Free Software
Libre Planet Conference: Online May 4-5, 2024
"Free software does not refer to price; it doesn't mean that you get it for free. (You may have paid for a copy, or gotten a copy gratis.) It means that you have freedom as a user. The crucial thing is that you are free to run the program, free to study what it does, free to change it to suit your needs, free to redistribute the copies to others and free to publish improved, extended versions. This is what free software means. If you are using a non-free program, you have lost crucial freedom, so don't ever do that." Richard Stallman
In Battle Over A.I., Meta Decides to Give Away Its Crown Jewels (5/18/2023)
- Free Software Foundation
- GNU.org
- LibrePlanet
- Linux Foundation
- Public Money/Public Code
- FreeBits
- Free Software Development
- Richard Stallman
- Software in the Public Interest
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- Software Heritage
- End Software Patents
- The JavaScript Trap
- Linux
- Voting Machines
- Software Heritage
Social Media
Videos
Protect your freedom by managing your privacy (12/5/2022)
Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software
Intel
& ME, and why we should get rid of ME (6/10/2016)
Malware is not only about viruses – companies preinstall it all the time (5/22/2015)
Microsoft’s Windows 10 has permission to watch your every move (10/04/2014)
Digital independence day: Your guide to DIY, open-source, anonymous free computing (7/3/2014)
Why
Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before (9/28/2013)
IBM
invests $1 Billion in Linux (9/24/2013)
Linus Says No NSA Backdoor in Linux (9/10/2013)
European
Commission report endorses open source (1/15/2007)
The Ethics of Free Software
📣 CALL TO ACTION 📣
— FreedomBox (@FreedomBoxFndn) July 1, 2019
Check out this funding campaign for #Mobilizon, event-management software which can be hosted on your own infrastructure. It is made by @framasoft, the organization which made PeerTube. If it succeeds, it can replace Facebook Events!https://t.co/XDjPxv8hHS
Caution
Free software isn't just low cost, it has advantages in auditability, security, extensibility, quality, and performance. Linux runs the fastest computers.
You would think that if something is free, that demand for it
would be high to unlimited. For the most commonly used
applications, free software is better. There are literally
thousands of applications. It may not be widely used in the US, but
it is in the rest of the world.
We know that cell phone microphones can be turned on remotely, Apple IPhones batteries are not removable so you may not know if they are really shut down, that location tracking or address books can be accessed by apps (or others). Medical devices implanted in the body are updated wirelessly and, since their software is proprietary, are not open to audit. Mattel is making a Barbie doll that has voice recognition, and it remembers what is said, is that cause for alarm ? Late model TVs have microphones and voice recognition.
Proprietary, non-auditable software is in almost all late automobiles technology, not just Volkswagens. Demonstrations have shown that some recent automobiles vital functions can be taken over remotely. Late model automobiles are surveillance-ready.
Consider that voting
machines could have the same kind of problem: they run perfectly,
except possibly on election day.
The internet of things will soon surround us and is ideal for universal surveillance. Together these observations should make a strong case that most all software needs to be auditable. For that, it must be Free Software.
The Case For Free Software
A detailed explanation of free software is here at https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Free software transparency allows it to be fully audited. Because anyone can access, examine, explore and modify the source code, functions can not be hidden. This should be a requirement for at least some applications...like voting machines. Manufacturers of voting machines are all right-wing partisans, and they insist that the software on their machines is a proprietary, trade secret. You can't see it and it is not auditable Yes, they can steal elections. Voters should insist on open source.
It is more about freedom than money.
Eban Moglen: Freedom in the
Cloud (video about an hour)
Software in the Public Interest
Linux brings over €10 million savings for Munich
Helsinki
city officials highly satisfied with Free Software
India saves and grows with open source software (9/3/2012)
Free Software for a small country
Stand
Up for your freedom to install free software
GNU/Linux chosen as operating system of the International Space Station
Why You Should Switch To Free Software
When you shop for a computer you are, almost invariably,
offered
two choices: Windows or Mac. Aggressive advertising assures that's
all you hear about. You may pay for Windows whether you want it or not.
Further, you may need to disable "secure Boot" which can prevent
you from installing any other OS.
So what's wrong with that ? Apple's products are much more
expensive than they ought to be. Apple gets a heavy premium.
