Re: choice of software
-- Johannes Zarl <johannes.zarl@ahl.uni-linz.ac.at> wrote
(on Monday, 04 November 2002, 10:19 PM +0100):
> On Monday 04 November 2002 21:38, james leclair wrote:
> > We currently run a variety if Debian products in the mail and file
> > serving areas. Now we are investigating the possiblity of running Debian
> > products on our desktops. Could someone please recommend what packages
> > we should be running in the following areas for our desktop machines
> > should we switch to Debian?
>
> First you should decide, which Desktop Environment (KDE, Gnome) you want
> to use, or if you want to use a more light-weight windowmanager
> (enlightenment, blackbox, fluxbox, and many more).
>
> Desktop Environments have the benefit, that their programs tend to work
> together quite well and have the same look-and-feel, whereas "pure"
> windowmanagers encourage you to pick out the best suited programs for your
> needs.
I highly agree here -- if you are looking at having a similar look and
feel across your client desktops, you need to determine how you're going
to deliver that. Desktop environments provide an easy way to do so, but
they are consistently more resource intensive than running a window
manager and installing libraries for the programs you run. So, determine
your needs, and research from there.
> > Essentially what packages should we look to add to our Debian
> > desktops.
> > Example:
> > :multimedia(music, movies, photo editing)
> Assuming you don't want to manipulate music/movies, following packages may
> be worth a look:
> - music:
> +mpg321 -- plays mp3-files, console-based
> +ogg123 (vorbis-tools) -- plays ogg-vorbis-files, console-based
> +cplay -- provides easy-to-use interface to other programs like
> mpg321/ogg123, console based
> +xmms -- a winamp lookalike
> +noatun -- kde's mediaplayer
> +rythmbox -- a media-player for gnome (well, i don't know it, but a quick
> apt-cache search returned it)
> Personally I prefer the console-based applications, but who cares;-)
I've had problems running console-based music programs -- starting new
programs and processes tends to interrupt music output, which I find
annoying. If you're using a graphical environment, I highly recommend
xmms -- it's fairly lightweight, there are a number of different panel
applets that can control it (as well as CLI commands!), and can play
just about anything.
> - movies:
> +xine -- plays movies, works well for me;-)
> +mplay -- not yet a debian-package, but look's promising..
> +others: Anyone got alternatives/better ones?
Umm, that would be _mplayer_, and you can get deb packages for it using
either of the following apt sources:
deb http://mplayer.nmeos.net stable/
deb http://marillat.free.fr/ stable main
> - photo editing:
> +gimp -- Tried it, loved it. Don't care about others.
I agree here -- the GIMP is incredible, and can serve anything from
small scale needs to advanced image manipulation. However, if you just
need to view images, gqview is quite nice. If you're doing batch
manipulations (rotating or scaling all images in a directory),
ImageMagick is /very/ nice.
> > :mail clients
> +kmail -- the client of kde. Using kde i use kmail, too.
> +mutt -- some people i know swear on it; console based
> +evolution -- non-free client from ximian. Offers calender, etc.(a bit
> like outlook on windows)
> +gnome ought to have its own client, too
Evolution /is/ the GNOME mail client. Mozilla also has one (optional
under debian) which is easy to migrate to if you've been using
Netscape's. I'm one of those who swear's on mutt :-) .
> > :game playing
What kind of games do you have in mind? Didn't you say this was for
work? :-) If you just want some solitaire, pysol has /tons/ of different
options... outside of that, I can't help you (don't play too many games
on my machine).
--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
matthew@weierophinney.net
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