Ask Slashdot: Good, Useful Free Software For Gifts?

First time accepted submitter Jeng writes "I'm planning on sending flash drives to friends and family as stocking stuffers. Rather than just send a blank drive, I'm looking for what good useful free software that I can load on it — from system utilities and encryption software to fun little games." We've asked similar questions before, but software keeps getting better, and so do the prices on flash drives. So what would you give as a gift this holiday season?

Comments

Bootable USB

[Bertrand Wilmot]

Bootable BSD or Linux on USB.

Re:Bootable USB

[Nefarious Wheel]

Bootable BSD or Linux on USB.

I'd suggest Ubuntu, with a "readme.txt" written for those who will plug it into their Windows box.

Give them a text list of apt-get commands and tell them all the software was pirated :P

Re:Bootable USB

[CmdrPony]

Then they mess up their computer trying to install it, probably destroying all their personal files in the process. What a nice xmas gift. :P

Re:Bootable USB

[jmorris42]

> I'd suggest Ubuntu, with a "readme.txt" written for those who will plug it into their Windows box.

And make sure you give them WUBI instead of expecting someone new to Free Software to be willing to figure out repartitioning. Sure it doesn't perform quite as well, but the benefits balance out for new users.

Re:Bootable USB

[Bertrand Wilmot]

I think DSLinux would be more appropriate, especially if you're not sure how fast the computer you're plugging into might be. It's straightforward and comes with useful/practical applications.

Re:Bootable USB

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, there's a great suggestion. Give them Ubuntu, so they can try out Unity, see what a piece of shit it is, and never look at Linux again.

Re:Bootable USB

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

Mod +1 Funny

Re:Bootable USB

[thehodapp]

Better yet try a distro that's actually been updated in the last year. Like Puppy Linux or Slitaz.

Re:Bootable USB

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't ask family to jump right in to linux. You tell your semi-geeky friend to try it out.

You give family software that works on what they have and know. And you give them what makes sense for that person. Give the uncle that likes to make mediocre movies for youtube a copy of Lightworks for awesome video editing. Commercial software gone open source. Knocks the socks off of the windows home movie maker bullshit he currently uses.

Paint.net for picture editing to your aunt that likes to touch up family photos, maybe.

For the artsy teenager, Blender and Inkscape, if they're not already using them.

For kids, find a good, bright, well-polished game.

For gods sake, don't give anyone a browser or office suite. People hate software that takes over for something they already have. And stick to the well-finished, good looking stuff. The rest (*) just turns them off to the whole idea of anything "free", as if it's inferior.

* gimp style stuff, powerful but ugly as shit with a [perverse | handicap | offensive] name

Re:Bootable USB

[justforgetme]

In this context you might as well give them Chlamydia.
You get to keep the usb also!

Re:Bootable USB

[Oligonicella]

Yes, yes. M$ ad hominem to truth from an AC mask, we know the OS modus.

He's right, though. The worst presents (software or otherwise) are those that seek to impose your views on how things should be done on others.

Second worst is a fruit cake.

Re:Bootable USB

[Joce640k]

I'd suggest Ubuntu, with a "readme.txt" written for those who will plug it into their Windows box.

Nah, a copy of The Bible in HTML would be far more welcome. There's a reason Christianity is more common than Ubuntu!

Re:Bootable USB

[hairyfeet]

That will only be useful IF and this are pretty big IFs 1.- They even know what an alternative OS is and want to run one, and 2.- You have some way to test that Ubuntu will have ALL of the drivers for the myriad of hardware these people have so it all "just works" OOTB.

Since he mentions things such as games it is most likely he is NOT talking about Linux users as they would just get such things from their repo so all they would do is stick in the disc and find a bunch of files they simply wouldn't know what to do with. oh and then you get the "fun" of explaining what a BIOS is, how to get into it, how to switch it from whatever the OEM had it to having a removable drive be first boot, calming them down when they think you are "gonna break it", wow,talk about the gift that keeps on giving!

So let us assume the most likely scenario which is that these are Windows users who don't desire to learn how to switch operating systems for Xmas and think of some truly HELPFUL suggestions. Since I have actually made many a similar device in disc format I believe I can give some good ideas to get the ball rolling. you start with the always useful and free portable apps launcher that gives you a nice base to work off of and gives them a nice single .exe they can "clicky clicky". Then assuming they are happy with their AV and antimalware (which if not I'd put in the launcher for Avast Free and MalwareBytes under a heading of "antivirus") we move on to categories.

First we have LibreOffice which frankly I wouldn't have, while its a nice suite I've found most never use more than Writer and it wastes space so I'd go with AbiWord. For Internet Firefox is too slow and Chrome calls home so I would use either Comodo Dragon which to make portable simply install onto a folder on the flash while checking the "portable' box or QT Web which is a nice portable browser based on QT naturally. Personally I'd give them both, they are light and why not give them choice? Thunderbird, don't bother as even those that think they are on email are actually on webmail nowadays so use that space for InstantBird instead. Oh and throw in a few graphics programs just for fun, like Fotografix and Cornice as they are light and pretty simple.

Moving on to games we have Armagetron for a little Tron goodness, we have Atomic Tanks for a little Worms style fun, i know many will say Wesnoth but that game is a little hardcore if you're not already heavily into TBS so I'd skip it and if I were to put a strategy I'd go with Warzone 2100, Brutal Chess for a little 3D chess fun along with the always popular Texas Hold 'Em along with one of the several shooters and a nice Puzzle collection just to round things out.

Because unless they actually WANT to learn alternative OSes, the inside of their BIOS, and a completely new way of doing everything then saying 'Just put linux on it" really isn't a very nice gift now is it? I hope everyone sees that this gives them a simple useful gift with tons of software they can use NOW without needing to spend an hour or more being walked through changing the BIOS, how to find out if hardware has been detected, what to do if the wireless isn't working, etc. That is about as "fun" a way to spend

Re:Bootable USB

[sensei moreh]

I happen to like a good fruit cake

Re:Bootable USB

[Tenebrousedge]

For the artsy teen, promote Blender and MyPaint; needlessly inflicting vector graphics on people is criminal, and I use Inkscape about 8 hours a day at this point. My friends in the 3d biz don't have nice things to say about Blender, either, but they also complain about Maya. If/when the Doom3 engine goes open source, you might promote that instead; it has some name recognition, and gives the budding modeler something to do.

MyPaint, for those who haven't used it, is a painting program most similar (but superior) to OpenCanvas, which hasn't had an open source release for years. MyPaint runs on all major OSs.

I understand the thing about GIMP, but home users are less likely to care -- my mother has been known to use it.

Re:Bootable USB

[BasilBrush]

Your post reveals in inconvenient truth.

Lightworks was developed as commercial software. Now trying a new free version + subscription pro version model.

Blender was developed as commercial software. After bankruptcy a charitable appeal bought it for the open source community.

Paint.net was developed by a Microsoft intern. It's a free download but not open source.

Out of the four, only Inkscape was developed from the start by the FOSS community.

Re:Bootable USB

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

Nah, a copy of The Bible in HTML would be far more welcome. There's a reason Christianity is more common than Ubuntu!

You mean we sould force our children into open source instead of painfully converting grown ups? That's not a bad concept at all. I just feel incomfortable about the idea of RMS declaring himself Linux Pope...

Re:Bootable USB

[stating_the_obvious]

I have no desire to start a fight over FOSS ends versus means, but is it fair to say that for most non-technical users, the thing that matters most is the 'F' in FOSS?

Also, while the Blender story is interesting, why does that matter from a FOSS perspective? Don't deathbed converts get admitted to Heaven?

Re:Bootable USB

[Anonymous Coward]

Lightworks is open source. It's not meant to be free + subscription... stop with the FUD.

Nobody cares that Blender was originally commercial software. It's now a beautiful, relatively easy to use, capable, open source app.

You're right about Paint.net, as someone else already pointed out. And as they suggested, maybe MyPaint instead.

So of the four, three were good recommendations... and you're a troll.

Re:Bootable USB

[BasilBrush]

Lightworks is open source. It's not meant to be free + subscription... stop with the FUD.

No it's not open source as yet. There's a promise that it will be and as far as I can see, no promise as to what licence it'll be under when it is. But the subscription model for the pro version is certainly there. £40 per year. Look at the website:
http://www.lightworksbeta.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122&Itemid=263

You're a typical know nothing AC. Crying FUD when you read a truth you wish wasn't so. This is why I generally have you idiots filtered out.

Re:Bootable USB

[BasilBrush]

The inconvenient truth is that the FOSS movement doesn't develop good applications. There's an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by committee. And there seems to be something of that in software development. A good app with a good UI requires a visionary designer. And open source projects don't tend to have that, or don't give the authority to that one person to make the decisions.

There's perhaps an exception when there's a single developer who is also a good designer, who starts a project and progresses it singlehandedly to a viable level. But developers who are also good designers are as rare as hens teeth.

Note that the one exception, Inkscape, had such a singular person at it's beginnings (as "Gill") - Raph Levien.

Most FOSS proponents on Slashdot are leeches. They love OSS because it gives them software for nothing. Few of them have ever contributed anything. Far fewer still are those rare individuals that are actually capable of creating good software, and willing to do it for no salary. Maybe a handful out of the millions with Slashdot accounts.

Look at the holy war over Ubuntu - most value the old KDE UI - a Windows rip-off. The new Unity UI us an OSX copy and most users don't like it. After 20 years there's still no good original Linux UI. If the OS UI isn't even good, what chance the apps will be good?

Re:Bootable USB

[certain death]

Good being the operative word there - I like a good one as well, but it takes trying about 50 of them to find that one good one.

Re:Bootable USB

[Anonymous Coward]

Current versions of Blender actually have a much better interface that the old nightmare it used to have.

Re:Bootable USB

[Dr Max]

Not if you boot and run from the usb stick (no install) then all you have to do is press f12 or whatever on startup and choose usb. I think mint is easier than ubuntu, but set it up with 4gb of persistent memory so they can install games and what not (from a pretty big easy to use selection in the software manager (all point and click)) . If you are really worried about their tech skills give them the linux mint version with virtual box installed as well, then all they have to do is double click from windows or osx and they can have a virtual linux machine.

Re:Bootable USB

[tjhart85]

There is also a reason the sky is blue, what the fuck does that have to do with this discussion?

Re:Bootable USB

[wertigon]

The FOSS movement can develop good applications and software; Gnome has quite a few good apps for example. The problem is that it most often takes a professional software company to step in and push the direction in a certain way.

However, that's fine; FOSS movement isn't just about the home hackers, it's an entire ecosystem consisting of companies AND enthusiasts. It's easy to focus on just the "community" part, but companies are part of that community, and they do quite a bit of contribution. :)

Re:Bootable USB

[pugugly]

What's the point of having a "ACs don't bother . . ." tagline, then responding to one?

I have nothing against AC's myself, but if I was going to be that kind of asshole (as opposed to my own, completely different kind of asshole) I'd at least be consistent about it - {G}.

Pug

Re:Bootable USB

[BasilBrush]

My settings are such that unless an AC scores a 4 or 5, which is a rare occurrence, I don't get a notification that anyone has responded. In the thread itself I get a "reply beneath your current threshold" message, so if I'm reading a logged-in-users reply, I sometimes see that. And sometimes I expand it and read it. And usually realise I've wasted my time.