Windows has managed to come with just about every other computer.
Both are seriously compromised by EULAs, tracking techniques, trade
secrecy, government trapdoors, advertising (spam by another name),
commercial invasions, and they try to lock you into their walled garden.
If you are annoyed with high priced software that 'phones home', bothered by boot up procedures that interrupt your schedule, frustrated with the high cost of applications, unwilling to read EULAs (those long contracts that appear every time you make a change and that you cannot refuse), or troubled by additional fees, upgrades that disturb your actual work, instead of proprietary programs, consider free software: GNU/Linux.
Free software is better because it is crowd sourced, multi-lingual, open to examination, constantly improving, impressive performance, polite in upgrading, and has a worldwide community. Many manufacturers embed it in the their products, so it's probably in your cable box, or other smart devices.
Linux chief: ‘Open source is safer, and Linux is more secure than any other OS’ (exclusive)
Why Linux Is More Secure Than Windows
4 reasons companies say yes to open source
10 things Linux does better than WindowsTestimony before the EU Parliament: Eban Moglen video (16 minutes.) HIGHLY recommended.
Treacherous Computing
Windows
10: Microsoft under attack over privacy (8/1/2015)
LEAKED:
German Government Warns Key Entities Not To Use Windows 8 – Links The NSA (8/21/2013)
Communication in the post-Prism world (8/2013)
We have intrusive corporate and government entities with an
insatiable appetite for information. The NSA tracks
virtually all electronic communications whether it be internet
clicks, telephone activity, search engines, email traffic, and they
are particularly interested in any communication that is encrypted.
It is a fact of life that as technology improves, surveillance
becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, it is difficult to imagine
a future that is not Orwellian.
Free software is a little better, but no answer for opaque
government. The good news is: encryption
works.
Without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States. Ladar Levison
When software is proprietary, you can't see what it is doing, you can't work on it, It is not transparent or open to audit. This is a fatal flaw for applications such as voting machines.
Proprietary software appears to be a black box. You do not know what is inside it. Eban Moglan spoke to the Free Software Foundation:
"This is really about who is going to have the keys to the home next decade. ...At what point do you want to admit onto your network ... computers which run software you can't see, can't understand, can't control and which reports to other people what is going on your network without your ability to interrupt or do anything? What point do you want to bring a box like that home and put it down on the desk that your child needs to do his homework? ...Those boxes, general purpose computers, running software you can't see, can't control, ...are called intruders. Do you want to have an intruder in every room of your house in ten years or don't you... ?"
For most products purchased from private suppliers, secrecy
prevents disclosure of many details. If your cable box tracks your
viewing habits, your computer camera can be turned on to monitor
you, your automobile tracks your location, your voting machine is
hackable, your telephone is routinely surveilled, or your media
controls what you are allowed to see, well... that's just the 'free
market' for you.
DefectiveByDesign.org
is
campaigning to stop Digital Rights Management (DRM). See
Bruce Schneir's website to find out who owns your computer or a
guide to living a DRM-free existence. Here is how to watch
DRM Flash content.
"Windows Vista includes an array of 'features' that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry.
And you don't get to refuse them. ...
Microsoft put all those functionality-crippling features into Vista because it wants to own the entertainment industry. This isn't how Microsoft spins it, of course. It maintains that it has no choice...It's all complete nonsense." --Bruce Schneier, "DRM in Windows Vista"
Follow these links, you will see that software does not always do what you want. It sometimes has bugs, and other times it works on behalf of the vendor...not you.
School Cameras schools activated webcams in school issued laptops...in students home.
Disgruntled Ex-Auto Dealer Employee Hacks Computer System To Disable Over 100 Cars
Hackers can give you a Heart Attack...Literally.
Voting Machines can be hacked. Since the code is proprietary, the public is not allowed oversight.
NSA Has A Massive Database of American's Phone Calls
Will your computer's "Secure Boot" turn out to be "Restricted Boot"?
Worse, some products can actually be hazardous. Toyota may have software problems, but, without the ability to look at the code, who can find that out ? You would want assurance that the wireless device that can be implanted in your chest because you have a heart condition can't be hacked.
If malfunctioning software can have public safety implications, that software should be made available to a reviewing authority for evaluation. The better solution is to demand free, and open source software.
