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Has a small section on Maths/Science Software. Graphcalc is ace http://www.graphcalc.com/. sci lab also though probably a little complex http://www.scilab.org/. Open Education CD can be found here: http://www.theopencd.org/education

http://www.theopencd.org/ TheOpenCD.org

The Open CD is available to purchase or download. Lots of lovely OS apps for Windows and it comes with Pictures rather than marker, have a look through the site, distribute it to your friends and neighbours.

The Open CD is available to purchase or download. Lots of lovely OS apps for Windows and it comes with Pictures rather than marker, have a look through the site, distribute it to your friends and neighbours.

Where I work we have been routinely installing OpenOffice on every computer we repair. The other tech and I are both Linux users, and we like promoting OSS. I found out about http://theopencd.org/The Open CD a few weeks ago. It's got 30 OSS Windows apps (OOo, FF, Neverball, Really Slick Screensavers, PDF Creator, GIMP, Blender...) with an easy little installer and info about each. We label them and give them out with fixed computers.

Actually: http://www.theopencd.org/

For the past few semesters, I've been handing out copies at the "campus groups on display" day, and the reception has been quite positive.

I enjoy giving away copies of the OpenCD. It contains a lot of common open source programs that run under Microsoft Windows.

Here are a few examples of things that can be loaded.

Portable Apps
Apps that have been made to be put on a USB
http://portableapps.com/

TheOpenCD
http://www.theopencd.org/

http://theopencd.org/programs

So rather than two organizations working towards open standards, we get one organization working towards competing against Microsoft. Brilliant. Where ODSL actually had some credibility while forcing Microsoft towards more open document standards, this new "Linux Foundation" just begs to be ignored as a competitor. Efffing brilliant.

     

T]he mission of the new organization is [to] help Linux, the leading example of the open-source model of software development, to compete more effectively against Microsoft, the world's largest software company.

I tried giving away The Open CD (or something similar) to my students. This was a class of biology majors at a community college, so the geek quotient was higher than the general population, but a lot lower than slashdot. I got zero response. Zero interest. Not a single student ever even tried it. I think OpenOffice is a particularly lackluster thing to try to get ordinary people excited about, because they already have word. If they have a good income, they have a legal copy of Word; if they're starving students, they have a pirated copy. They already have tons of Word files on their computer, and no motivation to mess around seeing if OpenOffice will mangle the formatting or not. This is one of the realities we have to deal with: OSS is not an option for most people, for most tasks, because they're locked into proprietary formats.

OSS games also don't seem to impress people, for several possible reasons: (1) they're crude compared to commercial games, (2) in many cases, they don't work well with the video card, so you get poor performance, and (3) people are used to being able to play flash games for free. I hate to say it, but clubpenguin.com is a lot slicker than most Linux games. Similarly, people are used to getting all those Google AJAX apps for free, and they don't lie up at night worrying about whether Gmail is open-source.

Here is a similar project I've been working on to do a promotional CD of free textbooks. I haven't had much time to work on it since the semester started, however. (Yes, I know the link to theassayer.org is down -- DNS troubles, which should be fixed soon.)

I like SLAX as my general purpose boot-and-go CD, but I'm also getting to like DSL. That will boot fine on older, slower hardware. I find Knoppix is just too big and clumsy anymore {though we should not forget that DSL is based on a trimmed-down Knoppix}.

Some versions of TheOpenCD used to include a bootable, cut-down Ubuntu; but it seems as though they're now concentrating on providing Free software to run on Windows. Which I suppose is better than trying to spread themselves too thin.

... a freebie printer driver on Windows that creates PDFs as well. It works fantastic, the PDF Creator conveniently distributed on the fantastic OpenCD.

I've found that giving people a copy of The Open CD works nicely. They can use open source software without leaving their Windows comfort zone. When they're ready to take the next step, they can boot from the CD and have Ubuntu (LiveCD) to play with.

Last semester I made 100 copies to hand out at the Computer & Information Technology department's booth at our college's "Find out about the college" day. It was quite popular; we're doing it again for the same event next week.

