The Linux app that makes you go "Wow!"

[Mazza558]

There's seemingly always at least one linux application that you stumble upon and are very impressed by it. The application seems to keep getting better the more you use it. It could be the reason you stick to Linux. So, what's yours?

Mine are:

- The new Banshee - The most impressive music player on Linux. I think it's close to surpassing Amarok in sheer awesomeness. Plus, you get Last.fm, podcasts, videos, everything.

- Firefox 3 - This one's just obvious. You never even need to think about using it, you just use it. And it works. With everything.

- Gnome-do - Lightning-fast and very convenient application launcher. It learns what you most use and makes it even quicker to open stuff.

- Ubuntu System Panel - It may not have the "wow" factor at first, but when customized to your needs, it becomes the king of gnome menus.

- emesene - The fastest and arguably nicest-looking MSN replacement out there, and has a ton of plugins. No webcams, but this is pretty rare among msn replacements anyway.

- Compiz - It becomes ingrained in your head that all computers MUST have desktop effects. You get massively underwhelmed after sitting down at a Windows PC and you can no longer move windows onto different wallpapers.

[Bachstelze]

zsh. I'm always amazed by how smart this thing is :p

[fatality_uk]

Inkscape, Gimp, Planner, OOo, Scribus for me, the list is endless...

*except im stuck in Vista hell right now. No way Linux will comply with my current hardware :(*

[DeadSuperHero]

The entire KDE desktop. I absolutely love how everything is constantly becoming more and more integrated.

[|{urse]

heres my list (not in any real order of wowness)

1. Elisa music center http://elisa.fluendo.com/

2. Quake Wars: Enemy Territory (finally, next-gen graphics for linux gamers!)
http://community.enemyterritory.com/?q=node/185

3. Openbox (a lean/powerful windowmanager)
http://icculus.org/openbox/index.php/Main_Page

4. Virtualbox OSE (virtualization software)
http://www.virtualbox.org/

I'll stop there, this list could go on and on

[lzfy]

The entire KDE desktop. I absolutely love how everything is constantly becoming more and more integrated.

Same here :popcorn:

[L815]

When KDE4 is officially complete. It made me go wow the first time I used it!

[arsenic23]

Inkscape
rsync
Gnome ( all of it )
( to pick 3 )


The entire KDE desktop. I absolutely love how everything is constantly becoming more and more integrated.

The thing I hate most about KDE, and the reason I don't use it. The other reason is an entire menu of things that start with 'K' defeats the perpose of alphabetization. But still, alot of KDE apps are lightyears ahead of other open source projects. ( Or at least appeal to me as standalone apps. )

I like: K3B, Konversation, Amarok, Kopete

[atoponce]

Irssi coupled with BitlBee behind OpenSSH. True love.

[gjoellee]

"APT URL's"
ex:
apt://amsn (click on the link to install amsn, it is a one click install!)

[cardinals_fan]

Openbox
gThumb
Conky
Zsh
Gnumeric
Xpad
Kazehakase

EDIT: I forgot Vim, the ultimate app! It is perfection incarnate!

[irv]

OpenOffice
Audacity
k3b
Scribus
Eclipse

[tom66]

Inkscape
Ubuntu
GNOME
Gimp
Firefox 3, but 2.0 was also excellent

[Flyingjester]

The new banshee (love last.fm)
compiz & screenlets
Open office
The Gimp

[mrgnash]

Banshee-1 -- I agree with the OP, it's the most amazing music app ever.

Firefox 3 + Vimperator -- Browsing heaven.

Google Desktop Search -- I find it an indispensable tool for research, and writing essays.

Vim + LaTeX -- I'll never go near a 'word processor' again, thanks to these two :)

[InfinityCircuit]

Virtualbox is pretty impressive, I must say.

Other than that, probably pbuilder and ssh.

[starcannon]

Open Office
Virtual Box (closed edition)
ripperx
Remote Desktop Viewer
Firefox 3
Compiz with Emerald


I use these apps like they owe me money, and have been using this OS for 5+ years now; I simply wouldn't even begin to know how to transition back to Windows, I'd feel like a caged animal.

[lukjad]

GIMP and Scribus come to mind. As well as Open Office of course, but I didn't use much of the typing software in Windows so I didn't get the big WOW feeling.

