There are some other options too that are worth considering for users who are looking for open source and free photoshop alternatives. These free and open source photoshop alternatives are not only useful for beginners but also useful for professionals who are thinking of switching from photoshop. And the good thing is that these free applications make no compromise with the quality of work.

So, what to do if you are a bit tight on budget and want to learn to design without paying the monthly subscription as in Photoshop. Well, I have prepared a list of free and open-source applications like photoshop to create awesome designs without compromising quality.

10 Best Free And Open Source Alternatives To Photoshop In 2021

Here is the list of free apps like photoshop that you can use. I have also mentioned the major features that can help you in choosing the best one for you.

Let’s start:-

1. Krita

Krita is an open-source and free tool for users who want to excel in sketching and painting. It has got a clean and user-friendly interface. You can customize your interface by drag and drop and then save it as your workspace. Krita offers various tools, including Beautiful Brushes, Brush Stabilizers, Vector and Texts, and many more. It also supports PSD file formats that all other tools don’t support. Krita also has its own training resources for beginners to get through it. Since it is free for its users, you can extend your support to the Krita foundation by paying donations. The only drawback in Krita that is worth mentioning is that it has no history toolbar.

Notable Features Of Krita

1. Export Results to a video
2. Audio import support
3. Excellent layer management
4. HDR painting

Download Krita For Windows
Download Krita For MacOsX
Download Krita For Linux AppImage

2. GIMP

GIMP is another open-source and free raster graphics tool that can be effectively used for image manipulation and image editing. It is considered one of the best alternatives to photoshop. GIMP can do each and everything that photoshop can do and free. Although you cannot draw in GIMP, you can still create your original artworks here. GIMP offers you access to third-party plugins that help in enhancing productivity. This 25-year-old tool is trusted by a huge section of designers and creative spaces. If you are a beginner at GIMP, then you can explore their tutorials section. Since it is a free application, you can always extend your support via donations.

Notable Features Of GIMP

1. High-quality Image manipulation
2. Graphic Design Elements
3. Integration with many programming languages

Download GIMP For Windows
Download GIMP For MacOsX
Download GIMP For Linux AppImage

3. Pixlr X

Pixlr X is an online image editing tool that can be used as a free photoshop alternative. Basically, Pixlr X is an updated version of Pixlr. It is an online tool that you can use as per your requirements. The user interface is quite clean and comes with various light colors and

dark themes. You can also download the PIxlr app on your Android phones for image manipulation since it is an online tool to use from any modern web browser on any operating system. Pixlr X is more appealing to professional photographers as it provides plenty of features for editing images. No signup is required to access the features.

Pixlr is free for all its users with all basic features. If you need access to more decorative fonts and templates, you subscribe to Premium or Creative pack.

Pricing:
Premium: $4.90/mo
Creative Pack: USD $14.99/mo

Notable Features Of Pixlr X

1. A good collection of attractive fonts
2. Multiple Blending Modes
3. Variety of ratios for cropping images

Edit Your Images Online Using Pixlr X

4. InkScape

Inkscape is a powerful and free design tool that caters to designers’ and illustrators’ primary needs. It is considered the best tool for creating vector imagery. Inkscape is a totally open-source application that means that you can access the source code and contribute to the community if you have relevant skills. The ability to export/import multiple files, And excellent drawing tools make it a favorite to professionals. Inkscape is compatible with major operating systems, including Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux distributions.

Notable Features Of InkScape

1. Flexible drawing tools
2. Broad file format compatibility
3. Powerful text tool
4. Bezier and spiro curves

Download Inkscape For Windows
Download Inkscape For MacOsX
Download Inkscape For Linux

5. Canva

Canva is a one-stop application for graphics designers. It has everything that graphic designers require. The good thing about Canva is that it can be used on Android and iOs devices too. Since it is an online tool, you can access it from any modern web browser from any operating system. Canva has a huge collection of pre-ready templates with decorative texts. You just need to change the texts on the templates, and you are done. The designs you can create on canvas include logo designing, Flyers, Advertisements, and Videos too. You can resize your pictures according to social media handles such as Facebook, Instagram, etc. Canva is free for all the users, as you just need to sign up for that, and you can also work as a team here. Canva also offers a pro version with a premium collection of templates and fonts.

