The Linux Convert - moving from closed to Open Source

Open Source Software for Linux

This is where the Linux system will really shine over others. Almost all Windows PCs come with the operating system and possibly a cut down office productivity package like MS Works installed. Everything else has to be bought seperately. Here we will look at some of the software freely available (and legal) for the linux machine and what the windows equivalents are.

OpenOffice - this is a fully featured package which is compatible with MS Office. It is available for free download from www.openoffice.org and comprises a word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), Presentations (Impress), graphics package (Draw) and database access tools.

NVU - A complete web authoring system on a par with Dreamweaver or Front Page but available for free as Open Source. You can download the software and the source code if you wish to change or extend it. It is available from http://www.nvu.com/ and, for those of you not yet ready to convert there is a windows version available.

GIMP - the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. This is available from http://www.gimp.org/ and is an incredibly powerful Image editing package that will allow you to replace the functionality of PhotoShop on your Linux machine. This amazing bit of software is free and has a very wide array of extensions and add-on modules.

Programming - Windows users have access to software like Visual Studio and while this isnt fully replicated in Linux, the standard distros come with C++ compilers built in. Additionally, PHP, Perl, Python, Cobol and much more all run natively.

Apache / MySql - this is a combination of industrial standard webserver and internet database. Both these applications are available for the Windows platform, but are more commonly found running on Linux (or Unix) machines. The native windows equivalents are IIS and SQL Server - both expensive, high end applications that are normally out of the price range for most users.

This is just a small sample of what is available and doesnt begin to cover the software that is installed along with the basic operating system. It is almost certain that there is an Open Source solution for pretty much any software need you can think of. If there isnt, why not take the time to write one!