List of Useful & Free Software Programs

[Turner]

That's what I get for scanning the d/l three months ago, instead of actually reading it.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Was doing some research and found something called andLinux which is supposed to run Linux programs on Windows. Anybody have more information? Does it actually do what it says?

 

[Till]

I don't use andLinux, but all my computers run coLinux, upon which andLinux is based. From wiki:

The term "cooperative" is used to describe two entities working in parallel. In effect Cooperative Linux turns the two different operating system kernels into two big coroutines. Each kernel has its own complete CPU context and address space, and each kernel decides when to give control back to its partner.

However, while both kernels theoretically have full access to the real hardware, modern PC hardware is not designed to be controlled by two different operating systems at the same time. Therefore the host kernel is left in control of the real hardware and the guest kernel contains special drivers that communicate with the host and provide various important devices to the guest OS. The host can be any OS kernel that exports basic primitives that allow the Cooperative Linux portable driver to run in CPL0 mode (ring 0) and allocate memory.

If you install a X Windows server, such as CygwinX, you can use Linux programmes in the Windows system.

 

[Turner]

Mint is supposed to install a desktop over windows, like Windows 3.1 was a shell for DOS. I didn't play with it much (looked like I was booting into Mint) so I'm not sure if that's what you're asking for.

I wonder if you can run co/andLinux under Wine... but that's too perverse.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks.

I found and installed Inkscape which is an open-source vector graphics editor. I'm impressed already and I haven't even done any drawing.
http://inkscape.org/

 

[Genocidicbunny]

search: its a wonderful, wonderful tool
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7577166&postcount=171

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Dangit.

Does anybody know a good free media player which isn't huge and will run off a read-only CD without fussing? I tried Media Player Classic and it spat out a bunch of errors when I opened a file on school computer. The same file worked ok in Windows Media at school so I assume its becasue the CD was read-only.

I was watching Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at school. I needed my Petty fix.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

VLC media player may be able to. Homecinema Media Player Classic -- comes with KLite -- can definitely run off a CD since its a single exe file. Now the other question is, do the school computers have the right codecs.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well, the error it gave me was about not being able to open the codecs, but it played fine in Windows Media Player.

VLC is on the school computers but it's an extremely outdated version and it skips a lot.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

MPC is your bet then. if it doesnt play it, there's no codec available ( I havent found anything yet that MPC cannot play )

 

[Zelig]

CCCP is all that should ever be used on Windows machines with admin rights.

VLC is self-contained, and doesn't need codecs.

MPlayer is good for non-Windows builds.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks, I might have been using a different version.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I found something called Sysinternals Suite. Didnt see it posted here and I don't know how outdated it is but maybe useful?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/bb842062.aspx

Question: What would be the best (free) editor for "Word 97-2003" documents? I googled it and I got a whole bunch of different opinions. If you want more details: The files are all different sizes, anywhere from 100 words to 25,000 or more. And I'm using this thing called Syncplicity to sync with Google Docs as the built-in word processor is crummy and slow. I don't need really fancy features (maybe the occasional table or footnote).

 

[Zelig]

OpenOffice.org

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thankies. (10chairs)

Edit: Works great. Took a little digging to find the "tab stop" thing (to adjust the size of the tab-indent as it was huge!) but it works great.

 

[Imperialmajesty]

MCE Multi Mon

When you use Windows Media Center with dual monitors, the mouse will lock on to the WMC screen, the afformentioned program provides a useful work around.

 

[El Koeno]

I found something called Sysinternals Suite. Didnt see it posted here and I don't know how outdated it is but maybe useful?
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/bb842062.aspx

That was pretty helpful, thanks!

 

[dcmort93]

anyone have a good screen shot program that works with rome total war???
print screen only gives me a view of my desktop with a black background and all of my icons

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Fraps.


xcl and etc

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Anyone know a simple freeware WYSIWYG/HTML editor, something like the one included in good ol' Netscape or FrontPage Express which was on my Aptiva IBM? I'd prefer not to install an entire browser for it, and something like NVU with file management, etc, seems a bit overboard.

Edit: Seems like you can download FrontPage Express. Hooray!
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/6623/fpx.htm

Another edit: Dangit, not working. Has to be an exe, doesn't it.