Productivity Applications for Xfce

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[edit] Purpose

This article aims at helping you to choose applications when setting up a lightweight desktop environment under Linux. Under the Xfce philosophy, applications are lightweight when they are low on memory usage and do not require heavy dependencies (such as KDE or Gnome). Most applications suggested in this article will conform to this philosophy, but in case there is no lightweight reliable feature-equivalent application, Gnome depending programs may be added here. Otherwise, all useful applications are welcome: GTK+, QT, tcl/tk, closed source, etc. Command-line and ncurses applications may also be included, provided that these are relatively straightforward in use and readily usable by technically unaware users. Please consider, however, that only free programs (as in free to use) are preferred.

The article focuses mainly on selecting easy to use applications that would fit a "typical" lightweight Desktop Environment; many of these applications could also fit an office environment. Thus, the article assumes that the final user will be an end-user, not knowing much other than to point, and click.

Warning: Throughout this article, packages tagged with the asterix (i.e. GnomeBaker*) require heavy Gnome dependencies.
Note: Please do NOT add anything that depends on the KDE libraries.
Note: Having both QT and GTK libraries running may stress your system. You might prefer not to run two trees at the same time.
Note: Before adding packages to this list, please discuss it first.
Note: A "Cross-platform" remark will generaly indicate that the programme is known or believed to run on Mac OS X, Linux and Microsoft Windows.

[edit] System related choices

[edit] Choosing the filesystem

For maximum file system performance, search the Internet. For maximum interoperability with Windows, consider using Ext3, at least for your /home partition.

Provides support for read and write operations and makes Windows handle the partition natively, i.e. the drive will be available under, say, the drive letter G:\.
  • FAT32 -- Kernel driver
Provides good support for read and write operations. However, the file system is quite limited: it is case insensitive, handles badly UTF-8, limits the allowed size of a single file, etc.
Provides support for read and write operations, is actively maintained and went stable as of 2007.
  • ReiserFS -- rfsd also called ReiserDriver
Provides support for read-only operations. Be warned that it is not maintained since 2005 and is available under pre-release form only.

Further information: Ext3 in windows, NTFS-3G

[edit] Choosing fonts

Now, this is one extremely subjective matter, so consider these only as suggestions of fonts that may suit your purpose. Certain users believe that the following are high-quality fonts.

Many users feel that un-antialiased fonts look "cleaner", especially on LCD monitors. After having read and understood this legal note, consider enabling TrueType's Byte Code Interpreter (BCI) in FreeType. Documentation: X.Org/Fonts.

emerge -tva ttf-bitstream-vera
Usage: User interface, display
emerge -tva dejavu
Usage: User interface, display
emerge -tva liberation-fonts
Usage: User interface, display, printed output
emerge -tva terminus-font
Usage: Console, virtual terminal
emerge -tva texlive-fontsextra
Usage: High-resolution printed output
Documentation: The LaTeX font catalogue
emerge -tva texlive-fontsrecommended
Usage: Printed output
Documentation: The LaTeX font catalogue
emerge -tva corefonts
Usage: Compatibility with .doc-like documents
Remarks: the fonts installed by the Corefonts ebuild are somewhat out-dated (in my experience). You'll be better off installing them manually from your Windows installation.

[edit] Gentoo specific utilities

emerge -tva porthole
Documentation: Overview of portage tools, Speeding up emerge with tmpfs
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-portage/portato (gtk+2)
Remarks: Porthole seems user friendlier as whole, while Portato is better suited to keyword-unmask packages and their respective dependencies.
emerge -tva gpytage
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva elogviewer
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-portage/elogv (ncurses)
emerge -tva autounmask
Interface: CLI
  • eix (app-portage/eix) -- Small utility for searching ebuilds, with indexing for fast results
emerge -tva eix
Interface: CLI

[edit] Setting up the Desktop Environment

  • X.Org (x11-base/xorg-x11) -- An X11 implementation maintained by the X.Org Foundation (meta package)
emerge -tva xorg-x11
Documentation: X.Org
Remarks: Cross-platform (on Windows via Cygwin)
emerge -tva slim slim-themes
Documentation: SLiM
Alternatives: Xfce/Installation
Remarks: Cleanest theme seems `debian-moreblue'.
emerge -tva xfce4 xfce4-extras xfburn xarchiver squeeze ristretto midori xfbib
Documentation: The Xfce Configuration Guide (Gentoo official documentation), Xfce, Toolkit Beautification, Locales, Synchronise time, Xfce 4.4: The best lightweight desktop environment, New Xfce beta focuses on usability
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: Enlightenment DR17, LXDE, Fluxbox, Desktop Customization, Building a highly functional desktop with lightweight software

At this point you will be able to start the X Server and login into Xfce using a graphical Display Manager. You will also be able to perform, among many others, the following basic tasks:

Documentation: HOWTO Samba support in Thunar
Remarks: Midori is cross-platform. With Xfce4 Dictionary you can also query a localhost Dict server; for example, emerge dictd-wn or dictd-web13, and configure the Dictionary to query `localhost' (if you encounter problems with dictd-wn, search the Xfce ML archives for a solution).
Note: As of August 2008, Midori has just joined Xfce and is in heavy development. Several alternatives to Xfce applications are presented in the relevant sections below.

