Your Favorite Kubuntu Apps...

[nick123456789]

I am new to Kubuntu and I would like to try the best apps it has to offer.

Please tell me the name of the application and if possible the konsole command to run it.

[natman2007]

Re: Your Favorite Kubuntu Apps...

I like "kile" a latex editor, also "kopete" and instant messenger, amarok a music player and of course "kate" a text editor that is just brilliant. Sure there are more just explore and have fun!

[abalone]

Re: Your Favorite Kubuntu Apps...

I do use and like a number of the standard KDE apps (rule of thumb: find the "K"s) but they don't cover everything equally well...

Internet

• E-mail: KMail
• Web browser: Opera
• Usenet (newsgroups): KNode (though I'm sure it's missing some of the hard-core features)
• Instant messenger: Kopete

Multimedia

• Music player: Amarok (although I went back to the older, rather more "businesslike" version 1.4... will check back on Amarok 2 later)
• CD ripping: Grip (solid)
• Video player: Kaffeine (navigating or seeking in DVDs in VLC and MPlayer never worked well for me, and Dragon Player has stuttering audio in some films)
• TV card: kdetv
• CD/DVD burning/ripping: K3B
• DVD ripping: dvd-rip or Handbrake (but I still get the video and audio out of sync)

Text/publishing

• KDE GUI text editor: Kate
• Console text editor: vim (might take some configuring and learning)
• Word processor: Abiword (OpenOffice is just too unwieldy for my purposes)
• Desktop publishing: Scribus (comes to mind, anyway)
• "Font explorer": Fontmatrix

Graphics

• Bitmap graphics editor: GIMP
• Image viewer: Gwenview (seems to print better than GIMP, too, but that might be a coincidence)
• Vector graphics editor: Inkscape
• Diagram editor: Dia
• 3D modeller: Blender

Audio (recording/composing/editing/goofing off with)

• User-friendly sound recorder/editor: Audacity
• "Tracker" style raster sequencer: Renoise (it's not in any *buntu, nor free software, but one of the spiffiest Linux apps I've seen)
• Drum machine: Hydrogen
• Synthesizer: ZynAddSubFX
• JACK sound server front-end: QJackCtl
• JACK mastering: Jamin (I've never used it, it just looks good)
• Recording: Ardour (this one scares me, though)
• LADSPA effects rack: JACK-Rack
• Notation/piano roll sequencer: Rosegarden

Emulators

• For old MS-DOS games: Dosbox
• Atari VCS emulator: Stella (finally with "friendly" configuration GUI)
• Frontend to arcade emulator MAME: KXMAME
• Commodore 8-bit machines: VICE (then run xpet, xcbm2, xvic, x64, xplus4, x128)

Usually the console command is the application name in lower case...

[KeithZG]

Re: Your Favorite Kubuntu Apps...

FileLight It's in the repos, and actually you don't need to run anything from the commandline (although you can run "filelight") since it adds RadialMap View to Konqueror (another personal favourite app, albeit an obvious one) when you're file browsing. Very very neat, in fact these days I find it indispensable for keeping track of my files and disc space.

Kaffeine, as noted by abalone above. Personally it's the only video player that's won me over from Xine-UI (console command: xine) which was one of the apps that pulled me over to Linux in the first place when I tried out a Knoppix disc ages ago.

That being said, if you're looking for more of a "multimedia centre" style app, and especially if you download lots of TV, music and movies (legally, of course, or perhaps ripped from your own purchased copies) then there's really no equal to XBMC (instructions for *buntu here), although it doesn't quite play well with KDE 4's effects so you might want to either temporarily toggle off compositing or log into OpenBox or LXDE if you feel like trying it out. It's the ultimate media center app, which is why I feel like I have to mention it here even though it isn't native to KDE; I've run it on several Kubuntu machines and it's a Kubuntu+XBMC box that currently powers my projector setup.

Kontact is something I use nearly all the time, since it puts all those nice apps (like Kmail for email and Akregator for RSS feeds, along with Kalendar and your contacts and etc etc) into one interface. Generally I fire it up as soon as I turn on my computer, and only close it when I close it down (back on my main PC still running 8.04 LTS that means it stays open for weeks sometimes, heh).

And last but certainly not least, I'm not actually that much of a fan of Kickoff (ie. the K menu) but I rather love one of the replacements, Lancelot. It's quite configurable and just an all-around better way of doing a menu, the creator is a pretty intelligent dev.

Edit: How could I forget KTorrent? For shame, me! While I'm adding to the list, might as well throw in Comix too, that's one that's definitely not installed by default but I love it for looking through downloaded/archived comics or other pictures. Although if it's anything to do with photos there's no equal to digiKam!