Malfunctioning software can only be fixed by those with access
to source code. You are not allowed to work on proprietary
software, you cannot share it, and you cannot use it unless you
agree to a contract that you don't have time to read
carefully.
There is another choice: free software: GNU/Linux.
Who Should Use Free Software ?
If you value your freedom, you should run only free software.
It can release you from locked-down, proprietary walled-gardens,
free you from EULAs that you must agree to
and that can change at any time, allow you to look at audit and
understand software that you are using, assure that you can work
on and modify code, you can build on the work of others, you can
protect your privacy. verify the integrity of the code, and you will
trust your software
more.
Although it is mostly about freedom, everyone is trying to
save money or facing massive budget cuts: consumers, schools, all levels
of government. We can get better results by going to free software. There is not
much reason to pay for general purpose software any more. That said,
consider supporting free software projects with your contributions.
Schools
Privatizers are plotting to make a profit center of schools. By not patronizing them, migrating to free software and open textbooks, it is possible to save a lot of taxpayer money and, in many respects, improve results.
Free software (FS), GNU/Linux, is faster, transparent, freely modifiable, standards compliant, peer-reviewed, auditable secure, and less expensive than proprietary software. It is easy to install. For trial, it can even run without installing.
Software is a lot like math, so it should be an integral part of the math and science curriculum. There are also well developed FS programs for graphics, music, games, development. Free software is better for schools because students can examine the inner workings or even improve code that they use. They can take it home, share it, install it, study how it works, modify it, and make it better. Proprietary software does not allow that, and may be providing unwanted services including viruses, advertisements, tracking, profiling, and more.
Open standards assure that files can have long lives and that changed software cannot render them unreadable. Over time, free software has visibly improved so that it is now easy to use. It is versatile, mature, and, unlike proprietary software, well developed programs can be combined to build even better ones.
Crowd sourcing has produced wikipedia, free software, and other public goods. Open source is inherently more trustworthy because it can be peer-reviewed, audited, and independently verified. It is particularly important for voting machines and I would argue that open source machines should be mandatory for elections.
In many ways free software is better. It is free as in freedom, developed and adopted world wide, most of it is also gratis. It could save substantial taxpayer dollars...and would improve results. Support is available.
Free Software is a better choice not only for schools but also for towns, offices, and government. Also, Open source textbooks for public schools should be a high priority.
Seneca College realizes value of open source
CDOT (Center For Development of Open Technology)
The OLPC
project gave rugged laptop computers to millions of children in
underdeveloped countries. It also gave them free textbooks,
internet access, and free software.
Free software in schools. (See Sugarlabs, Planet Sugarlabs, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)...could replace the need for textbooks. Free textbooks can easily be updated, require no paper, no cost, and weigh nothing.)
Government
France government is latest to fully embrace open source
UK government plans switch from Microsoft Office to open source
UK government looks to open source to cut costs
Next steps for Open Source in government Posted by: Anna Shipman, Posted on: 15 December 2016
Open Government Partnership Summit (Paris 2016)
https://en.2016.ogpsummit.org/osem/conference/ogp-summit/https://en.2016.ogpsummit.org/media-gallery/
Free software in government (see also the OpenPlans site.)
How ProPublica Illinois Uses GNU Make to Load 1.4GB of Data Every Day (7/10/2018)
Hospitals
"Duke University Health System will spend $700 million over seven years to implement Maestro Care, Duke's name for Epic software, the Duke Chronicle said in November 2011. Yale Medical Group will pay $250 million to complete its switch to Epic next year, the Yale Daily News said in January 2012. Johns Hopkins Medicine will invest $100 million just in its outpatient clinics to start with, a Johns Hopkins newsletter said last October." Epic draws mixed reviews from industry (7/1/2012)
Escaping the EHR Trap — The Future of Health IT (6/14/2012)
What is Free Software ? (John Sullivan video.)
Benefits
The marginal cost of free software is zero. Everyone can have
access to educational tools, the ever increasing digital libraries,
open source textbooks, and even courseware from major universities.
Freedom
Free Software never requires a subscription fee. Instead of a long EULA that you must accept, there is a carefully drafted license which allows you to modify, copy, give away the software. More about this below.
Performance
Performance is better. Aside from the fact that it is cost free, it is faster because there is no hidden functionality and because it is, in effect, peer reviewed. Software bloat gets identified and removed.