My sig is fair warning that I probably won't see a response from an AC. And it's an encouragement to such people to grow a pair of balls and post under a username rather then as a coward.

Re:Bootable USB

[pugugly]

Eh - fair 'nuff I suppose - {G}.

Pug

MS Office 2010 Home edition

[Anonymous Coward]

*ducks*

Re:MS Office 2010 Home edition

[tycoex]

You're missing the point, the flash drive is the gift. The pre-loaded software is just a bonus.

Re:MS Office 2010 Home edition

[FrootLoops]

I believe you mean MS Office 2010 Home Trial. You know, 'cuz it's free.

Re:MS Office 2010 Home edition

[hedwards]

And really free is still too expensive. Considering how much time I spend showing people how to use the broken interface they ought to be paying me to work around their poorly thought out ribbon crap.

Let's see:

[DangerOnTheRanger]

Gaming:

• SuperTuxKart
• SuperTux (SVN trunk)
• Warsow
• Warzone 2100, maybe
• Secret Maryo Chronicles

Graphics:

• Inkscape
• GIMP

Other stuff:

• Python (2.6 or 2.7)
• Transmission (the Bittorrent client)
• Filezilla
• Firefox or Chromium, if they don't use either already

Re:Let's see:

[Anonymous Coward]

Battle for Wesnoth
Tyrian 2000
Collection of ebooks via Project Gutenberg

That would keep someone out of trouble for a good while.

Re:Let's see:

[Threni]

I'm assuming all that's to go with a bootable Ubuntu (with no swap drive)? You can get a 16gig usb drive for around £14.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

Transmission is one of the worse bittorrent client available. Might as well just have them use a command line utility with the gui available in Transmission.
Never been a fan of gimp either, it it both too complicated and bloated for a simple paint replacement and does not have enough features to replace Photoshop.
For torrents you need uTorrent or its far crappier linux brother ktorrent.
and then for windows at least:
rename master
7-zip
agent ransack
chrome
Infra Recorder
Notepad++

And then for games I would recommend emulators and roms.
Dosbox, scummvm, Snex9x
And you could probably set up all of them to work directly from the drive (linux and windows both, since the emulators are all pretty small) with the games pre-installed.

I would recommend focusing on the games and picking something personally from you and not just 10,000 roms you found in a torrent.
Because for the apps at least either the receiver is technically savvy enough they he should already be able to find good software if he needs it or will not appreciated being able to search faster and better (agent ransack).

Re:Let's see:

[PerlJedi]

I'd add a few suggestions:

• VLC
• XBMC

Re:Let's see:

[CmdrPony]

So, you're telling him to him warez as a gift? I thought the point of giving open source was so it's legal.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

Roms don't have to be illegal, you just have a smaller number to choose from if you are looking for freeware roms.
But it is not like everyone does not already pirate roms, lets face it the consoles and the original games are no longer produced if you wanted to pay money for them you would only be paying some used games store owner not anyone involved in making the game in the first place anyways.
Now you can make a very good argument that the developers of the game deserve your money, but I have yet to hear one for the owner of the used store.

Re:Let's see:

[DangerOnTheRanger]

Ooh, I forgot about VLC. Good thinking.

Re:Let's see:

[DangerOnTheRanger]

That's certainly possible, but all the programs I listed work on Windows as well, so it's not strictly necessary.

Re:Let's see:

[DangerOnTheRanger]

Who cares if everyone already pirates ROMs? That doesn't make it legal. Freeware ROMs are legal of course, but most of the titles the recipients of this gift have heard of don't fall into this category.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

Well I would imagine that picking games that recipients have not heard of might be a perk.
And in Alabama dominoes may not be played on Sunday by rule of law, but like abandon-ware that law is not and cannot be enforced therefore it is not really illegal. Note: obviously some companies are still around that hold the copyright to some of these abandon-ware games, so while no one has ever been prosecuted for abandoner-ware stealing it is theoretically possible.

Re:Let's see:

[hedwards]

I personally dump my own ROMs with retrode.org . Tends to work well and I don't have to worry about being busted for piracy.

Re:Let's see:

[Foo2rama]

VLC for sure

Re:Let's see:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck no, VLC is awful. Its as buggy as shit and has support for important things (like 10bit) missing. You are better off giving them CCCP which they can use with their existing media player.

Re:Let's see:

[DreadPiratePizz]

There are several games available legally for ScummVM, which he suggested. Beneath a Steel Sky and Flight of the Amazon Queen for example, were both released as freeware by their authors and can be downloaded right from the ScummVM homepage.

Re:Let's see:

[JoeMerchant]

My short list includes: Firefox, Open Office, GIMP and VLC. If they might write software, add Qt Creator (or MIT Scratch if they're under 14 years old).

Re:Let's see:

[JoeMerchant]

I'd love to love XBMC, but it just doesn't do it for me. Somehow, other solutions (like VLC) always seem more practical in real use.

Re:Let's see:

[LordLimecat]

But it is not like everyone does not already pirate roms, lets face it the consoles and the original games are no longer produced if you wanted to pay money for them you would only be paying some used games store owner not anyone involved in making the game in the first place anyways.

Yea, its not as if Nintendo still releases Super Mario RPG or Street Fighter 2 or Mario Brothers or anything....

All that aside, illegal is still illegal, and "not what OP asked for" is still offtopic.

Re:Let's see:

[dadioflex]

Can I add Sauerbraten ( http://sauerbraten.org/ ) to that list for games. Also, as Optimism mentions lower down, the DRM-free games from Indie Royale, Humble Bundle and GOG can be bought for cheap. In the case of the Humble Bundle games, for ridiculously cheap.

Re:Let's see:

[bipbop]

Speaking of commercial games now available for free, Ur-Quan Masters is a classic, and happens to be open source now as well. (For those who aren't familiar with the new title, UQM is Star Control 2.)

Re:Let's see:

[BenoitRen]

Now you can make a very good argument that the developers of the game deserve your money, but I have yet to hear one for the owner of the used store.

The used store is a convenient place where people can sell their games so they can buy other, possibly new ones.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

The op said nothing about preferring illegal or legal software only that it should be free.

Re:Let's see:

[LordLimecat]

It being illegal to take something (whether it be theft, piracy, or infringement) makes it by definition not free, either as in beer OR as in speech.

Re:Let's see:

[Excelcia]

qBitTorrent is a fantastic open source alternative to uTorrent.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

that looks decent, thanks for the tip. I will have to give this a try.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

I don't know what definition you are using, but in my books if you can get something without paying anything in return and absolutely no restrictions are placed on how you use that product then it is free in my books.

Re:Let's see:

[tepples]

I thought Retrode didn't support all platforms (most notably, not NES).

Re:Let's see:

[tepples]

There are plenty of NES games that have been released under a free software license: LAN Master, Escape from Pong, Thwaite, Lawn Mower, LJ65... What's so illegal about running those in FCEUX?

Re:Let's see:

[DangerOnTheRanger]

Well, those illegal arcade ROMs are "free" in the sense that you don't have to pay for them, but since they are still under copyright by their creators, who have deemed redistribution of those ROMs illegal, they are not "free" as in speech. Not to mention you're ignoring the fact that those ROMs are illegal, which is a far larger issue...

Re:Let's see:

[LordLimecat]

So by your definition, the fact that it is physically possible to shoplift milk means that milk is free; so if someone asks you where they can get a free drink, it would be a reasonable response to say "well, the store has milk you can steal".

Am I getting that right?

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

It is not a far larger issue if it is offtopic.
And illegal is not everything, for example it is illegal to play Dominoes on Sunday.in Alabama.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

No, free doe not just have to mean money.
if it is physically harder then simply picking up the drink then it is not free and if there is any chance of getting charged for a criminal offence then it is not free.

But if for example you lived in a city that had a law that water fountains could not be used by African Americans on a Sunday (I would not be surprised if this actually existed somewhere), but this law was no longer enforced I would direct all African Americans who asked on a Sunday to the nearest water fountain.

Re:Let's see:

[chrismcb]

There are plenty of used cars that are no longer produced. So yeah go ahead and drive them off the used car lot, cause I have yet to hear a good argument why the owner of the used car lot deserves your money.

Re:Let's see:

[wisnoskij]

A far more accurate analogy would be "go ahead and manufacture your own old no longer supported model of car instead of buying used."

Re:Let's see:

[cthulhu11]

Transmission is one of the worse [sic]bittorrent client available. Might as well just have them use a command line utility with the gui available in Transmission.[...]For torrents you need uTorrent or its far crappier linux brother ktorrent.

I tried the new uTorrent port briefly, hated it. Transmission generally does the job for me, the brief 2.41 crashing issues notwithstanding.

Re:Let's see:

[velja27]

For torrents use Deluge, it might take up a little bit more RAM or not, I don't really know cause I have on average around 75-90 torrents in it.
It has all the features you need, you can browse through the files which are nicely put in folders, as you would expect (unlike on uTorrent), and all the other stuff.
Some time ago it even got a webui. So yeah try it, I've been enjoying it ever since I started using Linux.

Re:Let's see:

[Gravitron 5000]

Lame, you say?

Re:Let's see:

[admica]

I use Photoshop and GIMP, and I prefer the gimp. To each his own, but I find it has all the same features that I use in photoshop. I'm not sure why anyone would refer to either one of those as a paint replacement. mtpaint would be more along those lines.

It's a ridiculous idea

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're arrogant enough to think that you're doing something for OTHERS by giving them things that represent your passion and "religious" devotion to open source, you're not likely to understand why, but this is a terrible idea. Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool. This is an absurd idea.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[xs650]

Yup, I was thinking it was like giving someone a free Gideon's bible out of a hotel room.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[jmorris42]

> Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool.

Oh bullpoop. The guy is giving out USB sticks. Very handy things for almost anyone to get in their stocking. He just wants to prepopulate em with some helpful stuff. Something you can't do with closed software but you can easily do with Free Software.

And yes, plenty of people give gifts based on their particular passion. Apple folk will tend to give out iProducts. Would they give one to somebody they KNOW isn't going to use it? Hopefully not, but a lot of people on their list would so they do. What is the difference?

Stick OO.o on there of course. And Firefox, Chrome, etc. And why not Gimp, Blender, and friends. All run Windows, why not spread em around. Will everyone use them? Probably not, but a few might and those that don't can just hit delete.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. If the guy was giving away copies of MS Office or Windows 7 or (insert popular game here), these people wouldn't be calling it "religious", but since it's OSS somehow it's different.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[optimism]

> Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool.

Oh bullpoop. The guy is giving out USB sticks. Very handy things for almost anyone to get in their stocking. He just wants to prepopulate em with some helpful stuff.

Yep.

And...these views are compatible. You can think about what different people might want, and put that on their key.

