software for Unix, &c.
Only free software is listed on this page, unless otherwise marked (≠).
command-line interface
These are command-line tools (though some may also have graphical interfaces, and specific support for other operating systems).
unfiled
- Remind
- language and interpreter for creating reminders and calendars
- TestDisc & PhotoRec
- data recovery software
- HTTrack
- website mirroring; a welcome alternative to wget
- Plan 9 from User Space
- the successor to Unix, ported to Unix
- LillyPond
- high-quality music printing (for European classical notation)
- xdotool
- simulate keyboard/mouse input, move/resize windows, &c.
- PowerTOP
- measure power consumption of running software
text
- mawk
- a very fast (if not the fastest) implementation of awk
- Pandoc
- convert from one markup format to another
- peg/leg
- recursive-descent PEG parser generators for C
- ANTLR
- ANother Tool for Language Recognition (also: ANTLRWorks GUI)
audio/video
- SoX
- digital audio conversion tools (with accurate resampling)
- FLAC
- Free Lossless Audio Codec
- abcde
- comprehensive CD encoder
- mpg123
- small, fast mp3 console-based player for files and streams
- Music Player Daemon
- audio server
- StreamRipper
- save mp3 (and ogg) streams to file
- FFmpeg
- record, convert and stream audio and video
- MPlayer & MEncoder
- movie player & encoder
- VLC
- multimedia player/server
pixels
- gphoto
- manipulate digital cameras
- GraphicsMagick
- image manipulation tools (originally forked from ImageMagick)
vector graphics
- Asymptote
- vector graphics language that provides a natural coordinate-based framework for 2D and 3D technical drawing
- Context Free
- environment for editing, rendering, and exploring images generated from design grammars
X window system
The following software is intended to be used under the X window system (though command-line interfaces are usually available, and some software may also run on other systems).
- Code Browser
- a fast/functional/clean folding text editor (supports elastic tabstops)
- Claws Mail
- fast/lightweight and extensible e-mail client
- xxxterm
- minimal Webkit browser with built-in cookie/script control
- Transmission
- BitTorrent client
- MuPDF
- small/fast PDF (& XPS) viewer
- Evince
- document (PDF, &c.) viewer (when MuPDF is not enough)
- Pd (Pure Data)
- real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing
- SuperCollider
- environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition
- Ardour
- digital audio workstation
- gmusicbrowser
- music browser/player for large collections
- EasyTAG
- tag viewer/editor for most audio file formats
- darktable
- photography workflow application; enhance/develop raw images
- AutoKey
- desktop automation utility (text substitution, hotkeys, scripts)
- Fontmatrix
- font manager
- FontForge
- outline font editor
- Microsoft ClearType fonts
- ≠ : a script to install the excellent fonts included with Windows Vista