The idea for this series was borne out of the excessive questions from clients in my work life. Some have made the switch to Ubuntu, many are interested and some don’t know enough, because they’ve never tried working with a Linux based operating system like Ubuntu.

The two Ubuntu versions I used (in my own business as well as suggest to clients) are:

Ubuntu Server Edition.
The server edition is where various business related packages are installed. Such as print servers, web servers, billing systems, firewalls, and so on.

Ubuntu Desktop Edition.
The desktop edition (also used on laptops) is where various applications are installed and used to access the resources on the server.

Note: The newest Ubuntu version “Lucid” 10.04 is scheduled for release in April of 2010 and will be an LTS (“Long Term Support”) version. At which time, I’d suggest this as the version to use.

For business owners not familiar with Ubuntu, please check the official FAQ found at: http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/faq

If you need to purchase support (or other services), that can be obtained by visiting the Ubuntu services from Canonical section of their web site. And to obtain local support, you can again visit the official Ubuntu Ubuntu Marketplace section of their site.

Please make sure you do spend some time reading the material on the official Ubuntu web site as it will provide a valuable resource to this simple introductory post.

To address the most common questions I receive from the business owners I work with, I can sum many of them into one common threaded question “What’s in it for me?”

To answer, the biggest benefit I’ve personally experienced and Ubuntu business users also express is “Reduced ownership costs!”

In general, I find that the following specifics provide business owners with some very tangible points:

Maintenance costs are lower as a result of simpler installation and package management.
Advanced security is provided by regular updates as well more flexible configuration.
Faster and easier updating as a result of superior package management applications.
Saves a lot of money as a result of using free and open source based applications and other packages.
System operation is generally faster and more efficient as there is no bloatware or like packages preinstalled with the desktop version.
Superior reliability in that the server system is a very stable robust. In fact the “2008 Server OS Reliability Survey” states that Ubuntu only had 1.1 hour of per server of downtime per year. That’s incredible!

As I alluded, this series (hopefully) will provide you with the knowledge on how to set up your own business network using Ubuntu, or at the very least, provide you with enough information you can use to discuss with an ubuntu support professional.

Needless to say, your comments, input and suggestions are most welcome!

Why am I posting about this? It’s very difficult (at times) when new Linux (Ubuntu) users ask me how to do something and I cannot show them. Sometimes I’m far away, at other times it’s difficult to talk them through the necessary activities on the phone, often I do not have remote access to their systems (so they can watch what I do), and at other times there would be too much to write. Often the person I’m trying to help might not be technically savvy enough to follow my direction, but they do know how to use a web browser.

That’s where screencasting comes in!

I think many of us are aware of some of the commonly mentioned packages:

Istanbul – Every time I’ve tried it, it’s broken. Is it even in development anymore? Last news post on the site is in 2007.

Xvidcap – I often encounter problematic output (maybe a codec issue?). Is it in development anymore?

Wink – While Wink does work on the systems I’ve tried, I find it just looks horrid, especially the note explanation boxes you can add. They look cheap and tacky, not something I would use for a business (or personally). One issue that may effect Open Source enthusiasts, it that the source is closed.

recordMyDesktop – I often get sound problems with it. What is happening with development? It appears the developer bowed out in January 2009, and a new one took the reins in May 2009, but are there any changes, updates or fixes?

ffmpeg – I did try the solution presented by Embrace Ubuntu (where ffmpeg was patched), and while it did work, I found that ffmpeg (in this case) did not provide as stable an output as I expected.

Screenkast – I could not get it to work properly. Is it under development anymore? (Last update was in 2007).

As I mentioned, the above (I think) are the common tools that many of us may already be aware of. I also think the above tools are listed and discussed at length on several other sites, that’s why I chose to not go into any detail, discussing them – Been there, done that, we’ve seen them all before…

Suffice to say, I felt that I was at an impasse, I just wanted something that will work. Something that could save a screencast in FLV format for streaming across a web site. Granted the FLV format is proprietary, I wanted that because it’s a current web standard. Also, I did not want to have to manually convert the video file (as an extra step).

There are online tools such as ScreenToaster (which a reader suggested to me), but I prefer to do the work myself because the PCs I use sometimes don’t have a web connection. After asking around someone suggested vnc2swf, which I found has since moved on in development to the newer vnc2flv. It seems to me to be much more promising. I’m not suggesting that this is the ultimate solution, but it does have some great merits (and it works too).

vnc2flv

Without reading the installation notes, I tried a quick sudo aptitude install … command, but it’s not in the repositories (8.04, Hardy), and the developer does not seem to host a repository either.

I found there are a couple of requirements:

1) x11vnc

2) Python (2.4+)

The install itself is not too difficult:

Download the package from the developer at http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/python/vnc2flv/index.html#install extract the archive and (as the developer explains on his site), use python to install the app as:

python setup.py install

After which the installation script will run.

Currently this application is run off the command line. I tried this on an older test box (it has an earlier version of Ubuntu on it) and it seemed to run quite well. I should add that the developer indicates (I think) that the sound aspects are handled by a different application, using a script that automatically joins the video and audio.  Here’s the original video from the developers site:

While I’m mentioning the developer’s site, you’ll also get a lot more information (usage info) from it. I plan on installing this on my primary Ubuntu workstation after I’ve played a bit more with it on the test box. – Hopefully, this will result in some good screencasting…

Hopefully there’ll be a full GUI at some point? Either way, give it a try and tell us what you think.

To recap, here is the list of hardware used:

Shuttle SN68SG2 Socket AM2 Barebone – NVIDIA 7025, Audio, Video, PCI Express, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, Firewire, Serial ATA, 250 Watt Power Supply.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor ADA4200CUBOX – 2.20GHz, 1MB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s) FSB, Windsor, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket AM2, Processor with Fan.

Kingston 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory (2 of these for 2GB).

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive – 7200, Browser Problems – Creating a Linux Based Virtual Box – Part 1 of 2 16MB, SATA-300, OEM.

DVD burner: LG GSA H55N Super-Multi Disk Drive 20×20×12

Putting the actual pieces together was very straight forward (use the guide that comes with the Shuttle package). However, I did make one mistake in ordering the hardware…

The Shuttle SN68SG2 comes with it’s own heat sink and cooling system. The metal fins are inserted right behind the fan of the power supply, so that the outbound air blows over the fins and draws heat away from the CPU. (I thought that was an innovative design idea when building such a small-footprint unit). As such, I did not need to order the retail version of the CPU (there’s no use or place, for the fan). Instead, I should have ordered the OEM version of the CPU (without the fan).

Also, after following the instructions that come with the shuttle unit, you may wish to flash the BIOS. I found that I was able to reboot the system with no problem, but whenever I powered it down and then back up (cold start), the PC always tries to boot off the network (until I use the ctrl-alt-del combo to restart it), the shuttle site indicated the fix was BIOS related. It’s probably better to flash the BIOS prior to moving forward (if you’re even interested in fixing this issue). You can fix it with Shuttle’s Flash Utility (awdflash) and the new BIOS (bin file) here: http://global.shuttle.com/download03.jsp?PI=647. Flashing the BIOS is not in the scope of this post, but one guide that gives you the basics of flashing is here: http://howflow.com/tricks/flash_your_award_bios_with_linux. Please remember that flashing a BIOS is serious, if you make a mistake (or power fails while flashing) you might damage the BIOS and have to buy a new motherboard! Be warned! ;) I chose not to flash the bios as (for now) the cold-start issue is just a minor thing.

I didn’t specify a monitor in the list above (I’m sure most would work), but I’ve had no problems using an Acer AL1916W. It’s a 19 inch wide screen (1440 x 900 – 16:10).

Make sure that you have a USB keyboard and USB mouse. I didn’t pay attention the first time and had to exchange the keyboard for a USB one. ;)

During the installation you’ll find two issues:

1. Video may not display clearly (it’s a driver issue).
2. The network card may not work properly (it’s also driver issue).

Here’s one trick I did to resolve this (and make my server install much smoother!)

After putting the hardware together, I did a quick install of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition (64-bit) as I wanted to see if there were any issues. The most critical one I found was that network card appeared not to be working. By fixing this now, I found out I didn’t have to do it during the server install! I’d suggest (strongly) that you also do a quick desktop OS install as well, just to make sure everything is working as it should. (Besides, I don’t mind doing reinstalls as it helps me prepare and get a bit more exposure to some issues.) ;)

Fixing the Network Drivers:

To get the network card working properly took a bit of searching the learn that it was a Marvell. Once I had this information, I opened a terminal and tried:

sudo modeprobe marvell
sudo modeprobe marvell 88e1116

After (88E1116 was the model) the commands completed, I found the network card was able to connect and I could surf the web. I installed the desktop OS twice more and the server OS three times more (because I messed things up), but I never had to modeprobe the network card again – it always worked.

Fixing the Video Drivers:

Each time you install the OS (Server or Desktop), you’ll need to ensure you install the nVidia driver. To get the video drivers working, in terminal:

sudo apt-get install envyng-gtk

The above will install a tool in your desktop GUI. Use it to install the nVidia drivers. This solution came from: http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

That’s it for this entry. The next post in this 12 part series, will have us rolling our sleeves up and installing the LAMP server software. :)

“A CD-ROM that contains a working copy of an operating system or other application that is run without installing it. Used for demonstration and evaluation as well as system recovery, the software runs intact from the CD.” Source: http://dictionary.zdnet.com/definition/LiveCD.html

While I was fast to mention and provide the LiveCD for Ubuntu Linux, I was asked if there are other versions of Linux or Linux based applications that offer down loadable LiveCD’s and what the primary function (of the CD) focused upon. Well, I’m by no means the know-all expert of Linux and its LiveCD distributions, I was however, able to find almost 300 and have done my best to put them in alphabetical order with a brief blurb.

Hopefully this will provide an initial list from which to jump off and explore different versions. It was a lot of work to put this together, but it was worthwhile and fun!
Some of the distributions are in other languages so I translated what I could into English (so please forgive any grammar mistakes). :) Additionally, I’ve found that several of the CD’s could be placed in more than one category, but to save constant repeats, I’ve tried to keep them in their primary focused category. I also included a couple BSD mentions or so. ;)

If you have (or are aware) of a LiveCD we’ve not included below and you want included, please feel free to comment (below) or contact us.

You might want to book mark this list and revisit it later. ;)
Enjoy…

Clustering LiveCD

Providing tools for creating cluster server environments.

Bootable Cluster CD
http://bccd.cs.uni.edu/

For clustering. From their site: The BCCD was created to facilitate instruction of parallel computing aspects and paradigms. Part of the difficulty instructors face is lack of dedicated resources to explore distributed computing aspects lack of time to preconfigure and test the supporting environment. The BCCD image addresses this problem by providing a non-destructive overlay way to run a full-fledged parallel computing environment on just about any workstation-class system…

Clusterix
http://clusterix.livecd.net/

Clusterix is a modular, live-cd Linux distro based off of Morphix, Knoppix, and Debian GNU/Linux. This means all you need to do is download the .iso, burn it to a cd, and reboot your computer. Clusterix will automatically start to boot without using your hard drive in anyway. Used for clustering.

ClusterKnoppix
http://clusterknoppix.sw.be/

Used for clustering: ClusterKnoppix is a modified Knoppix distro using the OpenMosix kernel.

dyne:bolic
http://www.dynebolic.org/

A practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more; all using only free software!

You can employ this operating system without the need to install anything, and if you want to run it from hard disk you just need to copy a directory: the easiest installation ever seen!