Me, I would start by putting relevant family & friend photos/videos on everyone's USB stick. Even better, I'd make the effort to organize them into slideshow/video presentations, with a soundtrack and transitions. And configure them up to auto-play on the machines of the less-clueful recipients who have not disabled auto-play. :)

Mom will like that for sure. Then maybe Dad would appreciate some good apps/installers (Firefox, VLC, Abiword, etc)...and Bro would appreciate a collection of freeware/shareware/abandonware games (thinking Humble Bundle, other indies, MAME, etc)...and Sis would appreciate a few favorite DVDs, ripped and transcoded to copy straight to her iPad (gifting the DVDs as well, but doing the work for her).

Frankly it sounds like a great idea, if you think about what your family/friends would appreciate besides just another USB stick.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[hedwards]

No, since it's free software with an ulterior motive. It's one thing to pay for the software and give it away, but giving away free software to promote an ideology is something different.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool. This is an absurd idea.

Baloney. You might as well just give gift cards or cash with that attitude.

A gift is an opportunity to share what you think is cool with someone else on the chance that they will think it's cool too. Maybe they won't think it's cool, but that's no skin off their nose, it was free anyway...

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[SeaFox]

Exactly. If the guy was giving away copies of MS Office or Windows 7 or (insert popular game here), these people wouldn't be calling it "religious", but since it's OSS somehow it's different.

Well, there is the small difference that giving away Office or Windows 7 or a popular commercial game actually is a gift since he had to part with money to get them. At the moment, I'd be thrilled to find a Windows 7 Professional disc under the tree since I want to upgrade out of XP, and lots of people are going to be getting Skyrim for Christmas

Open Source software is free, and most people don't care about OSS politics. If someone cared about this sort of stuff they'd undoubtedly already be technically savvy enough to go online and get it themselves. Except for the USB drives this isn't much of a gift, and hey, I saw a deal on newegg last night for 8 GB ones for under $8 -- free shipping. Pretty cheap gift if he's not giving them 16 or 32 GB ones, and most people don't need that much space at once for day-to-day usage.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[fa2k]

And yes, plenty of people give gifts based on their particular passion. Apple folk will tend to give out iProducts.

Exactly. I give away electronics and gadgets all the time, I hope I'm not a bad person. I subscribe to the idea that I know a lot about some of those things, so I can find something that's useful for the person getting the present.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[tbird81]

Oh bullpoop.

There now, there's no need for profanity, Fallout Boy.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[Jesus_666]

Well, the USB sticks are intended as stocking stuffers, i.e. small things that you give along with the main presents. When I add a bar of good chocolate to a christmas present I don't try to wow the recipient by the fact that I could spend five whole bucks on a bar of chocolate; I just try to make a nice gift a little bit nicer.

Likewise, the software is basically a stocking stuffer for a stocking stuffer. A few freeware games or tools aren't going to make someone break out in tears of gratitude but they might be nice, nonetheless. If the recipient doesn't want them they can just delete them to reclaim the space and it's possible that they do like them but have never heard about them before.

For instance, I know a lot of people who have no idea that something like du or its graphical counterparts exist; while some free disk usage analyzer isn't going to be the software they've been spending their whole life preparing for it might be found useful. I think the proper response to aim for is not "best gift ever" but rather "hey, that's nifty".

Admittedly, Skyrim or Windows 7 would be nicer stocking stuffers but most people aren't quite wealthy enough to use them in that role.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[hedwards]

Anybody that claims to be doing something without an ulterior motive is either a liar or a fool.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[bryan1945]

I agree, what a horseshit idea. "Here is a USB stick with some free software! Merry fucking Christmas!"
OK, I guess you have some tech friends and/or family. It's still a bullshit idea. I can only imagine when my family unwraps their presents and they all got USB sticks. Why not just give them all pretzels? Ever fucking think of what they might want besides your non-thinking present? I'm a freaking nerd and if someone gave my a USB stick (with or without free software), I'd be pissed; anyone that uses one already has 2-5 of them.

Drawing a card with crayons has more personalization than this.

What's your idea for a birthday present, tickets to E3?

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[llamapater]

He didn't give them this software on a cd for fuck sake he just wanted something to pop on a stick to add thought to the gift he could've given something like pictures, yes, but who wants another copy of grammas photo album of dead people, pay software kinda takes it out of the stocking stuffer realm too. There isn't any Foss religious hoopla for these people if they can't appreciate a usb stick then they're not technical enough to even realize that's what happened. The niece and apparently a few of the adults were in that category they should have gotten candy bars (or if i was called a nerdy ass-fagot over a gift nothing) the ones who wiped the disks gave there answer to the included software that's fine, but at least liked the stick.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[HerrWolfe]

I agree, what a horseshit idea. "Here is a USB stick with some free software! Merry fucking Christmas!" OK, I guess you have some tech friends and/or family. It's still a bullshit idea. I can only imagine when my family unwraps their presents and they all got USB sticks. Why not just give them all pretzels? Ever fucking think of what they might want besides your non-thinking present? I'm a freaking nerd and if someone gave my a USB stick (with or without free software), I'd be pissed; anyone that uses one already has 2-5 of them.

Drawing a card with crayons has more personalization than this.

What's your idea for a birthday present, tickets to E3?

He said they were stocking stuffers. There is no need for this ignorant post. In the future, why don't you actually read the question before you respond, you fool.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[nbauman]

How could Christmas be complete without cranky old uncle Anonymous Coward?

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[admica]

Something's wrong when the quality of a gift is dependent on the amount of money a gift costs rather than the thoughtfulness and time spent preparing the gift.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[Jesus_666]

Well, that's the level the rest of the thread operates on. I do agree that an expensive gift is not neccessarily a good one - but usually a game or an operating system are only given when appropriate and are almost automatically a better gift than a USB stick with a few apps on it.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[HerrWolfe]

I'm arrogant? Your post says specifically, 'I can only imagine when my family unwraps their presents and they all got USB sticks' (nice grammar by the way). He said they were stocking stuffers. Unless you are unfamiliar with the phrase, there is no excuse for your ridiculous post. And with Google around, there is no excuse for this ignorance other than laziness. It's called 'Ask Slashdot.' Try to answer the question rather than insulting the asker. If you cannot do this then keep your mouth shut. You have nothing to contribute to the conversation and all you managed to do was waste mine and others time by having to read your nonsense. Put your GED to work and try to comprehend what you've read and respond in a helpful manner. Furthermore if you did in fact read it, you chose to ignore it. And yet I'm the arrogant one. So I restate, you are a fool. Do the world a favour and do not breed, troll. PS. to a true nerd, tickets to E3 are an awesome present.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[bryan1945]

Fine, you win. I (with my 3 degrees, oops) will leave you alone now.

Re:It's a ridiculous idea

[HerrWolfe]

Why, thank you for taking a mature route.

lots of options

[lister king of smeg]

well you can use a bootable USB of course, or you could use virtualization-on-a-stick, using qemu or portable virtual-box

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/using-a-portable-virtualbox-to-run-linux-from-usb/

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/run-a-live-linux-cd-from-within-windows/

or you could use portable app's projects off of sourceforge.

Tons of free games

[Anonymous Coward]

Works off a CD, DVD or USB flash drive. live.linuX-gamers.net

other bits to consider besides software

[Tumbleweed]

How about a big collection of free music/ebooks/movies/art, etc? Maybe consider putting together a digital slideshow of photos and movies of family and friends, too.

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a big collection of free music/ebooks/movies/art, etc?

Some hints:
* http://magnatune.com
* http://dig.ccmixter.org/
* http://archive.org/

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[PsychoSlashDot]

How about a big collection of free music/ebooks/movies/art, etc? Maybe consider putting together a digital slideshow of photos and movies of family and friends, too.

I think you're by far the most insightful in the discussion so far. I have to think that generally speaking, software that is useful (to the recipient) and free (available to the recipient already) is likely to be owned by the recipient. Sending people Firefox or Foxit Reader or 7Zip is pointless because either the don't have any clue how to or why to use it, or they already do. Yes, a generalization, but I suspect that loading up a bunch of software is just going to waste the recipient's time, forcing them to delete it all. On the other hand, MEDIA might be cool. And the time spent checking out Creative Commons (and other sources of) music and so on rewards the sender too. Everyone wins.

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[Telvin_3d]

Do one better than this. You have a month. Go and borrow old photo albums from people and start scanning. You family will thrill over old wedding and vacation photos with embarrassing haircuts and awful fashions that they had forgotten.

See how many pictures of their parents as kids you can find for your nieces and nephews. Bonus points if they are wearing clothes or fashions that are completely different from their current personalities (Hey dad was completely metal!) with double bonus points if it highlights parental hypocrisy in a funny way (Mom, that skirt is way shorter than the one you won't let me wear...)

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[Joshua Fan]

Yes. In fact, giving free software implies that you think they don't know how to use computers, and that you're a cheapo to boot. People like to load what software they please on their computers, regardless if they had to pay for it or not, what's important to them is that they chose to do it. Big computer companies and lots of geeks just never get that.

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[gknoy]

I can't believe you left off Project Gutenberg, as they even let you download ISO images of their collection.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:The_CD_and_DVD_Project

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[martin-boundary]

Excellent idea. I'd also suggest some "classic" pictures in the rare, but important, case that the recipient happens to be an aspiring slashdot troll and history buff. Make sure the titles are misleading and the icon preview settings are turned off, as being helpful is always appreciated.

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[Anonymous Coward]

(Mom, that skirt is way shorter than the one you won't let me wear...)

This is especially effective if you are her son

Re:other bits to consider besides software

[eulernet]

Speaking of art, I recommend that you download and unzip the best demos for PC on the USB key.
You can download them here:
http://www.pouet.net/

Explain them what a demo is:
1) a very small program (much smaller than a Youtube video)
2) a spectacle
3) a form of art
4) mathematics applied in realtime

Some people may feel so amazed by these technical pieces, that they'll learn how to program.

PortableApps

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are using Windows, I suggest the full collection of PortableApps from http://www.portableapps.com
It will runs directly from your flash drive and is really useful! :-)

Re:PortableApps

[KaoticEvil]

That is exactly what I was going to suggest. Being that it's a Windows based program, it works natively, and has a nice little icon in the systray area, encouraging people to actually USE the programs on there. Not to mention, because, as you stated, it runs from the flash drive, everything the save (emails, Firefox profiles, etc.) is secure in case of system failure or a general Windows fuckup.

Re:PortableApps

[JohnSearle]

I second this.

I use a number of their apps at work, where they have their systems locked down. I can use Notepad++ as my default editor, instead of IE7 I can use FF with extensions (adblock, greasemonkey, etc.), among other apps.

Re:PortableApps

[Will.Woodhull]

FINALLY a mention of PortableApps!

I have been free of the need to support any Windows users for years now, but from around 2000 through 2007 I made a few hundred USB thumb drives loaded with office and graphics software from PortableApps, as well as job related documents, Firefox bookmarks, word processor and spreadsheet templates, and just about everything else a new employee at a particular hospital (2000 - 2002) or a student in a job training program (2003 - 2007) would need. Costs of distribution were lower than hardcopy, the material was more easily available to the user, and with so many persons working from the same USB image, some of the advantages of standardization were realized (students were able to help each other find documents or learn to use some feature).

If you go ahead with this, do consider using PortableApps. If I recall correctly, they had a fairly painless process for updates, for one thing.

