Continued:

5. E-mail Clients: For those who use Outlook, Linux has a wonderful program called Evolution. This is installed by default on most distributions. Evolution is a robust E-mail, Calendar and Contact application that you will find very easy to use. Newer versions support connecting to Microsoft Exchange Servers as well. Other good alternatives are Thunderbird, from the Mozilla foundation, and Kontact. Thunderbird is more of a pure email client, with some address book functionality. It does not have any scheduling features. Kontact, on the other hand, is a fully featured Personal Information Management Suite, which includes Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Sync. And yes, both Evolution and Kontact will sync with your PalmOS based devices.

6. CD/DVD- Burning Software: Nero has recently released a Linux version of their popular software, Nero Burning ROM. This is free for those who have registered versions of Nero. If you have been using Nero under Windows, and have a registered version, then you could try it out. Otherwise, K3b is also a fully featured CD/DVD burning program. The interface is similar to Nero, and it has similar functionality. In fact, it has some features that Nero lacks, such as MD5 checks on ISO images. In fact, many users prefer K3B over Nero. Try both, and pick the one that you like better.

7. Web Design Software: In today's Internet era, it's becoming very common for people to have a web-presence of some sort. You could have a small personal webpage, or a large website. In any case, unless you are a HTML guru, who codes in Notepad, you probably use a HTML editor of some sort. In Linux, the three best know editors are Bluefish, Screem and Nvu. Nvu is a WYSIWYG editor, while Bluefish and Screem are the standard code-preview-code editors. You could also use the WYSIWYG editor in OpenOffice.org. And when you are done editing, you can upload your files with gFTP, which is a great FTP client.

8. Miscellaneous Utilities: There are many other programs, which do not fit into any of the catagories listed. The Gimp is a Photoshop replacement. It lacks some of the advanced features of Photoshop, but it is sufficient for most tasks. You can do advanced editing with it, but you will need to learn the program properly. There are many guides available on the Internet, and quite a few books too.

Scribus is a page setting program. It is mature and supports industry standard formats. If you do DTP work, you will probably want to use this.

Azureus is a great bit-torrent client. If you are interested in downloading files using the bit-torrent protocol, look no further. X-chat, on the other hand, is a useful IRC client for the Linux platform.

Xsane is what you would use to scan in your photos before you edit them with The Gimp.

Though this may seem like a fairly comprehensive list, it is really nothing much. The greatest thing about GNUI/Linux is the freedom to choose between many varied alternatives. This list is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many great programs that find no mention in this list. Go out there and explore.

We hope that this article helps you move to Linux sooner than you'd anticipated.

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