Tips, tricks and tools for Linux/Unix
Jump to:
- Text, word and document processing.
- Networking, security and system administration.
- Window managers.
- Web browsing and web development.
- Mail and messaging.
- Command-line control.
- Programming languages and software development.
- Text manipulation.
- Digital media viewing and manipulation.
- Dealing with windows.
Related pages:
Text, word and document processing
- emacs: An instance of the text-editor-as-operating-system thesis.
- WhizzyTeX: WYSIWYG LaTeX editing for emacs.
- AUCTeX: Power-editing LaTeX inside emacs.
- TNT: Instant-messaging inside emacs.
- TeX and LaTeX: High-quality scientific and technical publishing tools.
- qtree: A package for drawing parse trees.
- Active-DVI: A feature-rich DVI viewer.
- ArabTeX: Write arabic script in LaTeX.
- Xy-pic: A graph-rendering language for LaTeX.
- Bibtex: Effortless bibliography and citation management.
- pstricks: Graphics in LaTeX.
- eepic: Graphics in LaTeX.
- HeVeA: A powerful LaTeX-to-HTML converter.
- gnuplot: Graph data of all kinds; import them into LaTeX.
- Xfig: GUI tool for drawing diagrams for LaTeX. Old, but still useful.
- gnumeric + OpenOffice + catdoc and xls2csv: For dealing with Microsoft Office documents.
Networking, security and system administration
- iptables: Flexible firewall and network management.
- NFS + samba: Set up a Unix box as a home file server.
- BIND: Run your own DNS server.
- Apache: A flexible HTTPD.
- htpasswd + .htaccess: Password protect pages.
- VirtualHost: Run multiple web sites off the same server.
- exim + vexim + courier + null webmail: Run your own mail server.
- GPG: Public-key cryptography for the masses.
- VNC: Connect to X remotely.
- MediaWiki: Run your own wikipedia.
Window managers
- ion: The only innovative window manager ever.
Web browsing and web development
- Firefox: Great for browsing, great for development.
- lynx | links: Browse the web from the command line.
- wget | curl: Scrape the web from the command line.
- Perl | PHP: For quick-and-dirty dynamic pages.
- MySQL: A robust database server.
Mail and messaging
- fetchmail + procmail + mutt + spamassassin + msmtp: A complete tool-chain for mail management.
- irssi | X-Chat: Command-line/GUI IRC chat.
Command-line control
- ssh, scp, sftp, ssh-agent, etc. + putty: The swiss-army knives of remote system management.
- bash: An ugly but useful shell-scripting language.
- screen: Leave a console process running; re-connect to it later.
- bash completions: Smart tab-completion for bash.
- bc: A command-line calculation language.
- sudo: Delegate partial super-user privileges.
- safe-rm: Eliminate the risk of an accidental rm -rf /.
Programming languages and software development
- Scheme Shell + DrScheme + Chicken Scheme: Scheme environments, interpreters and compilers.
- SXML: A nifty encoding of XML into S-Expressions.
- (MLton + SML/NJ) | OCaml: High-performance, high-reliability functional programming.
- Scala: A strictly superior replacement for Java.
- Java SDK: Beause it runs everywhere.
- javadoc: Source-code documentation management.
- ANTLR | (JLex + CUP): Lexer/parser generators for Java.
- gnu toolchain: Because C is still around.
- make: Project compilation management.
- CVS | subversion: Source-code version control. (Works great with LaTeX too.)
- SDL + OpenGL: The only mature cross-platform 2D and 3D graphics libraries.
- Squeak: An instance of the programming-language-as-operating-system thesis.
Text manipulation
Digital media viewing and manipulation
- (VLC | MPlayer) + MEncoder + DeCSS tools: View DVDs and transfer them to a compressed file.
- xmms | (mpg123 + mp3blaster): MP3 playback and management.
- ImageMagick: Handy command-line tools for image processing.
- gimp: Photoshop for Linux.
- lame: Encode MP3s.
- X-CD-Roast: Burn CDs under X.
: Run Windows (or Linux) on Mac OS X.