Obscure open source apps you wouldn't be without

[Ian Osborne]

We all love open source. VLC, Gimp, OpenOffice.org - the famous names are legion. But what about the not-so-famous names? What about the obscure-but-brilliant applications, games and whatever we wouldn't be without, but don't enjoy the massive publicity enjoyed by apps such as FireFox? What are the open source apps you wouldn't be without, but many computer users haven't even heard of? Let's share the wealth, on all platforms and operating systems...

I'll start the ball rolling with Senuti. See what they did there? It's 'iTunes' spelled backwards, and for Mac users with iPods, it's a must. As you probably know, for copyright reasons, you can't transfer songs from your iPod to your computer straight out of the box. Senuti does just that, with an easy-to-use interface letting you copy your MP3s direct to your desktop, storing them using a similar folder structure to iTunes. Every Mac/iPod user should have a copy.

So what's yours? What are the criminally-obscure open-source apps you want to tell the world about? Windows, Mac, Linux, whatever - it's all welcome on this thread, as long as it's open source and not particularly famous.

 

[jimlintott]

They may not be too obscure but I couldn't live without (in addition to some you mentioned) Scribus, Amarok, Mplayer, the imagemagik library and dig.

Dig can be as handy as ping although neither are obscure.

 

[grmcdorman]

For Windows, Notepad++. Also, VNC with Win2VNC, which lets me share one keyboard/mouse between multiple computers without hardware.

Password Safe - primarily the brain child of Bruce Schnieir, a well known and highly respected security guru - is great for storing passwords and generating safe ones.

Tail for Win32 is great for watching log files and the like (especially for developers; not so useful for the run-of-the mill computer user, though).

Sumatra PDF is a light-weight, open-source PDF viewer.

The Portable Apps suite is also very useful for keeping personal apps & data on a USB drive instead of on my work computer. (Most of the apps are open source; they include the big ones, of course, specifically Firefox & Thunderbird.) Sumatra PDF comes in a portable version; Password Safe is also usable from USB drives, although it's not "officially" branded as a portable version.

ETA: Password Safe comes in a Java version in addition to the Windows version, and is therefore usable cross-platform.

 

[Floyt]

Freemind and Stickies have taken over all note-keeping tasks on my computer - the former for big, multilayered projects with links and stuff, the latter for reminders, jottings and scheduling. I'm especially sold on the Stickies, since the latest version lets you attach them to specific applications, only popping up when those are opened. Thus, for example, I keep my sig collection on a stickie that only rears its yellow head when the mail program is opened.
Who said using a computer does away with desktop post-it clutter

 

[strathmeyer]

I could live without the Gimp, I'd just have to go back to pirating Photoshop.

 

[a_unique_person]

For Windows, Notepad++. Also, VNC with Win2VNC, which lets me share one keyboard/mouse between multiple computers without hardware.

UltraVNC is good, it also has a built in file transfer utility.

 

[MortFurd]

Testdisk and Photorec.

Smartmontools.

Testdisk and Photorec are great for getting stuff back out of a corrupted files system, and Smartmontools are good for finding out if the corruption was caused by a bad drive or just software.

 

[Leif Roar]

screen -- there's just nothing more efficent than having finger-point access to all the console-based programs you use.

dia -- Simple, lightweight program for drawing diagrams.

LyX -- A Latex-based text editor that's simply unmatchable for writing structured text.

 

[PogoPedant]

Maybe not too obscure, but subversion has become surprisingly central to me, both professionally and privately.

 

[illogical]

cdrtools -- DOS and Win32 from bootcd.narod.ru
HTtrack -- web spider
arprec and exp math toolkit -- high precision library
penggy -- aol dialer
Bochs, MESS -- emulator
dlxlinux, tomsrtbt, freesco, and other mini distros
win32 ports of console apps (cleaner than Cygwin)

 

[grmcdorman]

win32 ports of console apps (cleaner than Cygwin)

FYI, that's GNUWin32.sourceforge.net. Using Cygwin has issues; in particular, it tries to enforce Unix-style paths on everything (which even causes a slight performance hit). GNUWin32 doesn't do that, although it still has oddities.

 

[asmodean]

screen -- there's just nothing more efficent than having finger-point access to all the console-based programs you use.

dia -- Simple, lightweight program for drawing diagrams.

Second these two. DIA is awesome (but I am still kinda attached to (x)fig) and screen I couldn't live without.

tintin(++) for mudding.

Bloodshed for my windows coding (OpenGL mainly). too bad development seems ot have stopped on this.

LyX -- A Latex-based text editor that's simply unmatchable for writing structured text.

Mmm, tried out LyX when writing my thesis. Never warmed up to it. Vi + vanllia latex (oh, and bibtex ofc) is good enough for me. =)

 

[MortFurd]

FYI, that's GNUWin32.sourceforge.net. Using Cygwin has issues; in particular, it tries to enforce Unix-style paths on everything (which even causes a slight performance hit). GNUWin32 doesn't do that, although it still has oddities.

Yeah, but with Cygwin, you can get X and do insane things like run KDE on your windows desktop. Cygwin also gives you a LOT more GNU software than gnuwin32. Cygwin also does some pretty cool stuff. For example, it makes the Windows registry visible a file system - you can navigate the registry using any kind of file browser (cygwin based.) That includes using ls on the command line. Changing values is then also pretty trivial, just use echo to over write whatever value. Pretty flipping cool if you ask me.

 

[MortFurd]

Sharp Develop. Free IDE for C# development.

 

[grmcdorman]

Yeah, but with Cygwin, you can get X and do insane things like run KDE on your windows desktop. ... snip ...

There's a native (non-Cygwin) port of X to Windows, Xming. Works pretty well; I use it.

 

[scribble]

x2x (like Win2VNC, except without the annoying Windows - or VNC)

sshfs

 

[grmcdorman]

x2x (like Win2VNC, except without the annoying Windows - or VNC)

Except that x2x isn't cross-platform. (At least, isn't cross platform unless the target is running X).

There's an x2vnc, by the way (can be used in combination with x11vnc or a Windows VNC server). I've contributed patches to x11vnc; don't recall if I have for x2vnc. (Used to use x2vnc, until I figured out how to get Solaris to recognize a mouse wheel via x11vnc - this is at work, where I have a Solaris SPARC system and a Windows system.)

 

[nimzov]

Does something like freemind exist that is not an application that runs on a browser but a standalone app ?

(A compiled program).

Thanks

nimzo

 

[illogical]

grmcdorman -- thanks. i had tried unxutils? 4DOS (now open source!) for command interpreter, TCI for console replacement, MKS utilities, but the last two are not OSS.

yeah, there's a lot of apps that are going to be easier to get running on unix "layers". but trying to do system commands in ActivePerl meant i had a crazy command line containing both cygwin (unix) syntax and cmd (windows) syntax. but i'm not a programmer, and i haven't taken the time to learn VBS, WSH, and all the Microsoft ways to get things done.

windows console sucks, and i should try Putty/ssh or Poderosa.

 

[illogical]

if you fine people have found any ways to write books, i'd love to hear them. dia, xfig, the pdf editor whose name i forget, postscript, latex, mathml, and ...

nimzov, i don't know how to convert an applet into a compiled app.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mind_Mapping_software