If I were doing this for a family, I would do as others suggested and build a photo album on the stick as well. And maybe digitize some family documents, collections of ancestors' letters, the family tree, a recording of the family singing Christmas carols, etc.

I would also start thinking about how to make updating the data stash a family yuletide tradition.

Re:PortableApps

[syousef]

You should fill it full of stuff from PortableApps. Tons of great programs there. Plus they don't have to install anything. No worry about messing up their computer.

Why the hell your comment is not being modded up I don't know. I already run PortableApps where practical. Saves me time when setting up a new machine. All I do to put them on a USB stick is copy the directory. Done.

What I use (legally)

[mayberry42]

I'd say add Ubuntu / Linux Mint (which people seem to really like, more so than Ubuntu it seems). Other software could be: TrueCrypt and KeePass for internet security, calibre for ebook management,Thunderbird for email and LibreOffice for office needs. While you're at it, Skype (full download) might be good as well - i always seem to need it at the most inopportune moment). This might be a bit of a cheat, but check out here. You know your friends, see for yourself what they might like from here and download accordingly.

Re:What I use (legally)

[xenoactive]

I'll second the TrueCrypt and KeePass recommendation.

Re:Pathetic

[damn_registrars]

If giving a cheap flash drive full of crap is your idea of a nice Christmas gift, then the best gift you can give to your family and friends is dying.

He did say stocking stuffer. I don't know about your family but when I was growing up sometimes our stocking stuffers weren't worth nearly the cost of a flash drive. They'd often be filled with candy or small yo-yo-like toys. I think a flash drive is perfectly in line with that.

On the other hand, if you are of the habit of sending out $100 bills as stocking stuffers, I'll happily send you my mailing address and you can send some of your extra money to me.

PortableApps

[CastrTroy]

You should fill it full of stuff from PortableApps. Tons of great programs there. Plus they don't have to install anything. No worry about messing up their computer.

Humble Bundle and a donation

[Anonymous Coward]

You can Buy/Donate in there name and give them some good games too.
Humble Bundle Games
Or you can be cheap and just buy for very little and give the games to all your friends. :(

Amiga Forever,

[drfreak]

baby! Once I got ahold of a copy of Nuclear War online and started playing it again, kids of all generations should get to play that!

Re:Amiga Forever,

[damnbunni]

Amiga Forever isn't free; it's $9.95 for the cut-down 'value' edition or $29.95 for the regular edition.

That said, it really is a very good and easy to use emulator setup. But it's not free.

Re:Amiga Forever,

[drfreak]

Agreed, not free, but worth it. Amiga Forever includes roms for all the revisions of Kickstart, from 1.x to 3.x. The demo scene files alone are worth it to someone who seeks Amiga nostalgia such as myself. The video collection in the Premium edition is pretty cool too. I even got a bit teary-eyed in a few parts watching the culture and work ethic the Commodore developers had while the company deteriorated. Problem was, the support team and marketing had nowhere near the same ethic at the time.

It was sad to see the Amiga platform go south, but having the emulation platform to rediscover the old gems is priceless. Wait, no. It's not priceless, I think I paid about $50.00 for the 2012 premium edition; totally worth it for me. And, my favourite games are still downloadable and playable with a bit of parameter tweaking. I still can't get Dragon's Lair to work, but Nuclear War is still the shizz after all these years.

uTorrent

[Dan East]

uTorrent - the gift that keeps on giving.

You took the words out of my mouth

[damn_registrars]

Inkscape

GIMP

Those were the first things that came to mind for me. I use Gimp at least once a week in my job, and Inkscape probably once a month. They are great tools for those who don't need the fanciest of plug-ins. I would bet that they are mature enough now that 90% of home users who think "I need photoshop and/or illustrator" could actually get by just fine with these tools instead.

And being as most home users know what they can do with the Adobe programs, but not specifically how to do it, they could be just as well off to learn these instead.

So indeed, save your relatives a few hundred dollars by giving them a flash drive with Inkscape and Gimp. Of course, they probably won't install them, but at least you tried.

Re:You took the words out of my mouth

[professionalfurryele]

I regularly use GIMP. It is a great piece of software, but as a gift it would be a nightmare. The learning curve is horrid and it uses generally counter intuitive non-standard user interface paradigms. Maybe there is some rhyme or reason to why it is organised the way it is but I've never been able to determine it. Every person I know who has tried to learn to use GIMP has given up in 10 minutes because they couldn't draw a circle or persevered only because Photoshop costs cash. Paint.Net is supposed to be a bit easier to get into but I never needed to try because GIMP does everything I could ever need.

GIMP has come a long way plugin wise, and if you can code a bit in python then it is an awesome piece of software for image manipulation. Even if you cant, you can do pretty amazing things with it once you get going (I would suggest even most power users will find 99% of what they want in GIMP). But giving it as a gift would be be inviting frustration as best.

To make this an actual gift rather than an evangelising exercise I'd tailor the drives to each relative. Kids get games like Wesnoth or Tux Racer. Adults get stuff like Inkscape or some family tree software. Keep it simple, keep it fun. Don't put an office suite on there, I don't want to be reminded even tangentially of Clippy at Christmas. Same thing with web browsers unless Uncle Edgar really loves to surf questionable and 'this will keep his old Windows XP machine from getting infected'. Even then, might be worth thinking twice, maybe only if Edgar has been going on about how he hates his computer constantly getting infected. Thow in some themed CC wall papers. The kid who is into Space gets a some shots of nebula, the one who is into horses gets some ponies. Unless you know they have a Mac or Linux machine just give them the Windows installers. A gift is more likely to be appreciated if it is specific to the needs of the person in question.

I'd also keep a laptop on standby if you are going to give the kids different software and images, because if the kids do get a chance to go and play with their new toys (or just look at their nice wall paper) there may be one they especially like and that could lead to an argument if some kids have it and some kids don't. I wouldn't announce my intentions (that will cause people to devalue the gift and will make one seem cheap), but I also wouldn't let a needless argument develop.

Re:You took the words out of my mouth

[damn_registrars]

The learning curve is horrid

I've heard that argument many times, although I don't think that Gimp is any more difficult to learn that photoshop, it's just different. I would wager that if you had a user who had no experience with either, you could train them equally well with Gimp in the same amount of time as you could in photoshop.

After all, both applications are primarily used for technical adjustments to existing files (when used by home users) - crop, rotate, contrast, copy/paste, etc. Very few home users ever start with a blank canvas in either application.

Every person I know who has tried to learn to use GIMP has given up in 10 minutes because they couldn't draw a circle

I would say they're doing it wrong. Why would you want to draw a circle in Gimp? That is more of a proper task for a vector drawing application (like Inkscape).

That said, there are also plenty of good tutorials online that can help you use Gimp. And with a little bit of careful finagling you can use most photoshop techniques in Gimp as well.

or persevered only because Photoshop costs cash

Of course for the dead-set-on-photoshop crowd you could always try Gimpshop instead. Same free underpinnings, with special display settings to make it look more like Adobe. I've had good luck getting people to use that when they were previously Gimp-averse.

To make this an actual gift rather than an evangelising exercise I'd tailor the drives to each relative.

That is a solid idea. I don't have any specific suggestions for kids, or really for anyone who doesn't need image editing software since that is the first thing that comes to mind for me. I am a big fan of openoffice/libreoffice but I know that bringing that up can trigger a shitstorm here on slashdot and it seems like 60% of windows users already have pirated (either intentionally or through their employer) copies of MS Office anyways so it is rarely a useful thing to discuss. On a similar idea gaming is a minefield since it is enormously difficult to predict what games will be fun or meaningful for someone you don't know.

Re:You took the words out of my mouth

[professionalfurryele]

I'm sorry but the UI in GIMP is simply unintuitive and poorly designed for most casual to intermediate users needs. Prior to learning to use GIMP I'd only ever used Photoshop for removing red eye. I didn't really like it, but I could start using it pretty quickly. I've since used other software and can easily identify ways in which GIMP could borrow ideas to improve the learning experience. It is a matter of degrees, I can say the same for Photoshop (I actually don't like Photoshop very much, but I think that is just because I'm used to how GIMP does things), but GIMP is particularly bad. Sure, once you get into it, yes you have a pretty efficient work flow, but that was achieved at a needlessly high cost.

These people weren't trying to draw a circle because it was what they wanted to do. They were trying to draw a circle (or a box, or a straight line, etc) because they assumed it would be easy and a simple place to start. The smart ones knew that image editing is complicated and tried to get off the ground with something they assumed would be simple. Most users of raster and vector image editing / creation software make that assumption. What they wanted to do was remove a blemish from a photo or remove some lens flare or something similar.

GIMP's design makes the assumption you are rarely going to do anything simple in this manner (which is actually generally true, you rarely need to draw a circle). This is congruent with how people work, but totally the opposite to how they learn. This also means getting back into GIMP is a pain, because there are no easy routine tasks (besides cropping and rotating) to recut your teeth on.

These people were not dead set on Photoshop, I've met the graphics design type who are as you describe (although in some of those cases the are part of the 0.1% who need the extra bells and whistles that Photoshop provides). Gimpshop goes some way towards convincing people who are used to doing things in Photoshop that they can use the GIMP, but I don't think it helps with newbies and it doesn't fix GIMPS fundamental problem.

Re:You took the words out of my mouth

[professionalfurryele]

Yes, you end up with a very powerful tool with a good work flow. That is why I use it. I never said GIMP wasn't powerful or that the work flow was bad (although I do have a few gripes there too), in some regards I would suggest it has even surpassed Photoshop. There is a reason it has a permanent spot on my hard drive.

It is still as easy to learn as trying to understand physics by starting with string theory. And it needn't be so. That was my point.

Re:You took the words out of my mouth

[professionalfurryele]

There is Gimpshop. It helps if you have someone who is familiar with Photoshop, but I don't think that solves the fundamental problem. Doesn't really help me since I really don't like Photoshop. I don't want GIMP to be like Photoshop, I want GIMP to be a more user friendly GIMP. Still I'm hopeful, the project is on board with the OpenUsability project, and I'm keeping an eye on future versions to see if things improve. I know there was talk of moving to an optional single window interface which would be nice, I still haven't got the knack of getting GIMP to lay itself out gracefully on my Xfce desktop and the multiple windows never really helped my workflow except on machines with very low resolution.

Nightmare is just my experience. I think it is because I'm not a graphic designer, but I'm still the guy who gets called in to help people with this kind of stuff. But if the guy you need to teach a program is that rare I would suggest maybe tweaking the interface paradigm a bit isn't too nuts.

ooh maybe we should put linux in hotel rooms

[decora]

the penguin king demands it, justin!

I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated them.

[Anonymous Coward]

A few years ago, I gave my friends and family gifts like this. They each got a 256 MB USB stick with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org and some other open source software I thought they might find useful. Well, they didn't appreciate it at all.

Right after getting it, one of my nieces threw it back at me, calling it useless, and then she called me a "nerd ass faggot". I found out later that her brothers deleted everything on theirs without even bothering to try them.

My older relatives had no idea at all what they were. Some of them thought they were supposed to put them on their keychains, as decorations!

I'm not sure who, but some of my relatives didn't even bother to bring them home with them after they left the Christmas gathering. I found several of them lying on the floor after everyone had left for the night.