[Barrucadu]

mpd - It starts playing music as soon as the daemon loads (which is generally before X, let alone GNOME), stops when the daemon stops (after X and GNOME vanish and all programs close), and has many clients (Sonata and ncmpc being my favourites)

[Xzallion]

Amarok - Becuase I love how easy it makes organizing my music, and the dynamic playlists make it easy to create playlists based on tag information. Having podcasts, and magnatune support also makes it my favorite app above all else.

GIMP - It allows me to work on my doodles without having to buy photoshop, and honestly I can't find anything photoshop did that I need, that gimp doesn't already do.

KDE - It was easier for me to customize then Gnome, and for me its nice how everything ties in together. Koffice, Krita, Kopete, Amarok, Konqueror, Kwallet etc. I wish there was a way to get Kwallet to accept Firefox passwords though.

Konsole - I can't comfortable work on a computer without a terminal anymore. Once you learn how to use it there isn't anything more powerful.

The apps that make me say wow in linux, in order of wow-factor.

[MasterJS]

I'd have to say Linux itself. hehe

[articpenguin]

The entire KDE desktop. I absolutely love how everything is constantly becoming more and more integrated.

+1 here. although i hate kubuntu i still use it because i dont like rpm distros

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

A bit like MasterJS for me its all the bits and pieces one can glue together to make things happen the way you want even for mere dumbass non-programmer mortals like me e.g.:

Write a short bash script for Zenity and mplayer, add some launchers, and you have your very own PVR (assumes you have a TV card) the way you want it.

Other things that made me go WOW:

Virtualbox (headless on a server)
SSH
NFS
MPD
Mplayer (again!)
Xsane
Compiz
and the Terminal :)

[phrostbyte]

Apt-get

[Ozor Mox]

+1 here. although i hate kubuntu i still use it because i dont like rpm distros

Have you tried installing plain KDE instead of using kubuntu-desktop? Or using KDE on Debian to stick with apt? Just thoughts.

On topic, the Linux application that has wowed me the most recently has to be Rosegarden. I dug out my Yamaha UX16 USB MIDI cable the other day and plugged my laptop into my digital piano to see what I could do and Rosegarden saw the cable straight away without even needing the driver like on Windows. And it let me do anything! Output compositions through the digital piano, record MIDI data from the digital piano, step record it for notating music, export notation to LilyPond for sheet music... To think the software I used for notation on Windows cost me £50, and it is possible to spend up to £500 or more on such software for Windows or Mac.

When I really think about it, almost anything on Linux from the individual apps to the window managers to apt to Linux itself wows me in some way or another especially when I think about how it is all open and free.

[pluviosity]

Amarok. APT. KDE.

Amarok does music right. It runs circles around all the rest of the music players out there by syncing, organizing, playing, queuing, tagging, streaming, and everything else with its eyes closed. Not to mention that xine has given me a better music experience than GStreamer (yes, I know other players use xine too, but not all of them have everything that makes Amarok great).

APT: because I enjoy legitimate software rather than malware coming to me when I call instead of me going to said software. Setting up a fresh install of *buntu takes MUCH less effort because of scripting with APT :)

KDE lets me make my computer mine from looks to layout. Integration is awesome. K3B, Amarok, Konqueror, and gang are full-featured and make everyday computing a pleasure :popcorn:

[kernelhaxor]

Compiz, Firefox, Eclipse, VirtualBox

[angry_johnnie]

conky, IDLE, k3b, banshee, vlc, and probably a lot of other things I just forgot.

But, I don't think any one of those particular things is what's making me stay. It's the whole thing: everything and nothing.

[sujoy]

gcc,vim,ratpoison,mplayer

[Canis familiaris]

Amarok, K3b, Codeblocks,

And Of Course, the Terminal

[Lexicon101]

There's seemingly always at least one linux application that you stumble upon and are very impressed by it. The application seems to keep getting better the more you use it. It could be the reason you stick to Linux. So, what's yours?

Mine are:

- The new Banshee - The most impressive music player on Linux. I think it's close to surpassing Amarok in sheer awesomeness. Plus, you get Last.fm, podcasts, videos, everything.

- Firefox 3 - This one's just obvious. You never even need to think about using it, you just use it. And it works. With everything.

