OpenStudio desktop

Applications

This page covers the default utilities and applications delivered with OpenStudio desktop and lists many recommended applications as well. They have been selected with both functionality and lightness in mind.

Use Software Center to install and remove applications.

If you do not find what you need here, thousands of other applications can easily be installed; Find something interesting on the web, search for it in Software Center, install and try it out.

If you want to install custom applications, not available in Software Center; Download a 64-bit Debian installer and double click the .deb file in the file manager to start installation.

Default utilities

Default applications

Recommended applications

Accessories

Graphics

Launchers

Network

Office

Sound and video

System tools

Virtualization


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AbiWord

Package name: abiword

Command to launch: $ abiword

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Simple but feature rich word processing program.

Accu Trans 3D

Package name: at3d_2012-1-0.exe (2012-1-0 is the version number)

Command to launch: $ cd /path_to/AccuTrans3D && wine ./at3d_2012-1-0.exe (2012-1-0 is the version number)

Found in: Accu Tranz 3D home page

Home Page

Info: Proprietary, but inexpensive application, to convert 3D models between different file formats. This is actually a windoze application, but it handles the DXF cad format and works well on Linux with WINE installed.

AlsaMixer

Package name: alsa
(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)

Command to launch: $ openstudio-mixer
Or in terminal use command $ alsamixer

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Tool to adjust the sound volume, a.k.a. the mixer channels of the sound card. Note that channels might be muted and must be unmuted, with the m key, before you can hear any sound.

Use key bindings to quickly adjust the master volume.

It is possible to store and restore settings from alsamixer: # alsactl store Store the current alsamixer settings. $ alsactl restore Restore the last stored alsamixer settings.

To get a more user friendly interface for alsamixer, install AlsaMixerGUI.

AlsaMixerGUI

Package name: alsamixergui
(GUI for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)

Command to launch: $ openstudio-mixer or $ alsamixergui

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Easy to use graphical front end for AlsaMixer.

Asunder

Package name: asunder

Command to launch: $ asunder

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Rip music from Audio CD to your preferred audio format.

Audacity

Package name: audacity

Command to launch: $ audacity

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Sound recorder and editor.

Bg Image

Package name: OpenStudio desktop script

Command to launch: $ openstudio-bg

Found in: OpenStudio desktop

Info: Script to read available background images from ~/.backgrounds and use Feh image viewer to present thumbnails and set a new desktop background.

Bluefish

Package name: bluefish

Command to launch: $ bluefish

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Powerful and feature rich, yet user friendly text editor, targeted towards programmers and web designers. When installed, hit F4 in the file manager XFE to edit any selected text file with Bluefish.

Add spell checking capability with Hunspell.

Blender

Package name: blender

Command to launch: $ blender

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Professional 3D modeling, rendering, animation and game creation suite.

BricsCAD

Package name: bricscadvXX (XX is the version number)

Command to launch: $ bricscadvXX (XX is the version number)

Found in: BricsCAD home page

Home Page

Info: Proprietary 2D and 3D CAD application working with the industry standard DWG file format. Use AccuTrans 3D if you want to convert your 3D CAD models to do further 3D visualization modeling or rendering.

Claws Mail

Package name: claws-mail

Command to launch: $ claws-mail

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Email client.

Conky

Package name: conky

Command to launch: $ conky

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Lightweight and highly configurable system monitor. With OpenStudio desktop conky resides in the bottom right corner of the screen and presents information about the current state of the system without getting in the way.

CUPS

Package name: cups

Command to launch: $ openstudio-printer

Or type address http://localhost:631/
directly in the web browser window.

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Web interface for CUPS, the open source printing system. In order to administrate printers you must enter the root (admin) password when asked to gain system administrative permissions.

easytag

Package name: easytag

Command to launch: $ easytag

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Edit meta tags for the most common music file formats, such as MP3 and Ogg Vorbis.

Evince

Package name: evince-gtk

Command to launch: $ evince

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: PDF document viewer.

Feh

Package name: feh

Command to launch: $ feh -options filename

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Lightweight and fast image viewer. Double click on bitmap images in the file manager to open them, or right click and choose View to build a thumbnail collage from all images in the directory.

Right-click on open images to pop-up a menu with image properties and basic editing options.

Feh is very feature rich despite its minimalistic interface; With OpenStudio desktop it is used to set the desktop background image and advanced usage includes batch processing images from a command line interface.

Firefox

Package name: firefox

Command to launch: $ firefox

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Standards compliant web browser with many available plug-ins. Firefox displays web content with the Gecko-engine.

