One of my favourite blogs – Freelance Switch – had an article I recently read about cool tools for tracking time. There were very few offerings for Linux users like myself. As such, I decided to compile a list of top tools linux freelancers (developers and designers) can use to help up their game even further, along with a list with a link to the application’s website or project page, and links to copy ‘n’ paste scripts, or “one-click install” links for super-easy installation! If you are having trouble with one-click installs, check this link. Please also be aware that there are many other really great apps I don’t know about on different window managers. If I’ve missed one that you think is important out, tell me! I’m an ubuntu user (sorry KDE guys) so I generally veer toward the more gnome-oriented apps. Here are my recommendations:
Text Editors
Geany
Geany is an awesomely powerful text editor, but not quite as bulky as an IDE. It holds a mass of useful functions, unlike some of the more “advanced” IDEs. I use Geany almost exclusively in my work, as its not too bulky to slow down my web browser when I’m testing what I’ve just coded, and its feature filled enough to be helpful when I work.
Download Geany from the ubuntu official repository: One-click Install
Scribes
With great functions familiar to the mac folks’ TextMate, Scribes is a text editor I really, really want to love. I used it for front end coding for a while, but I just couldn’t get used to its “document system” instead of using tabs like the less rebellious of text editors do. Overall, if you want to try something different, or if you want to use “TextMate-esque” snippet functionality(!), then try Scribes.
You need to manually install scribes, as it does not have an official PPA (as far as I know!). There are some very clear instructions on how to do this here.
Gedit
Despite its horrible logo, Gedit is a great text editor. It has an abundance of plugins, and is very well maintained. It’s pretty standard in terms of features when you first use it, but it can really be pimped out.
To install gedit, you need to look no further than your own desktop (providing you have ubuntu preinstalled). It’s in Applications → Accessories → gedit text editor.
Netbeans
Netbeans is a java based IDE that many love and use for web development (specifically PHP development). Netbeans is Eclipse’s little brother, and so it is lighter than most rival IDEs. It comes with everything you need to develop and publish code with. It comes with support for many languages including java, javascript, ruby, groovy, PHP, and C/C++.
Nano
A great text-based text editor you can use in your terminal. Unbelievably handy for those times when you need to SSH into your machine from work and edit something, or if you need to re-configure your graphics card. I use it all the time when editing config files! Many use editors like emacs or vi/vim, but nano is just perfect for those “quick fixing” moments, when crazy short-cuts slow you down.
Vim
Vim is a programmer’s text editor that runs in the command line like Nano, but has some really cool features such as code snippets, plugin support, and tonnes of functions. You can use it from SSH like nano, and its available on most unix machines.
Bluefish
If you are into wysiwyg editing, first of all, naughty! Secondly, you can use bluefish wysiwyg editor. I don’t know why you would, though.
To download, follow the instructions here.
FTP Clients
Filezilla
Unfortunately, Filezilla is the only decent and stable standalone FTP client I could find. Luckily, Filezilla is great!
Download Filezilla from the ubuntu official repository: One-click Install
Nautilus
Many people use nautilus – the gnome file browser – as their FTP client. It is useful for a number of reasons: It allows you to automatically save to the remote host as you are editing the file, it cuts down on the amount of open windows, and best of all, it is already installed into your computer. For instructions to use nautilus in this way, check here.
Version Control Systems
RabbitVCS
Rabbit VCS is a little gem of an application. Completely integrated into nautilus, RabbitVCS allows you to seamlessly control your subversion repository using graphical tools in the same way you’d us TortoiseSVN on windows.
RapidSVN
RapidSVN is a multiplatform subversion control system written with wxwidgets. It is very fast, and is highly recommended by many.
Time Trackers
Tahometer
Tahometer is a nice, simple time tracking app that is suitable for Linux, as well as mac and windows. It’s written in Qt, with a custom UI which is very easy on the eye. It also has the great feature (which is VERY handy for web developers and designers) in that it takes pictures of your work periodically – a little like the not-as-nice odesk software – so that you can prove to your client the amount of work that you have done. A very nice feature indeed.
Download Tahometer here. After downloading, extract and run the “tahometer” shell script.
