newpaul
Portugal
Tutorials
| Title | Score |
|---|
Software reviews
| Software | Score |
|---|---|
| blueman "Useless in Mint 17 64bit. Bluetooth does not work at all right now in Mint 17 64bit. The forum is filled with posts about this, and there are lots of redundant bug reports, relating to different devices. The problem is in the total absence of bluetooth support in the system right now, not on any device or particular form of installation. No one seems too worried about it. If you have any relevant device using bluetooth (such as a keyboard) avoid Mint 17 64bit. Blueman won't help you." |
1 |
| bleachbit "«Clean» is the word. Straightforward, useful tool for the intensive surfers & general users. It works with two separate interfaces: regular & as root, for elevated level sweeping, activated by separate icons. Make sure you check the info on the right side panel when you pick which categories to clean. (If you clean Transmission's Cache, for example, it'll lose record of the torrents and you'll have to right click & verify local data to get them back.) Obviously, in the light mode, the operations that need elevated status are not executed and listed as " |
5 |
| firefox "It remains the champion. We mustn't forget that this browser revolutionized Internet access in terms of user autonomy & choice. Then, its record was somewhat affected by the craze of add-ons, which encouraged some people to pile those uncontrollably until the browser collapsed under the load. Fit it with Adblock Plus & little more & you're good to go." |
5 |
| ffmpegthumbnailer "Worthless for Mint 13. Why shouldn't a video thumbnailer come by default?" |
1 |
| djview4 "Great to convert djvu into pdf with a single click ("export as"). The result is flawless." |
5 |
| clamtk "Messy installation process, right now. Install it from the debian package, via sourceforge, and not from the software center or ubuntu repositories, or you'll end up with an outdated version that won't update. Good tool to check stuff on its way to a win-pc, or to help someone with an infected flash-pen coming that way. Slick interface. Fast operation. Relax, it updates silently after installation." |
4 |
| utf8-migration-tool "Wizard for the upgrade of legacy system locales to their UTF-8 equivalent, i.e., to avoid those messed up copying operations and/or opening errors whenever your downloads have titles with special characters with alternative encodings. Mighty useful for heavy filesharers." |
4 |
| handbrake-gtk "Not easily accessible to the average user (not in the software center). You have to do it old school: compiling it yourself & installing via terminal. Awfully unfriendly & boring installation method even if you just follow the instructions and succeed; this is well demonstrated by the warning on the wiki page: “Please don't ask for support on this process, and please refrain from asking for help using features or complaining about bugs in unreleased versions.” Other than that, it delivers (support for .avi is long gone; you get .mp4 & .mkv)." |
3 |
| parcellite "Handy linux clipboard manager, reasonably intuitive. Could paste directly from list with a click, though. Also, it doesn't play perfectly with the system tray yet (just like the minimized system updater menu used to do, its history list overlaps the bar in Mint12+Gnome3) Apart from this, a great time-saver." |
4 |
| evince "Greatly improved. Swift and clear with pdf & djvu" |
5 |
| sound-juicer "If «powerful» means basic, effective & flawless, this is it." |
5 |
| nautilus-dropbox "Not needed, when dropbox is installed from the oficial ubuntu deb file." |
3 |
| dropbox "Had to install it from the Debian package. Finally got the context menu to work in Mint12." |
4 |
| omegat "Another open-source triumph. Bye-bye bloated tools." |
5 |
| thunderbird "Solid. As a multi-platform solution, it stands unchallenged as an example, on the same league of its cousin Firefox. The same care (or almost) given to Linux as to other platforms. [new update: recent problems with gmail installation have been solved]" |
5 |
| glipper "Smart clipboard manager with smart plugins. Light on resources, but resourceful! Take your time to explore the usefulness of plugins such as “snippets”, “grow” or “actions”. Lacks a user guide." |
5 |
| vlc "No-fuss universal player, capable, customizable, intuitive. Huge thanks to the VideoLAN team, for taking good care of the Linux version. [update: some recent issues with sound that require restart; gnome mplayer comes to rescue; new update: issues with random loss of sound because of other processes - Firefox, for example - continue to date, in spite of some reviews of uncritical approval]" |
4 |
| gnome-sushi "Glad to know it comes by default in Mint. But still one has to discover about the magic touch to activate this useful & simple tool to view content without opening files: [select]+tab=fast view [Libreffice formats will only show you a fast view of Proprieties in Mint 12]" |
5 |
| cairo-dock "Cool for those suffering from Mac-envy. Became instantly redundant with Gnome 3." |
3 |