It is optimized to run on slower computers, turning them into full media stations: the minimum you need is a pentium1 or k5 PC 64Mb RAM and IDE CD-ROM, or a modded XBOX game console – and if you have more than one, you can easily do clusters.

ParallelKnoppix
http://pareto.uab.es/mcreel/ParallelKnoppix/

ParallelKnoppix (PK) is a fast and easy way to create a HPC cluster for parallel computing. It is designed to be easy to use for people new to parallel computing, but it is also suitable for serious work.

PK is normally used as a “live CD”, but it can also be used very productively from your usual operating system, through virtualization. The PK master node can be booted in a virtual machine, then you can network boot other computers to make a real (nonvirtual) Linux cluster in minutes. The cluster is ad hoc, it does not install anything to any of the computers it runs on. This way, when you shut down the cluster, the machines are in their original state.

Desktop LiveCD

For desktop environments.

3Anoppix
http://tavi.debian.org.tw/index.php?page=3Anoppix

Primary focus is an easy to install desktop system and is a Chinese localization of Knoppix

ABC Linux
http://www.abclinuxu.cz

A localized desktop version for Czech.

Adios
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/ADIOS4-21188.shtml

A desktop version that has support for UML (User Mode Linux) virtual machines which can run LIDS (Linux Intrusion Detection System) or SELinux (NSA Security Enhanced Linux).

The ADIOS live CD uses a compressed loopback filesystem and can also start with LIDS enabled. It is a custom installation of Fedora 3.0 running kernel 2.6.10 and supports X11 windows desktop environments of KDE and IceWM.

AliXe
http://alixe.org/

A Québécoise desktop version of Linux. It consists of a customized version of the live CD SLAX, (itself based on the Linux Slackware distribution). AliXe is a bootable CD-Rom. When introduced in the CD drive of your computer, it will mount a Linux system so you can try, all without altering the content of this disc in your machine.

Ankur
http://www.bengalinux.org/new/

A desktop version providing support for the Bangla(Bengali) language on GNU/Linux operating system.

Antemium
http://www.antesis.org/index.php?lang=en

A desktop version for old PC’s (ANTEMIUM PC Agé) is the light version of Antemium. It is designed to work on old computers, (but not too old), work begins with Pentium that have 64MB of RAM. It is reported to have been working with less RAM, but they don’t guarantee anything.

The liveCD takes it’s linux kernel from the latest Knoppix; with the launching scripts. Everything else is a custom Slackware on a liveCD! The latest Knoppix introduce UNIONFS, a system to allow compressed read-only data on the CD to be merged with a portion of the RAM. It allow to modify anything on the liveCD, changes are saved on RAM. The CD gains in memory usage, flexibility, and power. It is also possible to install new software on the liveCD ! But beware of RAM shortages ;)

aquamorph
http://aquariusoft.org/page/main/

A desktop version based on Morphix’ Lightgui, aquamorph is a complete, up-to-date environment, in which the user can comfortably browse, program and generally just do his work, while not having to worry about configuring and installing things. It features programs like Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client, X-Chat for IRC chatting, Gaim version 2 for Instant Messaging, Abiword and Gnumeric for doing office work, Wireshark [formerly Ethereal] for doing forensic research, Graveman for burning CDs/DVDs etc. It also packages some nice fonts and audio/video codecs.

Arabbix
http://www.arabeyes.org/

An arabic based desktop version. This project is tasked with bringing forth a fully Arabized Live-CD distribution. This version appears to still be in Beta.

Archie
http://user-contributions.org/archie.html

A desktop version (also in beta). A complete live Arch linux system (v0.7) to be run from a cd/usb, built with the KISS philosophy in mind. No packages have been stripped to provide a full Arch linux system, yet deliver fastest performance with no extensive bloating. Archie uses its own hw-detection tool (lshwd) ideally to support a wide range of hardware with low detection time. Archie also provides extended features like multi-lingual, nesting capabilities and hd-install.

Augustux
http://www.zaralinux.org/proy/augustux/

A Spanish version that (as stated on their web site) is: “The Linux made by the world for Aragon. Augustux is a set of programs with free licenses that run from CD and who has been given a touch “Aragonese”.

There are lot of tools: word processor, spreadsheet, email clients or web browser for the Internet. To use Augustux there is no need to install anything on a hard drive, but boots directly from the CD-ROM.

Simply put the CD into the drive and boot the computer.

Austrumi
http://cyti.latgola.lv/ruuni/

A regional desktop CD. AUSTRUMI (Austrum Latvijas Linukss) is a business card size (the current release size is 65 MB) bootable live CD Linux distribution. It is based on Slackware Linux. It was created and is currently being maintained by a group of programmers from Latgale region of Latvia. The current official release of Austrumi Linux is 1.6.0. It requires limited system resources and can run on any Intel-compatible system with a CD-ROM installed. The entire operating system and all the applications run from RAM, making Austrumi a fast system, and allowing the boot medium to be removed after the operating system starts.

Baltix
http://baltix.akl.lt/english

Baltix is GNU/Linux desktop distribution, based on Debian and Ubuntu for Lithuanian and Latvian people.

Basilisk
http://www.linux4all.de/livecd/basilisk/1.40/index.htm

A desktop version. The livecd images on this site use redhat/fedora rpms, fedora related repositories (eg. atrpms or. freshrpms) as well as non -fedora software of several other open source projects.

These livecd’s use transparent zisofs compression on a container image instead of cloop. This allows the usage of nearly any precompiled kernel but the image container cannot be read or extracted from non-linux systems even if written on cd.

BeatrIX Linux
http://www.softpedia.com/get/UNIX/Distributions/BeatrIX-Linux.shtml

A desktop version that is a less-than-200-MB Debian/Ubuntu Linux that is a live-CD/installable to hard drive distribution featuring kernel 2.6.7, Gnome 2.8.1, Firefox 1.03 w/AdBlock, Evolution 2.01, GAIM 1.03, Open Office 1.1.2, Apt, PDF viewer, image viewer, plus much, much more.

BerliOS MiniCD
http://developer.berlios.de/projects/minicd/

A desktop MiniCD is (as the name suggests) a live MiniCD Linux distribution designed to run off 185MB CDs. It features automatic hardware detection, a full desktop (KDE) and is based on Mandrake Linux.

Berry Linux
http://yui.mine.nu/berry/

A desktop version that is a bootable CD, which features automatic hardware detection. It supports many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI, USB, and other peripherals. If you have network devices, DHCP is auto-configured so you can use the Internet. You can enjoy OpenOffice, the MS Office compatible office suite. The GIMP can be used to edit pictures and is included in Berry Linux. Berry Linux can be used as a Linux demo, Educational CD, or a rescue system. Based on Fedora.

Blin Linux
http://blin.zp.ua/

A desktop to work in the office and at home; that includes Cyrillic support for Russian speaking people. Easy to use, requires no installation works directly from the CD. Provides support for a wide range of modern equipment. Immediately after launch, the user receives a tailored, ready to work in the local network or Internet system with a rich set of license-net programs.

cdlinux.pl
http://www.cdlinux.pl/

A Polish language based LiveCD. Hopefully a Polish speaking person could tell us more about it?

Cool Linux CD
http://emergencycd2.sourceforge.net/

A desktop CD. Cool Linux CD is a bootable CD with Linux operating system, containing a 2.4 kernel and many free software packages.

Damn Small Linux
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Damn Small Linux is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications can fit inside a 50MB live CD. It was at first just a personal tool/toy. But over time Damn Small Linux grew into a community project with hundreds of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system which may be used with any writable media including a hard drive, a floppy drive, or a USB device.

Feather Linux
http://featherlinux.berlios.de/

Feather Linux is a Linux distribution which runs completely off a CD or a USB pendrive and takes up under 128Mb of space. It is a Knoppix remaster (based on Debian), and tries to include software which most people would use every day on their desktop.

Flash Linux
http://www.flashlinux.org.uk/

It’s a FREE (GPL-2) customized Linux distribution initially designed to be run directly off a 256Mb USB key or other (similar) forms of bootable flash memory. It has subsequently (also) become a Linux distribution that runs directly from a CDROM, typically known as a Live-CD.

Gentoo
http://www.gentoo.org/

A special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community.

Gnoppix
http://www.gnoppix.org/

Gnoppix is a linux live cd based upon Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (woody). It can be compared to Knoppix but GNOPPIX uses GNOME as desktop environment.

GoblinX
http://www.goblinx.com.br/en/index_home.htm

GoblinX is a Live-CD that is based on the excellent Slackware, developed and maintained by Flavio de Oliveira a.k.a Grobsch and created by using Linuxlive scripts.

It is directed towards those users whose appreciate quality applications and a workspace that is both practical and beautiful. It contains some of the most often used and praised applications for Linux, a completely operational Linux system inside a single CDROM, runs from any CDROM drive without requiring an installation and can be easily customized by anyone. It also can be used inside a Pendrive or other bootable device.

GoboLinux
http://www.gobolinux.org/

GoboLinux is a modular Linux distribution: it organizes the programs in your system in a new, logical way. Instead of having parts of a program thrown at /usr/bin, other parts at /etc and yet more parts thrown at /usr/share/something/or/another, each program gets its own directory tree, keeping them all neatly separated and allowing you to see everything that’s installed in the system and which files belong to which programs in a simple and obvious way.

Kaboot
http://www.kaboot.ainkaboot.co.uk/

Kaboot Linux Operating system aims to provide an operating system which you can take anywhere and has all your favourite programs on. Available as a Live CD or Live USB you can take with you anywhere.

A number of different versions are available, two optimized for size or speed, one for functionality, and one science based. All containing a host of useful programs able to boot virtually any computer (meeting the minimum requirements) from CD and USB.

Kaella
http://kaella.linux-azur.org/

Kaella is a (French) Linux distribution that will fit on a CD and it works without having to install on the hard drive of your PC. It is a complete operating system, provided with all the necessary software for PC use: Internet browser, mail, office suite, media players (images, photos, sounds, videos), games …

Kaella is based on the Knoppix distribution: Some software was deleted, others have been added.

Kanotix
http://kanotix.com/index.php?&newlang=eng

Kanotix is a rock-solid Linux based on Debian, which contains the newest packages and recognizes more modern hardware than any other operating system in use today.

Kanotix is assembled for 32 Bit i586 and for AMD 64 using the most up-to-date kernel with unique patches.

Kanotix will run as a LIVE-CD on practically any computer — automatically detecting and configuring virtually any piece of hardware. It is ideal for analysis, data rescue, forensic work, removal of viruses on Win-PCs – or simply for safe surfing and mailing in an internet cafe. It installs to your hard drive in just a few minutes and is ideal for use on your desktop workstation or notebook, or as a server.

KateOS
http://www.kateos.org/?lang=en

KateOS is a free (as in freedom) multitasking operating system targeted toward intermediate Unix users. It combines the most popular Open Source software with its own original solutions. KateOS has a simple yet fully functional and fully-featured TGZex package system which makes system administration and updating a breeze. KateOS also has a set of text-mode and graphical tools for system configuration, user-friendly text-mode and graphical installation systems, a unified PAM authorization system, and many more solutions which make system maintenance a lot easier while preserving the classical Unix structure of the system. The main foci of KateOS are efficiency, security, reliability, and low system requirements. Support for common multimedia is also included.

Knoppix
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

KNOPPIX is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2GB of executable software installed on it (over 8GB on the DVD “Maxi” edition).

Kubuntu
http://kubuntu.org/

Kubuntu is a user friendly operating system based on KDE, the K Desktop Environment. With a predictable 6 month release cycle and part of the Ubuntu project, Kubuntu is the GNU/Linux distribution for everyone.

