Open Source Software: the workshop

Dr. Herb Brown Appalachian State University

Angela Brown Wilkes Community College – Ashe Campus

What is Open Source Software?

“Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”1

May be free

1 source: http://opensource.org/

Open Source Licenses

GNU – General Public License: most common

Most: require inclusion of source code allow software to be redistributed allow software to be modified does not require software to be free

Benefits to Open Source

Most is free May be copied May be modified to meet your needs May be distributed Is legal software Some suggest it is more secure than

proprietary software Can save you $$$$$

Types of Open Source Software Anti-virus Operating systems E-mail Browsers Office Applications

Word processing Database Spreadsheet Presentation

Drawing and Photo-editing Banking Video editing Screen capture … and many more …

Where do I find this stuff?

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/ http://sourceforge.net/

Probably most comprehensive Most overwhelming

http://osswin.sourceforge.net/ Very good Windows-based open source

index Search for it!

Anti-virus

Grisoft – AVG Anti-virus Not open source but free & updated http://free.avg.com

Avast Microsoft Security Essentials ClamWin

http://www.clamwin.org “Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an

on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware”

Open source

Operating systems

Linux Many versions KDE or Gnome GUI Popular versions▪ Ubuntu▪ Fedora (Redhat)▪ PCLinuxOS▪ SUSE▪ Knoppix (run from CD-ROM)

WWW.DISTROWATCH.COM

Lab Management Software

iTalc http://italc.sourceforge.net/home.php Software similar to SynchronEyes and

LanSchool (manage student lab computers from the teacher workstation)

FREE!!

Disk Cloning

Clonezilla http://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/ Similar to Ghost

E-mail

Thunderbird http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

thunderbird/

SeaMonkey (communication suite) http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ E-mail, web-browser, needs feeds, etc.

FTP Program

Filezilla http://filezilla-project.org/

Includes SFTP

Browsers

Mozilla Firefox www.mozilla.com

Opera www.opera.com

Safari www.apple.com/safari/download Yes it is for WINDOWS too!

Google Chrome www.google.com/chrome

File Downloaders P2P

A GOOD PLACE TO GET A VIRUS BitTorrent▪ www.bittorrent.com

Azureus – now Vuze▪ azureus.sourceforge.net

Limewire▪ www.limewire.org

Gnucleus▪ www.gnucleus.com/Gnucleus/

Media Players

VLC Media Player www.videolan.org/vlc

Media Player Classic www.download.com/Media-Player-

Classic/3000-2139_4-10518778.html?tag=mncol;pop

Download.com – search on media player classic

sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli Media Player Classic – Home Cinema

http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

Applications

Office Applications OpenOffice▪www.OpenOffice.org▪Office Plug-in for OpenOffice Formats▪ http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/get.jsp

NeoOffice▪www.neooffice.org▪Mac “improved” version of OpenOffice

NotePad2

HTML syntax highlights Windows platform http://www.flos-freeware.ch/

notepad2.html

Web Development Clients

NotePad2: http://www.flos-freeware.ch/

notepad2.html KompoZer

http://kompozer.net/ WYSIWYG web page editor

Nvu http://net2.com/nvu/download.html Another version of Kompozer

PDF Creator

PDFForge – PDFcreator www.pdfforge.org/ www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator/download Create PDFs without expensive software

qvPDF (printer driver type) sourceforge.net/projects/qvpdf

PDF Viewers Adobe Acrobat (free viewer) Foxit Reader▪ http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/▪ Small, fast, feature filled reader

Drawing and Photo-editing

The GIMP! http://www.gimp.org/ http://www.gimp.org/windows/

GIMP SHOP GIMP with a Photoshop overlay http://www.gimpshop.com/

Paint.net http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

Vector Graphics Editor

Inkscape Open source vector graphics editor Similar to illustrator www.inkscape.org

Audio Editing

Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

DVD Authoring & Video editing

DVD-Flick: DVD Authoring Tool http://www.dvdflick.net/download.php

Video Capture http://www.virtualdub.org/

Virtual VCR http://virtualvcr.sourceforge.net/

MediaCoder http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

download.htm Others

Screen capture

Camstudio http://camstudio.org/ Camtasia –like screen capture software

JING http://www.jingproject.com/

Animation

Blender Blender is the free open source 3D

content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

www.blender.org

* Image obtained from the blender.org website

Podcasting

Juice “Juice is the premier podcast receiver, allowing users

to capture and listen to podcasts anytime, anywhere” http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php

EasyPodcast http://www.easypodcast.com/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/easypodcast/ Podcast publication (ftp) MP3 Tagging

Use Audacity to record for re-format audio files

Banking

GNUCash GnuCash is personal and small-business

financial-accounting software www.gnucash.org

TurboCash http://sourceforge.net/projects/

turbocash/

Project Management

GanttPV www.pureviolet.net/ganttpv

dotProject http://www.dotproject.net/index.php

TaskJuggler http://www.taskjuggler.org/

OpenWorkbench http://www.openworkbench.org/

OpenProj http://openproj.org/ Included in StarOffice (Sun) in Europe

Course Management

MOODLE (becoming rather mainstream)

http://moodle.org/

Mapping

Google earth http://earth.google.com/

NASA Whirlwind http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov

Celestia (3-D planetarium software)

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html

Stellarium (3-D Sky maps) http://www.stellarium.org/

Games

Games: TONS search Miniclip.com Agame▪ http://www.agame.com/

200 card games: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pysolfc/

http://osswin.sourceforge.net/games.html

Latest Trend: Online software

GOOGLE Google Docs (http://docs.google.com)▪ Share docs▪ Need Google account▪ Word processing▪ Spreadsheet▪ Calendar (becoming very popular)▪ Synch with most platforms

▪ Presentations▪ MANY MORE!!

Concerns/Solutions

Security Concerns? Stability (stay away from BETA)

HOW TO TEST SOFTWARE Use virtualization software (such as Microsoft

VirtualPC) to create a virtual machine Install software in the virtual machine Test software in the virtual machine, problems are

isolated from your host machine VirtualPC 2007 – also FREEhttp://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/

Windows 7 – XP mode (VirtualPC with a WinXP install)

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: SO MANY

CHOICES!!