Topic: Freely available and legal software.

[Nemesis]

Doomsday Engine
Home Page

Windows/Unix/Mac OS X source port of Doom, Heretic and Hexen. Lets you enjoy the original games using modern technology. Supports e.g. OpenGL, Direct3D, DirectSound3D, 3D models, unlimited framerate, high-resolution graphics, simulated radiosity.

Operating System: 32-bit MS Windows (95/98), All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), All BSD Platforms (FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/Apple Mac OS X), All POSIX (Linux/BSD/UNIX-like OSes), FreeBSD, Linux, OS X
License: GNU General Public License (GPL)
Category: First Person Shooters

[Nemesis]

BZFlag

BZFlag is a free online multiplayer cross-platform open source 3D tank battle game. The name originates from "Battle Zone capture the Flag". It runs on Irix, Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac OS X, and many other platforms. It's one of the most popular games ever on Silicon Graphics machines and continues to be developed and improved to this day. It's one of the most popular open source games ever. For more information, check out some of the reviews.

[Nemesis]

Fracplanet

Fracplanet is an interactive tool for creating random fractal planets and terrain areas with oceans, rivers, lakes and icecaps. The results can be exported as models to POV-Ray  and to Blender, or as texture maps for more general usage. The code is licensed under the GPL. It uses Qt and OpenGL.

Where to get it
...for GNU/Linux

Source downloads, various .deb files and other project information are obtainable from the sourceforge project pages. Assuming you have Qt and qmake (and a correctly set up gcc of course), it's trivial to build. The application will perform much better if you have OpenGL hardware acceleration enabled.

New releases will be announced on freshmeat.
...for Java

Martin Smith has done a port to Java (NB it's a Java application, not a browser applet).
...for the Mac

Mac users may be able to find a port at ATG. Note that you will also need to install the supporting Qt toolkit separately; it's also available from the ATG site. (NB Qt is NOT the same as Apple's Quicktime).

...for legacy systems

I'm not currently aware of any port to win32. However all is not lost if you are unfortunate enough to be stuck with such a system. The easiest solution is probably to simply run the Java port. The harder solution is to temporarily boot your system into Linux using the Ubuntu "Live CD".

[Nemesis]

64 Studio

64 Studio develops a distribution of native free software for digital content creation on x86_64 hardware. It's based on the pure 64 port of Debian GNU/Linux, but with a specialised package selection and lots of other tweaks.

Link to page of screenshots

[Nemesis]

I've seen many complaints about Linux not playing DVDs and MP3s without advanced leaping through hoops here is one that can.  I've done a bit of playing around with it and have played the Men In Black DVD successfully (its the only one I've tried so far) but haven't tried the MP3 playing.  It isn't as easy as sticking the DVD in and hitting play but it isn't difficult.

One word of warning.  The DVD and MP3 playing software violates American software patents so it should not be downloaded by Americans.  We Canadians, Europeans and others can use it though.

Vector Linux has several versions.  The one I'm using is "The SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) Edition".  Vector Linux is a Canadian distribution derived from the venerable Slackware distribution.

Vector Linux

VectorLinux SOHO Edition:

The SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) Edition maintains the VectorLinux philosophy of speed and stability, but is designed for modern computers and is based around the KDE desktop environment. Applications include OpenOffice, Java, the Gimp, Xsane, CUPS, Xara XTreme, financial applications, and many others. Everything is preinstalled and tweaked for maximum performance and ease of use. It is available as a mail order CD from our CD Store or as a freely downloadable ISO.

Hardware Requirements:

Standard Edition: Pentium 200 or better, 96MB RAM, 2.1GB hard drive space for system only, more for your data.

SOHO Edition: Pentium 750 or better, 256MB RAM minimum, 3.1GB hard drive space for system only, more for your data, video and monitor capable of 1024x768 resolution at 24 bits colour.

LIVE Editions: Pentium 750 or better, 256MB RAM minimum, video and monitor capable of 1024x768 resolution at 24 bits colour. For the Beryl version you will need a modern video card.

[Nemesis]

Thunder&Lightning

Thunder&Lightning is a futuristic action flight simulator and realtime strategy game that takes place in a large 3D environment. Jump into the pilot seat of your Lightning aircraft and fight against Thunder tanks in a fierce battle for control of the island!