Almost forgot... Google Sketchup is a really easy to use program for simple 3D modeling. And Google Earth is just cool too. It would be even cooler if they combined Celestia features with Google Earth, so we could zoom by other planets as well.

How about the EFF(USA) donating 50 Mio. USD in OSS to MA - calculated based on Microsofts packet prizes for equivalent software. Ideally they should donate the Software on a physical medium (aka CDs) - the production cost of 1USD per CD cost could probably easily collected via PayPal donations. The CD could be some http://theopencd.org/ for clients and a server software CD with Apache/PHP/MySQL and PostgreSQL, Python, Zope and for example some good webapps like eGroupware etc.

Truce? How can there be a truce when only one side is the agressor? Tell you what, Microsoft, stop attacking OSS and trying to thwart our attempts at every turn, and then there will be a truce because we are already the peaceful side.

Common ground? We built it. We continue to build it. It's ours, but by the very definition of open source, we are willing to share it (and already do!) with you. All you have to do is come down off your high horse and stop fucking around with closed standards that benefit no one but yourself.

Microsoft needs to STFU, stop wasting money on FUD, and actually DO something that will PROVE they are all about cooperation and a truce. Like opening NTFS or CIFS, and not lobbying for laws that hinder open standards or open source.

You don't even need to install OpenOffice to get a PDF "printer" driver. Check out PDFCreator at http://www.theopencd.org/programs/pdfcreator

I think most people that stick with ms software do this because they have no clue how to install alternative software (seriously - my family uses PCs for 14 years now and still they call me and ask me how to install this and that software) so make a "worm" that assists you in making your pc more secure (and shows you that you need it at the same time) maybe put in links to small, easy-to-understand "getting started" sites...

http://www.theopencd.org/

Why not just bundle OpenOffice.org and a couple other free applications with the CD?

Picasa [google.com] for organizing and sharing and printing (and minor editing) pictures. I wasn't much of a believer in this one, but because of its simplicity I recommended and installed and consulted this for friends and family. And finally was hooked -- it really does a great job for all of the organizing I need. (I believe it's probably on the OpenCD). It may not rival the iPhoto (or whatever OS X has), but it's a sweet product.

Picasa is actually much much better than iPhoto. It's user interface is much more usable and looks way better. As a Mac user I'm pissed that Picasa isn't out for Mac, and I'm suprised that Apple hasn't done a better job with iPhoto compared to Picasa. Also, Picasa won't be on the OpenCD. The OpenCD: TheOpenCD is a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software. Picasa isn't open source software (still wonderful though).

Got to agree with the parent. Unless it's games you're after; but, to be perfectly frank, you'd be much better off buying a games console {unless you have a good reason not to, such as no TV set}.

Some have mentioned dual-booting Mac OS X and Linux. But there's not a hell of a lot of a point in doing that; OS X is just another flavour of unix, and you've already implied {by mentioning running Windows in the first place} that staying i-tal isn't a requirement. There's even less point in running Cygwin under Windows on an Intel Mac. If you want to run unix applications, run them in Mac OS X!

If you still insist to run Windows, there's plenty of good stuff for you to start with on The Open CD. Can't believe nobody mentioned it already really; but I was browsing with a high threshhold, so maybe I just missed it.

Now that I have a chance to painlessly dip into the Windows world, what I'd like to ask you is, what Windows software amazes you?


http://osswin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.theopencd.org/
http://osscd.sunsite.dk/
http://www.winlibre.com/en/index.php



Enjoy.

* Really Slick Screensavers - Yeah, screen savers are kind of corny, but if you never shut off your computer like I do, this site has some really, really nice looking screen savers.

* Scite - Text editor, easy to use on Windows or Linux and a full featured executable weighs in at 430K, so it's too easy to carry on a thumb drive.

* TheOpenCD.org - Has some other programs listed that are free and may be worth checking out.

---John Holmes...

http://www.theopencd.org/ is a great cd of useful/free/fun software that will work under windows.

First app I'd buy is vmware (hey, it might be free now!) so you can run OS X on it.

