An Open Source Guide For The Average PC User

prostoalex writes "The regular Yahoo! News feature Tech Tuesday this week is dedicated to open source software for the home user. Open source for all spells out the open source ideas for a regular PC user, while providing some helpful links to some popular software. The open source PC is a guide on most popular open source apps that would be common for a home user to have. Is open source for you? discusses shortcomings of open source software and cases when it's not recommended." From the article: "Never fear, counterculture types. You can still liberate the code, and experience many other perks, by becoming part of the open-source movement. With the steadily increasing number of open-source applications on the Web, there are more projects than ever to check out, covering nearly every imaginable application: from word processors and e-mail applications to media players and video games."

Comments

OpenCD

[saskboy]

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.

Re:OpenCD

[Adelbert]

This episode of LUGRadio has an interview with Henrik Nielsen Omma, who maintains the OpenCD project. Its well worth a listen, particularly when he talks about his collaboration with Ubuntu.

Re:OpenCD

[saskboy]

"going to come back and complain that you trashed their PC."

The problem is that with most modern software, it introduces remotely exploitable security holes if it's not kept up to date, and if your friend doesn't have a firewall. What will happen when they install Firefox 1.0.1 from the CD for example? They'll be instantly asked to install another version and might think that its strange that the "new" program they just put on already has a "problem" with it.

I acknowlege and agree that stable versions must be provided, but it would be nice if they offered an "updated" folder on it too, making note that it's untested but should work similar to the other tested software on the disc.

The articles were pretty good

[El Cubano]

The first article is a good one at which to point someone who has never heard of Open Source. My only beef is that the explanation of "What is Open Source" sounds more like a description of "What is the GPL/LGPL." Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL and release all of my work under it when possible, but there are plenty more licenses.

I also think that while OSS has some shortcomings, the way he paints them in third article is a bit bleak. Ha talks about the lack of a gentle learning curve or how they may not be as complete as their commercial conterparts. However, he completely overlooks those applications that have equalled or surpassed their commercial counterparts (like Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and so on). Besides, most new users would be more likely to use OSS applications that have large active communitities (i.e., available support from other users), rather than the less well known.

Opensource list

[xtrvd]

I don't remember how I got this list, but I think I picked it up on a slashdot post a while ago. Here's a list that I generally use to give people new to Linux wondering what software to use.

My thanks go out to the original poster whom I cannot remember.

1. Web Browsing? Mozilla/Firefox
2. E-mail? Thunderbird or Evolution
3. Group Calendaring? Mozilla Sunbird + Apache/SSL/WebDAV + iCal
4. Audio CD Archiving? Grip + Ogg Vorbis
5. Advanced Media Player? Xine or MPlayer
6. Audio Streaming of Archived CDs? Icecast + Ices
7. Recording of online streams for archival purposes? ALSA + ALSA Utils + Ogg Vorbis + Any required media player format in Xine or MPlayer
8. Firewall? Linux Kernel + iptables
9. Office Functionality? OpenOffice.org
10. Digital Image Editing? GIMP
11. IM Client? GAIM
12. IM Server? Jabberd
13. File sharing? NFS
14. Sane storage management? LVM
15. File compression? BZip2, GZip, or 7Zip also File Roller if you really need a GUI
16. Digital Photo Management? Gthumb or Nautilus
17. PVR? Mythtv.org
18. Video streaming? VLC (Video LAN Client)
19. X10 Home Automation? Bottlerocket
20. Remote desktop/application serving? VNC 4
21. Remote assistance? x0vncserver or the vnc extension for Xorg
22. VPN/Tunneling? OpenVPN or OpenSSH with TCP port forwarding
23. Web Serving? Apache
24. Mail Serving? Courier
25. Server Based Spam Filtering? ASSP
26. Client Based Spam Filtering? Thunderbird
27. Image Scanning? SANE
28. Audio Editing? Rezound or Audacity
29. Multitrack Audio? Ardour
30. MIDI Sequencing? Rosegarden
31. CD Burning (Data and Audio)? cdrecord + various GUI frontends
32. Simple PC Based Puzzle Games? Too many to list from both the GNOME and KDE projects
33. SpyWare/Malware Prevention Removal? None at this point since I don't use the internet via Windows

-Jesse

Re:Opensource list

[Anonymous Coward]

"File sharing? NFS"

I'd say OpenSSH. You can tunnel a lot of things through it and only have one port to "guard". And with Gnome/KDE you can get GUI access to file transfers through their file mangers. Plus you can communicate with OS X and Windblows too with it (assuming Windblows has ssh installed).

Minor beef

[antonymous]

Well, I guess it's just another series of "starter" articles regarding open source. My main beef with the articles is that none of them compare Windows with Linux very directly. Are most of the people reading this article aware of the copious amounts of spyware/adware their machine is riddled with (security issues)? How about the fact that my P2 400 MHZ computer works great under Linux and could barely chug along with Win2k (i.e. don't worry about buying a new computer every time a new version of Windows comes out)? And I don't care if Yahoo wants to play favorites with certain distros, but can they please explain what a Live CD is and link to Knoppix or Ubuntu?

Yes, I do realize they're not in the business of OSS advocacy, but it would be so easy for the author to engage the average computer user (i.e. "get your pale-faced neighbor to burn you this Live Linux CD - it will NOT change the rest of your computer in any way")

NEWS FLASH....

[webphenom]

The "average" PC user doesn't give a flying fuck about the "Open Source" movement or Linux or whatever.

Actually, the MAJORITY of PC users could absolutely care less about Open Source. I know of two people (they are related) that are open source/Linux advocates. Everyone else I know would be burdened by using non-standard software, whether they pay for it or not.

