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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?
CDex -> for converting their CDs to MP3...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
www.openoffice.org
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
to include XBill!!!
a ^= b; b ^= a; a ^= b;
Gnucleus! Open Source gnutella file sharing. For once you can be REALLY sure that there isn't any spyware in your filesharing software!
I cannot imagine anyone using a Windows machine without the magnificent PuTTY ssh, telnet, and rlogin client. It is probably the best ssh programme I have ever had the pleasure of using, and its terminal emulator is superior to most xterms in many ways. Your CD collection would be incomplete without it.
FreeeCiv
OpenOffice
and WinGimp
I would love to hear more from everyone else.
Is this thing on?
Celestia has to be some of the most awesome software Ive ever used. You can navigate the cosmos and it looks absolutely incredible! This would be a program I would use to show people how cool OSS is.
The required ROMS make it kind of a gray app. But the full source IS available...
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
X-Chat is available as windows builds, works great.
I'm pretty sure there's a FreeCiv client for Windoze. That way, when they make the switch (we can hope, right?), they'll have a little something familiar to jump into and play with...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I don't think the fact that it's open source is what's going to keep your family away from Linux. It probably has more to do with the fact that, for the unititiated, Linux can be confusing as hell.
My computer usage is pretty much limited to games, web browsing, office work, and some image and video editing for school. I'm all for the idea of open source-- Mozilla's my browser of choice-- but installing and configuring Linux is beyond me. And I'm 20, so I've been using computers for about half my life.
In short, open source isn't the roadblock to Linus usage. Just a thought.
Also a very addictive game called crack attack, which runs on windows and linux, and is under the GPL:
Crack Attack
Other things that you should consider include Python and PyGame (don't forget SDL as well!).
[x]Chat runs under windows (native), and is the only irc I'd consider using (beats the hell out of mirc).
Putty is an open source ssh/telnet client. Its possibly the best telnet client for use under windows. Then again, could anything be worse than C:\Windows\Telnet.exe ?
I've probably missed quite a few good ones, but these are things I seriously like.
A little overkill never hurt anybody.
virtualdub
Aggie is an open source news aggregator. Basically, you give it the URL to your favorite RSS feeds, it downloads and parses them, and then builds a web page with the headlines. The really nice thing about it is that it supports RSS autodiscovery, so in many cases, you can simply provide the URL to the site itself, and it will find the RSS feed for you.
It does not use the GPL, but its license is considered open source by the OSI definition.
Another caveat is that it is written in C# and thus requires the .NET framework to run, so it isn't portable to other operating systems (not yet, at least). The upside is that the C# source code is fairly easy to follow, even for a dunce like me.
FreeAmp plays MP3 and Ogg.
FileZilla is a fantastic opensource FTP client. There is also a FTP server component, which is just as good. It's much better than any shareware client out there.
Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
Blender can now go on your list, as they've reached their 100k. It is my impression that the sources should be opened Pretty Soon now. They whole 3d graphics system or game engine may not appeal to Joe Average, but his kids will eat it up. Face it, how many of us originally got into programing so that we could make our own games?
For the "Windows Only" Software:
jzip (http://www.bytamin-c.com/Source/) - this is an unzipper, and a great replacement for WinZIP.
For the Windows and Unix world try:
Gimp for windows (http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/)
And don't forget the games!
The game of Go for windows (http://www.public32.com/games/go/)
The Windows GNU gaming zone: (http://wggz.sourceforge.net/)
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
Gotta give 'em GIMP. Better than Photoshop - FREE!
www.sjbaker.org
Don't get me wrong: I loooooooooooooooooooooove Mozilla (use it on FreeBSD, got 2002090017 build -- latest I could find) and was really hoping to convert him to Mozilla (and then to LInux....mwuahahahahah!) I'm just wondering if anyone else has had similar problems.
I know this is pretty damned useless as a diagnosis: I work on helpdesk for an ISP, and I always hate it when someone calls and says "My thing doesn't work with my other thing. Why?" I'm just wondering if Mozilla + Printers + Win98 == Kaboom! is a common thing, or just One Of Those Things.
Anyhow, maybe throw in a copy of K-Meleon, or Ethereal if they want to see what browser everyone else is using :-).
Carousel is a lie!
Text-based interactive fiction contains some of the most amazing games ever made, and most are free.
There are several different IF environments -- TADS and Inform are the most popular, playable by TADS and Frotz, respectively.
There are many incredible games for both, but two of my favorites are Babel and Toonesia. This type of game loses most of its value if you cheat -- most of the value of the game is in gameplay.
Give it a shot, and rack your brains...and don't get eaten by a grue.
May we never see th
How about Cygwin? X for Cygwin?
gcc or djgcc or something to let people do free development for windows - kdevelop ported to Win32?
vim!!! (though that may not be a good idea for people who have never seen VI
Does Blender have a win port?
Apache - how to have a safer web server.
VNC - for people who want to do work from home (or abuse works high speed connection)
I hadn't been a GAIM fan before, but there is a Win32 port out (not perfect), but it does have the tabbed conversation window thing going on, which may impress those used to standard AIM interface. If you've got a couple spare meg, toss it on. :)
creation science book
...throwing in the SUSE demo that runs from CD. This way they can do more than just wonder, and it won't involve reworking their HD in the process. After all, the goal is to get them off Windows, not make them so comfortable they'll stay.
Or is this some ploy from another MS shill, looking for ideas, and/or converts to drink yet more of the kookaid....
The home page is at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/
I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but that's a good start. Hopefully other posters will list their faves...
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Even though it isn't for linux - it is GPL and therefor OSS.
http://www.phpedit.net/
Quite a good prog - even though I dont use windows anymore.
Beyond that Quanta is a great program that does the same stuff - but for linux.
Derek
Virtual Dub rules. If you do any work with video on Windows, it is essential.
