software for Unix, &c.
Only free software is listed on this page, unless otherwise marked (≠).
These are mostly command-line tools (though some may also support graphical interfaces, and other operating systems). Software intended for use primarily in a GUI environment (e.g. the X window system) is marked with a G.
unfiled
- Void Linux
- a simple Linux distribution which does not use systemd – (I almost left Linux after Debian and Arch succumbed... but I found Void, an oasis of sanity in the madness of Linux)
- Remind
- language and interpreter for creating reminders and calendars
- TestDisc & PhotoRec
- data recovery software
- tmux
- terminal multiplexer (in preference to screen)
- Plan 9 from User Space
- the successor to Unix, ported to Unix
- LillyPond
- high-quality music printing (for European classical notation)
- MuPDF
- G : small/fast PDF (& XPS) viewer
- inotify-tools & incron
- monitor and act upon inotify filesystem events
text
- mawk
- a very fast (if not the fastest) implementation of awk (often faster than GNU sed!)
- ugrep
- fastest of the ack-style search tools; ripgrep close behind
- xsv
- for indexing, slicing, analyzing, splitting and joining CSV files
- fzf
- a general-purpose command-line fuzzy finder (many other selectors exist but fzf does more)
- icdiff
- improved coloured side-by-side diff
- ShellCheck
- a static analysis and linting tool for sh/bash scripts
- Pandoc
- a universal document converter
- peg/leg
- recursive-descent PEG parser generators for C
- ANTLR
- ANother Tool for Language Recognition (also: ANTLRWorks GUI)
- Code Browser
- G : a fast/functional/clean folding text editor (supports elastic tabstops)
- Textadept
- G : a fast, minimalist, Lua-extensible text editor (supports elastic tabstops)
- Geany
- G : text editor with a small and fast IDE
- Meld
- G : a visual diff and merge tool
- FontForge
- G : outline font editor
- Microsoft ClearType fonts
- ≠ : a script to install the excellent fonts included with Windows Vista (specifically Candara & Consolas)
network
- monolith
- saves local copy of web page as single html file
- HTTPie
- a command line HTTP client for painless debugging
- HTTrack
- website mirroring; a welcome alternative to wget
- newsboat
- RSS/Atom feed reader
- Claws Mail
- G : fast (relatively lightweight) and extensible e-mail client
- Transmission
- G : BitTorrent client
system
- sxhkd
- bind commands to input events (keyboard, mouse, &c.)
- htop
- an interactive process viewer (like top)
- ranger
- terminal file manager with Miller columns
- ncdu & gdu
- fast disk usage analyzer with an ncurses interface
- earlyoom
- user space oom killer (because the kernel's waits too long)
- PowerTOP
- measure power consumption of running software
- xdotool
- G : command-line tool to simulate keyboard/mouse input, move/resize windows, &c.
- AutoKey
- G : desktop automation utility (text substitution, hotkeys, scripts)
audio/video
- SoX
- digital audio conversion tools (with accurate resampling)
- abcde
- comprehensive CD encoder
- mpg123
- small, fast mp3 console-based player for files and streams
- Music Player Daemon
- audio server
- mpv & VLC
- G : media players (mpv = best quality; vlc = wider support & DVD menus)
- gmusicbrowser
- G : music browser/player for large collections
- Ardour
- G : digital audio workstation
- Pd (Pure Data)
- G : real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing
- SuperCollider
- G : environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition
- Processing
- G : programming language and development environment for visual arts
pixels
- gphoto
- manipulate digital cameras
- GraphicsMagick
- image manipulation tools (originally forked from ImageMagick)
- scrot
- G : screen shot (capture display state)
- cropgui
- G : minimal GUI for lossless JPEG cropping
- darktable
- G : photography workflow application; enhance/develop raw images
- Scan Tailor
- G : interactive post-processing tool for scanned pages
illustration
- 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
- Eukleides
- a concise geometry drawing language