| ubuntu-tweak "The swiss knife of Gnome tweakers. Be nice & suggest it to newbies. They will prosper on their own. Lost some edge on Lisa." |
4 |
| awn-settings "Doesn't play well with gnome 3. Awn settings simply unresponsive; if you uninstall, you have to repeat it to almost every applet in the list" |
2 |
| conky-all "Issues in gnome 3; pastime for tweakers only" |
2 |
| fbreader "No-fuss universal e-book reader. Way more tolerant of varying format codes than Calibre LRF viewer. Superlight. Neat font & formatting." |
5 |
| ttf-mscorefonts-installer "Basic, if you want smooth compatibility with any document going to and fro with any ms system; yes, at the moment you have to go “sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer” at the Terminal; scroll down to get the Ok step at the EULA page and wait a little: it tends to stuck; [update: just keep scrolling & waiting for the ok button; enter; be patient; the yes/no buttons will show up at the very bottom; select & enter]" |
4 |
| gnome-mplayer "The video playback has improved enormously. It can even be more stable than VLC (no random sound glitches, as with the latter). The minimalistic interface is great. Good configuration menu. Should be default." |
5 |
| acroread "In the Windows community (?), I never understood the bad press Adobe Reader used to receive, and still receives, in favor of much inferior tools, just because those were “lighter” (some people evaluate software as if the limits of their hardware, system setup or skills level didn't count). I see that in Linux this lasting fad also caught. I'm sorry to crash the negative party, but I think Acroread/Adobe Reader for Linux is a very good tool, and manages to emulate the reading experience of a book or magazine for the digital environment. Great for M12 Lisa 64bit. [The program was updated for Linux on April 16, 2012; its supposed “slowness” is the flip side of its greater definition, in comparison to the default Document Viewer; but right now it suffers from an irritating bug that presents you the license dialog every time a document is opened.]" |
5 |
| celtx "If you have Mint 12 and are one of many who didn't manage to install this, install Trelby & read the little guide "getting started". " |
1 |
| avidemux "Very much like its ms windows brother: unimpressive, but very useful at times." |
3 |
| brasero "No complaints. Could be perfected, though." |
4 |
| acidrip "Linux is more than ready to rip! Very easy to operate, for anyone with minimum skills. Good tutorials online. The audio track is chosen at: general>audio>language (the main track is not always the first on the list: use “preview” to confirm your choice). Those finding the commom system path error «/dev/dvd does not exist» will find an answer here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/acidrip-dvd-dev-dvd-does-not-exist-772826/" |
5 |
| darktable "Opensource marvel. Many many thanks to the team." |
5 |
| audacious "Finally! A straightforward, totally no-BS & well equipped player that understands the multitasking environment. Simple click & play (Open) on folders, for example. Smart interface (& clean: with fancy skins for those who dig party pants). Super stable. Should be default." |
5 |
| libreoffice-writer "Don't get me wrong, I have 3 pcs with Mint and would have 4 if one of my cats hadn't pissed on a nice & warm open laptop. But there is no practical use for everyone to keep saying that LibreOffice Writer is “better” than MS Word. Maybe better than Word 2003, and capable of matching Word 2007/2010 in many aspects, but not yet there. On a very immediate level, the customization paths are a tedious & redundant labyrinth. Backward stuff. The Review tools are still in a rudimentary state, and remain strangely hidden in the interface, even though I'm now able to move docx documents to and fro between MS-Word and LO-Writer keeping all the review info with no glitch whatsoever, in a professional environment. This is serious praise. Anyway, the MS Word Review layout is way ahead in features and productivity solutions. LO-Writer's proofing tools, as a whole, remain poor in comparison. I use LO-Writer in what I call the “Bauhaus Mode”, with no rule, no useless text boundaries, and no ugly toolbars. Just the basic menu. Nice. I was able to ditch Wine & an embedded Word 2007 to use LO-Writer exclusively in my Mint. That's how good it became. A simple request: if LO-Writer could create new empty documents locally, with a right click menu, that would make life easier to all those accustomed to other similar tools... and would be more intuitive." |
4 |
| gimp "I agree with the general praise: Gimp delivers. The remarks about the poor cropping tool (or the scaling/resizing one) seem to me also well justified. For a “professional-level” image manipulation tool, its icons look too childish, sometimes unclear and aesthetically unambitious in general. If it had some kind of standard/advanced switch, it could easily become a more universal image manipulation tool. As it is, it remains a little convoluted for average users. In MS Windows, it is easily beaten by more accessible & powerful enough tools like Paint.net & Photoscape." |
