Enterprise open source Toolkit

Ten obscure Linux applications you need to try

Jack Wallen Tech Republic

Published: 18 Mar 2009 17:42 GMT

4. Transmission
Sticking with the file-sharing theme, Transmission is an outstanding BitTorrent client that simplifies torrent management. To seed the client, you just click the torrent link to open up Transmission.

We all know that downloading copyrighted data is illegal. But that doesn't mean clients such as Transmission have no use. In enterprises where large-scale data transmission is a must, using applications such as Transmission can enable end-users or clients to download large pieces of data much more easily. And having a client such as Transmission to make this a no-brainer is a must.

5. BloGTK
No matter what business you're in, you are likely to be affected by a blog of some sort. And a lot of people do blog. Many companies allow employees to blog, and many employees blog even if they aren't supposed to.

There are times when your blogging fix must come in bits and bites, and you have complete your blog in chunks and offline. For this you need a client such as BloGTK. BlogGTK can connect to WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog API, Blogger, and more.

This client allows formatting, custom tags, categorising, inserting tables, images and links, and offers a spell-check. You can also add excerpts and preview your posts before you upload them.

6. Ark
The Ark application is often overlooked, especially by Linux veterans. Ark is an archival manager. When you click in your browser on an archive package link with file extensions such as .tar or .tgz, typically you can either save the file or open the file with Ark. Most users just save the file and then drop into the command line and use the Tar utility to unpack the archive.

Why do this when Ark can handle the task quickly and cleanly? When efficiency becomes a necessity, tools such as Ark should not be overlooked, even by expert users. One useful feature of Ark is that you can open an archive and extract a single file from the package without unpacking the file.

That task can be performed from command line, but for most people it is much easier to have a GUI that lets you right-click a file and select Extract.

7. Tea
Tea is a text editor for programmers working in nearly any language. Tea was created with bits of GPLed code from a number of other applications to create a one-stop-shop for coders.

Tea supports built-in file manager, spell-check, built-in search, tabbed layout, multiple encodings, code snippet/session/template support, OpenDoc, RTF, KWord, AbiWord, OpenOffice support, SRT-subtitle preview, text analyser, key customisation, HTML tools, bracket matching, Wikipedia/DocBook/LaTeX support, string-handling functions, bookmarks, and more...