About a year ago I purchased a PowerBook in hopes of "easing" my way away from Windows and onto a UNIX platform. Well, I recently threw FC2 on my Toshiba laptop and now I want to get rid of the PowerBook. There are, however, a few items that I have gotten used to and do not want to live without. I am hoping someone can give me some pointers as to where to start... maybe recommend some apps.
The top things I would like to be able to do with FC2 that I can do with my PowerBook...
3. QUICKEN
I have looked at the "Cash" program (not sure of the complete name) that ships with FC2 several times and it basically sucks. Is there a quality personal finance program out there for Linux? I do not mind paying for it.
Are you talking about Gnucash? Does your not liking Gnucash relate to the double-entry method of accounting? There is a new tutorial about Gnucash's double-entry method at this new O'Reilly page:
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/10/07/gnucash_double_entry.html
if that URL is too long, then use this tinyurl version:
http://tinyurl.com/72y3f
4. KONFABULATOR
This is a very cool third-party app that allows users to have "widgets" hovering on their desktop to provide various functions. A few that I use constantly is a graphical weather forcasting widget, a connection widget to show all of the my active connectiond and protocols, an IP meter to show my external IP, and a few others. Is there anything like Konfabulator for Linux?
Have you looked at gdkesklets?
http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org/
If you want something lightweight and compact, I can recommend gkrellm. There are many plugins for gkkrellm. Do a yum install gkrellm* at a root prompt and install them all.
5. PROTOOLS
Okay, I know this is REALLY pushing it, but how about ProTools and Logic. I use them both on my Mac. I realize I cannot take them with me, but are there any professional quality applications out there for MIDI and hi-end recording?
There is a Linux Music and Sound text that has a supporting web site:
http://linux-sound.org/
However, I wouldn't throw out the PowerBook (unless you're throwing it my way <grin>). If you want/need open source tools for your PB, I can highly, highly recommend Fink and Fink Commander for your PB. Once you get them installed on your PB, and you have X11 installed, you can run all kinds of goodies via the Mac. I have my iBook set up that way. If you want a package, you browse Fink Commander and install it with a click (or run apt-get install blah from the command line).
Have you read Learning Unix for OS X Panter? Here is a very brief review (well, just a sentence) I wrote about it:
http://www.penguinsolutions.org/books/bookdetail.php?book_id=102
Fink resources: http://finkcommander.sourceforge.net/ http://fink.sourceforge.net/
Another approach (that I admittedly have no experience with) is to install Yellow Dog Linux or another PPC flavor of Linux on your PB. There are some instructions on the web about doing so with FC, but on an iBook.
Hope this helps, Clint
