Full open source tool chain for content creation.

For a long, long time, it was always going to be "the year of the Linux desktop". OG geeks can remember how we pined for the final disruption to knock Microsoft off its pedestal.

Most of us didn't know we were missing the real goal.

A little back story and then I will get to the open source tool chain for content creation.

I have been using Linux for a long time now. It all started when I wanted to create a website and content for my farrier business. I spent a ton of money back then on Microsoft Windows, FrontPage and Office software. I remember thinking how amazing it was that a little guy like me had the power to compete with anyone through using the internet and all the self publishing technology available at the time.

My, oh my, how things have changed. I haven't used any sort of proprietary software in a lot of years now. I'm guessing here, but I think it was certainly no later than 2006 or '07 that I went fully open source for all of my software needs.

These days I am very involved with creating content for my farrier business, Flying-Higher and DiggnDeeper. I have tried and used pretty much everything out there that has any reasonable amount of exposure that could get my work done. Every bit of it is done with open source software and it is as at least as capable and high quality as any proprietary software out there.

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I'm going to talk specifically about the software I actually use and prefer. It's really great how much choice there is today in the open source "market".

Operating system (OS)

The Linux savvy or OG user will see these two distributions and probably want to know why I would choose opposite ends of the user friendly spectrum as my operation systems, but I do have a good reason.

• Linux Mint KDE: I use Linux Mint as my workstation OS for mainly because I don't try to run down problems in my daily driver. This is a very solid OS and rarely has any real problems, but if any do come up and the solution is more than a quick search with a verified fix, then I just "nuke and pave". By nuke and pave, I mean I just re-install the operating system. It only takes about 2 hours to completely re-install, move all files back to the system and log back into all my network services. Internet services are not a problem because I use syncing on Firefox. Once I sign in and sync Firefox, all the rest of my logins and preferences are right there ready to go.
• ArchLinux: I use ArchLinux for my servers because it can be super light weight and completely custom built to provide optimal performance and security. This operating system is for people that want to know about how their system is built and run in intimate detail. The customization and level of intimacy one gets by building and running a server built on ArchLinux is completely worth it in my opinion. One of these days I'll start going into detail about how to build a fairly simple server that can run most applications on your own consumer hardware and network. It's not really that hard and you could save a ton of money and be more secure.

Browser

• Firefox: It is the most boringly useful tool I use is my browser. No matter what I'm doing, the browser is open and active. I don't know if it was Firefox or the Apache web server that actually got me looking into what all this open source stuff was all about, but it is now so ubiquitous that I don't think most people have a clue about its openness.

Video

• Blender: This is my absolute favorite piece of software. I often have a hard time believing we get to use such a powerful and complete story telling tool. It is a steep learning curve, for sure, but it can do everything a video maker could want - except one thing, but we have Handbrake for that. Blender is what I made my logo in, which you can see at the bottom of this post. I don't know what else I could have made something like that with.
• Handbrake: I lied, Blender can transcode just fine and with a lot of control, but Handbrake is far easier to use for straight forward stuff like making huge files smaller or changing things like resolution or frame rates.
• KdenLive: I only use Kdenlive on occasion, but I want to mention it here because it is a completely useful video editor for those that have no interest in using something like Blender. It is said to be a fully capable alternative to the professional choices out there. I'm not so sure about that, but I'm sure it works well enough for the vast majority of content creators out there.

Audio

• Audacity: Audacity has earned a solid reputation amongst the audio producers out there. I don't know if it is the realm of industry standard softwares, but it is certainly mentioned and praised all over the place. I don't treat my sound with the time and effort it deserves and therefore I'm really not the most avid user, but I am working on learning and using it more all the time.

Graphics/ pictures

• GIMP: These days, I have been using GIMP about as much as I use Blender because I use about as many pictures as I do video. GIMP has just recently gone through a major overhaul from what was already a very well respected piece of software. To be clear, this is a professional quality software and as such is not necessarily well suited to someone that is not looking for the plethora of features available.

Video player

• VLC: I would be remiss if I didn't mention what is possibly the most beloved open source software used by all the operating systems out there. VLC will play pretty much anything you throw at it. It can play streaming network files, local files or even internet based ones on platforms like YouTube and the like.

There are a ton of other programs I use too, but those are for another topic.

I used to really hope for more marketing for open source in hopes that it would "take over" proprietary options. Now I see that we don't need to worry about what other people are doing. So long as we have the option to use what we want and open source is allowed to thrive, then that is all that matters.

To each their own.

This is how I hope to see society progress into the future. I see open source now finding its way into all sorts of things such as hardware, education, food and medicine to name just a few things.