What's on my desktop?

I run Linux and sometimes people ask what are the best Linux applications to install. So I will list the programs I have installed and linked on my desktop and describe what I do with them.

• Audacity - Sound file editor. When I make a recording it inevitably has a background noise. With this program you can load the sound from many types of files. Then use the noise reduction filter. You need a couple of seconds of background noise for this to work correctly. After analyzing the background noise sample it is amazing how it can eliminate the noise.
  
  
• Blender - 3D animation and production. This is a heavyweight application for creating 3-Dimensional shapes and animations. It takes a little getting used to and you need a shortcut list handy to get anywhere. The capability of this program is amazing. You create animations, games and movies. The interface is very efficient once you learn it you will like it.
  
  
• BlueFish - Web editor. I currently use this to write my web site. It has many handy features I am learning to use. It is not WYSIWYG though it has shortcuts and clips to help generate a web site. The auto-complete for HTML is pretty good.
  
  
• Calibre - Document Library Management - This is very useful, You can organize all of your electronic documents. The PDF files you download can be saved to the library with tags and other data you can use to sort through the stack of documents.
  
  
• Firefox - ( Also, Chromium ) - Web Browsing. The Firebug plugin is also a must for web development.
  
  
• FreeCAD - This is also for 3-Dimensional Object creation. It is a fairly full featured CAD program. It is under very active development. The advantage of this over Blender is the objects can have very precise dimensions and shapes while Blender is more focused on aesthetic appearance.
  
  
• GIMP - Gnu Image Manipulation Program - This program has saved me many times. You can edit any type of image. I use it to clean-up images. It can do almost anything with a bitmap image. I like the new single window mode.
  
  
• GWAD - This is a game I wrote some time ago that plays 4-Dimensional tic-tac-toe and has 4-Dimensional mazes.
  
  
• Inkscape - Vector Drawing Program - This is grate for creating images for homework and test problems. It is intended primarily as an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics ) editor. You can make high quality images with this program and it is not to difficult to learn. The main annoyance is setting colors or arrowheads to match the color of the line. Also, this is the best program for editing PDF files. PDF files are graphic files and if you want to make some changes to a file this program works well.
  
  
• Kdelive - Video Editing. The development team has had some troubles lately staying healthy but this is an easy to use video editor. I have used it for editing our childrens wedding videos and a few web videos I produced. The effects and transitions can be used for making nicer movies from poor videos.
  
  
• Kdevelop - IDE ( Integrated Development Environment ). This is mostly focused on C++ with Qt but can do other languages. C++ especially has stuff scattered over several files and the class editor allows you to navigate through the files with ease.
  
  
• Octave - The GNU MATLAB like math program. This is an engineers scratchpad. You can do simple to complex calculations and plotting easily. Also, runs many MATLAB m-file programs. Though Octave is more forgiving and has some functionality missing in MATLAB like full functions in scripts.
  
  
• LibreOffice - Presentations, Spreadsheets, Drawings, Word documents. This is a complete suite of programs for generating documents it is very compatible with MS Office. I keep Calligra Suite (KDEs Office Suite) as a backup because it sometimes imports MS office files better.
  
  
• Sage - Python Math Program. I use this frequently, It can do computer algebra as well as numeric computations. I use the notebook() interface most of the time.
  
  
• Salome - Haven't used this as much as I planned but it organizes Computer Aided Engineering process. I mainly would use it for grid and geometry generation for CFD of FEM.
  
  
• Scilab - This is another engineers scatchpad type program. It includes XCOS which could be used for system dynamics modeling much like Simulink from MathWorks. XCOS also saves Modelica files which should exchange well with other dynamic modeling software. It has more differences from MATLAB than Octave as far as the language goes.
  
  
• Spyder - This is a new addition, it is an IDE for Scientific Python. It is very easy to use and I like the automatic display of the manual for functions when you type an open parenthesis. The Python can be set up to use SymPy for symbolic calculations. This program seems to be much better than MATLAB. It does not have a simulinc like component but has the full Python capability.
  
  
• VirtualBox - There are still a few programs I need to use that only work on 32 bit systems (Saba Meeting). I have a 32 bit version of Mint that runs in the Virtual Box.
  
  
• WxMaxima - Another Computer Algebra system. This one is easy to use if you are only doing symbolic calculations. It has more features than the other free symbolic programs. The workbooks also allow you to generate full documentation to go with your equations.
  

These programs are all free and useful. Try them you will like them.