I have always been in favor of no investment for software. And with the ever increasing participation from Open Source community and hence with the availability of so many free applications around, will not it be a good idea to create a computer which is FREE for life.

Myself I thought of creating a chronological list in the order of need to build such a system. You may use the free software for your Windows machine also and save some bucks on the costly software.

Since as a first step to run or install any application, you need to have an Operating System and then you can install other software as you wish depending upon your taste and need. The possibilities are endless.

Operating System

ubuntulogo You hate Microsoft Windows and you hate Vista even more, at the same time you don’t want to invest for Apple Mac. Don’t worry, Ubuntu is here. Download or order a CD with Ubuntu 7.10 and install on your new system. (Assuming there is no OS as of now. Else you can boot from the Live CD to try Ubuntu.) Refer to this post for other details.

Internet Browser

product-firefoxThere are two excellent options for Internet browser except Internet Explorer (IE7). You can install Mozilla Firefox and enhance its features with these 13 bare minimum add-ons. (Mozilla Firefox comes pre-installed with the Ubuntu CD.) Other than that you can install Flock if you are more of a social network junkie. You will love Flock for its social features. So overall you have 2 options: (Click on the links for download.)

Office Application Suite

OO Now that is up to you what you want for that. If you are an intense Office Suite user, then you might want to purchase Microsoft Office 2007. Else if you are looking for Free replacement for MS Office, then OpenOffice.org is here for you. You get almost the same interface with some cool added features like Equation and all. At the same time you can open and save the previously created MS Office files. So you don’t have to worry about the compatibility with other users of Microsoft Office Application.

On the other hand if you use office once in a while, I mean if you are not an intensive user, then you can try the online office applications from Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Zoho or the recently launched beta office application suite from Microsoft, Microsoft Live Workspace. To use Google Docs, you can use your Gmail id, for Live Workspace you can use your Hotmail or Live id and for Zoho, you can use any email id you already have. You can easily share the documents with your colleagues and friends also.

So this problem is also solved with these many options. Here is the list again:

  1. Microsoft Office 2007 (Windows & Mac only)Online Office
  3. Abiword (Comes with Ubuntu)

Email Client

product-thunderbird If you were a fan of Microsoft Outlook, but you want it for free on your new Free system, then install Thunderbird from Mozilla. (Comes with Ubuntu) For the calendar functionality, you will have to install Lightning. Thunderbird with Lightning makes it a perfect Email client for emails, newsgroups and also a news and blog feed reader. You can further customize it for your taste with the add-on. Other than that you have Evolution from Ubuntu itself. Install the following three softwares for your email client purpose:

  3. Evolution (Comes with Ubuntu)

Media Player (Music and Video)

Lot of media players comes with Ubuntu, so most probably you won’t have to seek for any other. Other than that CD & DVD burners are also available with Ubuntu. You can even play your existing mp3 songs and videos. Various other options are also available for Media Player requirements (if you want for Windows):

  1. Rhythmbox (Comes with Ubuntu)
  8. Songbird (Mozilla Project)

Games and other accessories

Really cool games are part of Free Ubuntu such as Nibbles, Puzzle and Blackjack. And definitely Internet makes the possibilities endless.

Rest Everything

What else is remaining in a system which you always wanted. I think they are the means to communicate. Such as Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Messenger or you can use Meebo which is again a browser based chat client. You can even use it as an add-on for your Firefox browser, so you don’t have to install another application. Other than that Ubuntu comes with Pidgin which consolidates all the major chat clients into one but not the regular Yahoo! and Live interface, which is a little drawback I found. But I think there should be something I haven’t figured out yet.

Believe me, I have tried Ubuntu and it is definitely faster in lots of aspects than Windows but I will have to agree that you will have to learn to find what you are looking for in Ubuntu.

LOL….Finally, you have got everything you needed to use your system for FREE. All the above will remain Free for life as they say. Enjoy, never invest a dime on computer softwares, but yes I will recommend you to donate to these Open Source Communities so that you can always get more and more softwares for Free.

How much you just saved? At least, Operating System ~ $250.00; Office Application Suite ~ $450.00 i.e. around $700.00. Not bad, hmm… And you don’t have to shell your pocket every now and then for hardware upgrades.

So, what are you waiting for…go and install whatever best suits your requirement. You can no doubt do a mix and match and use some of them on your Windows PC.

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