4 |
| simple-scan "The name says it all! You can make jpegs like fresh pancakes out of it. It's so simple that if your scanner is not connected on launch you'll have to restart it to operate. But it managed to resuscitate a scanner that had been disconnected for more than 10 years after being pronounced dead by an MS Windows system. For PDFs you'll have to look for gscan2pdf or xsane." |
4 |
| xsane "This is like the Gimp for scanning devices!" |
5 |
| transmission "Transmission is awesome, yes, but my superlight-superproductive version is Transmission-gtk." |
5 |
| transmission-gtk "Hilariously straightforward. stable & powerful (mint 12). clean interface, with uncluttered window. all info about each torrent hidden in individual properties window (divided into info/peers/trackers/files/options - which include individual speed and seeding limits). optional views according to torrent states: all/active/downloading/seeding etc. offers enabling of internal blocklist (get it from sites such as www.iblocklist.com). by the way, the default .torrent file folder is located in ~/.config/transmission/torrents (open places>home folder and press ctrl-h to see hidden directories). very easy to set up. allows for one-click activation of temporary speed limits." |
5 |
| calibre "Right now it is unable to convert mobi or epub into pdf (bad page splitting), in spite of a recent upgrade addressing the issue (at least in MS Windows). It boasts one of the lamest interfaces & product logos both in Linux and MS Windows (heavy competition here!)." |
3 |
| pyroom "I just love it. Of all the dark & distraction-free writing tools, PyRoom is the one with the simplest preferences interface and the smallest collection of shortcuts, and that is very good. (The only thing I miss a little is the ESC=minimize feature usual in this class of word processors.) You either write in the default green on black, or choose between the few themes (varying font & background colors) or else configure the "custom" theme. There's autosave. Simple text output. You do the typing. " |
5 |
| baobab "Indispensable. It would be partly redundant if there was an instant Media View in Linux that could show, with animated icons & numbers, the usage percentages of all active storage media (a bit like the My Computer view in Windows 7). As it is, the Disk Usage Analyzer is a blunt & very clear way of obtaining this with a few clicks. " |
4 |
| xserver-xorg-video-radeon "I agree, blueXrider. This is not a decent component for Lisa. It's mind boggling how a renovated system like M12 Lisa should be launched without acceptable video drivers for any build a tiny bit out of the ordinary. Is Linux a system for the integrated graphics market, or specialized in the recycling of old P4 boxes? This is not the path to attract new users to Linux and Mint in particular (Ubu fails too in this area); can't one have an average video card and a dual monitor setup without feeling like a pioneer of the long distance telegraphy? Shame on you AMD-ATI. These drivers are a sad mess. [updated again]" |
1 |
| synergy "Right now, it seems to have problems with either Gnome 3 or Mint 12 or both. Unable to launch or even show up in Accessories here, in two machines. Similar reports online [to be updated]" |
2 |
| v4l2ucp "The key utility for the taming of supposedly non-compatible webcams from uncooperative manufacturers, especially with Skype. This tutorial might help you, if you have this sort of lazy webcams: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/219 This Ubuntu community documentation page may also be of some use: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam" |
5 |
| wine "It makes me think of the training wheels on bikes. If you're not a gamer, embrace the full Linux experience and cut the crap. I tried Wine and PlayonLinux, back when I decided to keep MS Word inside a Mint machine, because I'm so damn used to it. Not worth the trouble. The installation processes were a pain, and the results were never fully stable. Both W. and P. ended up breaking under pressure, or after updates or upgrades. It's too much effort that should be redirected to integral Linux solutions. " |
3 |
| banshee "Uninstalled." |
2 |
| nautilus "One of Mint's greatest strengths!" |
5 |
| mintmenu "I kinda miss it, but with Gnome 3 it slowly became redundant. It is a neat piece of software, though, and indispensable in the “classical” desktop." |
4 |
| skype "Unlike some people, I prefer this to its windows brother, because it's so streamlined & freed from all the advertising crap of the MS version. Now that MS bought it, let's hope they don't ditch or forget the Linux version... The slow development has been a drawback, though. At this moment, a bug both in 32 & 64bit makes Skype lose the login information on startup, randomly, it seems." |
4 |
| mtpaint "Primitive & ugly. You can't even select images from directories using thumbnails. MS Paint is a long way ahead in usability. No comparison. Sadly." |
2 |