TIP Open Source Alternatives
From Gentoo Linux Wiki
Terminals / Shells • Network • X Window System • Portage • System • Filesystems • Kernel • Other |
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
The purpose of this article is to present a consolidated list of alternatives to currently closed source software, or software only available on Microsoft Windows/Vista or Mac OS.
[edit] Programs
[edit] Flash
Gnash is an alternative to Adobe Flash. It currently supports most of SWF7.
keepvid is another alternative that allows the download of YouTube.com videos for local playback.
[edit] Java
There are hundreds of choices that range from proprietary to "from scratch" open source. For more information on Java, visit The Java Project's Homepage.[edit] Libraries
[edit] Audio/Video Codecs
[edit] win32codecs
The win32codec package is provided by the same organization that produces Mplayer. This codec package allows media files that utilize Windows specific containers and encodings to be played back in Linux. Unfortunately, there are some formats that are not supported on architectures other than X86. See the Codec Status Page for a list of supported audio and video codecs.
MPlayer is not required to integrate win32codecs into Linux. Add the win32codecs to the USE flags line in /etc/make.conf, or specify:
USE="win32codecs" emerge somepackage
[edit] Drivers
[edit] Graphics Card Drivers
[edit] Nvidia
Nouveau http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/
[edit] ATI/AMD
At the time of this writing, there were no open source drivers for ATI/AMD avaiable.
[edit] Wireless NIC
[edit] NDISwrapper
While not an open source driver, it is a wrapper that allows the use of Windows drivers in a Linux. For more information, visit the NDISwrapper homepage.
[edit] MadWifi
MadWifi is an open source driver that supports a multitude of wireless NICs. It does, however, depend on a proprietary and closed source Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). A list of supported hardware is listed at MadWifi on their Compatibility page.
[edit] Intel IPW2100/IPW2200
The are open source drivers for the Intel IPW2100 and IPW2200 wireless NICs. To install and utilize these drivers, follow these basic steps:
# emerge ipw2200 # modprobe ipw2200 # iwlist eth1 scan