After the "Where are we going" thread, I arrived at the opinion that Linux may be about choice, but it really ought to be about solutions to needs, and that really new users definitely do not want a bewildering array of distributions and half-baked applications to wade through until they find the one that actually does everything. Many man hours are being wasted on duplicate programs every day.

SO.. to stop them re-inventing the wheel, so to speak, I'd just like to conduct a straw poll on what you use, whether you like it, and what your system is set up to do. I have a theory that the same programs will come up time and time again, but we will see. I'll go first

It's a general desktop system
Distro - Fedora Core 3 - Good all round, but I'm tempted by Kubuntu.
Desktop - Gnome, but will move completely to KDE soon (as most of what I use is Qt based).
Web browser - Firefox
Email - Evolution - crashes occasionally so may move to Kmail or Thunderbird
FTP - gFTP
Text editor - anything
IM - Gaim
HTML - Quanta plus
Graphics - The Gimp
Audio player - Amarok
CD ripper - Grip
Open office etc.
DTP - Scribus
PDF - KPDF
Photos - Kuickshow
Scanning - Kooka
CD burning K3B

Most days, all I need is xterm and firefox or opera, depending on my mood.

I'm not going to list programs used at work, there's just too many.

Everyday is different, but the mainstream apps I use for standard home tasks are :

Distro - Ubuntu
Desktop - Gnome
IM - Gaim
Browser - Opera
Email - none (web based)
Word processing - openOffice.org
Movie player - Xine

Distro: Laptop-gentoo; desktop-debian

office stuff: openoffice.org2
window manager: e17 or xfce4 on the laptop; e16 on the desktop
web browser: firefox
email: thunderbird
basic audio editing: audacity
music typsetting: lilypond
graphics: gimp
IM: gaim
cd-burning: cdrecord
cd-ripping: abcde
file management: gentoo, xffm, xnc
music player: xmms
editor: vim and nano
metronome: gtick (great little program!)

Distro: Debian
Office: OpenOffice.org 2
Web: Firefox
Mail: Thunderbird
Music: Amarok
Desktop: KDE
Editor: GVim

--Ian

Distribution: Ubuntu.

Applications I use:
wine (which I use mostly to run Super Jukebox, a really good SPC file player of which there is only a windows version)
Text editor: gedit
Terminal emulator: xterm
Music composition: Rosegarden, Audacity
Music listenining: XMMS
Desktop environment: GNOME
Web browser: Firefox
Gaming: ZSnes, Dgen, Gnometris
IM: GAIM
File management: nautilus
Video watching: mplayer
Graphics editing: Kolourpaint, GIMP

And finally, I use linpopup to send messages over my home network.

MEPIS
Desktop: KDE 3.4
Music: XMMS
Graphics: GIMP
IM: Kopete (but crashing when sending files)
Video: Xine/Mplayer
FTP: gFTP
Web: FireFox
Mail: Thunderbird
text: Kate
Burning: k3b

It's a general desktop system
Distro - Slackware
Window Manger-Fluxbox
Web browser - Firefox for GUI, Links for CLI
Email - Thunderbird
Text editor - Midnight Commander usually
Word Processing-OpenOffice
IM - Gaim, ayttm
Graphics - The Gimp
Audio player - xmms
CD burning K3B for GUI, cdrecord for CLI

the list is too long, i only use freebsd or debian(sometimes other distros), but mostly the most popular software :-).
I don't know how you look for software, i just use my package management system to look for something that fit my needs. I use google when i need more info or if i didn't found anything.

Most days all I need is xterm, firefox and thunderbird.

Distro - Slackware
Desktop - Blackbox
File manager - xfe
Web browser - Firefox, opera rarely
Email - Thunderbird, mutt
FTP - gFTP, firefox (readonly)
Text editor - vim
IM - Gaim
HTML - vim
Graphics - The Gimp
Audio player - xmms
General Media Player - (g)mplayer
CD ripper - ripit (perl script)
Open office etc.
DTP - n/a
PDF - acroread
PostScript - gsview
Photos - xv
Scanning - n/a
CD burning - cdrecord, growisofs

And loads more that I can't think of at the minute. With the exception of maybe my WM and File manager I tend to keep to the most popular software

gentoo
fluxbox
feh
xscreensaver
aterm
firefox
thunderbird
OpenOffice - swirter
gaim
vim
conky
mplayer
abcde (cdripping)
azuerus
ardour

Those are the only apps I have installed also. (they all have dpendencies but these are the only apps I have emerged)

Running:

Suse 9.2 pro, which i'll stick with for a while (tired of updating)
Labplot - awesome plotting utility. Highly recommended (I'm a third year physics major and it was indespensible.

Kile - use for typing up my reports in latex. Latex is the indespensible part though. sometimes I use kate for typing.

Firefox - for web browsing

Fluxbox - Window manager indespensible for when running loads of programs

Mplayer - to play dvd's, movies, without ever having to download another codec... Awesome!

OpenOffice.org - for viewing docs that are sent to me. and for some work editing