Notable Features Of Canva

1. 100 GB of storage
2. Projects can be saved and resumed later at any time
3. Layouts for every occasion
4. Drag & drop editor

Create Your Own Designs on Canva

6. Paint.NET

Paint.Net is simple yet powerful image editing software that was developed to replace Microsft paint. The UI of Paint.net is quite similar to photoshop. The projects in this tool appear in tabs which makes it quite easier to navigate through multiple projects. Special effects that can be used on photos include Sharpness, Blur, Emboss, Distort, and red-eye elimination. There are also many plugins available that help in enhancing productivity. As of now, paint.net is available in Windows OS only.

Notable Features Of Paint.Net

1. Simple and innovative user interface
2. Fast Processing of images
3. Access to unlimited history
4. Active Online Community

Download Paint.Net For Windows

7. DarkTable

Darktable is an application developed for professional photographers by photographers(as it claims). This application is basically developed to solve the challenges faced by photographers. You can develop raw images from your collection and then enhance them. All the images are edited in a non-destructive mode as it never edits your original image. It is a true cross-platform program as it runs on Linux, Mac OS X / macports, BSD, Windows, And Solaris 11/GNOME. Several image editing modules support blending operators making it one of the best free and photoshop alternatives.

Notable Features Of DarkTable

1. GPU accelerated image processing
2. Professional color management
3. Zero Latency
4. Automated repetitive tasks

Download DarkTable For Windows
Download DarkTable For MacOsX
Download DarkTable For Linux

8. Pinta

Pinta is another open-source and free alternative to photoshop that can be used for drawing

and image editing. Pinta can manipulate and draw over images on any operating system, including Windows, Mac, and Linux. The good thing about Pinta is that you can make unlimited mistakes while editing, as it can undo every step. So, you can perform experiments on your images without any worries. Pinta is available in more than 55 languages, truly a global application. Photo retouching is also quite easy in this tool.

Notable Features Of Pinta

1. 35 adjustments and effects for tweaking images
2. Multiple Layer Support
3. Access to full edit history

Download Pinta For Windows
Download Pinta For MacOsX
Download Pinta For Linux

9. DigiKam

DigiKam is a professional photo management tool for Linux systems. It can handle large collection images, up to 100,000 images at a time. Users can directly publish photos on social media, process raw files, and edit jpeg images.DigiKam is a free and open-source application that respects the freedom of the users. You can also label images according to the progress. The interface of digiKam is quite similar to Adobe Photoshop and also user-friendly. DigiKam has intelligent photo editing features and helps users in the bulk organizing of images.

Notable Features Of DigiKam

1. Browse, compare and view items in your image collection.
2. Editing, assembling, and transforming your photos
3. Digicam supports a variety of image formats

Download DigiKam For Windows
Download DigiKam For MacOsX
Download DigiKam For Linux

10. Pixelitor

Pixelitor is an open-source and free image editor which simple yet loaded with powerful features. The interface is not more complex when compared to GIMP or photoshop. Version 4.2.3 has more than 110 image filters and color adjustments. It has also got some unique color gradients that cannot be found even on photoshop. Pixelitor has its own image format, the “PXC” format. The final image can be saved in Png, Jpeg, BMP, or GIF formats. Good Drawing and sketching cannot be done in this application.

Notable Features Of Pixelitor

1. Unlimited undo
2. Text Layers
3. Layer Masks and unique image filters

Download DigiKam For Windows
Download DigiKam For MacOsX
Download DigiKam For Linux

The Conclusion

So, guys, I have listed the 10 best free and open-source photoshop alternatives available over the internet. Creative Cloud subscription is too costly, and beginners cannot afford that. The applications mentioned above can be used in place of photoshop to get the best results. All of these applications are trusted by a lot of users over the internet. You can choose the right one from the list. If you are a Linux user and looking for a Photoshop alternative, then you can try Krita. You can also check the other ones mentioned above. This was all about this article. In case you feel any confusion regarding the applications mentioned above, then do tell me in the comments section. I will surely revert back to you as soon as possible. ]]> https://linuxhint.com/media-center-applications-linux/ Fri, 12 Feb 2021 09:02:31 +0000 https://linuxhint.com/?p=89761 This article covers a list of open source media center / home theater software installable on Linux. Media centers can play audio, video and other media files, but they are much more advanced than typical video players. They pack numerous additional features like library management, metadata downloading, streaming server and file sharing. Note that this article only lists media center applications that can be installed on Linux distributions either in client or server form. It doesn’t cover dedicated media center operating systems.

