My Free Software World
After one of my Raid zero hard drives failed windows was no longer usable, so I have decided to use windows XP short-term and run an experiment.
I am going to install XP and only use software that can be legally found on the Internet for FREE. The computer must be usable and must not restrict the user because of the software. So moving on, I installed XP which was a minefield of problems from removing my old raid configuration to ‘overclocking failures’.
After XP was installed I quickly realized why I was using Vista before, XP looks horrid. So the first thing I do click ‘start’ oh and the search on the start menu is gone as well, forgot that was a vista thing.
First job was to install my wireless drivers and run windows updates, ugh. There were over 40 updates and at least 5 restarts in total after installing SP3. After this horrible experience I noticed I had no gadgets on my desktop (I’m missing vista already). Install Google Desktop and shabang, there are my gadgets.
Then for the task that every techy hates, installing drivers. For a change this all went well and so there is nothing to report.
Next was to update windows media player, oh I don’t like WMP,I will install mediamonkey like I used to have, and of course its free. But I still have no codecs, K-Lite Codec Pack Installed.
Ooops I forgot antivirus, Avast Free Installed, oh and a firewall, ZoneAlarm Installed.
Right now to install some real software:
- Gimp- Image Editing, arguably the best free image editing software on the net
- Notepad++ – Simply a program I cannot live without since I was told about it, a great upgrade from windows notepad
- OpenOffice -Microsoft Office replacement
- TweatUI – A great little Microsoft tool used for editing a collection of options in windows, including autologin
- VLC Player- For old times sake
- WAMPServer (Windows Apache Mysql Php) – For playing with a local install of WordPress so I can experiment with this site
- Audacity- A fantastic but free sound editor
- Kompozer – Web Development (Dreamweaver Replacement)
Although all of these applications are not as powerful or feature rich as paid for software it is all surprisingly slick and usable.
As you can see just because you have a low budget does not mean that you cannot have a action packed PC.
There were only a few issues that I found along the way, firstly I had install .net framework to view the control centre for my ATI Graphics Card, secondly installing Adobe Reader uninstalled my wireless drivers.
The most impressive facts from this install is that my computer can now sit at idle using no more than 410 MB RAM and I am only using 7.71GB on my hard drive.
Now I am off to go and install MSN and maybe evenwindows 95 
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