It feels like I've done it a hundred times, installing the software that turns a brand new PC into a useful tool. Of course, they are Personal Computers, so what's best for you will always be a little different, but as of late 2008, there is a lot of convergence even among different platforms (XP, Vista, OS-X and Linux), and the best bang for the buck stuff is starting to look the same, regardless of platform. So, with great prejudice of experience and little regard for the obscure, here's a very condensed list of the best stuff to put on a new PC, whether it's got Vista, XP, Leopard, Tiger, etch, or Intrepid Ibex as the OS:

General Use

• Firefox internet browser - because Chrome is still pretty raw.
• OpenOffice word processing, spreadsheets, etc. - because MS-Office is just too damn expensive.
• Gimp image manipulation - because I'm too cheap to spring for Adobe Photoshop, and I don't really need anything that Gimp can't do
• VLC media player - cross platform, and more capable than the other media players on any platform.
• Any dedicated e-mail client - because webmail solutions are still a little weak.

That should get most people going on the basics. You may need to add some VPN / Citrix / Remote desktop support if you want to talk to your work computers, and there will always be specialty software to add. Try not to let too much stuff you don't really use to keep your new PC healthy and quick.

Programming

• Qt framework - code once, run anywhere. If you're in windows, you probably want to get MinGW for the compiler, even if the debugger in Visual Studio is better...
• Subversion revision control system, it interfaces very well with trac
• trac project management - we set up a trac+subversion server in a couple of hours, stuck it in the closet and used the heck out of it for two years now. After 453 days, the UPS battery went dead and we shut down the system rather than trying a hot-swap. 453 days of solid up-time, with 750+ code check-ins, 100+ wiki pages created with thousands upon thousands of edits, accessed locally and via VPN - so far, trac just works.

Miscellania

• Weatherbug temperature in your Windows icon tray, and audible severe weather alerts - Linux has similar things.
• Palm Desktop software - worth picking up a cheap palm pilot just to get the desktop organizer software, it's nothing brilliant, just a good way to keep addresses, phone numbers and notes organized - and it migrates from machine to machine really easily, especially if you can still find your PDA (the data also migrates pretty easily without a PDA, just copy the entire program directory).

Why not more? Less is more - add what you need, vary to taste, but there's little or no benefit in having several programs that all do the same thing installed. The reason I like most of these programs is because I can learn them one time, and then use them on any PC anywhere. Free and cross-platform is a very powerful thing.

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Last updated November 17, 2008