KODI

Kodi is one of the most popular and widely used media center / home theater applications available for a number of different devices and operations systems including Linux. It can organize and play both offline and online media files and you can even use third party online streaming services within Kodi itself. It is one stop application suite for all your content consumption needs, and it is backed by a huge community and team of developers. You can extend it using thousands of official and third party add-ons, to the point that it can almost do everything that a basic OS can do.

Kodi supports a multitude of devices including smart TVs, Android phones, embedded devices and other portable hardware. It also features touch optimized themes and user interface layout for improved usability on touch based hardware. Some OEMs that sell home theater devices use Kodi as base. Kodi JeOS (Just enough OS) like LibreELEC are also available that allow you to use Kodi as a standalone operating system based on Linux. In addition to local media consumption, Kodi also allows you to stream Live TV and record live content. Other features of Kodi include support for remote controls and a web interface.

You can install Kodi in Ubuntu by executing the command specified below:

Kodi packages for other Linux distributions can be downloaded from here. You can also search for Kodi in repositories of your Linux distribution and install it directly from there. (Image credits)

Jellyfin

Jellyfin is an open source media streaming platform. Based on the client-server architecture, you can use it to set up a local server on your Linux machine or install it on a remote server. Once the server is running, you can access the media center in any browser of your choice. Apart from audio and video streaming, Jellyfin also supports live TV and footage recording. Since Jellyfin runs in a browser, you can access it on any device that supports a web browser if you have already set up a remote server.

Jellyfin packages and usage instructions for all Linux distributions can be found here.

Gerbera

Gerbera is a media center application based on UPnP technology. You can set up Gerbera as a home streaming solution on any Linux device and then stream content on any UPnP enabled device. It features a web version with a side panel and a tree style user interface for easier access to media files. Gerbera also supports some external content services.

You can install Gerbera in Ubuntu by executing the command specified below:

Gerbera packages for other Linux distributions can be downloaded from here. You can also search for Gerbera in repositories of your Linux distribution and install it directly from there. (Image credits)

Universal Media Server

Universal Media Server provides a server application and web interface to access your media files in a web browser. It can be used to stream content on any DLNA or UPnP enabled device. You can also use some online streaming services and RSS feeds to consume content. It also features a built-in subtitle downloader that can quickly get subtitles for live streaming content. Universal Media Server is open source and cross-platform and comes with a graphical configuration utility for easy setup.

You can download packages for Universal Media Server for all major Linux distributions from here.

Stremio

Stremio is an open source media center application that can stream local as well as remote content. You can use its library organizer to filter content by metadata and sync your watch progress on multiple devices. It works on a number of devices and an Android version is also available to download. Stremio functionality can be extended through a number of official and unofficial add-ons available on its website.

You can download Stremio for all major Linux distributions from here. (Image credits)

Conclusion

These are some of the most widely used media center / home theater applications available for Linux. Some of these applications have been in development for quite a long time and almost all of them provide a web based interface to stream content from remote servers.

GnuCash

GnuCash is an open-source accounting software available in the default repositories of all popular Linux distributions. GnuCash can keep and manage records that are fully compatible with the double-entry accounting system. With GnuCash, you can create reports, charts, and graphs for data analysis. Other features of GnuCash include scheduled entries, autofill support, automatic reconciliation, multiple currencies support, invoicing, and more. GnuCash can be used to keep accounts for a variety of business types, and it can handle financial records for firms dealing in products, services, and stock market instruments.

GnuCash is available in the default Ubuntu repositories. To install GnuCash, execute the following command:

GnuCash can be installed in other distributions through the package manager. You can also visit its official webpage for additional download options.

Skrooge

Skrooge is an open-source accounting application that can be used to record and manage personal finances and transactions. This software does not support the double-entry bookkeeping system, so this program may not be ideal for business firms. However, Skrooge is still a very capable software if you just want to keep track of your income and expenses. Some prominent features of Skrooge include support for multiple currencies, charts, reports, graphs, tabbed browsing, budget goals, categories, scheduled transactions, stock market tools, filters, and more. Skrooge is a part of the official KDE applications suite.

Skrooge is available in the default Ubuntu repositories. To install Skrooge, execute the command below:

Skrooge can be installed in other distributions through the package manager. You can also visit the official Skrooge webpage for additional download options. Skrooge can be installed from the Snap Store and FlatHub, as well.

