The Linux BricsCAD pages, part 3: More user software

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So you have a running system with almost all software installed, out of the box. But there is more: This page… With a huge amount of additions.

THIS ARTICLE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION. YOUR POSITIVE INPUT IS APPRECIATED.

All related parts: 1: Introduction 2: Linux base install 3: More user software 4: Tuning Linux 5: Tuning your software 6: Getting BricsCAD working 7: Publishing your drawings

Preparing for software installation

As preparation, a list of packages that are handy and not in the standard installation follows, “apt install” (as root) is the command for this.

Do not simply install everything, just take what you need.

  • You can copy the table and paste (ctrl-v) it in LibreOffice Calc, cell A1.
    • Now you have all data in columns A, B, C and D
  • Next, remove direct formatting of cells:
    • ctrl-a
    • ctrl-m.
  • In Mousepad, you can paste contents of column A
  • Suppose you want to install package5, package13, package20 and package45.
  • Create a text line as followed:
    • apt install package5 package13 package20 package45
  • Copy this line to the clipboard
  • Open a terminal ctrl-alt-t
    • Enter “sudo su” with password when asked. You have root privileges (#).
    • Paste the apt install … text line on the command line. Installation should start.

Choose your tools

  • If you don’t need it, don’t install it. Make sure you know what you are installing
  • You can sort the table by clicking once or twice on the headers.
  • The links are for helping you decide…
PROGRAMCLASSFUNCTIONMORE
ardouraudiosound editinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardour_(software)
audacityaudiosound editinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacity_(audio_editor)
clementineaudioaudio playerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementine_(software)
flameshotbitmapsscreen dumpshttps://flameshot.js.org
gimpbitmapsbase bitmap editinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP
huginbitmapspano, perspectivehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugin_(software)
rawtherapeebitmapsraw editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RawTherapee
exfatprogsfilessupport exfathttps://github.com/exfatprogs/exfatprogs
gprenamefilesrenaminghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPRename
grsyncfilesfile synchronizationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grsync
k4dirstatfilesmapping file sizeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinDirStat
meldfilescompare fileshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meld_(software)
p7zipfilesfile compressionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Zip
p7zip-fullfilesfile compressionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7-Zip
pcmanfmfilesfile browserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCMan_File_Manager
spacefmfilesfile browserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceFM
fonts-croscorefontscompatible fonts tinos (times new roman), arimo (arial) en cousine (courier)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croscore_fonts
fonts-crosextra-caladeafontsfont caladea (cambria)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croscore_fonts
fonts-crosextra-carlitofontsfont carlito (calibri)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croscore_fonts
blendergraphics3d modellinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)
freecadgraphicsCADhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeCAD
geeqiegraphicsbitmap viewerhttp://www.geeqie.org/
graphvizgraphicsdiagramshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphviz
inkscapegraphicsSVG editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape
pstoeditgraphicscli conversionshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pstoedit
bluefishinternethtml editinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluefish_(software)
chromium-browserinternetweb browserhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)
curlinternetdownload toolhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CURL
filezillainternetSFTP programhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FileZilla
telegram-desktopmessagingmessengerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)
thunderbirdmessaginge-mailhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Thunderbird
openvpnnetworkVPN networkinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVPN
remminanetworkVNC programhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remmina
ssvncnetworkVNC viewer ssl/sshhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11vnc
calibreofficee-book editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibre_(software)
okularofficePDF viewerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okular
pdfsamofficepdf assemblinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF_Split_and_Merge
scribusofficeDTP programhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribus
glabelsprintinglabel printinghttps://glabels.org/
xsanescannersoftware for scannershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanner_Access_Now_Easy
vokoscreenscreencastscreen recordhttps://github.com/vkohaupt/vokoscreen/blob/master/README.md
wmctrlscreencastwindow information and settinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wmctrl
keepassxcsecuritypassword managementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KeePassX
openssh-serversecuritysecure shell accesshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSSH
bleachbitsystemthe cleaning ladyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BleachBit
cifs-utilssystemsamba networkinghttps://wiki.samba.org/index.php/LinuxCIFS_utils
dkmssystemkernel compilinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support
fontforgesystemfont editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FontForge
gnome-system-monitorsystemtask managementhttps://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-system-monitor/
gpartedsystempartitioninghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GParted
smartmontoolssystemSMART data from diskshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartmontools
synapticsystemsoftware managementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_(software)
usb-creator-gtksystembootable USB stickshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_Disk_Creator
xfce4-goodiessystemxfce4 pluginshttps://goodies.xfce.org/
geanytexttext editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany
geany-pluginstexttext editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geany
scitetexttext editorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciTE
smplayervideovideo playerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMPlayer
mpvvideovideo playerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpv_(media_player)
vlcvideovideo playerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player
winffvideoffmpeg guihttps://code.google.com/archive/p/winff/
virtualboxvirtualizationvirtualizationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox
virtualbox-guest-additions-isovirtualizationvirtualization extentionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox

Additional remarks

  • Check the output of your terminal carefully for errors.
  • Fonts that are compatible with Microsoft fonts in terms of geometry:
    • fonts-croscore for
      • Times New Roman (Tinos)
      • Arial (Arimo) and
      • Courier (Cousine)
    • fonts-crosextra-carlito for Calibri and
    • fonts-crosextra-caladea for Cambria.

Snap

Some packages are better used as snap packages. Please check first if there is an install in synaptec in order not to install twice. If a package is already installed you’ve got two valid packages and you should or could remove one. For example, youtube-dl is a dependency of smplayer. So snap install youtube-dl is okay, but the next step could be apt remove youtube-dl. On the other hand, you may want to keep both. Command which youtube-dl should tell you where the program is located.

  • https://snapcraft.io/youtube-dl
    sudo snap install youtube-dl
    Rationale: Older versions often don’t download media properly.
    UPDATE: Parasitic organization RIAA wasn’t so pleased with sharing our culture, so an alternative approach is added below. No comments including “PaRIAA” or “DiarRIAA”, now is the time to laugh and for the rest it sucks.
  • https://snapcraft.io/blender
    sudo snap install blender --channel=2.79/stable --classic
    Rationale: If you have older blend files, they behave as intended in this latest period before the 2.80 revolution.

AppImage

Download, change rights to executable and run. That is the principle of an AppImage, that contains all needed to run. I tend to keep them in my home directory and make shortcuts to the Whisker by using menu editor.

/usr/local/bin

This is the dedicated place on your system to store your own program collection. Normally it is attractive to put them somewhere in your home directories, but system wide you have to be here. So youtube-dl is an example of it:

  • youtube-dl:
    sudo curl -L https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
    sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
    Updating: youtube-dl -U
    Usage: youtube-dl <URL>

PPA’s

Personal Package Archives. Not discussed here in detail. If you run into trouble with a checked and secure package from the official distributions, and there are ppa’s, you can consider using them. But you also effectively give access to the ppa maintainer – a security issue.

Some packages are bleeding edge. They are added in the table but you may want to use alternatives for now (2020 Okt.):

  • Currently no entries 😉

Next…

Continue with part 4: Tuning Linux

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