Virtual Dub is much more stable and its interface is much more streamlined than most other free software. Plus it has probably the most robust AVI read/write code ever offered. Out-of-spec files that crash other video programs, Virtual Dub chews 'em up and spits 'em out.
K-Meleon is a nice little Win32 web browser that uses the Gecko rendering engine from the Mozilla project. Though still just a bit rough around the edges, it is an impressive piece of work; it is quite fast, and very customizable. The latest beta versions include tabbed browsing, a feature I can't live without. If they add URL autocomplete, the browser will be very suitable for day-to-day use.
The development team appears to be rather small, and they release infrequently. I recommend grabbing the last beta release, and not the last public release, which is old.
I believe that K-Meleon is released under the GPL.
Virtualdub is excellent video editing software. Easy to get started with and *very* powerful. I use it to back up all of my DVDs. Give it a try.
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
Oh right. Just send us the source then and it can go on the disk.
What's that Lassie? The troll forgot to hit Post Anonymously before that one?
- Chris
I wrote a little utility that allows you to have window transparency under Windows 2000 and XP. It's called Vitrite, and it's licensed under the GPL.
It certainly isn't in the same league as Mozilla and OpenOffice, but you'll definately have room for it on your CD (only 85 KB).
And yes it's the same utility I've been pimping in my sig for months now.
The Windows port of the Vim editor is a sine qua non. Except for not being able to use interesting pipe commands, the PC port will do anything in the world one might want to do with a text document, and it has just enough GUI functionality to be useful without being intrusive.
I see thy doubts, friend, and they ex-POSE thee! Get thee behind me, SATAN, thou foul open grave of proprietary FILTH! I banish thee in the name of TUX! Let not thy infidelity and obfuscation be a stumblin' block to the newly converted, CAN I GET AN AMEN-A!
Friends, ig-NORE the sireen call of the pay-to-play heathen that lurk in the hedgerows, clinging to the darkness, roaring like a lion, SEEKING WHOM THEY MAY DEVOUR! Open thy hearts, OPEN THY SOURCE! Come to the cleansing fountain of forgiveness from closed-sources. Do not let these Philistines halt thy progress! Come into the LIGHT! COME INTO THE LIIIIIGHT!
I neeed a nap.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Many open source Jabber clients are available, so maybe you can get your friends to use open source software with an open instant messaging protocol!
Personally, I use PSI when using Windows, but there are others out there that may be just as good. I do believe, though, that Psi is cross-platform, which may be a plus.
I can see it now...
Me: Okay Grandma here's Putty, it's for connecting to my servers via ssh/sftp/ftp or telnet.
Grandma: [confusion on face] what was that honey?
Me: Oh come on now Grandma don't be coy. You know you've been secretly sshing into my servers to check your AOL mail via Pine.
Grandma: [with a look on her face like she just smoked a QP of weed] huh?
Me: Grandma? You still in there?
I can see it now Putty for the family, everyone huddled around the PC roasting chestnuts, securing their linux boxes, checking top to see current system utilization, running ps to see if there are any runaway processes...
lol, great post, PuTTY. I've got tears man, tears!
Well, there's always Amaya, W3C's HTML editor/browser. I think they have a Win32 build.
Amaya's been around for a long time, but not many people know about it, which is a real shame. It's a nice HTML editor, and produces very clean, HTML 4.0 compliant code. It supports CSS, and many other related web technologies. Check it out.
OpenOffice.org
Miranda ICQ
Mozilla
Putty
XNview
Audacity
TuxRacer
GLTron
Povray
FreeCiv
Kakepad
FileZilla
Xchat
CDex
All GPL (I believe), and hopefully I didn't include anything too geeky.
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.
Open Source Software for Windows
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
Though I don't think that's quite the niche you are going for...
sic transit gloria mundi
During the summer, I suggested to my local Unix Users Group that we put together a campaign on campus dubbed "Software for Starving Students." The idea is that we would advocate the use of Free Software among the student body at BYU.
The ball got rolling, and we put together a CD image that we burned and handed out to students from a booth in the student center. We selected OpenOffice, Mozilla, The Gimp, BZFlag, and AbiWord in the most recent incarnation.
Last week, we gave out 400 copies of the CD from the booth. I mentioned to the group that if we did the math the way Microsoft does math, with each disc, we saved a student around $1,300. The 400 copies from last week combined with the 180 copies we gave out during the summer comes to around 3/4 of a million dollars with of savings to the student body! :-)
I, of course, took every opportunity to explain to passerby who accepted the disc about the multiple meanings of the word "free." The club president was making people promise to copy the software and give it to their friends in exchange for receiving the disc. Our Linux Install Fest last Saturday kept the classroom packed with students who heard about Linux and wanted us to install it on their computers for them.
I'm happy to say that we're doing our part to keep Linux from getting "stomped."
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
10,000 disks at 99 cents per in my books would be a worse way to make a living than my day job which, if you follow the link from my nick, you will find consists in teaching ancient history to fantastic university students and researching computing and history. Still, if they don't give me tenure it might make a good backup plan :-)
UT2003 != Open Source
Therefore, it has no place on an open source software sampler CD. READ... then post =)
Besides, even if it was, if you want to showcase games, UT2k3 (which is just UT with a Quake3 lookalike engine) is *not* what I'd choose!!!
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
I'd like to nominate Anna the Chatbot, licensed under the GPL. Sure, it requires Java 2 1.4 to run, but it can be quite the way to kill some time.
And there are some lonely evenings when - waaaait....Let's not go there......
The last time I checked (which was several months ago) Egoboo wasn't quite ready for prime time, but it's fun enough that I doubt anybody will care and the installation and setup was painless. It's certainly a project to keep an eye on.
VNC for several platforms.
In the same vein, isn't Limewire open source?
May we never see th
GLTron is one of the coolest free games out there.