Money Manager Ex

Money Manager Ex is an accounting solution for your personal finance and budgeting needs. This software does not support the double-entry system that is typically required for business needs. For your personal financing needs, Money Manager Ex is a decent option, having feature parity with Skrooge and some additional unique features of its own. The primary features of Money Manager Ex include support for stock market transactions, custom reminders, budget goals, charts, reports, graphs, categories, autofill, document attachments, and more. A Money Manager Ex build for Android is also available.

Money Manager Ex can be installed in Ubuntu by downloading the .deb packages available here. After downloading the package, run the following command to install Money Manager Ex:

Money Manager Ex can be installed in other distributions by searching for its packages in the package manager. You can also follow more detailed instructions available here to install this software.

KMyMoney

KMyMoney is an open-source accounting program used for recording and managing personal finances. KMyMoney is designed to be easy and intuitive for non-technical users, and it also supports the double-entry bookkeeping system. The main features of KMyMoney include a summary dashboard, scheduled transactions, categories and tags, support for stock market transactions, charts, reports, graphs, filters, advanced search, GPG Encryption, budget goals, and forecasts.

You can download the AppImage executable binary for KMyMoney here. This will work for all major Linux distributions.

HomeBank

HomeBank is an open-source and cross-platform accounting program that has been in development for more than two decades. The main features of HomeBank include categories, budget goals, partial support for double-entry rules, support for multiple currencies, scheduled transactions, charts, reports, graphs, automatic detection for duplicate transactions, multi-window design, and more.

HomeBank is available in the default repositories of Ubuntu. To install HomeBank, execute the following command:

HomeBank can also be installed in other distributions through the package manager. You can visit the official HomeBank webpage for additional download options.

Conclusion

This article covered some of the best offline accounting applications available for Linux. Nearly all these applications support importing and exporting databases in many file formats, and you can have some inter-compatibility between them. If you are looking for more offline solutions, you can search in the LibreOffice add-on repository, as it may have some extensions built specifically for accounting. You can also try scripts and plugins compatible with Microsoft Excel, as they may be compatible with LibreOffice Calc (a spreadsheet software) with some modifications.

Rather, the interaction of individual actors is based on a shared philosophy in which common goods are created (abbreviated as “commons”) for the benefit of all. Behaviour is controlled by social norms, rather than legal regulations. The motivation in participating is less profit, but greater meaningful contributions to society for the benefit of all.

Contribution in Open Source/FOSS projects is based on several factors, for example:

• Interest-based
  What would I like to contribute to? What do I want to use?

• Non-binding
  Not a must. What do I like to do? What do I feel like doing?

• According to ability
  What am I particularly good at? What do I want to learn as I try new things?

The results are very interesting, diverse projects that arise from the personal will of developers and are cultivated by these individuals or by their collaborators. Passion and enthusiasm are reflected in these projects, without any material incentive necessary.

License Models

Without the appropriate license models, the realization and maintenance of FOSS projects would be much more difficult. A license model is a usage agreement chosen by the developer for the project that gives all of us a reliable, stable framework to work with. License models set clear guidelines and specify what you can do with the open-source code. The general goal is to keep the software or artwork available for everyone. License models are much less restrictive than other commercial license agreements.

For software, licenses like the GNU Public License (GPL) or BSD License are in use. Information goods, drawings, and audio and video data are commonly licensed under Creative Commons [1]. All license models are legally verified. The use of license models has continually risen during the last decade and is widely accepted nowadays.

10 Reasons for Open Source

The central questions around open source software include, “Why is open source software a good thing for you?” “What are the advantages of using an open source license for software or Creative Commons for artwork?” and “How can using open source software put you ahead of your competitors as a company?” Below, you will find our list of the top ten reasons to use open source coding.

1. Availability of Source Code
You can see the source code of software entirely, download it, get inspired, and use the basic structure for your own projects. Open Source is highly configurable and allows you as a developer to create your own custom variants for meeting your specific needs and requirements.

2. Availability of Software
Everyone can download and use open source software. There are no limitations regarding the user group or intended audience, purpose, frequency of use, and devices on which open source software can be installed. There are no license fees to pay, either.

3. Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
With open source code, there are no license or usage fees. As a commercial service, costs apply only to implementation, setup, configuration, maintenance, documentation, and support services.