LG3D LiveCD
https://lg3d-livecd.dev.java.net/Web-Site/Welcome.html

A 3D livecd that appears to be based upon slax (unconfirmed).

Linux from Scratch
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/livecd/

The LFS LiveCD is geared specifically toward providing a reliable host system for the purpose of building Linux From Scratch http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/index.html. Therefore, it may not be what you would envision as a “perfect” Linux system. It should, however, provide you with a comfortable enough environment so that you can, in turn, build your own “perfect” system. Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a project that provides you with step-by-step instructions for building your own customized Linux system entirely from source.

Luit Linux
http://luitlinux.sarovar.org/

Luit Linux is a small bootable live CD distribution based on KNOPPIX and DamnSmall Linux. Mission is to make a small compact live distribution with tools and applications for day to day needs, without compromising on its looks and feel and ease of use.

Mandriva
http://www.mandriva.com/en/product/mandriva-linux-one

Linux. A full Linux operating system on a single CD for both new and experienced Linux users, it is fast to download and install, and also safe to try with a live mode. One is really the one CD you need!

MiniKazit
http://kazit.berlios.de/mini-kazit/

MiniKazit is a live CD image, small enough to fit into a MiniCD (180M). It is based on Morphix, base module version 0.4-1e and Debian Sid.

NetMAX DeskTOP
http://freshmeat.net/projects/netmax/

NetMAX DeskTOP is a Linux-based, Windows applications compatible, intuitive graphical environment that works right out of the box and offers unrivaled compatibility with any personal computer. It is designed to be usable by people who are not computer savvy. It eliminates the problems with viruses, spyware, adware, and bugs that plague the Windows platform. NetMAX DeskTOP also works as a PC repair and recovery system. It boots from CDROM and does not modify the target PC volumes unless directed to do so.

NimbleX
http://nimblex.net/

You can build your own custom OS with a couple of clicks. As easy as it gets! NimbleX is a small but versatile operating system which is able to boot in various fashion, like from a small 8 cm CD but also from flash memory (USB pens, Mp3 players, …), from hard drives and even from the network. Because it runs entirely from a CD, USB or network it doesn’t require installation or even a hard drive. NimbleX is based on Slackware with the use of linux-live scripts and is has a lot of this distribution advantages. One of them is the availability of thousands of free software that can be found in the form of packages. The beauty of it is that even if is small it has a beautiful graphical interface and also a lot of built in software for browsing the internet, writing documents, listening to music, playing movies and many more. You even have basic server functionality.

Onebase Linux
http://www.ibiblio.org/onebase/

The Onebase Project, is a Linux kernel based operating system with its own package management and administration tools.

Parsix
http://www.parsix.org/html/index.php

Parsix GNU/Linux is a live and installation CD derived from KANOTIX and based on Debian. It is a complete GNOME centric desktop oriented distribution. Beside of the dozens supported languages, Parsix GNU/Linux also supports Persian keyboard and users can switch to Persian with Alt+Shift keys. You can install and use Parsix GNU/Linux as your PC’s operating system. We have also included xFarDic multilingual dictionary and Persian free fonts from FPF project.

PCLinuxOS
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

PCLinuxOS is distributed as a LiveCD, and can also be installed to a local hard drive. LiveCD mode lets you try it without making any changes to your computer. If you like it, you can install it to your hard drive. Locally installed versions of PCLinuxOS utilize the Advanced Packaging Tool (or APT), a package management system (originally from the Debian distribution), together with Synaptic, a GUI front end to APT.

PCLinuxOS has a script called mklivecd, which allows the user to take a ‘snapshot’ of their current hard drive installation (all settings, applications, documents, etc.) and compress it into an ISO CD/DVD image. This allows easy backup of a user’s data and also makes it easy to create your own custom live CD/DVD.

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.com/

Puppy really is small, the live-CD typically being 85MB, yet there really is a complete set of GUI applications. Being so small, Puppy usually loads completely into RAM, which accounts for the incredible speed.

Sabayon
http://www.sabayonlinux.org/

A highly, scalable and community driven Linux distribution. Based on the Gentoo distro.

Shinux
http://shinux.org/

With Shinux you have a complete operating system comes with a suite of software quality standard for computers compatible PC. Shinux aims to enable individuals or professionals to carry the equivalent of their laptop in a medallion, a watch or a simple USB Flash Drive. With Shinux in your pocket you can from PCs to boot your office, your bookmark, preferences, mail, files and carry with you your applications.

sidux
http://sidux.com/

sidux is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, Debian’s most modern branch (called “Sid”) and many free and open source applications.

According to wikipedia sidox “…is a desktop-oriented Linux distribution based on Debian unstable, which uses the codename Sid. The distribution consists of a Live CD (bootable CD-ROM) for i686 or amd64 architecture and can be installed to a hard drive through a graphical installer…” and “…The aim of sidux is to make Debian Sid/unstable usable for average users. Therefore it puts Debian Sid packages together and adds its own programs. sidux’ own repository avoids packages which are currently defective in Debian Sid. The sidux system management program “smxi” also holds sidux fixed packages until a repaired version from Debian appears in Debian Sid…“

SimplyMEPIS
http://www.mepis.org/

SimplyMEPIS as a Live CD or DVD allows you to run the Linux operating system and all the programs from your CD or DVD drive before you install. There is no need to backup all your data, delete the whole hard disk and install the system, just to find it doesn’t meet your needs and expectations.

Insert the SimplyMepis disc in your drive and reboot your computer. Simple menu choices will quickly load SimplyMEPIS Linux allowing you to login. You’ll have a SimplyMEPIS desktop just as it would be when you install it to your hard drive. Test the included software, see if it supports all your hardware, and assure that your internet connection works. You can also use SimplyMEPIS as a recovery CD for troubleshooting computers and providing the tools to save your valuable data.

Slax
http://www.slax.org/

Slax is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.

The modular approach gives you the ability to include any other software in Slax easily. If you’re missing your favourite text editor, networking tool or game, simply download a module with the software and copy it to Slax, no need to install, no need to configure.

SLYNUX
http://www.slynux.co.nr/

SLYNUX is a user friendly GNU/Linux Operating System for beginners. It can be run completely from CD without installation. There is also options to install to hard disk. The main feature of this operating system is that, any person who is familiar with Microsoft Windows OS can handle this operating system very easily. The desktop of this operating system is arranged so as to make it friendly to the user. Also it has a wide range of application programs which are pre-installed. SLYNUX is a live Linux distribution which includes content of about 2GB made available by using transparent compression. This is a debian based GNU/Linux developed from Knoppix (Credit of most features of this Distro goes to knoppix). This can be used by beginners of Linux OS. SLYNUX makes to familiarize Linux technology. This is also a complete suite Linux OS. This provides all types of needed software.

Stanix
http://stanix.sourceforge.net/

Traditional Chinese support. Stanix provides a simple, stable, Comfortable environment for your desktop without deluxe decorations, easy to use directly, don’t worry about system crashes or infections by viruses.

Stux
http://www.gpstudio.com/stux/

STUX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals.

STUX 2007 is based on Slackware Linux 11.0 (for packages) and Knoppix 5.0.1 (for kernel, modules, scripts).

Symphony
http://symphonyos.com/cms/

SymphonyOS is a whole new type of Operating System, based on an advanced GNU/Linux base system Symphony provides Linux’s renowned stability and immunity to Windows viruses along with what we consider to be the easiest to use interface out there, our Mezzo Desktop Environment. You can breathe new life into old hardware as all of this is designed to work on much lower end hardware than KDE or Gnome.

T2
http://www.t2-project.org/

T2 started as a community driven fork from the ROCK Linux Project with the aim to create a decentralized development and clean a framework for spin-off projects and customized distributions. Another goal was to provide a more continuous release stream for stable security updates.

With T2 you can define targets for various purposes, ranging from embedded linux systems with a few MB of size over server configurations to a full desktop system featuring X.Org foundation, KDE, Gnome, OpenOffice.Org and many more. Those targets can be compiled for use on the most common architectures: Alpha, ARM, HPPA (incl. HPPA64), IA64, MIPS, PowerPC (incl. PowerPC-64), SPARC (incl. SPARC64), SuperH, x86 (incl. x86-64) – theoretically any GCC/Linux supported one.

T2 comes with many predefined targets (desktop, router, live CD…) and over 2000 package descriptions ready to build.

Tao Live
http://www.nanotechnologies.qc.ca/propos/linux/

This distribution is ideal for beginners. Tao Live is a bootable CDROM with a collection of software and automatic hardware detection. It is not necessary to install anything on your hard disk to use Tao Live.

Tilix
http://tilix.org/

Tilix is a Bulgarian Linux based operating system, easy to use for beginners and for advanced users. The distribution can work directly from CD or can be installed to you hard drive. The distribution can work directly from CD or can be installed to you hard drive. The hardware recognition is automatic. The hardware recognition is automatic.

Ubuntu
http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need – a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more.

VectorLinux
http://vectorlinux.com/website2/

Speed, performance, stability are the attributes that set VectorLinux apart from the crowded field of Linux distributions. The creators of VectorLinux had a single credo: keep it simple, keep it small and let the end user decide what their operating system is going to be. What has evolved from this concept is perhaps the best little Linux operating system available anywhere. For the casual computer user you have a lightning fast desktop with graphical programs to handle your daily activities from web surfing, sending and receiving email, chatting on ICQ or IRC to running an ftp server. The power user will be pleased because all the tools are there to compile their own programs, use the system as a server or perhaps the gateway for their home or office computer network. Administrators will be equally as pleased because the small size and memory requirements of the operating system can be deployed on older machines maybe long forgotten.

Xfld
http://www.xfld.org/

Xfld – ‘Xfce live demo’ – is a liveCD , demonstrating the latest version of Xfce desktop environment and providing a complete Gnu/Linux operating system (based on Ubuntu), which could be run directly from the CD. In contrast to the Xubuntu install CDs, the Xfld CD contains all tools and applications necessary for both productive usage with graphical interface and command line interface. Furthermore the main purpose of Xfld is demonstrating the latest Xfce.

Education LiveCD

Providing a collection of educational programs and/or used in and education or seminar environment.

Bioknoppix
http://bioknoppix.hpcf.upr.edu/

This LiveCD is for education and bio research. Bioknoppix is a customized distribution of Knoppix Linux Live CD. With this distrubution you just boot from the CD and you have a fully functional Linux OS distribution with open source applications targeted for the molecular biologist. Beside using some RAM, Bioknoppix doesn’t touch the host computer, being ideal for demonstrations, molecular biology students, workshops, etc.

Fiubbix
http://moin.lug.fi.uba.ar/FiubbixDistro

fiubbix is a Live-CD (booteable distribution and 100% usable from a CD-ROM) derivative of Knoppix, adapted for use by students of the Faculty of Engineering at the UBA (though probably useful for other universities and engineering in public Overall).

Freeduc
http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd/

Until now — and probably for a while in most heads — the GNU/Linux system at school has been perceived as a good replacement of other proprietary servers. However the server is probably the least important things in term of freedom in a school network. It doesn’t allow a teacher to share a workstation software with students. Supporting GNU/Linux in the workstation side can grant higher freedom and liberty between users in a school.. Therefore, OFSET has setup Freeduc, a tool to help to list, to evaluate and to package only free — non GPL exclusive – edu soft.

