Decided such a thread would be nice...
so here's what i use:
key applications:
3-D:
google sketchUp6+wine (i know how to make it work alright)
blender/z-brush...altho im experimenting...i wanna learn 3d
graphic editing:
Gimp 2.4 (better tool organisation+the new tools are awesome),
gogh (nice one for a tablet),altho still poor
myPaint (
http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~mrenold/mypaint/ )- immitates corelpainter,its an interesting piece of software
wine: photoshop,opencanvas,image analyzer (awesome freeware tool)
Batch processing:
PHATCH!
http://www.gnomefiles.org/app.php?soft_id=2189absolutelly love this one! Needs the python imaging library
kde image menu (kim) - needs too many libraries to run, i havent used it from a while,because phatch is better in many ways.
vector fgraphics:
something at which i am a beginner... i use inkscape,because xaraLX doesnt support tablets yet
Organisation/Photo editing:
Picasa
quick publishing:
kflickr- for those who have a flickr account
Scanning:
first of all,i just want to state that SANE is terrible.It doesnt work right with my scanner,no matter the distro...at their website it says compability should be alright,but it isnt at all.Sane sucks.
Instead i use Vuescan. It is shareware,but easy to find a serial number..altho these guys deserve a good pat on the shoulder and one should really pay for it to sponsor them.
http://www.hamrick.com/Vuescan worsk flawlessly,and it fully supports my scanner,and i believe it is alot better than sane or its frontends.It just is,try it.
Drivers:
wacom drivers for linux (wacom-tools). They were kinda hard to install and set.I think of making a package with an automated script to do that

Sadly the gui frontends to set a wacom are poor on linux and kinda hard to find. I also use Expresskeys to make the tablet buttons work with gimp.
so,lets liven up this forum.Which are your favorite apps?