Cool Linux Projects that Need More Publicity

Always when a type of application is missing, there is bound to be a version in development. For difficult and complicated programs, the case is not the same but most of the powerful apps have a steep learning curve and although developers are already working hard on user-friendly alternatives, due to the complicated nature of the software, not many resources are available and the development time is much slower.

In order to attract some interest for certain slow, but extremely important projects I’ve picked out a few attractive apps which could become powerful contributors to the widespread adoption of the Linux desktop. We need to get stable, functional, user-friendly apps out. Linux does have some cool stuff available, but we often forget that a lot of it also depends on the interface.

Let us build a cool desktop! I am aware of the awesomeness that is customization, though many people forget that most desktop users want to simply start working. I love tweaking my Arch system for a whole weekend, it is just that I do not believe your typical grandmother is interested in such stuff. You see, she does not know the difference between tiling and floating window managers and the advantages of using virtual desktops, but she will like a prettier out-of-the-box experience, along with free applications for every task you can think of, which look good, do the job well and are easy to work with.

Jokosher

A garage-band like package, Jokosher can be a great tool for audio production, it just needs more functions.

Update: Mr. Ignorant hasn’t checked the dates :) last version was released in October 2008. Go Jokosher!

It works fine on most distributions and is good for basic tasks, though there is a lot of work to be done to ensure stability and better functionality. I’d be very sad to see this project die.

KdenLive

Even though the project released a new version of their sexy video editing application, I’m not sure whether they will be able to keep up. More contribution would be needed, since amateur video editing (except for the high-high end) is pretty weak on Linux (thank goodness for Kino and Cinelerra, but they just don’t cut it for the ‘middle market’) and I believe many dev resources and energy are required for such a complicated project to mature.

Gogh

A personal favorite of mine. It is something like an equivalent of OpenCanvas. Along with the linuxwacom project the Gogh project wishes to make the perfect drawing app for tablet users. It is very important for sketching, also it features layers, colour palettes and other basic features. I’d like for Gogh to get more publicity, since it is quite a simple project, but crucial for tablet users to get to know GNU/Linux better.

Are there any special projects that you like and would like to get them featured on the blog? Please write a comment!

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57 Comments

  1. Vadim P. Says:

    I was just thinking of letting more people know about GScrot (http://gscrot.ubuntu-projekte.de/), which is a wonderful screenshot app, so this would be a good start :)

    ReplyReply
  2. Heni Says:

    Liferea! It’s doing good, but, still only one developer.

    ReplyReply
  3. djohnston Says:

    “Always when a type of application is missing, there is bound to be a version in development.”

    Hmmm. Point me in the direction of Linux point-of-sale software.

    ReplyReply
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  5. Vadim P. Says:

    @djohnston: There’s quite a lot that I found, however since I’m not in the field I can’t recommend any quality ones. Googling “point of salve linux” brought up a ton.

    ReplyReply
  6. Vadim P. Says:

    Actually, this article (http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/24/2012230) seems to cover a lot.

    ReplyReply
  7. oliver Says:

    nice list, and for linux point of sales check out open bravo i am pretty sure they do point of sale for linux.

    ReplyReply
  8. I’ve got a list of some cool stable projects that aren’t being actively developed, and could use some love.

    http://maintainance-required.blogspot.com/

    ReplyReply
  9. Troberg Says:

    Gobby, the collaborative text editor, certainly deserves attention. It’s a nice editor and a great collaboration tool, but the server components needs a bit of work.

    http://gobby.0×539.de/trac/

    ReplyReply
  10. rob enderle Says:

    Gogh has one of the best names for free software, without even knowing what it was, the name itself told you it was artistic in nature.

    Jokosher the most stupid.
    Im not think high quality audio when I hear that, Im hearing religious fanatics and their boogieman inspired diet (and it would be as stupid had it been Johalal).

    Just like Gimp might be a funny ‘in’ joke to some people, to the majority of the people its a ‘WTF?!!’

    Kdenlive HAS to survive, the others video apps suck and we need a simple video program where joe public can take the video from his digital camera and put them together and add a soundtrack and titles. THAT’s what 90% of video editing consists of.
    Make the top 5 functions as easy as possible.

