Eugene Computer Geeks Blog

Open Source software is 100% free and has no viruses, spyware, or ad-ware of any kind. The following list has the top 10 Open Source programs that you need to know about. 

These programs can replace your expensive software like Microsoft Office, PhotoShop, 3D Studio Max, and AutoCad, which combined cost thousands of dollars. With open source software you get the same features of expensive programs for FREE and support a community of people around the world. Open Source software is maintained by the public and non-profit organizations.

Some of the best programs are open source. A good example being firefox or 7zip, which are better than the commercial rivals.

Top 10 Open Source Programs That You Should Know About

1. Libre Office- Office suite that can totally replace Microsoft Office.  Libre-Office lets you open and save in any format including Office formats, and is fully compatible.  You can use Libre Office for school or work, and nobody will have any idea that you aren’t using MS Office.  Has all of the same basic features including a replacement for Word,  Power Point,  and Excel.  It does not come with an e-mail program, in which case I recommend Thunderbird.

2. VLC-  VLC Player by VideoLAN is simply the best media player of all time. It plays EVERYTHING, well every type of video or audio format known to man including codec videos. Never again will you have to use multiple players to watch a video or play an audio file. It even plays DVD’s, Streams, audio cd’s, MP3′s and weird video formats you’ve never heard of.

3. Mozilla Firefox / Thunderbird -

Firefox: An open source web browser that you can use instead of Internet Explorer. Personally I think it’s much better than IE because it’s less prone to Viruses and Malware, faster, more secure, and less buggy.  It also is known for having the best add-ons and toolbars.  You really can’t go wrong with firefox, but if you happen to not like it, I recommend checking out Google Chrome.

Thunderbird: A full features e-mail client from the same organization that produces Firefox. (Mozilla)  Has all the features of Outlook or Windows Live, but is much more lightweight, and in my personally I think easier to use.  Also has excellent plugins and add-ons.

4. 7zip - 7zip is an essential program for any computer user because it opens, extracts, and creates archive files and handles all formats including zip, rar, 7zip, iso, cab,ntfs,and more.  7zip is much better than its commercial rivals WinZip or Winrar and I recommend to everyone, because almost everyone will encounter a strange archive file and need 7zip open it.

5. GIMP- An image editing tool just like Photoshop. Fully featured and handless a very wide variety of image formats.   I recommend even if you aren’t a graphics artist or don’t plan on doing photo editing only because it handles every type of image format imaginable, and if you have GIMP installed you’ll be able to open even the strangest of images. For Vector Imaging I also recommend you check out the open source program Inkscape, which is like CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator.

6. Infrarecorder- Burn discs with infrarecorder a fully featured burning program that has all the major features commercial burning programs have.  Very lightweight and well done program.

7. Pidgin- Instant Messaging program that lets you communicate on all the top instant messaging protocols. Has ever instant messaging protocol you can think of including: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, Yahoo, and more. Has excellent plugins and fully features. Talked on multiple instant message protocols at once.

8. Open Hardware Monitor-  Excellent program that detects various temperatures including CPU, GPU, and Hard Drive. Also shows CPU load time. Best temperature detecting program I’ve ever used including the commercial rivals.

9. VirtualBox- Virtualize an Operating System with Virtual Box. Install Linux or Mac inside Windows!  Really works, and is like installing a virtual computer within your computer.  Fully featured and works just like its commercial successor VMware

10. Blender- 3d Modeling Program just like 3D Studio Max.  Create 3d Movies or Video games. For an open source CAD program that is a lot like AutoCAD, try BRL-CAD.

Linux- Linux is not a program but a full open source Operating System. (An alternative to windows). Most of the open source programs from this list started on Linux  Linux is free from viruses and spyware, and almost all the software for Linux is free. It’s stable and easy to use. There are many different types of Linux to choose from, I recommend trying Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or Zorin OS.

wget -m -k    Mirror a website

grep -ril ‘search string’    Search all files in current directory and sub directory for string of text.

cat *  Displays contents of all files in current directory.

top   Shows all the current proccesses sorted from what is taking up the most CPU memory.

ps -aux  Same as top except sorted by PID

kill PID kill a process by the PID number obtained by “top” or “ps-aux”

df -Th  Show hard drive information including size and amount of space used

ls -hal  Show current files in directory including hidden files and display the file size in a easy to read format.

find / *.txt  Finds all text files with the .txt extension. Replace .txt with whatever you want. Not just limited to file extensions. Can search any aspect of file name as well.

locate FILE  Just like find but much much quicker. Not as complete but an excellent tool to find something quickly. (replace “FILE” with what you want to search for)

echo $RANDOM Prints a random number to the screen.

date  Displays date and time

play song.wav  Play audio files from the terminal

wc -m file  Displays amount of characters in a file. Can also be used as a pipe for strings of text. Example: echo ‘hello world12345″ | wc -m

wc -l file  Counts the number of lines in a file

cat /dev/zero > zero.file ; rm zero.file– Wipe Free Space on hard drive. Prevents data recovery. Very important to do before donating or recycling a computer even if you’ve already formatted.

less  –Like the cat command but displays one page at a time.

curl –socks localhost:555 whatismyip.net  –Test a socks proxy and displays IP of proxy. Works on all types of socks proxies.

curl –proxy localhost:555 whatismyip.net  –Test a HTTP proxy and displays IP of proxy. Great way to test if a proxy is up and if it’s running slow.

lynx –dump   Web browser for the terminal. Dumps the textual content from a web page.  Don’t use the dump feature if you want to browse around a site.

du -ch  Print file size of all directories in current directory and give a total file size at end in an easy to read format

whois   Get information on a domain name

ifconfig  Displays network devices information and network information. Similar to ipconfig in windows.

iwconfig Displays information for wifi devices.

ping  Ping a site or IP to test speed and to check if connected to internet

scp FILE [email protected]:~/

ssh -D 5555 [email protected] –Connect to your regular shell account, but creates a socks 5 proxy server on localost port 5555. (You can enter your own port number.

SECURITY COMMANDS

DO A SECURITY SCAN ON YOUR WEBSITE

Run as Root. M (add ‘sudo’ to from of command on Ubuntu and most Linux distros) Must have nmap installed.
nmap -A -v TARGET -Scans a website or IP number. Shows open ports and lots of other useful information. Great for testing the security of your website, network, or internet connected devices.

nmap -A -v -p- Just like above but scans ALL 65,535 TCP ports instead of the 1000 most common. Takes longer than above command but more complete.

nmap -A -p- -sU FULL UDP scan.

nikto -h website  –Does a security scan on a website. Uses many techniques. ONLY USE ON YOUR OWN SITE or have permission!  Great way to test the security of your site. Make sure to run NMAP as well.

MORE TO BE ADDED VERY SOON!