribbon; will re-consider LibreOffice/OpenOffice if they ever provide a Normal/Draft Mode for Writer)
Marxio Checksum Verifier
LibreOffice Draw
Gimp (imports and edits scanned PDF files)
...and my weirdest one: Window 7 hack to enable focus-follow-mouse.

The latter was available for XP under TweakUI, but went missing with Windows 7 and I needed it so bad I wound up hacking something myself.
Like Winroll and Actual Window Manager, this feature is inspired by a lot of time with X11. I cut my teeth back in the day with twm and lots of X-terms and Emacs windows, and I grew used to simply hitting the mouse with the side of my hand to shift from one window to another, without actually gripping the mouse and lining up my finger to click the button. Now, I find wherever I put the mouse pointer, I expect the underlying window to scroll with the wheel - I don't expect to have to click the left-button first and often don't want the window to raise either (oddly this is how it works on stock OS X, but only for the scroll wheel).
Windows plays surprisingly nice with focus-follow-mouse, and the odd UI glitches here and there with one app or another I've learned to work around; it's worth it.

Everything Search

[lq_x_pl]

By voidwaretools.

Locate32 is better

[kevlar_rat]

Locate32 is much faster than Agent Ransack

Productivity and Entertainment Applications

[JacobLeclerc]

Most noticeably I use VLC, can't live without it anymore. Windows media player is such a piece of junk. Then install MS Word and Excel. uTorrent is also among the few applications I can not live without. Need silverlight for Netflix and install WinRar only if needed(which is seldom anymore). I also install AVG free antivirus and dropbox is always a happy addition. Backup this restore point so trying out new apps won't bog down my system to unusability over time. Cheers!

Mine....

[Anonymous Coward]

Vim
Gcc with C++11
make
git
catch - unit testing framework.

For RSS/ATOM

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsbeuter - a curses based console RSS/ATOM aggregator for *nix for speedy news reading. Quite configurable and programmable.

Liferea is a decent gui option if you're terrified of text.

lesser known but useful

[dr_blurb]

Some of the lesser known high quality & useful software (so won't be listing emacs here):

• sox: commandline audio processing
• cdparanoia: CD ripper
• inkscape: SVG editor (ok pretty well known by now)
• xwrits: primitive but effective "RSI prevention" software
• valgrind: memory leak checker (and much more)
• gnuplot
• xxdiff: great graphical diff
• testdisk: data recovery
• ...

ACK - because it's better than grep

[AcerbusNoir]

It's one of the first things I install. http://beyondgrep.com/

Not affiliated, just a fan.

sudo aptitude install ....

[BlackPignouf]

zsh, vim+plugins, ssh, ssh keys, unison, git, rvm for ruby and some gems, guake/yakuake, htop, solarized and all the corresponding config files

I cannot live without.....

[jzatopa]

Linux, OSX or windows. A computer is useless to me without an OS.

Steam

[DeanCubed]

Of course. Steam.

Installed in first priority

[Anonymous Coward]

Vim , VLC, Chrome , Gimp, Pidgin, Perl
Peerblock , foobar2000 and qbittorrent and some AV solution (free as in beer) in Windows,

My essentials for home Windows PC

[SpammersAreScum]

Emacs
Firefox
Dexpot (best multi-desktop tool for my needs, out of several I've tried)
IZArc (7zip's GUI just annoys me for some reason)
vlc
ClamWin
Agent Ransack (I'll admit I've not tried the alternatives)
Cygwin
(I haven't got a clear favorite for music yet -- Foobar2000 or MediaMonkey, usually, but might give MusicBee a try)

Must-haves

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox, Taskbar Shuffle (on Windows Vista or earlier), OpenOffice (although it will be LibreOffice on my next machine), GCC, 7-Zip, GIMP, Process Explorer (on Windows), VLC, HexEdit, Audacity.
Plus a text editor, of course, although it doesn't have to be a specific one. On Windows I usually use Wordpad for plain text, and various enhanced editors for code.

Latest build...

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently gave up on the idea of sharing one base system for every app. So now I use a hybrid approach.

I run Gentoo Linux with a fully custom KVM/VirtIO kernel. The partitions are setup like this... /boot
/ - (gentoo minimal with only an X server, SSH, and virtual machine-manager, It doesn't have drivers for the wifi on purpose) /home - luks AES-Serpent encrypted with strong options /vm - LVM with 1 VolGroup /vm/router -> Internal router VM (gentoo minimal, it has wifi card attached through pci bus, it has the wifi driver and IDS/IPtables) /vm/xfce4 -> Desktop VM (gentoo minimal with only xfce4 installed. No X, instead I X11 forward to the host system. It has no internet, talks through loopback) /vm/chromium -> Browser (gentoo minimal with only chromium instlalled, it routes through router VM with IDS watching what it does. I snapshot this VM and roll it back often)

Then of course I have a VM for work, a VM for play, and that allows my stupid VPN for work to only eat it's traffic. It also saves me from stupid stuff like one client insisting on changing a low-level program's version number then another client wants the opposite. Now I have no issue with conflicting library versions when doing low-level C++ work using one machine.

I hacked up XFCE4's VM so that it has passwordless key-based SSH to run programs using menu entries. It gives the illusion that everything is just one desktop but in reality when you click a menu entry it runs ssh and X11 forwards the app back to the base X server.

After awhile I found other hidden benefits like being able to make a Gnome VM and just start that one instead of the XFCE4 VM if I was in a different mood. I now have E17 VM's and such. It's so seamless that people around me at work have no clue it's not a single desktop instance.

Re:Latest build...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo, sir/madam!

