The Open Source Computing Thread

[Based_Christian_Dude]

This is a thread I've been wanting to make for awhile. Proprietary software has been known to be an adversary to the user by violating their privacy. In some cases, you don't even own the software because it's a subscription model like the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. Some proprietary computer hardware had security compromises like the Intel Management Engine for example

This thread is for promoting Freedom (Libre) Open Source Software and Hardware. If you have any questions, recommendation, or any sort of discussions on the topic, post in this thread.

Open-source software - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Open-source hardware - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Related Threads:

• https://christisking.cc/threads/the-linux-thread.241/
• https://christisking.cc/threads/web-browser-privacy.310/
• https://christisking.cc/threads/opsec-lounge-security-privacy-etc.29/

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

A great free and open source software I like for video recording and live streaming is OBS Studio. Works on the Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Open Broadcaster Software | OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.

obsproject.com

GitHub - obsproject/obs-studio: OBS Studio - Free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording

OBS Studio - Free and open source software for live streaming and screen recording - obsproject/obs-studio

github.com

 

[Thefinalepic]

Use resources such as AlternativeTo to find good suggestions for free and open source alternatives. Everyone should be using a Linux OS as their daily driver, and from there the sky is the limit. Hard to believe that I paid hundreds of dollars for software subscriptions in the past when I pay precisely zero today. FOSS is the way forward for any sort of computing.

 

[stadtaffe]

Osmo contacts management.

It can possibly do 'calendar' or other things, I only use the contacts management. It is freestanding and offline, not part of thunderbird or something else. In the backend it stores it in an .xml. Tiny program, opposite of 'bloatware'.

I've been using it for years now, and am probably missing some of the details. I have been meaning to write a script or cronjob that launches it at startup as it does have birthday calendar alerts functionality I've noticed when it's open on someone's birthday.
Debian package -

Debian -- Details of source package osmo in buster

Wiki -

Osmo Documentation - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

en.wikibooks.org

When I look at the size of that I wonder if it's the same program or if I'm just missing a lot of functionality..
Review -

OSMO: Your friendly personal organizer - gHacks Tech News

OSMO is not an organizer that will do everything for you. I will not sync with your iPhone or your Blackberry. OSMO will not publish your calendar or allow you to drag and drop from one application to another.

www.ghacks.net

 

[Thefinalepic]

Osmo contacts management.

It can possibly do 'calendar' or other things, I only use the contacts management. It is freestanding and offline, not part of thunderbird or something else. In the backend it stores it in an .xml. Tiny program, opposite of 'bloatware'.

I've been using it for years now, and am probably missing some of the details. I have been meaning to write a script or cronjob that launches it at startup as it does have birthday calendar alerts functionality I've noticed when it's open on someone's birthday.
Debian package -

Debian -- Details of source package osmo in buster

Wiki -

Osmo Documentation - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

en.wikibooks.org

When I look at the size of that I wonder if it's the same program or if I'm just missing a lot of functionality..
Review -

OSMO: Your friendly personal organizer - gHacks Tech News

OSMO is not an organizer that will do everything for you. I will not sync with your iPhone or your Blackberry. OSMO will not publish your calendar or allow you to drag and drop from one application to another.

www.ghacks.net

I have heard good things about using radicale and calDAV for this purpose, then you can use whatever frontend for contacts/calendar on your devices.

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Some software for image editing and photography:

Darktable: An open source photography workflow application and raw developer.

darktable

darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer

www.darktable.org

GitHub - darktable-org/darktable: darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer

darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer - darktable-org/darktable

github.com

digiKam: An advanced open-source digital photo management application that provides a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing, and sharing photos and raw files.

digiKam

www.digikam.org

Graphics / digiKam · GitLab

digiKam is an advanced open-source digital photo management application that runs on Linux, Windows, and MacOS. The application provides a comprehensive set of tools for importing, managing, editing,...

invent.kde.org

RawTherapee: A powerful, cross-platform raw photo processing system.

Home

rawtherapee.com

GitHub - Beep6581/RawTherapee: A powerful cross-platform raw photo processing program

A powerful cross-platform raw photo processing program - Beep6581/RawTherapee

github.com

Krita: A free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital art and 2D animation.

https://krita.org/en/

Graphics / Krita · GitLab

Krita is a free and open source cross-platform application that offers an end-to-end solution for creating digital art files from scratch built on the KDE and Qt frameworks.

invent.kde.org

GIMP: a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks.

