What are the top 20 most popular Red Hat 9 software packages.

[Runar Jørgensen]

Greetings

The question Bill Hall is raising is one I've asked myself. Although
y'all provided insight and lists, I believe John Poff is hitting the
nail. Quote: "The answer is, it all depends on what you want to do with
your Linux system."

Now, Bill asks us for the "top 20 most popular RH9 software
packages". OK, so this could boil down to pure counting of downloaded
packages from RH. The answer will most likely be updates of fonts,
runtime libs, apache-upgrades, etc. I don't think Bill is asking for
that answer. Am I right if you ask for the top 20 most _useful_
packages?

There are a couple of questions you need to ask yourself. Obviously
the most popular packages would be those most useful to you. Are you a
developer? Your forum profile dosen't give me any hints. If you are,
the answers given already are the ones suitable for you. Are you
newbie to linux? Then you're probably not interrested in server
packages either. Don't know what a server is? OK! forget about
it. You're asking for the top 20 most useful packages for a linux
desktop. Let's stick strictly to a desktop environment. Most packages
are already mentioned. You'll need:

an email client (I use pine),
a web browser (I use opera),
a desktop environment (I use KDE),
a desktop manager (I don't remember what I use),
an editor (I use emacs),
some sound stuff (I use xmms),
some video stuff, (I use gmplayer, although with some difficulty),
an office package (I use OpenOffice)
a printing environment (I use cups),
a graphics/image manipulator (I'm learing to use gimp)

These are just 10 applications. But these get me through the
day. Mostly without too much hassle. Grab the packages that looks
most promising of all provided and have fun.

[Steven E. Protter]

You are certain to get lots of responses with that line ending.

1) Apache. Providing web pages is one of the most important features of a RH server. Red Hat 9 offers 2.x anbd stable 1.3 There is a learning curve for 2.x so I still use 1.3. If I can I'll install both on my next test server so I can integrate at my own pace.

2) Samba. This is the print/file sharing system that can be intregrated with almost any OS. Its also a long term threat to Microsoft server products. Its robust, easy to use and I highly recommend it.

3) Perl. The powerful Common Gateway Interface Language of the Internet. I must install. Fun to program in.

4) openssh. Secure shell. A secure way to admin servers with passwords travelling encrypted on the public Internet. Easier to deal with than NIS for password free user connections.

5) BIND. If you are really into web/internet, you need to service names, and set it up to be secure and able to withstand denial of service attacks.

6) ftp. Most servers still need to use it, you must make it as secure as possible. I see no need to use telnet btw.

7) Bastille Security Hardening. Going on my server exposed kick, this tool will more than any other let you make your server more secure.

Thats a good start.

SEP

[AlienRoadShow]

Wow - Lots and lots of good stuff.

Thank you everybody.

But nothing extraneous? No excess baggage in this O/S that rarely gets used, if ever?

PS - You guys are the best!

[Jerome Henry]

Hi Bill,

I forgot to thank you for this thread, it's a lot a fun for us...

As far as extraneous is concerned, I would put :

Several stuff in KDE (KDE is a graphical desktop, one among others, as there are many) : try it as a whole, you'll find super graphical heavy stuff like... tea warner, kind off icon that let you knwo when your tea is ready, a gentle worm that spends its time (and it has plenty of time) crossing your screen or jumping on it... Try it anyway and see by yourself. Many people feel it quite funny but heavy, I feel it heavy...

More seriously, a super tool, called redhat-config-xfree86, designed to configure your video card and screen, which needs to work... a correctly configured video card and screen ! Sign that all is not perfect in this world... (in fact, it comes in replacement of Xconfigurator, a lot better. My 2 penies that RH will improve that).

Hope you'lll have fun with your RH.

J

[Khalid A. Al-Tayaran]

Hi,

One more package: MPlayer for Linux Play video files.....

get it here: http://shrike.freshrpms.net/

[Khalid A. Al-Tayaran]

Hi,

NOT SO IMPORTANT:

Also for gamers, Unreal Tournament 2003 for Linux. Here:
www.unrealtournament2003.com

[John Meissner]

Some of the packages that I find very useful are:

expect - helps in automating scripts
lynx - text based web browser. I use this to get the external IP address of my cable/DSL router and mail the results to my hotmail account.

But as for other packages... it all depends on your needs. If you ask 100 different people you'll probably get 99 different answers.

[Balaji N]

hmm... nobody mentioned anything about wget.

one of the best tools for downloading stuff.
-balaji