I hoped it would be a learning experience for them, but it was really a learning experience for me. Most people don't give a fuck about open source software. They just don't care. And they surely don't want to receive it as a gift.

Sorta useful suggestion

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I think the idea's a lil bland, I mean ... yay you put some free apps they could go get anyway.

But.... its' a stocking stuffer, let's have a little fun, right? Why not run around a few sites like Fail blog or LOLCats and find a big heap of funny pictures, and plunk em on the drive? That way they'll plug the drive in and have some fun zipping through those and having a few laughs. You could even throw in a folder family photos and give them something unique.

But if you're dead set on giving away apps, I can tell you I'd dig it if somebody took a flash drive and put Portable versions of Chrome, Opera, Firefox, a good mail client, and... well surprise me! I say 'portable' because if I don't have to install them, I'd definitely poke around and try them out.

Re:Sorta useful suggestion

[Tragek]

I think the idea's a lil bland, I mean ... yay you put some free apps they could go get anyway.

Ditto: Results in Present Face.

Re:Sorta useful suggestion

[FrootLoops]

yay you put some free apps they could go get anyway.

Most of the trouble of getting good free software is finding it, so I'd say the value of the software part of the gift is mostly as a list of suggestions one can conveniently test out.

Re:Sorta useful suggestion

[cgenman]

Everyone will look at photos and videos. Some people will launch games. Most people won't bother launching applications. Nobody will use installers.

Throw a couple of funny videos on there, a quick message to your friends, maybe some photos of cats. A link to Kiva if you're feeling like being socially positive.

free or Free?

[pushing-robot]

Just give them uTorrent - the gift that keeps on giving!

Seriously, though, are we talking about freeware or Free Open Source Software? There's a lot of great freeware out there; applications like Picasa, utilities like Piriform's set, games like Cave Story (a.k.a. Doukutsu Monotogari). I hope you're not ruling out closed source, since your friends and family really won't care about the difference.

Also, you should probably start by looking for popular downloads on sites like FileHippo, SourceForge, and even (groan) Download.com. There are also quite a few commercial games that were later released as freeware or free-to-play; Team Fortress 2 is a prime example.

Re:free or Free?

[ThatsMyNick]

I believe he is talking about fRee software.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

*Anonymous bro hug*.

Wikileaks

[Anonymous Coward]

Load 'em with as much as you can from wikileaks ;-)

Humble Bundles

[sandytaru]

Not quite free, but you can buy a handful of them at $1 a pop and explain that you're giving them away as gifts.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

"nerd ass faggot"

you have a family of cunts.

1950s or so cigarette commercials

[ThorGod]

I used to have a zip file with a ton of free-use black and white cigarette/tabacco commercials. I'm sure they still exist on torrent sites. They're free and *legal*, and some will make your head spin in three different directions all at once. Then they can delete them and use your gift as a gift ;)

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe you, but the story is plausible.

portableapps.com

[DragonTHC]

The portable apps suite is a powerful free toolbox useful for any user and admin alike.

You can also customize each flash drive to the recipient of the gift. There's tons of apps available including games.

www.portableapps.com

Re:portableapps.com

[Ayourk]

I second this. Portable Apps rock. There are programs on that site that meet all of your criteria for programs to put on a pen drive. Question is; will you be buying a large enough pen drive to hold all of those programs?

How about other stuff - like family photos?

[JoeCommodore]

Back in the 80s I did a Commodore 64 Christmas Disk for three years, one thing that was good about it is that I know everyone who I gave it to had a Commodore 64, and thus everything to use the disk. Now ids a different matter, you have people running potentially three platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows) with several versions as well as varying system specs. Not that FOSS software isn't a bad idea, I just hope you have time to support all those people you give it to as there will be issues depending on thier OS, and technical skills.

I have a better idea; A couple years ago I did that but included family photos, etc. stuff my family would be interested in regardless of the platform.

Besides photos, also think about video clips of the family and kids, and you can throw in PD or CC music , e-books, art, etc.

PortableApps.com

[ckaminski]

Load up the new launcher beta and load all the existing apps.

LiMP

[Tastecicles]

Linux Media Player and some CC music and movies.

Did this in '08 for my friends, still gets talked about - I still get voicemail with "Got any more of that free live music?"

Re:LiMP

[Confusador]

Now this sounds awesome! Got any suggestions about where to find good CC music? I support musopen.org for classical stuff, and of course I know Jonathon Coulton, but other than that I don't know where to begin looking.

Re:LiMP

[Tastecicles]

Here's where I get 90% of my music (the other 10% I actually go to shows). Requires a Torrent client plus Monkeys Audio, libFLAC and Shorten codecs but that's no biggy - the links are there...

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[WorBlux]

Ouch, what a nice niece. Should have loaded it up with SNES games.

Don't forget Candy & Presentation

[ddxexex]

I've always thought stocking stuffers should usually provide some instant gratification.
Since you're presumably giving these to less-tech literate people, there's a decent chance they won't immediately think the USB drives are awesome and wipe the disk without too much thought. Now if you tie some candy (like a candy cane) around the drive stick on a bow and make pretty, they will treat it more specially and might actually try out the software since they've already associated the USB drive as awesome, they'll see the FOSS on it as awesome too.

Wikipedia?

[hawguy]

How about the Wikipedia database? Only 7GB (compressed) and will provide many hours of bedside reading.

Or, if you're feeling particularly generous, give them the full database including all revisions - only 28GB compressed with 7-Zip, so will fit nicely on a 32GB flash drive. This expands to over 5TB of data, so will provide many more hours of exciting reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English-language_Wikipedia

Re:Wikipedia?

[phantomfive]

That might actually be worth it if it means I don't have to look at Jimmy Whales' face anymore.

Re:Wikipedia?

[rapidreload]

Only 7GB (compressed) and will provide many hours of bedside reading.

That would only be of interest if the recipient didn't have any form of Internet and in your example, didn't have a laptop with a wireless connection. Otherwise it seems like a waste of bandwidth.

Mint, not Ubuntu

[MurukeshM]

Aside from Linux Mint, which I prefer over Ubuntu for a better out of the box experience (I just installed Lisa yesterday evening), I'd suggest these: VLC / SMplayer
LibreOffice
7zip (and *remove* Winzip/WinRAR/whatever).
Firefox / Google Chrome
Notepad++ (associate with everything)
Thunderbird
Foxit Reader (I know it's closed source, perhaps Sumatra instead? I use both)
Picasa
Pidgin
If the receiver is a student, tools for things like Latex (Miktex + Texmaker, perhaps?)
A print copy of the manual.
Whatever you like from Portable Apps. :)

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[hedwards]

Which is why you give them on CDs or not at all.

And really, this is a pretty self serving gift so it's probably best not given at all.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Grishnakh]

I don't think I believe him either; the general gist of the story sounds plausible, but the details make it seem fabricated, especially the bit about the "nerd ass faggot", people leaving them lying on the floor, etc. Unless this guy comes from an incredibly rude family, most people are polite enough to accept gifts as-is, and if they don't like them keep their mouth shut and dispose of the gift later. One kid not being polite is certainly believable (kids haven't learned all their manners yet), but multiple adults? Doubtful. Moreover, he didn't say what year this was, but I'd assume that at that time, 256MB USB drives were considered decently large. If someone gave me a 2GB USB drive (today considered fairly small) loaded with pirated Windows software, for instance, even though I have no use for Windows software I'd still take the USB drive and just erase it and use it for my own purposes. You can never have too many of those things.

Portableapps.com

[schizz69]

Full of free Portable applications, so they can take their email inbox, firefox favourites and a whole lot of other tools and toys with them wherever they go. The best bit is, they are all FREE!!!

Photos

[M0j0_j0j0]

Photos of you and the person that is going to receive the gift, i think its the most logical, quit the OSS adventism.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[anglico]

OMG I wish I had mod points...literally 2 days after they expire and you do this! That was so perfect, anonymous or not!

Re:OK, I'm paranoid.

[couchslug]

So how do you sanitize the media you BUY for yourself?

For image handling, Irfanview

[aoeu]

For image manipulation, The Gimp. To get it out of the camera, UFRaw. To get rid of duplicates, Clonespy. These are all rock solid maintained performers

OSS for WIN

[enter to exit]

There exists such a project currently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDisc

Couple this with the selection from OSS-WIN solves your dilemma significantly: http://osswin.sourceforge.net/

Trinidad & Tobago Computer Society OSSWIN CD

[jdeisenberg]

http://ttcsweb.org/osswin-cd/index.htm

Give the gift that keeps on giving

[russotto]

Fill the drive with all the malware you can find.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[mayberry42]

They just don't care. And they surely don't want to receive it as a gift.

This says more about them (highly disrespectful and inconsiderate) than about you (thoughtful) and your gifts, to be honest. Dont be so quick to judge this as a bad idea - some families actually treat each other with kindness, courtesy and respect (something you may want to consider mentioning next time you talk to your niece) and thus will appreciate a custom-made gift - even if its something they dont like.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[smpoole7]

*Slightly* off topic, but let's face it: you'd do something like that because, deep down inside (if nothing else), you're hoping they'll fire up the software on that USB stick and say, "wow! And it's free??? Gimme some more o' dis!"

If you're trying to spread the news about Free Software, the only effective way to do it is to SHOW them. Most of the people whom I've converted to Linux did so after watching me use KDE (formerly) and Gnome (more recently). The multiple desktops are absolutely intriguing to a power user; it won't be long before he/she starts thinking, "hmmm ... I could use that." The fact that you're not playing "whack-a-mole" with a dozen pop ups each time you boot is impressive, too, as is the fact that, with a good distro, updates are centralized, controlled and politely done, with rarely a need to reboot.

Of course, I go one step further. If they want to see Windows, I've installed Windows in a Virtual Box. I can bring up Windows as a nice, well-behaved little application one one of my multiple desktops, where it stays out of the way until I really want or need it ..... the way it SHOULD BE. (Evil. Grin.)

Not flash drives or free software

[Garwulf]

Okay, I know some other people have mentioned this - and been voted down for it - but this has to be said: both free software and flash drives are terrible ideas for stocking stuffers on general principles.

Look, there are two reasons for this. The first is that any worthwhile gift has to be about the person you're giving it to. It has to be something THEY will appreciate. And, ideally, it should be something they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. When it comes to holiday shopping, even the friends of mine who are techies I wouldn't give free software or a data stick to. The ones who are into free software likely already have what I'd give them, and the ones who aren't would probably prefer something more non-technical, or more difficult to come by. It doesn't matter if you think it's cool - it's what THEY think.

The second is that, well, the gift should be something out of the ordinary. A flash drive is a basic computer accessory, and free software is, well, FREE. If it was software you created, then it would be worthwhile, as it was something you made. But otherwise, it would be like giving somebody a box of tissues.

If you're looking for gift ideas, be creative and stay away from the free software. If you've got a wine lover, give them a bottle of ice wine; if you've got somebody who loves the cute stuff, an interesting plush toy or the like. And if you absolutely have to give somebody software, make it something you created yourself or something that they would have to go shopping and pay for to get otherwise.

