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 VLC Media Player
"Supports playback of most video files and DVD discs without the need to download external codec packs, including flv filescan. There are 5 different DVD region codes and VLC plays them all.
VLC also has the ability to take screenshots of your video, even while during DVD playback, a real attractive feature." (Review)
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SMPlayer
"Intends to be a complete front-end for MPlayer, from basic features like playing videos, DVDs, and VCDs to more advanced features like support for MPlayer filters, remember the settings of all files you play and more."
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Rhythmbox
"An easy-to-use music player and organizer that has a clean interface, and sports many features, such as album art display, online radio access, and CD burning. This software is powered by Gstreamer, and can therefore support all of its audio formats, such as WAV, AAC, MP3, OGG, FLAC and more." (Review)
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Banshee
Imports, organizes, plays, and shares music using a simple yet powerful interface. Other features include rip CDs, create playlists, burn audio and mp3 CDs, support for podcasting and music recommendations.
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Amarok
A powerful music player for multi platforms with an intuitive interface, supports for collection management, bookmarking, dynamic playlists, file tracking, integrated web services and more.
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 XBMC
"It is truly outstanding in this category and earns the Gizmo's Top Pick title rightfully in my eyes. It played all media files I fed it with and turned out to be the most reliable product for me.
XBMC offers convincing media library features and is highly configurable with custom skins and backdrops. You will find a vast amount of plugins, skins and other goodies for it as the community around XBMC is large." (Review)
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SoundConverter
Aims to be simple to use and fast for conversion from most audio files to wav, flac, mp3, aac and ogg files, supports for extraction of the audio from videos too. (Note: Install GStreamer MP3 Encoding to enable conversion to mp3.)
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Arista Transcoder
An easy-to-use converter to convert multimedia files from one format to another for playback on various devices. Supported output formats include m4v (Ipod), avi (Nokia, PDA or DVD player), mkv (computer) and mp4 (various Sony devices), depending on the device you choose.
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OggConvert
A small and easy-to-use utility to convert most audio and video files to the patent-free Ogg format, and support for encoding to the Matroska container format (mkv, mka), with adjustable settings on audio and video quality for conversion.
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 Kid3
"Edit all tags, generate tags from files or vice versa, import tags from databases, browse cover arts and lyrics from online resources, drag and drop cover art to a file, export tags, etc." Kid3 uses KDE libraries, while another package Kid3-qt is also available for installation without KDE dependencies." (Review)
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MusicBrainz Picard
"Identify track info by matching digital thumbprint with MusicBrainz database, show up existing tags with add and delete functions." (Review)
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K3b
A capable CD/DVD burner optimised for KDE, lets you easily burn data CDs/DVDs, create audio/video CDs and video DVDs, rip audio/video CDs and video DVDs along with other related tasks, good for experienced as well as beginner users.
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Brasero
Designed for ease of use to create a traditional audio CD, data CD/DVD, video DVD or a SVCD, burn an existing CD/DVD image to disc, copy a CD/DVD to a new disc or write to an image file in ISO and other formats.
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Furius ISO Mount
"Select or drag-and-drop an image file to mount, one-click unmount, supports for burning ISO and IMG files, generate MD5 and SHA1 checksums, saving history and retrieving previously unmounted images." (Review)
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AcetoneISO
A feature-rich application to emulate CD/DVD drives and manage CD/DVD images. You can use it to mount disk images including ISO, BIN, NRG, MDF and IMG formats, generate an ISO image from a folder or CD/DVD, backup an audio CD to a BIN image, burn CD/DVD, convert other images to ISO, extract image content to a folder, and more.
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 Asunder
A simple yet powerful audio CD ripper and encoder to save audio tracks from an audio CD as any of MP3, AAC, Ogg, WAV, FLAC, Wavpack, Musepack or Monkey's audio files.
Useful features include using CDDB to name and tag each track, encoding to multiple formats in one session, simultaneous ripping and encoding, tagging each track for a different artist and more.
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HandBrake
"Good quality in transcoded video, small file size, integrates the latest improvements to the H.264 encoding library with enhanced picture quality, speed optimizations and supports better control over multiple audio tracks." (Review)
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DeVeDe
An easy-to-use tool to create a video DVD, Video CD, Super Video CD and other disk images, with support for adding menus and subtitles, shifting audio and other video editing functions such as rotating, scaling, deinterlacing and more. You will need separate CD / DVD burning software to burn the disk images created by this tool for playback on your home players.
