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Open Source Tools

Here you can find a list of open source operating systems and software tools. Most of the software is cross platform and it is working on Linux, Windows and Mac.

If you are looking for a specific tool that is not listed bellow, there are web sites that help you find open source alternatives to commercial and shareware software.

http://www.linuxalt.com

http://www.osalt.com

http://www.opensourcealternative.org/

Enjoy! --

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OPERATING SYSTEMS

Ubuntu Desktop

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

Ubuntu Linux is one of the latest and most successful new linux distributions. Ubuntu is originally derived from the well-known Debian distribution, but has added a lot of new functionality. One of Ubuntu's main goals is to increase usability.

Ubuntu Studio

http://www.ubuntustudio.org

Ubuntu Studio is a free and open source operative system, and an official flavor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu Studio is the most widely used multimedia orientated GNU/Linux distribution in the world. It comes preinstalled with a selection of the most common free multimedia applications available, and is configured for best performance for the Ubuntu Studio defined workflows: Audio, Graphics, Video, Photography and Publishing.

Linux Mint

http://www.linuxmint.com

A distribution based on and compatible with Ubuntu, which is shipped with integrated proprietary or patented media codecs.

Debian Linux

http://www.debian.org

Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run.

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SYSTEM TOOLS

Pea Zip? (Linux / Windows)

http://www.peazip.org/

Pea Zip? is a file manager and archiver for both Windows and Linux. It features an archive browser with history and search features to make navigating an archive faster and easier. The formats supported be Pea Zip? are for creation: 7Z, ARC, BZ 2?, GZ, *PAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX, ZIP. And for extraction: ACE, ARJ, CAB, DMG, ISO, LHA, RAR, UDF and many more file formats Sumatra PDF is a free PDF, eBook (ePub, Mobi), XPS, Dj Vu?, CHM, Comic Book (CBZ and CBR) reader for Windows. Sumatra PDF is powerful, small, portable and starts up very fast. Simplicity of the user interface has a high priority.

7-Zip (Windows)

http://www.7-zip.org/

7-Zip is a file archiver with high compression ratio. It supports the following formats for packing/unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP 2? and TAR - and the following for unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM and DEB. When using 7z format 7-Zip also support AES-256 encryption. With its windows style file manager and its integration into the Microsoft Windows shell - 7-Zip is a powerful competitor to both the commercial products on the market and the freeware ones. Also 7-Zip is available in 60 languages.

Brasero (Linux)

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Brasero

Brasero is an application to burn CD/DVD for the Gnome Desktop. It is designed to be as simple as possible and has some unique features to enable users to create their discs easily and quickly.

Infra Recorder? (Windows)

http://infrarecorder.org/

Infra Recorder? is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

Burn (Mac)

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html

Burn is a CD and DVD burning application. With Burn you can create audio, data and video disks in many different formats - burning iso images is also supported. Standard audio C Ds? as well as mp3 CD are easily created. Both VCD, SVCD, standard DVD and Div X? formats are supported so that you can burn all of these without any problems. Finally normal data disks for either backup or distribution can be created in up to five different formats to ensure compatibility across platforms.

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WEB, EMAIL and CHAT

Mozilla Firefox (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Despite a very hard effort Mozilla Firefox has always been 2nd on the browser market - only surpassed by Microsoft Internet Explorer. However, it is gaining market share rapidly - and aims to take the number one place. Firefox is an advanced browser built with its roots in the old Netscape browser. Today Firefox offers tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, many search extensions and many other extensions and toolbars. The support for Firefox by commercial companies is growing - and this is clearly seen by the number of extension/ toolbars they develop.

Thunderbird (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

This full-featured open source email client provides an excellent open source alternative to all commercial email clients. Thunderbird has a wide list of features of which some are: support for POP and IMAP, built-in RSS support and spell checking. Thunderbird also has an integrated usenet news reader. More advanced features of Thunderbird include: Junk mail (spam) filtering and protection from phishing. And finally the user-interface is completely customizable.

Pidgin (Linux / Windows / Mac)

https://pidgin.im/download/

Pidgin is an instant messenger (IM) application that cover multiple protocols - including (but not limited to) AIM, ICQ, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Novell Group Wise? Messenger and Lotus Sametime. These protocols can be used simultaneously to provide communication across the different networks. Additional features include file transfer, away messages and typing notification. A number of plug-ins are also available to enrich Pidgin's feature set. The Mac version is available through Fink.

Retro Share? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/

Retro Share? is a Open Source cross-platform, Friend-2-Friend and secure decentralised communication platform. It lets you to securely chat and share files with your friends and family, using a web-of-trust to authenticate peers and Open SSL? to encrypt all communication. Retro Share? provides filesharing, chat, messages, forums and channels

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MULTIMEDIA TOOLS

VLC media player (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

VLC media player - originally named Video LAN? Client - is a flexible media player available for virtually any operating system including portal/handheld computers. VLC plays all of the common media formats both video and audio - and plays you DV Ds? and todays popular Div X? and MPEG 4? movies. Most streaming media is support as well including Windows Media (wmv) and Quick Time?. Advanced features include playing media directly off ISO files and skinable GUI. VLC is also available as a firefox plug-in and as an Active X? component - making it simple to view any embedded video format through your web-browser.

