1. WineHQ – If you were a  windows user , you might sometimes need to carry your favourite app to ubuntu. WineHQ is good at running such windows stuff . If you need to know if your favourite app runs on linux you can check this here . To download wine, check out this link .

2. VirtualBox – Most of you might be familiar with VirtualBox , from Sun Microsystems , a nice virtualization software which is available for free . There are many commercial virtualization softwares like vmware , which is much more powerful than virtualbox . To see a list of virtualization softwares have a look at this .

3.Scribus – Scribus is an opensource desktop publishing tool available for free . Scribus offers a modern and easy to use interface .and even supports advanced and professional features like CMYK color, separations, Spot Colors, ICC color management and  PDF creation.What to say more, visit its official website .

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4.Gimp – Available by default in your Ubuntu machine . If you are interested in photo-editing  gimp would be a good start .Read more about gimp and how to use gimp .

5.Blender – Blender is an opensource 3-d content creation suite available for free . Blender is as effective as other commercial software like maya , 3-d max etc , without taking you in to complex processes. Blender is definitely worth a look , you can even watch  how powerful is blender viewing the blender, gallery page .

6. Other crazy stuff like vlc player ,firefox, evolution ,pidgin , openoffice , k3b disc burner , songbird , x-chat etc are definitely worth a look . Here are a few tutorials and reviews on getting in touch with various nice free software programs , take a look at them .

7.If you are interested in making your linux an eye-candy , then opt for compiz .Compiz offers a stylish look without sacrificing too much system resources . Oh ! , I know you need to make your linux appear similar to mac os , here it is it mac4lin .

Windows is never equivalent to Linux as both are distinct operating systems . I , here present my personal opinion .

1.MOZILLA FIREFOX

Offers better browsing with improved security features and addons, simply make this stuff really amazing .Firefox is worth a try,  if you haven’t done that yet.

2.GIMP

Gimp can be considered as an alternative to the Adobe Photoshop.I agree it is not as advanced as Photoshop ,but it is constantly upgraded and contributed that it will surely overtake Photoshop.Recommended for starters in Photoshop.

3.NOTEPAD++

Not just an alternative to Notepad , but this stuff  offers more advanced features,  like programming language recognition and intendation matching. Notepad should be definitely replaced with Notepad ++.

4.7-ZIP

Advanced compression tool than built in compression tools.It supports the best compression format .7zip.Definitely worth a try.

5.VLC PLAYER

Not to mention the name , better alternative to Media Player , with enhanced format support. Usually plays anything and inbuilt volume booster.

keywords opensource softwares free softwares

Please post your comments , I will be extending this list.

GIMP, GNU Image manipulation program is an open software. Its a free and open image manipulation software. This software has absolutely no disadvantages compared to the usually used image manipulation softwares such as Adobe Photoshop. This one is tested for a wide range of application. This software is available under GNU Public License and it target people who cannot afford to buy expensive softwares such as Photoshop. But compared to Photoshop GIMP has most of Its features.

One of the most important features of GIMP is its customizable workspace. There are developers and designers who require various alignment of the tools and need to save them. GIMP provides a perfect platform for their work.

The interface of GIMP is aligned in the form of stacks so called docks so that the users can toggle between the web items as fast as possible. GIMP also supports full screen mode editing which not only allows you to get the live preview of the currently editing file but also allows us to fully utilize our complete screen estate.

Numerous digital photo imperfections can also be easily rectified by the latest GIMP edition. This includes perspective distortion, barrel distortion and vignetting

There is a inbuilt channel mixer which gives you the power to enhance your black and white images.

GIMP can be said as the most ideal software for digital photo retouching as it does not require or does not ask for the unnecessary information while using the touchup  tool or the healing brush tool.

The latest GIMP developed provides unique support for various external devices such as pressure and tilt sensitive tablets and also a wide range of USB or MIDI controllers. You can even bind various usb and MIDI controls to the GIMP and make your on scripts for manipulating the input. This includes changing your screen opacity , size color etc. of the brush.. This highly speeds up your workflow

Currently GIMP allows most of the commonly used image formats such as JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF and PSD

In my personal opinion GIMP is comparable with adobe photoshop.we can do almost everything that in GIMP that can be done with photoshop.It has all the features provided by photoshop under different name and menus.And most importantly GIMP is free even though most of us use the pirated version of photoshop.I will be posting a few illustrations of this in my upcoming posts.We dont need to spend 100′s of dollars for it .It is free unlike the Adobe Photoshop.It is definitely becoming better after different versions.

1.VLC Player :In terms of a video player you can choose VLC player .This is an opensource program which contains a  lot of new features and is excellent in playing all sorts of files .You dont  need to install anything extra.It has a lovely in terface and various skins are too available.The sound of this player is higher than other players.You can give it a try.

2.7zip:If you need a archiver you need to get this one.It is much better than others and it has other formats that are not available with winzip or winrar.It has a clean interface and can be freely downloaded.For every windows user it is a must.

3.Notepad++:Are you used to rely heavily on editors ,then you can replace your notepad with notepad ++.It has a gnu licence and it has syntax support for almost all programming languages.multiple files can be opened in tabbed view and easier to use with.It has a lot of different functionalites compared to others and it is truely free from all forms of licences .

4.Filezilla :This is a perfect ftp program.it has a gnu license and a lot popular.It can be used to upload multiple files at a time and perfect for all users.It has advanced capabilities and it is worth a try .

5.XAMPP:Have you ever thought of running a server on your computer .Then XAMPP is a good choice .It contains apache.mysql and php.I donot recommend you to start a home ser ver for important activities.But it can be used as a testing enviroment and one can easily study how a server works

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6.AVG:Antivirus is one of the most essential softwares for a computer .But most of them come with a hefty price tag.But some antivirus companies like avast ,avira and avg gives free home protection antiviruses for free .You can try any of these .I found all are better and enough for home use.

7.Firefox:In case of internet browsers Firefox is my favourite.It offers good browsing experience and the best its addon facility which makes it my favourite.It is the one of the most popular browsers and it offers a lot of functionalities.Newer versions even provide private browsing capability which doesnot store your history.It has better security features than Internet Explorer and a huge support too.

8.Gimp:It is a photo editing software like photoshop but it is free.It is not as advanced as photoshop but enough for everyone .It is a software with gnu licence and has is very user friendly.Most of photo editing activities can be done with it.

9.Utorrent:One of the best torrent client.It uses less memory and has good functionalities .It is very small in size and can be

downloaded free of cost.It has a nice interface  and has good support.

10.Wireshark :Even though they arent very important in home ,they are indeed very powerful in network analysis and scanning.They both are opensource projects and are very useful.It can be used to examine data in the network and various symptoms of network attacks.