Tracking-time
Tracking-time is nice because of its feature-completeness. If you run a small business, work from multiple machines, or need to analyse your time in detail, you might gain the most from tracking-time. It works on a web back-end, so it can track time from multiple machines simultaneously and figure out how much you are owed automatically. A great tool. Its only let down is the fact that its desktop app is a little lacking. It’s built in Air, so it doesn’t integrate 100%, and its system panel icon is incredibly pixelly. Lastly, by default it has quite an annoying “uhoh” noise when you don’t have it set to track time at a particular moment – thankfully, it can be turned off in the options menu. Regardless of all these small niggles, it is a good system to use, and I do like it. I am sure it will get much better with (excuse the pun) time.
Download by registering, then following instructions.
Hamster Time Tracker
Project hamster is a great gnome time tracker application that can be made to work directly with Getting Things GNOME (see below). It can build reports and graphs, and integrates into the gnome panel.
Task Managers
Tasque
Apparently named after the French village, Tasque is a simple task manager for simple tasks. It is capable of syncing with Remember the Milk as well. Yet, I wish there was a little more to it: there is no way to create different projects. There is no way to create sublists. You can’t link to other lists, nor can you link to files. All those things would bring Tasque from being a little too minimal to a truely killer app.
PyTask
PyTask is another simple task manager, but a little less feature-incomplete compared to Tasque. It allows you to assign categories to lists, as well as due dates and priorities. It also has a rather useful filtering search bar. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a system icon, which means you can’t hide it into an icon in the top-right of your panel. Certainly worth a look, however.
Getting Things GNOME!
Getting Things GNOME! is a great task manager, with support to be integrated into Hamster Time Tracker (see above). It has some great features such as task categories, filtering, sub tasks, fuzzy dates, and plugin support. A worthy application for managing your tasks, and one that is recommended by many.
Image Management
Rapid Photo Downloader
Rapid Photo Downloader is a professional image downloader and organiser. It is written by and for a professional photographer, so you know it is up to your job. It’s features include multi language support, asynchronous multi-device support (it can download from more than device at the same time), and automatic image backup.
Image Editors
The GIMP
The GIMP, Aka “The GNU Image Manipulation Program”, is a great rasterised image editor. It requires almost anything a web designer needs. I use it extensively in my work, alongside Inkscape.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a vectorised image illustrator which is great for creating scalable graphics such as logos. I also use it for things such as poster-making and other print-related stuff.
Xara Xtreme
Xara Xtreme is a vectorised image illustrator, like Inkscape. It allows for very fast rendering of the image while you work. It certainly is worth a look if you aren’t too keen on Inkscape.
Image Compression
Trimage Image Compressor
Trimage allows you to losslessly compress images by removing any extra rubbish that isn’t used from an image – rather like a CSS or Javascript compressor. It is perticularly nice, because you can simply drag and drop your jpeg or png images on to it.
Phatch Batch photo processor
Phatch is a photo editor with a difference. Designed for use with a large amount of images, phatch allows you to apply specified image modifications automatically to each image you have selected. A massive time saver, by any standards.
Miscellaneous
- Meld Diff Viewer - Meld is a great tool for open source developers. Got a problem with your code? Compare it with the original. With a beautiful GUI that allows you to graphically see the changes, Meld is a must-have for any code cruncher.
- Shutter Screenshot Capture - Shutter is a much more feature-complete screenshot app that allows you to take pictures of websites, windows (including tooltips), the entire screen (or just one monitor if you have more than one), or a selection of a window.
- Remmina RDP client – A remote desktop client with support for RDP, VNC, NX, XDMCP, SSH and Telepathy.
- Artha – “A handy off-line thesaurus based on WordNet”. Commenter pageR says, “With the sense index installed it can do wildcard searches. Great for solving crossword puzzles too!”
That’s all I can think of right now folks. This list is long, but by no means complete. What tools do you use? Which ones do you prefer? Are there any killer apps I’ve missed out. Tell me, and it’ll be on this list!
A good set of tools for those on the GNOME are Getting Things Gnome! (taskmanager) that integrates with Hamster Time Tracker, Tomboy/Gnote and Evolution.
Wow, thanks a lot for that TenPhil – I can’t believe I missed both GTG! and Hamster. I thought that I’d intentionally leave out apps like tomboy and evolution because there are so many alternatives that do very similar things, and they aren’t particularly specific to freelancers. I’ll add both of those to the list when I can.
Nice list. For text and quick editing I use mousepad or nano over SSH. For web development I live out of my IDE. I use Eclipse latest with Aptana and PHP tools. For my task manager I use Eclipse’s mylyn to unfuddle. Helps organize my tasks per project and allows me connect a task or a bug to code if I need to. I also use a cross of Google Chrome and Mozilla FireFox and GIMP. I love my Linux web development system!
