I am still sort of a nubee after several years of just using Linux. I use Jessie and Gnome for a desktop. I have no one to talk to about Linux and terrible luck finding stuff on the Internet when it comes to real help with my problems. So I am going to just ask here.

I would like to have access to a listing of the programs sorted out as to what they do, After an install you have a long list of programs installed on your computer and unless you are and old hat at Linux you have no idea what most of them are or what they do and or how to use them, like a list of editors for text, or PDF files, or databases or video or whatever. Like photo editors should be together. In the past I had to search a long time to find a program to resize photos to use in a forum. NOw they seem to be a standard menu item on the photo reader programs.

The one thing I really hate about Linux is the amount of programs available to every user but what are they and how to use them. when I go to the package manager there must be a 1000 programs that have one line description or what they are and it is not intuitive as what it is. Some have long lists of required programs that are needed to run. The only way to check to see if you already have them is to try to install and if it fails then you find out what you don't have.

Do any of you have a pointer to somethng that would help?

You have a point there.
While I cannot consider myself as a Newbie, I am getting number each day and be it for that or otherwise... You are right.

On the other hand, with some scripting capability, you [or anybody] could at least try to create such a list of program descriptions from diverse sources. It may not cover all the executable files in the end, but make a good overview however.

When I make such suggestions, usually I try to find out myself, if I can provide something. Not a list of programs but a way to extract the descriptions, maybe routinely...

The man-pages are in troff-format and should be the first target for scrutiny.

There is some work to do for me, but I will get back on this.

this has nothing to do with luck, but search skills, and maybe using the right search engine.
how about: apt list installed packages with description? the first result looks helpful to me.

Personally I prefer
although even that does not handle many executable files which are only part of a package which comprises several such files. Not that all of them will be useful all the time and for everybody, but the man-pages contain nice descriptions and why not benefit from that...

In , I find “animate”. Never seen that one, and there is even a man-page which says:
The list that I get from apt does not show this program as it is part of ImageMagick, like so many other useful tools.

Now you again...

As a starter

That is not beautiful, not very elaborated but already quite complete. For the more verbatim description a back-reference is needed and I am currently unable to find my regular-expression reference manual. But you get the picture...

Using a full-blown scripting language will facilitate things and renders other sources accessible.

I usually just use google.com. gnome has a help program that does kind of what you want, but only for gnome programs.

^ let me get this straight:
you use google to get information about your installed programs, and others in your distro's repositories?
wow. kind of a strong contrast to your signature.

It's only for Gnome, he said.

But anyway, I'd like to know the OP's opinion or experience .., skip “opinion”. I don't care for opinion.
I'd like to know the OP's experience with any of the proposed procedures or any new element he wishes to be covered.

Here is a list that I create by reading the line “NAME” in all man-pages under /usr/share/man. This concerns only the English man-pages but for the other languages it would work alike. I generate this with a ruby-script(, of course).

... and it discovers some sloppiness in the creation of certain man-pages, too.

Attached Files

applist.txt (201.8 KB, 201 views)

It is isn't it? But I've never had a password on google. I use an anonymous proxy. I don't actually allow google to index my hdd. But if I want a linux program that does a certain thing, I look up on google, and then check if the program I find is in the distro repo.

If I have a program on my machine already, I can usually figure out what it is exactly without googling it.

Ok Michael, both of those hints give a huge amount of info that will take days to read and I still will not know what I wanted after all that confusion that would come from reading all that. That is the kind of info I get when I open the Package Manager and try to find a program to install.

How would you reduce that info to get a list of PDF editors?

A couple of years ago I used a program called PDFTK to join some PDF files. I had forgotten about that until I saw it in the listing. I merged some Radio Control Plane blue prints and the build instructions into one file to archive, instead of having several files to keep track of.

Recently I received a form that was a PDF. It was a file that I needed to fill out and return. I could have printed it out and filled it out in pen and then scanned it back in and sent it as an email but it would have been easier and nicer to use a program to fill it out and send it back. It would be more readable also.

ondoho I should do a better description of my abilities. I mostly just use the programs from the Gnome desktop menus. I can use the Terminal a little bit but not very well. I confess to being a user not a geek. I did start using Linux a long time ago. I am guilty of not learning how to use it better. I started by building my own H89 Heathkit about 1979 or so and converting to Linux about the time Red Hat was at version 6 or 7 at the Houston LUG. I do read the Man pages and search for help on the Internet when I run into problems. Sometimes the internet explains how to fix the problems associated with particular error codes.

Hope that helps. Thanks for your comments also.

^ i don't see how this has anything to do with what i suggested?
you do understand that my second post here has nothing to do with your question?

anyhow...
something like that.

I think you mean I am a lousy searcher and I agree. I have much trouble finding what I want. The code with grep works great. It found 2 entrys instead of listing all the programs on the computer.

some of these answers give me a listing that must be 20 screens long. I ask as a seasoned user "Do you know what all those programs do by the one line description shown?" Do you understand all the error messages that come up when things do not go right? If I find one I do not know the answer to I do use Google to get help understanding what it means. Some are very complicated to me.