Focus Writer

Package name: focuswriter

Command to launch: $ focuswriter

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Minimalistic word processor, working in the rich text format. Aims at letting the author focus on the text and stop messing arround with formatting and application settings. Hover with the mouse cursor on the top or bottom edge of the window and menus will appear to control the application or switch between open files.

Add spell checking capability with Hunspell.

FontForge

Package name: fontforge

Command to launch: $ fontforge

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Font editor.

Foxit Reader

Package name: foxitreader

Command to launch: $ FoxitReader

Found in: Foxit Reader home page

Home Page

Info: Proprietary PDF viewer with high performance rendering.

gcolor2

Package name: gcolor2

Command to launch: $ gcolor2

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Pick RGB colors to show their hex code. Useful when working with web design and computer graphics.

gFTP

Package name: gftp

Command to launch: $ gftp

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: File transfer client for many file transfer protocols, including FTP and SSH.

Gimp

Package name: gimp

Command to launch: $ gimp

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Professional raster image and photo editing software.

GMPC

Package name: gmpc

Command to launch: $ gmpc

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Frontend for Music Player Daemon (MPD). Can use MPD to play music on the local computer or connect to a remote MPD server over a network connection. GMPC has a look that is more like Rhytmbox or iTunes, compared to the simple GUI of Sonata.

Gnome Nettool

Package name: gnome-nettool

Command to launch: $ gnome-nettool

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Network monitor and network diagnostics tool.

Gnumeric

Package name: gnumeric

Command to launch: $ gnumeric

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Simple yet feature rich spreadsheet application.

GParted

Package name: gparted

Optional Packages: dosfstools, ntfsprogs
(adds support for windows file system types)

Command to launch: # gparted

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: File system partition editor. Format disks and create, delete, or re-size partitions.

GPRename

Package name: gprename

Command to launch: $ gprename

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Batch file renamer.

Gucharmap

Package name: gucharmap

Command to launch: $ gucharmap

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Character map application.

Gummi

Package name: gummi

Command to launch: $ gummi

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: LaTeX editor with simple and clean interface.

htop

Package name: htop

Command to launch: $ openstudio-task
Or in terminal use command $ htop

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Task manager with the ability to monitor, manage and kill running processes. htop can also monitor system load.

To get a less feature rich but more user friendly task manager, install LXTask.

Hunspell

Package name: Search for hunspell and install the package for your language.

Command to launch: N/A

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Spell checking library with support for many languages. Hunspell was originally developed for Hungarian language and handles languages with complex morphology very well.

Adds spell checking capabilities to word processors and text editors like Focus Writer, LibreOffice and Bluefish

iDesk

Package name: idesk

Command to launch: According to downloadble config

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page  Screenshot

Info: Simple but good looking desktop icons to launch applications.

Download and extract idesk-config-openstudio.tar.gz. It contains a preset config file to make iDesk blend in with OpenStudio desktop and a readme file with instructions for how to use iDesk.

ImageMagick

Package name: imagemagick

Command to launch: $ man imagemagick

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Set of tools to batch process (create, edit, convert, compose) bitmap images. $ man imagemagick after installation to read the manual.

Inkscape

Package name: inkscape

Command to launch: $ inkscape

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Vector image creation and editing application, using the SVG image format.

Input Settings

Package name: OpenStudio desktop script

Command to launch: $ openstudio-input

Found in: OpenStudio desktop

Info: User friendly interface to set basic options for input devices, such as keyboard layout, mouse and touchpad settings.

KeePassX

Package name: keepassx

Command to launch: $ keepassx

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Cross platform password manager.

LibreOffice

Package names: libreoffice and libreoffice-gkt

Command to launch: $ libreoffice

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Complete Office suite with word processor, spreadsheets, presentations, vector drafting, data base and math applications.

Add spell checking capabilities for non-english languages with Hunspell.

For info about addons visit the Ubuntu wiki LibreOffice page.

Linphone

Package name: linphone

Command to launch: $ linphone

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Internet phone or Voice Over IP phone (VoIP) using the SIP protocol.

lshw

Package name: lshw

Command to launch: # lshw -X

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Tool to provide detailed information about the hardware configuration of the system.
Note that lshw can only be run with root permissions. OpenStudio desktop allows members of the openstudio group to use it without a root password. Use command sudo lshw -X to lauch the application.

LXTask

Package name: lxtask

Command to launch: $ openstudio-task or $ lxtask

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Task manager with the ability to monitor, manage and kill running processes.

Midnight Commander

Package name: mc

Command to launch: $ mc

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Powerful two panel file manager. It has a ncurses interface and can run in a terminal.

Midori

Package name: midori

Command to launch: $ midori

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Standards compliant web browser. Driven by the WebKit engine.