[edit] File management

emerge -tva emelfm2 enca
Documentation: emelFM2
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: An alternative to Thunar. Those coming from Windows and looking for a Total Commander alternative under Linux need to at least check this application. It does not strive to emulate the look and feel of Total Commander; it does however offer you similar (sometimes more) functionality with a more Unix-like approach.
Manual installation (ebuild; HOWTO Installing 3rd Party Ebuilds)
Homepage: http://software.twotoasts.de/index.php?/pages/catfish_summary.html
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva x11-misc/pcmanfm
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Alternative to Thunar. Standard compliant file manager similar to Windows Explorer. Provides built-in volume management (through HAL) and file searching utility (GUI frontend for the UNIX find + grep command).

[edit] Office tools

With office usage, compatibility and sharing documents in mind, OpenOffice is the obvious choice for an office suite. It is however criticised for its slowness, as well as bloated code and interface. Users report nights of compiling, so seriously consider installing the binary package. OpenOffice hardly fits the scope of this article, but is the choice for inter-operability with Microsoft Office and as an alternative to the latter.

Lightweight alternatives to this heavyweight are AbiWord and Gnumeric, word processor and spreadsheet, respectively. Ted is decidedly a "heavy-lightweight", but may prove well handy for certain tasks, like handlingy MS Word-created .rtf files. It is up to you to try these and decide whether they fit your needs. A worthy alternative to conventional word processors is LyX.

emerge -tva openoffice-bin
Documentation: OpenOffice.org 3.0 is an incremental improvement
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-office/abiword (gkt+2), app-office/gnumeric (gkt+2), app-editors/ted (motif)
Remarks: Cross-platform.
emerge -tva lyx
Documentation: LyX made easy, Compatibility with MS Word, LyX vs other software, LyX with R through Sweave, Legal Documents the LyX Way, Designing a book with LyX
Toolkit: QT4
Remarks: Cross-platform. LyX is an WYSIWYM frontend to LaTeX. It can be used to create structured documents and presentations, professionally typeset mathematical formulae, and to insert diagrams in its documents (as images, and created by an external application, such as Dia). For compatibility reasons you might enable most USE flags.
Note: Please do not underestimate LyX as an alternative to word processors. Conventional word processors are stupid and innefficient. For arguments on LaTeX strengths and weeknesses, check this Cambridge University page.

Basically it goes down like this: TeX is a professional type-setting system. LaTeX is a collection of macros that helps using TeX in a somewhat systematic and organized way. LyX helps use LaTeX in a easy way. Somewhat time-consuming are the first two documents; then, using the likes of MS Word or OpenOffice feels like a pain.

