I've recently been commissioned (asked) by a family member (my niece) to build her a Laptop for school that is easy to use and won't have much to worry about as far as security goes. She's no stranger to Linux and wants to know what all packages are good for general school usage?

Other than LibreOffice, some variant drivers, web browser plugins, other laptop specific tools, and a private in-house SlackBuild script for Firestarter Firewall I modified from an existing one (yes I like simplicity), are there any other packages that will meld well for a laptop aimed at regular everyday usage, school/college, and general entertainment (without gaming) I can add into a Full Slackware install?

I always install a network manager program like Wicd or NetworkManager on my laptop.

Makes connecting to different wireless networks easy and automatically reconnects after being disconnected (e.g. after suspend or hibernate).

Wicd will be going on anyway. I'm more curious as to what would be useful for a student for any situation mostly other than the obvious of LibreOffice, GIMP, and other already included stuff.

Maybe a few things for her major. Like for me, as a Biochemistry student I have some Chemistry tools on my laptop to help me out (and sometimes do 100% of the work for me). TrueCrypt isn't bad either, that can always help in case she has things to protect (e.g. homework or other studious materials).

Skype for calling back home (using 32-bit multilib packages of course).

Maybe some network protection things like fail2ban or snort. And I can't recall, but Slackware comes with SSH, at least for the root user so that's always helpful. At least for me it is where my Uni says they track internet so I have to use it to get to my home computer for..."other" reasons let's just say.

Ebook software.

Depending on if your niece already has a dedicated EReader or not. If she happens to have a Kindle, Amazon published their Kindle cloud reader for Google Chrome. Works great btw
Calibre is a handy tool for managing your EBooks and transferring them to devices.
Firefox has a great Epub extension too.

kipi-plugins add on for Gwenview. The import/export options are great.

Dropbox for cloud storage, syncing, and calibration.

Teamviewer for those times a helping hand is needed. Though Slackware already includes ssh and VNC, I tend to enjoy using Teamviewer for remote management. Works far better than VNC.

Battle for Wesnoth. Turn-based strategy games are great for lectures. The student is able to pay attention to the teacher/professor whenever they need to without worry of the lecture interfering with the important stuff (the game).

Hi,
it's depend on the use, but for school I use :
-dia for diagrams
-keepnote to take notes on various project
-impressive to display presentation slides with cool effect like zoom
-maxima and wxmaxima for symbolic and numeric calculus
-vym or freemind to generate maps which can help you to improve your creativity
-unison to synchronize different pc

inkscape, celestia, R, freeciv, gtklife.

And don't forget the awesome programs that are already there, like marble, kstars, xaos, and kmplot.

In reponse to other comments... Just on principle, I would not install any non-free software on a school computer, as it teaches nothing besides how to be sneaky and greedy. I wouldn't touch dropbox with a 10 foot pole for security reasons. I would stay away from Adobe Flash, but consider gnash. And I would not truecrypt anything: if a kid doesn't understand the security profile, then her computer won't be any more secure, but reliability and performance will certainly go down the tube.

Tellico is a collection manager, but I've used it for note taking because it is so flexible.

A good notetaking app i suggest - i use basket, but its development seems stalled. Maybe a brainstorming app - xmind - which is slow, not well suited to a small screen.

if shes a student odds are shell encounter someone who wants to use skype, so i would make sure thats installed. also, vlc is a great swiss-army-knife tool for a video player, if i ever have something that wont play, i can count on vlc to play it for me.

I think we have probably skipped the biggest idea of the computer the internet....

Mozilla Firefox install the biggest search tool for college kinds today the add-on Wikitionary. Quickly look up wiki pages. BabelFish, ChatZilla, Facebook (Not my personnel choice... But time to party)

For most add-ons with FireFox I would just revert to there website and look at collections...

Opera, Google Chrome are nice browsers just not the same amount of add-ons which makes it faster.....

Invert Colors to Dark...
windows key+M = invert ALL your colours
windows key+N = invert JUST your active windows' colors


Pulse view your favorite websites fast...

MapQuest, Google Maps are probably necessary when time is limited for travel do to studying...

Make sure flash is installed...


Retrospective, with so many toy's not sure if College Student has Android if so most of the apps listed here are useless... Sorry to say that Also Wiki Pages don't help

when writing term papers and want you to make a reference page....



If this College Student has a Blackberry Playbook these apps just become that much more useless...

I wish these tools would have been around when I went to college

Update:

Went over SlackBuild's extensively and was able to get several packages...

LibreOffice (had to reverse engineer the SlackBuild as it was out of date and did not support the new version. Hopefully this can be looked into.)

Skype (installed 64-bit version without incident, but script required a minor edit)

SongBird (Slackbuild was deprecated and required a minor tuning to the last 64-bit build, but it worked... she wanted her music)

MPlayer (had to rebuild with "certain" supported libraries. Don't ask.)

Firestarter (had to build my own slackbuild script from scratch using a non-SBo script, but it worked)

I also installed RKHunter and BitDefender Antivirus Scanner for UNICES as well only for the fact that her school requires antivirus/antimalware to be installed regardless of OS.