GIMP

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program: The Free and Open Source Image Editor

www.gimp.org

GNOME / GIMP · GitLab

The GNU Image Manipulation Program

gitlab.gnome.org

Inkscape: A free and open-source vector graphics editor.

Inkscape - Draw Freely. | Inkscape

Inkscape is professional vector graphics software which runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows desktop computers.

inkscape.org

Inkscape / inkscape · GitLab

Inkscape vector image editor

gitlab.com

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Something genius I've thought of with these libre-projects and taxes. In some countries, they allow donations to non-profits for tax credit, so some computing projects are properly registered with certain governments to have tax deductible donations. For example, KDE has tax deductible donations for Germany and Signal has tax deductible donations for US tax payers.

Donate and support KDE

Help us create software that gives you full freedom and protects your privacy, and be a part of a great community

kde.org

https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360031949872-Donor-FAQs

This is a great way to help these projects and yourself while avoiding to fund globalhomo governments!

A great scenario, if you are a business owner who pays a $100 subscription to Microsoft for their products ever year, instead of enriching random Microsoft shareholders, you could donate $100 annually to something like the Software in the Public Interest foundation (funds multiple projects like Arch Linux, Debian, LibreOffice, etc.). You receive triple benefits: you reduce your taxable amount owed, you fund a few open source projects to continue their work for improving your productivity, and you won't give the globalhomo government any money.

SPI

www.spi-inc.org

Software in the Public Interest - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[stadtaffe]

Xournal++ is very good for annotating pdfs

GitHub - xournalpp/xournalpp: Xournal++ is a handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support. Written in C++ with GTK3, supporting Linux (e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, SUSE), macOS and Windows 10. Supports pen input from devices such as Waco

Xournal++ is a handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support. Written in C++ with GTK3, supporting Linux (e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, SUSE), macOS and Windows 10. Supports pen input fr...

github.com

That is not the main purpose it was designed for but that is what I find it useful for. It takes the original .pdf then creates a .xopp file which I believe is an overlay and you can export a new pdf. Once that new pdf is exported there are a series of commandline tools you can "treat" it with to stop it being deconstructed again if that is an issue. Actually there are a LOT of command line open source tools for pdf and image manipulation which are part of the standard Debian installation and can be simply installed with aptitude. You can do a lot to a pdf or image just from the command line.

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Animation and Video Editors

Kdenlive: One of the best open source video editors available.

Kdenlive - Video Editing Freedom

Kdenlive is a powerful free and open source cross-platform video editing program made by the KDE community. Feature rich and production ready.

kdenlive.org

Multimedia / Kdenlive · GitLab

Free and open source video editor, based on MLT Framework and KDE Frameworks

invent.kde.org

Shotcut: Another open source video editor.

Shotcut - Home

Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform video editor for Windows, Mac and Linux

www.shotcut.org

GitHub - mltframework/shotcut: cross-platform (Qt), open-source (GPLv3) video editor

cross-platform (Qt), open-source (GPLv3) video editor - mltframework/shotcut

github.com

Blender: A free and open-source 3D computer graphics animation software.

blender.org - Home of the Blender project - Free and Open 3D Creation Software

The Freedom to Create

www.blender.org

blender

The official Blender project repository.

projects.blender.org

Synfig: An open-source vector-based 2D animation software.

Home

Synfig Studio Open-source 2D Animation Software for Windows, Linux and MacOS Download Previous Next Synfig Studio is a free and open-source 2D animation software, designed as powerful industrial-strength solution for creating film-quality animation using a vector and bitmap artwork. It…

www.synfig.org

GitHub - synfig/synfig: This is the Official source code repository of the Synfig project

This is the Official source code repository of the Synfig project - synfig/synfig

github.com

Natron: An open source video compositor.

NATRON

Open Source Compositing Software For VFX and Motion Graphics

natrongithub.github.io

GitHub - NatronGitHub/Natron: Open-source video compositing software. Node-graph based. Similar in functionalities to Adobe After Effects and Nuke by The Foundry.