SetupWeasel
GUI Secure CoPy
Train those friends and family to use a secure method of transfering files.
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
Please note that there is already a project currently working on this. You may want to combine forces since they've been working on this since this last spring.
Check out the OpenCD project at
http://www.theopencd.org/
You are free to work on your on project of course, but I HATE to see duplication of effort.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
I hope to get around to playing NetHack someday, but I just can't stop playing Angband long enough to set it up!
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
It seems like a great flight sim, but you apparently need a pretty fast computer (either that or I don't have opengl set up where it can find it)
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
Dude, the last few versions of CDex are just dandy under XP. I suugest you pay a visit to SourceForge and download the latest build. Then you can off MusicMatch to /dev/null (yeah, I KNOW it doesn't exist in Win. That's 'cos Win IS /dev/null).
I have CDex dancing like Gene Kelly on my XP notebook. It's one of the few things on my checklist keeping using Windows (although our in-house Linux guru almost has me convinced...)
If you need help, contact me off the boards.
Trib
I understand that the GIMP has a decidedly different UI from what Windows users are accustomed to...heck, different from GNOME.
However, I simply cannot agree on the MDI modification.
First, GIMP's current UI is very good for multiple viewports, where you can spread it out across multiple desktops. MDI would take that away. Even on a single viewport you can put some palletes in the back if you don't need them.
Second, one common complaint about GIMP is its complete and utter lack of modality. There are no dialog boxes that come up and prevent you from doing things. In the middle of setting some plugin settings? Just flip to another window and do some other work. This can get confusing to people that are used to Photoshop -- but I'm quite certain that while this approach is unfamiliar, it's much better. You're never locked in to doing a particular step.
Finally, it would be nice to have "palette" style windows, but unfortunately X11 doesn't support a palette (or in Mac OS UI terms, a "windoid") window style. It would be incredibly nifty if it did...
May we never see th
...meeting the "non-geek" challenge is harder. Most OSS I use on Windows is command-line. I've got to have InfoZIP's CLI zip utilities or my Windows box just isn't complete. Note, they have a GUI client called "Wize" or something like that, but unless it's improved a lot within the past few months I can't recommend it. Of course gzip and bzip2 or important too, but that's even more geeky than the CLI zip.
Then of course there is Gifsicle for making animated GIFs. I like it so much I'm willing to hold my nose on the GPL.
I wouldn't be afraid to recommend Apache for Windows at this point either. I actually found it *easier* to deal with than any "personal webserver" put out by MSFT. Maybe that's just me.
Of course, these are all CLI (or non-gui config for Apache). If you are serious about doing a commercial OSS for Windows CD, you need to include a 90-10 tutorial for your CLI software. By this, I mean giving the users examples that show the 10% of CLI options that provide 90% of the functionality. Gifsicle has at least 15 options (probably more), and I think I used about 3 of them to produce some killer animated GIFs.
Then of course there are the browser, office tools, GIMP etc. that others have suggested. However, none of that GUI OSS has lasted long on my machine. ABIword is the exception. I think I put it to actual use *once* to bang out a simple letter for my Dad. Nothing against ABIword; it's just that for some strange reason no GUI OSS has really worked its way into my heart.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If you like text editors, JEdit is great and it crosses over because it is java. Another java app is LimeWire, a gnutella client.
I'm surprised nobody meantioned Apache. A web server is a usefull thing to somebody with broadband.
A good game is freeciv, a Civilization knock off.
I wish I could code, because if I did, I'd definitely port this app over to *nix.
I have a feeling that most Windows folks would roll their eyes at Nethack's ASCII graphics. I know, I speak sacrilege, but we can win over the infidels with the delights of the Falcon's Eye Nethack wrapper.
One tip though, if you are trying to run the latest CVS version in linux, edit the gui/run file and change all the semicolons to colons in order for limewire to run on Linux.
I used CDex last year in a production project: large batches of interviews on CD and MD had to be converted (or recorded into the computer for the MD files) to MP3, cleaned and edited.
CDex never showed a single glitch. It was fast, clean and easy to use. CoolEdit, the proprietary program used to treat the sound files, on the other hand, had problems saving MP3 (it would cut the last few seconds of a file).
so, ummm, there.
- Chris
Mod parent up. VNC is very useful. I used it to shut down all the computers in the house at night right from my computer, no need to walk around to each one.
Are they casual bussiness users, or they programmers, gamers, artists, or hobbests?
The reason why I am asking this, is because their is so much software that is designed for so many different things. If your friend is an artist, would he or she like Perl? I think not. However, that person might love learning the gimp or blender.
For hobbiests, I recommend litestep because the gui looks cool and they like to tinker with things, as well as apache and the gimp. Apache is cool for those hobbiests who run their own web servers. If you have high speed internet access try SuSe's live-cd. It boots suse linux from the cd and does not install anything on the hard drive. This makes it safe for newbies to goof around.
For programmers, I would recommend perl, python, ruby, gvim, jtext, and netbeans. Gvim for win32 comes with an easy-mode so that even your mother can use it. Basically it always stays in edit mode. Of course without learning the special commands it may seem simplistic and outdated to a newbie. Emacs users please do not start a flame war. I am sorry but their is no easy-mode that I am aware of for the win-32 version of Xemacs. If their is then feel free to flame me and I will recommend Xemacs be included as well to make things fair. Jtext might be a better solution because its all point and click. Also Win-32 developers would feel right at home with the Netbeans ide. Support for other langages besides java is now being included. This makes this ide hot! You may want to include the win-32 version of gcc if its mature enough. Last I heard it still was quite far behind the unix version but it sure beats paying for an ms compiler. Last but not least their is free database software like mysql which would be great for any newbie programmer who wants to learn sql but can not afford SQL-server or Oracle.