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ffDiaporama
A great tool to create a slideshow of your favorite photos with background colors and images, music and transition effects, clean user interface with drag-and-drop support for slides, and a preview of the slideshow from any point.
You can insert fixed or animated titles as well as movie clips into a slideshow, save your project for editing and export your result to mp4, mkv, mpg or avi formats. A wide range of video quality from QVGA (320x240) up to full HD (1920x1080) is supported.
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 Audacity
"It does all the recording and editing I need, and is much simpler and faster to use than a lot of paid products. The interface is easy to use, allowing you to select and apply a noise profile just as easily as removing it.
The program also can record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings, edit various sound files, cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together and change the speed or pitch of a recording." (Review)
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mp3splt-gtk
"Splits mp3 and ogg files without re-encoding, able to identify split points between tracks via online database services (CDDB or FreeDB)." (Review)
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 Avidemux
"It is designed for multi-purpose video editing and processing and is my personal favorite because of its simplicity yet wide range of tools.
The software supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. It lets you do just about everything under the sun, with well documented tutorials." (Review)
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OpenShot Video Editor
An open-source and non-linear video editor which is stable and friendly to use with support for many video, audio and image formats based on FFmpeg together with lots of other useful features.
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 ClipGrab
An efficient and free video downloader for YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, MyVideo, MySpass, Sevenload, Tudou, Clipfish and many other online video sites. You can enter keywords in the box to search videos on YouTube or paste the URL to a video, then select the format and quality of the video you need, click "Grab this clip!" and the app does the rest for you.
You can also configure how the app behaves when a downloadable video is discovered in your clipboard, and whether you want to keep metadata (ID3 tags) when you download and convert videos to mp3 files.
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 LMMS (Linux Multimedia Studio)
"As a stand alone application, one would be hard pressed to find a more comprehensively full featured and versatile free music creator than this, with so many instruments and effects to choose from.
The onboard Beat/Bassline editor removes the need for a separate drum sequencer and is a very nice touch: LMMS really is a one stop shop" (Review).
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 MuseScore
"The best free music notation software with fast and easy note entry in WYSIWYG mode. It's integrated with a sequencer and FluidSynth software synthesizer and allows for an unlimited number of staves; up to four voices per staff; 128 instrument sounds for playback plus eight drum and percussion sets.
Other features include import and export of MusicXML and standard MIDI files; output as PDF or PNG documents and basic ensemble scoring." (Review).
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4. Best Free Multimedia for Linux
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Bombermaaan - A classic Bomberman game with multiplayer support:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bombermaaan/
Unvanquished is an open-source first-person shooter combining real-time strategy elements with a futuristic, sci-fi setting:
http://www.unvanquished.net/
Mega Mario:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mmario/?source=directory
The Bub's Brothers:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bub-n-bros/?source=directory
Cubosphere:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cubosphere/
FreeOrion is an open source, turn-based space empire and galactic conquest (4X) computer game:
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page
Open Sonic is an open-source game based on the "Sonic the Hedgehog" universe. It introduces a different style of gameplay called cooperative play, in which it's possible to control 3 characters simultaneously. Unlike most similar games, Open Sonic provides a greater level of interaction between the player and the levels. It's more than just a jump'n'run; the user must come up with some strategy in order to get through the levels:
http://opensnc.sourceforge.net/home/index.php
LinCity-NG is a city simulation game. In the game, you are required to build and maintain a city. You can win the game either by building a sustainable economy or by evacuating all citizens with spaceships:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lincity-ng.berlios/
Cream - a modern configuration of the Vim text editor:
http://cream.sourceforge.net/index.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cream/?source=dlp
http://cream.sourceforge.net/featurelist.html
King Arthur's Gold Free Version - 2D Strategy:
http://kag2d.com/en/
Citadel
Features:
* Email, calendaring, address books, bulletin boards, instant messaging, and more … all in one tightly integrated server package. Unlike other open source groupware systems, all of Citadel's data stores are built-in. All that tedious mucking about with dependencies and config files is a thing of the past.
* High-performance, multiprotocol, multithreaded server engine
* Wiki and blog engines built in. Citadel is a collaboration server and a content management system!
* Web browser, telnet/SSH, local client software accessible
* Standards-compliant e-mail built in: IMAP, POP3, ESMTP
* Group calendaring and scheduling (WebDAV, GroupDAV, and Kolab-1 compatible)
* Built-in listserv (mailing list server)
* Integrated server-side mail sorting and filtering. Users can choose between an easy-to-use web based rules editor, or the power of writing complex scripts using the industry standard Sieve language.
