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OpenSource Alternatives

Wednesday 6 April 2005 om 12u20

OpenSource Software

Using Windows doesn’t prevent you from using OpenSource software. Support the OpenSource community, if you’re looking for a program visit SourceForge, you can download the best OpenSource software there.

Ok, I have a lot of reasons to throw out Ubuntu, and it’s not really Ubuntu’s fault. My ATI Radeon 8500 just doesn’t like Xorg, as we all know ATI isn’t as good for the Linux community as the people over at NVidia. I refuse to change my graphics-card and it’s horrible to work with it in Linux. The 2D performance is worse than my old Pentium 133MHz, (I have a Pentium 4 1.8GHz, so that’s very bad). Anyway, 3D performance is great (almost as good as in Windows) but I just could do anything using Gnome, it was sooooo slow. FireFox crashed a lot (prolly some library files Ubuntu screwed up), Flash didn’t have sound in FireFox (a known issue, but it’s very annoying), etc.
So, here we are back in XP again. Another reason for that is the fact that I’m working on some projects that require Windows.

I’m using Windows XP (service packed) but I’m always trying to use OpenSource software on it. Here’s a little list of perfect alternatives (they’re ususally better, otherwise I wouldn’t be using ‘em). If you have suggestions or remarks, feel free to comment.

FireFox
Replaces Internet Explorer and so much more, you can use it as a (real!) FTP-Client using the plugin called FireFTP iirc.

Gaim
The Microsoft Messenger replacement (better known as MSN to most users) and a replacement for all messenging stuff. The default MSN-client in Windows XP is bad for you, it’s the Internet Explorer of MSN-clients, you’re not safe for virus attacks.
Gaim supports a lot of protocolls, like MSN, IRC, AIM/ICQ, Gadu Gadu, Jabber, GroupWise, SILK, Napster, Yahoo, … You’ll never need anything else again. Webcam functionality isn’t implemented (yet!), but that will be in the future.

ThunderBird
Replaces Outlook (Express?), it’s an email client with all the functionality you’ll ever need

SunBird
This is a calendar program (in development) that is so much better than the calendar built into Outlook. Give it a try.

7-Zip
An archive-manager that handles every packed format you’ll ever need. I used to use WinRar and crack it, but this is free and better.

OpenOffice
A total replacement for Microsoft Office, it has all the replacements for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, … and it’s free, a lot more stable , faster and better.

FileZilla
One of the best FTP-clients around. If you don’t need advanced FXP stuff this is perfect for you. Throw out Internet Explorer (as browser AND FTP-client) and get this. Installed in a few seconds and great to work with.

That’s all I can think of right now.

[update1]
Media Player Classic
THE replacement for Windows Media Player. Don’t get me wrong, this is the best program to play media ever. Forget about BSPlayer or whatever player you thought that was good up untill now, this is the player you’ve always been waiting for. It plays everything, movie and sound (even realmedia files, quicktime, …) and is very powerfull. It has subtitles, audio synchronising (offsets), plays DVD’s, plays streaming stuff, webcams, mp3, ogg vorbis, wma, … e-ve-ry-thing. Go get it.
It even acts as a server you can surf to to playback files, this means you can put it on a server and control the playback by surfing to it. Awesome.
(thanks G8KeePeR for telling me I forgot this item in the list and for showing me this program in the first place :))
[/update1]

[update2]
The Gimp
Why use PhotoShop if you can use The Gimp? It was written for Linux and ported to windows, and it can do whatever PhotoShop can do and much more, and even better, it’s free!
You can click here for some screenshots of the Linux, Unix, Windows and Mac version.
[/update2]

Gepost in: Dev, General

34 Commentaren Zelf commentaar toevoegen

1. wapiwapi | Wednesday 6 April 2005 om 14u18 |
Gepost met Internet Explorer 6.0 op Windows XP

Thunder- and sunbird are great apps, especially if the were joined together. But i guess that will be the case in the near future.

In addition, ive been following another open source app development since almost a year now: Chandler.
Chandler wants to become a complete alternative for outlook (so mail, calendar etc integrated). If you are interested, you can find some more info on http://www.osafoundation.com
2. jesus_ | Wednesday 6 April 2005 om 15u54 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

Mmm, fresh meat!