Why all the rant? Check this pdf document giving reasons for using LaTeX with, at the end, a page containing MS Word-like text near LaTeX formatted text. Or this comparison of LyX and Word output of a similar document. You'll understand that it is much about output and printing quality. With LyX the user only has to care about the structure and content of the text, while the formatting is done by LaTeX, an advanced typesetting system. Again, check the application, then decide whether it suits your needs.
emerge -tva texlive
Alternatives: app-text/tetex
Remarks: Cross-platform. Check the USE flags; there are plenty. As the backend used by LyX, you will probably prefer the modern TeX Live to the no longer maintained teTeX.
emerge -tva latex-beamer
Remarks: Cross-platform. Beamer presentations can be created using LyX. As usual with LyX documents, start with a template. For examples of professional-looking presentations created with this LaTeX class, please check the project's home page. For special cases of the resulting .pdf presentation, be aware of the `handout' and `article' class-options that can be specified within LyX.
  • Eqe (app-office/eqe) -- LaTeX equation editor that produces images interactively
emerge -tva eqe
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: Ekee (qt4)
Remarks: Perfect if you want to use beautifully typeset LaTeX equations in conventional word-processors. The application also has support for drag-and-drop. Ekee is in fact the successor of Eqe, and an ebuild is available. The latter has many more features and seems to be more robust. Note, however, that similar functionality is integrated within AbiWord, "Insert > Equation > from LaTeX".
emerge -tva scribus
Toolkit: QT3
emerge -tva evince
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-text/acroread (gtk+2), app-text/epdfview (gtk+2), app-text/xpdf (motif)
Remarks: Beginning with the acroread-8* editions, Adobe's Reader gives the feel of a "normal" GTK+2 application, which loads relatively fast. However Evince* is proposed as a main choice mostly because it is quicker than acroread, and that it is a mature project; for more robust features you will need acroread. If you prefer lightweight open-source programs, consider ePDFView or Xpdf, both free lightweight PDF document viewers.
emerge -tva pdfedit
Homepage: http://pdfedit.petricek.net/index_e.html
Toolkit: QT3
Remarks: Ebuild available on the Sunrise overlay.
emerge -tva osmo
Documentation: Osmo: A daily organizer
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: gfa (gtk+2)
Remarks: Alternative to Orage. Osmo and Orage functionality overlap, but each is good at what it does best. You would use Osmo as an Address book and as a Date calculator. It also allows you to easily keep track of your contacts' birthdays, store encrypted notes and learn "kool" stuff like, say, the current moon phase. Orage would be better suited when used as DE easy-to-access calendar and as a time organiser. It even allows you keep a private journal. The good news is that both are in active devlopment, so expect new features and closed bugs. At last, gfa is hardly an alternative to either Orage or Osmo, but can come in handy for an Address book. If in gfa you input your contacts "internally" only, and may not export them, Osmo supports importing from and exporting to CSV.
emerge -tva qalculate-gtk qalculate-bases qalculate-currency qalculate-units
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: sci-calculators/galculator (gtk+2)
emerge -tva app-editors/leafpad
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Alternative to Mousepad, its successor.

[edit] Statistical packages

Migrating to Linux often means searching open-source equivalents to proprietary software. For those looking for an alternative to SAS or SPSS statistical packages, the R programming language is the answer. R is command-line driven, but does provide several GUIs among the multitude of its modules, 1700+ and growing. Several other computational and visualisation sowftware are presented below. Check this page for various suggestions to Useful software for Economists.

  • R (dev-lang/R) -- Language and environment for statistical computing and graphics
emerge -tva R
Documentation: Quick-R, R for SAS and SPSS Users, CRAN Task Views, The R Manuals, Contributed Documentation
Remarks: Cross-platform.
Note: Prior to installing R packages, you might first check that you have your R-system up to date (essentially, the equivalent of emerge world) by issuing as root, and within R, update.packages(checkBuilt=TRUE, ask=FALSE, method="wget"). Use the "wget" method if you need to access the Internet via a proxy, otherwise feel free to omit it. Generally, R packages need installed from within a root R-session. Also, Paludis has some support for instaling R packages.
R & install.packages("Rcmdr", dependencies=TRUE)
R package page: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rcmdr/index.html
Documentation: Getting started with the R Commander
Toolkit: Tcl/Tk
Remarks: Cross-platform.
Note: Rcmdr seems to be the more viable R-alternative to the commercial SPSS. It provides a clean user interface, and is designed "to support, through an easy-to-use, extensible, crossplatform GUI, the statistical functionality required for a basic-statistics course". Although it does not yet offer all the advanced functionality of SPSS, a plugin infrastructure is implemented, meaning that Rcmdr has interesting perspectives for growth. Check the available plugins ("RcmdrPlugin.*") on the Contributed Packages at CRAN.
R & install.packages("JGR", dependencies=TRUE)
R package page: http://cran.at.r-project.org/web/packages/JGR/index.html
Interface: Java
Remarks: Cross-platform.
R & install.packages("rattle", dependencies=TRUE)
R package page: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rattle/index.html
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Cross-platform.
  • BiodiversityR (not_in_portage) -- GUI for biodiversity and community ecology analysis
R & install.packages("BiodiversityR", dependencies=TRUE)
R package page: http://cran.at.r-project.org/web/packages/BiodiversityR/index.html
Toolkit: Tcl/Tk
emerge -tva ggobi
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Cross-platform. There is also an R package, rggobi, which acts as an interface between R and GGobi.
emerge -tva paraview
Toolkit: QT4
emerge -tva wxmaxima
Toolkit: wxGTK
Remarks: Cross-platform.

