101 Applications

xv is an image display and manipluation program no-one should be without

It doesn't matter how good a computers hardware or operating system may be if there are no applications available for it. Currently our NetBSD installation falls into this catagory. We have a multiuser, multitasking operating system and a neat graphical interface, but so far no really useful applications. However this month we are going to change that by providing you with access to a selection of some of the most popular unix programs available. These range from word processors and text editors to graphics packages, performance meters to email clients. Those of you expecting to be able to run programs like Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop on your amiga will be disappointed because Unix has never been a popular desktop operating system, instead residing on mainframes and servers. Despite this there is a remarkable amount of software available for desktop unix machines such as the Amiga.

Share and share alike

Unix has a thriving public domain community. All of the applications mentioned in this article are free or shareware. It is this vast library of free software that makes Unix such a desirable Operating System for many people. Due to the nature of Unix it's public domain philosiphy is slightly different to that of almost any other operating system. If you consider that there are many different hardware platforms, with different CPU's, running a variety of Unix varients, both freeware versions such as Linux and NetBSD, or commercial offerings like Solaris or HP/UX then it is impossible to produce an application that will run on every single machine. The majority of authors do not even try to, they simply make the source code available and leave it up to the individual to produce an executable for their particular unix variation. This has two notible side-effects. Firstly it makes software installation more difficult as you must first compile the program before installing it. Fortunatly most authors provide "make scripts". These are the Unix equivalent of the Amiga's Install scripts and tell the Make program things like which compiler to use and where to put the finished application.

Pico is much easier to use than vi

The second side effect is more positive and has resulted in some of the best programs available for any platform. As it is the source code and not a complied product that is distributed it becomes possible for anyone to make changes or add functionality to an application. Whereas with Amiga Shareware you would have to contact the author and then wait for a new version Unix allows anyone with programming knowledge (usually C/C++) to make the changes themselves. This new version is then either sent back to the author or released into the public domain for other people to use. Many programs which started out as a small project by one person have become huge applications supported and contributed to by hundreds of people. One such example is the web server "Apache" which is the most popular web server in the world, and is running approximatly 45% of all sites on the internet (source Netcraft September 1997 survey). Of course there are also commercial programs such as Netscape Navigator that the source code is not available for, so although versions of these applications exist for selected Unix platforms, mostly PC and Sun Sparc, it is unlikely that an Amiga version will ever see the light of day. (Note: at the time of writing the decision to release the source code for Netscape had not been reached)

Don't panic

Because compiling each application can be a lengthy, and frustrating process if things don't go smoothly the Amiga NetBSD site carries an ftp arcive of pre-compiled programs. All you need to do is unpack the archive and run the install script. Each archive is supplied as a GZipped TAR file. These can be identified by their .tar.gz suffix. Instructions for extracting these files can be found here. The majority of the files extract in to /usr/local and all expect to be extracted in the root (/) filesystem. As each application installs itself into /usr/local/bin you may also wish to add this to your path, so the application can be run by simply typing it's name.

Programs on the CD One of the things you may have noticed when you installed X Windows is that it does not include a file manager. You still have to manipluate files using the command line. Fortunatly there are a variety of File Managers available. XFM or the X File Manager provides a windows based environment for file manipulation. XFM is split into 2 windows, the first displays the current directory in either Icon, Text or Tree format. The second window contains icons for selection of applications, although obviously these must be present on your machine for you to use them. XFM enables you to create and delete files or directorys without having to go anywhere near a command line again, although many hardened Unix users find that once they are familiar with all the commands the shell is easier and faster to use. Because XFM was not originally written for the Amiga there appears to be a small bug with the display. Unless you are running TWM then some of the icons may not be displayed. Moxfm is a Motif based file manger. It functions almost identically to xfm but does not seem to be as fussy which windows manager it runs under. One of Unix's strong point is image manipulation. Many powerfull applications have been written to take advantage of the processing power of large mainframes. Many of these programs run just as well under NetBSD. As you would expect from a predominantly text based OS there are literally hundreds of text editors available for unix. These range from simple no frills editors to hugely complicated programs like LaTex which can be used to convert text files to different formats. Those of you struggling to get to grips with vi will probably want to make installing pico a priority. Unix also has a wide range of free web browsers and other web related tools such as html editors. For those of you with only a small amount of memory lynx is a text only browser that doesn't require the overhead of X to run. Other applications worth mentioning include the Email Clients, Elm and Pine; Lha; numerous games and UAE the Amiga Emulator which can be great for running old games and programs that won't run under anything above WB1.3. Pre-compiled versions of the all the applications shown in the table on the right were distributed on an Amiga Format cover CD on the November 1997 issue (AFCD20). The most recent versions of all these applications can be downloaded from here. The next article looks at the different Window Managers availabe for NetBSD.

Applications featured on AFCD20 Image Manipulation Tools ImageMagick xanim xfig gnuplot xv xli Text Editors and Viewers TeX XEmacs Emacs Ghostscript Ghostview Pico WWW Tools and Browsers Chimera Arena Phoenix lynx xhtml Games xboing xdigger xjewel xkobo Programming xwpe Email Elm Pine File Managers xfm Moxfm Misc Uae Xarclock xfishtank