LUC3M
http://crisol.uc3m.es/content/view/12/30/

Spanish education based livecd. LUC3M (read ‘Lucem’, accusative of Lux, or “Light”), being developed by the CRUCIBLE group (information resource centre and free software), staying within the Computing Service of the Univerity Carlos III of Madrid. Its aim is to develop a distribution to facilitate teaching, including applications for conducting practices and content development. Although, in principle, it’s aimed at students, teachers and administrative staff and includes applications that can meet the needs anyone.

The DVD versions of old boots LUC3M distribution Live allowing work as if it were installed on the hard drive. A main advantage is that to run from the DVD drive, there is no need to install, and therefore can be tested without changing the configuration of equipment.

Skole Linux
http://www.skolelinux.org/en/

Skolelinux is a complete tailored software solution for the needs of any educational institution or school. It is a ready computer system were your school does not need to piece together the components.

What makes Skolelinux unique is that any teacher can kickstart a whole network of computers within an hour. Experts and teachers have together handpicked the software that any school would need for it’s daily education of pupils and packaged it for a tailored solution for schools and educational purposes, made easy to install.

Entertainment LiveCD

Providing audio, video (multimedia) environments.

AmaroK Live
http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Amarok_Live#Amarok_Live

An entertainment LiveCD version. Amarok Live is a stripped down LiveCD with a fully functional Amarok music player bundled with the tracks commissioned last year by Wired Magazine, which are distributed under the Creative Commons Sampling Licenses.

Insert the CD and boot. In most cases, you can just hit return at the ISOLinux boot prompt. There are various cheat-codes / boot-parameters, that you can use if case of hardware trouble.

ByzantineOS
http://byzgl.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

A software internet appliance with a home entertainment bias. It is based on a networked Linux distribution/bootable system with Mozilla providing access to a range of services and applications. Fits in 32MB (or 48MB) of media and should work on any x86 based PC.

GeeXboX
http://www.geexbox.org/en/index.html

GeeXboX is a free embedded Linux distribution which aims at turning your computer into a so called HTPC (Home Theater PC) or Media Center. Being a standalone LiveCD-based distribution, it’s a ready to boot operating system than works on any Pentium-class x86 computer or PowerPC Macintosh, implying no software requirement. You can even use it on a diskless computer, the whole system being loaded in RAM.

Despite his tiny ISO image size, the distribution comes with a complete and automatic hardware detection, not requiring any driver to be added. It supports playback of nearly any kind of audio/video and image files and all known codecs and containers are shipped in, allowing playing them through various physical supports, either being CD, DVD, HDD, LAN or Internet.

GeeXboX also comes with a complete toolchain that allows developers adding easily extra packages and features but that might also be used to give birth to many dedicated embedded Linux systems.

MoviX
http://movix.sourceforge.net/

MoviX is a light media distribution that supports streaming, TV cards, slideshows, internet radio, infrared controllers and others. MoviX can boot from CDs, HDDs, USB Flash Drives, CompactFlash cards and network. MoviX2 is a spin-off project that features X alongside the usual MoviX configuration.

eMoviX is a tiny GNU/Linux distribution that plays video files when booted, based on MPlayer. It is utilised by MoviXMaker-2 and K3b.

MoviX distributions are very compact. In fact, smaller than Damn Small Linux.

Musix GNU+Linux
http://www.musix.org.ar/en/index.html

It’s a 100% free multimedia operating system intended for music production, graphic design, audio and video edition, and all kind of tasks. It contains an enormous collection of free (as in freedom) programs that can replace Windows.

Mayah OS
http://myah.org/

Myah OS is a performance desktop operating system. Made for home use with a focus on Internet, Office, and multimedia. Myah OS has been optimized for i686 processors for fast performance. Myah OS is an original Linux distro, compiled from build scripts written by Jeremiah Cheatham.

StreamBOX
http://streambox.org/

StreamBOX-LiveCD is a selfmade, KNOPPIX based Boot-CD, which is specially designed to stream MP3. Also there are some programs to stream in the OGG-Vorbis-Format.

Wolvix
http://wolvix.org/

Wolvix is a LiveDistro built from Slackware and the Linux-Live scripts. It’s a desktop and multimedia oriented Linux distribution designed to suit the needs of regular to advanced desktop users. Wolvix comes with the Xfce desktop environment and the Fluxbox window manager and includes a carefully selected group of development, graphics, multimedia, network and office applications.

Firewalls LiveCD

Providing firewall solutions.

Formilux
http://formilux.ant-computing.com/

Formilux is a very light and secure Linux distribution. It is targetted at internet servers, routers, firewalls and semi-embedded systems. It requires a very limited administration but needs fairly skilled administrators. Installing a secured proxy or a firewall just requires about 12 MB and a few minutes.

Linux LiveCD Router
http://www.wifi.com.ar/english/cdrouter/

Speed-up your Internet connection! Linux LiveCD Router allows you to share, firewall and optimize your broadband connection. You can use DSL, ADSL, Cable Modem, T1, Fixed IPs, Dial-Up, WiFi and more. Includes traffic priority settings for VoIP and other apps. Can avoid ISP traffic limiting.

m0n0wall
http://m0n0.ch/wall/

m0n0wall is a project aimed at creating a complete, embedded firewall software package that, when used together with an embedded PC, provides all the important features of commercial firewall boxes (including ease of use) at a fraction of the price (free software). m0n0wall is based on a bare-bones version of FreeBSD, along with a web server, PHP and a few other utilities. The entire system configuration is stored in one single XML text file to keep things transparent. m0n0wall is probably the first UNIX system that has its boot-time configuration done with PHP, rather than the usual shell scripts, and that has the entire system configuration stored in XML format.

redWall Firewall
http://www.redwall-firewall.com/

redWall is a bootable CD-ROM Firewall. It’s goal is to provide a feature rich firewall solution, with the main goal, to provide a webinterface for all the logfiles generated!

Sentry Firewall CD
http://www.sentryfirewall.com/

Sentry Firewall CD-ROM is a Linux-based bootable CDROM suitable for use as an inexpensive and easy to maintain firewall, server, or IDS(Intrusion Detection System) Node. The system is designed to be immediately configurable for a variety of different operating environments via a configuration file located on a floppy disk, a local hard drive, and/or a network via HTTP(S), FTP, SFTP, or SCP.

The Sentry Firewall CD is a complete Linux system that runs off of an initial ramdisk, much like a floppy-based system, and a CD. The default kernel is a current 2.4.x series kernel with various Netfilter patches applied. An OpenWall-patched current 2.2.x kernel is also available on the CD.

Forensics LiveCD

Providing environments that contain forensic tools.

F.I.R.E.
http://biatchux.dmzs.com/

FIRE is a portable bootable cdrom based distribution with the goal of providing an immediate environment to perform forensic analysis, incident response, data recovery, virus scanning and vulnerability assessment.

Also provides necessary tools for live forensics/analysis on win32, sparc solaris and x86 linux hosts just by mounting the cdrom and using trusted static binaries available in /statbins.

Helix
http://www.e-fense.com/helix/

Helix focuses on Incident Response & Forensics tools. It is meant to be used by individuals who have a sound understanding of Incident Response and Forensic techniques.

Penguin Sleuth
http://www.linux-forensics.com/

Penguin Sleuth Kit, based on Knoppix, is a virtual computer forensics and security platform.

Gaming LiveCD

Providing gaming platforms.

AdvanceCD
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/

A gaming version on a bootable live CD, DVD and USB disk of a minimal Linux distribution containing the AdvanceMAME emulator.

Freduc
http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-games

French. With GNU/Linux can be fun! Thet offer a special edition of Freeduc-cd dedicated to video games. Uses XFCE and is based on KNOPPIX/Debian, which allows them to easily add and develop additional software packages.

KnoppiXMAME
http://sourceforge.net/projects/knoppixmame/

KnoppiXMAME is a bootable CD/DVD image with hardware automatic probing and configuration for playing MAME games. No games are included, but they can be added to the ISO image, as well as new versions of X-MAME, gxmame, and the Linux kernel.

Medical LiveCD

Providing medical systems or applications.

CDMEDIC LIVE CD
http://cdmedicpacsweb.sourceforge.net/cdmedic_en.html

Full featured free PACS based on ctn, dcmtk and mysql,with remote administration using apache mod perl and imaging processing capabilities using ImageMagick, Grevera’s dcm2pgm DICOM converter and AFNI, running in a Knoppix based live CD in less than 5 minutes without hard disk installation, with interesting programs CTSim, XMedcon, Amide, FSL and Slicer. This is medical based.

OIO System
http://www.txoutcome.org/

Open Infrastructure for Outcomes (OIO) system enables clinicians, researchers, and other non-programmers to create and maintain flexible and portable patient/research records. It aims to achieve the ” Holy Grail ” of data portablity as elegantly described by John G. Faughnan.

The major components of the OIO system are the web-accessible OIO Server and OIO Library. OIO Server is a highly flexible web-based data management system that manages users, patients, and information about patients. (Of course, the same system can just as easily manage information about customers, invoices, shipments, and accounts.)

Toophpix
http://truth.positive-internet.com/~mpreston/tp/tp0412intro.html

Based on Knoppix, it sets up a LAMP server in RAM and facilitates various dental resources.

WorldVistA
http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista

Furthering the cause of affordable healthcare information technology worldwide by advocating, championing, and employing the open source paradigm to expand the use and collaborative improvement of the VistA electronic health record.

Public Livecd

Providing environments that can be quickly launched for general public use.

Firefox LiveCD
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Other/Firefox-LiveCD-4686.shtml

Firefox LiveCD is LiveCD similar to LiveKiosk, but with original binary version of Mozilla Firefox. No changes were done to user interface and everything is set to Firefox defaults.

LiveFirefox is intended for people who want to have custom Firefox based LiveCD, but find LiveKiosk unsuitable for this purpose.

KioskCD
http://www.kioskcd.com/

Your PC boots from the CD and a web browser appears — that’s it! Use wherever you want to supply Web access to people, without worrying about what they will do to your computer.

MorphixLiveKiosk
http://www.morphix.org/

MorphixLiveKiosk is a Morphix CD, based on the previous LiveCDs released by LiveCD.net. It is a LiveCD that contains a locked down version of firefox-browser. Boot the computer using the LiveCD and you can use the browser – nothing else (well apart from a screensaver), close the brower and all the viewing history is deleted from memory.

Rescue LiveCD

Providing tools needed for data rescue and recovery.

Crash Recovery Kit for Linux
http://crashrecovery.org/

A rescue disk. Crash Recovery for Linux sounds a bit superfluous. Linux is regarded as one of todays most stable Operating Systems. In the case of some hardware failure like a broken disk it can however be handy. Of course your machine doesn’t have to have linux installed to make use of the CRK kit. There are several uses and purposes for the CRK to be used. To name a few:

Recovery of a trashed LILO boot record. How many times does it happen that some person installs windows 98/95 after he/she installed linux? Well in that case windows 9X just overwrites the MBR record and linux won’t be able to boot anymore.

Backup over the network in the form of tar.gz tarballs. Both FAT16, FAT32, ext2 and all filesystems which Linux supports in a read/write fashion can be taken care of. The strong part of the CRK is when a disk is replaced or repartitioning is being done. The CRK boots a complete mini linux with networking where all possible hardware which is inside the Linux kernel is available.

Testing hardware of new intel based machines.

Detecting versions and types of hardware. The Linux kernel holds a large database of hardware supported. Booting a linux kernel doesn’t only resolve if the hardware is ok, it also show its specs. This can be handy if one wants to check-out an old/new PC which is for sale.

Recovery of a misconfigured or hacked Linux system. Well that can happen. /etc/fstab can be wrong or the root password is unknown etc.

