8. Multimedia Applications, Productivity Tools, Proprietary Applications

Multimedia Applications

Entertainment is another key area for Linux notebook software. Here, both distributions deliver with considerable gusto. Dozens of games arrive pre-packaged on the installation media, and the same ROM-based repository is full of applications for CD/DVD content creation, audio format conversion, digital image manipulation, video playback and even a lightweight text-to-speech synthesizer called "Festival."

From creating an audio sample to manipulating a video stream, to digitally mastering content for later playback, openSUSE and Fedora both include the right mixture of applications to get the job done.

Productivity Tools

Modern community distributions usually contain a fairly consistent line-up of productivity tools and with good reason. Application suites like OpenOffice provide OSS equivalents for well-established proprietary productivity tools like those found in Microsoft Office, with none of the licensing restrictions and zero cost of ownership. Plus, OpenOffice can handle various Microsoft-specific file formats, including Excel spreadsheets, Word-formatted documents, and PowerPoint presentations. This is eminently useful for mobile users who work across a mixture of Linux and Windows environments.

There are a number of specialized document and image viewers to cover the spectrum of popular file formats from mundane PNG and (where Fedora is concerned) qcad for 2D computer aided drafting, to Portable Document Format (PDF) creation and manipulation utilities. Flowcharts and diagrams are made easy with an application simply named dia, graphical project management with planner, and financial record keeping with gnucash. There is also a host of synchronization tools to keep any distributed files shored up with current changes.

Proprietary Applications

Some non-OSS applications are included within the default package sets for both distributions including: Acrobat Reader, Sun's Java Run-Time Environment, RealPlayer, and the Opera Web browser, to name just a few. Here again, openSUSE's software management facility nicely categorizes these under easily identifiable labels whereas Fedora utilities do not.