For office users, the only thing I could recommend is openoffice. Of course he/she probably already has ms-office so this might not appeal. Windows is designed from the ground up as an office OS. THey would probably prefer windows over linux untill paladium and product activation per pc becomes the norm.
Gamers would not be interested in any free software I can think of unless they are interested in game development. Where they would like all the things I mentioned above for "programmers".
Artists would like blender, and the gimp.
Last but not least, for computer professionals I would recommend cygwin from redhat's website. It really is a unix in windows and included bash, gcc, apache, vim, emacs, mysql,postgresql, etc. Great to learn unix and have a taste of unix. Of course I recommend to actually use linux if you need to do any unix related work because linux is a native environment. Some packages do not compile properly under cygwin like they do in a native unix environment and unix and windows have different models for threads and processes causing some cygwin compilied apps ( cough cough apache) to perform poorly. However the new native win-32 version of apache2 is more Windows friendly.
Oh, I found a few cool free mp3/ogg rippers from tucows. I believe its called FreeRip.
So basically to sum it up its FreeRip, jtext, gvim, netbeans, apache, mysql, cygwin, Perl, Python, Ruby, openoffice, mozilla, blender and the gimp.
http://saveie6.com/
oggdrop? why not cdex, which is perhaps one of the most known free software projects for windows
Hope he's not planning on putting this cd together quickly... just /.'d all the mirrors for these pacakages real good.
- Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
http://virtualdub.sf.net
It's an excellent tool for manipulating video files. It has the ability to do batch conversions, and for some tasks, is faster then Ulead MediaStudio Pro or Adobe Premiere. While the amount of things you can do with it is limited, if it does what you need, it's a great tool to do it with. Plus it's not squimish about using any codecs you have on your system.
SSL Certificate
Probably not much call for remote control software for most end-users, but MS is promoting it in XP for consumers to use when calling up helpdesks, so VNC is a great GPLed solution.
http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
Politas
Armagetron is a great 3D version of tron! I love it! Slick graphics and awesome sound effects and gameplay. I recommend the latest beta version, since the stable one doesn't have a good AI.
A great little multiplatform Postscript and PDF (Acrobat) viewer.
Here's the Ghostscript, home page, and the GSview-specific page.
-- Alastair
Seriously -- if the idea is to make a Linux partition seem less daunting, put the Win32 version of Vim on there. It won't take up too much room (about 3.7 MB or so as of version 6.1) and it's a very straightforward install. Reasons for including vim? Well:
1) Every UNIX machine in the world has vi on there somewhere. Emacs may or may not be installed, depending on the preference of the sysadmin. But if you at least know four or five basic editing & navigation commands in vi, then you'll be fine if you wind up trying to use a strange UNIX system somewhere.
2) You can actually describe it in a way that won't be horrifically intimidating. Tell them it's a replacement for Notepad with a lot more features. And you can use the mouse if you want, but there's keyboard shortcuts for everything: once you learn them, you'll be twice as fast with Vim as with any other editor.
3) Vim's built-in tutorial (":help tutor") -- I wouldn't even mention it as a possibility without this one.
Yeah, a lot of people will hate Vim and run back to Notepad. But if they try it and get at least as far as finishing the tutorial, they won't be COMPLETELY lost when they first try Linux and have to edit a text file.
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
my LAMP (Linux Apache Mysql PHP) box cost me exactly the price of the hardware.
can you do me a quote for an equivalent IIS/ASP/ODBC box?
cheers.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
http://tuxracer.sourceforge.net/
Politas
Its best to use 650 disks for online distribution, older cdr drives don't work with 700 disks and many people use cdrw disks and 650 RW disks ares still the norm
You are limited to only 24 bits
That's a problem for some, but not for me. I work in mostly web graphics and video game graphics, which are often dithered down to 16 or 256 colors anyway.
If there is color management or matching in this
No. The good algorithms for doing that are patented in the United States, and the Free Software Foundation is headquartered in the United States.
or any other program available on Linux I'd like to know about it.
If you buy Codeweavers products, perhaps they could improve Wine to the point where it can run most of Adobe Photoshop.
I'm not sure if the gamma and curve control is adequate, although given the first two limitations, it doesn't really matter.
Gamma (Image > Colors > Levels...) and curves (Image > Colors > Curves...) work for me.
BTW, is anybody working on a deep color rewrite of the gimp?
A rewrite of GIMP based on GEGL (a more generic graphics library) is in the works. I don't know whether or not GEGL supports deep color.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's a little rough, but Fwink is a great replacement for webcam32 that runs on Windows. It's even packaged in a nicely polished msi installer.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
Yeah, Blender is cool. It does help if you have some kind of manual to get started, though. ("The Blender Book" -- Linux Journal Press/No Starch Press -- worked for me) Blender (nor, I imagine, any similar program) doesn't lend itself well to learning by just playing around with it.
-- Alastair
I'd have to put in a vote for k-meleon too. The beta is very nice. And a true windows interface unlike moz/phoenix.
LAME [mp3dev.org], the MP3 encoder that CDex includes
LAME is good, but it still ain't an MP3 encoder. It's the source code to an MP3 encoder. It won't be an MP3 encoder until Fraunhofer's U.S., German, and Japanese patents expire in the early to mid 2010s. Yes, binaries are available, but downloading those may be just as infringing as downloading proprietary console game ROMs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Would be somewhat difficult as it relies on DirectShow (DirectX) filters to read files. You'd have to write your own module for all that.
GLTron is a EXCELLENT rendition of Tron's light cycle game, for up to 4 players. It uses OpenGL and renders a beautiful arena completely faithful to the movie complete with a recognizer flying overhead. It works with up to 4 players, as well.
Also, did anyone mention the GL Quake2 demo?
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
602Suite. Check http://www.software602.com/
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
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!
VirtualDub is in my opinion the best application of its kind, commercial or otherwise. I use it on a daily basis, and it gives me precise and total control over my video processing. Not to mention the unbelievable assembly-optimized speed! VirtualDub is truly the Photoshop of video capture and linear editing.
