open source softwear

[tonymidd]

Anyone use open source softwear?
I use FireFox as my browser which developed from Netscape Navigator, both open source.
I'm thinking of progs such as The GIMP or Open Office.
I'm also toying with trying Linux on one of the laptops, again any one have any experience?

[BarryM]

Hi Tony, i use firefox, and now my email is mozilla thunderbird.

Ive also dabbled a bit in linux, i got a huge huge book with redhat linux im sure, i loved it, put it on a dual processor server i bought of ebay, i found it very easy to use, but also found that there was loads of plugins for it rather than having to build ur own code etc. But was great fun

[Krazy Pengwin]

Anyone use open source softwear?
I use FireFox as my browser which developed from Netscape Navigator, both open source.
I'm thinking of progs such as The GIMP or Open Office.
I'm also toying with trying Linux on one of the laptops, again any one have any experience?

Tony, I have use a large number of open source packages in the past. I still use some now. The two you have mentioned are fantastic packages...made even better by the fact that they free. The beauty of open source is that you can almost (only almost though) always find software that competes with commercial packages. The downside is that there is not always a single point of contact should you need assistance. But, saying that, there are large communities of users (and developers) particularly for the more popular packages that are usually more than willing to help.

GIMP, whilst not quite as friendly as Photoshop, nor quite as fully featured, can produce some amazing results. Just about everything you would need is in there, but I do feel that it takes a little more effort than the previously mentioned PS. I can't really compare the two though as I use Aperture and Fireworks myself. GIMP is better for photo manipulation than Fireworks, however, as Fireworks is geared more for web graphics.

OpenOffice is probably THE main rival to MS Office (IMHO). However, it's one lacking feature is a database (unless that's been added whilst I wasn't looking). A big bonus of OpenOffice for Windows and Linux users is that it can create PDF files from your documents. This is redundant if you are a Mac OS X user, as OS X can create PDF's from any printable file. It can also read and write MS files, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

If you fancy trying Linux, I can recommend SUSE or Mandrake. However, most installations these days have very helpful installation programs. If you want to just test out Linux and you have a spare machine, then I would do that rather than messing about with the partitions on your main computer.
I have used Linux in the past, and I am developing software for it now, from a very early version of Slackware, to a more recent version of Mandrake. It has come on leaps and bounds. If MS developed new features in its software as fast as the Linux community, we would have a VERY different cyber-world today.

[Krazy Pengwin]

If you want to have a look at other open-source projects, try here http://sourceforge.net/

[bartonflyer]

I use PHP and MySQL for my photo web site that I wrote just to learn the languages - both open source and very impressive.

[Krazy Pengwin]

I use PHP and MySQL for my photo web site that I wrote just to learn the languages - both open source and very impressive.

I forgot all about them. I use them both for commercial web design.

[tonymidd]

Thanks for the info, when I've time (??? what's that) I'll dig a bit deeper.