Make a tape backup of a disk which can’t be booted anymore.

The CRK is based on RedHat Linux.

FreeBSD LiveCD
http://livecd.sourceforge.net/

The FreeBSD LiveCD Tool Set has a main goal, which is to allow one to generate their own custom FreeBSD Live CDs.

Hiren’s Boot CD
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

Appears to be primarily focused on WIndows systems. Therefore it may be an exception to this list. :)

Julex
http://julexlinux.sourceforge.net/

Julex is a Knoppix Based Linux distribution aimed at users that want to get files back from their hard drive after their computer fails to boot, Troubleshoot their pc, Get on the net in a hurry or just as a small light (no bloat) distro to use on their old (or new if so inclined) computer.

PLD Rescue CD
http://rescuecd.pld-linux.org/

PLD RescueCD is a bootable disk that contains a live Linux distribution based on PLD Linux (2.6.24.3 modular kernel) made in Poland. Furthermore this version uses transparent compression (squashfs) to fit about 180 MB of software onto a single mini CD in usable form.

PLD RescueCD can be used to rescue ailing machines, perform intrusion post-mortems, act as a temporary secure linux-based workstation (using ssh, vpn connecting to remote host – other networking clients are also supported), install PLD Linux, and perform many other tasks that we haven’t yet imagined. It provides a much nicer rescue environment than your average rescue floppy.

PLoP Linux
http://www.plop.at/page_en_4.html

PLoP Linux is a small distribution that can boot from CD, DVD, USB flash drive (UFD), USB harddisk or from network with PXE. It’s designed to rescue data from a damaged system, backup and restore operating systems and more.

RIP
http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-robotti/looplinux/rip/

(R)ecovery (I)s (P)ossible Linux rescue system. It’s a regular ISO used to created a system rescue CD. Make sure the program you use to download it understands it’s a binary file. If it’s downloaded as a text file it could get corrupted and be unusable.

SystemRescueCd
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CDROM for repairing your system and recovering your data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It is very easy to use: just boot the CDROM. The kernel supports most of the important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

Trinity Rescue Kit
http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1&front_id=12

Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues. It is possible to boot TRK in three different ways: As a bootable CD which you can burn yourself from a downloadable isofile, ffrom a USB stick/disk (optionally also a fixed disk), installable from Windows or from the bootable TRK cd, from network over PXE, which requires some modifications on your local network.

Ultimate Boot CD
http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/

You need the Ultimate Boot CD if you want to Run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives, Free yourself from the slow loading speed of the floppy drive, Consolidate as many diagnostic tools as possible into one bootable CD or Run Ultimate Boot CD from your USB memory stick. When you boot up from the CD, a text-based menu will be displayed, and you will be able to select the tool you want to run.

The selected tool actually boots off a virtual floppy disk created in memory.

Security LiveCD

Providing various network security type tools.

Arudius
http://www.fosstools.org/

A security based Linux version. An information assurance (IA) Linux live CD, used by information assurance professionals to help them assess systems and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. The CD is loaded with with tools for penetration testing and vulnerability analysis. Information assurance has many other aspects besides network security. However, it seems that the mainstream public identifies information assurance primarily with securing network-accessible systems, so they decided to go with the mainstream and call Arudius a tool for information assurance. The CD consists of a Zenwalk Linux base on top of which a large collection of network security testing software has been installed – including tools listed on Insecure.org Top 75 list plus many other tools listed on Freshmeat, Sf.net and other information assurance sites around the world.

BackTrack
http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack.html

A security related Linux LiveCD that is touted as the most Top rated linux live distribution focused on penetration testing. With no installation whatsoever, the analysis platform is started directly from the CD-Rom and is fully accessible within minutes.

BSI OSS
http://www.bsi.bund.de/produkte/boss/index.htm

Security based. The Open Source Software BOSS (BSI OSS Security Suite) essentially builds on the proven security scanner Nessus. The BOSS addition to the Security Local Auditing Daemon (SLAD), ensures the integrated management of local security software takes over.

Frenzy
http://frenzy.org.ua/eng/

Frenzy is a “portable system administrator toolkit,” LiveCD based on FreeBSD. It generally contains software for hardware tests, file system check, security check and network setup and analysis. Size of ISO-image is 200 MBytes (3″ CD).

grml
http://grml.org/

grml is a bootable CD (Live-CD) originally based on Knoppix and more recently based on Debian. grml includes a collection of GNU/Linux software especially for system administrator and users of texttools.

grml provides automatic hardware detection. You can use grml (for example) as a rescue system, for analyzing systems/networks or as a working environment. It is not necessary to install anything to a harddisk; you don’t even need a harddisk to run it. Due to on-the-fly decompression grml includes about 2.1GB of software and documentation on the CD.

Insert
http://www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html

INSERT is a complete, bootable linux system. It comes with a graphical user interface running the fluxbox window manager while still being sufficiently small to fit on a credit card-sized CD-ROM.INSERT contains a multitude of useful tools to be at your hand in a variety of situations.

Navyn OS
http://navynos.linux.pl/

Navyn OS is a gnu/linux distribution based on Gentoo. Gentoo isn’t a typical distribution like Debian or Slackware, it doesn’t even have an installer, it is similar to making your own distribution. The main part of Gentoo is portage, a set of scripts for installing and removing programs.

Network Security Toolkit
http://www.networksecuritytoolkit.org/nst/

This bootable ISO live CD is based on Fedora. The toolkit was designed to provide easy access to best-of-breed Open Source Network Security Applications and should run on most x86 platforms. The main intent of developing this toolkit was to provide the network security administrator with a comprehensive set of Open Source Network Security Tools.

Plan-B
http://www.projectplanb.org/

Plan-B is a bootable Linux environment without the need for a hard drive, it runs entirely in ram or from the cd, based on a basic, stripped installation of Red Hat Linux and the fundamental workings of the SuperRescue CD.

STD
http://www.knoppix-std.org/

STD is a Linux-based Security Tool. Actually, it is a collection of hundreds if not thousands of open source security tools. It’s a Live Linux Distro, which means it runs from a bootable CD in memory without changing the native operating system of the host computer. Its sole purpose in life is to put as many security tools at your disposal with as slick an interface as it can.

STD is meant to be used by both novice and professional security personnel but is not ideal for the Linux uninitiated. STD assumes you know the basics of Linux as most of your work will be done from the command line. If you are completely new to Linux, it’s best you start with another live Distro like Knoppix to practice the basics.

WarLinux
https://sourceforge.net/projects/warlinux/

A linux distribution for Wardrivers. It is available on disk and bootable CD. It’s main intended use is for systems administrators that want to audit and evaluate thier wireless network installations. Should be handy for wardriving also.

Servers LiveCD

Providing server systems.

ATMission
http://www.atconsultancy.nl/atmission/

A server and desktop Linux LiveCD. The main advantage of ATmission compared to other Live Linux CD’s is its flexibility. You can modify any file on the ATmission Live CD. This implies that you can: create user accounts, install additional RPM’s, start a database on boot, configure a firewall, etc… anything you can do with a normal Linux system, and preserve your changes in a file located on hard disk or a USB memory stick

Devil-Linux
http://www.devil-linux.org/home/index.php

Devil-Linux is a distribution which boots and runs completely from CDROM. The configuration can be saved to a floppy diskette or a USB pen drive. Devil Linux was originally intended to be a dedicated firewall/router but now Devil-Linux can also be used as a server for many applications. Attaching an optional hard drive is easy, and many network services are included in the distribution.

The system is designed to install without the use of a hard drive. It requires the use of a CDROM and a write-protected floppy. The CDROM provides the operating system, and the floppy provides the configuration information, via a tarball that is unpacked into the /etc directory. In this way, the system is fully configurable, yet the running system has no writeable device.

ffsearch-LiveCD
http://ffsearch.packetstorm.ch/

ffsearch-LiveCD is a modified Knoppix-Linux with Fast File Search running on top of it. This way, no installation is required! You can download an Iso, burn it on CD, put the disc in you CD-drive and boot it up. It crawls the net for SMB and FTP shares and provides you with a web interface for searching these files.

LAMPPIX
http://lamppix.tinowagner.com/

LAMPPIX allows you to burn your web projects (i.e. PHP presentations or Perl scripts) onto a CD-ROM and give them away to others. They will only have to insert the CD and reboot — if you configured LAMPPIX properly (and this is really easy!) they can view your project.

SoL
http://www.sol-linux.com/

It’s a server based system. There are tons of options, visit their site to learn more.

Zeroshell
http://www.zeroshell.net/eng/

Zeroshell is a small Linux distribution for servers and embedded devices aimed at providing the main network services a LAN requires. It is available in the form of Live CD or Compact Flash image and you can configure and administer it using your web browser.

[tags]linux, ubuntu, livecd, 130, desktop, lamp, open source[/tags]

One thing I often run into is helping friends fix problems with their Ubuntu Linux based PC’s. I like doing that, because it gives me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when I’m able to help them. One drawback, is I often get a call from help after the workday is over. (That’s when I want to relax). Inevitably, I sometimes spend a long time on the phone, trying to talk them through a “fix”. Often I pay them a visit.

Wouldn’t it be nice if I could simply access their desktops and do the fix from my end? Yes, of course. On that train of thought, I figured I’d role out VNC on all of them (who want it). The best part being that it does not take a rocket science approach to accomplish. :) It’s fairly simple. This post is revisiting one of our earlier posts.

To enable remote connections, simply select System > Preferences > Remote Desktop as seen in the screenshot below.

In my case, I needed the ability to change configuration settings while fixing issues for them. Therefore, I enabled “Allow others to view your desktop” and “Allow others to control your desktop”. For added peace of mind, I also enabled “Ask for confirmation” and required a password to be used. You can see these settings in the screen shot below.

Okay! We’re at the half-way point. We have remote desktop enabled. Now we need the ability to connect to it from the outside. To make sure networking works, I always open Firefox, just to make sure there’s an internet connection. In case there’s not, a simple networking restart command will work (to get a DHCP provided address from your router):

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

To be able to connect from the outside, you need two pieces of critical information and a properly configured router.

1. Your external router (WAN) IP address. The script that runs in my “How to: Easy Remote Access Connection to Ubuntu” post will display it for you.
2. The port number that VNC uses. That number is: 5900

To facilitate the last step, we are going to configure the router to allow connections to port #5900 from the outside (WAN) IP address. And… those connections are going to be forwarded to the Ubuntu Linux PC.

In my case, I have an old SMC router gathering dust, so I’ve quickly connected it for the purpose of this post. Your router interface will look different, but at least the screenshots below will give you an idea of what to look for.

After logging into the router’s configuration interface, you can go the the “Virtual Server” area and allow port 5900 function on your private IP address and make sure that port 5900 is also allowed as a public connection port (to your private IP address).

Next, we can go to the “Special Applications” and enable the trigger and public ports (5900).

After saving the new settings, you should be able to establish remote connections. Here is the process for that:

1. Have the person you are connecting to visit: http://ubuntulinuxhelp.com/how-to-easy-remote-access-connection-to-ubuntu/ (or any other site that provides IP addresses) and have them tell you what their external IP address is.
2. In your Ubuntu Linux system, open a terminal and issue the following command (using the IP address you were given above). It will look something like this:

vncviewer 24.36.85.112:0

You should get a prompt to enter a password and away you go!

