Free Software

If you use Window$ exclusively, you are missing out on one of the greatest joys of computing.  Free software takes back control of your computer from the proprietary software providers and returns it to you.  One of life’s great pleasures is removing Window$ from a computer and replacing it with your favorite linux distribution.

• Free Software Foundation will explain the concept of free software (that’s “Free as in speech, not free as in beer”).
• GNU/linux – the most widely-used free operating system.
• Richard Stallman is one of the greatest proponents of free software.
• CrunchBang – my current linux distribution.
• Emacs – the text editor that I use.
• LaTeX – formats my documents.
• The LaTeX class that formats for APA 6th edition.
• LaTeX Beamer – my presentation software.
• Gnumeric – the spreadsheet that I favor.
• R Project for Statistical Computing – a free statistical package, at least as powerful as SPSS.
• AbiWord – when I need to read Word documents.
• GIMP – a free alternative to PhotoShop – not just for linux.
• InkScape – a vector graphics drawing program.
• xpdf – my preferred pdf viewer.