Auditability
Free software is auditable. Anyone can see the source code. Hidden traps can be exposed as long as the code is completely open.
Security
Encryption works: How to
Protect Your Privacy in the Age of NSA Surveillance.
See the EFF Surveillance Self Defence Page or this story by Martin Shelton.
Free software is more secure. SELinux is security enhanced linux that made it acceptable to NSA.
'Here You Have' is a Windows problem. PCWorld 9/10/2010.
Privacy
If you were required to write all of your mail using postcards, you would mind. If you are not encrypting your email, your messages are just as open as if they were on a postcard.
Need for encryption for consumers and for business. About PGP.
Secure Cloud backup using Least Authority
Extensible
Free software is more extensible. Because code is freely available, developers can build on software that is already written. There are some remarkable applications. Because it is Open, it can be peer reviewed, modified, and used for still further development.
The GNU Project defends software freedom: the user's freedom to run it for any purpose, share it with neighbors, improve it for your own purposes, modify it and redistribute it for the benefit of the whole community.
Why Free Software ?
A video message from renowned free software programmer and FSF member Jeremy Allison:
"I could have made money [by joining the proprietary software world], and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place." Richard Stallman, GNU Project (http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html).
League for Programming Freedom
End Software Patents (wiki)
FSF recommended complete systems
Adobe AIR applications for Linux
League for Programming Freedom
Richard Stallman defines free software in this video.
Standards
UK government chooses Open Document Format
Proprietary formats may only be fully known to their vendors,
so if they should change you are forced into acquiring new versions of
their software, and you may not be able to use older files. They
decide. Open formats have publicly accessable specifications and do
not change rapidly.
Many companies, especially Microsoft, create proprietary file
formats that may be of limited life expectancy. After a few years
the formats change, the software evolves, and some of the older
data may no longer be accessible. You will need to buy a new
version of the software to keep up.
Older versions of documents stored as Microsoft word files are no longer supported and you may no longer be able to read them. Since the format is encumbered by patents, you are pretty much bound to the whim of the MS developments. MP3 files, JPEGs, and many other formats are patent protected, proprietary and subject to change at the whim of the vendor.
Free software formats are open, standard, and unencumbered by patents. Public domain, standard formats are important especially for archive material.
Standardized formats that are open are necessary for long-term accessibility. Government (and everybody else) should insist on open formats for their long-term IT documents.
Play OGG an open audio format.
Massachusetts favors Open Source software
Join the FSF Campaign for OpenDocument
Pot, meet kettle: a response to Steve Jobs' letter on Flash
Security
Experts agree it is far more difficult for intelligence agencies to manipulate open source software programs than many of the closed systems developed by companies like Apple and Microsoft. Since anyone can view free and open source software, it becomes difficult to insert secret back doors without it being noticed." NSA's War on Internet Security
See this video of Jacob Appelbaum
Recommendations
for the hacktivist community.
FreedomBox:
See this video of James
Vasile or his longer presentation here.
If you visit the next links at LinuxJournal.com, which the NSA regards as 'extremist', you will be flagged for extra surveillance. (7/3/2014)
Corporate SpyingFinFisher
VUPEN
See Privacy
How to Install
Tor (7/3/2014)
Tails is a live operating system, that you can start on almost any computer from a DVD, USB stick, or SD card. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity, and helps you to: use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship; all connections to the Internet are forced to go through the Tor network; leave no trace on the computer you are using unless you ask it explicitly; use state-of-the-art cryptographic tools to encrypt your files, emails and instant messaging. Learn more about Tails.
NSA Said to Exploit Heartbleed Bug for Intelligence for Years (4/12/2014)
About Heartbleed.
There are some civics lessons here. IP ("intellectual property") is much like the enclosure movement.
Software looks like math, and yet it has been patented.
Software Patents
Software Patents: Summarizing the Problem
8
Inventions You Thought Were Patent-Free But Could Get You Sued If
You Use Them
Licenses
See videos
Eban Moglan: How I discovered Free Software and Met RMS
The Cathedral or the Bazaar
Wikipedia is a well known, crowd sourced encylopedia that is not
only free, but has replaced older, printed versions. Arguably, not
as well known but an even more impressive crowd sourced
accomplishment is GNU/Linux software.
