Other useful Open Source Software?

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

Hey, guys. What are some other useful open source programs you all use? Here are a couple that I don’t think too many people know about:

MuseScore: [Full-featured] Music composition and notation
http://musescore.org/

Celtx: [Full-featured] Scriptwriting software. Highly recommended to anyone planning to create short films and even larger projects.
http://celtx.com/

DVDFlick: Free DVD burning software. Works great and is constantly updated. Friendly, active forums as well.
http://www.dvdflick.net/

Pencil 2D: Free 2D animation program.
http://www.pencil-animation.org/

LMMS (Linux MultiMedia Studio): An open source version of FL Studio complete with support for soundfonts (and VSTi’s if I’m not mistaken).
http://lmms.sourceforge.net/

Inkscape: Open Source replacement of Illustrator.
http://www.inkscape.org/

Synfig: Another animation package. Can be used for rotoscoping.
http://www.synfig.org/Main_Page

Gimp: Open Source Photoshop equivalent.

OpenOffice: Open Source equivalent to Microsoft Word.
http://www.openoffice.org/

Videolan: Media player that can play almost any format out there!
http://www.videolan.org/

If you have any software you think should be added, feel free to continue. I discover a new useful open source replacement for something every other week and it’s nearly impossible to keep up with them all, so why not compile them into a list? I want other people to know about these programs as well so that they can continue to grow. Anyway, as I said before, feel free to contribute any and all other programs. Peace!

2

I’ve heard of all of those except the first one. I think you got most of the main stream ones. Another modeling program I have heard about but haven’t used is Wings3D
http://www.wings3d.com/

there is also anim8or
http://www.anim8or.com/

I installed it but didn’t mess with it too much. Blender has all the features I have needed thus far so it is hard to stray from it.

3

God, I checked out so many of these programs.

So here is the list (what I use):

digiKam - great for managing your picture collection
Brasero - for all your burning needs (however mine doesnt seem to like mp3s)
DeVeDe - a free and great ConvertXtoDVD replacement.
Songbird - for my audio files
VLC - for my video files
Krita - because I hate GIMP’s UI
Open Office - as allready mentioned
Stellarium - Just so i can look at some starts and some info about them.

So far I found a lot of open source replacements so im trying to stick with Linux. Only thing that I need replacement for is Photoshop but thats really hard to replace. Please dont say GIMP because I cant stand it.

4

http://www.scribus.net/

For Desktop publishing. I’ve never used it though, so I can’t say if it’s
any good or not.

5

audacity is a great free audio tool

6

Now that I’m working on subtitles…

Jubler - Java-based (cross-platform) Subtitles Editor

7

I’ve enjoyed using Frinika for writing MIDI music.
http://www.frinika.com/

8

This thread should be sticky!

9

I forgot about this.

I’ve used it before to find programs.

10

i use virtual dub, it rox
its free to
http://www.virtualdub.org/index
use it for everything now

11

señor staff is another nice music composition program.

12

two essentials:

MediaInfo

FFMpeg

13

FFMpeg doesn’t seem to do anything, but I have it.

14

I’ve used FFMpeg on the commandline to convert some videos to a format that Blender handles better before. It also makes other options for rendering available in Blender.

15

Synfig: Another animation package. Can be used for rotoscoping.


I’ll try this out - I think the photoshop rotoscoping is really cool, sadly photoshop is a bit beyond my reach, and all I want is the rotoscoping feature. Thanks for the link!

16

It constantly crushes under Linux on this end here. :no: Windows version ran fine.

17

anim8or isn’t open source, it is freeware but it is closed source.

it seems there is alot of confusion between the terms ‘freeware’ and ‘open source’

18

You’re welcome, bro. From what I saw on this video from youtube, it can be used for just that. Here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1udEJiS6e4

@ Lasphere

  	 		This thread should be sticky!

I think it should be sticky. It could be very useful in the future as we find more and more programs (freeware or open source) to add on to the list.

19

i take it you mean paint roto? don’t bother with it in photoshop, you need to roto with splines in AE, shake or nuke or whatever.

20

Construct - http://scirra.com/index.php

If you’ve ever used Game Maker, construct is similar. It’s a 2D game making application that is still in beta right now. It works right now to make games, tho, and a few fairly popular-ish indie games have been made with it. It’s a 2D system, so you’re somewhat limited, but there’s a physics engine, lighting effects, scripting, they’re currently getting python support into it and you can compile your games into stand-alone executables for distribution. It’s pretty neat, and I’ve been playing with it a bunch.