    As horrible as Windows moive maker is, it is still much, much more intuitive than any Linux video packages.
    Save Kdenlive.

    ReplyReply
  11. Vadim P. Says:

    You have to install the whole of KDE which will pollute your application menu and etc just to use a video editor. Personally I’m behind pitivi and likes, at least they have companies supporting them

    ReplyReply
  12. deepali Says:

    Coccinella maybe?: http://coccinella.im/

    ReplyReply
  13. lenooh Says:

    Hi,

    I just tried out kdenlive. It’s really a great app. Simple video editing, just what linux misses. Thanks for pointing it out.

    ReplyReply
  14. Rich Says:

    I can’t recommend the platform-independant NoteCase strongly enough for anyone who wants to manage notes, recipes, procedures, customer and contact information or text content of any type.

    ReplyReply
  15. Aaron Seigo Says:

    > You have to install the whole of KDE which will pollute
    > your application menu and etc just to use a video editor.

    You only need to install kdelibs and kdebase-runtime. That installs precisely zero applications that will appear in your application menu. It “weighs in” at around 35MB, including Qt (may vary between distributions).

    ReplyReply
  16. Cliff Says:

    How about some non-console GUI applications? I wish I had the time to research but I would love to see more applications geared toward the web interface on systems – systems administration, network administration, system monitoring, etc.

    Good article, good read. Bit short but you have you have to start somewhere!

    ReplyReply
  17. Frosty Says:

    I truely support the applications that were listed above, mainly being Kdenlive. I may have been using linux for over 2 years but am still not comfortable with any of the video editing software available. I have started a small business where I create dvds from family videos and pictures. My move towards linux has been very successful except for the fact that there is no really good video editing program that is easyto work except for kdenlive. It crashes a lot and i would gladly help with developement for it if there is any way. Excellent article. I would digg it but do not have a digg account.

    ReplyReply
  18. Edward Clark Says:

    >> You have to install the whole of KDE which will pollute
    >> your application menu and etc just to use a video editor.

    >You only need to install kdelibs and kdebase-runtime. That installs precisely zero applications that will appear in your application menu. It “weighs in” at around 35MB, including Qt (may vary between distributions).

    When I try to install just kdelibs and kdebase-runtime my ubuntu environment wants to load all the following:
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    kde-icons-oxygen kdebase-runtime kdebase-runtime-bin-kde4
    kdebase-runtime-data kdebase-runtime-data-common kdelibs kdelibs-bin
    kdelibs-data kdelibs4c2a kdelibs5 kdelibs5-data khelpcenter4 libarts1c2a
    libavahi-qt3-1 libclucene0ldbl liblua50 liblualib50 libphonon4 libpq5
    libqt3-mt libqt4-dbus libqt4-designer libqt4-network libqt4-opengl
    libqt4-qt3support libqt4-script libqt4-sql libqt4-sql-mysql libqt4-svg
    libqt4-xml libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libraptor1 librasqal0 librdf0 libsoprano4
    libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libstrigiqtdbusclient0 phonon
    phonon-backend-gstreamer qt4-qtconfig raptor-utils redland-utils
    soprano-daemon

    ReplyReply
  19. Jeffrey Says:

    Great article. I’m not on my main computer where I can test those software, but when I do I’ll be sure to try them out.

    I’ve used kdenlive before… there were a tiny bit of issues with adding audio to my video, but overall I liked using it. Good for basic video editing. But now that it’s developed more I think I’ll go back to it.

    ReplyReply
  20. Shane Says:

    You should have mentioned “synergy” on that list. If you haven’t tried it or don’t know what it is you should find out. There is no doubt that after you give it a try you will think it to be the coolest of the coolest apps out there for linux.

    ReplyReply
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    ReplyReply
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  23. denny Says:

    Happy new year.

    ReplyReply
  24. DBO Says:

    jokosher has seen activity in its code base as recently as 2 weeks ago. The project is not dead, just in terrible need of a release.

    ReplyReply
  25. jay Says:

    > Personally I’m behind pitivi and likes, at least they have
    > companies supporting them

    unfortunately pitivi s development has been slow for years, and the project is nowhere near to what kdenlive can do today. Wheather you may like it or not, if you want to do video-editing under linux today, there is no real alternative to kdenlive.