TeX/LaTeX

[colinrichardday]

I need TeX/LaTeX. And GNU emacs.

Matlab

[joe_frisch]

Been using it so long that its hardwired into my brain. Productivity drops at least 2X with any other tool (even after months of using Python).

Portable apps...

[Anonymous Coward]

For my work environment where I'm swapping PCs multiple times a day, use generic service desk logins with my colleagues and trouble shoot without the benefit of admin privileges. I use a pendrive where I must but run stuff of a network drive in the main. Most of what I use has been listed. I'll add Pstart for my app launcher, Pmeter which helps for webpage layout and pixie, a colour picker.

I couldn't work without

[Anonymous Coward]

/bin/sh

Putty

[ttucker]

Putty, the SSH, Serial, and Telnet utility knife.

On Windows.. Everything!

[thefoul]

Everything search tool @ http://www.voidtools.com/

Every data packrat or file hoarder needs this program!

sysprep

[Anonymous Coward]

sysprep. then i don't have to reinstall software every time.

PowerDesk Pro for Windows - worth the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

I have used PowerDesk since it came out in the late 90s and was for sale at Office Depot on a CD-ROM. Over two decades later, it's changed hands several times, but is still a must-have. This is a great file manager and worth the price. No matter how MS screws up the Windows GUI, PowerDesk has stayed the same over the years. Once they released a Windows 8 version, I started liking Windows 8. I've tried every other commercial and free file manager I can find, and always come back to PowerDesk.

I don't know how many people know about PowerDesk in 2014, but I recommend it. I have been a user for a decade and a half (or whatever).

Re:windows user picks

[ganjadude]

who moded this down? good information

Re:system monitor: htop

[vjoel]

htop is great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Not just basic monitoring, you can send signals, pin processes to cpus, use strace.

I do wish it were extensible (for example, to add a temperature monitor).

Re

[Anonymous Coward]

CCleaner, Notepad++, Comodo Firewall and go from there

Software I cant live without

[jonwil]

All on Windows as I currently dont have a Linux box.
Miranda IM (open-source multi protocol IM client that does IRC, ICQ, AIM,. Yahoo and MSN)
WinAmp (music player with a nice clean simple interface that plays my entire music collection)
SeaMonkey (open-source all-in-one browser/email solution sharing a lot of code with Firefox and Thunderbird)
CDEx (open source program for ripping music CDs on the rare occasion I want to do that for some reason)
Filezilla (open source FTP client with every feature you could possibly need in an FTP client)
Universal Extractor (great tool for unpacking installers and other things that Winrar and 7-zip cant handle)
Process Monitor (great for finding out e.g. just where some program I am running is looking for a particular file or registry key or just which files its reading or all sorts of other useful stuff)
Wireshark (open source, great for monitoring network traffic to e.g. figure out unknown protocols or to identify what URLs a particular program is downloading)
XVI (great hex editor and fairly light weight)
TortoiseGit (open source shell extention for GIT repositories)
TortoiseSVN (open source shell extention for SVN repositories)
ZtreeWin (modern windows-console-based clone of the old XTree file manager, perfect for searching a bunch of files for a particular keyword then searching inside the file with the built-in text viewer. Or any number of other things that would require more steps/effort if done with other tools)

Blender & Linux mostly...

[MindPrison]

I've been notoriously addicted to Blender (3D modelling software) over the last 10 years, it would be hard for me to let that go, real hard. In fact...I think it would be easier to live without internet access than Blender. Blender has brought me food on my table and wasted countless hours of my life. Linux is just freedom, I'm a bit of a control freak, I need to feel that I'm in control of my computers, not some remote corporate that steals my life without my consent, and besides...if compiled from scratch, the computer I use - becomes mad blazing fast in comparison to nearly any newer windows computers.

midnight commander?

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe a native version?

Re:system monitor: htop

[DrJimbo]

Agreed. Have you tried Glances? In some ways it is like htop on steroids.

GNU coreutils

[Anonymous Coward]

coreutils

https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/

Debian GNU/Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Without the awesomeness that is Debian GNU/Linux, I would not have a job.

Srsly tho, i use geany, virtualbox, openjdk, iceweasel, pidgin, sylpheed to get shit done....anything else is just a bonus.

God bless Debian GNU/Linux.

Essential Software

[Anonymous Coward]

vim

Being in windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Win seven plus all patches
Notepad++
Office 2003 plus all patches
Truecrypt
Moby thesaurus
Oxford English Dictionary
Firefox with ad and script blockers
Everything search engine
Vlc
Britannica 2013 in case wiki is down
Gdrive/Dropbox/box

the actual answer

[slashmydots]

CPU microcode :-P

Let's hear it for continual software development

[golem100]

Directory Opus. Five major releases on the Amiga; now at release 10.x on Windows.

If you have to use a PC running Microsoft Windows; it is at least nice to have the Linus blanket of a *working*, highly multi-threaded, File Manager written by a competent programmer!

Cryptolocker

[fugas]

Cryptolocker. Really solid encryption, runs silently, fast customer support. :)

stupid question

[Anonymous Coward]

what's this ? slashdot.okcupid.com or slashdot.match.com ?

Requisite software

[fyngyrz]

in the modern GUI realm, Omni Outliner. I have it under OSX and on the iPad. I use it *constantly* for all manner of information.

In the shell, midnight commander. first thing I do when I open a shell is "mc" or "sudo mc" and off I go.

Aside from those, the components of c and c++ application creation (can be compiler and linker only, mc has a nice editor and I don't require a debugging environment though I'm happy to use 'em when they are available), and Python. Without these, there would be little point in me even owning a desktop or laptop computer.

Coming in dead last, a web browser.

