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The Best of Windows Open Source Software?
Boiotos asks: "I'm cooking up a CD-ROM image of excellent Win32 Open Source software to give to friends and family who are intrigued by the whole OSS movement but don't know where to start. I figure once they're used to Mozilla and AbiWord under WinXP, a Linux partition would be less daunting. So fellow Slashdotters, how about it: what Win32 OSS projects deserve a place on the 650 Mb of Solid Gold? Remember, this is for non-geeks and families, so Cygwin is out (even though I love it) and games are in. Extra points, as always, to the obscure but beautiful. Finally, projects targeting only Win32 -- with no Free Unix crossover -- may apply, but will be subject to a strenuous physical test."
Can you say Tux Racer?
FreeeCiv
OpenOffice
and WinGimp
I would love to hear more from everyone else.
Is this thing on?
Hey, I thought you only trolled! What's with the good suggestions?
PuTTY is a work of art. It's free, it's flexible, it's self-contained in one executable (no bloody installers!)...it's the single Windows program that I must have if I'm using a Windows machine.
It can even emulate X11's middle-click-to-paste and select-to-copy mode. Absolutely wonderful.
May we never see th
Sorry, but I don't know too many non-geeks who have a need for an ssh/telnet client.
CDex was the first OS project for windows (besides mozilla) that popped into mind. But if the idea is to make a CD to "educate" people into using OSS, then it would be a good idea to advocate the use of OGG/Vorbis - with CDex in this case.
Most Windows users start out with MS Paint{,brush}. Compare this to the GIMP. Then compare it to Photoshop.
Paint has the right idea in my Book of UI Design for Image Editors - a 'full screen' workspace for your image, tools that are kept outside the image, and menus that are accessed from the top of the screen.
Photoshop take that one step further with tabbed palletes (as this comment says, perhaps that can't be replicated exactly without infringing copyright laws) - however, I expect with a few hours of work, someone familar with the GIMP could write a more usable (in this case, yes I mean more Windows-friendly) UI for it, moving all the menus to a MDI style application. Take THAT app and package it on your Windows OSS CD.
GIMP has all the hard work done - the image tools are great, and wingimp claim to have 90% of PS's functionality. And you can't complain about 0% of the price.
Windows people would only get confused by The GIMP. It looks like crap so normal users don't bother figuring out how to use it. Sure, some learning is always a good thing, but the interface is not only (IMO) counter-intuitive, it goes against the established norm, in a way that could be very easily fixed.
VNC for several platforms.
It isn't. Well, not for most people (even Slashdot people). I can't speak for others, but I find it mildly offensive that many people are convinced that Windows is the only way, that with software you get what you pay for, and that if a person cannot afford photoshop or MS Office that they simply cannot edit photos or create documents/presentations/spreadsheets. It is more a matter of educating people, showing them, "See, there is ANOTHER way, and it's better in many respects."
Others, to a degree myself, are offended by Microsoft's (and other) commercial software company's moral bankruptsy and their screwing of users, and feel morally compelled to at least let others know that they do not have to put up with it. That nobody has to use Microsoft, and that for the most part to not do so involves very little loss and significant gain.
Some people are just cheap, or truly low on money, and think they must choose between rent and important software. These people can also benefit greatly from OSS if they only knew about it.
Still other people, such as aspiring programmers, often have a tough time doing any real programming in Windows because it's so damn complex and crufty, and some eventually lose interest and leave for a different interest. Some of these people would also benefit greatly from being able to see the source to their programming tools--how they actually work--rather than reading unnavigable gigabytes of MSDN documentation to find info on how to work around some obscure bug or "feature" in their tools.
It isn't a religion, it's philanthropy.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
I would be very interested to have a copy... Can you post the ISO somewhere for us to burn? I have some interested family members too, as I guess otheres here will have too!
A Java app? If he wants to convert people to Free Software their first exposure shouldn't be slower than molasses.
