ArchLinux - Fast and Light!

By Frank Cheung

Cover Design by Sanjay Purswani

Copyright 2014 Frank Cheung

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-soldor given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If youre reading this book and didnot purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to yourfavorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hardwork of this author.

1. Introduction1.1 Why ArchLinux?1.2 The Arch Way1.3 Trying out ArchLinux

2. Appearance2.1 Display/Login Manager2.2 Tiling Window Managers2.3 Floating Window Managers2.4 Desktop Environments2.5 System Panels/Menus/Trays

3. Tools3.1 Shells3.2 Terminal Emulators3.3 File Managers3.4 Network Managers3.5 Package Managers3.6 Archive Managers3.7 System Monitors3.8 Security/Backup Utilities

4. Multimedia4.1 CD Burners4.2 CD Rippers4.3 Image Viewers4.4 Image Editors (Raster)4.5 Image Editors (Vector)4.6 Music Players4.7 Video Players

5. Office5.1 Text Editors5.2 Office Apps (Word Processing)5.3 Office Apps (Spreadsheet/Math)5.4 PDF Readers

6. Communication6.1 Email Clients6.2 IRC Clients6.3 Instant Messengers

7. Web7.1 Web Browsers7.2 Torrent Clients7.3 RSS Readers7.4 Web Utilities

1. Introduction

The Linux landscape is full of diverse applications that contain different performance/functionality trade-offs. To the beginner it can often be challenging to find the right applications that fulfill his/her needs. This guide introduces the reader to the best lightweight and fast apps that are out there so as to speed up the search.

The information in this guide is loosely based on a recent poll of over 500 ArchLinux users that listed their favourite light and fast applications. For each category we pick the top 1-3 apps and provide a quick introduction on each.

1.1 Why ArchLinux?

ArchLinux is a lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

ArchLinux is an independently developed, i686- and x86_64-optimised Linux distribution targeted at competent Linux users. It uses 'pacman', its home-grown package manager, to provide updates to the latest software applications with full dependency tracking. Operating on a rolling release system, Arch can be installed from a CD image or via an FTP server. The default install provides a solid base that enables users to create a custom installation. In addition, the Arch Build System (ABS) provides a way to easily build new packages, modify the configuration of stock packages, and share these packages with other users via the ArchLinux user repository.

What I personally love about ArchLinux is its rolling release model and the flexibility that the distribution provides. Whether you want to stick with one of the mainstream desktop environments like GNOME or KDE, or want something more lightweight like LXDE or Xfce, ArchLinux keeps it simple. ArchLinux has one of the best (if not the best) documentation available via their wiki pages and a solid support community via the Arch forums (https://bbs.archlinux.org) or IRC (#archlinux on irc.freenode.net).

1.2 The Arch Way

The following five core principles comprise what is commonly referred to as the Arch Way, or the Arch Philosophy, perhaps best summarized by the acronym KISS for Keep It Simple, Stupid.

SimplicityArchLinux defines simplicity as without unnecessary additions, modifications, or complications, and provides a lightweight UNIX-like base structure that allows an individual user to shape the system according to their own needs. In short: an elegant, minimalist approach.

Code-correctness over convenienceSimplicity of implementation, code-elegance, and minimalism shall always remain the reigning priorities of Arch development.

User-centricArchLinux targets and accommodates competent GNU/Linux users by giving them complete control and responsibility over the system.

OpennessArchLinux uses simple tools, that are selected or built with openness of the sources and their output in mind.

FreedomBy keeping the system simple, ArchLinux provides the freedom to make any choice about the system.

1.3 Trying out ArchLinux

To experiment with the applications listed in this guide you may want to use a Virtual Machine manager such as Oracle VirtualBox before you install Arch as your main OS.

To download VirtualBox just head to https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and download the platform package for your OS. Run the installer after you have completed the download.

ArchLinux can be downloaded from https://www.archlinux.org/download/. It is recommended to use BitTorrent as this is usually the quickest way to download the install iso.

Fire up VirtualBox and follow the next few steps to create and configure a new VM:

- Click on the New icon.- Enter a name like archtest and specify Linux for the Type and Arch Linux (32 bit) for the

Version. When installing Arch as your main OS you would typically install the 64-bit version of ArchLinux. Click Next.