    ReplyReply
  26. Ted Says:

    Check out RedNotebook. It is a graphical daily journal with calendar, templates and keyword searching. You can also export your diary to various formats.

    http://rednotebook.sourceforge.net

    ReplyReply
  27. Psyl0 Says:

    Cairo Dock, is the BEST dock ever. You should take a look a it. It’s really more powerful and customisable than any other dock.

    ReplyReply
  28. Vadim P. Says:

    @Edward: I get the same thing…

    ReplyReply
  29. Moma Says:

    Hello,

    Do not forget that first version Screendump will be out around 31.12.2008. I mensioned Screendump in this ( http://i1.no/06xe/ ) thread on Ubuntuforums.org
    :-)

    ReplyReply
  30. Erik Says:

    I think fsniper needs more publicity.

    With fsniper, you can monitor directories for changes and make handler scripts to act on the file depending on it’s type or name.

    http://projects.l3ib.org/trac/fsniper

    ReplyReply
  31. Greg Says:

    Thanks for the comments people, keep the apps comin’ I’ll make a year-end wrap-up, some kind of Reader’s Choice post :)

    ReplyReply
  32. Andy Says:

    Another cool app i found on kdeapps is xt7-player, an elegant gui to mplayer i’m using daily, while in the past i used smplayer.
    http://xt7player.homelinux.org/
    Would be great to have it in several laguages ^^

    ReplyReply
  33. Thomas Zander Says:

    Edward wrote; “When I try to install just kdelibs and kdebase-runtime my ubuntu environment wants to load all the following: []”

    All those are libraries and data; in total not a whole lot of disk space used and zero applications added to any menu. So, yeah, just to make it clear; this is exactly what was said already. Thanks for proving Aarons point :)

    ReplyReply
  34. datora Says:

    dood how bout the killer app to teech yoo mad punkchuashun skilz you culd so uz dat 2 mebee evan mak ur “article” coherent |-\

    ReplyReply
  35. TimeVault Says:

    TIMEVAULT, you forgot that one !!

    So cool, but it seems to be dead :-(

    ReplyReply
  36. If you don’t want to install KDE libraries for KDEnlive, then get Pitivi. It’s funded by the guys behind Fluendo. Has a simple mode, and extended mode. I admit, not as fully featured as KDEnlive now, but it’s less cluttered and development is happening fast.

    ReplyReply
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  38. Ian D. Miller Says:

    I completely agree on the lack of video editor software for the average Joe. I think the lack of a video app similar to iMovie or Windows Movie Maker (in its simplicity) is the most pronounced deficiency in Linux land right now. It’s the only thing I have to go back to Windows for (via virtualization or my other lappy).

    ReplyReply
  39. jospoortvliet Says:

    When you want to use a tablet on linux, Krita is a very interesting choice. Check the latest beta, see how that works out. They have a few very unique features and focus strongly on tablet painting & art.

    ReplyReply
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    ReplyReply
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  42. alizee Says:

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    ReplyReply
  43. debian Says:

    I can’t recommend the platform-independant NoteCase strongly enough for anyone who wants to manage notes, recipes, procedures, customer and contact information or text content of any type..

    ReplyReply
  44. K Says:

    Hello, i just found about the Gogh program but their site seems to be gone. Did they change their site or is it just a dead project? (sorry for my english)

    ReplyReply
  45. Vadim P. Says:

    Looks like Gogh’s domain just expired.

    On the other hand, Jokosher made a release Feb 25th

    ReplyReply
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  48. Jessica Says:

    Hey, is there a section just for latest news

    ReplyReply
  49. christyd Says:

    hi.
    im new to linux and changing file permissions is still a bit daunting.is there any linux app that i can use for changing file permissions?

    ReplyReply
  50. Greg Says:

    Hi Chris,

    if you use gnome you can set the permissions in the properties menu.

    Still, I prefer to change the permissions in the terminal. It is very useful to know the basic codes of different rights setups, such as 444, 777 etc.
    Here’s a link if you’re willing to look into it:
    http://howto.wikia.com/wiki/Howto_use_the_chmod_command

    Cheers

    ReplyReply
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