I can't do without:

[qnr]

transcode
http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/

What do you consider indispensable? (as many separate posts as you want)

[alfredo]

1. My terminal

GIMP. If I want something that doesn't take half the evening to open, I fire up GIMP for basic photo manipulation.

http://www.gimp.org/

[qnr]

7. lol - well of course the terminal would be indispensable :) n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. what does that do for you? do you tape TV shows on it?

zap commercials?

just curious, never used it

[qnr]

3. Transcode? All sorts of video work. Making DVDs, SVCDs, pretty

much anything.

[alfredo]

4. Here's an open source video application.

Not sure about it because I don't do video.

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

There is also a GIMP for video. It was called filmgimp, but now is Cinepaint
http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/

[qnr]

6. Yup I use them both :) thanks n/t

[alfredo]

8. I am using GIMP more as time goes by

Photoshop is still essential, but GIMP holds its own well. I can't wait for a native Mac port.

[gold_bug]

5. gedit has become indispensable to me lately.

It's become my fave editor for just doing all-around simple stuff.

[alfredo]

9. It's pretty good, but I am a pico or nedit fan.

I submitted a bug report to Abiword last night. When I open an rtf file then try to bold some text, the application quits.

[TrogL]

10. net-snmp

The SNMP that comes with most operating systems sucks.

[TrogL]

11. gcc

The costs-money compiler that comes with some operating systems sucks.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

12. I was just gonna say that... I love gcc, it just gets better and better

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. awk

For doing any conceivable transformation in a text file: http://robert.wsi.edu.pl/awk/start.html

[qnr]

14. Nice site n/t

[kcr]

15. Perl

I have gotten to the point where I use Perl programs to write other programs for me :) It's the most versatile tool I have.

[alfredo]

16. I like Perl. I did a bit with it, but

programming is not my thing.

I do some AppleScript. It's not bad.

[kcr]

17. If you are an Admin

the the time spent learnng Perl is worth it, IMO. I have done admin for firewalls on Solaris boxes, and Perl has a lot of libraries that tie in nicely to the OS, making repetive admin tasks much simplier.

[alfredo]

18. that's the thing, I have little need for it because

all I have is a simple home network. Never had to do any admin work, so I never needed Perl much. Did some text manipulation, that's about it.

[Syrinx]

19. I feel the same way about Python

I was going to teach myself Perl once, but came across Python and never looked back. Python has some quirks that can be a little hard to get used to, but I found it much easier to learn than Perl.

[kcr]

21. I dislike Python

primarily because I dislike enforced syntax. The enforced whitespace drives me up the wall. :)

[Syrinx]

25. I know what you mean

I hated it at first too. But it really does make the code more understandable. Take a code snippet of perl, and a snippet of python that does the same thing. Chances are, the python code will be much more understandable. In my opinion, of course. :)

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

22. What did you find hard about PERL? Just curious.

?

[Syrinx]

23. well, I don't know enough about perl to answer :)

I just found it very confusing. The whole "there's more than one way to do it" philosophy seems to lead to very confusing code. But I have nothing personal against Perl, in fact I use a lot of perl programs -- I just don't write them myself. :)

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

26. I was just curious, because I am going to teach a Perl class

and I was wondering if there was something people did not get that I could work on explaining.

Yeah, I suppose the many ways to do the same thing can be a bit daunting, sort of like algebra that way, I guess.

[Syrinx]

20. xmms and nedit

I probably use xmms more than any other single program. And nedit is my favorite text editor so far. I've been promising myself that I would learn vi one of these days, but still haven't done it.

[SeanQuinn]

24. GAIM.

Yeah, it's necessary.

So's GIMP, XChat, KDE, GNOME .

[SKKY]

27. Webmin and Ethereal...

...I would be seriously lost without those two programs.

[qnr]

28. yes they're nice - I like EtherApe too, oooo lookie all the

purty colors! :)

[SKKY]

29. I looked at EtherApe, on your recommendation...

...And I guess I like it- sort off. It's awfully cluttered though. For something like that, where I want a diagram of sorts, I just use Cheops-ng and Ethereal, bouncing between desktops. It seems so much easier. Nice tip though. Thanks much.

[qnr]

30. You're welcome. Certainly wasn't meant as a must have :)

[SKKY]

31. If you have any "must haves", I'd definitely be interested...

...I'm always looking for something new.

[qnr]

32. That's why I started the thread ;) I have a number, but they

don't seem the type of thing that a lot of people would be interested in, so I'm not contributing them yet.

[SKKY]

33. Awwww. Come on, don't be like that. Share the knowledge.

[qnr]

34. Well, here is one thing that I use all the time, that no one else

would find very interesting.

As someone who prefers to code in Modula-2, Oberon, and Ada; and as an Atari ST owner who used to program in GFA-Basic, I really enjoy X11-Basic http://x11-basic.sourceforge.net

It's nothing like ANSI BASICs, much more along the lines of Modula-2. I like using it because it is interactive. When I'm ready, it's a snap to convert it to Modula-2 or Ada.

I have a bot running on irc.freenode.net written in X11-Basic. It is written from scratch, to support the developers and users of our distro: page_six on #sourcemage (and other channels)

See why I haven't been sharing? Who wants to hear about a basic?

[SKKY]

35. Well, aside from the COBAL and PASCAL classes I took in high school...

...I don't code. Having sadi that, and considering my career field, it's something I really need to do. Any suggestions on a language to start with?

[qnr]

36. You don't want my advice. Let me put it this way....

Everyone else went Apple and Commodore. I went Atari.
Everyone else went IBM PC and Macintosh. I went Atari ST/TT and Commodore Amiga
Everyone else went CompuServe and AOL. I went GEnie.
Everyone else went Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps. I went Coast Guard.
Everyone else went C, C++, Java, Perl, etc. I went Modula-2, Oberon, Ada, etc.

Basically, you probably don't want my recommendations :)

[qnr]

37. Really depends upon what you are planning on doing,

C is always a good choice, in the Open Source world. Perl, Python, and Ruby are popular. Our entire package management system is written in Bash in SMGL. As mentioned in the other post, I like Modula-2, Modula-3, Oberon, Ada, scripting in Bash, and X11Basic, but they're considered offbeat languages.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

38. Oh my God, it is a small world... two RM's (IT now, I know, I know)

chatting about geek stuff.

I love it!

[qnr]

39. lol - what are the odds? n/t