- Specify a Memory size; the recommended size is 512MB but if you have a lot of RAM to play with you can increase it to something like 2048MB. Click Next.

- Ensure the "Create a virtual Hard drive now" is checked and click Create.- You will be prompted to choose the type of file that you would like to use for the new

virtual hard drive. Just leave it as VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click Next.- Keep the "Dynamically allocated" option checked and click Next.- Select the size of the virtual hard drive in megabytes. The default is 8GB but I would

personally change it to 15-20GB so you have more space to play with. Click Create.- You should now see your new VM listed in the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager. Right-

click on your new VM and select Settings.- Select Storage and click on the Empty CD icon. Next to CD/DVD Drive you should see

another CD icon. Click on it and select "Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file". Navigate to the iso file that you downloaded. Click OK.

If all is well you should now be able to double-click on your VM and VirtualBox should launch ArchLinux in a new window. Select the first option (Boot ArchLinux) and hit enter. You should be presented with a shell prompt, automatically logged in as root and can now start the installation process. Follow the beginners' installation guide from here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/beginners'_guide#Installation.

This guide assumes you have installed sudo which is a good practice to only elevate access to root when required.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/beginners'_guide

2. Appearance

2.1 Display/Login Manager

SLiMSLiM is an acronym for Simple Login Manager. Lightweight and easily configurable, SLiM requires minimal dependencies, and none from the GNOME or KDE desktop environments. It therefore contributes towards a lightweight system for users that also like to use lightweight desktops such as Xfce, Openbox, and Fluxbox.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S slim

To install themes:- sudo pacman -S slim-themes archlinux-themes-slim

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM

2.2 Tiling Window Managers

awesomeawesome is a dynamic window manager for the X Window System developed in the C and Lua programming languages. Lua is also used for configuring and extending the window manager. Its development began as a fork of dwm. It aims to be extremely small and fast, yet extensively customizable and make it possible for the user to productively manage windows with the use of keyboard.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S awesome

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/awesome

dwmdwm is a dynamic window manager for X. It manages windows in tiled, stacked, and full-screen layouts, as well as many others with the help of optional patches. Layouts can be applied dynamically, optimizing the environment for the application in use and the task performed. dwm is extremely lightweight and fast, written in C and with a stated design goal of remaining under 2000 source lines of code. It provides multi-head support for xrandr and Xinerama.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S dwm dmenu

A preferred way to install is using makepkg and ABS which allows reconfiguring dwm at a later time without complications. Please see the wiki link below in Additional Resources.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/dwm

2.3 Floating Window Managers

OpenboxOpenbox is a lightweight, powerful, and highly configurable stacking window manager with extensive standards support. It may be built upon and run independently as the basis of a unique desktop environment, or within other integrated desktop environments such as KDE and Xfce, as an alternative to the window managers they provide. The LXDE desktop environment is itself built around Openbox.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S openbox

Openbox may be run independently as a standalone window manager, or within other integrated desktop environments such as KDE and XFCE as an alternative to the window managers they provide. If you are interested in an out-of-the-box Arch Linux experience with a pre-configured Openbox desktop suite it's worth checking out ArchBang Linux.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/openbox - http://wiki.archbang.org

2.4 Desktop Environments

XfceXfce is a lightweight and modular Desktop environment currently based upon GTK+ 2 though in the future it may be ported to GTK+ 3. Xfce contains a suite of applications such as a window manager, a file manager, and a panel to provide a complete user experience. Xfce is popular with many users, partly because it is lightweight but also because a large amount of settings are exposed in a GUI. This is in sharp contrast to desktops such as GNOME Shell which hide many settings from the user.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S xfce4

It is recommended that you also install the xfce4-goodies group as well which includes extra plugins and a number of useful utilities such as the mousepad editor.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xfce

LXDEThe "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" is an extremely fast-performing and energy-saving desktop environment. Maintained by an international community of developers, it comes with a beautiful interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and less RAM than other environments. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low hardware specifications, such as, netbooks, mobile devices (e.g. MIDs) or older computers.

