Open Source Software

sandroad

Hi All

Seeing that we are all in here for pretty much the same reason, to SAVE Mega Moola, I thought I will pass along some useful pieces of, Free, software that I use.

PDF:

If you are anything like me when it comes to documents and do not want people to change your docs or would like nice small file sizes try PDFCreator (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator)

This is free and automatically saves you the 100-200 quid it would cost for Adobe's version albeit it does not have the fancy features, it does the job.

Office:

For those of us you do not like to fork out the cash to Microsoft all the time, there are many alternatives to using Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. try using OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org

There are many free alternatives out there to do the job and we do not need to splash the cash on the software for it.

Let me know if you have a particular problem regarding something you are looking for and I will see where I can help.

Thanks

cwoodham

sandroad wrote:

This is free and automatically saves you the 100-200 quid it would cost for Adobe's version albeit it does not have the fancy features, it does the job.

Problem is it won't open a pdf or let you edit one. I use PagePlus 11 for this

The Gimp is a good open source graphics editing package. But couldnt they make the download/install/upgrade part of the website

www.gimp.org/downloads/

a little more user friendly! :mad:

whotook316

Biggest money saver has got to be Linux - Ubuntu is recommended as long as you don't use a wireless network.

https://www.ubuntu.com

the_grey_lantern

whotook316 wrote:

Ubuntu is recommended as long as you don't use a wireless network

That's not strictly true. There are certainly issues regarding Linux and wireless networks but I'm using Ubuntu on my laptop and am connected to a wireless router. Setting it up was literally two minutes work. I've tried about 10 Linux distros and only Ubuntu, Suse, and PCLinuxOS worked with my router.

If you are thinking about changing to Ubuntu but are worried it won't work with your wireless router, search for your router model on http://www.ubuntuforums.org.

whotook316

the_grey_lantern wrote:

That's not strictly true. There are certainly issues regarding Linux and wireless networks but I'm using Ubuntu on my laptop and am connected to a wireless router. Setting it up was literally two minutes work. I've tried about 10 Linux distros and only Ubuntu, Suse, and PCLinuxOS worked with my router.

If you are thinking about changing to Ubuntu but are worried it won't work with your wireless router, search for your router model on http://www.ubuntuforums.org.

Yeah, you're basically right. I guess I'm still smarting from my experience - Ubuntu works fine with my router and my laptop, but it won't work with the wireless card in my desktop. Very annoying.

wolfman

the_grey_lantern wrote:

That's not strictly true. There are certainly issues regarding Linux and wireless networks but I'm using Ubuntu on my laptop and am connected to a wireless router. Setting it up was literally two minutes work. I've tried about 10 Linux distros and only Ubuntu, Suse, and PCLinuxOS worked with my router.

Wireless via WPA is more troublesome. Especially for certain wireless chipsets. It's the main reason I haven't switched fully across yet (apart from gaming and .Net development). It can be quite a bit longer than 2 minutes depending upon your setup.

WEP support is there, but it's a poor form of wireless security these days. WPA support out of the box is what they needed for the release of Dapper, given how common it now is. Maybe next release.

the_grey_lantern

wolfman wrote:

WPA support out of the box is what they needed for the release of Dapper, given how common it now is. Maybe next release.

It's about as far from "out of the box" as you can get but check this out:
http://en.magenson.de/2006/06/11/ubuntu-dapper-drake-and-wpa-encrypted-wireless/

Hope it works for you - it did for me :-)

wolfman

Yeah, I got it working in about 4 steps. You have to install Network Manager though You need internet access to get Network Manager to get your wireless card up and running, but of course won't be able to do this!

Plus I've just switched to a Core 2 Duo, so getting it (or any version of Linux) setup on it will be another kettle of fish.

thereaper101

Check out this link for lots of Open Source Software

http://www.econsultant.com/i-want-open-source-software/index.html

Running a LAMP Ubuntu server in work, very stable and good support on the Web