For the past several years I’ve been trying to only use software that is open source and cross-platform (at least between Linux, OSX, and Windows). My goal is to someday switch entirely to Linux; Unfortunately, the power of the Adobe is still unmatched by Gimp, Inkscape, and other open source graphics suites. They’re getting closer. This list is heavily geared toward website development and design on *NIX-based box (I’m currently running OSX) with a few SysAdminy type things thrown in. The web developer as craftsman movement has truly changed the face of applications on the internet and I’d argue the path down which humanity seems to be traveling. I’ll be adding to this periodically as I Anyhow, here’s the list (in no particular order):
dotfiles – just a few excellent examples – system/application configuration
Terminator – terminal (this is a stretch, generally I just use a builtin shell, or iTerm on OSX)
Bwana – In-browser man page reader
Cerebro – Search/FS butler (akin to Alfred, which is what I use most of the time but from which I would like to transition)
Sublime Text 2, vim, emacs, atom (still researching this) – text editor
tmux – terminal multiplexer, lets you switch easily between several programs in one terminal, detach them (they keep running in the background) and reattach them to a different terminal. And do a lot more.
KeePass – credentials management. Storing usernames/passwords/etc. on an internet-connected network introduces unnecessary risk, no matter what security measures are in place. Encryption gets cracked, bugs in software get exploited. Even more attention to security should be considered, given the string of large-scale credit/debit card breaches. End Rant.
Slate [osx] , Divvy [osx, windows] , [Some Linux Options] – window management. Notice, much more activity on the *nix side of things, presumably because these users tend to be more adamant about doing things by keyboard rather than by mouse.
Audacity – audio recording and manipulation
VLC – media player
C++ – programming language
Ruby – programming language, scripting
JavaScript (ECMAScript 3-5) – client in-browser scripting language
Node.js/NPM – node
Phantomjs – Full web stack, headless WebKit scriptable with a JavaScript API
Yeoman – Application Generator/Scaffolder
Grunt, Karma – Application Test/Build
RSpec, Cucumber, Mocha, Jasmine, Capybara, QUnit – BDD/TDD/Unit Testing (Ruby and Javascript)
Bower – Web Application Package/Dep Manager
angular, backbone, ember – Javascript
(x)HTML4-5 – markup
CSS1-3, SASS, Twitter Bootstrap, Bourbon,- markup styling, abstraction layers, css libraries, etc.
Filezilla, Fugu, Cyberduck (sorry, no linux) – FTP, SFTP, AWS, SSH etc.
Tor – onion routing/network security/anonymity
git – version control
pidgin, adium (OSX only) – messaging/chat
Steam – gaming
Mumble – voice chat
XBMC, Plex – media center
XMind, Dia, looking into yEd – brainstorming, charts, diagrams
MySQLWorkbench – MySQL visualization
PGAdmin – PostgreSQL GUI/Admin
Launchy – Keystroke Launcher
BOINC – Networked collaborative computing
µTorrent – distributed filesharing
Rsync, arRsync – Backups
virtualbox – OS/machine virtualization