Those interested in VirtualDub might want to check out the new Unofficial Virtualdub Support Forums. They're a good place to get tips and help if you're just getting started with VirtualDub. Even though they're not "official" VirtualDub forums, VirtualDub author Avery Lee does drop by every once in a while.
(Disclosure: I am one of the volunteer moderators on the site, in the newly inaugurated and not-yet-very-active VirtualDub Development Forum.)
begin 644
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Open source, small, light, and fast.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
There are several OSS jabber clients that are worth mentioning (don't use them myself though). Then there's fantastic editors such as JEdit and Jext. Since we are entering the area of development tools, netbeans and eclipse also need to be mentioned.
Warftpd is a fantastic ftp deamon under GPL (use it every day). Jdictionary is a nice dictionary app.
Jilles
Include vlc as a great DVD / VCD player, and maybe MPlayer too.
And if they don't run screaming from the room you know you've got some future geeks on your hand. :)
KFG
it is most godlike of you to mention this incredible program that I had not ever used before! I cannot believe how cool this is. Especially since I just a week or two ago went searching for such a program (much lower standards had I) and didn't find it. And the contributer sites with all kinds of spacecraft and moon models etc. etc. I have been wanting this program for years!
btw, in my search I did find another very cool program which renders the sky accurately and beautifully, which is also quite impressive. You might like it.
-pyrrho
Whenever FreeDOOM gets finished, you could pack that with one of the enhanced Windows engine ports of the game such as ZDoom, PrBoom or JDoom.
What about X-Chat, win32 experimental build? It saved many people like me from Mirc (I hate its UI,sorry). Works real fine even though its experimental.
http://www.xchat.org
I couldn't figure out how to downmix from stereo to mono
From the stereo track's menu, choose "split stereo track." Then change both tracks to mono. Then select Project->Quick Mix.
or how to reduce the sample rate.
Audacity doesn't do resampling in 1.0. This feature exists in the the 1.1 development branch.
Josh Haberman, Audacity developer
I can't get ASPI drivers to work for me
so I can't use CDex
EAC installed and ran flawlessly [although I had to find and install LAME binaries myself.]
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
and then your average Windows user melts
and looks like a serious piece of software
gtk on windows looks like the amatureish piece of crud anyone has ever written.
When a Photoshop user sees it and starts laughing the only defence you can come up with is "at least it's free and not warezed"
And then you try and use a 3000x5000 pixel image and watch it die a slow death.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
All the guys, who are actively engaged in USENET should try Hamster a local Mail- and newsserver with great filtering capabilities and many other features. For reading newsgroups, there is IIRC no good Open-Source-newsreader, but if freeware is enough, you should try xnews
loading all your settings into memory at boot for programs you might not even use during this session is such a Great Idea.
/$MY_DOCUMENTS/Program Settings/*.ini
and then make it a binary file format
let's make it so you can't back it up with simple file copy operations
Winner!!!
how much better than a bunch of text files in
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
QCad is very usable 2D CAD system. I doubt it's full-featured enough for professional applications, but a good choice for the common user.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Fwink ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/fwink ) is great, open source, and for the general mainstream audience of Windows users. Upload video and images from your webcam to the web. And hardly anyone knows of this that I've seen.
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
I'm making just that kind of CD myself!
.ini Files to serious project work. It's my main tool in Windows and Linux! And it can look really cool if you use the skinlf aqua skin :-). You just need a fast box to benefit from it, cuz' it's in Java (www.jedit.org)
But I'm putting on lot's of platform independent stuff on it, so it will actually run anywhere.
JEdit
Best Editor I know. Rulez in everything from
PSI
QT Jabber client. Nice. But there ought to be more out there for Windows. You might want to add a Jabber client, or?
Netbeans
NB rulez all IDEs. Forget JBuilder and it's lock-in APIs. This is the ticket if you're/they're into Programming. It's in Java for Java, C, C++, etc. (www.netbeans.org)
ActivePerl, ActivePython, etc.
There are a lot of *very* cool OSS PL setups for various languages on Windows. WinPython is one that comes to mind, wxPython another. Check out www.activestate.com for all your programming and newbie programming needs under Windows.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Audacity is a GPL audio recoder / waveform editor for Windows/*Nix, which I found to be very easy to use, and in some respects superior to windows solutions, when I was doing some audio editing in Linux this summer. Check it out.
The e-toys are great fun for school age children. Squeak for the cognoscenti, and Squeakland for Mum, Dad, and the Kids. Heaps of fun. Good books available from Amazon too.
Gimp might be of some interes. //Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
I am currently very keen on keynoted ex.html
http://www.lodz.pdi.net/~eristic/free/in
having previously used similar outliners like treepad and skwyrulpro, I now find that keynote has many great features, plus hard blowfish encryption. Just great for keeping on the fly notes and clippings, and of course those very personal diaries, or training records...
I also keep my VBA sorce code in it too - excel sheets being too big for portability.
...as in "Zinf is NOT Freeamp". A great music player that supports both MP3's and OGG's. I use it on my Win98 box to play OGG's from my Linux box across the network.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
Some WICKED Windows OpenGL screensavers (best fireworks sim I've ever seen among others.) All source code under GPL.
http://www.reallyslick.com/
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
OpenOffice 1.0 on Windows is excellent. It is not perfect, but it does not crash nearly as much as Office XP does, and StarCalc can be like crack to spreadsheet users.
First and foremost, have a directory for all those required DLLs ;) That way, they don't have to go hunting for them.
Next, there are a few neet-o utilities out there, in various forms. One that I use a fair bit, is a "Universal Converter". Weight, Mass, Distance. It converts Metric, to Imperial, or simply to another unit of the same. Ounces in a Bushel, for example. Then there's a handy utility I use all the time called "Say The Time". Simple little thing that can be set to announce Verbally, what time it is, so you will be less likely to loose track of the time. Alarms can also be set as well as reminders.