Installation (group):- sudo pacman -S lxde

LXDE is considered modular, meaning that you have considerable choice over which packages you need to install. The minimum required packages which you have to install to run LXDE are lxde-common and openbox (or another window manager). For more info please see the wiki link below as part of Additional Resources.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LXDE

2.5 System Panels/Menus/Trays

dmenudmenu is a fast and lightweight dynamic menu for X. It reads arbitrary text from stdin, and creates a menu with one item for each line. The user can then select an item, through the arrow keys or typing a part of the name, and the line is printed to stdout. dmenu_run is a wrapper that ships with the dmenu distribution that allows its use as an application launcher.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S dmenu

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/dmenu

tint2tint2 is a system panel for linux. It is described by its developers as "simple panel/taskbar unobtrusive and light". It can be configured to include (or not include) among other things a system tray, a task list, a battery monitor and a clock. Its look can also be configured a great deal, and it does not have many dependencies. This makes it ideal for window manager users who want a panel but do not have one by default, like Openbox users.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S tint2

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/tint2

3. Tools

3.1 Shells

bashBash (Bourne-again Shell) is a shell/programming language by the GNU Project. Its name is a homage reference to its predecessor: the long-deprecated Bourne shell. Bash can be run on most UNIX-like operating systems, including GNU/Linux. As with most Linux distributions, bash is installed by default.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/bash - http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/introduction-bash-shell-linux-

mac-os- http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/bash-shell-scripting

ZshZsh is a powerful shell that operates as both an interactive shell and as a scripting language interpreter. While being compatible with Bash (not by default, only if issuing "emulate sh"), it offers many advantages such as:- Speed- Improved tab completion- Improved globbing- Improved array handling- Fully customisable

Installation:- sudo pacman -S zsh

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/zsh

3.2 Terminal Emulators

rxvt-unicode rxvt-unicode is a highly customizable terminal emulator forked from rxvt. Commonly known as urxvt, rxvt-unicode can be daemonized to run clients within a single process in order to minimize the use of system resources. Developed by Marc Lehmann, some of the more outstanding features of rxvt-unicode include international language support through Unicode, the ability to display multiple font types and support for Perl extensions.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S rxvt-unicode

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/rxvt-unicode

Xtermxterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System. It is highly configurable and has many useful and some unusual features.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xterm

TerminatorTerminator is a terminal emulator supporting tabs and multiple resizable terminal panels in one window native based on GNOME Terminal. Although not quite in the top 3 light and fast emulators, it is my personal favourite; none of the other emulators support multiple resizable terminal panels.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S terminator

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Terminator

3.3 File Managers

ThunarThunar is a new modern file manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment. Thunar has been designed from the ground up to be fast and easy-to-use. Its user interface is clean and intuitive, and does not include any confusing or useless options by default. Thunar is fast and responsive with a good start up time and folder load time.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S thunar

Thunar is part of the xfce4 group, so if you are running Xfce4, you probably already have Thunar installed.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/thunar

coreutilsA large proportion of power users prefer the flexibility and speed provided by the coreutils utilities on the command-line.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Core_utilities

- http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/meet-command-line

PCManFMPCMan File Manager (PCManFM) is a file manager application developed by Hong Jen Yee from Taiwan which is meant to be a replacement for Nautilus, Konqueror and Thunar. Released under the GNU General Public License, PCManFM is free software. PCManFM is the standard file manager in LXDE, which is also developed by the same author in conjunction with other developers.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S pcmanfm

It is recommended to install gvfs for trash support, mounting with udisk and remote filesystems.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCManFM

3.4 Network Managers

WicdWicd is a network connection manager that can manage wireless and wired interfaces, similar and an alternative to NetworkManager. Wicd is written in Python and GTK+. Alternatively, a version of Wicd for KDE, written in Qt, is available from the AUR. Wicd can also run from the terminal in a curses interface, requiring no X server session or task panel.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S wicd

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/wicd

netctlnetctl is a CLI-based tool used to configure and manage network connections via profiles. It is a native ArchLinux project that replaces the old netcfg utility.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S netctl

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/netctl

NetworkManager NetworkManager is a program for providing detection and configuration for systems to automatically connect to network. NetworkManager's functionality can be useful for both

wireless and wired networks. For wireless networks, NetworkManager prefers known wireless networks and has the ability to switch to the most reliable network. NetworkManager-aware applications can switch from online and offline mode. NetworkManager also prefers wired connections over wireless ones, has support for modem connections and certain types of VPN. NetworkManager was originally developed by Red Hat and now is hosted by the GNOME project.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S networkmanager

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NetworkManager

3.5 Package Managers

pacmanThe pacman package manager is one of the major distinguishing features of ArchLinux. It combines a simple binary package format with an easy-to-use build system. The goal of pacman is to make it possible to easily manage packages, whether they are from the official repositories or the user's own builds.

