I dunno, Linux is pretty easy, not gonna lie. Installing stuff is easy with Synaptic or YaST (APT package manager followed by the SuSE manager, only because I don't often use RPM based linuxes other than SUSE.) You usually won't need to compile something unless you need the bleeding edge, which is very very rare.

Actually I wish Windows had something like APT

I'm thankful for OSX, I can have easy App installs, along with APT and emerge support

Quote from Becky Rose :

Linux - Pain in the smegging smeg recepticle, how can it be the future when it's based on a 1970's concept of an OS? Why do [other] techies like it? Why are there arguments over pronounciation when I speak like the Queen, dammit. Why does compiling an app on Linux involve acts of wild desperation, googling, and random guess work via trial and error and still result in inexplicable failure.

Hehe.
Yup, it has some issues. And despite some kernel hacking in the dark past, I've not used it so much lately. (Though having a bootable CD distro as a tool - e.g. Knoppix - for fixing busted/sick Windows installations or whatever is simply invaluable, and would have to be on my MUST-HAVE toolkit list.) Part of the reason for using it less is that management of updates got painful for me and I decided to have a life instead... So no home Linux for me right now (but plenty in work, where I don't have to be sysadmin ).

Why do techies like it? Well, perhaps partly cos you can get TOTALLY under the hood; because you can (with the appropriate level of knowledge) fix ANYTHING that goes wrong, without having to throw the towel in and reinstall the whole damn OS. Whereas with Windows, cruft just gradually builds up, and a bunch of binary config files accumulate slightly screwy settings over time, and next thing you know your PC is crippled, and you either bin it or reinstall
If an app misbehaves under Linux, I can track every library call or system call it makes, figure where it's getting stuck and work out if it's an app bug, a system misconfiguration, or a kernel bug. If that's possible under Windows, please tell me which tool to use. (I've been playing with Process Explorer recently, with limited success.) Not to mention, I've got access to the kernel source code, so if a kernel bug pisses me off enough, I can just fix it. Less easy with Windows, hmm?

Compiling apps? OK, there's a learning curve. But as someone else said, Windows is no walk in the park either. Just depends on whether you are the poor sod trying to port something from one to the other I guess.
But with Linux, my experience was mostly: download a tar.gz, run the config script, run the make, use the app. Easy.
(Compiling the kernel was slightly non-trivial for the first dozen times or so )

Holy shit is an app hard to find on google that's name is Seem .

Turned up in a winbuilder repository - Here it is anyway, it's a very small application to deal with; precesses, netstat, kernel, services and drivers attached.

tis in French and a must have imo

http://seem.about.free.fr/

>>dl

Hmm, isn't that BadRKDemo thing you have in the service list a rootkit?

Quote from arco :

Hmm, isn't that BadRKDemo thing you have in the service list a rootkit?

LMAO! it's a screenie from their website arco

:magnify: good spot

Oh! LOL! Never mind then.

Quote from Scatter :

Guitar Pro - Score-writing software and in my opinion, the best one. Cousin's gift to me. Cost = $60. A free alternative is Tux Guitar.

I have Guitar Pro. I just learned about Tux Guitar yesterday on Guitarnoise.com. I haven't tried it out yet. I figured it would be something a bit lighter to put on the work laptop, as well as invisible to the IT department because it is a zip file like LFS is and there's no install.

Quote from Toddshooter :

I live in Adobe Lightroom

I use Lightroom, but only for categorizing/organizing and cropping. I really like cropping and being able to move the photo around the crop window as opposed to having to move the actual crop lines around in Photoshop (unless I just don't know how to do it in PS.) I don't have RAW capability yet, so I don't use it for RAW.

So we move on to Photoshop. I do all my photo developing after crop and TIFF export from Lightroom. Photoshop compresses a smaller file size than Lightroom does when processing smaller images for web usage.

Quote from Toddshooter :

Recently moved from AVG to Avast because of bloat on AVG's part.

Exactly the same here. I normally don't have anything running live, but recently I contracted a virus through a browser game and had to fire up AVG. Found that it really slowed the computer down with the latest version at the time (8.0, I think 8.5 is out now). So I did switch to downloading Avast, but I haven't fired it up to run monitor yet.

Quote from majod :

Total commander - using all the time, when you know keyboard shortcuts its much faster than explorer

I've been using Total Commander to batch rename my photography files for quite some time now.

Others I use,

Firefox of course. Have to have something to surf youtube guitar videos and all the forums I frequent (photography, guitar, RC, and of course, LFS)

Simple Viewer, a simple flash photo gallery that I use for my photo gallery that you can see here (galleries listed across the top.)

Though I like Irfanview, I use ThumbsPlus more just because I know it better. It's where I initially sort through my photography stuff for rejects and keepers before importing into Lightroom.

Last one would be Quicken that I use just to keep the checkbook balanced.

As for games,

LFS, but I don't even know if it is still unlocked. I think the last time I was on LFS was patch Y. I'm looking around and don't even know where my wheel is.

MS Flight simulator, though I haven't done that in a while either. Along with Flight simulator, I have to have FSNavigator for flight planning/tracking and FSEconomy which is a virtual economy site where I own an airplane and I ferry cargo/passengers.

Operating System
Vista x64 - Well, it works fine for me and 32bit system is not really an option due to memory limitations.

Internet and Security
Opera - Daily browser for me
Chrome - Browser for iRacing, works faster than FF. (security settings in Opera do not allow browser to access system services)
Avast! Antivirus - Because it's free and has autoupdates that do not require your attention.
Comodo Firewall - Basic version is free and it's much more configurable than other alternatives like ZA.
Spybot S&D - Removes adware, although I haven't yet seen it find anything else than tracking cookies.

Multimedia
Media Player Classic - Very lightweight player and works well with FFDShow
VLC Media Player - Just as a backup, used for flash video but those seem to work fine now on MPC too.
FFDShow - Codecs and filters you need for high quality playback and encoding. No ads or any unnecessary included like in some codecpacks.
VirtualDub - Very powerful lightweight video editing software, I use it mainly for cropping, resizing and encoding raw footage into smaller formats.
Winamp - Been using it for years now, I don't really care for some of the latest features so I leave them off.
Exact Audio Copy - Best sofware in my opinion for encoding your audio CD's to MP3 format.

Other
Open Office - I don't use office tools that much to make Microsoft package worth purchase, but this one is good alternative because it's free.
Fraps - For recording ingame video.

Quote from amp88 :

People list what software they "couldn't live without".

Live For Speed?