Re:Requisite software

[Meski]

whatever I keep under /tools on SVN.

Re:Requisite software

[Wolfrider]

+1 for MC as well. I also usually can't live without:

o GNU screen
o jstar (Wordstar-clone text editor)
o dd
o bash
o xine

Also useful:

o nmap
o gparted

--On the Win side:

o Crap Cleaner
o MobaXterm (99% better than putty)
o WinSCP
o TCC/LE ( 4dos for Windows - see jpsoft.com )
o 7-zip
o Vmware (Player or better, Workstation - altho most of my Vmware runs under Linux)

A lot of the same...and some I didn't see

[idunham]

My list:
-Vim (usually I'll go for a motif build of gvim).
-Links2 for a lightweight browser that works with many websites in text, framebuffer, and X11.
-Iceweasel (preferred) or Firefox for a full browser.
Chrom{e,ium} and Midori don't cut it; I liked a number of the features of Opera, but not everything. QtWeb is nice when it works but doesn't have enough security updates (WebKit has fixed several vulnerabilities since the last release).
-xli and fbi/ida for image viewers. (Yes, I use three: one for framebuffer, one for a quick view in X, and one for going through photos and making small adjustments).
-xpdf for a PDF viewer, preferably with a certain small patch.
It's fairly light, doesn't waste much screen, and has rectangular selection. Ever tried copy-pasting from a 2-column pdf that was output wrong?
-ksh (OpenBSD pdksh, ksh93, or mksh. NOT oksh.)
Floating point shell math as in ksh93 is nice.
-Ted for a word processor. Yes, it's almost forgotten, and it only edits RTF. But it displays RTF right, and writes RTFs that show up the same anywhere else. When you could end up using any version of Microshaft Office, Wordpad, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Textmate, or even vde, that's nice.
-mpg123 is great for audio...
-ffplay or vlc for video
-Xiphos and libsword
-gcc, python, dc, groff/nroff and man.

Here's my list.

[Anonymous Coward]

On every machine I've set up recently:
*MilkyTracker
Schism Tracker
*Wings3D
Blender
*VLC
*Wine (if not on Windows)
*g++
LibreOffice (if on Windows)
*tmux (if not on Windows)
*7zip
Notepad++ (if on Windows)

Ones with a * are the most important.

Please give back forums, advertisers.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a spam article. There's no other word for it. I know it's a strong one. But advertising reconnaissance wastes people's time and manipulates their trust. Please stop taking surveys for free.

Re:system monitor: htop

[vjoel]

Agreed. Have you tried Glances? In some ways it is like htop on steroids.

Nice, but too many dependencies for my taste...

Re:You mean other than what is installed by Defaul

[DadLeopard]

That is the expected behavior in Calibre! When you open a file with it, it adds that book to your Calibre Library. If you only want one copy of the book delete the file in the original location. It is after all, primarily an ebook library management system. The conversion feature is really secondary, though very welcome since i don't need an extra application just for that! The editing and creation features have been greatly enhanced lately also! If you care to dig into it, it can do some pretty amazing and complicated things with ebooks, most of which Thankfully I don't need to do!!

Process Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

Look it up...

Why I don't get beta

[Anonymous Coward]

My hosts:
216.34.181.45 beta.slashdot.org

At some point in the future, /. will simply stop working for me. A rather sublime end, if it comes.

I get it, but... a newb's perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I never took the time to figure out what vim uses for "arrow keys", and ctrl-c doesn't "work" in it as expected, I usually end up screwing up the file and having to reboot to get out of it. I understand Vi is built to be comparable with non pc keyboards, but then again, I don't use any non pc keyboards. You shouldn't have to RTFM to use a damn text editor, this is 2014 not the early 80s.

Emacs is great, but it's a bit more than I usually need. I usually just use nano.

emacs, texlive, and mathematica

[wispoftow]

These are pretty much all I need to execute and publish computer-based science.

f.lux

[choongiri]

It adjusts the colour temperature of your monitor according to sunrise / sunset times, helping to trigger your circadian rhythm. Almost completely fixed my sleep pattern problems. http://justgetflux.com/

Re:f.lux

[MonTemplar]

I'll second that. Especially for big screens. (I have a 27" iMac.) Only caveat is that it's not so good if you're doing graphic work and want to be sure that your colours are correct - but then, if you're working into the evening or night I daresay you have other problems you need to deal with first.

XBMC

[Anonymous Coward]

With 3 TVs running XBMC in my house, my family simply could not function without it.

Engineering Tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Eagle Cad
QUCS
OpenEMS
LinSmith
vi
gcc, etc

Fuck Ass Clown Hats

[Anonymous Coward]

I shit my pants. I hold you responsible. Let's go fuck a squirrel.

A select few

[Anonymous Coward]

On Windows I install viruses, trojans, malware and tracking software. Cos you know, despite being used by the overwhelming number of computer users out there, no-one can apparently do anything productive with Windows and it must be due to the evil corporate influence of Microsoft, right?

On Linux I install love, respect, free-as-in-hippy and smug software. Cos you know, its minority market share (despite being nearly 20 years old) means that only smart people understand and are willing to give up all the quality commercial software they're used to in Windows to embrace the zealotry that impresses some randoms over the net. That's what smart people do - make life harder for themselves to satisfy some arbitrary ideological requirement that's not justified in reality.

AMIDOINITRIGHT?

Multi-file search and replace?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any recommendations for a free Windows utility that can replace a string in multiple files?

I'm a scientist, not a developer, so...