4. Brings the World Closer

Through open source communities, you can easily contact other developers from other countries, ask them questions, and learn from them, as well as the code or artwork they have written and published. This encourages global teamwork and collaboration which improves and diversifies the applications of shared technology. You will find that open source communities are created and thrive because everyone has a common goal to support and improve the code more quickly, more innovatively, and more effectively, such that the community and beyond can reap the benefits.

5. FOSS Offers Diversity

The use of open source standards does not limit the available software pool to a single software, but widens it. Using open source, you can choose from among a variety of different implementations and software solutions according to your own unique needs.

6. Educational Possibilities

Open source is vital to the educational advancement of all because both information and resources are now freely available. You can learn from other developers how they are creating code and using the software that they have shared through open source.

7. Creates Opportunities & Community

As open source software brings new ideas and contributions, the developer community becomes an increasingly vibrant community that can share ideas freely. Through the community, you can meet people with similar interests. It is said that many hands make light work; similarly, it is much easier to deliver outstanding outcomes if the code is developed by an “army” of talented individuals working as a team to troubleshoot and deliver in record time.

8. FOSS Encourages Innovation

FOSS fosters a culture of sharing and experimentation. You are encouraged to be innovative by coming up with new ideas, products, and methods. Be inspired by what you learn from others. Solutions and options can also be marketed much more quickly, and open source allows developers to try, test, and experiment with the best available solutions.

9. Trust
By testing your software through open source, customers and users can see what your product is doing what are its limitations. Customers can take a look at how the software works, validate it, and customize it if necessary. This creates trust in what the product or software is doing. Nobody likes solutions or software products that are mysterious and difficult to understand.

10. Reliability and Security

The more people that are working together on the code, the higher is the reliability of that code. A code based on collaboration will be superior because it is easier to pick up any bugs and select the best fix. Security is also improved, as the code is thoroughly assessed and evaluated by the community of developers that have access to it. It is common to have tester groups who check new releases. Any issues that may arise are fixed diligently by the community.

Examples of Successful Usage of Open Source (Use Cases)

FOSS has not been a niche market for long. The most prominent examples are Linux-based computer systems that are in use everywhere — from web servers, to TVs, to network appliances like wireless access points. This immensely reduces licensing costs and increases the stability of the core infrastructure on which many fields, companies, and industries depend. Companies like Facebook and Google use FOSS to run their services — this includes the website, the Android phone, as well as the search engine, and the Chrome web browser.

The list remains incomplete without mentioning the Open Source Car (OSCar) [4,5], OpenStreetMap [6], Wikimedia [7] as well as LibriVox [8], a service that provides free audiobooks read by volunteers from all over the world. Below, you will find a selection of case studies that we think might inspire you to use FOSS-based solutions.

Case Studies

1. Makoko, Nigeria

The shantytown slum community of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria houses nearly 95,000 people. A complete map of this town is now available on Google maps due to the availability of Open Source coding in Africa, courtesy of the Code for Africa Initiative together with the World Bank [9]. Originally, Makoko did not appear on any maps or city planning documents [23]. At one point, it was only 3 dots on the map, regardless of the fact that it is one of the largest slums in Africa with a complex system of waterways and houses.

Through data collection, this initiative created jobs for women from the community, who were taught to use drones to collect the data needed to create a map of the community. The collected data, which included highly detailed pictures and information about the waterways, streets, and buildings, were analyzed by data analysts before being uploaded online using OpenStreetMap.

This initiative is improving the lives and the view of this society with the aim to improve Makoko’s information infrastructure. If this initiative had not been performed using closed source software, the costs and funds required to do this would have been prohibitive due to the additional cost of items such as data, funds to pay the staff, buying the hardware, transport, logistics costs, licensing, and permits.

2. Computing Cluster at Mésocentre de Calcul, Université de Franche-Comté, France

The Université de Franche-Comté, located in Besancon, France, runs a computing center for scientific computing [10]. The primary areas of research include nanomedicine, chemical-physical processes and materials, and genetic simulations. CentOS and Ubuntu Linux are used to provide a high-performance, parallel computing infrastructure.