No, really, all seriousness aside, I am a big user and fan in XP of:

• Photoshop Elements. Make sure you're looking at version 4 at least. I'm quite sure this is also a Mac product, so if you're already playing with that in OS X, never mind. PSE is a light version of Photoshop for about 1/4 the price depending on where you purchase. It has most of the digital manipulation functionality I need, and interestingly has some features VERY useful not found in Photoshop.
• AVG Anti virus for antivirus. I'm using the free version -- so far I've found it excellent, and haven't had any problems with the machine at all (note: it's a good idea to ensure you have de-installed all of the commercial products in the meantime -- aside from not working very well, they can step on other running anti-virus programs).
• the Ubiquitous OpenOffice, and it's free. It can be a resource hog, but I've not had any Office product installed on my XP boxes for years now and never had a need, and OO just keeps getting better.
• The OpenCD which includes browsers, all kinds of cool and fun free software. Pick and choose, these'll take you a long way.
• Picasa for organizing and sharing and printing (and minor editing) pictures. I wasn't much of a believer in this one, but because of its simplicity I recommended and installed and consulted this for friends and family. And finally was hooked -- it really does a great job for all of the organizing I need. (I believe it's probably on the OpenCD). It may not rival the iPhoto (or whatever OS X has), but it's a sweet product.
• MoodySoft Screen capture software. I do a lot of work requiring quick and easy screen captures. This one's not free, but it's not expensive either, and I've tried about a gazillion different products, so far this has been the best for me.
• Any combination, or even full suite of cygwin software. If you have ANY scripting needs, to get real work done and already know shell and unix utils, this is ESSENTIAL (and, it has an excellent X Server).

This is really a tiny partial list. It's a shame I have so many programs I like to run in XP, cuz I always prefer the linux or some variant of unix environment. But, this is a small sample of what gets me through an XP kind of day.

One of the many huge power-supply caps has enough juice to keep my laptop running for about fifteen minutes.

My own home "network" consists of a do-everything Linux server (2.4GHz Duron, 2G RAM, 160GB IDE HDD, Mandriva 2006.0) which doubles as a workstation, another (Dual PentiumPro 200, 196MB RAM, 40GB IDE HDD, Mandriva 2005LE) which is effectively a CD burning jukebox (mostly Linux distributions, TheOpenCD and a couple of the free Baen's Books CDs), a NetGear DG-834G wireless ADSL router/switch, a Kingston 8-port 10/100 switch, a Duron 800, 256MB, 80GB for the kids' games (wireless, Mandriva 2005LE) two wireless laptops (one old AOpen 2.4GHz Pentium-M, 512MB, 40GB, Mandriva 2006.0, one new Durabook R15D 2.6GHz Centrino, 1GB, 60GB, Mandriva 2006.0/WinXP dual boot, which I keep dual mainly for customer support and for editing on long trips -- the ACPI is completely broken, and TwinHead've only patched it for XP), one customer server (Athlon64-3GHz, 1GB, 2x200GB, Mandriva 2006.0), one "thrash box" (Athlon 1800, 512MB, 80GB, Ubuntu 5.10) and occasionally other stuff.

I'd like to say that it's neatly arranged in a rack and so forth but that would be a blatant lie, there's stuff scattered all over the place, basically wherever it will fit within reach of the appropriate cables.

The main workstation is about to lose its 19" CRT in favour of two 17" flatscreens. I'd actually spring for 2x19" flatscreens if resolution higher than 1280x1024 was available without the loss of an arm or leg.

http://www.mozilla.org/firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/products/

http://www.opera.com/download/
http://www.opera.com/

http://www.theopencd.org/ Download the 650MB ISO image file and burn to CD share with your friends who have less bandwidth to the internet to install FireFox broswer and Thunderbird e-mail client on their Windows PC.

Make a WMF virus variant that pops open the http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ website to give the user an opportunity to click "Install FireFox" for windows. Hey I did not force him to install anything, but just pointed it out.

Remember, Its the thought that counts! I was just making it easier for the end user to use his or her computer Virus free.

Fred

to fix this problem http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin /MS06-001.mspx

Thought about grabbing TheOpenCD? http://www.theopencd.org/

TheOpenCD download - a few cents of ISP bills
Blank CD - dimes or less
Not having to disinfect my relative's PCs every few months - priceless

... remember to take a good supply of OpenCDs for the relatives at the thanksgiving table this year.

