free and open source CD

For the past few years I have produced a free and open source (FOSS) CD for my students to borrow from the Resource Centre.

Each year the FOSS software available gets better and better. This year I have 28 different programs on the CD, an increase of 10 or more from last year.

I asked my year 11 students recently whether I should produce such a CD again this year. Would they find it helpful? There was an enthusiastic response in favour.

Here are the titles and web sites which make up my CD for 2006. I realise that this is just a list of software without any evaluation of the software. Nevertheless, it might be a useful starting point for others thinking of producing such a CD for their students. Or just checking out some free and open source titles.

title / name	Version and source	comments
7-zip	http://www.7-zip.org/	file archiver
Acrobat reader	http://www.adobe.com/	Read pdf files
abiword	http://www.abisource.com/	Word processor
audacity	http://audacity.sourceforge.net/	Sound recording and editing
Wesnoth	http://www.wesnoth.org/home	strategy game
blender	http://blender.org/	3D graphics
Celestia	http://www.shatters.net/celestia/	Simulation of Universe
clamwin	http://www.clamwin.com	Anti virus
cmap	http://cmap.ihmc.us/	Concept mapping
Crimson Editor	http://www.crimsoneditor.com/	HTML syntax highlighting
filzip	http://www.filzip.com/	file archiver
Firefox	http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/	Web browser
GameMaker	http://gamemaker.nl/	Game making
gimp 2	http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html	Image manipulation
Google Desktop	http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/options/	Fast desktop search
inkscape	http://www.inkscape.org/	SVG editor
irfanview	http://www.irfanview.com/	Image editor
juice	http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php	Podcasts: capture and listen
MSWLogo	http://www.softronix.com/logo.html	Programming language
Notepad2	http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html	free text editor
NVU	http://www.nvu.com/index.html	HTML editor
open office	http://www.openoffice.org/	Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math, Base
picasa	http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/options/	Images
POV-ray	http://www.povray.org/	3D graphics
Really slick screensavers	http://www.reallyslick.com/	Screensavers, OpenGL
sokoban	http://sourceforge.net/projects/sokobanyasc/	Game
SVG plugin	http://www.adobe.com/svg/main.html	plugin to view SVG
Typing tutor	http://www.kiranreddys.com/	Typing tutor

Tags:

• opensource