EAC is primarily a ripper. Wishing it had built-in OGG encoding is beyond its scope. I don't like that they include LAME binaries now, but I guess it helps to bring it close to more people. They may include built in ogg sometime in the near future. who knows? On the other subject, you can use a "user defined encoder", set the extension to .OGG, point to oggenc.exe and set your own additional command line options, with the difference that you need to put %s %d after your options.
So what you are looking for would be basically:
--quality 7.5 %s %d
The Birate is irrelevant and the rest remains the same.
The best cure for insomnia is realizing that it is already time to get up. EsteEncanto.com - Blog on technology, urban
But definately not for the same reason as you. I don't want Skr1pt K1dd13z sniffing my passwords, and that's what I use ssh for. If you are a CS (or will becoming one), remember: the CLI is your friend. When I was at University, we learned how to use Unix, and we *liked* it. Again: the CLI is your friend.
Every machine on my home network has PuTTY, but just so that I can use it to admin our network server. My family (non-geeks) don't use it. I don't even use PuTTY much either, since my iBook has ssh built-in.
PuTTY doesn't belong on the CD this guy tries to make, but OpenOffice, Mozilla, The GIMP, CDEx most certainly do. Just wondering: is there an opensource media player for Windows? That would be a good one in the list.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I figure once they're used to Mozilla and AbiWord under WinXP, a Linux partition would be less daunting.
I am running courses in security using the excellent Knoppix Live Linux-on-CD, which requires no installation, you just boot on the CD into a smooth KDE 3 interface, OpenOffice, XMMS, Xine media player, Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon and another approximately 2 GB worth of OS software. At first, Windows users are impressed by the feat itself, then they discover they can reach data on the Windows partition. Then they start questioning what Windows gives them that Linux cannot give them on the desktop. IT WORKS!
Bodø community site
I originally tried CDex. I liked it, but it -never- produced 100% quality rips from my CD's. There would always be a pop or glitch somewhere in the song. I could re-rip the song over and over and it would always happen in the exact same spot. I used Audiograbber (free version) until I found EAC. Eac is highly configurable and one of the best rippers I've ever used. No more song glitches. Period.
I've always kept my eye on CDex and tried newer versions. It's pretty slick. I like the software. I've just always obtained better results from EAC. However, I don't think EAC is open source. Is it? This discussion was supposed to be about OSS, and not just about quality Win32 freeware.
TightVNC is a much better choice. It offers compression, and is much faster.
If you're concerned about security, then don't open the VNC ports up to the Internet. Install cygwin, install openssh, run it as a service, and ssh to the windows box and tunnel the VNC ports through ssh.
It may not be for you but do you consider your computer skills average? If you spend some time teaching computer skills to Normal People, you'll notice how even the concept of a file or directory structure is difficult.
People are lazy. They don't bother learning things unless they have to. Most people will gladly learn and use AbiWord instead of WordStar. Not because AbiWord has more features. It's just easier.
Vim will take over the world when most people stop using elevators and opt for climbing the stairs.
Your last line is completely wrong: a user does not have to get familiar with vim to avoid being completely lost when they have to edit a text file on Linux. The fact that you believe otherwise means that I ask you to stay away from potential Linux converts.
No person coming from the Windows or Mac world has ever seen a moded editor in the style of vi. Every other editor in the world, from Notepad to Emacs, lets the user just start typing and the text gets entered correctly. Like everyone who's been in the Unix world a long time, I can use vi if I must, but I'd rather not. Emacs has many flaws as well; its choice of keybindings is rather antique, but at least they are changeable. Better still to give new users a decent text-editing widget.
If the user you inflict vim on thinks that she'll have to put up with such things on Linux, you're not going to get a convert.
vi/vim should be available for those who explicitly want it, but we don't need any new converts to the cult.
Never thought you'd hear that?
I guess I didn't notice the transition. It used to be "there's no apps for Linux." Now Linux is showing up Windows since "out of the box" it's actually usable because of all the apps bundled with it.
Whereas with Windows you have to dig for Free instead of just Stolen.
-- jhoger