Bracing for Day 1
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| Author | Content |
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| supermike Aug 07, 2006 3:28 PM EDT |
If you use PCLinuxOS. Great. Just remember that there are other Linux distros out there with higher stats on distrowatch.org. You might consider at least /trying/ of those. I'm a fan of Ubuntu, myself. Others are crazy about the new Suse or Fedora. One reason I like Ubuntu is because of the great support for it and the ease of which I can install packages and resolve dependency issues. But if you've tried those and still like PCLinuxOS, then so be it. File Manager Ubuntu comes with GNOME by default and I actually prefer a snappier system with less eye candy. I also prefer more of the GNOME-based tools than the KDE ones. But that's just me. Anyway, I use Thunar instead of Nautilus on that platform and if you ever get a chance, compare the speed and features of Thunar versus Konqueror. Thunar is light on features but heavy on being intuitive and fast. I like it that way. Text Editor I use mousepad when I want to open a file fast, or gedit when I can afford to open it a little slower. I also use Bluefish as my IDE. Bitmap Editor Always a good choice to use Gimp, although if you have not also tried Inkscape, I recommend you do so. Office Suite OpenOffice is just intolerable to me anymore. It's too slow to open and I can't take it any longer. Instead, I use Abiword and Gnumeric. Mind you that some distros make these two products look lousy. Therefore, you have to use the right kind of distro that make the fonts in these two apps look fantastic. Ubuntu has this fixed nicely. Still, if I need to throw together a presentation, I use OpenOffice for lack of a better tool. Office Email If you've got Exchange Server on the backend, and can tolerate the slowness and quirkiness of Evolution, then so be it. Just note that it works through OWA and that's kind of a kludge. Some admins in some companies are nice enough to turn on IMAP on their Exchange Server so that we Linux-heads can get in with Thunderbird and Evolution through a more native API, but this is not easy for them to setup and not something I see often. My opinion is that if I were to run a company, I'd do what the ISPs do. I host OpenLDAP, Courier POP, Postfix SMTP, Postgrey Mail Filter, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV Email Virus Scanner. Then, if they wanted to use Evolution or Thunderbird with that, great. And if they wanted to host Horde or SquirrelMail for some users, that can work too. I'm a big Thunderbird fan and can't wait until Linux has a calendaring tool on the Mozilla platform. BTW, if you use the 'nmap' command against the IP address of your Exchange server, it should come back and tell you whether or not IMAP is loaded or not. Visual Basic 6 Well, if you don't mind moving to the web, PHP, to me, is the VB-on-steroids-replacement on Linux. I use it as the primary language I do all my work if I can. However, if you want to build rich client apps, then consider this combination: * thttpd web server on a unique, alternate port per app * sqlite3 for the small embedded database * XUL with Firefox for the GUI * any CGI language of choice such as ngs-js (Javascript), PHP-cli, Perl, Python, etc. VB6 used to also come with a dev environment. I simply use Bluefish to do everything I need. If I need a database IDE, I'm a big PostgreSQL fan and I use the 'pgst' tool (from sf.net) to administer that. To administer SQLite3, I do it from command-line. If you simply must do VB6 development, and want to do it locally instead of through your Krdc connection, then consider installing QEMU, putting Windows inside it, and launching VB6 within that. I've heard good reports about this. Source Control Subversion or CVS, and there are many good GUIs for administering it in a rich client or web interface, as well as plugins for most IDEs such as Bluefish, Eclipse, Netbeans, etc. Database Well, stick with your Oracle or MS SQL if you want to, but I prefer PostgreSQL for most chores and SQLite3 for small chores. As for MySQL, I don't see any reason why I should use it and be limited to its feature set when PostgreSQL is more powerful and can scale more when I go over 50 users. Contact Manager I have never needed anything except what's already on my mobile phone or what I stick in a spreadsheet. Jeesh? Am I behind the times? Bug Tracker There are dozens of quality web-based bug trackers on the Internet in various formats such as freeware, payware, subscription-based, etc. Bugzilla seems to be the popular thing of the day. Others like a popular Perl/Mason-based one of which I cannot remember the name of at this moment. Virus Scanner I don't trust anything. I still use a virus scanner on Linux. I use ClamAV and I have read how to configure it properly and set it up to notify me. Remote Windows Desktop I use tsclient and either VNC or rdesktop, depending what I am hosting on a given Windows server or workstation. You didn't mention some other common things, so I'll throw those out. Firewall I edit iptables scripts by hand using this URL: http://www.nuxified.org/supermikes_kicking_firewall_tutorial Quickbooks for Small Businesses Consider using spreadsheets or Grisbi. Also, you could roll your own with XUL, thttpd, sqlite3, and your favorite scripting language. And if you ever do roll your own, please make it free and post it on the Internet for me!! ;) Blog Tool I use drivel. |
| sbergman27 Aug 07, 2006 3:48 PM EDT |
Supermike, I get the impression that you might be happier with Xubuntu. I've been using it for the past week or so. Your default application choices are pretty much the Xubuntu defaults. And I'm loving xfce4. I figured that coming from Ubuntu and it's up to date Gnome desktop, I would be less than thrilled with xfce, especially since my desktop box is no slouch for resources. But I've been very pleasantly surprised with its great functionality and smart looks. And every action is very gratifyingly instantaneous. |
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