Open-source video compositing software. Node-graph based. Similar in functionalities to Adobe After Effects and Nuke by The Foundry. - NatronGitHub/Natron

github.com

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Audio Editing and Production

Audacity: An open source digital audio editor and recording application software.

Audacity ® | Free Audio editor, recorder, music making and more!

Audacity is the world's most popular audio editing and recording app. Edit, mix, and enhance your audio tracks with the power of Audacity. Download now!

www.audacityteam.org

GitHub - audacity/audacity: Audio Editor

Audio Editor . Contribute to audacity/audacity development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Tenacity: A fork of Audacity with extras.

Tenacity

an easy-to-use, cross-platform multi-track audio editor/recorder

tenacityaudio.org

tenacity

Tenacity is an easy-to-use, privacy-friendly, FLOSS, cross-platform multi-track audio editor for Windows, macOS, Linux, and other operating systems

codeberg.org

Ardour: An open source Digital Audio Workstation and Recording software.

https://ardour.org/

https://git.ardour.org/ardour/ardour.git

LMMS: Another Digital Audio Workstation software that is open-source.

LMMS | Home

LMMS is a free, open source, multiplatform digital audio workstation.

lmms.io

GitHub - LMMS/lmms: Cross-platform music production software

Cross-platform music production software. Contribute to LMMS/lmms development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Mixxx: One of the best free and open source DJing software.

Mixxx - Free DJ Mixing Software App

Download the most advanced FREE DJ software available, featuring iTunes integration, MIDI controller support, internet broadcasting, and integrated music library.

mixxx.org

GitHub - mixxxdj/mixxx: Mixxx is Free DJ software that gives you everything you need to perform live mixes.

Mixxx is Free DJ software that gives you everything you need to perform live mixes. - mixxxdj/mixxx

github.com

FluidSynth/Qsynth: An open source synthesizer. This is a backend-only software; it can be paired with Qsynth for GUI.

FluidSynth | Software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications

GitHub - FluidSynth/fluidsynth: Software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications

Software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications - FluidSynth/fluidsynth

github.com

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Don't use proprietary BitTorrent clients like μTorrent, there have been cases of adware, malware, and other unholy seedy behavior.

Use qBittorrent for your torrent needs.

qBittorrent Official Website

qBittorrent Official Website

www.qbittorrent.org

GitHub - qbittorrent/qBittorrent: qBittorrent BitTorrent client

qBittorrent BitTorrent client. Contribute to qbittorrent/qBittorrent development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

There are many tutorials online on how to torrent properly and safely. Setting up a seedbox is great computing stewardship.

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Privately use YouTube (watch, subscribe, download, ad-free experience, etc.) without an account

STOP consuming the enemy's platform, but if you have to or want to continuing using YouTube, here are many ways to watch through open source software. Some offer a better experience than the official YouTube apps and website.

FreeTube: A desktop Youtube client with your subscription list and playlists are saved locally on your device. Other goodies included.

FreeTube - The Private YouTube Client

FreeTube is a feature-rich and user-friendly YouTube client with a focus on privacy.

freetubeapp.io

GitHub - FreeTubeApp/FreeTube: An Open Source YouTube app for privacy

An Open Source YouTube app for privacy. Contribute to FreeTubeApp/FreeTube development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Newpipe: An open-source Android YouTube application that's similar to FreeTube.

NewPipe - a free YouTube client

newpipe.net

GitHub - TeamNewPipe/NewPipe: A libre lightweight streaming front-end for Android.

A libre lightweight streaming front-end for Android. - TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

github.com

Invidious: A front-end to browse and view YouTube content without visiting the official YouTube website. Can host your own instance or use other's instances.

Invidious

Invidious is an open source alternative front-end to YouTube.

invidious.io

GitHub - iv-org/invidious: Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube

Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube. Contribute to iv-org/invidious development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Piped: Another front-end for browsing YouTube.

GitHub - TeamPiped/Piped: An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design.

An alternative privacy-friendly YouTube frontend which is efficient by design. - TeamPiped/Piped

github.com

LibreTube: An Android app that uses Piped instances to browse YouTube.

LibreTube

An alternative frontend for YouTube, for Android.

libretube.dev

GitHub - libre-tube/LibreTube: An alternative frontend for YouTube, for Android.

An alternative frontend for YouTube, for Android. Contribute to libre-tube/LibreTube development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Yattee: An open source YouTube player that uses Piped to play content on Apple's iOS, macOS, and tvOS.

