The following articles will direct you to the finest Linux software that is available. Almost all of the software is open source. Gaming If you believe that Linux is just for business, think again! There are thousands of games available that run on your favorite distribution. Here are the best around! The hottest Linux games covering all genres: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 More quality games, again divided into three parts: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 Video Console Emulators - GameBoy, Nintendo 64, Megadrive, PlayStation 1 and 2 and Arcade Home Computer Emulators - Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Amstrad and Amiga Educational - Games edutainment combining education and entertainment Chess - including clients, databases and engines Commercial Games - Native Linux games that require a payment Internet & Networking Internet and networking software has always been one of Linux's strongest areas. Security - Exhaustive survey of all the finest security tools Email - Email clients, groupware, servers, utilities, security, filtering, mailing list managers and more Instant Messaging Clients - Real-time text communication between two or more individuals News Aggregators - Collect news, weblog posts, and other information from the web Voice Over IP Software - Telephone-like voice conversations across IP based networks Remote Display Software - Use the mouse and keyboard to control another computer remotely IRC Clients - IRC is a type of real-time Internet text messaging Twitter Clients - Popular social networking utility System Monitoring Tools - Real-time incident notification, performance analysis etc Desktop & Productivity Desktop environments consist of icons, windows, toolbars, folders, wallpapers, and desktop widgets. Lean Desktops - The finest candidates for older hardware File Managers - Orthodox, navigational and spatial file managers Window Managers - Compositing, stacking and tiling window managers Desktop Search Engines - Locate information with the minimum of fuss Productivity Tools - Utilities to make your life a little bit easier Calculators - Compute difficult mathematical functions, plot 2D and 3D graphs Graphics & Multimedia With a huge selection of open source software available, Linux offers the ideal environment for audio and video enthusiasts. Graphics - Create, modify and convert 2D and 3D computer graphics Audio - Music players/managers, recording/editing and more Video - Players, video recorders, collection managers and more Screencasting - Digital recordings of computer screen output Computer Aided Design - Produce professional drawings Console Based Multimedia - Light on system resources Music Servers - Turn your Linux box into a music server, distributing digital tracks over a network Dedicated multimedia distributions: 64 Studio, DeMiDi, dyne:bolic, and Ubuntu Studio Backup Backup software is used to perform a complete back up of a file, data, database, system or server. It enables users to make a duplicate of everything contained on the original source. This type of software is also used to perform a recovery of the data or system in the event of a disaster. Backup Tools - Intuitive graphical interfaces, snapshot software, and command-line tools Financial Financial software covers a wide spectrum including personal finance, stock trading, investment analysis, accounting, business solutions and microfinance. Financial - Keep track of stock market movements, analyse the markets, and more Text Editors A text editor is software used for editing plain text files. It has many different uses such as modifying system configuration files, writing programming code, jotting down thoughts, or even making a grocery list. Editors - This article covers console, graphical, HTML editors, and text processing software Family History Tracing your ancestry is painstaking work, can be extremely addictive and creates large amounts of data. Software which offers tailored functionality, to store data and relationships between parents, spouses and children, as well as handling additional events in an individual's life, photographs, free-form notes, and other multimedia, and source citations. Family History - This article covers native Linux clients, Java and web based software Scientific Software Science really prospers and advances when individuals share the results of their experiments with others in the scientific community. There is a certain logic that scientific software should therefore be released in a freely distributable environment. Scientific - Maths, biology, chemistry, physcis, electronics & enginnering and more Free Proprietary Software Software licenses stir up emotive feelings in the Linux community. Licenses generally fall into one of two broad categories: proprietary licenses and open source licenses. The type of software license an application uses is significant in the effect it has on the rights of the user of the application, and whether a programmer chooses to contribute his or her time to its development. Closed-Source Software - Business, Internet, Graphics, System, Development Office Software Linux is becoming very popular in the business environment. Office suites: Collection of related software for business and other uses Project Management - Project management tools Relational Databases - Most databases are based on this type PDF Tools - create, view and manipulate Portable Document Format (PDF) files Programming Linux provides everything a developer could want in the coding department. Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) - for software development Compilers - Converts language statements into machine code Debuggers - Essential in any software development Revision Control Applications - Essential tools for programming collaboration Documentation Generators - Generates documentation intended for programmers and end users Web Applications Applications that are accessed via web browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. It is also a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language (such as HTML, JavaScript, Java, etc.) and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable. Web Content Management Systems - Keeps track of content on a website Wiki Engines - A type of collaborative software that runs a Wiki system Blog Applications - Maintain an ongoing chronicle of information on a website eCommerce - Shopping cart software Human Resource Management - Managing an organisation's human capital ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning Software CRM - Customer Relationship Management Software Data Warehouse - Real time access to information and data Business Intelligence - Including reporting and querying software

Last Updated Sunday, January 31 2010 @ 04:11 AM EST