Apart from flight simulators, Thunder&Lightning takes inspiration from (but is not a clone or remake of) the 80's classic Carrier Command. This means that you will find yourself in control of a futuristic carrier with aircraft and amphibious tanks at your disposal. In the long run, there will be multiple Islands to conquer, each with its own defense strategy.

Although Thunder&Lightning already supports missions, it aims to be an open-ended game with a dynamically developing world with scripted events on some occasions.

Thunder&Lightning is released under the GNU General Public License.

[Nemesis]

Jack Morris posted in the Other Games Forum about a Wing Commander Privateer clone based on the Vega Strike engine.  Vega Strike is already on the list but Privateer isn't so here it is.

Privateer

What is Privateer Gemini Gold?

It is a freely available game, patterned after the original Wing Commander Privateer, and built using the open source Vegastrike engine.

What is the development status?

The game is playable but not very well balanced, the base computer interfaces are not final, some speech is missing, ship-to-ship communication lacks functionality however the Privateer and Righteous Fire campaign is already implemented.

What are the system requirements for running the game?

It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX. Most common hardware purchased after 2000 should be able to run the game, 3d acceleration at the level of geForce2 or better is recommended.

For those who may have found this interesting over a year ago when it was posted apparently both the Vega Strike engine and the Privateer mod for it have had updates since then.  So if you tried it then but didn't think it ready yet it might be time to try it again.  I may try putting it on my Linux laptop myself just for demonstrating games on Linux. 

[Nemesis]

Another Linux Distribution - Linux Mint

As with the Vector Linux that I'm trying on my Laptop (successfully so far) I am also trying Linux Mint on a Desktop.  Again this distribution plays DVDs and MP3 without any "hacking".  I've tried both.  It isn't quite as simple as "click on it and it runs but it is definitely "good enough" from my perspective.  I even tried on a whim 2 different MP3 player software packages at the same time with the same song and both functioned without conflict and I heard 2 copies of the song playing properly simultaneously.

Once again a word of warning.  The DVD and MP3 playing software violates American software patents so it should not be downloaded by Americans.  We Canadians, Europeans and others can use it though.

Linux Mint has several versions I am using "Cassandra KDE Community Edition".  I downloaded it with my laptop running KTorrent under Vector Linux at my mothers as she has cable Internet to my dialup.

Is Linux Mint suitable for individuals?
Yes, definitely. We believe Linux is the best operating system on the market. There are more than 300 active Linux distributions and we're working hard at becoming the best alternative for your desktop. This is a tough competition as there are other great desktop operating systems and distributions out there. We have faith in the quality of our desktop and a lot of great ideas. If your computer is a PC and you have more than 512MB RAM you should try Linux Mint and see what you think about it. If you're running a 5 years old non-free operating system such as Microsoft Windows XP you should definitely be impressed. We like hearing about your experience and taking your suggestions onboard so please give us your feedback.

It says more than 512 mb but that is all I have on this system and so far it runs quite nicely, admittedly it is a dual processor system so that is an advantage.  I even have the advanced 3d video effects (which I need to play with and configure to my liking still) activated.

Networking with my Win2K Pro was not a problem.  Reading the digital camera was easy once I realized the other end of the USB cable was disconnected  even though the camera was not on the supported list. 

Mint Linux is a derivative of the popular Ubuntu distribution and can use the Ubuntu repositories for software. 

[Nemesis]

Wiki on a Stick

"Wiki on a Stick" is a personal wiki that lives in one self-modifying XHTML file containing the software (javascript), the interface and the data. Very useful for mantaining notes and todo-lists.

[Nemesis]

wikiCalc

wikiCalc is a web application, created by Dan Bricklin, that allows for the creation and editing of spreadsheets through a wiki-style user-editable interface. It is currently released as version 1.0 for use on Windows, Mac, Linux/Unix, and other platforms that can run the Perl language.

The product was envisioned in 2005 by Bricklin, who 27 years earlier created VisiCalc, the first commercial spreadsheet program for the personal computer. Version Alpha 0.1 was released for alpha testing in November 2005. Version 1.0 was released on January 25, 2007. wikiCalc is written in the Perl programming language.

