The term 'free' software not only means 'no cost' but equally important 'free to modify' for specific uses; this allows individuals and businesses to expand usage as needed and to avoid expensive supplier 'lock-in'.
Unlike Microsoft Windows, operating systems based on Linux (and *BSD) are free to try, install and use. Even if you don't install it permanently, you can try it out by booting up your computer with a 'live CD'.
Linux software is bundled into a 'distribution' tailored to specific needs. Additional software packages are stored in a distribution specific 'repository' for convenient download and update.
Much free software is available 'cross platform', in other words on Windows AND Linux AND Mac OS and other operating systems.
Here are my current preferences:
| Category | Name | Comments |
| Desktop operating system distro - modern hardware | Linux Mint | A civilized version of Linux that 'just works'. Several versions built on Ubuntu or Debian. Honorable mention - Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE and many others. |
| Server operating system distro | Debian | Stable. No fuss package management. Honorable mention - CentOS, all of the BSD distros, Ubuntu. Maybe one day, OpenIndiana. |
| Operating system distro - limited hardware | Puppy Linux | Easily installs in less than one gigabyte of hard drive space. Practical to use on hardware with less powerful processors and less memory. Plenty of 'lightweight' packages that run fast. Honorable mention - Tiny Core |
| System repair distro | Parted Magic | These specialized distributions contain numerous programs for testing, maintaining and repairing your computer. They include a graphical partition editor (gparted) and a virus scanner (clamav). Honorable mention - System Rescue CD, GParted Live CD |
| Desktop environment | xfce | Unlike Windoze, free operating systems usually have alternate desktop environments available to install. xfce is now recommended due to the deprecation of Gnome 2. Honorable mention - lxde, kde, openbox. |
| Word processing | abiword, libreoffice | Compatible with most MS Office document formats. Abiword is WP only, LO contains a whole 'suite' including spreadsheet and presentation manager. |
| Spread sheet | gnumeric | MS Excel replacement. |
| Media player | vlc | Cross platform player that includes codecs to play both common and obscure audio and video digital media formats. |
| Data backup | rsync | Command line program to copy files efficiently to another file server. More user-friendly packages with graphical interface for simple scenarios are under evaluation. |
| Windows emulation | wine | A package that allows some Windows software to install and run under Linux. No guarantee of success, but is surprisingly advanced. |
| Digital photo management | digikam | Download and manage images from most digital cameras. Frees you from clunky, vendor specific, Windows only software. Do you hear me Canon? |
| DVD backup | k9copy | Similar functionality to DVD Decryptor and DVD Shrink, both unsupported but still available :-). Importantly, lets you copy while skipping bad sectors. |
| CD/DVD burning | k3b | Seems to do just about everything, even burn FLAC files back to CD audio. |
| Collection management | gcstar | Keep track of your physical media - CDs, vinyl, etc. Looks up tracks from multiple online databases. Available on both Windows and Linux. Honorable mention: Tellico, Alexandria. |
| MPEG video trim | gopchop | Create MPEG video clips accurately. |
| Video editor / transcoder | avidemux | Despite its name, avidemux is now a full featured editor and transcoder. Concatenates and resequences MPEG clips also. |
| DVD authoring | dvdstyler | Cross platform DVD authoring. |
| Server admin GUI | webmin | In addition to the usual command line tools, Webmin gives you a comprehensive view of your server configuration. For some packages (mdadm - RAID) it is indispensible. |
| Other favorites | See list | firefox, opera, chromium (Chrome) - web browsing), virtualbox - OS virtualization |
| . | . | . |
This post is updated as time permits.
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