[edit] Network related applications

emerge -tva opera aspell
Documentation: Opera
Toolkit: QT3
Alternatives: www-client/seamonkey-bin
Remarks: Cross-platform. Beginning with version 9.50, if run under the correct environment (say, DESKTOP_SESSION=xfce) Opera uses the native GTK+ file-chooser.
emerge -tva epiphany
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: www-client/kazehakase
emerge -tva gftp
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: net-ftp/filezilla
emerge -tva pidgin pidgin-extprefs pidgin-libnotify pidgin-smileys
Toolkit: GTK+2

[edit] Graphics applications

emerge -tva mirage
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: media-gfx/ristretto (gtk+2) media-gfx/gqview (gtk+2)
emerge -tva gimp
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva inkscape
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva dia
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: sci-visualization/grace (motif)
Remarks: Dia can also be used to create and insert diagrams into LyX documents.

[edit] Multimedia applications

  • Brasero (app-cdr/brasero) -- Application to burn CD/DVD for the Gnome Desktop
emerge -tva brasero
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-cdr/tkdvd (tcl/tk), app-cdr/graveman (gtk+2), app-cdr/gnomebaker* (gtk+2)
Remarks: Alternatives to Xfburn.
emerge -tva xsane
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva sonata mpd xfce4-mpc
Documentation: MPD
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Alternative to Xfmedia. Sonata uses MPD as a backend for playing audio files and for the library support. The "kool" thing about MPD is that at boot-time it will resume playing before X is initialized and at halt-time will stop playing after X was shut down.
  • Whaaw! Media Player (media-video/whaawmp) -- A lightweight audio/video player using Gstreamer
emerge -tva whaawmp
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: media-video/vlc (qt4)
emerge -tva gnome-mplayer gecko-mediaplayer
Documentation: MPlayer
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Contrary to what the name suggests, GNOME MPlayer is not highly dependent on the Gnome libraries and can easily be built without.
  • OGMRip (media-video/ogmrip) -- Graphical frontend and libraries for ripping DVDs and encoding to AVI/OGM/MKV/MP4
emerge -tva ogmrip
Documentation: Ripping DVD to Matroska and H.264
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva grip
Toolkit: GTK+2
  • EasyTAG (media-sound/easytag) -- Utility for editing MP2, MP3, MP4, FLAC, Ogg and other media tags
emerge -tva easytag
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Beginning with version 2.1.1, EasyTAG uses libid3tag, which fully supports writing UTF-8 tags to mp3 files.
emerge -tva audacity
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Cross-platform.

[edit] Miscellaneous utilities

emerge -tva xpp
Toolkit: FLTK
  • StarDict (app-dicts/stardict) -- An international dictionary supporting fuzzy and glob style matching
emerge -tva stardict
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-dicts/wordnet (tcl/tk)
Remarks: Alternative to Xfce4 Dictionary. The WordNet Browser is a Princeton dictionary browser.
emerge -tva fpm2 (ebuild; HOWTO Installing 3rd Party Ebuilds)
Homepage: http://als.regnet.cz/fpm2/
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: app-misc/tkpasman (tcl/tk), x11-misc/revelation* (gtk+2)
Manual installation (source code)
Homepage: http://www.passwordmeter.com/
Interface: Web
Documentation: Guidelines for strong passwords, Choosing Good Passwords, Tips on using meaningful symbols to increase password strength
Remarks: Cross-platform. Revelation* also contains a password strength checker.
emerge -tva gtk-splitter
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: For this task one may also use the "Custom commands" menu shipped by default with emelFM2.
emerge -tva gtkam
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva alexandria
Toolkit: GTK+2
  • Periodic Calendar (x11-misc/periodic-calendar) -- A utility that assists in menstrual cycle tracking and fertility periods prediction
emerge -tva periodic-calendar
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Be sure to have read the application README before using it.

[edit] Miscellaneous system-related utilities

emerge -tva hardinfo (ebuild; HOWTO Installing 3rd Party Ebuilds)
Homepage: http://hardinfo.berlios.de
Toolkit: GTK+2
  • Gmrun (x11-misc/gmrun) -- Launcher box with bash style auto completion
emerge -tva gmrun
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva ktsuss
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva xfkc
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: The application was initially written to complement xfce4-xkb. Recently, however, XfKC functionality was integrated into xfce4-xkb. The application might still prove useful to non-Xfce users.
emerge -tva wicd
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: net-wireless/wpa_supplicant (qt3)
emerge -tva gparted
Toolkit: GTK+2
Alternatives: sys-apps/qtparted (qt3)

[edit] Developer tools

emerge -tva geany
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Cross-platform.
emerge -tva bluefish
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva meld
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva poedit
Toolkit: GTK+2
Remarks: Cross-platform.
emerge -tva wxchecksums
Toolkit: wxGTK
Remarks: Cross-platform.

[edit] Mind-breaking games

emerge -tva enigma
emerge -tva eboard
Documentation: HOWTO Chess
Toolkit: GTK+2
emerge -tva pouetchess

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Productivity_Applications_for_Xfce"
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