* Support for push e-mail and mobile devices
* Database-driven, single-instance message store
* Built-in full text index for fast searching
* Authenticated SMTP for remote email submission
* Multiple domain support
* Built-in integration with perimiter email filtering technologies such as Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBL's), SpamAssassin, and ClamAV antivirus
* Server-to-server replication. Users in any number of domains can be spread out across any number of Citadel servers, allowing you to put data where you need it, and enabling infinite horizontal scalability.
* Web-based access to email, calendars, and everything else through a powerful AJAX-style front end
* Very strong support for “public folders” and message forums.
* Built-in instant messenger service
* SSL/TLS encryption for all protocols
* Citadel is true open source software. Unlike other groupware servers, it isn't a cut-down version of an expensive proprietary “pro” version. We make our very best work available to everyone on the same terms. 100% of our code is covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL3).
http://www.citadel.org/doku.php/doku.php?id=start
Mari0 - Mario game with Portal gun mechanics:
http://stabyourself.net/mari0/
Ortho Robot is a perspective based puzzle game, where you flatten the view to move across gaps. Your objective is to reach the ending green block (either by standing directly on it or standing on it in relative space). For some extra challenge, try to collect all coins and perfect your time, steps and number of warps:
http://stabyourself.net/orthorobot/
Ever wondered how Pacman would be like with physics? No? Well, it's revolutionary. This mashup of "Not" and "Pacman" puts The Pac and the Ghosts in a in a Pacworld cage, at mercy of gravity and the level's shape, controlled solely by you. Ghosts still don't like you very much, so you should be careful to make Pacman avoid them:
http://stabyourself.net/notpacman/
xvidcap is a screen capture enabling you to capture videos off yourX-Window desktop for illustration or documentation purposes:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xvidcap/
Red Rogue - a side-scrolling roguelike-like computer game:
http://redrogue.net/
TiffanyScreens is a presentation tool, capturing the content of the presenter's screen and sending it to multiple other computer screens at the same time (free version is limited to just three peers in a group):
http://www.tiffanyscreens.com/index.html
Extreme Tux Racer is an open-source downhill racing game starring Tux, the Linux mascot:
http://extremetuxracer.com/
FooBillard - free 3D OpenGL billard game:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/foobillard/
BomberClone:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bomberclone/
KBounce is a single player arcade game with the elements of puzzle. It is played on a field, surrounded by wall, with two or more balls that move about in the field bouncing off of walls. The player can build new walls, decreasing the size of active field:
http://games.kde.org/game.php?game=kbounce
LBreakout2:
http://lgames.sourceforge.net/index.php?project=LBreakout2
Pipewalker - This is a puzzle game in which you need to combine the components into a single circuit: connect all computers to a network server, bring water to the taps, etc:
http://pipewalker.sourceforge.net/
Berusky is a 2D logic game:
http://anakreon.cz/?q=node/1
Crack Attack!:
http://www.aluminumangel.org/attack/#screen%20shots
Regnum Online:
http://www.regnumonlinegame.com/
Update:
PipeWalker now added.
LBreakout2 has been in the list. BillardGL is included as it's rated higher than FooBilliard in this review.
Will look at many others that you've suggested.
Evince with Hand tool:
"... This PPA provides slightly enhanced Evince document viewer that pan scroll mode (like "Hand tool" in Adobe Reader) is added. It's probably suitable for touch panel based computers ...":
https://launchpad.net/~irie/+archive/evince
Red Eclipse is a single-player and multi-player first-person ego-shooter, built as a total conversion of Cube Engine 2, which lends itself toward a balanced gameplay, completely at the control of map makers, while maintaining a general theme of agility in a variety of environments:
http://www.redeclipse.net/
SuperTuxKart is a Mario Kart-like arcade racing game featuring the Linux mascot Tux:
http://supertuxkart.sourceforge.net/
DMDE Free Edition is a powerful software for data searching, editing, and recovery on FAT and NTFS disks:
http://softdm.com/
tcplay is a free, pretty much fully featured (including multiple keyfiles, cipher cascades, etc.) and stable TrueCrypt implementation.
