[Solved] Searching Software: PDF editor, browser, email

[maluethy]

I am looking for software for Linux. Are there any websites where software is presented and or reported and rated by users?

For example I am looking for a PDF editor (functions: Add, edit, move, delete, compress PDF pages ...).With Libre Office Draw it works partially. Master PDF Editor from https://code-industry.net/free-pdf-editor/ I have come across. Are there other comprehensive PDF editors?

Or are there on Linux alternatives to the well-known browsers such as Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and Firefox? How suitable for everyday surfing are alternatives like GNOME Web, Falkon, Konqueror, Midori and what are they based on? (Everyday usability: Is the browser usable for e-banking and the majority of homepages created for Chrome based browsers).

I am also looking for an email software that supports Microsoft Exchange Server and so far I found Evolution and Kmail.

Thanks in advance for the information.

[sturmvogel]

First i would recommend to search for programs in MCC. If you set the search parameters properly, you will get many results for pdf and browsers and mail.
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Install_and_remove_software_for_beginners#Searching_Applications_with_MCC.27s_Software_Manager

Browsers: Dillo, Epiphany, Chromium, Linkx, Midori, Netsurf, Otter, Surf, ...
PDF-Editors: Pdfarranger, Pdfmod, ...
Email: Claws, Evolution, Thunderbird, Sylpheed, Trojita, ...

And as everybody has other needs or likings there are no general recommendations. And most informations you will get at the respective project pages and forums.

[morgano]

Yes first see if you find a program packaged by Mageia.
If that fail there are other Ways to install programs too.
Note that the other ways may have less security, performance, stability, and system integration.

[maluethy]

Thanks for the answers and the links.

Obtaining software through Mageia I can understand and makes sense to me. - Are there homepages where advantages and disadvantages of Linux software are described? I am not interested in good or bad but to get an overview of the functions and not to have to install every possible software myself.

[morgano]

are there on Linux alternatives to the well-known browsers such as Chrome, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and Firefox?

It is the *same* programs, regardless if it is compiled for osX, MSWindows, Linux, whatever. It may have different abilities, depending on limitations of the various OS:es, but that is seldom.


There are so many alternatives (regardless of operating system), because there are so many different needs. And then combinations of the needs. Variants of programs. You need to know what you want, and try to search for it.

i.e small efficient browser because you want it to run on low end computer. Or to work with latest standards and have lot of plugins? Or your highest wish is you want it to be hard to spy on? (i.e web search "most secure web browser")
The choice of OS matters less, but for either or both of small hardware or high security, Linux systems are the choice.

[Germ]

I like Falkon for web browsing and Okular for .pdf files.

If you google "linux web browsers" you will get lots of links to web sites that do comparisons. You can do that for any software.

[doktor5000]

FWIW, there's a list of programs in our wiki, sorted by category: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/List_of_applications
There are also lists of equivalents/alternatives if you know how the windows program is called: https://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Li ... s_software

[maluethy]

Thank you for the prompt information and especially the links.

In the meantime I have come across some more links. They are well structured and helpful for me:
https://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Li ... s_software
https://www.linuxlinks.com/best-free-op ... -software/

I was looking for something like the addons for Firefox, for example, but have not found anything similar so far.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=pdf

You can find a lot of information on the Internet, that's true. What I find tricky is the qualitative range of the content, which is often very wide.

[doktor5000]

I was looking for something like the addons for Firefox, for example, but have not found anything similar so far.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=pdf

Are you really looking for that? What value do you get from a list of addons with "PDF" in the name?

Are you looking for a linux software search ? IMHO, that does not help that much because not all software might be current and/or available.
Have a look at e.g. https://alternativeto.net/ and browse there, or maybe describe again what you're actually looking for.

[maluethy]

The link to Firefox Addons is just an example of what I am looking for: Websites where software for Linux is described and users report about their experiences. As I don't know such a website for Linux software, I mentioned the website for Firefox Addons as an example.

Thank you, https://alternativeto.net corresponds to such a website. The results are extensive, but the filter "Linux" is very helpful.

[doktor5000]

Apart from simply searching yourself, it might be more productive if you would describe what you need more specifically.

Useful PDF editors include ghostscript, pdf-stapler, pdftk-java, qpdf, scribus, xournal. The one you linked to is over 60$. Depends if that's worth it to you ...
But simply annotating existing PDFs or filling out form fields can usually be done with any PDF viewer, there's no editor needed for that.
I'd recommend okular as a viewer, and what I use somewhat frequently is xournal for adding signatures or other things like pictures / text on top of existing PDFs.

For browsers, firefox, chrome, opera, brave and vivaldi can be used directly. Firefox from Magia repositories and chrome directly from google, same applies for opera and brave from their respective vendor. There's also chromium if you want chrome but don't want all that google stuff ...
There's more information in the forums for each browser.

[fadi]

pkgs.org is a good source of software, download the binary and double click it and and urpmi will install it for you. Pclinuxos and Openmandriva rpms are usually, but not always , installable on mageia. Appimage hub and apprepo.de are good source of appimages . Creating menu entries for them using your menu editor is not difficult. The software website can provide you with an rpm or or tar.gz which can be extracted and you can link to the executable in your start menu as well. Finally, there is Flatpak. I managed to install pretty much every web browser, and most other apps, available to linux using these methods .