The Developer’s Linux Setup

A quick foreword, this is how I’ve got my relatively new Linux setup running so please, please leave comments to let me know what I’ve overlooked.

As someone who flits between different computers it’s nice to have a common set of tools to help me as a developer… and have a new Ubuntu setup in my home office I thought I’d document those which really help me in day to day work etc.

Development Tools

SciTE – As an all-round editor I just love SciTE (and it’s fun to say it’s name too). It’s a no-nonsense editor with a vast amount of languages supported.

Eclipse – OK, so I don’t really like eclipse but as a tool for developing for Android it does it’s job just fine.

Firefox – Yup, an excellent browser which also hosts some excellent add-ons (Firebug, Web Developer, ColorZilla)

Designer Tools

Balsamiq – For wireframing websites, web apps and mobile applications Balsamiq is pretty good.

Communication

Tweetdeck – What can I say about Tweetdeck apart from it’s a brilliant client for Twitter and Facebook.

Skype – The current Skype client on linux is a little ‘clumsy’ in my opinion and is a fair few releases behind it’s Windows counterparts. As a basic VoIP client though it’s second to none.

Utilities

Adobe Air – This cross platform runtime environment enables you to take advantage of some really super tools and applications.

Dropbox – This is just one of the dandiest apps around… brilliant cloud based storage with cross platforms clients. If you haven’t got it yet what are you waiting for… go get Dropbox now!

EvernoteEvernote is a brilliant cloud based note taking and management app

Filezilla – A few linux fans might not appreciate me mentioning GUI (s)FTP clients such as Filezilla but as an ex-Windows user having familiar tools to winSCP makes the migration much easier.