Just a few simple things to add. Feel free to e-mail me should you wish the actual files. Say The Time is out there on the web, but I haven't found the converter in Ages. I think it used to be a simple VBasic excercise, or something.
Good luck!
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Knowing how much Windows users like their Solitaire, I recommend PySol. Written in Python and Tk, it has over 200 unique soliatire games. My mother-in-law is addicted to Spider solitaire and absolutely loves PySol.
Unfortunately, the site doesn't have an up-to-date py2exe package of it (for non-Windows Python programmers, py2exe allows you to make a Windows EXE of a Python program, including the interpreter). You'll have to Google it to find it.
Liquid War is addictive, fast-paced, and easy to learn. Perhaps best of all, there's no installation routine. Unzip it and run it, and watch your cat disappear under a pile of laundry as everything outside the game ceases to be interesting.
The only application I use for a non-hobby purpose outside of work. I'm not sure it's so easy to run it on windows, though.
Working for necessity's mother.
Don't forget screen savers. For some people, that's all they have to let them know their 3D video card actually works.
My favorites, especially skyrocket (OpenGL, GPL): Really Slick.
I haven't seen anyone port these to linux yet, but that would be great to see (knowwhatImean knowwhatImean, nudge nudge, wink wink).
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
Freshmeat lists the Win32 projects by popularity and by rating. You can probably find more download sites that let you filter by license.
~~ What's stopping you?
After using Linux for the past few years, the biggest problem I have with Windows free software is that none of it is free. Every time I download something from Download.com or other sites, it's always a trial version, or a demo version. Almost nobody seems to be releasing free software, everyone wants to make a buck. That said, Cygwin is my favorite Windows OSS project!
How can we forget cygwin?
nobody has mentioned LiteStep!
LiteStep is a replacement desktop environment released under the GPL.
I have nine desktops, can drag windows between them, I have cpu and ram meters, quick-launch buttons and shortcuts, and can even drag windows from other destkops anywhere (don't think you can do that in most desktop envs).
with litestep and mozilla, unless I have a windows [file] explorer open, there's no MS except the system (kernel, services) running - which means with the multiple-instances-of-explorer option, I need not worry about [i]explore[r].exe crashing.
and (obviously) there is theming
other GPL windows projects of interest:
FreeCiv Civilization (one and/or two+) clone
Gaim AIM/yahooim/msnim/icq/jabber/... client
and the already mentioned cygwin, vim, gimp, mozilla.
if you hunt for it, there's a cygwin version of gvim that allows unix paths, etc. but uses X.
Xfree86 for cygwin is now prime-time (in installer) and works really well with windowmaker and openbox, but lacks integration with ms windows as the wm (the way eXceed, winaXe, XwinPro, and Xthin do). please, please contribute to that somebody!
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I found this very addictive Tetris game last year on SourceForge, and I've been playing it ever since. I even made my own CD with the Win32 installer and a huge collection of Tetris music to run in the background while playing.
Anything they may be using shareware for is a good candidate. For example, 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) for compressed file operations. I have yet to find a good opensource replacement for download accelerators, which are often shareware.
Don't forget to include some opensource games such as BZFlag and VegaStrike, both on SourceForge.
BTW, Freeciv is great, but its interface on Win32 frankly stinks. It's not likely to win converts.
Seriously, wake up. I don't want to offend you but you really have to wake up. Reasons for not including vi:
1) Its user interface is horribly old and horribly cryptic. The idea of a command mode and a separate input mode is difficult to understand and to learn. Believe me. It took over 10 years before I went through the trouble of learning the basics of vi and even now I only use it for basic text file editing. And I'm not a newbie. 2) They will ask you why a simple text editor has to be so difficult. If you try to convince them that it isn't, they may wonder how "easy" that Linux thing is after this "easy" editor. IMHO it's all right to like vi. Expecially if you're used to it. However, vi, sendmail configurations and everything not-usual cryptic stuff has to be hidden deep where it can't intimidate people. Teaching vi as first editor is like having a Windows beginners course where everything is configured through regedit.
oh, one more that I forgot to mention b/c litestep eliminates my need for it (and winxp integrated the idea): TraySaver (i can't find the license but the code is on sourceforge). ... VERY handy esp. at low resolution.
stash systemtray icons in a second tray available with a click, add an option to the alt+space pulldown that says 'minimize to tray'
the author's StartupCPL (closed source, puts in a control panel section to manage what starts up with windows) and WindowSizer (resize ANY window) are put on every windows machine I touch.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I've been using glass2k (and have switched).
please add its features
specifically the settings:
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Bloodshed Dev-C++! It's the best free IDE for Windows that I know. Includes GCC 2.95.3.
FileZilla is an excellent FTP client.
Dont exclude cygwin entirely, just include the cygwin1.dll (and possible bash) and throw all the Open Source available for cygwin in. If need be, compile these and distribute that way... Its how I run X and ssh at the office on my NT machine to tunnel home. Even if you had to use a full cygwin install, you could just do a "bash --login -c " and you can run whatever program from batch files in windows.... although there are some really good OSS that you can run that are Windows based, Mozilla, Openoffice.. and Im not to sure but I believe GTK is open to windows (or is that Qt... damned Linux standards, why dont you just combine!!) so some GTK based apps should work as well. Anyway, dont just limit yourself, the cygwin apps can be made to work with a little batch file...
VirtuaWin, a GPL'ed virtual desktop for Win32.
I use it extensively when GIMP'ing too (take that you nay-sayers!) :-)
I can see that you might not care about exposing people to the CLI toolchain, but ... X runs under cygwin, and there's a growing library of X app ports on cygwin -- including KDE.
