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Ask Slashdot: What Software Can You Not Live Without?

Posted by Soulskill on from the pacemaker-firmware-does-not-count dept.

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."

15 of 531 comments (clear)

  1. First! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Pacemaker firmware.

  2. /. cookies by L'Ange+Oliver · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

    --
    Decode your health
  3. GCC etc. by StripedCow · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  4. Office productivity apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Solitaire

    1. Re:Office productivity apps by qubezz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Ninite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  7. Re:MS Office by geekmux · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  8. Good web browsers. by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  9. GKrellm or other system monitor by DrJimbo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
    -- Anais Nin
  10. You lost me at vim by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    1. Re:You lost me at vim by jolyonr · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --


      Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
  11. My List by Hrrrg · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

  12. Sweet, sweet emacs by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  13. Reposting/Fixing My List by bigal123 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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/