Mirage

Package name: mirage

Command to launch: $ mirage

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Image viewer with thumbnails, basic image editing capabilities and support for both raster and vector formats.

Mount Unmount

Package name: OpenStudio desktop script

Command to launch: $ openstudio-mount

Found in: OpenStudio desktop

Info: Easily mount (after connecting) and unmount (before removing) removable mass storage devices (such as USB hard drives).

MP3Gain

Package name: mp3gain

Command to launch: $ mp3gain options file

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Normalize sound volume of MP3-files in a non-destructive way without recoding the files. Read more here: mp3gain usage

MPD

Package name: mpd

Command to launch: $ mpd /path_to/configfile

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Music Player Daemon is a server for playing music. Install a front-end to control MPD locally (localhost) on the server computer, or from a remote computer (using the server IP number) over a network connection.

The standard port to connect to the server is Port 6600

Recommended front-ends to control MPD are GMPC or Sonata.

nano

Package name: nano

Command to launch: $ nano /path/to/filename

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: A simple CLI text editor, if editing text files in a terminal window is needed/preferred. Read how to handle nano in the Terminal usage guide.

Openbox

Package name: openbox

Command to launch: exec openbox (at the last line of file ~/.xsession)

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Fast, lightweight and highly customizable window manager. The heart of the OpenStudio desktop user interface.

OpenShot

Package name: openshot

Command to launch: $ openshot

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Video editor with a non linear work flow.

Opera

Package name: opera

Command to launch: $ opera

Found in: Opera home page

Home Page

Info: Standards compliant web browser with support for email, bittorrent downloads and more. Driven by the Opera engine.

PDF-Shuffler

Package name: pdfshuffler

Command to launch: $ pdfshuffler

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Front-end to edit PDF files, such as rotating, adding and removing pages.

Pidgin

Package name: pidgin

Command to launch: $ pidgin

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Instant messaging client with support for most popular chat protocols, such as Google Talk, ICQ and Yahoo.

pyNeighborhood

Package name: pyneighborhood

Command to launch: $ pyNeighborhood

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Browse windows SMB/CIFS networks.

qpdfview

Package name: qpdfview

Command to launch: $ qpdfview --unique
Or simply double click a PDF file in the file manager.

Found in: qpdfview repository

Home Page

Info: PDF document viewer.

rsync

Package name: rsync

Command to launch: $ rsync options source destination

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: One way syncronisation tool. Use it for backups or for mirroring a path to another. rsync is a common, mature and standard app for this kind of operations. It can also be used to read files from a m3u-playlist and extract the linked files to a specified directory. Handy to fill up the MP3 player. Read more here: rsync usage

Screen Settings

Package name: OpenStudio desktop script

Command to launch: $ openstudio-screen

Found in: OpenStudio desktop

Info: Script to launch the screen settings tool for your graphics card. This tool will vary depending on your hardware and if you are using open source or proprietary drivers. Use it to set screen resolution, set-up multiple screens and so on. Read more here: GPU and Screen settings

Scribus

Package name: scribus

Command to launch: $ scribus

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Desktop publishing application to create professional printed media.

Scrot

Package name: scrot

Command to launch: $ scrot -options outputfile

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Application to take screenshots of your desktop or open windows. Use it as described in the key bindings page.

Skype

Package name: skype

Command to launch: $ skype

Found in: Ubuntu partner repo

Home Page

Info: Internet phone or Voice Over IP phone (VoIP) using the Skype protocol. In order to install Skype, first uncomment the Ubuntu partner repository in /etc/apt/sources.list, then reload the repos metadata with # aptitude update

SMPlayer

Package name: smplayer

Command to launch: $ smplayer

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Complete front-end to the famous MPlayer media player. Besides playing almost any video format, it is a nice player for local music with the playlist window activated.

Spotify

Package name: spotify

Command to launch: $ spotify

Found in: Spotify home page

Home Page

Info: Proprietary music service, connected to an extensive online library of music. You need a valid account to use Spotify.

Sonata

Package name: sonata

Command to launch: $ sonata

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Elegant front-end for Music Player Daemon (MPD). Can use MPD to play music on the local computer or connect to a remote MPD server over a network connection.

SoundConverter

Package name: soundconverter

Command to launch: $ soundconverter

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Convert audio files between a number of formats.

Synaptic

Package name: synaptic

Command to launch: # synaptic-pkexec

Found in: Debian repos

Info: User friendly interface to search for, install or remove applications. With this tool you can also keep the system up-to-date by upgrading applications and system packages when newer versions are available. In order to use synaptic you must enter the root (admin) password when asked to gain system administrative permissions.

