30 Cool Open Source Software I Discovered in 2013

[Administrator]

These are full-featured open source software products, free as in beer and speech that I started to use recently. Vivek Gite picks his best open source software of 2013.

#1 Replicant – Fully free Android distribution
Replicant is entirely free and open source distributions of Android on several devices including both phones and tablets. I have installed it on an older Nexus S. You can install apps from F-Droid store a GPLv2 client app that comes configured with a repository hosting only free as in freedom applications.

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/image/kNvvhttps://pix.cobrasoft.org/image/kDPk
Operating system : Linux/Android
Purpose : Free os for phone/tablets
Targets : User who wish to have a full control over the mobile phone with strong privacy settings
License : Apache License 2.0/GPL 2.0
Download url : replicant.us

#2: Miro video converter

This is an open source, cross-platform application to convert videos from and to various formats, including formats suitable for devices such as Android/iOS phones. It is simple and easy to use software to convert almost any video to MP4, WebM (vp8), Ogg Theora format. Miro Video Converter is based on FFMPEG and act as a front end to FFMPEG command line tools.

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/images/2023/01/06/miro-software.png
Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : Video converter
Targets : Multimedia users
License : GPL
Download url : mirovideoconverter.com

#3 OwnCloud – Dropbox alternative for cloud storage service

I was looking for an alternative to Dropbox to run cloud on my own server at home and office. This software is open source software, and it is self hosted. I don't have to trust third party with my data. I found this software easy to install and quite useful. I started to use it for syncing files and other data. I have been using for couple of months and it has been proven reliable alternative to Dropbox. There are clients available for MS-Windows, OS X, Linux, and mobile apps for iOS and Android devices (or simply access data using the ownCloud web frontend).

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/image/kOh9
Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : Cloud storage (Data synchronization)
Targets : Home users/IT departments/Sysadmins
License : AGPLv3
Download url : owncloud.org

#4 Docker – FreeBSD like container+API for Linux

The FreeBSD jail provides an operating system-level virtualization partition a FreeBSD-based serve into several independent mini-systems. You can do the same with Linux using OpenVZ. Linux Containers (LXC) is a virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems. Docker extends LXC. It uses LXC, cgroups, Linux kernel and other parts to automate the deployment of applications inside software containers. It comes with API to runs processes in isolation. With docker I can pack WordPress (or any other app written in Python/Ruby/Php & friends) and its dependencies in a lightweight, portable, self-sufficient container. I can deploy and test such container on any Linux based server.

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/images/2023/01/06/docker.webp
Operating system : Linux amd64
Purpose : OS level virtualization
Targets : DevOps/Sysadmins
License : Apache License 2.0
Download url : docker.com

#5 Adminer – A lightweight and full-featured database management tool

Adminer is a full-featured database management tool written in PHP. Conversely to phpMyAdmin, it consists of a single file ready to deploy to the target server. Adminer is available for MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL and Oracle. I usually install this for clients who are new to PostgreSQL/MySQL. The software acts as a drop-in-replacement for phpMyAdmin with a better user interface, better support for MySQL features, higher performance and more security.

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/images/2023/01/06/db.webp
Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : Database management
Targets : DBA/new users
License : Apache License or GPL 2
Download url : adminer.org

#6 MariaDB – Drop-in replacement for Oracle MySQL server

MariaDB is a community-developed fork of the MySQL server. MariaDB is going to be default in many popular Linux distro and open source project. Red Hat will switch the default database in its enterprise distribution, RHEL (including its clones such as CentOS), from MySQL to MariaDB, when version 7 is released in 2014. I started testing MariaDB and found no problems at all. The speed is same or better in some cases.

Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : RDBMS
Targets : DevOps/Sysadmins
License : GPL/LGPL
Download url : mariadb.org

#7 RackTables – Manage your data center assets like a pro

I wish I discovered RackTables earlier. It is is a datacenter asset management system. With this software one can document hardware assets (such as server, workstations, routers, switches and more), network addresses, space in racks, networks configuration and more:

• List of all devices, racks, and enclosures you've got
• Mount the devices into the racks
• Maintain physical ports of the devices and links between them
• Manage IP addresses, assign them to the devices and group them into networks
• Document your NAT rules, describe your loadbalancing policy and store loadbalancing configuration
• Attach files to various objects in the system
• Create users, assign permissions and allow or deny any actions they can do

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/images/2023/01/06/racktables.webp
Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : IDC asset management system
Targets : Sysadmin/DevOPS/IT Managers
License : GPL
Download url : racktables.org

#8 Apache Cordova – Create smartphone app just with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Apache Cordova is a free and open source framework that allows you to create mobile apps using standardized web APIs. You can create apps that work on iOS, Andriod, BlackBerry, Windows, Ubuntu and other phone based operating systems. You write code once and run on selected mobile platforms with little or no change at all. PhoneGap uses Apache Cordova.

Operating system : iOS, Android, webOS, Symbian, BlackBerry, Ubuntu Touch, Windows Phone, Windows 8
Purpose : Build native mobile apps
Targets : Developers
License : Apache License 2.0
Download url : cordova.apache.org or phonegap.com

#9 Angry IP scanner – ipscan tool

Nmap is an open source security tool for network exploration, security scanning and auditing. ipscan (Angry IP Scanner) is an alternative to nmap command. It is also an open-source and cross-platform network scanner designed to be fast and simple to use. It scans IP addresses and ports as well as has many other features.

https://pix.cobrasoft.org/images/2023/01/06/Ipscan-linux.webp
Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : Network scanner
Targets : Sysadmin/Network administrators
License : GPL 2
Download url : angryip.org

#10 Jekyll – Create simple static blog

Drupal, Typo3, WordPress and many other content management system (CMS)/blogging software dynamically create feature rich content. However, you may not need all the all features and complexity offered by modern CMS based systems. For example, a WordPress based blog like nixCraft requires multiple VMs, CDN for static assets, caching engine such as memcached, PHP, mysql database, comment moderation, and on going updates. A growing trend is to keep your blog simple by avoiding CMS and use static HTML generators that offers the following benefits:

• No more complex setups i.e. no databases/php/caching engines required.
• No more comment moderation.
• Pesky updates.
• Static files are more secure.
• Easy to scale or cache on edge/CDN nodes.
• Provides all the blog-aware visual bells and whistles such as categories, pages, posts, Permalinks, and custom layouts.

Operating system : Cross-platform
Purpose : Blogging system
Targets : Bloggers who wish to follow KISS principal.
License : MIT License
Download url : jekyllrb.com
Similar apps: Haskell based Hakyll, Ruby based nanoc, Python based Pelican.

#11 TurnKey Linux – Deploy open source apps on VM or the clouds

You can setup a open source software such as WordPress, Drupal, ZenCart, and over 100+ other software easily with TurnKey Linux. It is a virtual appliance library that integrates and polishes the very best open source software into ready to use solutions. Each virtual appliance is optimized for ease of use and can be deployed in just a few minutes on bare metal, a virtual machine and in the cloud/in physical server. TurnKey Linux is based on Debian 7.2 with automatic security updates for all packages. It also includes a web management interface, web shell, and simple configuration console. I often use this to deploy development server in the cloud.