But if you go with flash drives and free software, the only thing you'll end up coming across as is some boring, thoughtless, self-obsessed cheapskate. Believe me, you don't want that.

Re:Not flash drives or free software

[belg4mit]

1) It's the thought and effort that counts
2) It's a fucking stocking stuffer, not the "big gift from santa"

Re:Not flash drives or free software

[tbird81]

What child wouldn't want a copy of 7-Zip for Christmas? You'd be the coolest uncle in the world!

For their birthday you could get them pngcrush! And maybe, for a treat, you could include an update for the Windows PCI device driver.

Re:Not flash drives or free software

[Stevecrox]

Mod this person up, ignoring everything else about Christmas I have always thought it as a time to show family and friends you care about them. Gifts should be thoughtful and hopefully meaningful I would argue that they can be utilitarian or something you would buy yourself.

Last year my parents bought me a Nokia bluetooth stereo headset, I would have bought them myself when my old set had died. They got them because over the year I owned the previous set I would mention about how they are better for online play, the gym, how I kept calling them on the old set and how gutted I was that my old set were dying. I never asked for them for Christmas and they meant a lot because it showed they do listen even when I go off on a technology rant.

I should point out that you shouldn't let money be a factor, one of my little sisters is trying to set a limit no Christmas spending. The rest of the family has been trying to explain that the amount you spend doesn't matter it's more important to get something meaningful. Heck last year I got my Dad a £5 survival kit and it has to be the most used and talked about present he got that year

Re:Not flash drives or free software

[Garwulf]

Very well said.

The best gift I ever received was a portrait of my great-grandfather on the eve of World War I in his Russian army uniform. He had died when I was a kid, and it felt like he had just been given back to me.

I'm hoping to do the same for my father this year for his birthday. My plan is to give him a copy of his father's World War II record (my grandfather passed away earlier this year). Neither of these are expensive gifts, but they're the sort of gifts that will always be remembered.

Re:Not flash drives or free software

[nbauman]

Best gift I ever gave was a copy of a patent that this girl's father had filed.

He was an engineer, she knew he had patents, but she had never seen them. I used to go to the patent library so I looked him up. They had to do with high-voltage power line transmission.

When she opened the envelope she thought it was some weird, geeky thing -- until she saw her father's name on it. She made copies and passed it around to the whole family. She was my friend for life.

I only wish her father had still been alive so I could talk to him about transmission lines.

Re:OK, I'm paranoid.

[lister king of smeg]

or you could just boot from a live cd and wipe it and not be a turd.

I would not do this.

[flimflammer]

I don't think this is a particularly good gift. Giving people free software on top of a cheap thumb drive (even giant ones are a dime a dozen now) feels little more than a silent push to free software from whatever they might be currently using.

If you want to give them a gift, give them something like a copy of Minecraft--something they can't just download for themselves.

Re:I would not do this.

[flimflammer]

I suggest you troll elsewhere, kind anonymous coward.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[thatskinnyguy]

First off, your relatives suck for not even having the common decency of feigning appreciation. Second, this was a learning experience. I was planning on doing this same thing this year for Christmas. Now it's off to buy giftcards: something I hate doing.

A "make your computer faster" kit

[ccole8]

I second all the people that said PortableApps.com, but don't gear it to open source (nobody cares). Gear it to making their computer faster and fixing viruses/spyware. Get a defragger (Smart Defrag), anti-virus (ClamWin), anti-spyware (Spybot S&D). Then maybe some useful installable programs like Recuva (recover deleted files), CCleaner (registry cleaner/hard drive cleaner...I think there are portable cleaners, I just haven't used them), etc. Then if you were feeling sneaky, throw in a trojan somewhere so you can mess with them later (anybody remember NetBus?)

Re:A "make your computer faster" kit

[tbird81]

Are you planning to buy your wife a new mophead, a scouring pad and some oven cleaner for Xmas?

Re:A "make your computer faster" kit

[Stevecrox]

I'm buying my Mum a toaster this Christmas... as a bit of fun. Every time I visit my parents I almost set fire to the kitchen using the old one (timer doesn't work) and there is now a long running joke about it between my Mum and me. That won't be her actual present, just something silly under the tree

I agree this idea does sound like a terrible gift, there seems little thought about the intended person and putting software on it will involve opening the packaging which will make it seem like a used usb stick

Re:A "make your computer faster" kit

[PCM2]

Back in Ye Olden Dayes, the telephone in our kitchen had a particularly long handset cord that would always get twisted up into a big ball. My mom would always complain about how ugly it looked. So one year for Christmas I bought her a cordless phone. It's not like she was particularly into getting electronic gadgets for Christmas, or that she was thinking she needed a new phone. But obviously she did.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

This actually sounds like a pretty typical American family event to me. I've seen the same stuff happen at my family's Christmas events in California, as well as at my wife's family's events in New Hampshire. Kids will be very vocal about gifts they don't like, especially the teenagers. They'll throw tantrums and cuss if they get something they don't really want. It isn't limited to the children, either. Some of the adults will exhibit similar behavior, although it's often more passive. Leaving unwanted gifts behind is just the kind of passive-aggressive attack that they'll perform. I know this can happen because my wife and I gave her adult sister and her sister's husband some wine last year, but apparently it wasn't expensive enough for them. They showed disappointment when they received it, and they left it behind, although they did keep some more expensive wine they were given by other relatives. We ended up taking it instead.

My Free App List

[tty7]

Games: FrozenBubble, Neverball, Vertigo, Zaz, Supertuxkart, Some form of tetris, Gweled, Blobby Volley 2, LBreakout 2, Frogatto, armagetron, xmoto, PokerTH, trackballs. Others: Cryptkeeper (hide directories), audacity(bundle mp3 support), openshot, desktop recorder, clementine-player(music), smplayer (if everyone has vlc), cherry--tree(note taking app, http://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/), tasque, focuswriter and virtualbox to run ubuntu.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem is that this is a selfish, smug, self-serving, "gift." It's the nerd equivalent of giving your Baptist neighbors copies of the Quran for Christmas in the hopes that they'll find it to be a learning experience. It's not a gift so much as an attempt to propagate your own ideological beliefs onto others in the way requiring the least actual pedagogy on your part. It's like asking your teacher how to spell a word, and they crassly tell you to look it up in the dictionary. Only worse. Your family aren't even asking. You're just giving them the dictionary and expecting them to have fun looking up words.

a iPredator subscription and demonoid invite

[vaporland]

it's the gift that keeps on giving, literally...

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[ktappe]

Like others, I'm having some trouble believing this is entirely true. However, in case it is it was not only a learning experience for you but a useful one. For example, you learned never to buy your niece anything ever again. I sure as hell wouldn't. I'd even go out of my way to blatantly give her absolutely nothing and if/when anyone in the family mentioned it, remind them how she treated you. Quote her word for word and say you refuse to ever reward such behavior. Saves you a few $ and is satisfying as hell.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not load a bunch of old family photos that they may not have.

Portable Tor

[Vegemeister]

Portable Tor for the young'uns. It is invalueble for punching through school web filters.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Grishnakh]

Wow, that's weird. I guess good manners and politeness are just a thing of the past for America now.

As for the wine, I'd be perfectly happy with cheaper wine. I've tried many cheap and expensive wines, and have found an inverse relationship between the cost and how much I like it. I guess I don't have enough of an "acquired taste". :-P

Focus on *useful* programs

[Boawk]

I'd buy them copies of programs like cat, shut, yes, and xeyes (which is a game). If you have them on your system you could copy them but I'm not sure if that's ethical.

Giving GIMP is mean

[csumpi]

I really want GIMP to be a a good alternative to Photoshop, but it's not. In fact it's terrible. It's like photoshop from 15 years ago, except with an unusable UI.

I know it's not open source, but it's worth to bend the rules on this one and include Paint.net instead of GIMP.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[adolf]

wine: Something that appreciates in value as your willingness to say "Oh, now that's interesting!" increases.

No.

[Jiro]

Anything that you can get for free, they can get for free. If they can get it for free, it's automatically unsuitable as a gift.

Even if the software is just a bonus for the flash drives, and you're also giving them a real gift and the flash drive is just the equivalent of a candy cane, it's still a bad idea. Free software is something you're interested in. You don't give people gifts that you're interested in, or that are meant to convince them to do things that you approve of. That kind of gift is self-serving and arrogant no matter how good the cause; just giving them actual candy canes would probably be received better.

Re:No.

[CAPSLOCK2000]

Making the effort of compiling a good collection of software/media is also a gift in itself.
Anyone can make a drawing, yet people still value receiving a good or personal picture.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[belg4mit]

It's nothing like your anaology. People could use the software without becoming zealots.
An office suite is generally useful, and not everybody wants to/can afford to pay Microsoft,
or feels uncomfortable stealing.

And in the case of the question at hand, what difference does it make to the brat if nerds
have more than one reason for liking the games they are being given?

Another layer of framing that might help a project like this would be to explain that the
productivity software is "bullet-proofof", but in the event assistance is needed *with it*
you'd be happy to help. If you're likelyto beroped into providing support anyhow, why
not make it easy on yourself/

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[NFN_NLN]

Right after getting it, one of my nieces threw it back at me, calling it useless, and then she called me a "nerd ass faggot".

Wait, wait, wait...

Did your niece call you a "nerd-ass faggot"... or a "nerd ass-faggot", because the hyphen really changes the dynamics of the entire story :)

http://xkcd.com/37/

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[aristotle-dude]

Sorry but not only are you trying to "convert" them to your FOSS beliefs but it is the software equivalent of giving last year's calendar as gifts. It makes you look like you could not think of buying them a real gift or actually making something original so you just shoved some "free" software onto USB sticks. Because you opened and installed the software on them they were already "used" by the time they got them.

Best advice you can get. Get them gifts they want.

[aristotle-dude]

Don't be an arse and try to "convert" people to your FOSS leanings by giving them a trojan "gift horse". Seriously, either give a gift that you actually think they would like or don't bother. That gift does not have to be expensive or even bought but if it is the latter, then you actually have to have created it yourself. Taking a USB stick and copying over FOSS is not creative or a real gift. You are basically giving out a FOSS tract.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

next year... malware

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

"nerd ass faggot"

you have a family of cunts.

You don't get to choose your family.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[JoeMerchant]

Wow, that's weird. I guess good manners and politeness are just a thing of the past for America now.

Not all of America, but, yes, there are some exceptionally rude pockets here and there.

Why?

[gillbates]

After having received from someone a gift that took their time and money to buy and wrap, and maybe make themselves, the last thing I would want to give in return is something that didn't cost me anything. Okay, so maybe you're also getting them a real gift. But who would install something they just found on a USB stick?

