How to Migrate to Open Source Software
Saturday 9 February 2008 @ 8:22 pm

How to Migrate to Open Source Software

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
Years ago, there was a vigorous debate about whether open source software (also known as Free Software and freedomware), mostly written by hobbyists in their free time, could ever compete with proprietary software. The debate is largely over, with millions of end-users having switched to open source software, and major companies and corporations depending their business operations on it. Even usability, the traditional handicap of open source, is a problem that is gradually being solved. Migrating to open source is not difficult; much open source software is available on Windows, so you won’t have to switch to Linux right away if you don’t want to. If you want to save money and free yourself from vendor lock-in, then start making the switch yourself.

Steps

  1. Try out OpenOffice.org which is an open source office suite, available for many platforms (including Windows). It ships with a word processor, spreadsheet, a presenter (akin to PowerPoint), an illustrator, and a database manager. Alternatively, if you’re only after a word processor, AbiWord is a fast and lightweight alternative.
  2. Use the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which is a free alternative to costly raster image processing programs. It is available for Windows as well as Unix-like systems. There are many GIMP tutorials available on the Web; we have a category devoted to this.
  3. Install Inkscape if you want a full-featured and easy-to-use alternative to the likes of CorelDraw.
  4. Make use of the VLC media player which plays almost all common types of videos without the need for downloading additional codecs.
  5. Install CDex if you need an excellent and easy-to-use, although Windows-only, CD ripping program.
  6. Start surfing with Firefox. Firefox is a free, cross-platform web browser that offers greater privacy and prevents pop-ups, spyware and viruses. It is also customisable to insane degrees. If you are after an FTP client, FireFTP (a Firefox addon) will do the trick; FileZilla is also very good.
  7. Use Content Management Systems like Drupal, Joomla, and WordPress for starting your own web sites. You don’t need to know any HTML, PHP, or any other language to manage your own websites. There are plenty of free themes and add-ons available on the Web for these, too.
  8. Install some open source games. This is one area in which open source still has not beaten the proprietary software world. Nevertheless, there are still some excellent and fun projects out there. Sauerbraten is an incredibly fast-paced, fun and compact first person shooter (and AssaultCube is a genetically-related, slower-paced version with more “realistic” weapons), and Freeciv is an empire-building strategy game. The Linux Game Tome tracks games for Linux, most of which are open source, and a good many of which work on Windows as well. BZFlag, a multi-player tank game, is one one the most downloaded games on SourceForge.net with a very active community.
  9. If you’re ready to take the plunge, you might want to check out the world’s most famous open source product: the Linux operating system. These days, it is a very viable alternative to Windows and runs on almost all hardware out there (including obsolete hardware that current versions of Windows will not touch). There are also several other open source Unix clones, such as OpenSolaris (derived from AT&T System V) and the various open source BSD projects.

Tips

  • If you are running on Linux, you can install your windows applications(setup files) in Linux with WINE .
  • Stay away from services such as Zune and iTunes that use copy protection (“Digital Rights Management”) on the music you download. This is not just awkward; this makes it impossible (and in some jurisdictions, illegal) to play the music that you paid for in anything but the software that the music service sees fit to support—which excludes open source software altogether. Services such as eMusic and Amazon, which allow you to legally buy and download music in the universally-supported and DRM-free MP3 format, will not lock you into a single vendor.
  • Consider contributing to open source projects. You don’t have to be a software developer to do this. If you are a good writer, consider writing documentation (which many, if not most, open source projects need badly). If you are good at game artwork or 3D modeling, consider contributing your work to an open source game project. Even if you’re only good at telling whether software is working properly or not, start filing useful bug reports with the authors.
  • On the other hand, if you are a developer and want to do the most you can for the open source and free software world, you might want to look at the Free Software Foundation’s list of high-priority projects.
  • Most distributions are shipped with linguistic localization and you can customize your desktop with your local language.check if your language is available in GNOME translation project
  • The easiest and most user friendly Linux distribution is Ubuntu. Boot from the LiveCD to see a full working version, no install needed! Ubuntu Web Page.

Warnings

  • While open source has made massive progress in usability in the last decade, some of it can still be difficult to use and have awkward documentation.
  • When you want to deploy linux for your small or mid-sized company, make use of the help and support from the respective distribution officially by paying them. You need some experience to configure and setup networking servers.

Things You’ll Need

  • A computer.
  • An Internet connection. The faster the better; nearly all open source software is primarily available online.

Related wikiHows

Sources and Citations

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Migrate to Open Source Software. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

- Posted in Technology by jweaks   .:Permalink:.

The End


Leave a Reply