Linux Software
Welcome to the Linux section of the PCPlus Coverdisc.
Yet again we've scoured the Internet to bring you the latest and
greatest software for your favorite alternative operating system
that you can try out right now, without wasting hours of your
life downloading.
Top stuff on the disc this month, include AbiWord, a fast and
flexible word processor - just the thing if you're frustrated
by the amount of time OpenOffice takes to load up. We also have
Dia, a handy tool for generating all kinds of charts and diagrams.
And, if you are into games, then we think you'll like GL-117,
an action-packed flight simulator.
We try to provide selection of the newest and coolest applications,
tools and utilities to help you get the most out of your Linux
box. What ever your interest - from gaming to programming - we're
confident we've found something to keep you amused. Of course,
we could be wrong, so if you've got an idea for something you
desperately want to see on a future PCPlus coverdisc, then why
not let us know.
-- Richard Drummond
AbiWord 1.0.2
On the disc
On the web
AbiWord is a fast, light and yet remarkably full-featured word
processor. It is easy to learn, and ports exist for multiple platforms
including Linux, Windows and MacOS. AbiWord has all the functions
you would expect of word processor, including support for tables,
embedding images and spell-checking. It provides filters for importing
and exporting documents to common formats such as MS Word, Word
Perfect and RTF. It can also handle HTML files, making it an ideal
solution for knocking the odd web page.
We have provided AbiWord on the coverdisc in binary formats for
Red Hat 7.3, SuSE 8.0 and Debian 3.0. The source code is also
included should you wish to build
it yourself.
Autorun-KDE 0.6
On the disc
On the web
One thing that often puzzles newcomers to Linux, is that you
have to mount CD-ROMs manually when you load them into your drive
- they aren't immediately accessible. Of course, there are several
solutions around this problem, including the SuperMount patch
used in Mandrake Linux, but another is this little tool, called
autorun.
Autorun is a daemon which sits in the background and checks for
the insertion of media. When a disc is loaded, it automatically
determines its type and launches a user-defined program to browse
it. For example, for a data disc, you could get it to run a file
manager, or for an audio disc, you could make it launch your CD-player.
To make configuration easier, a GUI
set-up tool is included for KDE 3.0, implemented as a plug-in
for the KDE Control Center.
Dia 0.90
On the disc
On the web
Dia is drawing tool designed specifically for drawing diagrams.
It is infinitely extensible, and drawing profiles are included
for creating chronograms, circuit diagrams, flowcharts, UML diagrams
and more. It can export diagrams in a number of pixmaps and popular
vector formats such as EPS, SVG, CGM and DXF.
Dia is provided on the coverdisc as binaries for Debian and Mandrake,
or you can build yourself using the source code. Installation notes are available.
GL-117 0.4
On the disc
On the web
If you favour action over realism, then GL-117 is the flight-simulator
for you. It looks great, plays fast and doesn't require that you
memorize a screenful of control keys. A tutorial is included to
get you up and flying, and then you can test your mettle as a
flying ace by embarking any of the several missions included.
The single archive included on the disc contains both the binary
and source code to GL-117. To play, extract it, CD to the bin
directory and launch it with
./gl-117
The game requires the SDL library
and 3D hardware acceleration is recommended to see the game at
its best. You may need to edit the configuration file conf
in the bin directory to set a screen mode suitable to your
set up before running Gl-117 for the first time.
Gnometab 0.6.0
On the disc
On the web
With Gnometab guitarists need no longer be envious of the great
tools that other musicians have for typesetting scores: Gnometab
scan do the same for guitar tablature. It aims for a WYSIWYG approach,
produces good quality output with guitar-specific notation (such
as hammer-ons and pull-offs), and features a user-definable chord
library.
This version of Gnometab requires the Gnome 2.0 environment.
Gnome 2.0 is still at beta-stage at the time of writing, so if
it is not included with your own distro, take a look at the development page to find out how to
get the latest release.
ImageMagick 5.4.6
On the disc
On the web
Linux has no shortage of good image-processing tools, but one
of the most complete and most flexible is ImageMagick. ImageMagick
is based on a library which provides functions for importing and
exporting just about every image format you've ever heard of and
which supplies a whole host of image processing effects. Also
included are some shells tools for using these functions from
the command line - and a GUI-based front-end called display.