- Gnome-do - Lightning-fast and very convenient application launcher. It learns what you most use and makes it even quicker to open stuff.

- Ubuntu System Panel - It may not have the "wow" factor at first, but when customized to your needs, it becomes the king of gnome menus.

- emesene - The fastest and arguably nicest-looking MSN replacement out there, and has a ton of plugins. No webcams, but this is pretty rare among msn replacements anyway.

- Compiz - It becomes ingrained in your head that all computers MUST have desktop effects. You get massively underwhelmed after sitting down at a Windows PC and you can no longer move windows onto different wallpapers.

(*ctrl*+*alt*+*drag*.... *wait*... *try again*... "WTC? is it broken?")

[SomeGuyDude]

Hmmm...

Conky - Man, talk about useful and cool looking. For such a simple little program, it ranks amongst my favorite applications of all time. I can see what song's playing, weather, everything. Awesome!

Compiz - Yeah, I'm a Compiz fanatic.

Sonata/MPD - Everything I need in a music player. It's small, it works, it's elegant, and it works with Conky. Banshee needs to pick up the pace on that one.

[Vitamin-Carrot]

Songbird: Still has its bugs and with mediaflow the performance aint to hot with tooo much musics but it is seriously worth a try if you hunting around for a mp3 player

Compiz: Who doesnt like compiz ... seriously

AVN: Dont usually like docks i mean if you want to make your OS look like a mac then sweet as go ahead and use AVN, its nice and stable (if you dont try to push it)

SuperKaramba: It has its quirks great for users who want to load up their desktop with a range of not so usefull to very usefull stuff

Screenlets: Not alot available but what is there has a fair bit of eye candy to it.

Metacity: plenty o happiness ... nuff said

:lolflag:

[mips]

I wish there was a way to get Kwallet to accept Firefox passwords though.


They should just have a QT version of Firefox ;)

[hessiess]

blender

[meborc]

blender

+1, once you see what can be done with it... WOW :D

others: vlc, elisa, kde4 development

never liked kde much, but now i'm waiting to try out kubuntu 8.10 (although i would best wait for the 9.04)

[16777216]

They should just have a QT version of Firefox ;)

Well I've got good news for you...

http://www.osnews.com/story/20160/Qt_Port_of_Mozilla_and_Firefox_3

[LitusMayol]

-aptitude
-Amarok
-UbuntuStudio Audio tools (each program is amazing!)
-KDE3 (hate KDE4...)

The list is endless.

[Scruffynerf]

Apt-get / Aptitude
Conky
Amorak
Beginning to love Terminator
Kompozer
K3B

[Brunellus]

LaTeX. I use it for personal use, and wish more people used it. It's a much more sane way of dealing with text.

vim. Now my favorite editor.

[DR583V3]

-Pacman and yaourt
-ssh
-kiba-dock
-XFCE, so light and with the ability to look pretty.

[mips]

Well I've got good news for you...

http://www.osnews.com/story/20160/Qt_Port_of_Mozilla_and_Firefox_3

That is good news indeed!

I suspect we can thank Nokia for that seeing they own QT now. Obviously want it on there phones I suspect.

[VitaLiNux]

* Pidgin
* VLC (Awesome!)
* SongBird (Very promising app!)
* Compiz (just WOW!)
:) 'nuff said...

[Brunellus]

Compiz: Who doesnt like compiz ... seriously


I don't. I haven't really gotten it to run nicely on my box--and I've been messing with it for ages. At least things have improved beyond the "look at my 1337 flaming window dissolves d00d" stage and gotten down to real useability advances.



Metacity: plenty o happiness ... nuff said


Of all the window managers out there available for X, metacity ranks pretty low down. I use it because, well, it's there. I used to replace metacity with openbox on my GNOME boxes--and was largely pleased with that. kwin is a better window manager, I think; and for lightweight use, I like fluxbox. (I prefer flux's config file structure to openbox's).

[Viranh]

1. apt. Seriously, windows has nothing like this. I love being able to type a single command and have a program automatically installed.