[mz721]

Linux
-------------
gFortran / g95 / ifort
vim and tde (http://adoxa.hostmyway.net/tde/index.html)
LaTeX
xFig
mrxvt
ImageJ
apt (only system maintenance I know)
Some browser. Ice weasel? Whatever.

Windows
------------------
Rietica
FullProf
Excel
Powerpoint and Word so I can collaborate with the great unwashed

Mac
--------------
Mac? Do I look like I'm made of money?

They are going to call me a troll.

[eWarz]

Office 2010, Photoshop CC. Sublime Text 3. Google Chrome. Ruby 2.x. Steam. ConEmu. Can't live without them.

FreeCommander

[darkfuture]

For Windows, everything is listed by others, except:

FreeCommander

The best way to see your files and keep them organized.
Dual pane, drive letter across the top. You don't get lost deep in the tree where drive letters are several levels down already.
Most functions available from the keyboard
Tabs
Directory size option.
Preview files with F3, many file types supported.
Image thumbnail option.
Compare directories.
Handles LAN connections and FTP
Everything is configurable.

This is one of them main reasons that I don't use Linux all the time.

OSX apps

[leehanxue]

On OSX, these are the apps I installed first:

Homebrew and Homebrew Cask - Almost every application I need, effortlessly installed / updated / uninstalled

Chromium - Mainly synchronising web sessions across machines

TextWrangler - Free, simple editor that can handle most common programming languages very well.

VLC - opens just about any type of video files

Fluid - generate native OSX apps for websites. I use it for Google Tasks

IntelliJ - most productive IDE for myself

Nosleep - prevents Macbook from going to sleep when closing the lid, great for moving around within the office, presentations

Tarsnap - backup with encryption and deduplication

ImgurBar - drag and drop to share images

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing in this universe has any inherent "value".

dont forget Jedit!

[Anonymous Coward]

non exhaustive list but

on linux:
-terminator (terminal)

on windows:
-multicommander (great file manager)
-virtuawin (virtual desktop on windows... cant believe it still does not exist natively)
-avast
on mac:
-transmission (great torrent soft)

everywhere (if not present)
-jedit (great editor often overlooked. slow to start but good completion, split windows both ways, rectangular selection, customisable keyboard shortcuts with emacs/vim themes, other stuff and plugins for everythings else)
-gimp
-vlc
-firefox with adblock and rikaichan (japanese translation)
-libre office

In my case most of the soft I need (vlc/firefox/transmission/severaldesktop/gimp/libreoffice) comes with most of the "complex" gnu/linux distributions so its usually the most "ready to use" system for me (the fact that I can just copy/paste the /home with the config files beeing another reason). On the other end windows ends up beeing the os where I have to do the most install

For Windows:

[ClaymoreZA]

Total Commander: originally a Norton Commander clone for Windows, I registered it back in the early 90s, and it's still being actively developed.
Opera or Chrome, latest version.
Picasa.

Windows essentials

[caywen]

PuTTY and Cygwin. They are the only truly essential thing on my Windows box.

my list

[Anonymous Coward]

OS: Ubuntu, VirtualBox, Window 7
For images (view / encrypt) WinTrezur http://www.myplanetsoft.com/
TrueCrypt

One word

[Dollyknot]

RedNotebook.

Over 150 softwares I cannot live without

[mtbink.com]

Android
3D Image Live Wallpaper - Live wallpaper moves according to device gyroscope. | 920 Text Editor - Text editor | Adobe Reader - PDF reader | AirDroid - Manage phablet in PC wirelessly. | Alarm Clock Xtreme Free - Alarm clock with infinite snooze. | Google Analytics - Google Analytics | AndroPHP - localhost PHP server. | BubbleUPnP UPnP/DLNA - DLNA server. | Animated Analog Clock Widget - Analog clock with moving second hand. | Camera ZOOM FX - Enhance camera with effects. | Chrome Beta - Google Chrome Beta. | Contact Remover - Contacts remover. | Dropbox - Dropbox client. | Dropsync - Sync folder through Dropbox | Dropsync PRO Key - Dropsync PRO Key | Google Earth - Google Earth. | Feedly - RSS reader. | File Expert - File and folder manager, unzip folder | Flashlight - Flashlight | Flipboard - News aggregator | Google Keyboard - Keyboard. | Golden Screen Cinemas - Golden Screen Cinemas online ticket. | Hybrid Stopwatch and Timer - Beautiful stopwatch and timer. | IMDb - Check movie info and new trailer. | KeePassDroid - Password manager | Maple - Audio player with A-B repeating, pitch adjust, speed adjust and equalizer. | Marine Compass - Compass | Maybank2u - Maybank online banking. | Media Remote for Tablet - Sony Blu-ray player remote control. | mtbink.com mobile - Take http://mtbink.com/ anywhere you go even when offline. A registry of software that I used everyday and some useful utilities. | MX Player - Video player | Google Play Books - Google Play Books | QR Code Reader - QR code reader | QuickPic - Faster picture gallery. | Skype - Instant Messaging. | Solat Malaysia - Malaysia prayer time. | TeamViewer - Remote desktop control. | Todoist - Recurring to-do list manager. | Trello - To-do list manager. | Twitter - Official Twitter client. | WhatsApp - Instant Messaging based on sim card phone number. Works through internet.

Google Chrome extensions
Alexa Traffic Rank - Alexa Traffic Rank | Auto Refresh Plus - Auto refresh web page. | SearchPreview - Provides thumbnail in search result page.

Greasemonkey script
YouTube Center - Disable YouTube DASH playback.

