Free Software I Recommend And/Or Use

• Network Client Software
  • Mail Clients
    • Mutt is for Elm fans who want something a bit more powerful and modern [local FTP mirror] [primary FTP site]
    • Elm and Elm-ME+ (which has better MIME and PGP handling than the original Elm, not to mention more active support and development) [alternate info site]
    • Pine is not Elm, but it is easy to learn and is excellent at IMAP
    • Fetchmail transfers your mail from an IMAP or POP server to an SMTP port (which presumably points to your local mail spool).
  • News Readers
    • trn is the classic
    • slrn is also excellent
  • Web Browsers
    • Lynx text-based web browser now has fancy features that you thought only Netscape had
    • w3m A fairly new text-based browser that can do pretty much everything that lynx can, plus more (e.g. tables and better frame support), yet is much smaller. [FTP]
    • Netscape Navigator is the old standard.
    • Mozilla is the new standard.
  • NcFTP enhanced FTP client
• Internet Server Software
  • Sendmail SMTP Server [local FTP mirror]
  • Postfix is a replacement for sendmail with a more secure and modern structure, but it still keeps sendmail compatibility whenever possible [nearby mirror]
  • Procmail is a powerful mail filter, and the related SmartList package is good for running mailing lists [local FTP mirror]
  • UW-IMAP IMAP (and POP) mail retrieval server (from the Pine people, who invented IMAP)
  • Qpopper POP mail server from Qualcomm (the Eudora people)
  • wu-ftpd featureful FTP server (now under new management!) [FTP]
  • anonftpd is a small, fast, secure FTP server. If all you need to do is provide is outgoing anonymous FTP service (no user accounts, no uploads), then this may be for you. Its biggest problem is its nonstandard directory listing format, but I've written a patch to allow Unix-style directory listings. [local copy]
  • ProFTPD is both featureful and secure (though not as secure as less featureful programs such as anonftpd), and doesn't seem to have the political turmoil that wu-ftpd has.
  • Apache Web Server (see also the secure SSL version) [local FTP mirror]
  • thttpd is a small, fast, and secure web server without all the features of Apache that most people don't need, and one or two features that even Apache may not have.
  • Webalizer web server log analyzer
  • Internet Junkbuster (actually, an alternate version) is an http proxy that blocks web ads and other undesirables
• Security Add-ons
  • OpenSSH secure network connection, replacing telnet, rlogin, rsh, rcp, and possibly others (see also freessh.org and openssh.org for links to alternative (free) implementations, including non-Unix versions)
  • TCP Wrappers to restrict what sites have access to you
  • Sudo to allow restricted root access [FTP mirror]
  • Wietse Venema and Ohio State security archives
• Windows & Macintosh Connectivity
  • Samba to serve Windows clients and access Windows servers
  • Sharity to mount Windows shares
  • netatalk to communicate with Macintoshes. Actually, the asun version seems to be more current than the official version.
• Modem services
  • mgetty (also available by FTP) handles incoming fax (class 2 or 2.0) or data (PPP or straight terminal) calls, and includes the sendfax facility for sending out faxes (the SGI tiff library is useful for working with faxes)
  • pppd PPP daemon (required for mgetty to handle PPP)
  • HylaFAX is good for sending and receiving faxes, and can also send messages to alphanumeric pagers
• X Window System Environments
  • CTWM Window Manager
  • Window Maker is another Window Manager I've grown to like
  • KDE ("K Desktop Environment") is an integrated graphical environment with many associated applications
  • GNOME ("GNU Network Object Model Environment") is another integrated graphical environment with many associated applications
  • rxvt is a nice replacement for xterm
• Document Preparation and Handling
  • StarOffice is a complete office suite, competitive and compatible with MS Office, but available for Solaris, Linux, Windows, and OS/2.
  • TeX and LaTeX
    • teTeX distribution of LaTeX and associated tools, easy to install
    • LyX and KLyX are almost-WYSIWYG interfaces to LaTeX, requiring little or no LaTeX knowledge
  • PostScript and PDF
    • GNU Enscript text to PostScript conversion
    • Ghostscript PostScript interpreter
    • GV PostScript and PDF viewer (uses ghostscript as backend)
    • Adobe Acrobat Reader (official PDF viewer, free but not open-source)
    • xpdf free PDF viewer
    • Mpage prints multiple pages on each sheet of paper
  • Editors
    • GNU Emacs is big and does just about everything
    • Xemacs is even bigger, with better graphics and proportional font support
    • Jed is similar in many ways to emacs, but much more lightweight [alternate site]
    • Vim ("vi improved") is a more usable vi
    • Elvis is another good vi clone, with different features [FTP site]
    • Pico is included with Pine, and is a simple editor good for beginners
• Graphics
  • XV image viewer
  • The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) image editor and Photoshop equivalent
  • XAnim animation viewer
  • ImageMagick is a useful collection of graphics conversion utilities
  • pbmplus utilities for graphics conversion (pbm/pgm/ppm/pnm) (based on NetPBM)
  • NetPBM utilities for graphics conversion (pbm/pgm/ppm/pnm)
• Programming
  • Perl programming language [local CPAN mirror]
  • Tcl/Tk scripting language and graphics toolkit
  • Many things GNU are indispensable [local FTP mirror at CIS] [local FTP mirror at UTS Networking]
    • gcc is the GNU Compiler Collection
    • gzip is the essential compression/decompression program
    • GNU tar allows you to compress/decompress in the same step as the tar/untar
  • S-Lang is a nice library for text-oriented programs, giving color and scripting among other things
• Hardware Utilities
  • Amanda is my preferred backup system [FTP]
    • The CD-RW taper plugs into Amanda to allow using CD-RWs instead of tapes.
  • mtx is a program from Dandelion Digital that controls tape changers under Linux and Solaris
  • cdrecord CD writing software
  • scsiinfo tells about the SCSI devices attached to your Sun
  • scsiping gives details on SCSI devices attached to your Sun
  • top shows what processes are dominating your system
  • mtools give easy access to your floppies from Unix
  • Xmcd is a CD player program that gets CD information from an internet database
• emil converts mail between MIME, Sun Mailtool, and plain RFC822 formats, and handles converting MIME encodings and binary formats.
• metamail is a viewer for MIME-encoded messages, useful when your mail/newsreader doesn't support MIME
• mpack/munpack creates and decodes MIME-encoded messages
• tcpdump shows what packets are traversing your network
• tcsh is a friendlier version of csh
• less is a better more, mostly because of its backward-movement capabilities.
• Kermit is the classic cross-platform communications software, particularly good for slow serial links.
• lsof (list open files) is useful for listing which programs have which files and network connections open.