FOSS-workshop

Repo with resources for FOSS workshop

(Send me pull requests for more resources you find and let's make this a much more detailed list :happy: )

Some really good FOSS software that I would recommend:

Operating system: Linux

GNU/Linux is actually a kernel(the most basic part of an OS, responsible for communication of the OS with the attached hardware)

As it is FOSS, there is a HUGE number of operating systems (or linux "distros") made based on it. Anyone can make a linux distro of their own with all the software & scripts they want to come loaded (yes, even YOU can make one).

The Linux distros are really powerful, scalable, secure, robust, bloatware & spyware free, very lightweight too and above all FREE (free as in freedom!, not free as in free beer....these do take immense time & effort to develop. Consider donating to these devs when you get the chance.....atleast they don't collect your personal data and sell it advertisers like Microsoft does, for money......what??...you didn't know??....well........now you do.)

Since they are FOSS, all the source code is freely available to the public so you can be sure that they don't come with any spyware pre-installed (even if you don't know how to check, the fact that someone out there can check it, means noone will be foolish to load it with spyware.)

And compared to windows and mac os, linux is much more secure and usually much faster and usually much more efficient in using resources like RAM, disk space etc.

So what's the catch? (Everything sound too good, right?)
There's got to be something bad about it right?
well.....not really
Although there are slight inconveniences sometimes ( caused by other companies that refuse to make good linux drivers for their hardware or make their drivers FOSS....I'm looking at you Nvidia) ( You can still make it work tho...we'll talk about that later....or check out my blog that I'll be releasing in the near future).

Since linux is super scalable you can use it on pretty much anything.
From the world's top 500 most powerful super computers, to the international space station, to the servers in the internet, to your old 20 year old PC that runs super slow, to your phones(yeah....Android is linux), to tiny embedded systems like the raspberry pi.

These are **MY recommended** linux distros:

• Manjaro(Arch based) (Manjaro KDE is my personal favourite),
  

• & Pop OS(If you REALLY want to use a Debian or Ubuntu based distro ),
  

• Fedora & OpenSuse (If you're super ultra FOSS loving and love being a dev),
  

• MX linux, Antix (For your persistent carry everywhere USB drive)
  
  

For Less powerful hardware:

• Manjaro xfce, Xubuntu, Lubuntu
  

For Really old hardware:

• Peppermint linux, Puppy linux ( Bring that 15-20 year old PC back to life!)

For your router/modem:

• OpenWRT (Really feature rich & much more secure than your stock router firmware)

Custom ROMs for your phone:
Good ROMs depend on each individual phone model & ROM maintainer. These are some commonly available ROMs available for a LOT of phone models.

• Lineage OS, Paranoid Android, Pixel Experience......(For your Android phone)
  (There maybe better ROMs for your phone based on these....search in your phone model's telegram group)
  

For your home server:

• OpenSUSE Leap

For your server:

• Ubuntu Server, RHEL, CentOS
  

For your TV:\

• KDE Plasma Bigscreen, OSMC, Libreelec (plug a $35 raspberry pi to your old normal TV and make it a smart tv!)

Web Browser: Firefox , Brave

Office Suite(replaces Microsoft office): OnlyOffice, Libreoffice

Photo editor: Gimp(alternative to photoshop) , Darktable (alternative to lightroom), Krita(for digital artists)

Vector Graphics Editor: Inkscape (alternative to Adobe Illustrator)

Video Editor: DaVinci Resolve(Free, not FOSS), Kdenlive, Olive

Video Player: VLC Media Player

3D Graphics Designing software: Blender

Password Manager: Bitwarden

Messaging Service: Telegram, signal, element

Watch Movies/TV series: Stremio

Media Centre: Kodi

Download Managers: Xtreme Download Manager, uget

Video Conferencing platform: Jitsi, BigBlueButton

IDEs & Text editors: VScode, Eclipse, Brackets, Pycharm......

Torrent Client: qbittorrent, Bigly

Host your movies in a Netflix like Interface: Jellyfin

Bootable USB maker: Ventoy, Etcher

and tons more......

Have software suggestions you think should be on this list? Send a pull request and I'll gladly add them :happy:

Love FOSS yet?

Want to be involved?

Where do I begin?

Learn Git:

Introduction to git for absolute beginners

Learn to use Github or Gitlab or bitbucket or ...

Beginners guide to git & github

Contribute:

Go to github's "Trending page"

Filter programming language to the ones you know, filter monthly or weekly trending projects

Select a project

Go to "issues" section

Search for issues with labels like "Good first issue", "up for grabs"

and contribute

Find good first issues: Awesome for Beginners

Good first issue

Code Triage

Guide-How to contribute

Start Contributing

KDE Foundation

Non-code contributions:

Translate projects to your native language

Mozilla Firefox

KDE Translation

Help wanted:

1. Add links to all the mentioned software in the list
2. Find more software & learning resources

Links

RITct - RIT Creative Team - Join the wonderful community of devs from RIT, Kottayam.

Nothing Private - A project showcasing privacy issues and some myth unfolds by Gautam Krishna

RITsoft - Contribute to RITsoft, RIT's Official Management Portal