MOST people feel they don't pay for OS or Office software because it is normally buried in the "buy price" of a new PC. Since the buy price of a new PC is affordable for most people, there is no clear compelling reason to use software that is not supported and can be "forked" into a million different version just "because you can".

Come on, people.

Canard

[RentonSentinel]

I'm sorry to violate orthodoxy but,

The average user does not care about open source. They care about FREEWARE.

Thats not to say I don't care about open source... its just not as compelling to Joe Sixpack.

Re:Canard

[legirons]

"The average user does not care about open source. They care about FREEWARE."

5-10 years ago, you'd have been right. When Winamp was the latest invention, when pkzip was common, when Netscape being free was still a novelty, people wanted freeware.

But since then, the split happened. Freeware authors went into one of two camps:
(a) Those who decided they weren't getting enough money, became paraniod, experimented with copy-protected shareware, but finally became neurotic enough to invent adware, spyware, and later, viruses.
(b) Those who thought group (a) were misguided and wanted to continue offering stuff for free. These people became Free Software authors.

The general public know this. They know that the WinAmp author got assimilated into AOL and spat out. They know that GetRight is spyware now. They know that Napster got bought, killed, and eventually became an undead version of HMV.com.

They've seen all this in the news, and freeware doesn't exist anymore. Authors with morals now label their wares as Free Software for fear of it being used against them for evil. Authors in in for the money became blubbering lunatics, trying ever more severe ways to "get back" at the users who didn't pay them.

And the users' reaction to all this? "If it's not GPL, it's not safe" seems to be one of the most practical ways to evaluate 'free' software...

fallacy

[kebes]

For those who want simplicity and reliability, commercial packages may be your best bet - at least for day-to-day work. But if you're willing to experiment a little, and put up with some technical challenges, there is a wealth of programming - for free - in the open source community.

This is a fallacy. Alot of OSS is developmental and experimental and truly is buggy. Some OSS is top-quality and fully useable (linux, firefox, gimp, etc.). It is a fallacy to believe that commercial software is somehow better. Some commercial software is fully useable (photoshop, MS Office, etc.) but there is alot of commercial software that is absolutely crap. Even software made by respectable companies will often present 'technical challenges' (for instance, software bundled with hardware devices, etc.). With commercial software, the price may give you a hint as to quality... but ultimately you have to do some research and try to make an informed decision about what to buy. With OSS, you again have to do some research before deciding what to use (although you have the bonus advantage of being able to quickly install all of the choices without any financial commitment).

I don't think commercial software is automatically simpler and more reliable. The great number of OSS options is admitedly complicated, but it is silly to think that just because something costs money, it must be better than the free alternative.

Open letter to F/OSS community

[Sixpack, Joe]

Speaking as a representative for the average computer user, I will try to explain the average pc user to the F/OSS crowd. Please note that I do not have a great deal of free time to carry on a dialog after this is posted. I will however try to reply to any serious questions as time permits.

  First, as average pc users, we don't really care about the whole F/OSS concept. We will never write code and we couldn't care less about the philosophical purpose behind what you write and distribute for free. Of course we can relate to free beer; that gets us excited. But more than just free software, what we want is software that just works and doesn't make us jump through hoops to make it work. We want to be able to pop in a CD or download a file and click something to make it work. We don't care what is going on under the hood. As long as it's not sending our credit card numbers to thieves or revealing our porn to our wives, we simply don't care how or why it works. If one organization could sell or give us a master program that did anything we wanted it to do, we would be very happy, clueless campers. We would not care in the least if an evil monopolist was controlling the entire computer industry - as long as our email, chat, photos, music, games, banking, and porn just worked.

The adventurous among us, that have investigated this F/OSS concept, have simply been intimidated or confused by the overwhelming amount of indiscernible information we're faced with. We've downloaded several of the so-called easy versions of something related to Linux, but we've ultimately given up because everything takes a lot of research and fumbling to get it working right. Every time we look for answers to a question about how to do X, we're faced with cryptic messages about compilers, command lines, wrappers, shells and whatnot. We don't want to know how to compile anything. We don't care what a command line is. We can't tell the difference between a shell and a GUI. Why should we have to? Quite simply, we are not interested in being programmers - we have other interests, jobs, and time consuming responsibilities.

Now the really, really determined amongst us will seek out knowledge by frequenting newsgroups, forums, or websites devoted to this free software. Unfortunately, the predominate thing we see happening in these areas is a bunch of infighting and bitching about how one distro is better than another, or how Microsoft is Satan incorporated. There's always a lot of talk about security and clueless users but, rarely is there any real substance that actually helps moving us clueless users into a more secure environment; at least not without requiring us to take a couple CS courses.

What's worse is the general attitude amongst a lot of the F/OSS community, which seems to believe they are somehow intellectually superior to those of us in the world that choose to spend our time learning something other than operating systems and protocols. As we see it, we don't expect you to know how to perform open heart surgery; or perhaps how to knit a woolen sweater, yet you are able to benefit from both of those, thanks to our hard work. All we ask is that you likewise provide us with a product which we can use without needing to know how you produced it or how it works.

In closing, it's not that we don't appreciate the efforts you put forth, we just ask you to remember that we are average users. Our skills and aptitudes vary widely. Also remember that we will gladly adopt anything that makes our lives easier, more productive, more secure, or just more interesting. What we will not accept however is the premise that we must devote an inordinate amount of time to learning how to install, use, and maintain your software; no matter what the perks are. There are at least two companies which already sell us stuff that just works; for the most part.