(Jack Wallen) Do a search for Linux applications on Freshmeat and you’ll get around 11,828 hits. (As of January 12, 2008, that was the tally.) Of those 11,828 applications, which ones are worth using? Not 100 percent of them for sure. Still, buried within that grand total you will find a few gems that get zero publicity but are worth giving a go. This article will highlight some these little-known apps, which range from multimedia to certificate authority tools and anything/everything in between.

#1.Floola
Floola isn’t an open source application, but it does run on Linux (as well was OS X and Windows). Floola takes music management (in particular, synching iPods) one step further. With this nifty application, you can download and convert YouTube videos for playback on your iPod. But unlike some other clunkier applications, Floola does this seamlessly and simply. No commands to enter; it’s all GUI. The only possible gotcha is that before you can add videos from YouTube, you have to install ffmpeg on your Linux box. Floola uses ffmpeg for the conversion process.

Don’t expect Floola to have all the bells and whistles that iTunes has. Floola offers Photo support, Snarl (Windows only) support, Growl (Mac only) support, Notes, repair iPods, export lists to HTML, language support, lyrics, duplicate and lost file search, artwork support, video support, Google calendar support, playlists, podcast, lastfm support, and more. Floola is simple to use in Linux, as it comes in an executable binary that you can simply copy to the /usr/bin directory and run with the command Floola.

#2.Transkode
Sticking with the multimedia theme, Transkode is a front end for the highly flexible, modular command line toolset Transcode. Transcode is one of the most versatile audio and video converting tools available. Transcode has both a graphical and a text-only interface and supports a vast number of formats including DV, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 Part 2, H.264, Quicktime, AC3, and any format included under libavcodec. Transcode can import DVDs on the fly and record from Video4Linux devices. The problem with Transcode is that the commands can get a bit overwhelming for the average user. Transkode remedies this by employing a user-friendly interface that makes the complex business of converting multimedia format files as simple as it can be.