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This question is an attempt to preempt other questions asking for recommendations of software packages that meet some vague or general requirement X.

Questions like (please add more, so this can be found):

Is there a good linux application for X?

I don't think such questions should be asked here for several reasons:

  • Such lists are essentially moving targets. Software may be abandoned or replaced by the Next Hot Thing™, but SE-Questions, once answered, stay answered.
  • SE offers voting but not much more in terms of structured meta info about software projects (Licenses, status, popularity, programming language, OS compatibility, …)
  • While I find it commendable that SE sites want to be the definitive source on subject FOO, there are other, well established sites that do a better job with this particular problem and duplicating that effort poorly would help nobody.

Please consider closing questions that ask for "a good linux application that does X" as duplicates of this one.

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    I think that "whether we should allow questions about 'a good application that does X'" is rather a topic for meta.unix
    – Riccardo Murri
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 14:48
  • but this is not "whether we should allow questions about 'a good application that does X'", is it? it is "Where can I find Software for Unix/Linux that does X?"
    – user601
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 15:01
  • Definitely meta. I'd vote to close this and address it there.
    – David Mackintosh
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 15:11
  • I'd give you the second part of the question, but how is the first part meta?
    – user601
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 15:14
  • Well, the answer to the meta question of whether or not such a question is permitted would guide the permissability of the question. I think that if we don't want such a question, linking to a question like this as a duplicate isn't the way to do it; just have moderators close the question as out-of-scope. And anyway this entire discussion in the comments is, itself, meta.
    – David Mackintosh
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 18:19
  • @hop The question "where is a catalog of Linux applications" is a legitimate one; but then you explicitly suggest that this be used for answering all questions of a certain type: this is a policy discussion that belongs in meta. I suggest you rephrase this question's text and open a new one in meta.
    – Riccardo Murri
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 18:30
  • @Riccardo: you can discuss this on meta all you want, and you can change this question all you want (that's why I marked it wiki). fact remains: the original question is legitimate. fact other remains: i will not touch meta with a two meter pole.
    – user601
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 18:33
  • The basic question has merit though. ​⇒ unix.stackexchange.com/questions/2787/…
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 19:27
  • This is so stupid.
    – user601
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 20:15
  • I deleted the parent version of this post to try and avoid confusion; there's now one parent post about finding software, and this meta post. I would clear the migration history but that would make the comments here completely nonsensical, but the way merging works the migration link below should lead non-[pseudo]mods to the reposted question
    – Michael Mrozek Mod
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 21:46
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    Isn't the simple answer to "Where can I find software that does X"? just www.x.org? Or did you not mean that X? 8-)
    – alanc
    Commented Oct 10, 2010 at 17:21

5 Answers 5

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I disagree with your position: I think questions of the form “where can I find software that does X” are as legitimate as any, provided that X is a specific task (not “software related to Y” or “software like Z”).

Such lists are essentially moving targets. Software may be abandoned or replaced by the Next Hot Thing™, but SE-Questions, once answered, stay answered.

This applies equally to your generic question. In the 1990s, Archie and Sunsite would have featured prominently, yet today they are irrelevant.

SE offers voting but not much more in terms of structured meta info about software projects (Licenses, status, popularity, programming language, OS compatibility, …)

But SE is a questions and answer site, which helps when you don't know the usual name for the program you're looking for but can describe it in sentences.

While I find it commendable that SE sites want to be the definitive source on subject FOO, there are other, well established sites that do a better job with this particular problem and duplicating that effort poorly would help nobody.

http://www.freebsd.org/ is surely the best source of information on FreeBSD, so let's ban FreeBSD questions on Stack Exchange. No?

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    +1 Everybody knows how to google for software; I think that asking for software recommendations here is really asking for advice and comparison among several competing software candidates.
    – Riccardo Murri
    Commented Oct 5, 2010 at 21:34
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I disagree. Such questions are pretty practical and there must be a place where one can ask real people for recommendations. And a Q/A site for Unix/Linux users like this seems pretty reasonable place for this.

4

Everything in technology changes. Nothing stays the same. I see no point in closing questions about apps that do X. I've re-answered questions where the answer changed on SO before. What's a good Web Browser? Mozilla was once the answer, and it's still valid (though the name changed) now Firefox, and Chrome are better.

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    I think "What web browser is better?" isn't a correct question to ask (because there is no logically correct questions as most of them have their strengths and weaknesses), but, for example, "What are pros and cons of Firefox and Chrome compared?" or "Why should I use ZSH instead of Bash, what are its killer-features?" are.
    – Ivan
    Commented Oct 6, 2010 at 3:39
  • @Ivan right. I could have worded this better. The point I was trying to make is that software changes, and what's available changes. Nothing in this industry is static.
    – xenoterracide Mod
    Commented Oct 9, 2010 at 17:55
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I think it depends on question.

There is SE site for software recommendations. We can redirect questions that are too broad("What is good music player for Linux?", "Lightweight outlook alternative for Linux?"), but some questions might apply to Unix specifically and be beneficial for our community(there are many utility tools that can be used, but some users don't know them).

Yet I disagree with your #1 and #2 dots. Stack Exchange might also get deprecated; but this doesn't discourage us from posting answers here. Also, answers can be updated, so if program gets deprecated but question is reviewed often, we can simply update it. At worst, we will only help less people then we could. I think it's still better then helping no one.

-4

A good place to find software, especially for Unix and Linux, is freshmeat. It is a well established site that lists software projects together with a short description, license information, popularity and vitality stats, information about which programming language is used and much more, searchable by subject.

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