Cool Tools

This page summarises some cool tools available on the departmental UNIX machines (some of them may only be available on the Linux boxes). Note that these tools are not supported. However, if you have problems or questions you can always drop me an email and I might even be able to help you.

I heavily use emacs in everyday life and maintain a separate page of cool emacs packages.

Index:

pdfsam (split and merge .pdf files)
sunbird (a calendar application)
xfce (a lightweight desktop environment)
humec (Hume compiler)
Opera (Web browser)
Adobe Acroread (pdf reader)
Firefox (Web browser)
tkbibtex (bibtex file browser and editor)
ganttproject (create Gantt charts)
JDK 1.5.0 (Java 1.5 interpreter, compiler etc)
GARNOME (latest development version of Gnome)
GHCi (Interpreter for Haskell98)
GCL: GNU Common Lisp (Interpreter for Common Lisp)
MLton (Compiler for ML)
ML Kit (Compiler and Toolkit for ML)
Emacs/W3 (Emacs-based web browser)
Emacs (A way of life)
XEmacs (Heresy of the One True Belief)
Mozilla (Web browser)
Dillo (Web browser)
Sylpheed (A mail and news reader)
Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG) (Electronic signatures etc)
Seahorse (Public key manager)

Name: PDF Split and Merge (pdfsam)
Description: PDF Split and Merge is an easy to use tool to merge and split pdf documents. Console and GUI versions are available. The GUI is written in Java Swing and it provides functions to select files and set options. It's made over the iText library.
Short Summary:
Invocation: pdfsam
Installation:
Requirements: Java 1.4 or above
Location: /soft/TCS/bin
Documentation: /soft/TCS/text/pdfsam-1.1.0/doc/pdfsam-1.1.0-tutorial.pdf
Comments:

Name: SunBird
Description: Calendar application and meeting maker
Short Summary:
Invocation:
Installation: sunbird
Requirements: none
Location: /usr/bin/sunbird
Documentation: See Sunbird web page
Comments:

Name: xfce (version 4.4.0)
Description: A lightweight desktop environment
Short Summary: Kind-of "gnome light", optimised for small resource usage (I use it on my laptop; it should run well on old, memory-constrained machines).
It builds on the gtk+ graphics library, but doesn't use all the heavy Gnome infrastructure. The main components included in xfce is a window-manager, a file browser, a media player and a CD/DVD burner (see installation directory below).
Invocation: Depends which of the tools you want to use:
- Session manager: put the following at the end of your .xsession file
```
export PATH=${PATH}:/soft/TCS/bin
WM="xfce4-session"
echo "Starting $WM ..."
exec $WM
	      
```
- Window manager: xfwm4
- File browser: thunar
(search /soft/TCS/bin/xfce* for more).
Installation: none
Requirements: gtk+ >= 2.6 (installed on all standard distributions)
Location: /soft/TCS/gui/xfce-BUILD
Documentation:
- xfce web page
- Man pages in /soft/TCS/man/man1
- Tools usually have their own help section in a top-level menu
Comments: Pick this environment if you have to work on a small/slow machine, if you want to have faster response time or if you just don't need the advanced features of a KDE or Gnome environment. If you believe that a 3D desktop is the best thing since sliced bread, xfce is definitely not for you. If you want to stick to KDE, you can still call xfce applications (also the other way round, but the first call to a KDE tool will pull in the entire environment and therefore be slow).
The whole project is still in an early stage, and I have noticed minor bugs such as windows jumping from one desktop to another. But it's also an active project, so more tools should be integrated soon (see their web pages).