Thea Render

Package name: TheaRender

Command to launch: $ cd /path_to/TheaRender && ./thea

Found in: Thea Render home page

Home Page

Info: Proprietary ray-tracing engine to produce realistic photo renderings of 3D models. Can be used as a plugin for Blender 3D creation suite or as a stand-alone studio application. Thea Render produces fast and accurate results with less configuration compared to open source competitors like YafaRay.

Thunderbird

Package name: thunderbird

Command to launch: $ thunderbird

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Advanced email client. Not as light and snappy as Claws Mail but more feature rich. You can also install the thunderbird-lightning package from Debian repos. Lightning is a calendar extension that will communicate with the email client.

tint2

Package name: tint2

Command to launch: $ tint2

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Simple and highly customizable panel with a task bar. The default OpenStudio desktop configuration can switch between a full width, or a condensed panel. In condensed mode windows can slip in under it and the panel takes zero screen space without the annoyance of animated hiding effects.

TkRemind

Package name: remind

Command to launch: $ tkremind

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Simple calendar and reminder. Conky, the desktop system monitor, is configured to check if there are any scheduled reminders when you log in.

Transmission

Package name: transmission

Command to launch: $ transmission

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Bittorrent client that can run in GUI or CLI mode.

unison

Package name: unison

Command to launch: $ unison path1 path2 options

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Two-way syncronisation tool. Use it to keep two, or more, filesystems in sync, where the most recent changes can occur on any file system. This is not a backup tool, but a utility to keep file systems in sync. Read more here: unison usage

VirtualBox

Package name: virtualbox

Command to launch: $ virtualbox

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Virtualization product to host virtual machines (virtual computers) on your system. Read more here: virtualbox usage

VLC

Package name: vlc

Command to launch: $ vlc

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: The famous VLC media player.

wbar

Package name: wbar

Command to launch: According to downloadble config

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page  Screenshot

Info: Simple but good looking launch bar to launch applications.

Download and extract wbar-config-openstudio.tar.gz. It contains a preset config file to make wbar blend in with OpenStudio desktop and a readme file with instructions for how to use wbar.

wicd

Package name: wicd-curses

Command to launch: $ openstudio-network

Or to launch without OpenStudio desktop integration, use command $ wicd-curses in terminal.

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Network manager for easy access to wired and wireless networks.

To get a more user friendly interface for wicd, install wicd-gtk.

wicd-gtk

Package name: wicd-gtk

Command to launch: $ openstudio-network

Or to launch without OpenStudio desktop integration, use command $ wicd-client -n

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Easy to use graphical front end for wicd network manager.

WINE

Package name: wine

Command to launch: $ wine /path_to/windows_app.exe

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Environment to run applications for the windoze operating system under Linux. Many but not all applications will work under WINE and there are also proprietary implementations like CrossOver that specializes in making popular products like MS Office and newer games work seamlessly.

Wings3D

Package name: wings3d

Command to launch: $ wings3d

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: 3D modelling application. Easier to learn and use than blender, but does not do rendering, animation or game creation.

Wireshark

Package name: wireshark-gtk

Command to launch: $ wireshark

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Advanced network monitor and network diagnostics tool.

Xarchiver

Package name: xarchiver

Command to launch: $ xarchiver

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Graphical frontend to handle archive file formats.

xcalc

Package name: x11-apps
(dependency for xorg meta-package)

Command to launch: $ xcalc

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Scientific calculator.

XFE - X File Explorer

Package name: xfe

Command to launch: $ openstudio-fm or $ xfe

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Simple, beautiful and feature rich file manager.

XFE key bindings have been customized to blend in with OpenStudio desktop. To review them, start the file manager and choose: Edit/Preferences/Key Bindings/Modify key bindings

Xfburn

Package name: xfburn

Command to launch: $ xfburn

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: CD and DVD burning front-end.

XFWrite - X File Write

Package name: xfe
(xfwrite is part of xfe file manager)

Command to launch: $ xfwrite

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Text editor with graphical user interface.

xterm

Package name: xterm
(dependency for xorg meta-package)

Command to launch: $ xterm

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Terminal emulator.

YafaRay

Package name: yafaray

Command to launch: $ yafaray

Found in: Debian repos

Home Page

Info: Ray-tracing engine to produce realistic photo renderings of 3D models. Can be used as a plugin for Blender 3D creation suite. There is also a Wings3D exporter under development.

Zzz or Logout

Package name: OpenStudio desktop script

Command to launch: $ openstudio-logout

Found in: OpenStudio desktop

Info: Pop-up-menu to start screensaver, logout, reboot, or shutdown the computer.

Home | Contact | Debian OS | OpenStudio arkitekter