• Your dumb user isn't going to care about FOSS, because he's already bought all of his software from Microsoft, and as far as he's concerned, that's all the software he'll ever need.
• Upon finding Windows programs on them, the Mac user in the family will loudly speculate that he might get you a "real" computer for Christmas next year.
• Your younger brother will tell your mother that 'ubuntu' is the African word for pornography, after which your mother will delete everything on the drive and casually mention to you that you need to update your virus scanner.
• Your sister will ask you to reimburse her for "crashing" her computer after her 5 year old found the drive, plugged it into the computer, and inadvertently installed Ubuntu over Windows. And she's going to be forever mad that the only copy of her wedding video went with it.
• Most of your relatives will be a little perplexed, because they can't really appreciate the gift at first. Most of them didn't bring their computers, and even the ones that did have better things to do that troll through a collection of software they could just download from the internet anyway.
• A three year old will find one and admire the shiny plastic. A fate which will not bother the original recipient the least - hey, at least someone appreciates your Christmas gift.
• Your Grandpa will mistake it for candy and spend Christmas night in the emergency room while panicked relatives try to figure out if it the cover is missing because Grandpa swallowed it, or it never had one in the first place.

Re:Why?

[POTSandPANS]

Your sister will ask you to reimburse her for "crashing" her computer after her 5 year old found the drive, plugged it into the computer, and inadvertently installed Ubuntu over Windows. And she's going to be forever mad that the only copy of her wedding video went with it.

Too bad the USB stick she got for christmas had a bunch of stuff on it. She could have backed that video up or something..

Send them a blank drive that's really blank

[Animats]

I just bought four SanDisk USB drives, in original packaging, at Costco. I had to clean them of junk before using them. They even had autorun files and some kind of installer.

Send the guy an empty drive that's really empty. That's a real gift today.

Re:Send them a blank drive that's really blank

[Mr. Underbridge]

I just bought four SanDisk USB drives, in original packaging, at Costco. I had to clean them of junk before using them. They even had autorun files and some kind of installer. Send the guy an empty drive that's really empty. That's a real gift today.

That's an especially fun gift for computer security professional. Since they'll never believe the drive is actually *empty*, you've given them a fun game where they try to figure out how you hid the malware. Everybody wins.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get to choose your family.

But you do get to choose which ones live :D

GIMP, Blender and Friends?

[westlake]

Stick OO.o on there of course. And Firefox, Chrome, etc. And why not Gimp, Blender, and friends. All run Windows, why not spread em around. Will everyone use them? Probably not, but a few might and those that don't can just hit delete.

They have a browser.

The odds are very good they also have an office suite with which they are comfortable.

The learning curve for GIMP and Blender is alpine.

Portable Apps Are What You Want....

[mlauzon]

I posted the following to this same exact post that Jeng did:

http://slashdot.org/submission/1854046/good-useful-free-software

For some reason, this post was posted again, and edited, not sure why. But here was my answser to the original question:

You have many different portable application suites to choose from:

PortableApps.com (seems to be the most popular):
http://portableapps.com/

LiberKey (is somewhat new, and hasn't been around all that long, but it's catching up to PortableApps.com):
http://liberkey.com/en.html

I've never heard of the following two, so you may want to check them out anyway:

Pendriveapps:
http://www.pendriveapps.com/

winPenPack:
http://www.winpenpack.com/main/news.php

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Gadget_Guy]

I think that the analogy was very apt. Your response to this is exactly the same as the religious zealots who get genuinely suprised when people don't react well to their helpful teachings. "But surely everyone wants to know they are loved by God!"

Like it or not, open source software is as much a philosophy as it is a collection of useful software. It certainly feels to the recipient like you are proselytising even if it seems to the giver as providing useful software. Then you have the big problem for ordinary people that giving away free software as presents is like coming in with plastic bags full of air.

Free Games from my dial-up days

[Zaldarr]

Back in the day of screeching phone lines, I trawled through mound and mounds of freeware games. As Sturgeon's Law dictated, 95% of them were crap, however I found a fair few gems in the steaming piles of software. First stop should be vertigogaming.net, where you will find the most delightful puzzler Acidbomb - all of his other free stuff is good, but that is by far the best. Also, have a search for a brilliant game-maker called Darthlupi at http://db.tigsource.com/developers/darthlupi Then stop by fullyramblomatic.com and download 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Sacrifice, Trilby's Notes and 6 Days a Sacrifice - best adventure series I have ever played. Also there is the delightful stealth platformer The Art of Theft on that site as well. THIS also. http://www.reloaded.org/download/A-Blurred-Line/269/ There are more but I will stop here. Happy gaming!

Book: "Where There is no Doctor"

[fishing]

Available for free download from Hesperian in many different languages, it's an excellently thought-out medical guide that anyone can get benefit from.

http://weblife.org/pdf/where_there_is_no_doctor.pdf

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Anonymous Cowpat]

And everyone hates receiving... You've spent $20 to give them $20, but you've tied their hands about where they can spend it. There's nothing more infuriating than a giftcard for a store which doesn't sell anything you want.

(upshot: give cash)

Non-open source

[binkzz]

Most people are suggesting open source apps and games, but there are some really good closed source ones as well:

Spelunky(okay this one's open source)
Cave Story Fantastic platform game.
Trackmania Nations Great multiplayer and single player racing game.
Urban Terror The graphics are a little dated, but the gameplay is still really, really good. Online multiplayer team based FPS.

A List of FOSS programs

[gringer]

Here's my list:

http://user.interface.org.nz/~gringer/iopencd/browser/home.html

Which reminds me... I should update that CD and replace OpenOffice with Libreoffice.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[syousef]

First off, your relatives suck for not even having the common decency of feigning appreciation. Second, this was a learning experience. I was planning on doing this same thing this year for Christmas. Now it's off to buy giftcards: something I hate doing.

I refuse to buy gift cards. Fuck that. If they want a gift card I'll give them cash with one I printed myself and a suggestion on where they MIGHT use it if they so choose. Do you have any idea how many of those things end up not being used before they expire!? And how many more because companies file for bankruptcy or get bought out. Fuck that shit. Giving the gift of becoming an unsecured creditor I may as well flush the money.

Pick software according to the recipient

[BobDowling]

If you are giving more than one person a flash drive like this then the thing to do is to pick software according to their tastes and then enhance it with some extras appropriate for the software.

Are they a budding graphic designer, or are they someone who likes doodling? If that was the case i would support the idea of getting them Inkscape, but I would add some extras to go with it. Download a sequence of tutorials or worked example videos for example, so they can start using it and have fun at the same time.

Have they commented about wanting to learn to program? Python, plus downloads or the examples and exercises from a tutorial course so that they don't have to do all that themselves.

In essence I would take a single program for each recipient and "boost" it with some selected extras.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Nemetz]

If you're trying to spread the news about Free Software, the only effective way to do it is to SHOW them. Most of the people whom I've converted to Linux did so after watching me use KDE (formerly) and Gnome (more recently).

I second this, the few people that show me some interest about linux had done this for little things of interest after watching my desktop. For example, a coworker tried linux after he saw some of my xfce screensavers (cow bouncing, pacman played by the computer, etc). Came for the screensaver, stayed for the free stuff.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[starmonkey]

If you're trying to spread the news about Free Software, the only effective way to do it is to SHOW them. Most of the people whom I've converted to Linux did so after watching me use KDE (formerly) and Gnome (more recently). The multiple desktops are absolutely intriguing to a power user; it won't be long before he/she starts thinking, "hmmm ... I could use that." The fact that you're not playing "whack-a-mole" with a dozen pop ups each time you boot is impressive, too, as is the fact that, with a good distro, updates are centralized, controlled and politely done, with rarely a need to reboot.

This is exactly how I became interested in Linux. Then, I tried it, and none of my plug-and-play devices worked, and I was expected to write my own drivers or stop complaining, and I went back to Windows. Windows 7 is the best Windows so far. I am fully satisfied with it. I run Debian in VirtualBox as a coding environment.

May I whore my own link?

[MichaelCrawford]

My piano album at http://www.geometricvisions.com/music/

It has the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license as well as the scores to two of the songs if they play themselves.

Re: A gift is an opportunity ...

[petes_PoV]

The point about giving is that the recipient should actually (ideally) want the item they receive. It shouldn't be used as a platform for promoting your own opinions of what you think that person should have, and presuming that you know better than they do what software they should use.

While giving tech is never the best gift if the individual in question is not technically orientated (and if they are, they're perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what free stuff to d/l), the OP should at least demonstrate some degree of sensitivity and make the gift relevant to each of the recipients. Otherwise you might as well just give each of them a box of batteries as a socking filler - utilitarian, completely impersonal, cheap and more likely to get used than any strange software.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[IANAAC]

And everyone hates receiving... You've spent $20 to give them $20, but you've tied their hands about where they can spend it. There's nothing more infuriating than a giftcard for a store which doesn't sell anything you want.

(upshot: give cash)

I don't have that many relatives left, but they know that an Amazon.com gift card is always appreciated by me, so that's what I usually get. Frankly, that's probably the perfect gift for me.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Stevecrox]

This is a good idea, I don't understand giving away a usb stick. They tend to be secondary things e.g. giving someone a digital photo frame with some family photo's on it.

The gift of a USB stick with OSS on it seems very generic and not really very thoughtful. I always thought the point of Christmas was to show you care about someone by taking the time to think up a gift/gifts tailored to them. For example one of my little sisters never used to read recreationally and I would tease her about it. This year she hasn't been able to put a book down and is also a huge fan of Harry Potter so I'm getting her the Harry Potter Special Edition book set.

I appreciate people have budgets, heck of all the things I gave my Dad last Christmas the £5 survival kit is one of the things he goes on about the most. It doesn't have to be expensive just bought with that person in mind.

Personal things

[Registered Coward v2]

Get some pictures from your family and friends - put together a slide show - maybe mix in some favorite music. Ad some personal thoughts throughout. Make it with the free software you put on the disk - not only will they have something they can remember, but they will see what the software can do.

.

Just, for God's sake, don't turn it into one of those "what I did last year and why my little darling is so perfect" letters you always seem to get during the holidays.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Patch86]

I see all software (open source included) as a tool. You have it to do something. If it does something a person wants, they'll like it.

My parents' old desktop PC recently died an electrical death. They own a laptop, but my mum in particular says she prefers a desktop PC for doing proper office work on. So we rifled through our collective back catalogue of computing odds and sods, and I built them a new Frankenstein's computer. It being of very old pedigree, and them already owning a Windows 7 laptop, I decided to pop Xubuntu on it (which is of course loaded full of open source software). My parents love it for what it is; not because they're suddenly Linux enthusiasts, but because it works a treat, is free, and they find it satisfying to reuse hardware that would barely run XP. They like it because it's a tool that works.

I wouldn't want open source software as a Xmas gift. I like Open Office (or Libre Office nowadays) because it works for me. I like sparkplugs- I own a bunch of sparkplugs (inside my car). I am pleased with the existence of these sparkplugs, and will buy them again if ever I need to. But that doesn't mean I want sparkplugs as a stocking filler this year...

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[iamhassi]

Wow seems your family is really ungrateful, but honestly I rarely use my usb drive. Only time I use the drive is when I'm trying to fix someone's PC that doesn't have internet because if they had Internet I'd just download whatever files I needed.

Watch out for the Aspie downmod

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to explain the social aspects of gift-giving to Aspies is nigh impossible. To top it off, you are insinuating that the object of their systemizing perseverations is not generally considered a welcomed gift.

Better to just leave them to their own devices. They won't notice the weird/puzzled/disgusted facial expressions on the recipients' faces anyway; they will thus conclude that their gift + 15 minute rant about OSS philosophy was The Best Gift *evar*! They will then return here to report "success" to their echo chamber.