Name: humec
Description: The fastest Hume compiler in the world
Short Summary: humec compiles a Hume program first to abstract machine code (HAM), then via C to machine code. For monitoring dynamic behaviour, the .ham file can also be executed via the hami interpreter.
Invocation: humec <hume-prg>
Installation: none (be sure /soft/TCS/bin and GHC 6.4.x are in your path)
Requirements: gcc, GNU binutils (all installed)
Location: /soft/TCS/bin/humec
Documentation: See the papers page on the Hume home page. In particular Hume Report (local copy) as language reference (to which the compiler almost adheres). You will also find Hume example programs on the web pages. Example programs are available locally at /soft/TCS/lang/Hume/hume-examples/simple.
Comments: Hume (Higher-order Unified Meta-Environment) is a strongly typed, mostly-functional language with an integrated tool set for developing, proving and assessing concurrent, safety-critical systems. It mainly targets embedded systems, focusing on predictable resource consumption. In the EmBounded project we work on automatic resource (time, space) inference for Hume programs, certification of resource bounds and we also develop the language itself further. Concrete applications include a lane tracking algorithm, used for control of autonomous vehicles (developed my the LASMEA partner site).

Name: Opera (Version 8.0)
Description: Web browser
Short Summary: The producer calls it "the fastest browser on earth!". It's a fully featured web browser and now also has a built-in mail/news client (see this feature summary).
Invocation: opera
Installation: - (automatically scans Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox etc preferences/bookmarks etc when launched for the first time)
Requirements: Qt 3.2.1 (installed)
Location: /soft/TCS/bin/opera
Documentation:
- Opera Home Page, online help
- Online article comparing Opera and Firefox
- Opera man pages in /soft/TCS/man/man1
Comments: The killer argument for Opera is its speed. In direct comparison with Firefox 1.0.2 and Mozilla 1.7.7 it is noticably faster. I found that opera's resident set size is only about 1/3 of that of firefox 1.0.2. This means, on machines with not so much main memory (say no more than 256 MB) this should make a big difference. Opera 8.0 supports most indespensible modern features such as pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, RSS feeds (live bookmarks) etc. It also has an email client and supports mouse gestures (you can bind movement patterns of your mouse to commands in the browser). I haven't tried either of these features but they might be useful.

Name: Adobe Acroread (Version 7.0)
Description: Reader for .pdf files
Short Summary: This is the "official" pdf-reader by Adobe, in its latest version for Linux.
Invocation: acroread
Installation: -
Requirements: -
Location: /soft/TCS/bin/acroread
Documentation: Online support
Comments: For firefox-1.0 this version of acroread is now installed as plugin for .pdf files. Make sure that you have /soft/TCS/bin before /usr/X11R6/bin in your path to pick up the right version!

Name: tkbibtex
Description: Graphical Bibtex file browser and editor.
Short Summary: tkbibtex is a portable editor and browser for BibTeX format file. It is written in Tcl/Tk and runs under Unix or Windows based wish interpreters. It is inspired by, or modeled on, an old OpenWindows application called bibcard.
Invocation: tkbibtex <bibfile>
Installation: -
Requirements: -
Location: /soft/TCS/bin
Documentation: Man page. Home page.
Comments:

Name: ganttproject
Description: A tool for developing Gantt charts.
Short Summary: GanttProject lets you plan projects using a Gantt charts.
Invocation: ganttproject
Installation: -
Requirements: Needs JDK 1.4.1 or higher. The top-level shell script selects the right Java installation.
Location: /soft/TCS/misc/ganttproject-1.9.11
Documentation: Web page of the project.
Comments:

Name: JDK 1.5.0 (aka Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 Beta 2 or J2SE-5.0 beta2)
Description: Sun's Java Development Kit for Java 1.5
Short Summary: Tools you need for writing, compiling, running Java 1.5 programs.
Invocation: Compile: javac <javafile> ; execute: java <classfile>

Installation: Make sure you have the right versions of java at the beginning of your paths, e.g. in bash do the following:

       export PATH=/soft/TCS/lang/jdk1.5.0/bin:$PATH
       export CLASSPATH=/soft/TCS/lang/jdk1.5.0/lib:$CLASSPATH

Requirements:
Location: /soft/TCS/lang/jdk1.5.0/
Documentation:
Comments: This version should support full Java 1.5, but is still in beta release. To use Java 1.5 features compile with option -source 1.5.