/winOSS/powertools/suck
Even in CLI land, there's some CLI tools that power users will love, like wget. If you have room on the CD, I suggest a "power users" section, that includes cygwin. Here's a suggestion:
cat >>
#!/bin/sh
wget --continue --timestamping --recursive --level=inf --convert-links --dont-remove-listing --no-parent $*
^D
(I call it 'suck', perhaps you want a more genteel name). These are just standard options to wget that I use to suck down a site from the command line. It's trivial enough to integrate this with some sort of clipboard monitor, and you have a web site downloader that unlike most of their brethren for windows, actually *works*.
The clincher for including cygwin is: you want to distribute an open source CD. How about a compiler to make that source actually useful? gcc perhaps? Welcome to cygwin (or mingw if you use -mno-cygwin)
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
XNap. (Look it up on freshmeat.net)
It is the best OpenNap client I've seen. Open source. Written in Java. I've used it on Linux, MacOS X, and... Win XP.
Try it, you'll like it -- especially if you've been using a Gnutella client. Just download the ".jar" file, and double click it. You'll never go back to gnutella.
(Requires Java to be installed. Use either Microsoft's or Sun's -- both are free as in beer. If you're not running XP, then you almost certianly already have Java installed. If not just download Sun's JRE 1.4 and run setup.exe.)
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Best carmageddon/gta3 ripoff you'll find for windoze. . .
You are not the customer.
Treeline is a very usable outliner/PIM/simple database that runs on both Windows and Linux. It's author, Doug Bell also has several other programs including a very nice calculator, a unit conversion utility, and a route planner for pilots.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
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.
[Windoids are] possible with any window manager that supports either MWM hints, or properly supports the _NET spec.
I thought only Microsoft Windows supported the .NET spec. What am I thinking of?
Will I retire or break 10K?
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.
The problem with the vi UI is that it is modal. There is insert mode and command mode. Modality is somethign required by text only interfaces and which is generally deprecated for GUIs. For this reason, most naive users will find the Windows Notepad superior to vi for this reason. In fact, I'd recommend the Win32 emacs editor over vi for non-programmers doing simple text editing. Really -- try approaching it as a naive user and you'll find you can do simple things like edit, insert, delete text, opening, saving and renaming files using pure GUI commands.
However, programs like vi and emacs only really show their superiority over programs like Notepad for editing very long text files, or complex structured text files (data files and programs). In fact, I'd say as a philosophical point this means they ARE only superior to Notepad for these purposes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If the OSS/free software you use attracts more users, it attracts more developers, and it gets better.
Just because you don't pay doesn't mean there isn't a quid pro quo. Developers want their work used. By advocating for free software, you are helping the developers, as they are helping you.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> families and non geeks,
True, but many of these people use things like MusicMatch. Cdex is as hard (imho) as MusicMatch is.
You're right -- heck, look at Red Hat. If that isn't commercial, I don't know what is.
I got caught up in a specific use of the word when writing my response -- specifically to:
With regard to that sentence, I stand by my comment: Gnucleus isn't commercial. It has no paid developers, it doesn't sell a product or push advertising, and (as far as I can tell) it exists 'just for the fun of it.'Perhaps it would have made you happier if I'd started that sentence "And it isn't commercial...", though that would have been rather poor grammar, and the Grammar Nazi would have been on my case instead of you.
Damned if I do, damned if I don't... Ah Slashdot, at least you're consistent.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
People are into video games but not into the complexity of modern games.
As for being a "gray" app, there are plenty of freely availabe ROMs at Classic Gaming[classicgaming.com].
MAME belongs on the CD.
The only drawback--like most OSS programs--is that it requires a scope of seemingly unrelated skills to get started.
M$ codes for morons. OS Developers code for their peers. Until "coding for morons" becomes the mantra of the movement, the CD will remain simply a demo and not a tool for revolution.
--Chris Uzal, Editor, Cyberista
Laws are for people with no friends.
You wanna talk Clinton-style?
Don't forget that CodeRed thingy is not an IIS bug -- it's an Index Server bug.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Psi is indeed a wonderful little program. I've been using it since May, and it has never crashed on me. In fact, the only Psi bug that I'm aware of is a minor bug in the Qt GUI library.
Psi's author is security-savvy and has given priority to SSL and PGP support. Unfortunately, this means Psi still does not support file transfer or group chat. The project needs volunteers.
Psi is based on Qt, so above all, it integrates flawlessly with Windows. This is important. I have used GTK+ apps like Dia, and I tried out the Gaim port recently, and while GTK+ isn't terrible, it's like Swing -- it doesn't look or feel like a native program, doesn't integrate with native conventions (clipboard, fonts, window messages, drag/drop etc.).
Psi is indeed cross-platform, and runs flawlessly on Linux and Mac OS X and fully integrate with the GUIs of these platforms, including Aqua, although my Mac-using friends say Qt 3 has problems with window flicker.
Egoboo doesn't use the Quake 2 engine. It uses the Quake 2 modeler program. The engine is its own, a top-down tile-based 3D engine.
Flaskmpeg is another must-have for backing up DVDs. It's not updated as frequently and doesn't have the editing features, but it's still one of the best apps for transcoding from MPEG1/2 to other video codecs.
NetTime is a BSD-licensed NTP client for Windows. While NTP isn't exactly a high-priority thing for most end users, they (or at least my sisters do) like having their clock give the correct time. It's also pretty small (2MB), so it souldn't exactly be crowding other programs out.
And for those administering Windows desktops on a network, it's great. It can use NTP or just the standard Unix date service. I have it installed on every computer at work.
--Phil (I have to use Windows, but I can make it bearable.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
...would be uptime for win32.
There is a OSS tool that does exactly that by a guy called "titus", unfortunately I can't find a download link right now.
Another thing I would miss dearly on such a CD is nmapNT. It requires a patched TCP/IP stack but after that it works just as beautifully as it's *ix counterparts.