SunBird and ThunderBird are joined together in Mozilla Suite by the way, check it out (I haven’t tried it yet)

Web-browser, advanced e-mail and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and HTML editing made simple — all your Internet needs in one application.
3. ntone | Thursday 7 April 2005 om 08u40 |
Gepost met Firefox 0.9.2 op Windows XP

already am using openoffice and firefox, even at work, although they don’t like it :p
4. jesus_ | Thursday 7 April 2005 om 08u59 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

How can they not like it? It’s free, you are saving them money!
No wait, you COULD be saving them money if they had a clue.
5. wapiwapi | Thursday 7 April 2005 om 10u56 |
Gepost met Internet Explorer 6.0 op Windows XP

Ow? I thought Sunbird wasn’t included in the suite. I’ll be downloading now…
6. jesus_ | Thursday 7 April 2005 om 11u11 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

I’m not sure if it is sunbird, because sunbird is a standalone project. Anyhow, I might give it a try as well, I’ll keep you posted.
7. gate | Thursday 7 April 2005 om 18u39 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

dude you forgot MPC !!!
8. jesus_ | Thursday 7 April 2005 om 22u08 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

omg, editing as we speak
9. Prz. | Friday 8 April 2005 om 07u17 |
Gepost met Opera 8.0 op Linux

Inkscape is good if you want draw something, even under Windows.
10. jesus_ | Friday 8 April 2005 om 09u03 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

Aha, that reminds me of The Gimp
11. ntone | Sunday 10 April 2005 om 20u25 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0 op Windows XP

7-zip is great!
12. jesus_ | Monday 11 April 2005 om 08u57 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

So are all the other programs!
13. wapiwapi | Monday 11 April 2005 om 13u27 |
Gepost met Internet Explorer 6.0 op Windows XP

They have a beta of The Gimp for windows now too. Thought that would be interesting for ya
14. wap | Monday 11 April 2005 om 14u51 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

Sorry, i mean a variant :s : GimpShop.
15. jesus_ | Monday 11 April 2005 om 15u42 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

The Gimp was ported to windows a long time ago, I’ve been using it for ages
16. ntone | Monday 11 April 2005 om 22u06 |
Gepost met Firefox 0.9.2 op Windows XP

gonna try gimpshop later tonite/tomorrow
17. Pietel | Wednesday 13 April 2005 om 14u49 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows 2000

betreft the Gimp. Ik als photoshop gebruiker zou beter the GimpShop gebruiken (zegt ZDnet.be) maar is dit wel zo?

voor Filezilla heb je overigens 100% gelijk.
18. jesus_ | Wednesday 13 April 2005 om 15u17 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

If you don’t believe it, try it
19. jesus_’s blog &raq&hellip | Thursday 14 April 2005 om 18u06 |
Gepost met WordPress 1.5

[…] on’t have to click lire a moron and still get to see how it ends (more info on MPC here). For those of you not using Media Player Classic, USE Media Player Classic! [UPDATE1:] […]
20. wapiwapi | Monday 18 April 2005 om 16u35 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.2 op Windows XP

Nice comment, jesus_’s blog » Blog Archive » The Big Red Button from Holland

on-topic: i found a nice opensource list site, maybe it’s interesting for you too. It lists open source alternatives for Windows

http://www.opensourcelist.org/oss/
21. jesus_’s blog &raq&hellip | Tuesday 21 June 2005 om 15u59 |
Gepost met WordPress 1.5

[…] rde beschrijving kunt ge op hunne site terecht, downloaden en testen die handel. Ok, geen opensource maar ‘t is al een begin. Gedaan met de “537863827798 minutes remaining” als ge v […]
22. ntone | Monday 4 July 2005 om 11u13 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.4 op Windows XP

ik zoek ne pdf writer!
ttz, ene da pdfs kan “unwriten” da’k erin kan veranderen en dan terug kan writen
23. cush_ | Monday 4 July 2005 om 14u38 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.4 op Windows XP

acrobat writer?
24. cush_ | Monday 4 July 2005 om 15u27 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.4 op Windows XP