Compare these two models for development:
The Cathedral and the Bazaar (download the book for free.)
The Cathedral
The cathedral is designed by a central authority. It may be
secretive about its procedures. Non-disclosure agreements and other
hindrances serve to protect a competitive edge. This model is the one
used by prooprietary software developers.
How would you feel if you bought a car, but were prohibited from working on it ?
How often do you have to agree to End User License Agreements (EULAs) that you may need a lawyer to fully interpret, that you barely have time to read because you have your own work to do, and you cannot proceed without agreeing. Feels like extortion doesn't it ? This does not happen with free software. You are not interrupted to determine if your software is legal or paid up. You do get polite notifications when upgrades are available.
The Bazaar
Because free software is open source, anyone can examine the
code. Often there are many participants in contributing. The effect
is the same as peer review. There is much less opportunity for
malware.
Richard Stallman created the GNU system, which is not Unix. He is also the head of the Free Software Foundation. Important licensing documents, such as the GPL3 were drafted with his help.
Linus Torvald, formerly of Finland, was the originator of Linux, the Kernel. A piece that Stallman missed to create an operational version of free software.
Tim Berners--Lee at CERN coded the first versions of an
internet
browser, and a server. Open Source projects like Firefox and
Appache are the most widely accepted internet applications and have
demonstrated that software can be developed by a crowd. It need not
be proprietary to be successful. Since many people participate in
the maintenance of free software, it is peer-reviewed. Results can
be better and more trustworthy.
Applications
The program, Synaptic, is installed automatically in most Linux distributions. Maybe all of them. It lists a wide range of applications ready to install. It categorizes or allows for search by keywords.
For notable applications see the ACM Software
System Awards page.
Repositories
Explore the literally thousands of applications
that are now available.: The easiest to use are those that come from a distributions
repository because they usually have dependencies that are already
satisfied. One of the best ways to explore (as superuser) is to use the synaptic
program.
Other repositories: Free Software Foundation, Sourceforge, github, NASA has opened all of its code, and many companies offer open source products such as Craigslist..
- http://directory.fsf.org/
- http://savannah.gnu.org/
- sourceforge.net
- github
- ItsFoss
- DARPA
- Software Heritage
Applications
Software of any serious size requires learning and practice.
Many have tutorials on youtube. Many are accompanied by free documentation.
Some have books that are well worth the price. . A number of them
are cross-platform, which means you can install them not only on free software platforms, but on
Windows or Mac computers. You need to look them up to find out. Udacity has free courses.
Youtube has many entries for Linux applications: for example
Here are some of the better known applications:
Graphics
Graphics: Gimp, Inkscape (LWM)), Blender 3D Animation (LWM), Scribus Desktop Publishing (LWM)) , dia Diagram Editor, krita, KPaint, OpenGL, ImageMagic, Color Scheme Designer, Synfig, Karbon14, Papervision. Graphviz, (and more.)
3D: Blender, OpenSCAD , 123D catch, Meshlab, Meshmixer,
openJSCAD.org, MakeHuman
Video Editing: KDEnlive,
Olive, Pitivi, OpenShot, Cinelerra, Kino.
ArtistX, TVPaint , Blender, avinfo and more.
9 Best Free Video Editing Software for Linux In 2018
Last updated September 4, 2018. See also Open Broadcaster Software
Media
Superdesk multimedia, digital newsroom.
Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation
Audio: SoundConverter, Sonic Visualizer, Audacity, Jack, Lash, OpenAL, Nyquist, Waon, Grace, Supercollider, Pd, Chuck, see LinuxAudio.org
Videos from Linux Audio Conference 2018.
Media Player: Amarok, Kino, avconv, MPlayer, Totem, Xine, XMMS, gnash,
Music
">Music: Musescore, LilyPond, midieditor, pmw, Synthesizers,Cursynth, Midi sequencers (see Rosegarden), GMorgan, Gmorgan Play Along, Hydrogen, AMS, ZynAdd,OOLilyPond., See this extensive list of midi software: http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/apps/all or Aaron Wolf's blog. PlanetCCRMA (only for Fedora).
Games: a wide variety. Even machine emulators that allow you to continue to run old Atari and Commodore software.
What's your favorite game that runs natively on Linux (ie, without wine)?