Clementine (Linux / Windows)

https://www.clementine-player.org/downloads

Clementine is a music player

Handbrake (Linux / Windows / Mac)

https://handbrake.fr/

Hand Brake? is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.

Win FF? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://winff.org

Truly Free Video Converter Convert your videos quickly, easily, and all at once.

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TEXT EDITING / OFFICE

Libre Office? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.libreoffice.org/

Libre Office? is the power-packed free, libre and open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux developed by The Document Foundation. It gives you feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Forked from Open Office?.org in 2010, it is designed to be compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office. File compatibility with MS Office remains solid and overall it’s a pleasure to use. It is the default office suite in many Linux distributions. Support and documentation is freely provided by a large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers.

Apache Open Office? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.openoffice.org/

Apache Open Office? is an open-source office productivity software suite containing word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics, formula editor, and database management applications. It was formerly known as Open Office?.org under Sun, then Oracle ownership. Apache Open Office?’s default file format is the Open Document? Format (ODF), a ISO/IEC standard. It can also handle other file formats including those from Microsoft Office like .doc, .docx and .rtf. Open Office? is released on Windows, Solaris, Linux and Macintosh operation systems. Open Office? is localized, supporting over 110 languages worldwide. Open Office?.org was donated to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) on June 1, 2011. As with any code base for consideration to the ASF, Open Office?.org underwent a proposal and voting process before being accepted into Apache Incubator. It is distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License and Apache License open source licenses.

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IMAGE EDITING / GRAPHIC DESIGN / PUBLICING

Gimp (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.gimp.org

Probably the oldest and most well-known open source graphic application - GNU Image Manipulation Program or Gimp was started in 1995 and has since then grown to the status it has today. Gimp is a valid competitor to all of the commercial bitmap drawing programs on the market. Among its features you find: powerful painting tools, layers and channels support, multiple undo/redo, editable text layers. Gimp as a plug-in architecture and a scripting engine that allow easy extension of it's functionality. More than a 100 plug-ins and scripts are already available. Also Gimp imports files from Photoshop (psd) and can also read scalable vector graphics (svg) files.

Gimpshop (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.gimpshop.com

If you feel at home in Photoshop, but need an open source alternative - Gimpshop is the way to go. Gimpshop is a hack made on top of the original Gimp project which changes all menues, dialogs, etc., in order to make them look as much as their counterparts in Photoshop. This makes users who are already familiar with the layout of Photoshop feel right at home in this open source application. Please note that all features in Photoshop in not available in Gimpshop, since it is based on the Gimp project and it's feature set.

Inkscape (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.inkscape.org

Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W 3 C? open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format, and is free and open-source software.

Krita (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.krita.org

Krita is a FREE digital painting and illustration application. Krita offers CMYK support, HDR painting, perspective grids, dockers, filters, painting assistants, and many other features you would expect.

Scribus (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.scribus.net

Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux, BSD UNIX, Solaris, Open Indiana?, GNU/Hurd, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4, eComStation, and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready outdigiKam is a multi-platform digital photo management system. It was inspired by real photographers who knew what they wanted to see, manage, enhance, edit, tag, organize and share. put and new approaches to page design. Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as color separations, CMYK and spot colors, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Raw Therapee (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://rawtherapee.com

Image processing and editing, can reed camera .RAW files

digiKam (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.digikam.org

Digi Kam? is a multi-platform digital photo management system. It was inspired by real photographers who knew what they wanted to see, manage, enhance, edit, tag, organize and share.

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3D GRAPHICS

Blender (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.blender.org/

Blender is a free 3D animation and modeling suite. It includes tools for modeling - fast subdivision surface and polygon tools, multi-resolution mesh sculpting, metaballs, NURBS, vector fonts, and curves; uv mapping; shaders and texturing - both paint based and node based; ik and fk animation tools with rigging, constraints, skinning, morph targets, drivers, deformers, and modifiers; simulation tools including hard bodies, soft body, cloth, and fluids; and particle systems including hair. Blender has integrated rendering with both its native renderer and the raytracer Yafray as well supporting many external renderers; and python based scripting. Blender also has an integrated node based compositor; non linear editor; and game engine. Blenders user interface is non-conventional but it is especially designed for fast and productive use. Blender is well suited for character animation, effects, and content creation for games, movies, and flash or web animations, as well as for still renderings for such areas as illustration, architecture, and product design. It can also be used for video editing and compositing.

K3-D (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.k-3d.org/

K3-D is a 3D modeling and animation software. Configured for optimal visualization, its flexible plugins and versatile tools make it a real asset for artists. This software adapts to your platform to mimic the look and feel so it's comfortable to work with and meshes with the applications you are already familiar with. It is easy to learn and understand for beginners and powerful enough for professionals.