Name: GARNOME
Description: GARNOME is the latest development version of the Gnome GUI.
Short Summary: Here is what the web page says about GARNOME:
GARNOME - the bad-ass, bleeding edge GNOME distribution for testers and tweakers everywhere - is finally released unto the teeming masses. If you're dying to test the latest GNOME code, but don't want to fall into the depraved addictions and co-dependencies of testing from anonymous CVS, then GARNOME is for you.
Invocation: Put the following line at the end of your .xinitrc file:
```
exec /soft/TCS/bin/garnome-session
       
```

Installation: Make sure to have the bin and lib dir in your pathes (in bash syntax):

PATH=/soft/TCS/GARNOME/2.8.2/bin:${PATH}
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/soft/TCS/GARNOME/2.8.2/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
MANPATH=${MANPATH}:/soft/TCS/GARNOME/2.8.2/man

Requirements:
Location: /soft/TCS/GARNOME/2.8.2
Documentation: See man pages in /soft/TCS/GARNOME/2.8.2/man and the GARNOME web page.
Comments: GARNOME is more recent than the official Gnome releases, but some of the tools might still be buggy. It's mainly of interest for people who want to try the latest versions of Gnome tools, or who need the sources of these tools to compile other applications.

Name: GHC/GHCi (Version 6.2)
Description: A compiler and an interpreter for Haskell98.
Short Summary: The Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) is a robust, fully-featured, optimising compiler and interactive environment for Haskell 98. GHCi is GHC's interactive environment, in which Haskell expressions can be interactively evaluated and programs can be interpreted
Invocation: ghc -o <prg> <prg.hs> (compile file <prg.hs>), ghci (interpreter)
Installation: -
Requirements: gcc and friends (all available)
Location: /soft/TCS/bin/ghc (compiler), /soft/TCS/bin/ghci (interpreter)
Documentation: Web pages:
Comments: Overall, GHCi has the look and feel of the Hugs interpreter for Haskell. Additionally, it can mix compiled and interpreted code. Being a different setup of GHC (Glasgow Haskell Compiler) it is much bigger than Hugs, though.

Name: GCL (GNU Common Lisp)

Description: GCL is the official Common Lisp for the GNU project.

Short Summary: Interpreter and compiler for Common Lisp.

Invocation: gcl

Installation: -

Requirements: -

Location: /soft/TCS/bin/gcl

Documentation:

Home Page
Common Lisp the Language, Guy L. Steele (on-line version of a standard textbook on Common Lisp)
Comments: Another Common Lisp implementation, distributed as GNU software, is GNU CLISP.

Name: MLton

Description: SML compiler

Short Summary: MLton is a whole-program optimizing Standard ML (SML) compiler.

Invocation: mlton

Installation: -

Requirements: gcc and friends, gmp (all installed already)

Location: /soft/TCS/bin/mlton

Documentation: man mlton; MLton web page
Comments: MLton is supposed to generate very fast code. Since it is a whole program compiler it uses a lot of resource while compiling, and takes a long time for that. Ihaven't checked the compatibility with other ML compilers, but assume that anything that uses more than the standard SML libraries could cause problems.







   Name: ML Kit (Version 4.1.1)
  
 Description: ML compiler and toolkit
  
 Short Summary:
The ML Kit is a compiler for the
programming language Standard ML. The Kit covers all of Standard ML,
as defined in the 1997 edition of the Definition of Standard ML and
supports most of the Standard ML Basis Library. The Kit uses a region
based memory management scheme in which allocation and de-allocation
primitives are added to the program at compile time. The Kit also
makes it possible to combine the region based memory management scheme
with traditional reference tracing garbage collection. Two versions of
the ML Kit is available, one that generates efficient native code
for the x86 architecture and one that generates portable bytecode that
can be interpreted by an abstract machine. The largest program
compiled with the Kit is the Kit itself (around 80.000 lines of SML,
plus the Basis Library).
       