+++ath0
Once upon a time, I was looking for a free alternative to CuteFTP. I love Cute, but I was always sick of finding a crack for it whenever I reinstalled it, and I liked using they 2.8 version as their newer version have some annoyances. I am unemployed and money is tight, so even though I would love to pay the $40 for CuteFTP since I use it so much, rent came first. So I went to find an FTP client that had similar features to my favorite version of my favorite FTP program.
What a challenge. There are some truly aweful FTP clients out there for Windows. I downloaded pretty much every FTP client on download.com and thought there was no decent FTP client out there. Finally, I did a search on sourceforge.net. The first hit came up with FileZilla.
FileZilla is a great app, nicely modeled after the GOOD features of CuteFTP with not of the crap. It's free and open source. It's a must have for anyone looking for a decent, free FTP client for Windows.
and probabbly Quake 3 in a couple monthes.
hey, it's released GPL. granted, not the game data; but the entire engine -- out-dated as it may be right now -- is a damn good rendering engine in its time, and probabbly in the history books as well.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Solitaire, written in Python. Better than any other solitaire games I've seen (including some commercial). There are something like 200 different solitaire games built in.
It can be found here.
There isn't a windows build on the page, it's python, dude.
They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.
Free Ware Home is a website full of software and components dedicated to just this concept. And here by free he means:
1. No crippleware
2. No demoware
3. No restrictions.
Great site and a lot of really good stuff.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Also, in case it wasn't clear, Microsoft is promoting remote control software, but their own remote control software, not VNC. If you read the Windows 2000/XP EULA, you'll see that it's against the EULA to use VNC from a Linux box to a Windows box:
I may be way off base here, but the way I am understanding it the user won't be interested in the Source part of Open Source - but they will be interested in the Open part.
/.
In other words, they're tired of supporting BG and his monopoly and other big companies and would like to go with Free, open source software as an alternative. Kind of like buying and listening to indie bands instead of supporting RIAA and the other big giants, but not knowing or caring anything about how to play guitar or make the music themselves.
Freeware would do it, but I think that the asker is looking to show off the best of open source projects for a reason and is trying to make a point that open source stuff in particular is equivalent/superior to other software. Who knows? He probably just got an idea in his head and decided to run with it. Plus he gets the thrill of having his question on ask
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
a great example of french programming excellence is httrack - a powerful website copier / offline browser released under the GPL
it runs under both windows and linux (both an rpm and a deb exist), and includes both a GUI and a command line operation capability
So what's so strange about an unexpected crash on windows?
I just walked past Macy's and they had dozens of 36 inch plasma displays showing windows bluescreens in the windows.
While I agree text files are pretty cool from many aspects, I disagree with your claims:
... or navigate through control panel?
Text files are so amazing universal that it's a crime to not utilise their power and the many approaches one can take to the data.
Text files are not what's universal, its the text-able API to access them that's universal. This can work on binary data, which has an alternate text representation, but still retains the binary capabilities of algorithmic efficiency and such.
Binary configuration files are the devils spawn.
To this claim I can only reply: No, they're not.
Pray, which is the quicker way to change the box's ip
Although a Linux guru will reconfigure Linux stuff faster than a Windows guru configured Windows, this is hardly because of the text files. Its because of an unrelated issue, the user interface.
For example, take a more efficient Control Panel approach, where you type a couple of strokes and it fires the control panel, and then you type "ip a" or some shortcut for the ip address configuration and it jumps you right there, in which you easily change the IP... This should be at least as fast as editing with a text editor. Actually, due to the various types of configuration fields, a specialized GUI for editing the configuration should often be quite faster than a simple text file editor.
The KDE control center has taken this approach partially: You can search the control panel instead of navigating through, but its still not completely keyboard oriented and more keyword oriented rather than word-search oriented).
As long as a system retains its ability to access the configuration by unified API's that can access all types of other data, it does not matter whether its stored as text, because it can easily be represented that way. If its binary, many algorithmic efficiencies can be implemented.
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
Text files are not what's universal, its the text-able API to access them that's universal
That's a tenuous distinction.
I guess one could export the registry to text, perform the manipulations and then import the result back into the registry if one really wanted to.
Its because of an unrelated issue, the user interface.
Text based files enables one to *choose* the user interface. A specialised GUI for editing them can provide all the customization of the process one desires.
Aside from hex-editing, binary configuration files require the program to know the format of the file in order for them to translate it to and from a human readable form.
Binary files don't print too well either.
As long as a system retains its ability to access the configuration by unified API's
We only need one API.
open read seek write close
If its binary, many algorithmic efficiencies can be implemented
That tin god, efficiency.
The only possible saving is file size and that is not compelling.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
If you don't have an /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 then send /etc/X11/XF86Config.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I think saying that people switching to Linux would not want a UI change is questionable.
I switched to Linux because I like the UI better. I use KDE and I love the way it handles things. I like that the middle mouse button opens a link in a new window. I love being able to hit ALT-F2 and then type in a command, open a link or browse a directory, and the tab completion makes this even easier.
I'm willing to learn a new UI as long as it's better.
I use my computer many hours per week, and if 10 minutes of learning pays off as 10 minutes less a week, that learning is definately worth it.
I think if someone is going to try openoffice or mozilla, it shows that their willing to try something different.
I'm not saying Linux is god in terms of usability (a lot of apps admittedly suck on this front), but the way Linux does some things is better and shouldn't be changed just because MS's UI isn't as good. Ex: KDE by default gives me 4 virtual desktops. This is good. I like this. It gives me more space for my programs. It confuses a first time user, but if you explain it to them, it really doesn't take them more than 2 minutes to comprehend. The same thing for the "Group similar tasks" option, it's not the same as windows, and requires a 2 minute explanation, but one you've got it, you don't want to go back to the old way of doing things.
Life is too short to proofread.