Slashdot Mirror
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."
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!)
Gnucleus! Open Source gnutella file sharing. For once you can be REALLY sure that there isn't any spyware in your filesharing software!
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.
virtualdub
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.
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
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!
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?
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
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.
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?
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.
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."
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!
I start fourth year of a degree course in computer science in just over a week, and I'm scared of Telnet.
I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am to hear this about my future competition in the job market. What kind of wine do your professors like? I feel like I owe them something!
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
And if they don't run screaming from the room you know you've got some future geeks on your hand. :)
KFG
no shit. i was in my (graduate) class and one guy goes "what's telnet?" ... and i think to myself.. what a wonderful world...
I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am to hear this about my future competition in the job market.
Competition?
He'll end up being your boss...