Software I Use

This is the beginning of a series of posts I'm writing about the software that I use.

I've been a user of Linux [1] and similar Unix-derived systems since the late 1990's. I probably started that journey through the use of D.J. Delorie's [2] DJGPP [3] port of the GNU toolchain [4] to DOS [5] circa 1995, as I was trying to develop my own games as a Fourth Class Cadet (aka freshman) at the Air Force Academy [6] (we weren't allowed to have any games on our computers as freshmen--so I tried to work around that by writing my own). That also brought me to the Allegro library [7] for game programming. These were in the heady days of Windows 3.1 [8], though we upgraded to Windows 95 [9] within a year or two. Somewhere in that timeframe I also came across Cygwin [10], the Windows port of the GNU toolchain.

Although I can't remember the specifics, I'm quite positive I used flavors of Slackware [11] early on, though it seems I found Debian [12] relatively early (at one point I even purchased a set of CD's for the commercial Debian derivative, Progeny [13]). Nowadata, I do bobble around occasionally to other Linux variants, but I've mostly settled into the Ubuntu [14] orbit, with Ubuntu Mate [15] being my typical flavor--mostly because I tend to use inexpensive, older laptops as my personal computing platforms.

All that said, it really comes down to the software, not the operating system. I'm sure I will pontificate on that at some point--but bottom line, an operating system just needs to "be" (and preferably, be well!)--the software applications are the real tools. This series of posts will be about software that I've learned to love (and/or love-hate) over the years. I'll try to provide some insight into why I've chosen particular tools, and into how I use them.

Desktop Software

For many people, desktop software is not a thing--I'm quite certain there are vast swaths of people who really never sit down at a computer to type up a paper, write software, etc. This isn't a judgment, just a fact. People can play games on computers... but they can obviously play them just as well on consoles or--at least as likely today--tablets and smartphones. Students can do homework on computers... but my high-schoolers seem to do plenty of it on their phones (which, frankly, I don't get; but I'm old). Sure, you can read e-mail or surf the web or look things up on computers, but obviously most of that is happening on mobile devices (other than perhaps in a professional environment).

But you know what? I still do plenty on a computer. So I'll share some of the key applications that either I use on a near-daily basis, or that I may not use regularly--but to which I immediately turn when specific tasks arise.

Mobile Software

It's easy for mobile software to become an amalgamation of whatever random app seems to fill the need of the moment. The Google [16] Play Store [17] (yeah, I'm an Android [18]) guy) makes it super easy to download some app to solve an immediate problem. However, many times in retrospect I think differently about the problem, or about the wisdowm of adding yet another app to my phone, and I develop alternative solutions. In some cases, those alternative solutions involve going back to applications that have a lineage going back to some of the desktop software I've used in the past.

References:

[6] Air Force Academy