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ARCHITECTUAL / PRODUCT DESIGN (CAD)

Free CAD? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/free-cad/

Free CAD? is general purpose CAD (computer aided drawing) software that targets product design and mechanical engineering. It can be easily used for any engineering specialty, featuring tools that are modeled to function like Solid Works?, Solid Edge and Catia. Its main focus is dynamic simulation and analyzation.

BRL-CAD (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://brlcad.org/

BRL-CAD is an open source cad systems based around constructive solid geometry (csg) modeling. On top of all of it's modeling features, such as the interactive geometry editor, BRL-CAD offers parallel ray-tracing, path-tracing, image and signal processing tools. The ray-tracing process can even be distribution over a network of computers. When starting a new model determining an accurate unit of measurement ensures that your models will always have the correct proportions compared to real world objects. CSG is a fascinating way to work with 3d modeling and allows you to quickly build rough models and can be finalized later with all required details.

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VIDEO EDITING

Kdenlive (Linux / Mac)

http://www.kdenlive.org

Kdenlive is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies.

Lightworks (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://www.lwks.com/

Lightworks is a professional Non-Linear Editing (NLE) software supporting resolutions up to 4K as well as video in SD and HD formats.

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AUDIO EDITING AND MUSIC PRODUCTION

Audacity (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Whether it's multichannel recording, easy editing, effects or audio analysis - Audacity sums it all up in this free and cross-platform tool. Effects includes changing pitch, equalization, compression and many other. Audacity also features noise removal that is capable of removing different kinds of constant noise from you audio files. New effects and be written and added using the Nyquist programming language.

Ardour (Linux / Mac)

http://www.ardour.org

Ardour is professional hard-disc recording for Mac OSX? and Linux - meets all of you studio requirements. Ardour packs features such as: multi-channel recording, non-linear and non-destructive editing, mixer functionality and uses time code to sync to other devices. It also supports the LADSPA plug-ins for all kind of effects.

REAPER (Windows / Mac OS?)

http://www.reaper.fm

REAPER is digital audio workstation software: a complete multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment.

Rosegarden (Linux / Windows)

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ (for linux)

http://xyglo.com/rosegarden-for-windows/ (for windows)

Rosegarden is a professional audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment. Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.

Traverso DAW (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://traverso-daw.org/

http://traverso-daw.softonic.de/

Traverso DAW is a cross-platform multitrack audio recording and audio editing suite with support for CD mastering and non-linear processing. It is free software, licensed under GNU General Public License. Traverso offers a unique user interface using both the mouse and the keyboard together for precision and speed.Designed for scalability, Traverso DAW can be used by live musicians using a netbook.

Qtraktor (Linux)

http://qtractor.sourceforge.net/qtractor-index.html

Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt4 framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio. Qtractor is free, open-source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.

Cecilia5 (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://cecilia.sourceforge.net/

Cecilia is a graphic user interface for the sound synthesis and sound processing package Csound. Cecilia enables the user to build very quickly graphic interfaces with sliders and curves to control Csound intruments. It is also an editor to Csound with syntax highlighting and a built-in reference. Cecilia is also a great tool to explore the parameters of a new opcode in an interactive and intuitive way.

Mixxx (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://mixxx.org/

Mixxx is an open source computer program for D Jing? music. The software is specifically suited to the style of mixing known as beatmatching.[1] Mixxx is cross-platform, natively supports most common music file formats, and can be controlled with MIDI and HID controllers.

Freesound.org

http://www.freesound.org/

Freesound is a collaborative database of Creative Commons Licensed sounds. Browse, download and share sounds.

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WEB DESIGN

File Zilla? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

https://filezilla-project.org/

File Zilla? is an open source ftp client, which also supports secure ftp (sftp). File Zilla? is built to be a fast but yet feature rich ftp client. Like many of the commercial products File Zilla? has a drag and drop interface for transferring files that makes it easy for user familiar with the windows user interface to use ftp. Also it has the ability to resume both uploads and downloads provides that the ftp server at the other end supports this feature. The upload/download queue makes it easy to queue all your transfer activities and let File Zilla? schedule them for best transfer performance.

Blue Griffon? (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://bluegriffon.org/

The next-generation Web Editor, based on the rendering engine of Firefox, Blue Griffon? is a new WYSIWYG content editor for the World Wide Web. Powered by Gecko, the rendering engine of Firefox, it's a modern and robust solution to edit Web pages in conformance to the latest Web Standards. Blue Griffon? is an intuitive application that provides Web authors (beginners or more advanced) with a simple User Interface allowing to create attractive Web sites without requiring extensive technical knowledge about Web Standards. Because Gecko lives inside Blue Griffon?, the document you edit will look exactly the same in Firefox. Advanced users can always use the Source View to hard-code their page.

Brackets (Linux / Windows / Mac)

http://brackets.io/

Brackets is a modern open source text editor that makes it easy to design in the browser.