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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?
Graphics:
Other stuff:
My blog
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.
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
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
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.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
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.
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
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!
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.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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.
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.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
*Anonymous bro hug*.
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.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
"nerd ass faggot"
you have a family of cunts.
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?"
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
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
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.
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/
http://ttcsweb.org/osswin-cd/index.htm
*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.)
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
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
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.
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.
Why not load a bunch of old family photos that they may not have.
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
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/
next year... malware
In this context you might as well give them Chlamydia.
You get to keep the usb also!
-- no sig today
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?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
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.
You don't get to choose your family.
But you do get to choose which ones live :D
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.