There are many free and open source programs that works perfectly fine, sometimes better, than proprietary software. Office suits, statistical software, image, video and sound editors, text editors, programming IDEs, music and video players and not the least the whole operating system of the computer.
There was a time when alternatives to the proprietary closed source software and operating systems were almost non-existent or at least were to difficult and complicated for the average desktop user that just wanted to get a computer and start working in writing documents, listen to music and whatever. Today this is completely changed and you can even get a laptop or desktop with GNU/Linux and all kinds of different software pre-installed, and they are not harder to use, sometimes easier, than the proprietary alternatives, it is more a matter of familiarity. There is still, however, a misconception that Linux and free and open source software is hard, does not work well with different hardware and is not as good as proprietary software. However, Linux have come a long way the last 10-20 years, and today I would argue, is easier to use than say Windows. Furthermore, chances are that you will learn a bit on how to manage the computer and operating system, and even how it works, as it is easier to do so with Linux. But nowadays you don’t have to, you can just open the computer and start working without having to care very much. However, Linux and free software have problems, things that still do not work perfectly, as any operating system or program out there. There is also differences to e.g. Windows in many aspects that you have to accustom to.
The operating system
I have only used the Linux operating system as an alternative and that is what I will recommend to test. There are others though, such as BSD. If you want to test the Linux operating system you should not install it over your existing operating system right away but first test if your computer will run smoothly with Linux. This can be done in a so called Live mode where you can run Linux from an USB drive. Instructions for this are usually on the Linux distributions homepage’s. First of, as a Windows and Mac user you are probably used to there only being one variant of the operating system, wit perhaps some different versions. In the Linux world, however, being a open source operating system developed by a community, there are a plethora of different types of Linux systems. To start of with some of the more newcomer friendly:
Linux Mint
One of my personal favourites is Linux Mint. It is easy to install and maintain. If you come from Windows you will have no difficulty navigate the menu, searching for programs etc. It includes an office suit, web-browser, music and video players, photo viewer and editor etc.
Ubuntu
Another easy Linux distribution which Linux Mint is based on is Ubuntu, it is also easy to install and maintain, perhaps especially Ubuntu Mate. Ubuntu is in turn based on a distribution called Debian, which can be a bit trickier in some respects, for example it do not come with any proprietary drivers for music and video playing etc. If you are more experienced and want to tinker around even more on your system and have more control over what software to install form the beginning Arch linux is something to test. Here you have to install everything by yourself from the command line. If you’re not up to that task just yet but want to try Arch there are a number of different distributions based on Arch. Some of them are more of Arch installers that only help you with the installation of the basics. However, even when you got it installed, Arch usually require that you understand a bit about the system and how to tinker with it.
One of my favourites was Antergos which is discontinued. That is something that can happen in the open source world. Small teams of developers that sometimes do not have more time to go on in their spare time. this can be a reason to stick with major distributions with larger teams, such as Ubuntu, Linux mint above or the Arch. There are other Arch-installers that leave you with a very neat set up Arch operation system.
Small teams of developers, though, have develop similar distributions as Antergos or simply followed in the footstep of Antergos, copied or forked the code, and started similar distributions.
Archman
Archman has some different desktop alternatives and is relatively straight forward. It is though an Arch system so it will not be as lean as Linux Mint etc.
EndeavourOS
EndeavourOS has followed Antergos and yet not. It has several different desktop environments but you have to set up a lot in the system yourself.
Manjaro
If you want an easier Arch based system, which is more of a distribution of it own Manjaro can be a good alternative.
The above mentioned distributions are mostly including closed source software or drivers. If you do not want anything to do with closed software there are some distributions that base everything on free/open source.
Trisquel
To use an operating system only including free/libre software an alternative is Trisquel. It is based on a distribution called Debian, which Ubuntu mentioned above also is based on.
Software alternatives
When it comes to software, the most common programs an average desktop user work with is usually already included with the Linux distribution, that includes the more beginner friendly ones above, such as Linux Mint and Ubuntu. There are already and office suit, photo viewers, music and video players, email clients, web browsers, etc. Below are some examples of programs that can usually be installed, or are even already installed, in the above mentioned Linux distributions.
Common programs
Note that many of these programs are possible to use even if you do not use Linux. For example, LibreOffice, Firefox, VLC, MPV, Atom, Vim, Krita, GIMP, Inkscape, Audacity, Kdenlive, R. Also, even if I supply links to the homepages of many programs, most of them either come pre-installed on the Linux distribution or can be installed from the software center, which is preferred.
- Office:
- LibreOffice, is a office package that include a word processor, spread sheet, presentation editor and some other programs to make mathematical formulas, draw etc.
- Web browser:
- Music and Video player:
- Text editors:
- Gedit, Xed or some other basic text editor usually come installed with Linux.
- Atom a highly customizable and full fledged text and code editor that you can set up to do all sorts of things to be more efficient editing text or code.
- Vi, Vim, Neovim for the ones that want to put in some more effort learning an editor, and in return get a very efficient and light weight text and code editor with which you can do most of the things you do with other editors like Atom. It has several modes e.g. an Insert mode which function as a ordinary text editor, but also a Normal mode where you can edit text based on keyboard commands. The ones that use it usually swear by it while others keep away from it.
- Drawing software:
- Audio editors:
- Audacity is a excellent audio editor program which have enough functions for most audio editing except perhaps for the some professional users.
- Video editors:
- Kdenlive can be used to edit videos. It is a bit complicated but rather professional.
- Statistical analyses:
- R, is a statistical program similar to SAS, which many within sciences already are familiar with.
Georg Andersson 