Claiming Thunderbird as the n1. mail client is imho just stupid. I use Thunderbird as a replacement for Outlook Express, and it does a _very_ good job at that. But please, have you ever used Outlook properly? From what I’ve heard, you haven’t. Outlook, and I regret this myself, is a powerful program and mainly used in the most companies… Followed by Lotus Notes and even CICS. I’ll take a huge, powerful client to beat Outlook. Maybe Evolution…

Now, on a totally different topic, the support for OS soft. Think about, they’re not getting paid for developing, and like hell they will provide business support. Why do companies buy such expensive software packages? Because they’re better? No, because they come with support… Try calling a helpdesk and mentioning the word “linux”. They’ll send FBI over because you’re a hacker. Support. And you’re all laughing at helpdeskers… fools…
25. jesus_ | Monday 4 July 2005 om 18u16 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.4 op Windows XP

Wie heeft er ooit iets gezegd over OS in bedrijven?
Niemand.
Krijgt ge support van Microsoft als IE crasht? Hahaha. Not.
Er is ook niemand die zegt da ThunderBird Outlook vervangt, ge moet geen appelen en peren vergelijken.
26. cush_ | Tuesday 5 July 2005 om 07u53 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.0.4 op Windows XP

ThunderBird
Replaces Outlook (Express?), it’s an email client with all the functionality you’ll ever need.
Ms heeft dus ook wel ne support desk… maar vrijwel niemand belt da henne, iedereen start zijnen IE terug opnief op. Nochtans, die mannen kunnen daar echt wel iets…
Maar ik denk dat die de wanhoop nabij zijn, met losers die bellen omdat hunnen msn ni marcheert, ge zou voor minder uw lief vermoorden als ze begint te memme omda “tinternet” (lees: msn) kapot is
27. jesus_ | Tuesday 5 July 2005 om 13u03 |
Gepost met Internet Explorer 6.0 op Windows XP

Thunderbird is den tegenhanger van Outlook Express en is imho veel beter. Outlook is meer dan enkel email, en dus ni echt te vergelijken. Het valt wel op da Outlook ongelooflijk virusgevoelig is, just lijkas IE. Toeval? I think not
28. Wapiwapi | Friday 30 September 2005 om 13u03 |
Gepost met Internet Explorer 6.0 op Windows XP

*feest*

spam is in da house
29. jesus_ | Friday 30 September 2005 om 13u33 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.4 op Windows XP

Ze liggen al buiten ze
30. Blogging Marnik » M&hellip | Tuesday 7 March 2006 om 12u12 |
Gepost met WordPress 1.5

[…] ay 7 March 2006 () Allen daarheen! Voor een beetje uitleg kan u hier terecht. Enkele belangrijke verbeteringen (uit de changelog, er zijn er veel meer): […]
31. ketsugi | Thursday 20 April 2006 om 11u36 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.5.0.2 op Windows XP

Ditto to what cush said. Thunderbird and Sunbird are in no way superior to Outlook except for being open-source and free. I’ve used Outlook for several years, and have been using Thunderbird and Sunbird for the past year or so. T-bird is a great product, don’t get me wrong, but it’s no where near as mature as Outlook is. As for Sunbird, try again when it actually gets out of alpha status. At the moment Sunbird is rather unstable, often unpredictable, and is hardly something I would recommend to any average home or office user.
32. Josh | Thursday 20 April 2006 om 13u44 |
Gepost met Internet Explorer 6.0 op Windows XP

KeePass is an excellent OS password manager.
33. SL | Monday 24 April 2006 om 16u20 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.5.0.2 op Windows 2000

Hi —

You mention a program in your comments on Digg (http://www.digg.com/software/Great_Freeware_Squeezes_More_Out_of_Windows) called Colibri. Can you provide a link to where I can find this software.

Thanks.
34. jesus_ | Monday 24 April 2006 om 18u37 |
Gepost met Firefox 1.5.0.2 op Windows XP

You can find it on http://colibri.leetspeak.org/ (but the site is down at the moment). For reviews, screenshots and more google for “colibri launcher windows” or something like that, it’s like quicksilver for Mac.