A number of sites have a wide assortment of free software available for download under a variety of licensing terms. While the sites listed are reputable, nonetheless, use of any of the software is at your own risk! The software in the FSF (GNU) directory is probably the most trustworthy in terms of both viruses and privacy. Untrustworthy sites get no mention here.
In April of 2003 United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) joined the Free Software Foundation's effort to catalog and publish what was formerly known as the GNU Software Directory.
| FSF/UNESCO Software Directory | Links to GNU/FSF projects and more |
| The Apache Software Foundation | Apache Web Server and Web tools |
| SourceForge.net | Massive Open Source repository,
powered by VA Software's SourceForge |
| Tucows | Huge collection of free software and shareware |
GNU software is at the heart of all Linux distributions. It is free, source code is available, and its ability to adapt to a wide variety of platforms is second to none. The FSF/UNESCO directory catalogs all of the GNU software projects, and other free software that runs on free operating systems.
Here is a sample of some of the GNU offerings:
| GCC Compiler | GNU Compiler Collection |
| Debian | Debian GNU/Linux distribution |
| GNU Hurd | GNU's own UNIX-like kernel |
| GNU Emacs | GNU Emacs Text Editor |
| Gnome Home | The GNOME Desktop |
| GIMP | GNU Image Manipulation Program |
| GTK+ | GIMP/GTK+ Toolkit for GUI development |
| BASH | GNU's Born Again Shell |
If you are interested in Web servers, Apache has something for you. The Apache HTTP Server is a Web server that supports numerous platforms. The mod_perl project adds an embedded perl module for efficient processing of CGI scripts. PHP is a server-side script language. The XML Project addresses the XML community. Their Xerces Parser is a valuable tool for validating your XHTML code, and supports any XML vocabulary, and XML Schemas. For Java-based web services, visit the Jakarta Project. Tomcat provides the glue between the Apache HTTP Server and Java servlets.
| HTTP Server | The Apache HTTP Server |
| mod_perl | Embedded Perl for Apache server |
| Apache XML Project | Xerces parser and XML tools |
| PHP | PHP Hypertext Processor,
server-side script language |
| The Jakarta Project | Apache Java platform projects |
| Jakarta Tomcat Project | Tomcat Java servlet container |
Developers and power users might find these sites useful:
| Linux Kernel Archives | Linux kernels and more |
| Linux DistroWatch.com | Catalog of a zillion Linux distributions |
| XFree86 Project, Inc. | X11 Window System implementation |
| KDE Home | KDE Desktop Environment |
| MySQL | SQL Database Server |
| OpenLDAP Server | Community Developed LDAP Software |
| Java Home | Download Java and related Sun software |
| Perl.com | Home of Perl script language |
| MacPerl | Perl for the legacy Mac platform (pre-OS X) |
| tcsh | Shell compatible with Berkeley csh |
| Cygwin | Unix-like user environment for Windows (Red Hat) |
The BSD distributions and a number of the Linux distributions can be downloaded for free. This might be feasible if you have a broadband connection. They also offer modules which often are compatible with other platforms. Most Linux applications will run on any Linux system. The commercial Unix vendors also offer a number of freebies.
Here are a few more sites of general interest:
| Mozilla |
Mozilla Open Source Project,
Gecko layout engine, Firefox |
| Firefox | Mozilla Gecko-based Web Browser |
| Thunderbird | Mozilla Email Client |
| Camino | Mozilla Browser for Mac OS X |
| Galeon |
GNOME Web Browser
(requires GNOME, Mozilla Gecko) |
| OpenOffice | Word Processing and Office Suite |
| Vim Online |
Vi-style text editor
(used to write this document) |
| Email: zzzsolutions@cox.net | Telephone: 401 751-6239 | Author: David Harris (djharris@cox.net) | Links Validated: October 19, 2006 |