Mozilla Firefox Add-ons
Alexa Toolbar - Alexa Toolbar | Auto Refresh - Auto refresh web page. | ColorZilla - Check the colour of an element in a web page. | Context Search - Right-click search menu. | DownloadHelper - Download YouTube video. | DownThemAll! - Download accelerator and manager. | Firebug - Web page development tools. | Flagfox - Shows flag icon in the address bar. | Google/Yandex search link fix - Transform all the links in Google search page into direct links (no longer gibberish links). | Greasemonkey - Customize any web page using JavaScript. | Imgur Uploader - Upload image to imgur.com via right-click. | Linkification - Converts text links into genuine, clickable links. | MeasureIt - Check the width of an element in a web page. | Pearl Crescent Page Saver Basic - Web page screenshot. | QuickJava - Enable or disable JavaScript / Java / Flash / Silverlight / cookies / images / animated images / CSS | ReloadAll! - Reload all/some tabs. | Restartless Restart - Bring restart button. | Save Session - Save session and exit | SearchPreview - Provides thumbnail in search result page. | Session Manager - Session manager. | Status-4-Evar - Bring back the status bar. | Tab Counter - Show tab counter. | Tab Scope - Tab preview. | User Agent Switcher - User agent switcher. | YouTube Auto Replay - Auto replay YouTube videos

Notepad++ plugins
Code alignment - Code alignment | JSTool - JavaScript code formatter | NppJavaScript - JavaScript macro programming for Notepad++ | Function list - List all the functions in the current JavaScript or PHP file.

Portable software
Audacity Portable - * audio file editor * apply sound effect * truncate * join * reverse * convert FLV to MP3 (by using LAME MP3/FFmpeg) * extract audio from video (using FFmpeg) | AutoHotkey - Keyboard and mouse automation | Diffpdf Portable

Base list

[Anonymous Coward]

On windows: notepad++, 7-zip, VLC, evince, libreoffice
On linux: none, they all come with VI preinstalled.

F.lux

[Anonymous Coward]

F.Lux - warms up the color of your monitor in the evenings so that it doesn't interfere with your circadian rhythm, hopefully improves sleep. (hey - it's free!)

Thanks! I've been looking for that some time ago, but my findings weren't for all OS and/or were not free...

On Linux:

[SigmundFloyd]

Tcsh, nvi, slrn, irssi, mutt, fetchmail, bogofilter, esmtp, moc, ctwm, VLC.

Software I can't live with, so I remove if present: sendmail, Vim, any desktop environment and its associated garbage.

Must have s/w on Windows

[PIC16F628]

1.Total Commander. Have been using since 20 years. Plus plug-ins such as DirList, Complex CD/DVD Burner
2. PasswordSafe
3. Notepad++
4. MS Office
5.IrfanView
6. jdk
7. WinDirStat

uh

[fisted]

i typically install right away:
gmake bash bitlbee git vim i3 fetchmail procmail mutt mpg123 minicom mupdf

toolchain and stuff is already there, as part of the base system, of course

headless would differ a bit ncdu wget netcat nmap irssi gnuplot

ninite - first site to visit after fresh windows i

[Anonymous Coward]

many of the tiny apps that should be in windows are found here.

Just the basics . . .

[Kimomaru]

1) Debian (for i386 and ARM)
2) Windows 7 (I hang my head in terrible shame. I need it for Guild Wars 2, and if ArenaNet ever puts out a Linux client - buh bye, Windows)
3) SSH
4) Adobe Flash plugin for . . . .
5) Firefox
6) PHP
7) MySQL
8) Apache
9) Locate ;P
10) Guild Wars 2
11) Java (unfortunately)
12) VMware player

uTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? No one said uTorrent? It runs on Wine people.

Not much anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to not use much on a OS other then a browser. I get my mail through it, conduct business and about the only other apps I use are related to certain things. Like my GPS device software, and a couple other browsers. Most likely a photo editor and software for a TV tuner.
In fact I uninstalled Microsoft's Media Center because I never use it. I had iTunes on most PC's I had but it got so bloated and slow that I just use my iPhone to access any music or content. For me Microsoft and Apple could easily offer a more basic OS and have other features offered as optional downloads anymore.

Easy

[RichiH]

This is my mantra:

vi /etc/apt/sources.list # switch to testing/unstable and add contrib & non-free
apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get install vcsh mr vim zsh screen openssh-server # the most important bits & pieces
vcsh clone /mr.vcsh # clone the repo containing location info of my configuration repos
cd .config/mr/config.d
ln -s ../available.d/{what,i,need} . # enable whatever repos for code & config which I need on that machine
cd
mr -j 5 up # automagically clone, checkout, whatever ALL the things
reboot

Re:Easy

[RichiH]

Ah, and

chsh # change to zsh

Answser inside... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

It's some ridiculous idiot who *tried* to "take me down" before & failed badly (being unable to disprove my points in favor of hosts giving users more speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity online - doing so with LESS "moving parts layered-on complexity" ala redundant browser addons) - bank on it.

* :)

(I love it, since it PROVES they are effete & ineffectual...)

APK

P.S.=> After all - it's not MY fault all they end up doing is making ME look GOOD, & themselves? Well... lol, "not so good" (being reduced to mere "hit & run" downmods like the cowardly little weasels they are, but yet NEVER DISPROVING MY POINTS on hosts)...

... apk

One that others might not have

[twocows]

Here's a personal favorite of mine. Metapad LE as a drop-in notepad.exe replacement. It's basically a more fully featured notepad that loads equally as fast. Differences on LE/full version here if you care.

Re:You lost me at editor

[fast turtle]

This is /. and we don't do any editing. If you want editing, read the newspaper as they have actual editors - letters to the Editor are my favorite along with Garfield.