  
 Invocation: mlkit
  
 Installation: -
  
 Requirements: -
  
 Location:  /soft/TCS/bin/mlkit (see also /soft/TCS/share/mlkit)
   Documentation: local manual; Online Docu
  
 Comments:






   Name: emacs
  
 Description:
       Emacs is the extensible, customizable, self-documenting real-time
       display editor.
  
 Short Summary: A way of life.
  
 Invocation: emacs
  
 Installation: -
  
 Requirements: -
  
 Location: /soft/TCS/bin/emacs
       
  
 Documentation: C-h i or C-h t from within emacs;
       Online manual
       (local copy)
  
 Comments:
       This is the latest released version (21.3) of emacs (14/04/03).








   Name: xemacs 
  
 Description:
       XEmacs is the extensible,
       customizable, self-documenting real-time display editor.
  
 Short Summary: The GUIy sect of the Church of Emacs.
  
 Invocation: xemacs
  
 Installation: -
  
 Requirements: -
  
 Location: /soft/TCS/bin/xemacs
       (elisp packages are in /soft/TCS/lib/xemacs-21.4.14/lisp).
       
  
 Documentation: C-h i or C-h t from within emacs;
       XEmacs web pag
  
 Comments:
       XEmacs provides more eye-candy than (GNU) emacs.
       Its main functionality is pretty much the same as emacs. Not all elisp packages are compatible for both versions.
       This is the latest stable version: 21.4.14.








   Name: firefox (formerly phoenix) (Version 1.0)
  
 Description: Web browser (next generation of mozilla, with complete re-design)
  
 Short Summary: Mozilla Firefox is a free, open-source web browser for Windows and Linux. It is small, fast and easy to use, and offers many advantages over other web browsers, such as the tabbed browsing and the ability to block pop-up windows
  
 Invocation: firefox
  
 Installation: - (uses same libraries as mozilla)
  
 Requirements: - 
  
 Location: /soft/TCS/bin/firefox
  
 Documentation:
       
	  Phoenix Documentation Page
       
  
 Comments:
       With Version 1.0 that came out on 9.11.2004, firefox should be competitive with other mainstream browser such as mozilla. It should have all of mozilla's functionality.
        Its main advantage is its speed, and it has popular features such as pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing. Note that firefox is, by design, just a browser. If you want a mail reader with a mozilla-like interface, use thunderbird.







   Name: mozilla
  
 Description: Web browser (open source version of "netscape").
  
 Short Summary: Mozilla is an open-source web browser,
  designed for standards compliance, performance and portability.
  
  
 Invocation: mozilla
  
 Installation: - (reuses Netscape preferences)
  
 Requirements: - 
  
 Location: /soft/TCS/bin/mozilla
  
 Documentation:
       
	  Mozilla Home Page
       
  
 Comments:
        This is version 1.4a, i.e. an alpha release and might still contain bugs.







   Name: Dillo (version 2.0)
  
 Description: Web browser
  
 Short Summary: A very fast and small web browser.
  
 Invocation: dillo
  
 Installation: - 
  
 Requirements: GTK+-1.2.x (installed)
  
 Location: /soft/TCS/bin/dillo
  
 Documentation:
       
	  Dillo Home Page
       
  
 Comments:
       I use dillo as browser to be called from within sylpheed (my mail client).
       It's good for quickly checking HTML text, with navigation etc, but doesn't
       provide the fancy features seen in most browsers nowadays.







   Name: Sylpheed (Sylpheed-Claws version 2.5.5 or Claws-mail 3.4.0)
  
 Description: A Mail (and news) reader
  
 Short Summary:
       
Claws Mail is an email client (and news reader), based on GTK+, featuring
     

           Quick response
       
    Graceful, and sophisticated interface
       
    Easy configuration, intuitive operation
       
    Abundant features
       
    Extensibility
       
    Robustness and stability


The appearance and interface are designed to be familiar to new users coming from other popular email clients, as well as experienced users. Almost all commands are accessible with the keyboard.