Pacman keeps the system up to date by synchronizing package lists with the master server. This server/client model also allows the user to download/install packages with a simple command, complete with all required dependencies.

Some common pacman commands:- System update: pacman -Syu- Search package database: pacman -Ss keyword- Install package: pacman -S package_name- Remove package: pacman -R package_name- Install from package file: pacman -U package.pkg.tar.xz- install with PKGBUILD: makepkg -i

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/pacman

YaourtYaourt (Yet AnOther User Repository Tool; French for 'Yogurt') is a community-contributed wrapper for pacman which adds seamless access to the AUR, allowing and automating package compilation and installation from your choice of the thousands of PKGBUILDs in the AUR, in addition to the many thousands of available ArchLinux binary packages. Yaourt uses the same exact syntax as pacman, which saves you from relearning an entirely new method of system maintenance but also adds new options. Yaourt expands the power and simplicity of pacman by adding even more useful features and provides pleasing, colorized output, interactive search mode, and much more.

Warning: Yaourt is an unofficial, third-party script that is not supported by the ArchLinux developers.

The easiest way to install yaourt is to add the archlinuxfr repository as described on the yaourt homepage: http://archlinux.fr/yaourt-en.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/yaourt

3.6 Archive Managers

TarThe Tar program provides the ability to create tar archives, as well as various other kinds of manipulation. For example, you can use Tar on previously created archives to extract files, to store additional files, or to update or list files which were already stored.

As an early Unix compression format, tar files (known as tarballs) are widely used for packaging in Unix-like operating systems. Both pacman and AUR packages are tarballs, and Arch uses GNU's Tar program by default.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/tar

p7zip p7zip is command line port of 7-Zip for POSIX systems, including Linux.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S p7zip

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/p7zip

3.7 System Monitors

htophtop is an interactive process viewer that can be run from a command line. It replaces top as a more visually informative system monitor. Processes can be identified and killed within htop.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S htop

Additional Resources:- http://hisham.hm/htop/

conkyConky is a system monitor software for the X Window System. It is available for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. It is free software released under the terms of the GPL license. Conky is able to monitor many system variables including CPU, memory, swap, disk space, temperature, top, upload, download, system messages, and much more. It is extremely configurable, however, the configuration can be a little hard to understand. Conky is a fork of torsmo.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S conky

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/conky

3.8 Security/Backup Utilities

rsyncrsync is an open source utility that provides fast incremental file transfer.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S rsync

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/rsync

lftpLFTP is a sophisticated ftp/http client, and a file transfer program supporting a number of network protocols. Like BASH, it has job control and uses the readline library for input. It has bookmarks, a built-in mirror command, and can transfer several files in parallel. It was designed with reliability in mind

lftp is one of the lesser known utilities that can also be used as a backup utility. See the man page for more information about its mirror parameter option.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S lftp

Additional Resources:- http://lftp.yar.ru/

4. Multimedia

4.1 CD Burners

xfburnXfburn is a simple CD/DVD burning tool based on libburnia libraries. It can blank CD/DVD(-RW)s, burn and create iso images, audio CDs, as well as burn personal compositions of data to either CD or DVD. It Is stable, and under ongoing development.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S xfburn

Additional Resources:- http://git.xfce.org/apps/xfburn/tree/README?id=xfburn-0.5.0

braseroBrasero is an application to burn CD/DVD for the Gnome Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S brasero

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Brasero

k3bK3b was created to be a feature-rich and easy to handle CD burning application.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S k3b

Additional Resources:- http://www.k3b.org/

4.2 CD Rippers

ddThe dd command is a simple, yet versatile and powerful tool. It can be used to copy from source to destination, block-by-block, regardless of their filesystem types or operating systems.

abcdeabcde stands for "A Better CD Encoder" and is a command line (CLI) CD encoder. It will read your CD, contact a CDDB provider, download the track information, rip your CD and store all the encoded tracks in the tree layout you define.