Re:You mean other than what is installed by Defaul

[CCarrot]

That would be Thunderbird, followed by Calibre and Skype. I don't care for Evolution, so Thunderbird which is nice and simple to use! Calibre since I have a Sony Reader which uses epub format, since Calibre can convert just about any eBook format to just about any other one, as long as they are not DRMed, it also keeps my eBook library nicely organized. Skype is because one son lives 800 miles away and another 6,157 miles away right now, and Skype works with MS, Apple and Linux OSes so we can keep in touch and see each others faces once in a while!

I used to install Calibre on everything, too, then I started using their server option and just leave a master copy running on my home server. Much better, and I don't have to worry about my various libraries getting out of sync.

Skype and Thunderbird...not so much.

Yay! Another Midnight Commander user!

[coder111]

I cannot survive without mc as well. First thing I install on a new Linux machine. And I judge distros based on if they ship mc with base distro or if I need to get it off the net :) Configuring network without mc is a pain.

And I do install Far Manager first thing on any windows machine I run across as well.

My habit probably comes back from old DOS and Volkov Commander days... Two panels, Text User Interface, F-key shortcuts for everything and efficient operation without mouse was quite a good way to develop user interface. Current GUIs are horrible if you need to use them without a mouse.

--Coder

Windows tools

[Anonymous Coward]

I still shell into Linux from my Windows laptop. Everyone is covering the Linux stuff so I will focus on Windows.

It's a windows computer. I can live without it all. That said, what I really find myself wanting to install immediately are:
- Sysinternals Procmon (shows every single filesystem operation, network operation, thread creation, registry operation) - super-useful for debugging anything Windows-side or seeing what the heck is taking so long, why the hard disk light is thrashing, what app X is doing, etc. When I get really pissed off at my PC because something is taking forever, I remember to run this and I calm down and see what's happening and usually I'm like "oh, yeah, that..." Also reassuring for the paranoid to see what's really going on.
- Wireshark - watch the TCP/IP and Ethernet network traffic on/off your PC, again useful for debugging both my and others apps
- Firefox, with NoScript + Firebug plugins, - Chrome is faster and I install it too, but I like do my main browsing in a less-spyware browser
- TextPad or Notepad++, but I'm still not happy that I don't have a Windows low-footprint text editor that auto-saves open new files/windows which have never been saved before.

Other useful stuff I always install:
- RescueTime - paid app/service that shows me where my time goes, productive vs unproductive
- Fiddler2 - Good tool for trapping/intercepting even SSL browser traffic for seeing what's going on
- Poderosa (beta from sourceforge): SSH client, with tabs for different hosts
- Sysinternals TCPView (shows which process is connecting to what IPs and holding open which sockets)
- Sysinternals Process Explorer - a lot prettier and more functional/detailed look at your process list than built-in Taskmgr.exe
- 7-zip (for zip file handling superior to Windows esp 2GB+ files)
- I do usually try to find a Print-to-PDF tool but so many have gone spamware I'm not sure of a safe one to recommend these days.

My little Portable world...

[CCarrot]

Frankly, the first thing I 'install' on a Windows box is a USB drive containing my Portable Apps, including Firefox, Libre Office, pdftk, FreeCommander, Lupas Rename (portable version), 7-Zip, FileZilla, Gimp, Dia, Irfanview, Notepad++, VLC, Audacity, WinDirStat, AutoHotKey and of course PStart to help manage them all :)

The one and only...

[Anonymous Coward]

mIRC.

Re:Not a developer, but.....

[YumYumClownMonkey]

Hellzyeah. I *am* a developer, and you get more done with a half-dozen regular expressions than you usually do in any IDE.

Removal software

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally need tor and srm.

Without which I'd be fucked!

XBoard+FRC

[Anonymous Coward]

I just have to have my Chess960 fix and XBoard supports it so that is the one I always get running first when I upgrade or migrate.

I need...

[EmeraldBot]

I have a small, but close group of frien..er, applications I stick with. These are: Audacious for media. Plays many files, while being light on dependencies. Indespensible. TexMaker for latex. Needed for math and science. Indespensible. Firefox/Iceweasel. I don't trust Chrome. Indespensible. vim. Best text editor availible. Indespensible. cups. My printer does not work without it. Indespensible. Bitorrent Sync. Comes on Windows, Linux, even FreeBSD! Needed to sync my folder of stuff. Indespensible. i3. How can anything beat a window manger named, "Window manager improved improved improved!". Indespensible. And yah, that's pretty much it. (Sorry, Slashdot messed up the list format. Won't let me insert a damn line break.)

Power pro is...

[EmeraldBot]

Power pro is a utility that "changes the way you work with Windows". Got you ;). Although to be fair, it took a few google searchs to find this thing. Looks like it hasn't had an update in 20 years.

Compilers and interpreters ...

[NAFV_P]

I would install: gcc, gdb, python, perl, ghc, etc. Hold up, on Ubuntu I believe most of this is installed by default. Might as well install Chrome though, and tcc.

I was wary of ninite and the risk of their team be

[dakra137]

Kudos to ninite. It makes starting to use a new OS install much quicker.

Great Freeware

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a list of the freeware programs that I always install.