Thanks. I love to use nano for editing config files on the fly! I never got into Eclipse, although I do understand why someone would. For me, a lighter, less cluttered interface makes me more productive and allows me to dip in and out of files easily. That feature of linking a not or bug report to actual code sounds great, though
I use Chrome and firefox too, along with GIMP and Inkscape. As any freelancer uses a browser to actually see what they are doing, I think it’d be best to leave them out of the equation, but GIMP should certainly be in there. I’ll add GIMP and Inkscape now. Thanks again!
I do all of my web dev work in ArchLinux, which runs the latest Gnome + KDEMOD. This is what I use:
Geany
Firefox+Firebug+Fireftp(more stable than Filezilla)
Chromium 5
Bluefish
Xampp 1.73a
Drupal 6+7
VITAL: A stable webhost as well as your own local dev environment. I use DowntownHost
Thunderbird+Lightning
Skype+Empathy for client communications
Rhythmbox to play my metal
Remmina to dial into client systems
Reverse VNC to take control of client systems at their behest
Evince+ Okular for PDFs
Ooo for spreadsheets+docs
AmberDMS for billing
Inkscape + Gimp
Wicd for networking
Meld for comparison
Testing sites on Internet Exploder is done on a XP instance in a KVM on another machine
Other PC consultancy work I do requires Clonezilla and a LiveCD of Ubuntu to fix broken windows pcs
Hey Onyx. I’m going to need to try out archlinux at one point – it’s kind of ridiculous that I’ve been using Linux for about 6 years now and I still haven’t tried it.
Remmina is an interesting project I’ve never heard of. I’ll certainly add it to the list!
Vim has more useful functions than Geany. And more plugins than Gedit. And plugins for snippets like TextMate. And I can use it over SSH like nano, and it’s much more likely to be installed on that server than nano. Or fire up gVim if I want something more to look at.
You’ll never need another editor once you’ve tried Vim!
I’ve tried Vim, gVim and emacs, and I found all of them very unproductive. I found that while Vim has all those cool features, they get in the way in the same way aptana or eclipse gets in the way for me. It’s just drowning in features, and that holds me personally back. It works well for others, I know – and if it works for you, then great! I’m just too dumb to use it
Getting things Gnome – should be on the list, I still dream of a Windows for work
Phatch Photo batch processor – is better than Trimmage for professional work
Hamster Time Tracker – is an excellent time management tool
Hi there pt3, you are very correct – they should be on the list!
Unless your spelling is perfect I recommend Artha “A handy off-line thesaurus based on WordNet”
With the sense.index installed it can do wildcard searches. Great for solving crossword puzzles too!
http://artha.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Home
Thanks! I’ll add that to the list
What about simply using the file manager (Nautilus) as FTP client?
Works beautifully for me, you can even have a local / server view by enabling the extra pane (F3).
I’ve never had success with nautilus’ FTP client, but I’ll put it up there by popular request
Best IDE by my opinion is NetBeans!
Ahh, netbeans. I used netbeans for a while, liked it, but found it to be a bit crashy and bulky, so I started to used slimmer tools like geany!
I’ll add netbeans to the list.
Hi,
Geany is very lightweight, fast and useful. Not so cumbersome like Netbeans or Eclipse with their virtual java machine and the ram load factor.
You can use Xdebug, to improve your php-scripts quality. The fast installation is descriped by youtube videos.
For the quality of your php-scripts you should use also profiling-tools like kcachegrind. They help you to see, which part of your code is slowing up your script.
Sunny regards from Germany,
Peter
Hi peter, I’m glad you agree with me on Geany!
I’ve never used Xdebug OR kcachegrind. I know I really should, but since I’ve started using frameworks such as Codeigniter, its not been such a problem for me. I must check these tools out and add them up on here.
Thank you!
NetBeans just keeps getting better and better, the last 6.9 release is like 2 times faster in terms of interface response and overall, it is more stable than Eclipse! Definitely the best tool for big projects!
If you got a camera, you absolutely must install Rapid Photo Downloader. It’s a brilliant image-from-camera downloader and on-the-fly sorter that is very convenient to set up.
Hi Ilya, if what you’re saying is correct, then to do justice to the project, I best have another look at it and see how the project has progressed!
I never thought of including tools for freelance photographers! I’ll add Rapid Photo Downloader to the list.