The messages are managed in the standard MH format, which features fast access and data security. You'll be able to import your emails from almost any other email client, and export them just as easily.


Lots of extra functionality, like an RSS aggregator, calendar, or laptop LED handling, are provided by extra plugins.


Claws Mail is distributed under the GPL.












  
 Invocation: sylpheed-claws (or claws-mail)
  
 Installation: Use the menu Configuration->Create new account
       with these settings:
Server Information:
Protocol: IMAP4
Server for receiving: imap.ifi.lmu.de      
SMTP server (send):   smtp.informatik.uni-muenchen.de
Userid:               <Surname>.<Forename>.tcs            Passwd:  xxxxxx
       
and in the SSL sub-menu:
              IMPA4:
       x  Use SSL for IMAP4
       ...
       Send SMTP:
       x  Don't use SSL (but, if necessary, use STARTTLS)
       
      and in the Advanced menu
              IMAP4 port: 993
       
       In the Privacy menu signing and encrypting emails can be customised.
  
 Requirements: GTK+ 2.10, GnuPG, nmh  (all installed)
  
 Location: /usr/bin/sylpheed-claws (or /soft/TCS/sandbox/bin/claws-mail)
  
 Documentation (URL): 
       
	  Local manual (.pfd)
	 
 Home page:

	      http://sylpheed-claws.sourceforge.net/

	      Online Manual (old, based on version 0.8, but still useful for basic usage)
       
  
 Comments:
       Starting with version 3.0 the name of the mail reader changed from
       Sylpheed-claws to Claws-mail. Both use the same code base.
       There is another mail reader, called Sylpheed, which uses a slightly
       different code base and is not quite as feature-rich.

       
       I alternatively use sylpheed, mh-e (from within emacs), and plain mh
       for reading email. All three packages use the MH commands for handling
       mailboxes, folders etc, so I can easily switch for example using
       plain mh on a slow dial-up link. Of these three systems, sylpheed has the
       nicest interface, using the GTK library (Gnome-style interface).

       

       The latest version of sylpheed comes with support for GPG-based
       encryption and electronic signatures, as well as address book, a
       simple news reader, support for RSS feeds, client-side filtering
       and many more features.
       See the Configuration->Plugins menu for details.







   Name: Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG) (Version 1.2.1)
  
 Description:
       GnuPG is a complete and free replacement for PGP,
       and implements both public key and symmetric encryption, as
       well as authentication.
  
 Short Summary:
       
	  Encrypt: gpg -c file
	 
 Decrypt: gpg file
	 
 Verify a signed email/file: gpg --verify file
       
  
 Invocation: gpg
  
 Installation: -
  
 Requirements: -
  
 Location:   /soft/TCS/bin/gpg
  
 Documentation:
       
	  GnuPG Home Page/
	 
 Gnu Privacy Handbook
	 
 Gnu PG MiniHOWTO
	 
 Instant GPG HOWTO
	 
 FAQ (local)
       
  
 Comments:
       A good mail reader for handling GPG-signed mails is sylpheed.
       A graphical front-end for public-key management is seahorse.







   Name: Seahorse
  
 Description: Management tool for a public key infrastructure
  
 Short Summary:
        Seahorse is a GNOME front-end for GnuGP. It can be used for sign,
encript, verify and decrypt text and files. The text can be taken from the
clipboard, or written directly in the little editor it has. Seahorse is
also a keymanager, which can be used to edit almost all the properties of
the keys stored in your keyrings.
  
 Invocation: seahorse
  
 Installation: -
  
 Requirements: gpgme, gpg, gnome, bonobo (installed on SuSE 10.2 boxes)
  
 Location: /soft/TCS/bin/seahorse      
  
 Documentation: Seahorse Home Page, OpenPGP Keyserver
  
 Comments: 






  Hans-Wolfgang Loidl
  <hwloidl@informatik.uni-muenchen.de>


Last modified: Sun Jan 11 22:35:28 2009  Stardate: [-28]0629.49