- IrfanView - My favorite image viewer for the last 15 years. http://www.irfanview.com/
- Nattyware Pixie - A handy little executable for seeing image colors. http://www.nattyware.com/help/pixie.php
- Notepad++ - A great raw coding and text file tool. http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
- Brackets - New to my list, but very nice for coding and quickly becoming a favorite. http://brackets.io/

Eight off the top of my head.. for windows

[ablestmage2318]

1. BSPlayer, vastly preferred over VLC. I occasionally use VLC if I want to do something weird like rotate video, but everything else is BSP.. tiny/fast, lots of options and single-hotkeys aplenty (^_^;;;)
2. Chrome+FFox, for browsing different kinds of sites I prefer one over the other for..
3. IrfanView for random image viewing needs. can do quite a bit more than the standard Windows version and it's tiny/fast..
4. Audacity for recording audio from the machine.. I am a hoarder of audio streams that have very limited online playability and prefer ripping them this way..
5. FileZilla for FTP. A few sites I need to update periodically..
6. mIRC 4.72 for IRC, which is an old and special-to-me 16-bit ver for Win 3.1 that I still use from the era..
7. WinRAR. I know Windows can now unzip things on its own, but I'm just a fogey in this way =P
8. DVDFlick, simplest video file to disc image program I've ever used..

I believe...

[dotbot]

That loo paper is also classed as software.

all the Java stuff

[vikingpower]

jdk 1.8, apache maven, ant. Also: git, emacs, netbeans. Can't survive a day without those 6.

Re:all the Java stuff

[fisted]

Typical java programmer..can't count to seven.
Please die in a fire.

Re:all the Java stuff

[fisted]

oh sh--

My list, plus a few I miss (as a Mac user)

[MonTemplar]

First, the essentials for me, on my iMac (many of which moved with my from PC background) :

Google Chrome - go-to web browser. (Safari just doesn't cut it, Firefox is good but doesn't work quite the way I'd like it to.)
VLC - the media player that will play anything!
F.lux - mentioned elsewhere in comments, this adjusts monitor brightness from daytime to nighttime.
Pathfinder - excellent power-user file manager for OSX.
DaisyDisk - find where all that hard disk space has gone.
CleanMyMac 2 - scrub the detritus from OSX and apps.
Torrent - for my torrenting needs. :)
Parallels Desktop - for when I need to run Windows software.
Mozilla Thunderbird - my mail manager of choice.
FontExplorer X Pro - organise and manage font library, root out dupes and duds.
Last.fm - because here in the UK at least, I can still listen to full tracks. Still the best way to find where to buy particular tracks.
Spotify - I still love my MP3s, but this way I can legally share the love.
Sophos Anti-Virus - because I know better than to believe the hype about Macs being less at risk.
LastPass / XMarks - recent addition, no more hassle losing passwords or bookmarks between browsers.
DesktopServer - for Wordpress site development and deployment.
Toast Titanium - still need to burn the occasional disc.
Steam - need I say more?
Pocket - where my read-later stuff goes.
Alfred - Like Spotlight, but with brains.

There are a few Windows apps that I miss, because there isn't a good Mac equivalent :

TeraCopy - Pathfinder does bulk copy operations, but doesn't support CRC checking / diff.
Everything - Spotlight is good, most of the time, but not fast. Alfred is better, but still no speed demon.

Re:You mean other than what is installed by Defaul

[Man Eating Duck]

It may have been an old version I tried, but I was singularly unimpressed by Calibre.

It silently failed to convert some files, plus it insisted on copying every file I opened with it to its own directory.

For its intended purpose (ebook library management for use with your reading devices), calibre is simply the best software out there IMNSHO, paid or not. There are things for which it is not as good, but for my library of epub/kindle ebooks I haven't found anything that comes close. It might not be for you after all, but I'd advice you to give it another try, keeping the following in mind:

The "copying files" thing can be counterintuitive if you're used to micromanage files and folders yourself, but it can be viewed from another perspective: calibre doesn't manage files, it manages *books*. It keeps them in its internal database, of which the folder structure and data files is essentially just the bulk storage part. The files are a subset of all the information that makes up a book record, and the paths are not even used for metadata storage, although it reflects them. I keep a copy of my original files for backup purposes, but they are effectively obsoleted as soon as I clean up metadata and formatting in calibre. After that calibre is the absolutely best way to manage and access my books, and I'm happy to keep them in the calibre "db". After all, a file path is not a good place to store metadata. A db with proper fields, tags and so on is far better suited. Work with it, not against it :)

If you find that it doesn't suit you after some time, the export functionality is excellent. You also have all metadata stored in a well-structured SQLite db to extract and do with as you please.

The conversion error, BTW, is unfamiliar to me. If it simply omitted converting without throwing an error, that's a strange bug I haven't encountered or even heard of. If the results are not satisfactory: be aware that automatic document conversion between some formats, for instance from PDF to a flowing format, is *hard* to perfect, if not impossible. Most of my conversions are between flowing formats, and calibre does an admirable job with those. It even works around limitations in the different formats (by generating a html TOC for formats that don't support proper metadata TOCs, for instance).

It is extremely flexible and extensible. Incidentally the custom column system has a surprisingly powerful template language written by Charles Haley, one of the original authors of ex (which became vi) :)

calibre has a lot of "power user" features built in, a great plugin system with lots of available plugins, and it is very mature at this point. The relevant sub-forum at MobileRead is an excellent resource, any questions you might have are most likely already answered there.

WinX Progs

[Anonymous Coward]

Ditto to several previous posts. My unique:

QuickPar
TeraCopy (some versions don't work so well)
Comodo Dragon/Icedragon
Note: all browsers need a session manager
NeoRouter
UltraVnc
OpenVPN & config files
TeamViewer
jetAudio

m

Amateur PHP/MySWP developer

[harryg123]

HeidiSQL for maintaining the MySQL database. Although a Windows app, it runs find under wine. Also Komodo Edit 8, FileZilla, OpenOffice (or LibreOffice) are must-haves. Finally, Oracle Virtual Box for those old MS apps that I still use: esp. Word97 (!!!) because 1) I have a legal copy, and 2) because I have several megabytes of macros that I don't wish to re-write in OOo.