They're a useful response to nearly every IE-related question you'll be asked.

Con: Porting massive amounts of Open Source software to Windows actually butters Gates' fat belly, because that just makes that many more applications that run on Windows.

Pro: Porting any program to any operating system other then it's original platform, especially when you weren't the original author, is a heroic feat. A true act of selfless idealism. A brain-numbing intellectual feat.

Con: Effort spent this way takes coders off of making Linux better. Like, say, (since I am the Gimp's only fan, appartently) making a mod of the Gimp that tastes and smells just like Photoshop so everybody else but me can quit hating it.

Pro: What better PR than to have our programs running on the proprietary system, the better to show off what we can do? Every time a Windows user disparages IE in favor of Firefox, that's a victory for Open Source, right?

Con: My stingy grinch side wants to say: "The Hell with Windows users. There's gajillions of software titles on the shelf for Windows. Let 'em buy software, like they like to do anyway!" Honestly, I would see nothing wrong with GNU/Linux development supporting itself by: (a) Being 100% free for Linux, and (b) charging for Windows' ports. "But the Linux users get it for free!" "That's right, and switch to Linux and you'll get it free, too!" What could be fairer than "Free you, free me; money you, money me."? Yeah, make a special closed-source Windows-only license. Just to hear the gasps of indignation: How DARE we!

On the whole, I'm in favor of Open Source ports to Windows, but that's only because of my prime belief: More free software makes it a better world for everyone.

I downloaded TheOpenCD and make a copy for friends stuck on dial up and limited connections. You're right, having a Google logo on it would really give it cred, but people might think that they wrote all this cool software by themselves.

If your students are not running Linux, and their backgrounds are in the Windows and mainframe worlds, then it might be best to approach OSS from the Windows side. This is especially true if your student's are not willing to install Linux on their own boxen or on whatever they may use at their place of employment.

So, be sure to include Windows based OSS programs such as found on the Open CD and check out the the source forge osswin site at http://osswin.sourceforge.net/.

You need to give them a flavor of what Linux is like to be sure, so include Knoppix in the mix somewhere.

It sounds like your course will be for programmers. If so, then introducing them to Cygwin would be a good idea. You may even wish to run KDE under cygwin on Windows (see http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/

For development tools you should cover the creating programs from the command line using make, etc., but also cover OSS IDE's -- Eclipse in particular would be a good one. And of course use g++ for C++ and Sun's java (I am not a purist so I think Java's Sun will suffice but Sun's Java is not regarded as true OSS, so you may need to find something else for Java.)

If you use g++ with cygwin on windows, then also consider introducing them to minGW so they can make their programs run natively on windows.

I run both windows and Linux at home, and prefer Linux. But at work I have to use a window box. I have cygwin with X installed and use both firefox and OpenOffice as replacements with no problems. I am posting to let you know about the windows possibilities because I beleive that you may encounter some resistance if you require your student's to run Linux. OSS on windows is a good way to introduce those who are new to OSS and Unix like file systems and tools to newbies.

In addition to all the lovely foss for windows, the only closed source program I ever recommend is nLiteXP . You basically copy your XP disc to a directory, and then sick nLite on it. It extracts the cabs and can really neuter it (Highly customizable with a slick GUI) and you can get your default XP install from ~2GB down to 400MB highly usable. Less if you wanted. nLite will make a new iso file that can be customized for auto install and service pack slipstreaming and driver install, all sorts of nifty things. You burn that and install.

So basically, you can have 350MB of core windows XP and another 500MB of the best FOSS for windows. A highly capable and speedy efficient XP box, its a great option for a lot of older hardware. I was doing this two years ago after getting fed up with closed and crappy apps, and then realized I might as well go all the way and use linux, so its a good intro to people who are curious about what open source offers. A lot of people were cautious about bringing free stuff to a closed platform, but I think it can only be good, as it increases awareness and may spur a platform switch like me. Also, not spreading freedom into an area where there lacks freedom sounds a lot like not donating food to an area that is starving. Neither will get people to move to linux/out of the third world.