2. Integrated print to pdf in any program that can print. (I know this isn't exactly a program, but it's still really cool)

3. Compiz- I love my spinning desktop cube.

4. Cute arcade games I haven't seen since windows 3.1 (like breakout).

5. bash shell- so much more useful than windows command line

[Viranh]

I forgot vim and samba. I absolutely love not being plugged in to my external hardrive and printer all the time. All thanks to samba, ubuntu, and my old pentium III box.

[5m0k3]

Festival TTS + shell scripting

By entering commands into the terminal (or programming and pressing the corresponding button on my remote control) I am able to have my computer read the latest news, sports, and digg headlines to me. It can dictate a 10-day weather forecast for me. Recently, I created a script to retrieve the latest United States Olympic medal counts (gold, silver, bronze, and total) and the country's rank by total number of medals.

I scripted a hangman game, a guess my number game, and a word scramble game-- all of which are made more enjoyable by the fact that my computer interacts with me.

With cron, my computer verbally reminds me of the time each hour (using php randomization in order to get a different reminder each time), and it notifies me if I have any new email. I can schedule event reminders for my computer to voice to me at the desired time. Additionally, I can optionally have it send a text message to my phone in case I'm away from the computer, and even pop up a notification on screen using zenity.

When I boot my computer, depending on the time of day, it will tell me good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, sir, in addition to telling me the current day, month, date, and time.

If I walk away (utilizing blueproximity), it will announce "I am unavailable until brad returns," and upon my return it will say "welcome back, sir."

There is so much more that can be done! The possibilities truly are endless

[BigSilly]

Linux makes me wow all the time, but the last app that really got me was Project M. It's in the repository as 'projectm', and it gives you a load of excellent 3D OpenGL effects when you select the visualisations in Amarok. I sat for hours messing about with trippy light effects!

If you try it, you need F1 for the menu, and if you maximise the window and right click it it goes fullscreen. It's a wonderful toy!

[adamogardner]

Festival TTS + shell scripting

By entering commands into the terminal (or programming and pressing the corresponding button on my remote control) I am able to have my computer read the latest news, sports, and digg headlines to me. It can dictate a 10-day weather forecast for me. Recently, I created a script to retrieve the latest United States Olympic medal counts (gold, silver, bronze, and total) and the country's rank by total number of medals.

I scripted a hangman game, a guess my number game, and a word scramble game-- all of which are made more enjoyable by the fact that my computer interacts with me.

With cron, my computer reminds me of the time each hour (using php randomization in order to get a different reminder each time), and it notifies me if I have any new email. I can schedule event reminders for my computer to voice to me at the desired time. Additionally, I can optionally have it send a text message to my phone in case I'm away from the computer, and even pop up a notification on screen using zenity.

When I boot my computer, depending on the time of day, it will tell me good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, sir, in addition to telling me the current day, month, date, and time.

If I walk away (utilizing blueproximity), it will announce "I am unavailable until brad returns," and upon my return it will say "welcome back, sir."

There is so much more that can be done! The possibilities truly are endless

that is all very cool!
to add my own it would be comiz. anything else is too clostrophobic now. I'm totally spoiled.

[Scotty Bones]

If I walk away (utilizing blueproximity), it will announce "I am unavailable until brad returns," and upon my return it will say "welcome back, sir."

Darn, you beat me to it. :)

[irv]

Festival TTS + shell scripting

By entering commands into the terminal (or programming and pressing the corresponding button on my remote control) I am able to have my computer read the latest news, sports, and digg headlines to me. It can dictate a 10-day weather forecast for me. Recently, I created a script to retrieve the latest United States Olympic medal counts (gold, silver, bronze, and total) and the country's rank by total number of medals.

I scripted a hangman game, a guess my number game, and a word scramble game-- all of which are made more enjoyable by the fact that my computer interacts with me.

With cron, my computer verbally reminds me of the time each hour (using php randomization in order to get a different reminder each time), and it notifies me if I have any new email. I can schedule event reminders for my computer to voice to me at the desired time. Additionally, I can optionally have it send a text message to my phone in case I'm away from the computer, and even pop up a notification on screen using zenity.

When I boot my computer, depending on the time of day, it will tell me good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, sir, in addition to telling me the current day, month, date, and time.

If I walk away (utilizing blueproximity), it will announce "I am unavailable until brad returns," and upon my return it will say "welcome back, sir."

