My computer tools (www.imho.dk)

Short version: Vi, Mutt and Perl. (You can now go to the last paragraph).

My computer tools consists of the LAMP selection: Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl.

In 2011 I will begin using MariaDB as my first choice of database server.

Ones editor is an important tool. I have chosen Vi after having tried Emacs first. Actually I'm using Vim, which is an improved version of Vi.

Today there are many Linux distributions. I use Ubuntu on my office pc. For help on anything Linux, go to The Linux Documentation Project.

The native shell on Linux is Bash. (See commands, FAQ, reference manual). From the shell you have access to a large toolbox of utilities. Some of them are difficult to avoid; others you have to install: cacti, cat, cd, chgrp, chmod, chown, convert, cp, cron, crontab, curl, date, diff, du, echo, expect, gnupg, grep, gzip, kill, latex, less, logout, ls, lynx, mkdir, more, mount, mplayer, mutt, mv, openSSH, pine, pgp, pwd, rddtool, rm, rmdir, sort, su, tail, tar, touch, trac, wc (no not that one, after all, but a word counter), wget, which, who and so on and so forth. (See GNU packages).

GNU gives access to a line of development tools. GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, binutils and glibc being the key components when working with the basic part of the computer. And to keep a repository of the things I develop, I use CVS. So most of my tools are open source software.

I guess that that is what I like about Unix: modularity. You can use the tools individually or in combination. Your own combination. (I will probably write some more about this another time and place, where it will not do so much harm).

And then comes the GUI-things one uses on the pc, like Firefox and Gimp.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned windows. That is because this page is about my computer tools. Windows are the openings in walls that are mounted with glass, so that you can look out and see what the weather is like. And things like that.