Where did I get the “vncviewer xxxxxx :0″ part? Look at the second screenshot in this post. You will see where it says “vncviewer uplay:0″ Right under where it says “Users can view your desktop using this command”. When trying to connect to the desktop from another location, I would change the “uplay” part to “24.36.85.112″

As usual, I hope this helps some of you and is a bit of fun to do.
Either way, it’s a good learning tool!

Enjoy!
:)

The majority of these applications can be installed by either apt-get or synaptic, however I’ve included the web site addresses of these applications so that you can obtain more information. I’ve tried many of these applications myself – and they are pretty good!

This list took a long time to put together and I tried to keep it in alphabetical order for you. – You might want to bookmark this and come back later. :)
Enjoy!

Audio Applications

Ardour:
(http://www.ardour.org/)

Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound.

Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-destructive editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a powerful mixer, unlimited tracks/busses/plugins, timecode synchronization, and hardware control from surfaces like the Mackie Control Universal. If you’ve been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Pyramix, or Sequoia, you might have found it.

Audacity:
(http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

Record live audio.
Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
And more!

Grip:
(http://nostatic.org/grip/)

Grip is a cd-player and cd-ripper for the Gnome desktop. It has the ripping capabilities of cdparanoia builtin, but can also use external rippers (such as cdda2wav). It also provides an automated frontend for MP3 (and other audio format) encoders, letting you take a disc and transform it easily straight into MP3s. Internet disc lookups are supported for retrieving track information from disc database servers.Grip works with DigitalDJ to provide a unified “computerized” version of your music collection.

Hydrogen:
(http://www.hydrogen-music.org/)

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It’s main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

Jokosher:
(http://www.jokosher.org/)

Jokosher is a simple and powerful multi-track studio. Jokosher provides a complete application for recording, editing, mixing and exporting audio, and has been specifically designed with usability in mind.

The developers behind Jokosher have re-thought audio production at every level, and created something devilishly simple to use.

LMMS:
(http://lmms.sourceforge.net/)

LMMS aims to be a free alternative to popular (but commercial and closed- source) programs like FruityLoops/FL Studio, Cubase and Logic allowing you to produce music with your computer. This includes creation of loops, synthesizing and mixing sounds, arranging samples, having fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more…

MusE:
(http://www.muse-sequencer.org/)

MusE is a MIDI/Audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities written by Werner Schweer. MusE aims to be a complete multitrack virtual studio for Linux.

Midi sequencing
Record/Playback/Import
Input filter
Audio sequencing
Record/Playback several mono/stereo inputs/outputs.
AudioGroups

LASH
Perform audio effects like chorus/flanger in realtime!
Jack – jack-audio-connection-kit
Use the jack for midi/audio routing.
Internal Audio Routing Interface

ALSA – based on the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture

You can use several soundcards to access external midi devices and record/playback them with MusE.

Rosegarden:
(http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/)

Rosegarden is a professional audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.

soundKonverter:
(http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=29024)

soundKonverter is a frontend to various audio converters.

The key features are:
Audio conversion
Replay Gain calculation
CD ripping

Streamripper:
(http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/)

With the emergence of file sharing protocols such as Napster, Gnutella, and now Mojonation and Freenet, the average Internet user can download nearly any mp3 he wants in a matter of no time, but many times people don’t know what they want. Streamripper allows you to download an entire station of music. Many of these mp3 radio stations only play certain genres, so you can now download an entire collection of goa/trance music, an entire collection of jazz, punk rock, whatever you want.

Graphic Design Applications (2D)

Cenon:
(http://www.cenon.info/frame_gb.html)

Cenon is a graphical tool of a special kind. Build upon a modular graphical core, Cenon offers a wide variety of possibilities and applications.
The best of all, the Cenon core is free software, available with full source codes, and at home on many computer platforms.

GIMPshop:
(http://www.gimpshop.com/)

GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

It shares all GIMP’s advantages, including the long feature list and customisability, while addressing some common criticisms regarding the program’s interface: GIMPshop modifies the menu structure to closely match Photoshop’s, adjusts the program’s terminology to match Adobe’s, and, in the Windows version, uses a plugin called ‘Deweirdifier’ to combine the application’s numerous windows in a similar manner to the MDI system used by most Windows graphics packages. While GIMPshop does not support Photoshop plugins, all GIMP’s own plugins, filters, brushes, etc. remain available.

Due to the changes to the interface, many Photoshop tutorials can be followed in GIMPshop unchanged, and most others can be adapted for GIMPshop users with minimal effort.

Hugin:
(http://hugin.sourceforge.net/)

An easy to use cross-platform panoramic imaging toolchain based on Panorama Tools.
With hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete immersive panorama, stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more.

Inkscape:
(http://www.inkscape.org/)

An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.

KoverArtist:
(http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=38195)

KoverArtist is a program for the fast creation of covers for cd/dvd cases and boxes. The main idea behind it is to be able to create decent looking covers with some mouseclicks.

Supports changing covers on the fly to use cases that can house more discs.

Ktoon:
(http://ktoon.toonka.com/)

KToon is a 2D Animation Toolkit designed by animators (Toonka Films ) for animators, focused to the Cartoon Industry. This project is covered by the GPL License using G++, OpenGL and QT as programming resources from KDevelop as the development platform.

Krita:
(http://www.koffice.org/krita/)

Krita is a painting and image editing application for KOffice. Krita is part of KOffice since version 1.4. Krita contains both ease-of-use and fun features like guided painting (never before has it been so easy to airbrush a straight line!) and high-end features like support for 16 bit images, CMYK, L*a*b and even OpenEXR HDR images.

MyPaint:
(http://mypaint.intilinux.com/)

MyPaint is a fast painting/scribbling program. It supports pressure sensitive graphic tablets and comes with an easy to use brush collection. There is a complex interface for creating your own brushes, focusing on brush dynamics (changes with speed, pressure, or randomly). The canvas size is unlimited and undo is supported, but not layers.

OpenOffice Draw:
(http://www.openoffice.org/product/draw.html)

DRAW - from a quick sketch to a complex plan, DRAW gives you the tools to communicate with graphics and diagrams.

‘Park’ your most commonly used drawing tools around your screen ready for single-click access.

Use Styles and Formatting to put all your graphics styles at your finger tips.

Manipulate objects, rotate in two or three dimensions; the 3D controller puts spheres, rings, cubes, etc. at your disposal.

Arrange objects: group, ungroup, regroup, and edit objects while grouped. Sophisticated rendering let you create photorealistic images with your own texture, lighting effects, transparency, perspective, and so on.

Smart connectors make short work of flowcharts, organization charts, network diagrams, etc. Define your own ‘glue points’ for connectors to ‘stick’ to.

Dimension lines automatically calculate and display linear dimensions as you draw.

Use the picture Gallery for clipart; create your own art and add it to the Gallery.

Save your graphics in OpenDocument format, the new international standard for office documents. This XML based format means you’re not tied in to DRAW. You can access your graphics from any OpenDocument compliant software.

Import graphics from all common formats (including BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and WMF).

Use DRAW’s free ability to create Flash (.swf) versions of your work.

Panorama Tools:
(http://www.all-in-one.ee/%7Edersch/)

Software to View, Create, Edit and Remap Panoramic Images :

PTStitcher: High quality, simple to use, all format stitching software.
Panorama Tools: Photoshop plug-in for panorama creation, editing and remapping.
PTViewer: High quality spherical viewer, Standalone and java versions for many platforms.

Pixelize:
(http://lashwhip.com/pixelize.html)

Pixelize will use many scaled down images to try to duplicate, as closely as possible, another image.

Pixelize works by splitting up the image you want rendered (or duplicated) into a grid of small rectangular areas. Each area is analyzed, and replaced with an image chosen from a large database of images.

Pixelize tries to pick images that best match each area.

Pixelize works best when it can choose images from a very large database of images. With about 1000 images, Pixelize can do a reasonable job.

Scribus:
(http://www.scribus.net/)

Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout.

Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.

Skencil:
(http://www.skencil.org/)

Skencil is a Free Software interactive vector drawing appliction. Known to run on GNU/Linux and other UNIX-compatible systems, it is a flexible and powerful tool for illustrations, diagrams and other purposes.
A somewhat unique (for a drawing program) feature of Skencil is that it is implemented almost completely in a very high-level, interpreted language, Python. Python is powerful, object-oriented and yet easy to use.

Synfig:
(http://synfig.org/Main_Page & http://www.synfig.com/)

Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. While there are many other programs currently on the market to aid with the efficient production of 2D animation, we are currently unaware of any other software that can do what our software can.

2D Animation has traditionally been very expensive because every frame must be drawn by hand. Even with today’s digital inking and painting software, the process still relies on individuals hand-drawing each frame. This laborious task is called “tweening”.

Our animation technology eliminates the task of manual tweening, producing smooth, fluid motion without the animator having to draw out each frame individually.

This allows you to produce 2D animation with fewer people while producing a product of a higher quality.

Xara Xtreme:
(http://www.xaraxtreme.org/)

Xara Xtreme for Linux is a powerful, general purpose graphics program for Unix platforms including Linux, FreeBSD and (in development) OS-X.

Formely known as Xara LX, it is based on Xara Xtreme for Windows, which is the fastest graphics program available, period. The Xara Xtreme source code was made available open-source in early 2006, and is being ported to Linux. This process is almost complete and Xara Xtreme for Linux is available for download.

Xara Xtreme for Linux:

Is very fast, very slick to use.
Offers some of the most powerful graphics tools available.
Is simple to use and learn.
Has a clean, un-cluttered user interface. Few floating dialogs, palettes, menus etc.
Is able to create a huge range of outstanding graphics.
* Has a huge resource of learning material, tutorials, movies, tips and a very active enthusiastic and growing user community.

Graphic Design Applications (3D)

Art Of Illusion:
(http://www.artofillusion.org/)

Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. It is written entirely in Java, and should be usable on any Java Virtual Machine which is compatible with J2SE 1.4 or later.

Many of its capabilities rival those found in commercial programs. Some of the highlights include subdivision surface based modelling tools, skeleton based animation, and a graphical language for designing procedural textures and materials.

Blender:
(http://www.blender.org/)

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.
model • shade • animate • render • composite • interactive 3d

Crystal Space:
(http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Main_Page)

Crystal Space is a free cross-platform software development kit for realtime 3D graphics, in particular games.

FreeWRL:
(http://freewrl.sourceforge.net/)

FreeWRL supports the VRML97 and X3D open standards;
Is confirmed as “Interchange Profile” conformant by the Web3d Consortium;
Runs on OSX and Linux, it runs within Web browsers, or standalone;
Is ReWire and MIDI enabled for sound-based interaction;
Is able to interconnect to other programs using MIDI, or the EAI and SAI external programming interfaces.

G3DViewer:
(http://automagically.de/index.shtml?g3dviewer)

G3DViewer is a 3D file viewer for GTK+ supporting a variety of file types:

3D Studio (.3ds, .prj)
LightWave (.lw, .lwb, .lwo)
Alias Wavefront (.obj)
Impulse TurboSilver / Imagine (.iob)
AutoCAD (.dxf)
Quake II Models (.md2)
Quake III Models (.md3) (new in 0.2.99.1)
Neutral File Format (.nff)
3D Metafile (.3dmf, .3mf, .b3d)
Caligari TrueSpace Objects (.cob)
Quick3D Objects & Scenes (.q3o, q3s)
VRML 1.0 files (.wrl, .vrml) (new in 0.1.1, still buggy)
AC3D objects (.ac, .acc) (new in 0.1.99.1)
LeoCAD Models (.lcd) (new in 0.2.99.1)
Racer car models (.ar, .dof) (new in libg3d 0.0.5, not really complete)
Ultimate Stunts car models (.glb) (new in libg3d 0.0.5)
VDrift car models (.joe, .car) (new in libg3d 0.0.5)

K3DSurf:
(http://k3dsurf.sourceforge.net/)

K3DSurf is a program to visualize and manipulate Mathematical models in three, four, five and six dimensions. K3DSurf supports Parametric equations and Isosurfaces.