It supports multiple encoders for several formats, such as FLAC, Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, etc. and will use one single rip to create as many output formats as you want.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S abcde

Additional Resources:- https://code.google.com/p/abcde/

4.3 Image Viewers

fehfeh is a lightweight and powerful image viewer that can also be used to manage the desktop wallpaper for standalone window managers lacking such features.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S feh

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/feh

mirageMirage is a fast and simple GTK+ image viewer. Because it depends only on PyGTK, Mirage is ideal for users who wish to keep their computers lean while still having a clean image viewer.

It's features include:- Supports png, jpg, svg, xpm, gif, bmp, tiff, and others- Cycling through multiple images (with preloading)- Thumbnail pane for quick navigation- Slideshow and fullscreen modes- Rotating, zooming, flipping, resizing, cropping- Saving, deleting, renaming- Custom actions- Command-line access- Configurable interface- Available in many languages

Installation:- sudo pacman -S mirage

Additional Resources:- http://mirageiv.berlios.de/

4.4 Image Editors (Raster)

GIMPGIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a raster graphics editor used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S gimp

Additional Resources:- http://www.gimp.org/

ImageMagickImageMagick is a software suite to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images. It can read and write images in a variety of formats (over 100) including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to resize, flip, mirror, rotate, distort, shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bzier curves.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S imagemagick

Additional Resources:- http://www.imagemagick.org/

4.5 Image Editors (Vector)

InkscapeInkscape is a vector graphics editor application. It is distributed under a free software license, the GNU GPL. Its stated goal is to become a powerful graphics tool while being fully compliant with the XML, SVG, and CSS standards.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S inkscape

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Inkscape

4.6 Music Players

MPDMPD (music player daemon) is an audio player that has a server-client architecture. It plays audio files, organizes playlists and maintains a music database all while using very few resources. In order to interface with it, a separate client is needed.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S mpd

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Music_Player_Daemon

MPlayerMPlayer is a popular movie player for GNU/Linux. It has support for pretty much every video and audio format out there and is hence very versatile, even though most people use it for viewing videos.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S mplayer

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MPlayer

VLCVLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S vlc

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VLC_media_player

4.7 Video Players

The two most popular audio players are also the most popular video players, namely MPlayer and VLC.

5. Office

5.1 Text Editors

vimVim is an advanced text editor that seeks to provide the power of the de-facto UNIX editor vi, with a more complete feature set. Vim focuses on keyboard usage, and offers useful features such as syntax highlighting and scripting capabilities. Vim is not a simple text editor, like nano or pico. It does require some time to learn, and a great amount of time to master.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S vim

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/vim - Run vimtutor, a built-in training tool that comes with vim.- http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/smash-into-vim

nanoGNU nano (or nano) is a text editor which aims to introduce a simple interface and intuitive command options to console based text editing. nano is the default console editor in distributions such as Ubuntu and supports features including colorized syntax highlighting, DOS/Mac file type conversions, spellchecking and UTF-8 encoding. nano opened with an empty buffer typically occupies under 1.5 MB of resident memory.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S nano

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/nano

5.2 Office Apps (Word Processing)

LibreOfficeLibreOffice is the free power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S libreoffice

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LibreOffice

LaTeXLaTeX is a popular markup language and document preparation system, often used in the sciences.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S texlive-most

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LaTeX - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TeX_Live

5.3 Office Apps (Spreadsheet/Math)

GnumericGnumeric is a powerful spreadsheet application which can import and export in various formats including csv, HTML, LaTeX, Lotus 1-2-3, OpenDocument Spreadsheet and Microsoft Excel.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S gnumeric

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gnumeric

5.4 PDF Readers

evinceEvince is a document viewer for multiple document formats. The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application.

Evince is specifically designed to support the file following formats: PDF, Postscript, djvu, tiff, dvi, XPS, SyncTex support with gedit, comics books (cbr,cbz,cb7 and cbt).

