Here’s a list of some awesome open source systems – some you may already know about, some you probably don’t – that you could start using today. For the most part, these systems are feature-rich, robust, and ready for prime-time. Some are a little rough around the edges, but still work great. All of them have some form of community-based support system in place, typically through discussion forums, FAQs, and email.
LibreOffice.org
95+% of the functionality of MS Office, 0% of the cost. One of the best-known open source projects, this multi-faceted productivity system competes head-to-head with Microsoft Office. LibreOffice has word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, and drawing packages. Use in place of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access).
GIMP
The original “killer app” of open source software. This amazing program may have a funky interface that takes some getting used to, but it is an incredible graphics package, on par with Adobe’s Photoshop and other professional graphics apps costing several hundred dollars.
Inkscape
This is a fantastic yet relatively unknown vector graphics editor, similar (but simpler) than Adobe Illustrator. While GIMP – like Photoshop – creates pixel-by-pixel bitmap images, a vector image is defined by mathematical formulas. The biggest advantage of this is that vector images are infinitely scalable with no loss of quality. Inkscape has a slew of hidden treasure features and is just plain fun to experiment with and explore. Get to know it.
Scribus
Scribus is a Desktop Publishing (DTP) package that has made great strides in the last couple of years to be a very functional and capable professional-level design tool. It’s a viable alternative to Adobe InDesign, and is way more powerful than MS Publisher.
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is a very capable email client that comes from the same parent project (Mozilla) that produces Firefox. Thunderbird is a great replacement for Outlook Express and is even an alternative to Microsoft’s full-blown email/calendar/to-do behemoth Outlook. Like Firefox, there are tons of add-ons and plug-ins available to enhance your email experience. Most importantly, using Thunderbird automatically shields you from many of the security vulnerabilities that are inherent in Outlook and Outlook Express.
Linux
And, for the truly adventurous who would like to get out from under the thumb of Microsoft completely (and who don’t want to pay the premium Apple charges for a Mac) you might try switching your operating system to a variation of Linux like Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, Arch, etc, etc.
Desktop Linux has come light years in the last few years, and some of these systems are really quite usable by the average user. However, you may still experience issues with peripherals (printers, scanners, etc) or Windows-based programs that you really, really rely on. Most of these issues can be overcome with some research and tweaking, but you may still run into cases where Linux just doesn’t work for your particular requirements and setup.