Re:Not a developer, but.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sublime text, on everything.

Also, F.lux on windows/OSX, Redshift on Linux.

What works for me...

[admintpj]

Here's some things I can't live without on any platform

1) PERL
2) Sublime 3 Text Editor
3) Valgrind
4) Google Chrome
5) LibreOffice
6) Say Text extension for LibreOffice (reads your text back to you)
7) Python
8) Mojolicious Framework
9) TOra SQL Editor

Windows *NIX subsystems

[bbsalem]

When I buy a new PC, it usually has some Windows or other. I try to install some *NIX subsystem to get the familiar shell and commands. I had tried MKS demos, and I have always tried to install Cygwin, because it is free. I am comfortable with the degree of integration in the latter. It doesn't bother me to have to run a terninal application to get a shell or to run an X11 application from the Windows desktop to get access to X11 clinets, xterns, gnuemacs, etc. The price is right.

Generally, though, I have always tried to install Linux on the system because I regard it as much more secure than Windows anything, So I may run Windows with Cygwin just to get me a shell and some *NIX commands. I run Wine on Linux to get access to the odd Windows application I like.

Writing in the days of text, as opposed to the web

[bbsalem]

Actually web-based applications come at a great price. Their history discourages communication and thinking. Back in the day of text, there were much better tools for communicating than we have in web-apps, web-sites, and in particular blogs. The textarea widget is a muzzle on good discourse, on the ability to argue and persuade. It encourages people to not address one another and to talk past each other. It should be abolished.

The tools developed for Mail User Agents and their derivative USENET newsgroup readers are much superior than the chat and blog tools that dominate web applications today.

The blog is being used by social media companies to restrict discussion. It is anti-democratic. We need to bring back the standards of the days of text, the discussion forum with its reply in context and its ability of users to change topic lines. Discussion does not take place in blogs and on most web sites because the complexity needed for discussion is not supported. This needs to defeat the Google business model.

Re:Writing in the days of text, as opposed to the

[colinrichardday]

Actually web-based applications come at a great price. Their history discourages communication and thinking. Back in the day of text, there were much better tools for communicating than we have in web-apps, web-sites, and in particular blogs. The textarea widget is a muzzle on good discourse, on the ability to argue and persuade. It encourages people to not address one another and to talk past each other. It should be abolished.

And yet you are using a web-based app to say this.

Re:Writing in the days of text, as opposed to the

[mysidia]

And yet you are using a web-based app to say this.

Indeed... Slashdot has been most instrumental in encouraging discourse.

Have no fear.... Beta is here to fix all that.

On Windows 7

[LM-Els]

For work:
TextPad - all coding
WildEdit - mass search and replace on files in folders with regex
WinMergeU - diff everything
EclipsePalette - colour picker (a very old version that doesn't need installing, just a simple 144kB exe)
PhotoShop 7 (yes, that old - still functional and really fast on modern computers)

Other:
Desktop Sidebar - for the Quick Launch panel. (not yet tried if it works in Windows 8, worked on XP, works on 7)
VLC
Pidgin
MalwareBytes
LibreOffice / OpenOffice

Re:On Windows 7

[LM-Els]

Forgot essential Firefox plugins:
Developer Toolbar
Firebug
Ghostery

What software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Freemind and Password Gorilla (on Windoze and Linux);

Re:Writing in the days of text, as opposed to the

[bbsalem]

Slashdot is one of the few exceptions of a web interface that allows the sorts of things that should be resurrected on the web. It allows for contextual reply and changing of topic lines. It could stand some improvements in how it displays threads and subthreads in an conversation, and I disagree with an editorial board filter of subjects, driven by articles the editorial board thinks are important. Reddit is better in both regards. I think that you cold teach Markdown to most people especially if it gave them something they really need to target replies.

I hope that your rejoinder about Slashdot Beta UI is ironic for I think that Beta heads in the wrong direction changing the interface to be more like Social Media sites. If it is adopted I will unsubscribe from Slashdot because it will have the same flaw as most social media and web browser driven interfaces, not easily allowing for context in reply.

Someone noticed how bad Thunderbird's editor is. In the days of text your Mail User Editor (MTA) could fork your perferred editor. That was also true of USENET newsreaders. They had the feature built-in to quote the article or message you were replying to. You edited down to the material you wanted to reply to, wrote your response, and sent that. This should be the minimal capability of a web interface.

The standard should be that textareas are OK for small numbers of comments, I think that the dissatisfaction many people voice over Facebook, Google+ and Google Groups and most web sites with blogs is due to this poor design. They fell hampered by the available functionality. It is just too hard with a textarea to do context and what people don't understand, because they don't know any better in many cases, is that their anger at what other people do, distractions people cause, is not due to a problem with people, people haven't changed, but that web site designs and interfaces are badly engineered for the kinds of ways that people communicate. Some idiot engineer on another thread posted how he thought that social science was way down the list on curriculum that should be taught to students in a web-design BA program. It is precisely because of poor human factors research and laziness and greed on the part of web designers and social media companies that we have a sorry state of communication on the Internet mostly centered on the miapplication of blogging to communication. Facebook is a disaster because of this and most of its users are too ignorant to realize that their frustrations with communication on it is due to Zuckerberg's insistence on "Simplocity" which means textarea widgets and blocks of text that are easy to mine for data for his businesss partners. So this is driven by greed. And Google is the same sort of thing. Google+ is just a self-promotion echo chamber for the same reason, greed.

Re:Writing in the days of text, as opposed to the

[bbsalem]

Sorry, I meant "Simplicity". That typo got away!