You can find binaries on the coverdisk for Debian, Mandrake and
Red Hat distros and, as usual, the source code is included. You
should note that to be able to handle many of the image formats
that ImageMagick understands may require additional third-party
tools. For example, Ghostscript is needed for handling PostScript
files, and libwmf is needed the to support
the WMF (Windows Meta File) format. See this list of supported formats
for more details.
KArchiver 3.0
On the disc
On the web
KDE's I/O slaves provide some fairly transparent tools for handling
file archives, but sometimes you need a little more help. KArchiver
provides just that and makes creating and unpacking archives such
as tarballs and zips a doddle. For example, it adds quick links
to Konqueor's context menu to enable the speedy archiving of directories
and even has an archive wizard to lead you through the process
of creating archives.
This version of KArchiver is designed for KDE 3.0 (the older
version 2.0.5 release is still available from the web page for those still using
KDE 2.x). RPMs are included on the coverdisk for Mandrake Linux,
and the source code is provided if you wish to build it yourself.
See these instructions for information
on compiling.
Kernel 2.4.18
On the disc
On the web
Linux kernel development takes place rapidly, and to keep you
up-to-date we always provide the latest kernel source code and
tools on the PCPlus coverdisc. Included here is the full
2.4.18 source tree, patches for the current testing version (2.4.19-pre10),
and the latest user-space kernel tools such as modutils and e2fsprogs.
To build a kernel, follow this familiar recipe:
# bzcat linux-2.4.18.tar.bz2 | tar xv
# cd linux-2.4.18/
# make xconfig (or make menuconfig)
# make dep
# make bzImage
# make modules
# make modules_install
This will build the kernel (and its associated modules) and leave
an image file in arch/i386/boot; you'll then need to move it and
update your boot loader. If you've never compiled a kernel before,
check out the Kernel HOWTO at the Linux
Documentation Project.
LAoE v0.4.06 beta
On the disc
On the web
LAoE is a graphical audiosample-editor, based on multi-layers,
floating-point samples, volume-masks, variable selection-intensity,
and many plugins suitable to manipulate sound, such as filtering,
retouching, resampling, graphical spectrogram editing by brushes
and rectangles, sample-curve editing by freehand-pen and spline
and other interpolation curves, effects like reverb, echo, compress,
expand, pitch-shift, time-stretch, and much more.
LAoE is written in Java and requires a Java 2 runtime. If you
don't already have Java installed on your system, then check out
the Blackdown project.
ttylinux 2.2
On the disc
On the web
With mainstream distro getting larger all the time, it's sometimes
handy to have a lightweight distro that you can install and use
quickly - perhaps on a machine with limited hardware resources.
ttyLinux is just that, and can even be installed on a 386SX system
with as little as 6MB of RAM.
The ttylinux archive on the coverdisc contains the root filesystem
which forms the basis of the distro. Read this user guide for installation instructions.
Usermin 0.920
On the disc
On the web
Usermin is derived from the popular Webmin remote administration
system. It provides a similar - but simpler - web-based interface
for performing user-oriented tasks, such as changing your password
or reading your local mailbox. Also included is a Java-based SSH/Telnet
applet which gives you full access to the command-line remotely.
Usermin is provided as an RPM archive and a tarball. To install
from the tarball, cd to where you wish to install Usermin (for
example, /usr/local), unpack the archive and execute the set up
script as root with
./setup.sh
The installer will ask you a series of questions to configure
Usermin on your system. Generally, you can just accept the defaults
by hitting return. Once it is set up, you can test the installation
by pointing your browser at http://localhost:20000/ (assuming,
of course, that you accepted the default and chose to run Usermin
on port 20000 - otherwise substitute your port number).
XDrawChem 1.3.2
On the disc
On the web
XDrawChem is a program for drawing chemical structures. It has
loads of useful features including fixed length and fixed angle
drawing, a ring tool to automatically draw rings (such as Benzene,
for example), automatic alignment of structures in reactions,
and structure diagram generation. It can access structures in
the NCI database by name, CAS number, or formula. It can predict
13C NMR and simple IR spectra. File formats such as MDL Molfile,
CML (Chemical Markup Language), ChemDraw binary and text file
formats, and SMILES strings are all supported.
The source is provided on the coverdisc, and the program requires
Qt 3.0.x to build and run.
|