— Scott Williams 🐧 (@vwbusguy) November 29, 2021
Radio Station: Airtime, Open Broadcaster (from Sourceforge)
Telephone: GNU telephony, Asterisk or BLASTERISK, Symbian, Android
Journalism
Science
GNU Health a Free/Libre project for health practitioners, health institutions and governments.
Math: GeoGebra, Maxima, Octave,; (download the 900 page pdf manual at https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/octave.pdf, groupexplorer,. See others
Astronomy Stellarium
Computer Vision: OpenCV
Open Source Robotics Foundation, ROS (Robotics
Operating System), Drones
Government
The City of Munich migrated to free software for years, but when Microsoft offered to move their facility to Munich they went back to Windows.
Open Source is Taking Over Europe! (July 16, 2017)
Education
See Free Software Foundation page on education and this
education blog
Maddog Hall: Education and Free Software (video 1:04)
Education:
Edubuntu, OLPC,
Sugar, K12os, Moodle, SchoolTool, CourseFork
Office
Office Applications: Libre Office, Open Office,
(See
this.), Calligra Suite
Accounting: OpenMiracle
Project Planner: ProjectLibre, MrProject
Content Management: Plone, Drupal, Django, MediaWiki, Zope, Endrun
Medical: OpenMRS
Library: Libary Freedom Project
Home
ZoneminderHome Assistant
Web
Web Browser: IceCat,
Firefox,
Konqueror, Mozilla, Galeon, Iceweazel. chrome, Dillo.
Web Development: Apache, Javascript, web.py, BlueGriffon, NVU, Bluefish, KompoZer, Quanta Plus, Bootstrap
Email: Evolution, Kmail, Kontact, postfix
jami.net a free/libre, end-to-end encrypted, and private communication platform.
Video Conferencing: Big Blue Button
Development
Languages: C, C++, Go, Haskell, PHP, Perl, Python, Guile, Scheme,
Lisp, ADA, Fortran, Assembler, LLVM
GUIs: FLTK, GTK, QT, WX,
Tools: Make, Autoproject, Autoconf, AutoMake, Autotrace, Autodia, GLADE, emacs, cflow and many others:
Development: cppcheck, autotools, gdb, gcov, gprof, swig,valgrind, splint, r-project, autogen, qemu
Databases: MySQL, BaseX, PostgreSQL, Propel, Mongodb
Best Tools For Taking and Editing Screenshots in Linux (9/2/2018)
Admin
System: Samba,
DynDNS (to run your server) is not free anymore, so look at this.
Security
Distributions
Distro watch for Ubuntu lovers: What's ahead in Linux land (5/25/2017)
Free software has been getting easier to use and there are now
distributions friendly enough for most consumers. Ubuntu or Mint is
easy to install and compares favorably to Apple or Windows software.
Knoppix has excellent hardware detection and is frequently used as a diagnostic
tool for failing computers. See the GNU project for software that
respects your freedom.
Distrowatch tallys
the number of downloads for each.
Best Linux Distributions (9/5/2019)
There is a proliferation of distributions, because there are different concerns for each. Some are specialized, some for old machines, others for hand-helds, some for freedom from proprietary ties, many have proprietary hooks, some furnish only source code so that you have to compile it all, and so on.
Many offer a live disk you can try without even installing.
Bear in mind that running from a cd (or DVD) is much slower than
actually installing, but it can tell you if your machine is suitable
for a particular distribution. Many hardware architectures are
supported.
Download a free, live CD from websites listed below. Burn the CD as an iso, then run it directly from your CDROM drive without even installing. Running from the CD will be somewhat slow, but actual installation will improve performance considerably. If you have a slow internet connection, it could be easier to buy cds from a good vendor: For example, LinuxCollections or frozentech sells them for a nominal fee.
Pick one distribution, and don't mix any components from others unless you know exactly what you are doing.
The State of Linux Distributions (9/10/2013)
General Purpose
Mint is the most downloaded.
Ubuntu installs easily. As Richard Stallman has said: It is not free
though because it comes with some proprietary software. See the Ubuntu videos.
Ubuntu Studio is
excellent for artists.
Debian is the parent of the best distributions, more free of restrictions, but is slow to upgrade to the latest versions. Choose the stable version if you are not adventurous.