3. GirlHype Coders (Women Who Code), Cape Town, South Africa

Baratang Miya [11] — a self-taught coder — started GirlHype Coders [12,24] in 2003 as an initiative to empower young girls in Africa. This is a software engineering school that is focused on training young women and girls on how to program and develop apps to improve their digital literacy and economic mobility. Baratang Miya aims to increase the percentage of women in the science, engineering, and technology industries. Clubs are operated so that girls can attend free after-school classes to explore and learn coding.

GirlHype is helping to improve not just the lives of the girls and women that are in this initiative, but also their communities, through a global tech entrepreneurship competition called Technovation, of which GirlHype is the regional ambassador. In this program, girls find a problem in their communities, design a solution for it, and using Open Source coding, build an app for that solution. Other women who are qualified coders have the opportunity to mentor and lead younger women in the industry. GirlHype also teaches women in business how to use the web to market their businesses online. This initiative has helped girls to get jobs in an industry they would otherwise not have been able to work in.

Twitter VP of Engineering visit to GirlHype in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa [25]

4. Cartoons and Open Source

Open Source is becoming the norm for software development for the sake of collaboration and contribution. Companies are increasingly moving towards using Open Source technologies for their programming needs. In the world of cartoons and animation, this is because this approach allows the industry to attract outside talent in independent developers and artists, as well as creating an industry standard where diverse individuals collaborate on and adopt the same technology.

Among those in the industry that have embraced this technology idea include Pixar Animation Studios [13], which has open sourced their Universal Scene Description (USD) technology [14]. USD helps filmmakers with reading, writing, and previewing 3D scene data, allowing many different artists to work on the same project. Pixar has also released the software RenderMan [15], a photorealistic 3D rendering software free for non-commercial purposes such as educational purposes and personal projects.

From Free Software to a Free Society

Ten years ago, Thomas Winde and Frank Hofmann asked the question, “What would happen if FOSS principles were transferred to society and thus changed the model of society?” [3] The implementation of this step is often doubted and classified as utopia. We wanted to know more about it. The result of our investigation was a curious look at our society (from a predominantly European view) that observed the evolution of processes that consciously or unconsciously followed FOSS principles. We found a long list of surprising examples, ranging from free wireless networks like Freifunk [16] to open libraries, free hardware projects (RaspberryPi, Arduino, BeagleBoard), non-profit office communities, the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) [17], and the sharing of recipes such as FreeBeer [18] and OpenCola [19].

Our conclusion was that a more general, systemic adoption of FOSS principles promises to make a significant positive difference to our global society. A transition from wage labor to voluntary, community-based work could help to achieve, step by step, a free society, in which the needs of all can be recognized and met. On the African continent, this idea of community is very strong (“Ubuntu” [20]), while in Europe and North America, it has been lost over the centuries in favor of a profit-oriented approach.

Conclusion

People for whom the FOSS philosophy is new, and who grew up with a capitalistic, profit-based model of society, may come up with a number of reasonable questions in regard to open source content. Here, we will answer some of the most common questions:

• Can someone steal my “invention”?
  Through open source, we simply share our ideas, and we benefit from each other through this sharing of ideas. It is common practice, however, to give credit to the people who helped us to develop the idea.

• How much can we learn from each other?
  There is so much knowledge and there are so many ways of doing things to simplify and develop society. In using open source, we are learning together and teaching society, so that everyone benefits at the same time. The best solutions come from collaboration, as it multiplies and expands upon individual knowledge. Everyone has an idea that may inspire the other users, boost creativity, and encourage innovation.

• We are standing on the shoulders of giants to make something great. Our work is based on the work of others. What can we give back to the community?

  As individuals, we can evaluate a solution and report what is missing or whether the code is not working as expected. This feedback helps creators look at specific points, and repair or improve their code. This may include the insertion of missing parts in the documentation that can make it difficult to understand the idea behind the solution and the code’s intended use.

  As a company that uses FOSS, you can also contribute support for hardware (running in a computing center), or sponsor events by providing meeting rooms or co-organizing conferences. Many scientific institutes and companies allow their employees to work on FOSS projects while being at work — the time spent improving open source code helps to improve the software that is used by the company.

  A charity organization called Architecture for Humanity, recently renamed to Open Architecture Network [21, 22], is a free, online, open source community dedicated to improving global living conditions through innovative and sustainable building designs. This network includes project management, file sharing, a resource database, and online collaborative design tools. Through the use of open source software, this organization seeks to bring solutions to humanitarian crises by building community schools, homes, centers, etc. They do this by making professional architectural designs freely available, allowing architects, designers, innovators, and community leaders to share innovative and sustainable ideas, designs, and plans that support eco-friendly, humanitarian design and architecture. This organization was started as an initiative to help communities and was not focused on code, but rather on practical help.