This implementation supports mapping (opening) both system and normal TrueCrypt volumes, as well as opening hidden volumes and opening an outer volume while protecting a hidden volume. There is also support to create volumes, including hidden volumes, etc.:
https://github.com/bwalex/tc-play#readme
Starbuck's FreePlayer is a simple and complete media player based on the powerful MPlayer project (version for Linux is still in testing phase):
http://www.labdv.com/freeplayer/
Subvein: Mutant Factions is a free multiplayer action game. It has over 20 weapons, a strategic skills system, crazy vehicles and countless user-generated maps. It's tactical, fast-paced and most importantly, fun:
http://subvein.net/
gscan2pdf - A GUI to ease the process of producing a multipage PDF from a scan. It should work on almost any Linux/BSD machine.
Features
* Compatible with any SANE-capable scanner
* Crop, threshold & clean up scan
* Reorder pages via DND
* Write multi-page scan to PDF, DjVu or TIFF
* Write single scans to any format supported by ImageMagick
* Ocropus & tesseract support
* Place OCR output at boundary boxes supplied by Ocropus
* Incorporate PDF metadata in filename
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gscan2pdf/
Reditr was designed to serve as a simple to navigate client for Reddit:
http://reditr.com/
"... rTorrent is a text-based ncurses BitTorrent client written in C++, based on the libTorrent libraries for Unix, whose author's goal is “a focus on high performance and good code” ... On high-bandwidth connections, it claims to be able to seed at 3 times the speed of the official client ..."
http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/
"... BusyBox combines tiny versions of many common UNIX utilities into a single small executable. It provides replacements for most of the utilities you usually find in GNU fileutils, shellutils, etc. The utilities in BusyBox generally have fewer options than their full-featured GNU cousins; however, the options that are included provide the expected functionality and behave very much like their GNU counterparts. BusyBox provides a fairly complete environment for any small or embedded system ...":
http://www.busybox.net/about.html
Sound Juicer is a clean, mean, and lean CD ripper:
http://burtonini.com/blog/computers/sound-juicer
Asunder is a graphical Audio CD ripper and encoder:
http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/
Rubyripper is a secure digital audio extraction application. It uses cdparanoia error correcting power and it's own secure ripping algorithm to make sure that a CD rip is done successfully and accurately:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Rubyripper
Thanks Panzer. Asunder is on the list. Will check out the other two.
DraftSight lets professional CAD users, students and educators create, edit and view DWG files:
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/overview/
TideSDK - Create multi-platform desktop apps with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript:
http://www.tidesdk.org/
Project Diaspora - Space style MMO RPG 2D with upgradeable ships and expandable environment:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdiaspora/
NoPriv.py - HTML5 IMAP email backup
NoPriv.py is a python script to backup any IMAP capable email account to a HTML archive, nicely browsable, instead of weird folders (Maildir), one huge file (mbox), only needing a Eeb Browser to view (Thunderbird) and no proprietary Code, so you can make sure it steal your password:
https://raymii.org/s/software/Nopriv.py.html
Liferea:
Features:
* Read articles when offline.
* Never read headlines twice from multiple devices!
* Full Google Reader and TinyTinyRSS sync!
* Supports Google Reader labels (folders)!
* Permanently save headlines in news bins.
* Match items using search folders.
http://lzone.de/liferea/
Yes Panzer, Liferea has been on the list.
NX Free Edition - A complete solution for remote access to your Linux workstation. It allows 2 users to connect at the same time no matter what their location is, and share the desktop:
http://www.nomachine.com/products.php
Sawfish is an extensible window manager using a Lisp-based scripting language. Its policy is very minimal compared to most window managers. Its aim is simply to manage windows in the most flexible and attractive manner possible. All high-level WM functions are implemented in Lisp for future extensibility or redefinition. These are some of the features that set Sawfish apart from other window managers:
* Powerful key-binding: Virtually every function provided by Sawfish can be bound to keys (or mouse buttons).
* Event hooking: For many events (moving windows etc.) you can customize the way Sawfish will respond.
* Window matching: When windows are created you can match them to a set of rules and automatically perform actions on them.
* Flexible theming: Sawfish allows for very different themes to be created and a variety of third-party themes are readily available.
http://sawfish.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
AeroFS allows you to sync, share, and backup files easily between all your devices and your friends:
https://www.aerofs.com/features
Bitcoin is an experimental new digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network.
Bitcoin is also the name of the open source software which enables the use of this currency:
http://bitcoin.org/
SpeedCrunch is a fast, high precision and powerful desktop calculator:
http://speedcrunch.org/en_US/index.html