GitHub - yattee/yattee: Privacy oriented video player for iOS, tvOS and macOS

Privacy oriented video player for iOS, tvOS and macOS - yattee/yattee

github.com

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Downloading Audio/Video from the Web

yt-dlp: A command-line program to download audio and video content from many websites.

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

Seal: An Android app for downloading audio and video content from many websites.

GitHub - JunkFood02/Seal: 🦭 Video/Audio Downloader for Android, based on yt-dlp, designed with Material You

🦭 Video/Audio Downloader for Android, based on yt-dlp, designed with Material You - JunkFood02/Seal

github.com

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

STOP using enemy's AI like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft CoPilot, Apple Intelligence, etc. By using their proprietary AI, you are training them to get stronger and exposing yourselves for the enemy to exploit you. You must use open source alternatives to be safe out there and to ensure the safety of your children.

GPT4All: GPT4All runs large language models (LLMs) privately on everyday desktops & laptops.

GPT4All

Run AI Locally: the privacy-first, no internet required LLM application

nomic.ai

GitHub - nomic-ai/gpt4all: GPT4All: Run Local LLMs on Any Device. Open-source and available for commercial use.

GPT4All: Run Local LLMs on Any Device. Open-source and available for commercial use. - nomic-ai/gpt4all

github.com

Ollama: Get up and running with large language models.

Ollama

Get up and running with large language models.

ollama.com

GitHub - ollama/ollama: Get up and running with Llama 3.2, Mistral, Gemma 2, and other large language models.

Get up and running with Llama 3.2, Mistral, Gemma 2, and other large language models. - ollama/ollama

github.com

KoboldCpp: KoboldCpp is an easy-to-use AI text-generation software for GGML and GGUF models.

GitHub - LostRuins/koboldcpp: Run GGUF models easily with a KoboldAI UI. One File. Zero Install.

Run GGUF models easily with a KoboldAI UI. One File. Zero Install. - LostRuins/koboldcpp

github.com

Oobabooga Text generation web UI: A Gradio web UI for Large Language Models.

GitHub - oobabooga/text-generation-webui: A Gradio web UI for Large Language Models.

A Gradio web UI for Large Language Models. Contribute to oobabooga/text-generation-webui development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Vas Incrementum]

Downloading Audio/Video from the Web

yt-dlp: A command-line program to download audio and video content from many websites.

GitHub - yt-dlp/yt-dlp: A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

Seal: An Android app for downloading audio and video content from many websites.

GitHub - JunkFood02/Seal: 🦭 Video/Audio Downloader for Android, based on yt-dlp, designed with Material You

🦭 Video/Audio Downloader for Android, based on yt-dlp, designed with Material You - JunkFood02/Seal

github.com

For Android users, New Pipe is excellent for video and audio downloads. I find it quicker than to try to remember and use yt-dlp with its various commands.

 

[stadtaffe]

I take very little interest in internet radio, although a friend of mine has an appliance whereby you can pick a country by turning knobs and pushing buttons then get a list of stations and choose one. I found one I really like for background music and the other day spent a while to see if I could find some open source way to do on the PC what that appliance did.

The default program for Debian was `rhythmbox` but I got so angry at it trying to make it work that I uninstalled it. I learned afterwards that I should have found and pasted a URL not just searched by the name of the radio station.

I suspect that is the only one in the Debian repos / ppa.

Then I installed pyradio with `pip install pyradio` and it was another disappointment. It it is a terminal program which is cool and minimalist but does not allow you to add stations, just use the presets, how useless!

I looked into Gnome radio and Shortwave but they were both trying to force you to use `snap` or `flatpack` which I hate.

I've got a suitable foss internet radio on my phone, so for the moment have abandoned any ideas to put that on the PC. Say if any of you have managed to do that in a neat and tidy way.

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

I take very little interest in internet radio, although a friend of mine has an appliance whereby you can pick a country by turning knobs and pushing buttons then get a list of stations and choose one. I found one I really like for background music and the other day spent a while to see if I could find some open source way to do on the PC what that appliance did.

The default program for Debian was `rhythmbox` but I got so angry at it trying to make it work that I uninstalled it. I learned afterwards that I should have found and pasted a URL not just searched by the name of the radio station.

