Free Software
2012-01-27 17:18 By Jason Birch
Software is expensive, however high qualitiy software which will perform most users requirements is available free of charge, and easy to download direct from the web.
There are stories appearing of large organizations and government departments migrating to Linux operating systems for their desktop computers. Linux already a major choice for servers, embedded systems, mobile phones and net-book computers. Linux is surly an ideal operating system for desktop computers with it's low costs and freely available software.
In the tables below, the columns headed 'L', 'A', 'W' represent support for Linux, Apple and Windows respectivly. Click on a row of the table to view a web site where the software is available.
IMPORTANT: Never trust any source of software, always virus scan software against an up to date virus database before installing it. Always regularly scan your system after software is installed as installed software may have contained a virus not in the virus database at the time of installation. Always check the MD5 signature of software after downloading, if one is available.
Operating Systems
|
Logo
|
Name
|
Purpose
|
L
|
A
|
W
|
|
CentOS
|
Linux
|
|
|
|
|
Mint
|
Linux
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon EC2
|
Hosting remote accessible computers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon S3
|
Remote storage. Store backups off site, serve basic web sites, ...
|
|
|
|
Applications
|
Logo
|
Name
|
Purpose
|
L
|
A
|
W
|
|
OpenOffice
|
Microsoft compatible office suite applications.
|
|
|
|
|
Thunderbird
|
e-mail / RSS client.
|
|
|
|
|
Pidgin
|
Multi-protocol messaging client.
|
|
|
|
|
VLC
|
Video & Audio player.
|
|
|
|
|
Audacity
|
Sound editing.
|
|
|
|
|
Firefox
|
Web browser.
|
|
|
|
|
Skype
|
Voice/Video communication.
|
|
|
|
|
DVD Shrink
|
Video DVD backup.
|
|
|
|
|
TV-Browser
|
Television EPG (Electronic Program Guide).
|
|
|
|
|
Utilities
|
Logo
|
Name
|
Purpose
|
L
|
A
|
W
|
|
7-Zip
|
File compression archiver & unarchiver.
|
|
|
|
|
Putty
|
Secure shell terminal for Windows.
|
|
|
|
|
Pocket DIVX Encoder
|
Reencode video to lower resolution for viewing on portable devices.
|
|
|
|
System
|
Logo
|
Name
|
Purpose
|
L
|
A
|
W
|
|
VMWare Player
|
Run virtual computers on a physical computer.
|
|
|
|
|
Real VNC
|
Remote access to other computer desktops.
|
|
|
|
|
PCTools Firewall
|
Computer network firewall and application security.
|
|
|
|
|
Clam Anti-Virus
|
Anti-virus scanning.
|
|
|
|
|
Spybot
|
Malicious software scanner.
|
|
|
|
|
CoreFTP
|
SFTP/SCP client.
|
|
|
|
|
WinSCP
|
SFTP/SCP client.
|
|
|
|
|
SysInternals
|
Low level system tools for Windows.
|
|
|
|
Server
|
Logo
|
Name
|
Purpose
|
L
|
A
|
W
|
|
Dovecot
|
IMAP / POP3 e-mail server.
|
|
|
|
|
SendMail
|
SMTP e-mail server.
|
|
|
|
|
SpamAssassin
|
e-mail Anti-Spam filter.
|
|
|
|
|
Apache
|
HTTP web server.
|
|
|
|
|
Tomcat
|
Java Servlet / JSP HTTP plugin.
|
|
|
|
|
MySQL
|
Database server.
|
|
|
|
|
PHP
|
HTTP Scripting language.
|
|
|
|
|
OpenVPN
|
Secure point-to-point networking.
|
|
|
|
|
CVS
|
Version control file server system.
|
|
|
|
|
tkCVS
|
Version control file system client.
|
|
|
|
|
Xming
|
XWindows server for Windows.
|
|
|
|
|