So, while I appreciate your valiant effort, I'm afraid it's inevitably a futile exercise.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[ubrgeek]

No. Marking them as a thing of the past would be if I was so uncouth as to tell you to go F-off, you xenophobic turd. Or to point out the sheer volume of places I've been on many continents with people who either made overly broad statements about how Americans no longer have manners or the populace seemed to have rudeness and/or a lack of tact embedded in their culture. Either of those would indicate good manners and politeness were a thing of the past. I'm just glad my parents raised me better than that.

Fill the drives with music, pics and video

[Anonymous Coward]

Filling the drive with select data (free music, pictures and videos) would be much more tasteful than filling it with free software. Especially during the holidays, people would have trouble appreciating utilities because utilities basically equate to work. Give them something they can relax to that you don't have to worry about crashing (such as a poorly maintained program).

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[electrosoccertux]

A few years ago, I gave my friends and family gifts like this. They each got a 256 MB USB stick with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org and some other open source software I thought they might find useful. Well, they didn't appreciate it at all.

Right after getting it, one of my nieces threw it back at me, calling it useless, and then she called me a "nerd ass faggot". I found out later that her brothers deleted everything on theirs without even bothering to try them.

My older relatives had no idea at all what they were. Some of them thought they were supposed to put them on their keychains, as decorations!

I'm not sure who, but some of my relatives didn't even bother to bring them home with them after they left the Christmas gathering. I found several of them lying on the floor after everyone had left for the night.

I hoped it would be a learning experience for them, but it was really a learning experience for me. Most people don't give a fuck about open source software. They just don't care. And they surely don't want to receive it as a gift.

the problem is you were trying to give a gift that you liked, not one they liked.
Any normal person would see this. We don't.
This is how far slashdot is disconnected from the real world.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[WhatAreYouDoingHere]

I'm not sure that I get it. At least you didn't call it an emulator ;)

Great gift - old pictures

[nategasser]

This is a great idea, especially for older people. My parents (who at their age don't really need anything) got a single photograph from a long-moved-away neighbor in the mail recently. It was of my sister and I in their backyard, playing with their kids. My mom was over the moon. I've heard about that photo like 5 times in the last month.

If you've got an old picture of somebody else, that you suspect they don't have, make a nice copy of it and give it to them this Christmas/Hanukkah. It'll restore your faith in "it's the thought that counts" which will be as big a gift to you as to them.

Old DOS games?

[MattBD]

How about a copy of DOSBox and a load of old DOS games? There are numerous sites where you can get abandonware or shareware games.

Support

[Fnord666]

My only suggestion would be to choose your apps carefully. After all, you are going to be supporting them for the next five years!

exact audio copy

[apcullen]

The I think are most useful for windows users would be 7-zip libre office exact audio copy / lame And maybe VLC too. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned EAC before. It's incredibly useful for those of us who still have some old, scratched CDs around.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[JoeMerchant]

I occasionally work with a "public service" office that makes little flyers and similar things for families that need them. They get sporadic grant money and have a few old Macs that they do their word processing on, but they need to communicate with families outside the office that mostly don't have Macs, and usually don't have the money for MS Word, either. I introduced them to Open Office as a solution to their copy-pasting of stuff in and out of e-mails. It was a hard sell, they were worried it would hurt their computer, etc. etc. and, they would never presume to ask any of the families outside to install such a thing on their own computer.

Even when you "spread the word for good," and not just idealogical reasons, there is resistance.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[C_me_glow]

If you are going to employ the referential term "nigger" please balance your sentiment by also using the referential term "cracker." Cultural pluralism in our day-to-day lexicon is a community effort.

Mother and Earthbound

[tepples]

Let me know when Mother and its sequel Earthbound are on VC.

Back when PSP stood for Paint Shop Pro

[tepples]

Or maybe the gap between Photoshop and Paint-replacement is large enough for a program to fit in-between them...

I'm a GIMP fan, but I know there are GIMP haters out there who might claim that Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro fits in this gap better than GIMP does.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[rueger]

*Slightly* off topic, but let's face it: you'd do something like that because, deep down inside (if nothing else), you're hoping they'll fire up the software on that USB stick and say, "wow! And it's free??? Gimme some more o' dis!"

More likely deep down inside he's too cheap or lazy to actually go buy a gift.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[PCM2]

I don't think it's self-serving insofar as it's still a USB key. If one of my friends gave me something like this, I'd probably already be using half the software and I'd have a newer version, too. But so what? I don't mind getting another USB key.

Besides, he said it was a "stocking stuffer"... he didn't say he was going to put it in a ten-by-ten box with a bow on it and leave it in the driveway like he was giving them a car.

Re:Not worth it.

[jon_doh2.0]

ditto minecaft.

Bad gift idea

[utkonos]

You are basically giving the person a list of software. This is a stupid idea for a gift. A gift needs time and thought. If you want to give free software as a gift, then why not arrange a time with the recipient to meet with them and install it for them, then show them how to work it.

Better than giving them a flash drive with a bunch of things that they will probably delete before using the drive to store mp3s.

Useful Freeware...

[Shirshasin]

What we use our beloved Personal Computer For ?

1) Net Surfing, Chatting, E-Mail, Downloads/Uploads, Torrents.
2) Viewing/Managing Archive/PDF files and Pictures.
3) Listening/Viewing Audio/Video, Burning CD/DVD.
4) General Office Applications like Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentation Graphics, Database, Drawing, etc.
5) Managing Calendar, Contacts, To Do list, Notes and Schedules.
6) We also use utilities for cleaning repairing Windows registry and file system, Anti-Virus, and Anti-Spyware.

Here is my answer. These are free software one should get after a fresh install of Windows or anytime for that matter...
1) Net Surfing, Chatting, E-Mail, Downloads/Uploads, Torrents.
Net Surfing : Firefox. Install NoScript and AdBlock Plus for increased security in Firefox. (Others Chrome, and Opera).
Chatting/IM : Gtalk, and Meebo (Others Pidgin, Skype, and Google Wave).
E-Mail : Thunderbird With Lightning. (Others Edora ).
Downloads : Orbit Downloader. (Others GigaGet and Free Download Manager).
Uploads : Core FTP LE. (Others FileZilla ).
Torrents : uTorrent. (Others Vuze ).
Plug-in/Add-on/Extension : Flash(IE), Flash (Non IE), Silverlight, Shockwave Player, Google Toolbar, .Net Framework, Java Runtime Environment, Visual C++ Runtime, and DirectX.
2) Viewing/Managing Archive/PDF/E-Book files, Pictures and CD/DVD burning.
Managing PDF : Adobe Reader. (Others Foxit Reader )
E-Book Reader : FBREader And Amazon Kindle for PC.
Archive Manager : 7-Zip. ( Others PeaZip).
Picture Manager : Irfanview (With PlugIns). (Others XnView and Picassa).
CD/DVD burning : CDBurnerXP. (Others ImgBurn, Deep Burner, and Explore&Burn)
3) Listening/Viewing Audio/Video. VLC Player
(Others The KM Player, QuickTime Player, RealPlayer, Winamp, DivX Play, and Audacity). You can also use K-Lite Codec Pack which will enable Windows Media Player to play every kind of Audio & Video file.
4) General Office Applications. LibreOffice From Document Foundation.
(Others OpenOffice.org, Google Docs, and Lotus Symphony ).
5) Managing Calendar, Contacts, To Do list, Notes and Schedules : Thunderbird With Lightning.
6) Utilities :
Cleaner/Optimizer : CCleaner, Defraggler, and Advanced SystemCare .
Anti-Virus : Avast. (Others AntiVir Personal, and Comodo Internet Security).
Anti-Spyware : SuperAntiSpyware. (Others SpyBot).
Automatic Update Checking : Update Notifier, (Others Filehippo Update Checker.)

Details with download links in this site - http://sites.google.com/site/shirshasin/ :)

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[tjhart85]

Well, the stocking stuffer would be the USB keys and teh stuff on them is just a bonus (or something to be deleted).

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[pugugly]

Wow - I'd say I'd be spanked if we had tantrums like that, but more likely we'd have been made to feel stupid by having a five-year-old put in charge of us with the parents making sure we toed the line and did everything we were told to by an obviously more mature member of the family - {G}.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[Surak_Prime]

I'm not sure what is supposed to be Funny about this. I'll second the bro hug, and without being an anonymous coward.

Our family is who we choose. Blood is an accident.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[rapidreload]

[blockquote]Right, because wine and virtualbox are somehow not good enough to run windows software.[blockquote]
Well, they aren't. WINE introduces regressions with each new version, so who in their right mind would want to rely on WINE to run either necessary software or games without fiddling/troubleshooting? As for Virtualbox, it's slow.

[blockquote]Better to stay where the viruses are, where the system takes twice the resources it needs, where the providing company has a history of illegal activity, where bugs take years to get fixed, where if you don't like OS-feature-X too bad.[/blockquote]
If you're getting viruses in Windows, maybe you just don't know how to use computers properly. It's funny how the Linux zealots seem to talk about viruses the most, even though they aren't actually a concern if you employ some basic security habits. As for the rest, I find Windows 7 faster than Ubuntu 11.10, far less buggy and much more pleasant to use as a desktop OS. Illegal activity? Sure that bugs me, but using Linux is such a bad experience these days that Microsoft's behavior isn't enough to pull up with the shit that is Linux on the desktop.

[blockquote]You'd be amazed at how many people are using linux. And if you are in the server world, Unix is pretty much where it's at.[/blockquote]
Sure. We use Linux at work in embedded systems as well as servers. That's where Linux is strongest in - not on the desktop. But desktop software is what this fucking thread is all about moron, which is why I'm not mentioning anything else.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[rapidreload]

You're right, Photoshop ain't cheap. But it is however very easy to pirate - just download the Master Collection trial from the Adobe web site, find a key on TPB and grab a "host file" blocking script that will redirect all known Adobe activation servers to 127.0.0.1. Heck I'd do that for them and package it nicely with a series of easy instructions to follow. In the end they'll get the best tools available, they'll be part of the crowd that can "Photoshop" images rather than "GIMP" them, and they'll be none the wiser because no-one gives a shit if you give them pirated software.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[georgesdev]

thanks for sharing that with us. I'll keep this in mind.
Maybe what should be put on those usb keys is data more than software.
open source books.
pictures of family event.
videos of family events.
software only for the guy you know is a nerve, and especially if he does not have a good Internet connection. Eclipse for your nephew starting to program, Gimp for the one into pictures and special effects. AND OFFER YOUR TIME TO INSTALL AND EXPLAIN THE SOFTWARE, THAT'S THE TRUE GIFT!

Also, I would fill each key with things targeted to the person you're giving it to. Make it feel personal.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[admica]

I'm not sure what you two are on about, but wine is something you install to run windows software.

Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the

[adolf]

It is?

Podcasts

[virginiajim]

Here's a link to a short article about podcasts which has a long list of web sites at the bottom with excellent podcasts where can find enough material to easily fill most flash drives and customize the material to the recipient: https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/speed-your-hearing.htm . (Full disclosure: I wrote the article.)