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This Student Application Note tells you what programs are out there for
Linux and Unix to work on your projects and write reporst.. It'll also
cover many other useful programs for general desktop use. With few
exceptions, this document will focus on graphical window applications.
There are many unfinished and work-in-progress programs out there,
so this file is, of course, out of date. This is also, by no means
comprehensive. There are many other applications, window managers
and distributions out there. These are simply the most well known or
the ones I am most interested in at this time.
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LyX
This isn't a wordprocessor, but a typesetter. You don't worry about the
structure of your document, only the contents. This takes some getting
use to for many people, but is a very powerful way to create documents.
Great for formulas. Requires LaTeX.
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AbiWord
Fast and small, but currently missing a lot of important features, like bulleted lists.
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KWord
A little slow because it requires the KDE libraries, but very full featured.
Use this when you need high level formating that LyX doesn't offer.
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StarWriter(OpenWriter)
Part of StarOffice/OpenOffice. StarOffice is a monolithic program with everything
included, but it also has the most comprehensive import and export filters on Linux.
Use this if you need to open an MS Word document. OpenWriter will be a
stand-alone application.
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Gnumeric
Very featureful, lots of import and export filters and it works.
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KSpread
Haven't used much.
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StarCalc(OpenCalc)
Part of StarOffice/OpenOffice. Probably the most functions and filters. Will eventually be
a stand alone application.
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KPresenter
I haven't used it, but it seems to be very similar to PowerPoint.
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MagicPoint
I've never used it, but it seems to be the dominant presentation tool in the UNIX world.
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LyX
LyX can do overheads too. Once again, you're more worried about the contents than the structure.
Use the FoilTeX class. Great for formulas. Requires LaTeX.
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Impress
Once again, part of StarOffice/OpenOffice, therefore, probably the most featureful.
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gEDA
It's being actively developed, but it's not very useful yet.
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FreeHDL
In development.
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Oregano
A schematic entry and simulation program (uses SPICE) for electrical circuits.
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A picture is worth a thousand words
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Dia
The closest thing to Visio in UNIX. It doesn't do logic (yet), but it does everything else.
Great for flowcharts and circuit diagrams.
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xfig
The original vector graphics program. The interface is a little clunky and takes some getting use to,
xfig has built-in objects for everything. If you want a professional looking schematic, do it in xfig.
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Kivio
This will be a Visio clone. At the moment it only does flow charts, but it's being developped very quickly.
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The GIMP
There are other graphic manipulation tools, but nothing comes close. This is the crown jewel of UNIX programs.
If you need to convert an eps from dia or xfig to a png for the web, convert a tiff to an eps to stick in your
LyX document, erase your ex from an otherwise lovely picture or create a group logo, this is the tool. The
logo, background and all format convertions on the original version of
this page were done with the GIMP.
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Publishing and putting up those student application notes
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Bluefish
I use Bluefish and vim for all my web pages. Bluefish supports html, php, css, wml and
a pile of other stuff. The syntax highlighting seems to be a little flaky.
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When you've got all the parts done, you want to put your information together in a useful way. The defacto graphics standard
in UNIX is encapsulated postscritp (eps). Both Dia and xfig can export to eps and the GIMP can convert to and from it. You can
use gv to view eps and ps files.
The defacto document standard is postscript (ps). Most programs can export to ps and they can be viewed with gv. PS files can also
be converted to portable document format (pdf) with ps2pdf and pdf2ps, respectively. PDF files can be viewed with acroread, gv or xpdf.
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