Installation:- sudo pacman -S evince

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evince

zathurazathura is a highly customizable and functional document viewer. It provides a minimalistic and space saving interface as well as an easy usage that mainly focuses on keyboard interaction.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S zathura

Additional Resources:- http://pwmt.org/projects/zathura/

6. Communication

6.1 Email Clients

MuttMutt is a text-based mail client renowned for its powerful features. Though over a decade old, Mutt remains the mail client of choice for a great number of power-users.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S mutt

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/mutt

ThunderbirdMozilla Thunderbird is an email, newsgroup, and news feed client designed around simplicity and full-featuredness, while avoiding bloat. It supports POP, IMAP, SMTP, S/MIME, and OpenPGP encryption (through the Enigmail extension). Similarly to Firefox, it has a wide variety of extension and addons available for download that add more features.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S thunderbird

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/thunderbird

6.2 IRC Clients

irssiirssi is a modular, ncurses based IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client for UNIX systems. It also supports SILC and ICB protocols via plugins.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S irssi

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/irssi

WeeChatWeeChat is a highly extendable and feature rich IRC Client currently under heavy development.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S weechat

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WeeChat

XChatXChat is a multi-platform IRC chat program.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S xchat

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XChat

6.3 Instant Messengers

PidginPidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S pidgin

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/pidgin

SkypeSkype is a freemium voice-over-IP service and instant messaging client, currently developed by the Microsoft Skype Division. The name was derived from "sky" and "peer".

Installation:- sudo pacman -S skype

If you have a 64-bit system, enable the multilib repository first as Skype is 32-bit only.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/skype

7. Web

7.1 Web Browsers

FirefoxFirefox is a popular open-source graphical web browser from Mozilla.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S firefox

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/firefox

chromiumChromium is an open-source graphical web browser from Google, based on the Blink rendering engine.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S chromium

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/chromium

7.2 Torrent Clients

TransmissionTransmission is a light-weight and cross-platform BitTorrent client. It is the default BitTorrent client in many Linux distributions.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S transmission

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Transmission

rTorrentrTorrent is a quick and efficient BitTorrent client that uses the libtorrent library. It is written in C++ and uses the ncurses programming library, which means it uses a text user interface. When combined with GNU Screen and Secure Shell, it becomes a convenient remote BitTorrent client.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S rtorrent

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/RTorrent

DelugeDeluge is a lightweight but full-featured BitTorrent application written in Python 2. It has a variety of features, including but not limited to: a client/server model, DHT support, magnet links, a plugin system, UPnP support, full-stream encryption, proxy support, and three different client applications. When the server daemon is running, users can connect to it via a console client, a GTK+-based GUI, or a Web-based UI

Installation:- sudo pacman -S deluge

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/deluge

7.3 RSS Readers

Newsbeuter is an open-source RSS/Atom feed reader for text terminals. It runs on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and other Unix-like operating systems. Newsbeuter's great configurability and vast number of features make it a perfect choice for people that need a slick and fast feed reader that can be completely controlled via keyboard.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S newsbeuter

Additional Resources:- http://www.newsbeuter.org/

7.4 Web Utilities

opensshSecure Shell (SSH) is a network protocol that allows data to be exchanged over a secure channel between two computers. Encryption provides confidentiality and integrity of data. SSH uses public-key cryptography to authenticate the remote computer and allow the remote computer to authenticate the user, if necessary.SSH is typically used to log into a remote machine and execute commands, but it also supports tunneling, forwarding arbitrary TCP ports and X11 connections; file transfer can be accomplished using the associated SFTP or SCP protocols.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S openssh

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Secure_Shell

GitGit is the version control system (VCS) coded by Linus Torvalds (the creator of the Linux kernel) after being criticized for using the proprietary BitKeeper with the Linux kernel. Git is now used to maintain sources for the Linux kernel as well as thousands of other projects, including a number of Arch Linux projects.

Installation:- sudo pacman -S git

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/git - http://git-scm.com/documentation - http://pluralsight.com/training/Courses/TableOfContents/git-fundamentals

DropboxDropbox is a file sharing system that recently introduced a GNU/Linux client. Use it to transparently sync files across computers and architectures.

Dropbox can be installed from the AUR. Alternatively, dropbox-experimental (an experimental build) is also available.

Additional Resources:- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/dropbox

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Frank Cheung

About the Author:

Frank Cheung is a freelance software developer with 15+ years of commercial experience. He currently resides in Kenilworth, Warwickshire with his lovely wife and 2 children.

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