References

• [1] Creative Commons, https://creativecommons.org/
• [2] Open Source Licenses comparison, https://choosealicense.com/licenses/
• [3] Thomas Winde, Frank Hofmann: Von der Freien Software zur Freien Gesellschaft, Linux-User 12/2012, https://www.linux-community.de/ausgaben/linuxuser/2012/12/von-der-freien-software-zur-freien-gesellschaft/
• [4] The Open Source Car (OSCar), theoscarproject.org
• [5] The Open Source Car (OSCar), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OScar
• [6] OpenStreetMap, http://www.openstreetmap.org/
• [7] Wikimedia, https://www.wikimedia.org/
• [8] Librivox, https://librivox.org/
• [9] Code for Africa: Using Drones to Map Makoko, One of Africa’s Largest Slums, https://www.hotosm.org/projects/code-for-africa-using-drones-to-map-makoko-one-of-africas-largest-slums/
• [10] Mesocentre de calcul, Université de Franche-Comté, Besancon, http://meso.univ-fcomte.fr/
• [11] Baratang Miya, https://storyengine.io/baratang-miya/
• [12] GirlHype Coders, https://girlhype.co.za/
• [13] Pixar Animation Studios, https://www.pixar.com/
• [14] Universal Scene Description Technology, https://graphics.pixar.com/usd/docs/index.html
• [15] RenderMan, https://renderman.pixar.com/
• [16] Freifunk, https://freifunk.net/
• [17] Global Village Construction Set (GVCS), https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/
• [18] FreeBeer, http://freebeer.org/blog/
• [19] OpenCola, https://www.artofdrink.com/soda/open-cola-recipe
• [20] Jacom Mucumbate and Andrew Nyanguru: Exploring African Philosophy: The Value of Ubuntu in Social Work, African Journals Online, https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajsw/article/download/127543/117068
• [21] Alan G Brake: Architecture for humanity, https://www.dezeen.com/2016/03/10/architecture-for-humanity-relaunches-as-open-architecture-collaborative-humanitarian-charity/
• [22] Open Architecture Collaborative, http://openarchcollab.org/
• [23] The Slum that doesn’t exist, Deutsche Welle, https://www.dw.com/en/the-slum-that-doesnt-exist/av-51519062
• [24] GirlHype South Africa, Youtube video, https://youtu.be/hfRINsiBhng
• [25] Image taken from https://girlhype.co.za/index.php/blog

AUTHORS

Plaxedes Nehanda is a multiskilled, self-driven versatile person who wears many hats among them an events planner, a virtual assistant, transcriber as well as an avid researcher on any topic based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Frank Hofmann works on the road – preferably from Berlin, Geneva, and Cape Town – as a developer, trainer, and author for magazines like Linux-User and Linux Magazine. He is also the co-author of the Debian package management book (http://www.dpmb.org). ]]> https://linuxhint.com/best_open_source_web_servers_linux/ Fri, 25 Jan 2019 06:56:57 +0000 https://linuxhint.com/?p=35568 Web servers are used to host web sites, and they serve content to end-users when they are being called over the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). Many Linux based web servers are open source, and therefore it’s not difficult to find a different types of web servers in the industry. However, not all the web servers are same, for instance some web servers are developed to cater to certain special needs, some web servers receive updates frequently, some web servers are designed for certain technologies only, and some web servers are preferred for stability over frequent updates. This article intends to list out some of the best open source web servers available out there for Linux platform, and their applications.List of Best Web Servers

1. Apache HTTP Server
2. Nginx
3. Apache Tomcat

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server, also known as Apache is a well-known, and the most popular open source web server available in the market. It supports multiple platforms including many Linux distros. It’s often coupled with either Debian or Ubuntu when hosting websites. Apache is also one of the oldest web servers still functions and receives updates. According to Apache foundation, it’s developed 24 years ago, and thus it provides rock solid performance, and legacy support. However due to this nature, it doesn’t receive frequent updates. The latest version is 2.4 and was released in 2012; hence it may not be suitable to incorporate with latest technologies.