Wikiversity

Wikiversity is a community for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities. Wikiversity is a multidimensional social organization dedicated to learning, teaching, research and service. Its primary goals are to:

    * Create and host free content, multimedia learning materials, resources, and curricula for all age groups in all languages
    * Develop collaborative learning projects and communities around these materials

Learners and teachers are invited to join the Wikiversity community as editors of this wiki website where everyone can edit the pages. The community portal lists information about many aspects of Wikiversity.

wikibooks

The central place to ask questions or discuss ideas is the Reading Room (this is the equivalent to Wikipedia's Village Pump; Wikipedians may wish to read our primer before getting started). See also the mailing list.

If you're an instructor planning on using Wikibooks for a class project, please read our guidelines for class projects.

[Bonk]

I'm surprised this one is not on the list yet (did I miss it?):

Autostitch™

Autostitch™ is the world's first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical).

Time limited demo (but it lasts a while and I just download a new version whe it expires and it seems to work fine..). A truly cool program. Most excellent toy.

Goes well with:
JATC - Just Another Tour Creator (a little unwieldy, but will get you there, once advanced just edit the html and xml files directly based on the pureplayer docs)

JATC is a free tool to help you creating virtual tours from your panoramas.

and
PURE Player for Java (a slick and free applet)

PURE Player for Java viewer lets you load panoramic images onto a Website without having to install a plug-in. Display can be full-screen, regardless of resolution, and even for very large panorama image sizes. The display quality and the fluidity of control are perfectly maintained.

I'll see if I can find a place to post my first effort with these tools. It's not very good (I didn't use a static white balance and ccd gain on the camera for the series of pictures used - and it shows) but it's still pretty neat.
EDIT: here's my first attempt - sample panorama

I found these sites helpful on the subject.
http://www.panoguide.com/
http://homepage.mac.com/ponyboy/linksqtvr.html

Done well this is a saleable skill. (I have some other ideas for it too...) Happy holidays!

[Nemesis]

SAGE - Open Source Mathematics Software

General and Advanced Pure and Applied Mathematics
Use SAGE for studying a huge range of mathematics, including algebra, calculus, elementary to very advanced number theory, cryptography, numerical computation, commutative algebra, group theory, combinatorics, graph theory, and exact linear algebra.

OS: Windows, OS/X, Linux

[Bonk]

SAGE - Open Source Mathematics Software

That looks cool... I hurried off to the boston mirror to download and found it was 627M!  *sniff*  A VMWare image for windows, but even the native Linux packages are 275MB! I guess I can download the Ubuntu package over time and give it a try. The problem is I always have a long list of unfinished downloads like this! I think I'll put this one at the top of my list.

[drb]

Hoi Bonk,

What do you want to dl? I can spare a couple of CDs it think, of course if you do not think I will be there before the dl is done...

SAGE? anything else?

Take care

drb

[Bonk]

Well for big stuff right now, ya, Sage and latest FreeBSD would be cool and latest Knoppix, oh and latest Kubuntu and latest KDE - you don't have a DVD burner do you? I'd love a copy of the full Knoppix DVD.

Latest VMWare workstation demo would be nice too, as it is a pain, requires registration and will not download with a download manager so is pretty much impossible to get over dial-up. I'll edit this post to include a list of llinks shortly.

Sage:
http://modular.fas.harvard.edu/sage/SAGEbin/linux/32bit/sage-2.8.15-ubuntu32bit-i686-Linux.tar.gz
Kubuntu:
http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/ubuntu-releases/kubuntu/gutsy/kubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso
The KDE 4 RC1 Live CD would be cool too:
http://kubuntu.org/~jriddell/cds/kubuntu-kde4-20071126.iso
FreeBSD (4 discs - might be too much):
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/6.2/

Latest Kubuntu and Sage would be plenty to keep me busy for a while though.

And here's VMware Workstation (a pain to get, email, keys and such):
http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/eval.html
It would be nice to have a newer version of the demo to wind the system clock back on...

