Best Thing In Life Is FREE!! Free from Windows!

The NEO Empriva 540SVBe laptop comes pre-installed with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic…

Windows Vista Home Basic is the edition of Windows for basic home computing needs. If you only want to use your PC for tasks like browsing the Internet, using e-mail, or viewing photos, then Windows Vista Home Basic may be the right edition for you.

What ever mambo-jumbo Microsoft describes what Vista Home Basic is, Windows is Windows with its licensing nightmare, (unsecure) security and the blue screen of death to list a few.

With my first laptop pre-installed with Windows Vista, I’m planning to install one of the most popular free Linux distributions – Ubuntu, so I could try it out first hand. I did order a copy of Ubuntu’s installation disk, sayang naman kung di ko gagamitin… :)

With that on mind, I tried to think of the programs and applications that I frequently use in Windows and try to search if there is an open-source equivalent for it.

Why open-source? First, there’s no exorbitant licensing to pay (specially Windows eh?), you never have to use pirated programs or donwload them on P2P programs with keygen/cracks, software are available for linux users for free (in a general sense of the word). You can even modify it to your heart’s content… that is, if you know a thing or two on coding.

Try go to Quiapo, the pirated CD Capital of the Philippines, you wont see any Linux softwares for sale. If there are, it’s just to save you time in donwloading.

Anyway, here is a list of commonly used programs that I use and you probably use too in your Windows machine. Let me list them down and their counterparts in Linux.

• Torrent client – You most probably are using BitTorrent aren’t you or Azureus or uTorrent? Those are the most popular ones in Windows. Azureus is the only one on the list which can be used in Linux but it’s a memory hog and not all that good. For Linux torrent client, there are Deluge and qBittorrent.
• MP3 Player – WinAmp is the first thing that pops on my head for mp3 players (Windows Media Player, or iTunes and others too). WinAmp does not run in Linux but there is Audacious or XMMS which can be a perfect replacement for Winamp!
• Microsoft Office – OpenOffice.org! Need I say more? Great thing about it is that it is comparable (and compatible) with Microsoft’s Office suite and comes in bundle with Ubuntu and on all more popular Linux distros.
• Email client -Outlook. If you’ve tried experimenting you probably used Calypso or Becky. For Linux, Evolution comes pre-installed as well as Thunderbird (which I used the Windows version once).
• MSN, Yahoo or AOL Messenger – Pidgin, a program that can handle accounts from both networks as well as AOL and Googel Talk. Perfect replacement!
• Video/Media Player – VLC is already making names as a great media player for Windows! (I use it at the office PC, sshhh… :D )… Great news is, it runs on Linux! Yey!
• CD burning software – If you’re using the built-in capability of Windows for burning CDs, shame on you for not knowing NERO Burning Rom! For Linux, though there’s no NERO, but there is Brasero, GnomeBaker and K3B, all of which enable users to create data and audio CDs, VCDs and DVDs.
• Photo Editor – Photoshop? Of course! This is what we use for editing images for our blogs right? (and I knows your copy is pirated! :) For Linux, GIMP is a powerful photo editing software that can challenge Photoshop head to head anytime!
• Web Authoring Tool – Dreamweaver or Photoshop tops the Windows users’ list. For Linux there’s Kompozer or Nvu.. Oppps, but I don’t do HTML/Web authoring tools.. I just thought to include it here if some of you use it.
• lastly, I use iTunes to sync my ipod video with my PC. For Linux there is Amarok, Banshee, Rhythmbox and Songbird. Haven’t tried any of those, but it is good to know there are lots of alternatives!

There you go! Those are my most frequently used Windows applications that I use! Now that I’m planning to use Ubuntu Linux on my NEO laptop, I better review/test/try out those open source applications now!

Which Windows application do you use? Did I miss any? Did I convince you to switch to Linux? Thanks to Chin Wong!

It is true! The best thing in life is best buy, or I mean, free! lol

Cheers!

6 Responses to “Best Thing In Life Is FREE!! Free from Windows!”

1. jhanok says:

   March 6, 2008 at 1:15 pm

   iba n tlga ang yumayaman…hehehe

2. Elizar says:

   March 6, 2008 at 4:51 pm

   hulugan kaya yun.. :D

3. Mi says:

   March 7, 2008 at 4:43 am

   I’m too stupid for Linux. I’ve tried and failed. It’s not within my mental capacity. I use Foobar for music and MPlayer (Not media player classic) for videos (and sometimes audio too). I don’t need the other programs like for photo editing, however, I do have audio editing stuff like Cool Edit Pro 2 (liberated) and subtitle editing like Subtitle Workshop. email client? GMail is good enough for me. I have all my emails on my gmail–university email, miiimail, other gmail accounts…

   on my macbook, i use MPlayer (Yes, the same one I use on windows for videos and sometimes audio). I don’t use torrent on this since my desktop is like my fileserver so I just download on my desktop. I also use Adium sometimes which is the counterpart of pidgin, but I’m not really into IMs so gtalk on gmail is fine with me.

4. Tigerplug says:

   March 9, 2008 at 10:32 am

   The heading is oh so true!

   I’m enjoying Ubuntu for over a year now and I’m loving Gutsy on my laptop and my server.

   I use Gutsy for my blog also running PHP, mySQL and Apache, its also great for Ruby on Rails.

   Great blog, looking forward to more posts ;)

5. Brandon says:

   March 13, 2008 at 9:15 am

   Just started using Ubuntu (7.10) myself. I’m really liking it.

   Just something to add, I’d recommend anybody making the switch to learn and love wine. Wine lets you run quite a few of your old windows apps right inside Ubuntu itself. It amazes me how many apps it can get working.

6. Elizar says:

   March 13, 2008 at 5:00 pm

   Thanks for dropping by guys! and for the nice tips!

   cheers