Apache was developed with Apache License 2.0 license, and thus it can be used with commercial projects as well without paying the developer a fee. This makes many free/and cheap web hosting companies to use Apache as the default web server in their platforms. Apache is very fast, and efficient in using resources as it’s entirely developed with C, and XML. Apache supports multiple server-side scripts, the popular ones to be used with it are PHP, Perl, Python, TCL. However, other languages can be hosted on an Apache web server via workarounds, for instance Apache can be used with ASP.NET as a reverse proxy, Java servlet apps can be hosted via mod_cgi.

Apache supports many useful features such as mod_gzip that reduces the payload size when transferring content over the HTTP, apache logging that notes down basic visitor information in plain text format, which is quite useful for analytical purpose. Virtual hosting that lets users to host as much as web sites in a single web server. Password authentication that servers to implement a simple username/password authentication in site-level. IPV6 compatibility to make it future proof, HTTP/2 supports to drastically improve the performance when combining with HTTPS protocol.

URL rewriting to manage legacy web pages, and how requests to them are handled, FTP supports. .htaccess support to specify rules in managing the web server. At the outset, Apache was significantly slower than asynchronous, event‑driven web servers like Nginx, but nowadays it performs much better compared to how it used to be. All in all, Apache is best for general purpose hosting solutions.

Nginx

Nginx, also known as eNgineX is relatively a new web server but is matured given its time in the industry. It was first released to public in 2004 and has been getting a huge coverage due to high performance. Currently, it’s considered as second most popular web server among active sites.

Nginx is often used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, http cache, email proxy server, and is capable of handling a large number of parallel requests without slowing down the server. According to its developers it’s capable of handling more than 10,000 simultaneous connections with a very low memory footprint like about 2.5MB. This is all possible due to its asynchronous, event‑driven nature. Nginx supports a large number of web server languages, but it doesn’t have any native support, and thus third-party modules have to be used, for instance it requires PHP-FPM to be installed separately for processing PHP scripts. Even though Nginx is used as a standalone web server, nowadays many developers use it as a static content server in front of the actual server. Some sites, dynamically handle the requests in the back-end, and cache them for Nginx to serve when the content was requested by the user.

Nginx has a lot of useful modern features. It supports Ipv6, URL rewriting, TLS/SSL encryption, SMTP/POP3 and IMAP protocols, FastCGI, PHP-FPM, SCGI, uWSGI. Nginx doesn’t use dynamic configuration file as with Apache, and thus it’s not widely used in cheap web hosting solutions. Due to its high-performance Nginx is best as a static content server, load balancer, and also as a web server for handling web app api requests. Nowadays web app development is getting a huge bump due to the advancement of Javascript. Many developers slowly move away from traditional back-end scripts, to JavaScript. Javascript is run on top of NodeJS. However, since NodeJs is not very efficiency at handling HTTP requests, and thus it’s often installed behind a Nginx proxy server; hence Nginx to be used as proxy server is recommended too. All in all, it’s best Nginx to be used as a static file server, proxy server, load balancer, as a lightweight solution and for serving dynamic content at a lower cost on sites that receive a large number of requests at a given time.

Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat is one of the most popular enterprise level web servers available in the market. It’s primarily designed to host Java web-based solutions. Java based web sites are not common in individual, small, and medium size companies, but their usage is quite frequent, and abundant in very large organizations due to high scalability, performance, and the number of tools available for Java ecosystem. Tomcat server was developed 20 years ago, and thus it’s quite matured compared to most of modern web servers. It’s developed by Apache software foundation just as the Apache web server. Tomcat is made of multiple components, Catalina, Coyote, Jasper, Cluster, High availability, Web applications.

Catalina is a servlet container, Coyote is the HTTP connector, and Jasper is the engine to parse the JSP files. High availability component is for facilitating the system upgrade process. Apache foundation also developed Apache TomEE Java EE for Java Enterprise edition. Tomcat supports AWS, aka Amazon web services, and thus it’s ideal for cloud-based solutions. Eclipse, and Netbeans are two of the famous Java IDEs, since Eclipse supports to Tomcat, app development, and deployment is a walk in the park. It’s also very easy to install, roll out the apps without much effort. However, Tomcat has lack of support for web console management, and the base Tomcat doesn’t natively support JEE. All in All, Apache Tomcat is the best web server for large organizations where Java web-based applications are frequently used. ]]>