Latest wine would be cool too:
http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive/ubuntu/gutsy/wine_0.9.50~winehq0~ubuntu~7.10-1_i386.deb

[drb]

Hoi Bonk,

 I had to ask didn't I? hehe

Right, no DVD burner, so file size has to be under 700MB, if you got files listed over 700MB remove them and I will work on that list through the week. I will post progress.

Starting SAGE now.

Take care

drb

[Nemesis]

For those still using Windows XP

Windows XP Powertoys

SyncToy

With new sources of files coming from every direction (such as digital cameras, e-mail, cell phones, portable media players, camcorders, PDAs, and laptops), SyncToy can help you copy, move, and synchronize different directories. Download or learn more.

RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer

Are you a serious photographer? Now you can organize and work with digital RAW files in Windows Explorer (much as you can with JPEG images). This tool provides thumbnails, previews, printing, and metadata display for RAW images. Download or learn more.

ClearType Tuner

This PowerToy lets you use ClearType technology to make it easier to read text on your screen, and installs in the Control Panel for easy access.

HTML Slide Show Wizard

This wizard helps you create an HTML slide show of your digital pictures, ready to place on your Web site.

Open Command Window Here

This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders, giving you a quick way to open a command window (cmd.exe) pointing at the selected folder.

Alt-Tab Replacement

With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

Tweak UI

This PowerToy gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.

Version 2.10 requires Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Windows Server 2003.

Power Calculator

With this PowerToy you can graph and evaluate functions as well as perform many different types of conversions.

Image Resizer

This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click.

CD Slide Show Generator

With this PowerToy you can view images burned to a CD as a slide show. The Generator works downlevel on Windows 9x machines as well.

Virtual Desktop Manager

Manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar with this PowerToy.

Taskbar Magnifier

Use this PowerToy to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar.

Webcam Timershot

This PowerToy lets you take pictures at specified time intervals from a Webcam connected to your computer and save them to a location that you designate.

[Bonk]

Found some good ones:

PortableApps.com

Convenient

Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.
Open

PortableApps.com provides a truly open platform that works with any hardware you like (USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive, etc). It's open source built around an open format that any hardware vendor or software developer can use.
Free

The Portable Apps Suite™ is free. It contains no spyware. There are no advertisements. It isn't a limited or trial version. There is no additional hardware or software to buy. You don't even have to give out your email address. It's 100% free to use, free to copy and free to share.

SuperTuxKart

Super Tux Kart is a 3D kart racing game based on TuxKart with funny characters.

Been having fun with both of these lately.

I have packaged GLTron 0.71-beta as a portable app and I'm going to package version 0.70 and SuperTuxKart 0.3 in the PortableApps.com format today as well. (as both games are well suited to running portably and are both open source). I'll post em to the Dynaverse.net FTP once I get to it.

I like how the guys at PortableApps.com have made very innovative and productive use of NSIS as the backbone of the product.

[Bonk]

Here's some temporary links to some open source games I've packaged in the PortableApps.com format:

GLtron_Portable_0.71.paf.exe
GLtron_Portable_0.70.paf.exe (uploading)
SuperTuxKart_Portable_0.3.paf.exe (UPX-LZMA packed exe)

(P.S. If anyone can figure out how to disable GLtron's output to stderr.txt and stdout.txt, let me know, as it is rather inefficient when running from a flash drive.)

[Czar Mohab]

I'm still making my way slowly around all the boards, I usually hang out in fan-fic land, churning out words randomly assorted into paragraphs and short stories for all to enjoy freely... BUT! I do have a link (www.abandonia.com) that I didn't see in the massive and very impressive master lists (yeah, its almost all games, and this site links to others with much of the same, but some have a touch more). I'm just not 100% sure if abandonware qualifies as freely legal in the sense that you are using it here, but there are alot of "memory lane" games there to be found, and as far as I'm concerned, free = GOOD. That, and there are some that are posted but unavailable for download because its either protected or just not available (as abandonware) yet.

Seriously wonderful work on this project. I cannot fathom how much time and effort has gone into this. And the best part? No, not the "free"... It is all useful. Heck, to my surprise I even found something that someone else was looking for. Now I can tell them about it.

Czar "Seriously, thanks for the hard work" Mohab

P.S. See also