sunayana's dashboard

check out this comprehensive link as well
http://osliving.com/index.php

ok, i'm somewhat of a newb too. open source is software that the source code is open and free for anyone to edit. this usually translates to free software as well. some of it is very good. a few of the best are openoffice which is a very good alternative to microsoft office, firefox - an excellent web browser, thunderbird which is a pretty good email client. these are all available for free download at their respective web sites. i don't have the links, but just google them and take the top link. i've been using all three of these apps for over two years. the only microsoft stuff i use anymore is the os and that might change soon.

Hello Sunayana,

I recommend doing some research on this topic. If you are interested in development, you should read about the various open source languages. Do some research on Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl etc and find something that works for you. Google and Wikipedia are both good sources of information.