Fedora is a derivative of Red Hat (IBM supported). Planet CCRMA, based on Fedora, has impressive audio applications.
Gentoo is a distribution for those who like to compile everything from scratch.
For Security
Tails for privacy. It
uses the Tor network by default.
Live CDs run without install
MX
Knoppix may be the easiest live CD to boot. It has very good hardware detection and it can be an excellent diagnostic tool.
For Small (or possibly older) Machines
Machines that are not too old can be revitalized by installing
an appropriate distribution, if they are not too old.
Meego, for hand-held and mobile phones, is backed by Intel and Nokia.
Moblin, for mobile devices (Intel backed.)
DSL: Damn Small Linux is for machines of limited capability.
Puppy Linux
MultiMedia
There are a number of Linux audio distros, but the two that LMP recommend are KXStudio and AVLinux. We feel they are the best compilations currently available and, as they are both quite popular, it also means they are well tested and stable. They both also have very active communities.
Planet CCRMA offers a suite of audio applications that can only be
installed on Fedora distributions.
64Studio: optimized for audio, but a branch of Debian. There is a 32 bit version.
The distributions that are most free:
Free, in this case, means no proprietary software components. If you choose one of these distributions, some functionality may not be available (including newer media, since many include DRM.)
Most distributions have some compromises in their use of
non-free software. Understandably, manufacturers do not want to
erode their competitive edge by disclosing everything about their
products, so they will not supply source code. You can't see
inside so you do not know what they are doing.
The most free are from Distributions recommended by the FSF
PureOS A free operating system which is available on a laptop with hardware switches to turn off microphone and camera.
GNULinux, click here.
Hardware Support
FSF criteria for hardware endorsement.
LinuxMCE - Linux for home automation.
Need for Free Machines.
Freedom Included a small company that will sell you a free (as in freedom) machine.
Los Alamos Computers works with the FSF to offer systems preinstalled with a free operating system.
Free Hardware
See this.
13 Open Source Hardware Companies Making $1 Million or More (video)
Make Magazine Gift Guide for the Arduino
How to build your own PC Part 1 (video) Part 2, and Part3.
Software As A Service
As always, support is available for a fee.
Distrowatch tallys
the number of downloads for each.
There is a proliferation of distributions, because there are different concerns for each. Some are specialized, some for old machines, others for hand-helds, some for freedom from proprietary ties, many have proprietary hooks, some furnish only source code so that you have to compile it all, and so on.
Many offer a live disk you can try without even installing.
Bear in mind that running from a cd (or DVD) is much slower than
actually installing, but it can tell you if your machine is suitable
for a particular distribution. Many hardware architectures are
supported.
Try Linux http://www.getgnulinux.org/switch_to_linux/try_or_install/
Documentation: Where to get help
Free software documentation is, frequently, also free and downloadable. See the documentation category in the synaptic program.
Linux Survival Guide (from Planet CCRMA)
Producing Open Source Software, Karl Fogel (Free on-line.)
Search on-line, or try invoking the synaptic program.
Home Robotics, Knox.
Thanks to publishers like Oreilly and others, free and open source documentation is now excellent.
Linux Journal Magazine
Linux Voice (creative commons issues)
Computer Magazines at Archive.org
Blogs
Training
The Linux Foundation and edX are partnering to develop a MOOC program to make basic Linux training materials available to all for free. Previously a $2,400 course,will be the first class available as a MOOC and will be free to anyone, anywhere. The Linux Foundation is among a new group of member organizations edX announced today who will contribute courses to the platform.
Free Introduction to Linux Online Course
Introduction to Linux course now free, open to all
Linux/Unix Tutorial for Beginners: Learn Online in 7 days
Magazines
Full Circle Magazine (on-line)
Bibliography
Open Source Technology and Policy: Fadi P Deek and James A.M. McHugh.
Running Linux by Matthias Kalle Dalheimer and Matt Welsh
Creating Digital Media: Audacity, Blender, Drupal, Gimp, Scribus, and other Open Source Tools by Daniel James.
Math You Can't Use, Ben Klemens
Learning to Change the World: Walter Bender, Charles Kane, Jody Cornish, and Neal Donahue (About the One Laptop per Child project.)
Open Source Archetypes: A Framework For Purposeful Open Source
For more information see here.