In my group of friends, only a few of us are linux users. The ones that do use it, talk about it from time to time, and when our windows using friends are over at our places, they are forced to use linux in order to supplement their addictions to web forums and livejournal.
The most common complaint they have is that software to perform common tasks in Windows, is not availiable in Linux. To experienced linux users this is obviously not the case. However, users new to Linux have no clue about the software available on Linux, or the name of the software.
Hopefully this node will be useful to those people.
This list is incomplete. If you see something that missing, and you think should be here, send away.
A lot of this information has been taken from freshmeat.net, be sure to check them out if you are looking for software.
Zip/Rar/Tar Utilties:
kArchiver: I've seen it included in the Mandrake Linux (8.0). Homepage: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/coquelle/karchiver/
gnochive: Homepage: http://gnochive.sourceforge.net/
Mp3 Related:
Grip: A frontend to command line cd ripping and mp3 encoding programs. Probably included in most distributions. Homepage: http://www.nostatic.org/grip/
LAME: A command line Mp3 encoder, deemed the best by the maintainer of r3mix.net. Not included in some distributions because of legal issues, but there should be a way to get it anyways. Grip supports this. Homepage: http://www.sulaco.org/mp3/
cdparanoia: A command line cd ripper, most commonly used, and supported by Grip. Probably included in most distributions. Homepage: http://www.xiph.org/paranoia/
XMMS: One of the most widely used mp3 players. Probably is already installed in most distributions. If you use Redhat, you may need to visit the site in order to get it to play mp3s. Homepage: http://www.xmms.org
Juk: They call this a Jukebox and Music Manager for KDE. Multiple Playlists, and other neat stuff. JoeBaldwin tells me this will send a Windows user in a fit of ecstasty, it looks like it will. Homepage: http://www.slackorama.net/cgi-bin/content.pl?juk
Web Browsing:
Mozilla: Open Source Web browser, based on the netscape code. Netscape 6 is now based on Mozilla's code base, which is based on Netscape 4. It's suggested that you upgrade to the newest version, as improvements between versions are usually quite noticable. Usually the default browser in most distributions. Homepage: http://www.mozilla.org
Netscape: Superseded by Mozilla. Might be available in some distrbutions. Homepage: http://www.netscape.com
Opera: Opera can't be included in Linux distributions because its license prevents it. however, they have pretty good packages. You can download deb, rpm and Redhat 7.1/Mandrake 8 specific rpms. Homepage: http://www.opera.com
Instant Messaging Clients:
GAIM: Client for AIM, supports plugins, and many other features not availiable in the official AIM client. Availiable in Debian and Mandrake. From evan927: Just so you know, GAIM supports the following protocols: GAIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Zephyer, and Napster. Homepage: http://gaim.sourceforge.net
Kopete: KDE Instant Messenger. MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, IRC, Windows Messenging Service, GaduGadu, SMS. Homepage: http://kopete.kde.org/
Licq: Client for ICQ. Homepage: http://www.licq.org
Jabber: Many many clients exist for Jabber, and I am unsure of which ones come in the various distributions. Gaim supports a plugin to connect to jabber as well. It is a good idea to select one from JabberCentral: http://www.jabbercentral.org
Other Instant Messaging protocols: Jabber clients usually support the other big four Instant Messengers (msn, aim, icq, yahoo) through the server. Gaim offers plugins to connect to msn and yahoo as well.
CD Burning:
k3b: An all around CD Burning suite. JoeBaldwin says the same about this one, too. Homepage: http://k3b.sourceforge.net/
Office Suites (i.e. MS Office):
KOffice Has most of the applications you'd come to expect from an Office Suite. Availiable in Debian and Mandrake. Homepage: http://www.koffice.org/
OpenOffice.org A descendant of Star Office from Sun. Seems to be a lot more popular than KOffice these days. Homepage: http://www.openoffice.org/