There is so much more that can be done! The possibilities truly are endless

I just loaded Festival two days ago. I did this because I couldn't get Acrobat Reader 8 to read out loud. So far the only thing I have done with Festival is to read a small text file. Do you have any howto's out here on what you have done with scrips. You got my attention with this post.
Irv

[irv]

I did some googling and found http://www.xenocafe.com/tutorials/php/festival_text_to_speech/index.php. After trying a few things I did say "WOW!" This is some neat stuff. I wish someone would start a new thread on all the neat things you can do with Festival and then put a link here to find it.
Good stuff.
Irv

[tuxerman]

First up, it's the terminal... a complete OS in itself, some of the one-liner commands make the GUI look like a thing of the past (yeah, the GUI!). I bow down to the power of the CLI!

Next, it's KDE... the way it lets me customise almost everything is awesome...

Of course linux is the one thing that lets us all go "wow" at one time or the other... and that's why we are here, too :) Like someone said, "Linux is something you learn easily, but spend a lifetime trying to master"

[UbuWu]

digiKam (http://www.digikam.org/), a great photo management app, much better than f-spot!

[Flyingjester]

Bumpity

[geoken]

I must have misunderstood the definition of 'wow'.

Are you guys saying you fired up inskape and said wow after you were presented with an app that is almost functionaly identical to every other vector editing app?

[GMU_DodgyHodgy]

Many of the posts here outlined my favorite apps:

1.) Banshee
2.) OO.org 3.0
3.) JGnash - the most awesome MS Money/Quicken Replacement
4.) Evolution - Integrated, Complete, and Fast.
5.) DvD Slideshow

[hakimaki]

I dunno about the whole wow factor, but the last time an app made me smile was when I tried terminator for the first time last week. I have no idea why I never discovered it sooner.

[gjoellee]

-AptUrl
-.deb packages
-Compiz Fusion
-GNOME
-Home Folder

[clinto]

u-rxvt, htop, k3b(though I didn't figure out the whole mp3 to wav conversion thing yet), thunar(nautilus is nice too, haven't tried midnight commander), lbreakout2 :D

I wish I could get graphical things working. I bought a radeon x1650 and can't get it to do anything special. When I run glxgear, it'll sit around 250fps a one point and jump to about 650fps at other points. :(

[LateNiteTV]

[lntv@detox ~]$

[Trail]

Amarok.

(or Wine, technologically-wise)

[pt123]

Zim Wiki Desktop
http://zim-wiki.org/

[billgoldberg]

There's seemingly always at least one linux application that you stumble upon and are very impressed by it. The application seems to keep getting better the more you use it. It could be the reason you stick to Linux. So, what's yours?

Mine are:

- The new Banshee - The most impressive music player on Linux. I think it's close to surpassing Amarok in sheer awesomeness. Plus, you get Last.fm, podcasts, videos, everything.

- Firefox 3 - This one's just obvious. You never even need to think about using it, you just use it. And it works. With everything.

- Gnome-do - Lightning-fast and very convenient application launcher. It learns what you most use and makes it even quicker to open stuff.

- Ubuntu System Panel - It may not have the "wow" factor at first, but when customized to your needs, it becomes the king of gnome menus.

- emesene - The fastest and arguably nicest-looking MSN replacement out there, and has a ton of plugins. No webcams, but this is pretty rare among msn replacements anyway.

- Compiz - It becomes ingrained in your head that all computers MUST have desktop effects. You get massively underwhelmed after sitting down at a Windows PC and you can no longer move windows onto different wallpapers.

Boxee, compiz fusion, synaptic and update manager.

[Magzimum]

As a n00b, I must add this forum which is like a bible to me. Anything that doesn't work: copy paste it into google, add the word "ubuntu", press enter, and voila, the first hit contains your answer - usually.

Then also great is: the Synaptic package manager. Again, probably not important for those code-junkies, but I for one need a dictionary even to copy paste a file with the shell/console or whatever it's called, so this is great. :D

Also want to add: TA Spring - a free 3d strategy game with an active online community, simple installer, you can play against other people online, it is looking pretty, and it has a good AI that will kick your bottom :D

[NoVista]

Compiz.

Always thought all those reading this thread would enjoy
this one too >>>
"Cool applications you use that others might not know of"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=382137

It's currently up to page number 123