Stuff that rocks

Libraries

This section is for small, usable development libraries, which can be used for writing software that sucks less. These should preferrably be under the MIT/X consortium or BSD licenses, WTFPL, or public domain, or alternatively LGPL, because it makes them legally compatible with other suckless projects.

libc implementations

uClibc - strives to be a minimalist C library suitable for embedded computing
musl - standard C library that attempts to be even smaller than uClibc
See also: embedded libc comparison

Configuration file parsers

iniparser - relatively small ini parsing library, contains a dictionary data structure and accessory functions (MIT licensed)

Compression

liblzf - very fast, legally unencumbered compression library (dual licensed: 2-clause BSD or GPL License)
xz embedded - lightweight decompressor for the xz LZMA compressor (public domain)
zlib - the “standard” compression/decompression library, quite small, used in many applications (zlib license)
miniz - single C-file reimplementation of zlib, public domain.

Cryptography

polarssl - lightweight SSL/TLS implementation (GPL with exceptions)
©yassl - portable RTOS-targeted embedded SSL library - licensed under both the GPLv2 as well as standard commercial licensing

Miscellaneous

pjsip - open source SIP stack (GPL)
libev - high performance event-loop modeled after libevent but much smaller (dual licensed under 2-clause BSD and GPL)
termbox - simple ncurses-like library for creating TUIs
ccv - C-based/Cached/Core Computer Vision Library, A Modern Computer Vision Library

Programs

Some programs work well with dwm. Some general rules of thumb for judging a programs as usable are:

The program will accept any window size
The program consists of a single window (there are no nested windows, such as in Xpdf)

This covers most console-based programs and programs from plan9port.

Accounting

Ledger

Audio Players

C* Music Player
DeaDBeeF
cplay
moc
mpd - A client/server based music player with console and graphical front-ends.
mpg123 - A console mpg player which doesn’t use auto*hell, or extra libraries.
mpg321
vorbis-tools (Ogg/FLAC) - Command-line tools to play Ogg and FLAC files.

BitTorrent Clients

btpd - The BitTorrent Protocol Daemon

Feed aggregators

newsbeuter

IRC Clients

Irc
acme:SAC
ii - A FIFO based IRC client which is part of the suckless.org project.
ircc - A no-frills, ncurses free, console-based IRC client.
ircrc - An rc-based IRC client similar to ircc. Needs minor modification to run on UNIX.
irssi
sic - Another suckless.org IRC client. Similar to ircc.
quIRC - a lightweight console IRC client

Image Viewers

feh
jpg/gif/bmp/png - Simple programs from Plan 9 to display images in no-frills windows. Included with plan9port.
meh - image viewer using raw XLib, libjpeg, libpng and libgif
page - Plan 9’s image/document viewer program. Included with plan9port.
qiv
sxiv - Simple (or small or suckless) X Image Viewer. Depends on xlib and imlib2.
xli
xzgv

Instant Messaging Clients

bitlbee - A program to translate IM protocols to IRC. You can now IM from your IRC client, and you don’t even need to install anything.
centericq
CenterIM - A centericq fork.
climm
irssi-xmpp
mcabber - A console jabber client.
ysm

Mail Clients

Mail - A mail client for acme. Included with plan9port.
dmc - A minimalistic approach to a commandline mail client (WIP)
fdm - MDA
heirloom-mailx - A mail client based on the original Berkeley Mail 8.1 with many new features.
mutt
nmh

Media Players

mplayer (without GUI) - You know mplayer, but you may not know that it works well without the GUI.

PDF Viewers

Text Editors

acme - Rob Pike’s framing text editor for Plan 9. Included in plan9port.
ired (Minimalist hexadecimal editor and bindiffer for p9, w32 and *nix)
nvi - A small, multiple file vi-alike.
sam - An editor by Rob Pike with inspiration from ed.
traditional vi - A fixed version of the original vi.
vim (With the GUI, use :set go+=c to kill popup dialogs)
wily - An acme clone for POSIX.
ed - ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR!

Utilities

9menu - A menu program based on the Blit-style menus so prevalent in Plan 9. A take on it is included with wmii.
dmenu - Obvious
slmenu - Dmenu spinoff for the console

Web Browsers

Abaco
Conkeror - A Gecko based browser, imparting it Emacs style key bindings, appearances, and behaviors.
Dillo
dwb - A lightweight web browser based on the webkit.
edbrowse
ELinks
jumanji - A highly customizable and functional web browser based on the libwebkit.
Links
Lynx
netsurf
surf
uzbl - Web interface tools which adhere to the unix philosophy.
Vimperator - An extension to make Firefox keyboard friendly and Vim-like.
w3m
xombrero - A minimalist web browser with sophisticated security features designed-in. Formerly known as xxxterm

X11

xdotool – A tool for scripting X11 actions.
xzoom – A simple zoom application.
xclip – A tool for controlling the X11 clipboard.
keynav – A new way for keyboard selection.
ffcast – Simple screencasting.

Daemons

This section is dedicated to Daemons that are related to the UNIX philosophy (but don’t really belong into the cool programs section which is about programs which work well with dwm).

Web Servers

Nostromo
thttpd - Outperforms many bigger httpds. Old, still works very well!
mini_httpd - By the thttpd developers. Even smaller subset of thttpd with support for .htpasswd, CGI, dirlisting, HTTP errors and SSL, nothing more or less than that.
See also: our very own quark which has not yet been released

Gopher Servers

geomyidae - small gopher-daemon written by 20h