Studying mathematical surfaces with K3DSurf include doing:

Interactive visualization with mouse events (Right: Rotate, Middle: translate and left: Scale).
Real time animation (rotation) and morph (by the introduction of t_time variable). Animation and morph can also be monitored by controls that affect the CPU usage and t_time step.
Create screenshots by copying the draw window or by using the best ray tracer on the net: Povray.
Create movie scene is also supported.
Generate Mesh files that describe the shape of the mathematical model.

Supported formats are:
Povscript: Povray is the best ray tracer available on the net…and it’s free.
VRML2: to use with the majority of current browsers via an appropriate plug-in.
OBJ: a well-known file format supported by the majority of 3D applications (Blender, MAYA and Moray…).

KPovModeler:
(http://www.kpovmodeler.org/)

KPovModeler is a modeling and composition program for creating POV-Ray(TM) scenes in KDE.

For most of the modelers, POV-Ray is nothing but a rendering engine and they bring a lot of limitations to the innate possibilities of POV-Ray scripted language. This is not the case for KPovModeler which allows you to use all the features of POV-Ray through the translation of POV-Ray language into a graphical tree.

Almost all options of POV-Ray’s script language can be used within KPovModeler. “Almost” because variables, loop instructions, macros and some operators can’t directly be, unfortunately. On the other hand, KPovModeler allows you to include a part of a script with the “Raw POV-Ray” tool; such a raw code will only be taken into account by POV-Ray during the rendering stage.

Among the features you can find:

Management of the scene through a graphical tree.
Object modification with control points in a graphical view or direct manipulation of object attributes in a dialog.
Nonblocking scene rendering with OpenGL as wire frame views.
Freely configurable view layout with dock widgets.
Copy/paste and drag/drop of (a subset of) povray(!) code into and out of the object tree.
Undo and redo.
Scene rendering and texture preview with povray inside the program.
Support for almost all povray objects.
Support for all textures.
Prototypes (declarations) and references.
All projection modes of the camera.

PovRay:
(http://www.povray.org/)

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.

White Dune:
(http://vrml.cip.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/dune/)

White_dune is a low level VRML97 tool for Unix/Linux/MacOSX and Windows.
It can read VRML97 files, display and let the user change the scenegraph/fields.
Unlike most highlevel tools, it uses a light model based on the VRML97 standard.

Video Applications

AvideMUX:
(http://avidemux.berlios.de/index.html)

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEGfiles, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

Cinelerra:
(http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3)

Cinelerra does primarily 3 main things: capturing, compositing, and editing audio and video with sample level accuracy. It’s a seamless integration of audio, video, and still photos rarely experienced on a web server.

If you want to make movies with the same kind of compositing and editing suite that the big boys use, on the world’s most efficient UNIX operating system, it’s time for Cinelerra.

CinePaint:
(http://www.cinepaint.org/)

CinePaint is used to retouch feature films and in pro photography. CinePaint opens high fidelity image file formats such as DPX, 16-bit TIFF, and OpenEXR, and conventional formats like JPEG and PNG. It has a flipbook for movie playback of image sequences in RAM. It supports 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels, HDR and CMS.

CinePaint is used for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching, dirt removal, wire rig removal, render repair, background plates, and painting 3D model textures. It’s been used on many feature films, including The Last Samurai where it was used to add flying arrows.

For still photography, CinePaint can import bracketed HDR exposures. It has gallery-quality 16-bit per channel color printing with GutenPrint. CinePaint’s high dynamic range is crucial with B&W still photography, where images only have a single channel.

Jahshaka:
(http://jahshaka.org/)

Edit with flexibility and speed.
Create Effects in real time.
Animate with unlimited features.
Paint and design on moving video.
Create music with all the tools the pros use.
Work in any format at any resolution.

Kino:
(http://www.kinodv.org/)

Kino is a non-linear DV editor for GNU/Linux. It features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera. It captures video to disk in Raw DV and AVI format, in both type-1 DV and type-2 DV (separate audio stream) encodings.

You can load multiple video clips, cut and paste portions of video/audio, and save it to an edit decision list (SMIL XML format). Most edit and navigation commands are mapped to equivalent vi key commands. Also, Kino can export the composite movie in a number of formats: DV over IEEE 1394, Raw DV, DV AVI, still frames, WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. Still frame import and export uses gdk-pixbuf, which has support for BMG, GIF, JPEG, PNG, PPM, SVG, Targa, TIFF, and XPM. MP3 requires lame. Ogg Vorbis requires oggenc. MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 require mjpegtools or ffmpeg. MPEG-4 requires ffmpeg.

LiVES:
(http://lives.sourceforge.net/)

LiVES mixes realtime video performance and non-linear editing in one application. It will let you start editing and making video right away, without having to worry about formats, frame sizes, or framerates. It is a very flexible tool which can be used by both VJ’s and video editors – mix and switch clips from the keyboard, trim and edit your clips, and bring them together using the multitrack timeline. You can even record your performance in real time, and then edit it further or render it straight away as a new clip!

recordMyDesktop:
(http://recordmydesktop.iovar.org/about.php)

recordMyDesktop is a desktop session recorderfor GNU/linux that attemps to be easy to use, yet also effective at it’s primary task.
As such, the program is separated in two parts; a simple command line tool that performs the basic tasks of capturing and encoding and an interface that exposes the program functionality in a usable way.

Slideshow Creator:
(http://slcreator.sourceforge.net/)

With Slideshow Creator and dvd-slideshow you can transform your pictures in a beautiful dvd-quality slide show rich of fashinating effects like ken burns, pan and animated transitions. Adding a musical soundtrack too you will have a really cool result!

System Applications:

APTonCD:
(http://aptoncd.sourceforge.net/)

APTonCD is a tool with a graphical interface which allows you to create one or more CDs or DVDs (you choose the type of media) with all of the packages you’ve downloaded via APT-GET or APTITUDE, creating a removable repository that you can use on other computers.

APTonCD will also allow you to automatically create media with all of your .deb packages located in one specific repository, so that you can install them into your computers without the need for an internet connection.

Beagle:
(http://beagle-project.org/Main_Page)

Beagle is a search tool that ransacks your personal information space to find whatever you’re looking for.

More technically, Beagle is a Linux desktop-independent service which transparently and unobtrusively indexes your data in real-time. For example:

Files are immediately indexed when they are created, are re-indexed when they are modified, and are dropped from the index upon deletion.
eMails are indexed upon arrival.
IM conversations are indexed as you chat, a line at a time.
Web pages are indexed as you view them (with a browser extension).

ClamAV:
(http://www.clamav.net/)

Clam AntiVirus is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates.

Conky:
(http://conky.sourceforge.net/)

Conky is a light-weight system monitor under active development, a highly configurable system monitor for X based on torsmo

Ekiga:
(http://ekiga.org/)

Ekiga (formely known as GnomeMeeting) is an open source VoIP and video conferencing application for GNOME. Ekiga uses both the H.323 and SIP protocols. It supports many audio and video codecs, and is interoperable with other SIP compliant software and also with Microsoft NetMeeting.

Endeavour Mark II:
(http://wolfpack.twu.net/Endeavour2/)

Endeavour Mark II is a complete file management suite that comes with a File Browser, Image Browser, Archiver, Recycled Objects system, and a set of file & disk management utility programs.

FileZilla:
(http://filezilla-project.org/)

FileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client.

GParted:
(http://gparted.sourceforge.net/)

GParted is an industrial-strength package for creating, destroying, resizing, moving, checking and copying partitions, and the filesystems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging).

gZIP:
(http://www.gzip.org/)

gzip (GNU zip) is a compression utility designed to be a replacement for compress. Its main advantages over compress are much better compression and freedom from patented algorithms.

K3b:
(http://k3b.plainblack.com/)

K3b was created to be a feature-rich and easy to handle CD burning application.

MondoRescue:
(http://www.mondorescue.org/)

Mondo Rescue is a GPL disaster recovery solution. It supports Linux (i386, x86_64, ia64) and FreeBSD (i386). It’s packaged for multiple distributions (RedHat, RHEL, SuSE, SLES, Mandriva, Debian, Gentoo).
It supports tapes, disks, network and CD/DVD as backup media, multiple filesystems, LVM, software and hardware Raid.

OpenBerg:
(http://openberg.sourceforge.net)

Read, write, publish e-Books with open standards and free software.

OpenOffice:
(http://www.openoffice.org/)

OpenOffice.org the product is a multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office, and the vendor-neutral OpenDocument standard from OASIS.

Available in over 65 supported languages with more being constantly added by the community, OpenOffice.org runs stably and natively on Solaris, Linux (including PPC Linux), Windows, Mac OS X (X11), and numerous other platforms. Our porting page lists the platforms (ports) that OpenOffice.org can run on.

openSSH:
(http://www.openssh.org/)

OpenSSH is a FREE version of the SSH connectivity tools that technical users of the Internet rely on. Users of telnet, rlogin, and ftp may not realize that their password is transmitted across the Internet unencrypted, but it is. OpenSSH encrypts all traffic (including passwords) to effectively eliminate eavesdropping, connection hijacking, and other attacks. Additionally, OpenSSH provides secure tunneling capabilities and several authentication methods, and supports all SSH protocol versions.

PDFedit:
(http://pdfedit.petricek.net/pdfedit.index_e)

Free (and open source) editor for manipulating PDF documents. GUI version + command line interface.

Pidgin:
(http://www.pidgin.im/)

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with:

AIM
Bonjour
Gadu-Gadu
Google Talk
Groupwise
ICQ
IRC
MSN
MySpaceIM
QQ
SILC
SIMPLE
Sametime
XMPP
Yahoo!
Zephyr

PuTTY:
(http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/)

PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.

Reconstructor:
(http://reconstructor.aperantis.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)

Reconstructor is an Ubuntu GNU/Linux CD Creator.
It uses the Desktop(Live), Alternate(Install), or Server disc as a base, and then allows for user customization.

For the Ubuntu Desktop base, you can customize the entire environment. For instance, you can add/remove software, change the default look (splash, themes, fonts, wallpaper, etc.), add desktop links, etc.

For the Alternate and Server bases, you can add any additional software to the disc that you would like installed.

Rox-Filer:
(http://roscidus.com/desktop/ROX-Filer)

ROX is a desktop environment, like GNOME, KDE and XFCE. It is an attempt to bring some of the good features from RISC OS to Unix and Linux.
Traditionally, Unix users have always based their activities around the file system. Just about everything that’s anything appears as a file: regular files, hardware devices, and even processes on many systems (for example, inside the /proc filesystem on Linux).

However, recent desktop efforts (such as KDE and GNOME) seem to be following the Windows approach of trying to hide the filesystem and get users to do things via a Start-menu or similar. Modern desktop users, on Windows or Unix, often have no idea where their programs are installed, or even where their data files are saved. This leads to a feeling of not being in control, and a poor understanding of how the system works.

The ROX Desktop, however, is based around the file system. Its core component is ROX-Filer, a powerful graphical file manager which, in addition to being a popular filer in its own right, provides a couple of extra features which allow it to solve the above problems.

TrueCrypt:
(http://www.truecrypt.org/)

Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.
Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).
Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.

Provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password:

1) Hidden volume (steganography – more information may be found here).

2) No TrueCrypt volume can be identified (volumes cannot be distinguished from random data).

VNC:
(http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/dtg/attarchive/vnc/index.html)

VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is, in essence, a remote display system which allows you to view a computing ‘desktop’ environment not only on the machine where it is running, but from anywhere on the Internet and from a wide variety of machine architectures.

WINE:
(http://www.winehq.org/)

Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix.

Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Solaris.

XFE:
(http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/)

X File Explorer (Xfe) is an MS-Explorer or Commander like file manager for X. Although all these file managers are feature rich and cleverly designed, let’s face it, they are huge! If you’re a console addict, light desktop user or have an older system, resource hogging file managers just aren’t the way to go.

Especially since most file managers are Desktop dependent (KDE, Gnome, Xfce, etc.), requiring you to load all kinds of unwanted bloat onto your system.

Developer Applications

Bugzilla:
(http://www.bugzilla.org/)

(I know Bugzilla is web-based, but it’s so good). Bugzilla is a Web-based general-purpose bugtracker tool originally developed and used by the Mozilla project. Released as open source software by Netscape Communications in 1998, Bugzilla has been adopted by a variety of organizations for use as a defect tracker for both free software and proprietary products.

Eclipse:
(http://www.eclipse.org/)

Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle. A large and vibrant ecosystem of major technology vendors, innovative start-ups, universities, research institutions and individuals extend, complement and support the Eclipse platform.

Gambas:
(http://gambas.sourceforge.net/)

Gambas is a free development environment based on a Basic interpreter with object extensions, a bit like Visual Basic™ (but it is NOT a clone !). Read the introduction for more information.

With Gambas, you can quickly design your program GUI with QT or GTK+, access MySQL, PostgreSQL, Firebird, ODBC and SQLite databases, pilot KDE applications with DCOP, translate your program into any language, create network applications easily, make 3D OpenGL applications, make CGI web applications, and so on…

Geany:
(http://geany.uvena.de/)

Geany is a text editor using the GTK2 toolkit with basic features of an integrated development environment. It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a few dependencies from other packages. It supports many filetypes and has some nice features.

Gobby:
(http://gobby.0×539.de/trac/)

Gobby is a free collaborative editor supporting multiple documents in one session and a multi-user chat. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-like platforms. It uses GTK+ 2.6 as its windowing toolkit and thus integrates nicely into the GNOME desktop environment.

jEdit:
(http://www.jedit.org/)

jEdit is a mature programmer’s text editor with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of development behind it.

Netbeans:
(http://www.netbeans.org/)

The NetBeans IDE is a free, open-source Integrated Development Environment for software developers. You get all the tools you need to create professional desktop, enterprise, web and mobile applications, in Java, C/C++ and even Ruby. The IDE runs on many platforms including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris; it is easy to install and use straight out of the box.

QuantaPlus:
(http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/)

Quanta Plus is a highly stable and feature rich web development environment. The vision with Quanta has always been to start with the best architectural foundations, design for efficient and natural use and enable maximal user extensibility. We recognize that we don’t have the resources to do everything we would like to so our target is to make it easy for you to help make this the best community based desktop application anywhere. Pretty much everything in Quanta is designed so you can extend it. Even the way it handles XML DTDs is based on XML files you can edit. You can even import DTDs, write scripts to manage editor contents, visually create dialogs for your scripts and assign script actions to nearly any file operation in a project. You can even look at and communicate with a wide range of what happens inside Quanta using DCOP.

SciTE:
(http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html)

SciTE is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. Originally built to demonstrate Scintilla (http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/index.html), it has grown to be a generally useful editor with facilities for building and running programs. It is best used for jobs with simple configurations – I use it for building test and demonstration programs as well as SciTE and Scintilla, themselves.

Productivity Applications

Basket Note Pads:
(http://basket.kde.org/index.php)

This multi-purpose note-taking application helps you to:

Easily take all sort of notes
Collect research results and share them
Centralize your project data and reuse it
Quickly organize your thoughts in idea boxes
Keep track of your information in a smart way
Make intelligent To Do lists
And a lot more…

Firefox:
(http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/)

I think most people know that Firefox is a web browser. Choose from over a thousand useful add-ons that enhance Firefox. It’s easy to personalize Firefox to make it your own.

Gnome Do:
(http://do.davebsd.com/)

A powerful, speedy, and sexy remote control for your GNOME Desktop. GNOME Do is not only for GNOME. Although it was created by a GNOME lover, Do runs on KDE and other common environments.

GNOME Do is not a search tool. If you know what you’re looking for and what you want to do with it, Do will help you do it quickly. GNOME Do is not just a launcher. Send emails and IMs, play music, search the web, and launch applications too. Plugins make it possible.

GnuCash:
(http://gnucash.org/)

GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.

Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

HomeBank:
(http://homebank.free.fr/)

HomeBank is free software. Use it to manage your personal accounts. It is designed to easy to use. Analyse your finances in detail using powerful filtering tools and graphs.

inCollector:
(http://www.incollector.devnull.pl/)

ncollector is an application to collect various kinds of information (like notes, conversation logs, quotes, serial numbers, source code, web addresses, words). All the entries can be tagged, so you can find them very easily. There are also search folders which allows you to search for entries by specified criteria. You can also export (and import, of course) entries to an external file.

Katapult:
(http://katapult.kde.org/)

Katapult is a KDE application that provides you with faster and easier access to your applications, bookmarks, and more. It is plugin-based and can launch anything it has a plugin for. Its plugin-driven appearance is completely customizable. Katapult was inspired by Quicksilver for OS X, and it is written in C++.

Meld:
(http://meld.sourceforge.net/)

Meld is a visual diff and merge tool. You can compare two or three files and edit them in place (diffs update dynamically). You can compare two or three folders and launch file comparisons. You can browse and view a working copy from popular version control systems such such as CVS, Subversion, Bazaar-ng and Mercurial.

OpenOffice:

http://www.openoffice.org/

qOrganizer:
(http://qorganizer.sourceforge.net/)

qOrganizer is a general organizer that includes a calendar with schedule,reminders,journal/notes for every day, to-do list.
But provides features useful for students such as:timetable and a booklet for marks and absences.It’s designed to be easy to use.
It represents a new approach to an organizer, with several innovative features.

RSSowl:
(http://www.rssowl.org/)

Applications that collect data from RSS-compliant sites are called RSS readers or “aggregators.” RSSOwl is such an application. RSSOwl lets you gather, organize, update, and store information from any compliant source in a convenient, easy to use interface, save selected information in various formats for offline viewing and sharing, and much more. It’s easy to configure, available in many many languages and the best of all: It’s platform-independent.

Specto:
(http://specto.sourceforge.net/)

Specto is a desktop application that will watch configurable events (such as website updates, emails, file and folder changes, system processes, etc) and then trigger notifications.

For example, Specto can watch a website for updates (or a syndication feed, or an image, etc), and notify you when there is activity (otherwise, Specto will just stay out of the way). This changes the way you work, because you can be informed of events instead of having to look out for them.

Sunbird:
(http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/)

Mozilla Sunbird is a cross-platform calendar application, built upon Mozilla Toolkit. It provides you with a full-featured and easy to use calendar application that you can use around the world.

Task Coach:
(http://www.taskcoach.org/)

Task Coach is a simple open source todo manager to manage personal tasks and todo lists. It grew out of Frank’s frustration that well-known task managers, such as those provided with Outlook or Lotus Notes, do not provide facilities for composite tasks. Often, tasks and other things todo consist of several activities. Task Coach is designed to deal with composite tasks.

Thunderbird:
(http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/)

Thunderbird allows you to customize your email to suit your specific needs whether it’s how you search and find messages or listening to music right out of your inbox.

Thunderbird 2 offers a variety of ways for you to organize and display your folders, whether by favorites, recently viewed or folders containing unread messages. As always, you can also set up RSS and newsgroup folders to stay on top of news and your interests. Thunderbird 2 also allows you to maximize your message view pane by opting for a folder drop down menu instead of the traditional sidebar.

Thunderbird 2 allows you to “tag” messages with descriptors such as “To Do” or “Done” or even create your own tags that are specific to your needs. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.

tkdiff:
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/tkdiff/)

tkdiff is a graphical front end to the diff program. It provides a side-by-side view of the differences between two files, along with several innovative features such as diff bookmarks and a graphical map of differences for quick navigation.

Zim:
(http://www.pardus.nl/projects/zim/)

Zim is a WYSIWYG text editor written in Gtk2-Perl which aims to bring the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Every page is saved as a text file with wiki markup. Pages can contain links to other pages, and are saved automatically. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a non-existing page. Pages are ordered in a hierarchical structure that gives it the look and feel of an outliner. This tool is intended to keep track of TODO lists or to serve as a personal scratch book.

Web Development Applications

Amaya:
(http://www.w3.org/Amaya/)

Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.

Aptana Studio:
(http://www.aptana.com/)

Studio is Aptana’s free, open source Ajax development environment. With over a million downloads, developers all over the world are discovering why Aptana Studio is the leading choice of web professionals everywhere. Studio offers free plugins for PHP, Ruby on Rails, Adobe AIR, and even Apple iPhone development.

Of course Studio also includes rich support for development of Jaxer-based Ajax applications. In fact, as of Studio 1.1, Jaxer is fully integrated so that development of end-to-end Ajax applications requires no further installations or server setup. Just create a new HTML document and you can build fully realized client/server applications rich with database access, network access, and much more.

BlueFish:
(http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html)

Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.

FontForge:
(http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/)

FontForge — An outline font editor that lets you create your own postscript, truetype, opentype, cid-keyed, multi-master, cff, svg and bitmap (bdf, FON, NFNT) fonts, or edit existing ones. Also lets you convert one format to another. FontForge has support for many macintosh font formats.

gFTP:
(http://gftp.seul.org/)

gFTP is a free multithreaded file transfer client for *NIX based machines. One very nice feature is: “Supports FXP file transfers (transferring files between 2 remote servers via FTP)”.

Kompozer:
(http://www.kompozer.net/)

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing.

KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

Kruler:
(http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/graphics/kruler)

Kruler is a screen ruler (using pixels) and color measurement tool for KDE.

SeaMonkey:
(http://www.seamonkey-project.org/)

The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to develop the SeaMonkey all-in-one internet application suite (see below). Such a software suite was previously made popular by Netscape and Mozilla, and the SeaMonkey project continues to develop and deliver high-quality updates to this concept. Containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools, SeaMonkey is sure to appeal to advanced users, web developers and corporate users.

Wink:
(http://www.debugmode.com/wink/)

Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.

Xampp:
(http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-linux.html)

Many people know from their own experience that it’s not easy to install an Apache web server and it gets harder if you want to add MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use – just download, extract and start.

Update 1: Many Russian speaking people have visited this site and I appreciate some of the messages you have sent, I wish I could provide you with a Russian version of this article but (unfortunately) I don’t speak Russian… Спасибо! Вам всегда рады!

Update 2: Hola Chile! Espero que este sitio web le ayuda. Lo siento, no hablo español. Gracias por visitarnos!

Update 3: Ευχαριστω Ελλαδα! Εκτιμω τις επισκεψεις και τα σχολια. Συγνωμη, αλλα εγω δεν μιλουν ελληνικα.

Update 4: Witaj Polsko! Dziękuję za odwiedzenie tej strony. Przykro mi, że nie rozumiem Polskiego.

[tags]top 100, open source, applications, audio, graphic, video, web development, productivity, developer, system, tools, apps, linux, windows[/tags]