IS this an on topic first post?

I hope it's on topic. I rely heavily on folks like you to tell me what software they find indespensible so I don't have to wade through as much crap to find the gems. I think that's what this article is all about.

Before this, my best source of open source on Windows was TheOpenCD. There's quite a bit of overlap with the Tom's Hardware article and I highly recommend it as a way to get many of these gems all in one place.

TW

TheOpenCD has a nice collection also

Blender runs on Windows, too, as part of the legendary OpenCD project: http://www.theopencd.org/

I only did a quick run through of your site, but am I correct that it is a Windows-only software site? I will certainly pass your URL around because I work with some people who seem to feel that software isn't any good or reliable unless they paid someone money for it.

And of course, OpenCD ( http://www.theopencd.org/ ) makes it a good compilation of open source softwares too.

http://www.theopencd.org/
Is a common link when a topic like this comes up.

I find I can make a more current and better CD than OpenCD, and I'd encourage other geeks to compile their own Open Software CDs, and recommend software to their friends. If they're looking to record sounds, use Audacity. If they want to borrow your Word CD, show them Open Office 1.9.122.

If they want to rip their CD collection, install CDex for them and show them the CDDB button, then press F9.

http://www.theopencd.org/

Open source software for Windows on a CD. Download the iso.

KTHX

Absolutely. Burn off a bunch of copies, and hand them out while talking about the Free beer/speech concept.

For anyone who hasn't looked at the Open CD lately, it still has all the OSS for windows goodness it always had, and now it includes Ubuntu live on the same CD with the same apps installed there.

I was also going to suggest GnuWin as well, but they seem to be in limbo at the moment. Maybe put together your own disk of OSS apps based on their list, which has several good titles that the Open CD doesn't have. The two compliment each other fairly nicely.

Dig an old PC out of storage, like maybe something around a P500. Install Linux. Install OpenOffice and Firefox.

Start your activity by having everyone use the PC for a bit, then have them try to guess the MHz of the machine.

Give the winner the PC. Give everyone who attends a copy of TheOpenCD.

Just in case you didn't see it before: TheOpenCD is a project - at least partly - developed with this in mind.

Chock full of F/OSS software for Windows, it's a great tool to introduce MS entrenched minds to the availability of quality, alternative software.

http://www.theopencd.org/

How about some CD's (or wallet CD's) that have open source software on it. You can get them started with the OpenCD, then Damn Small Linux, then maybe Knoppix. Try demo'ing them.

Give them each a copy of The Open CD. It's got games and screensavers and a bunch of work-friendly Free Software on it too.

Regarding JScript .Net, you're pretty damned right it isn't well documented, I spent my first month trying to learn .Net, and wanted to use JavaScript (my fav. language) ... spent a larger part of the time converting VB.Net and C# stuff, much of which didn't seem to work right (anything using dll/system/unmanaged calls, never did figure that out).. finally I broke down and learned C#, was much more neat as far as code goes, the VB-Like tie-in for declared objects kinda irked me.

'VB
Public MyObject As Object

//JS
public myObject as Object; //iirc

//C#
public Object myObject;

I just like the C# syntax a bit better.. just a personal view though. I like JavaScript in and of itself, I think the way it handles say regular expressions should be added into C#, it imho is about the biggest point that JS has over C#, since the syntax outside of declarations is about the same.

As for .Net development, with the SDK installed, can always use SharpDevelop as a free, opensource ide for .Net ... MonoDevelop is based on an earlier fork of #dev.

Beyond all this, javascript can be used in conjunction with XUL as another RAD environment, iirc the TheOpenCD uses it for it's menu/installer front end..

It would have an autostart, be easy to install and the description of each app would be written by the vendor.

I think the product you are looking for is right here:

http://www.theopencd.org/

Put some manuals in with that, print them up in colour, make a snazzy box, put the logo's of all the major brands and slap a "A 500$ value!" (as compared to close source) on it, and you have yourself a winnner.

Hell, better yet, put a live CD like SLAX in there, and you'll be really rockin'!