I suspect that is the only one in the Debian repos / ppa.

Then I installed pyradio with `pip install pyradio` and it was another disappointment. It it is a terminal program which is cool and minimalist but does not allow you to add stations, just use the presets, how useless!

I looked into Gnome radio and Shortwave but they were both trying to force you to use `snap` or `flatpack` which I hate.

I've got a suitable foss internet radio on my phone, so for the moment have abandoned any ideas to put that on the PC. Say if any of you have managed to do that in a neat and tidy way.

You could try VLC as it has some internet radio features. But keep in mind that internet radio is a very niche task that was almost killed by streaming services and YouTube, so it's probably limited in features and people committing bug fixes.

Speaking of VLC, it's considered one of the best multimedia players for desktop. There's also mobile apps for Android and iOS. The company that stewards over VLC is a non-profit that develops many library and frameworks for playback of media.

VLC: Official site - Free multimedia solutions for all OS! - VideoLAN

www.videolan.org

Official download of VLC media player, the best Open Source player - VideoLAN

www.videolan.org

VideoLAN · GitLab

VideoLAN projects

code.videolan.org

VideoLAN / VLC · GitLab

VLC: the ultimate media player

code.videolan.org

 

[stadtaffe]

The default program for Debian was `rhythmbox` but I got so angry at it trying to make it work that I uninstalled it. I learned afterwards that I should have found and pasted a URL not just searched by the name of the radio station.

I suspect that is the only one in the Debian repos / ppa.

I needed the music so reinstalled rhythmbox and had a go pasting in the URL of the radio station.

It complained about a gstreamer plugin being missing.

I did some research and found this link (in German)

Internetradio hören mit Rhythmbox - debianforum.de

It turns out that it probably not only needs a gstreamer plugin but is not capable of lifting the stream out of a URL with extra nurturing.

So uninstalled a second time in anger.

You could try VLC as it has some internet radio features. But keep in mind that internet radio is a very niche task that was almost killed by streaming services and YouTube, so it's probably limited in features and people committing bug fixes.

Internet radio is probably best left for those appliances which are purpose made to run it.

I hate those streaming services for music, have had bad experiences with spotify. YouTube and preferably Rumble or Odyssey are okay for music. Thanks VLC is good for media but will rather not experiment with half baked radio application after rhythmbox..

 

[Based_Christian_Dude]

Office Suites
One of the many reasons that folks use a computer is for office software. As a result, Microsoft has taken advantage of this with their Microsoft Office suite. They even had a huge influence on the Open Office XML file format where in-theory their office files (e.g. .docx, .pptx, etc.) were suppose to be open for third parties to use them, but Microsoft made some "changes" that make it difficult to open and properly read them. Supposedly, it worked so well that even different versions of Microsoft Office have trouble reading each other's files properly. So, there's a another open format developed called the Open Documents Format (ODF) with many extensions for whatever office file (e.g .odt, .ods, etc.). Also recently, Microsoft is aggressively pushing Office 365, which is a subscription service, despite majority of the world's population not needing to pay for an always online cloud-base office software. So, let's break up the Microsoft strangle on office productivity.

LibreOffice: An office suite maintained by The Document Foundation, a non-profit. For businesses, there are commercial partners like Collabora or CIB that maintain special versions and support for business activities. The partners even have mobile apps for smartphones and tablets.

Home | LibreOffice - Free and private office suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

Free office suite – the evolution of OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx. Updated regularly, community powered.

www.libreoffice.org

LibreOffice in business | LibreOffice - Free and private office suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

www.libreoffice.org

Donate to LibreOffice | LibreOffice - Free and private office suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft

Donate, donation, donations, funding, help, support, LibreOffice

www.libreoffice.org

https://git.libreoffice.org/

ONLYOFFICE: An Office suite that is also well featured. It is known for having very accurate Microsoft Office compatibility and very similar appearances to it. Mobile apps for iOS/iPadOS and Android are available too.

Online Office Applications for business

ONLYOFFICE offers a secure online office suite highly compatible with MS Office formats. Connect it to your web platform for document editing and collaboration or use as a part of ONLYOFFICE Workspace.

www.onlyoffice.com

ONLYOFFICE

A free and open source office and productivity suite - ONLYOFFICE

github.com