where do YOU learn about additional apps/software?

[skidoo]

hoping to buildup a list here suitable for the bottom "Links" section of MX wiki page
mxlinux.org/wiki/applications/software-recommendations
edited May 24, 2019 to remove the wiki hyperlink and insert the following "tip"
.
Tip:
When you discover an interesting program which isn't currently available natively
via MX packageinstaller or via synaptic (using only stock MX//debian repositories),
you can post a request in the PACKAGE REQUESTS subforum
.





Not necessarily limited to sites that host downloadable linux / FOSS software
mention sites that review or otherwise raise awareness of open source software titles

linux-apps.com {---------- presents a subset (no game apps) of the 6,000+ applications listed at http://www.opendesktop.org
sourceforge.net
linux.softpedia.com
freshfoss.com

www .webupd8.org
omgubuntu.co.uk

edited to add:
As discussed in the "Flatpak or Appimage will be the future?" topic http://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=42127
pasting found-on-the-web commandlines containing "wget... sudo install" (or "curl... sudo install") to your terminal is a Really Bad Idea !

[Jerry3904]

Another good idea! I'll wait a bit before setting up the Wiki entry (also the other one) to see what else gets suggested.

BTW: I made both of these a sticky post.

[Stevo]

Yes--our packagers get ideas for packages to add or update to our repos from those blogs.

Sometimes I just get a hint of something in some other forum's post and have to hunt it down--like finding the better glxspheres(64) benchmark mentioned somewhere, then tracking it down to a "virtualgl" application which is not in Debian, and then packaging it for our test repo so I can use that benchmark to test performance with Bumblebee on or off.

[tascoast]

I only learn about applications by reading the forum, not following any other Linux sites or publications.

I do work on the basis that anything decent and useful will be mentioned in the forum and would satisfy my basic needs.

I might say that when I primarily used MS, open source software sites like Source Forge were useful in my adopting Thunderbird, Open Office, Gimp, Scribus, Inkscape, Stellarium/Celestia, VLC, Calibre etc and in hindsight, made switching to Linux pretty painless. Virtual Box (as I read about here) covered a couple of specialist applications and provided some reassurance if needing to access my collection of academic references (Endnotes), although Wine achieves the same result now with greater simplicity.

[eemaestro]

When searching for an application to crop digital photograph files, for example,
I go to my favorite web search engine (startpage.com), and type "linux program to crop photos". That usually gives me plenty to read about on the web what people like, don't like, and so on. When I find a particular app. that sounds worth trying, then I open a shell and type

Code: Select all

$ which pinta
/usr/bin/pinta

to see if it's already installed my computer.
If nothing appears, then I type

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$ apt-cache search pinta
pinta - Simple drawing/painting program

to see if APT maintains a version in the repositories.
Debian maintains over 42,300 highly-vetted software packages in its repositories, so that's the first place to look. If I don't see something that looks promising, then back to the web.
If that fails, ask here. Or if you find two or three packages that you think will do what you're looking for, you can either (A) ask for recommendations here, or (B) install all three, try each one, and see if any of them work. Then you can narrow it down to whichever application most easily does the task.

[Stevo]

I found an interesting one today: fossmint.com They have a diverse group of contributors, including some from the under-represented Sub-Saharan Africa region.

Jeesh, there are a lot of Electron-based applications out there now. I like their ease of use, but their bloat is annoying. If they could all just use one system install of Chromium instead...

[skidoo]

fossmint might be a sister site to "tecmint.com" (which hasn't yet been mentioned in this topic).
They've published about 50 "by-task" or "by-category" articles http://www.tecmint.com/category/top-tools/
which raise awareness and present alternatives, usually without steering readers toward a single "best" or "top" item

The comments below the tecmint articles are often informative (and are easily missed ~~ need to click "older comments" to see all of 'em).

[skidoo]

These 2 sites include user reviews/comments for each software listed.
alternativeto.net (filtered: linux platform)
slant.co (example topical page, reached by entering "linux terminal" in the slant.co searchbox)

[penguin]

Code: Select all

www.getdeb.net/

[azrielle]

Oftentimes I have learned from Sparky's Facebook and/or Forum pages. For example, they recently added Leo editor and outliner IDE because of a request from a user. I had never heard of an outlining editor--had to Google it. Might be useful for some MX'ers.