Apps recommendations please (quicklaunchers especially)

[Strike105x]

Hi i'm appoligize if this isn't the right section but i hope it is, i just installed Linux Mint 13 Maya Cinnamon and i'm at a bit of a loss regarding the software (the only thing i'm pretty certain is mplayer), first of i would love to hear some recommendations about quicklaunchers (kind of like the one used on macs or like objectdock plus, rocketdock). Then there's the video converter, i'm used to xilisoft video converter, which did great for me, any linux alternative ? I would also like to hear opinions about some good music players, last but not least is their some site or place that concentrates and discusses/reviews and rates linux software ? A place like that could really help me to get started.

Thank you in advance.

[xenopeek]

It seems you can use the popular Linux docks on Cinnamon just fine, and there is also an extension for Cinnamon to get a dock. See remarks here: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=93018#p548015. If you need more help with that, suggest to ask in the docks section of the forum: viewforum.php?f=211

You can search for Linux alternatives to software here: http://alternativeto.net/?platform=linux&license=free. There are various other websites that can help you pick software, like this one: http://linuxappfinder.com/.

As for music players, that depends on what you need your music player to do. I mean, how do you like to browse your music, do you want to be able to tag or rate your music, do you want album covers to be fetched from the Internet for your music, and so on. I personally prefer Quod Libet these days. It is very lightweight and with all the plugins available I can get it just so as I want it

[jamvaru]

I'm using audacity at the moment
vlc was having hiccups (disk access priority problems)

[d00med]

Audacious sounds great using ALSA drivers and with its audio enhancement plugins, but it's a minimal interface like foobar2k.