Have you decided to look past the trite OS’s of today and venture into the world of Linux? If so, I’m sure that by now you are in love with it. Can Ubuntu get anymore awesome than it already is? The answer is yes. Oh yes, it gets so much better.
Here’s a list of apps that are essential, fun, mind-blowing awesome, or a combination of all three.
1. Amarok: Rediscover your music – The slogan is definitely true. If you thought you knew awesome, you haven’t seen anything yet. This program is an all in one media player. It is fast, strong, and hardly being held back from totally blowing your mind. You can list to full length song previews, download songs legally, organize and play your play lists, find song titles, cover art, rip and encode CD’s…nothing I write here gives this program justice. It kicks the crud out of iTunes, it makes Media Player weep with bitter envy. A must for anyone who loves their music.
2. gEdit – Has Notepad turned you off when it comes to text editors? Have you sworn you’d never use another again? Well, you’re about to change your mind. gEdit, the official text editor for Gnome, is an easy to use, beautiful, tab-enabled text editor. It is smooth, eye-pleasing, and multicolored, if you wish. I was thinking about downloading an HTML editor, but gEdit can work just fine for me. Very nice.
3. GIMP – who hasn’t heard of the GIMP by now? This is a must. It blows Photoshop away. I have had people argue with me on this matter; as a matter of fact, I used to be one of the people who argued against it. But now…I spent three days learning the ins and outs of GIMP and OH BABY! some of the things I have made I still can’t believe. It is easier and faster. It can save in over 15 different files types and open almost any file type, including PSD. GIMP also comes with GAP, a superb, mind-blowing animation engine. Take time, treat the GIMP with respect, learn of the ways of the GIMP, and never look back towards that other program again.
4. Evolution Email Client – Okay, I’m a lover of Mozilla Thunderbird when it comes to email. I stand by Firefox whole-heartedly. But then there’s Evolution-when it comes to email, I have to beg Thunderbirds forgiveness and point to Evolution. It is simply superior. It comes with many features, including the standard calendar, alarms, and contacts; it also comes with spam filters, security encryption, desktop integration, share vCards, etc.
5. Gaim – IM client, fully-featured, solid, and customizable. Works flawlessly.
6. Grip – For when you need to rip, encode, and convert those CD’s in no time flat. It comes with many features, which you can scan here: http://nostatic.org/grip/
7. Unreal Tourney 4 – An awesome game, because sometimes you just need to blow things up.
8. Beagle – Forget about the inferior Search and Find, Beagle will sniff out any file or folder in no time flat, no matter where it is.
9. Totem – This is a video movie player, and a nice on at that. Solid, it has many, many features, far more than can be listed in this article. You can download it at http://www.gnome.org/projects/totem/
10. There are so many more, it is impossible for me to decide which should fill the last spot. Instead, I shall offer links that will lead you to hundreds of options, and leave spot number 10 open for you to fill.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/hoary/
http://www.gnome.org
