Software Resources

This chapter guides through open access or open source software resources. The first section introduces virtual machines (VMs) and Debian Linux (and spin-offs).

Linux-based Operating Systems (OSs) greatly facilitate data-related scientific and engineering tasks because of very high stability and performance. Still, the existing infrastructures of many institutions does not enable using Linux and this is where virtual machines can help: They enable running another (guest) OS on the host OS through a virtualization framework.

The difference between Open Access and Open Source

Open access software is freely available under common open access licenses. In addition to being freely available, open source software builds on publicly available source code. Thus, open source software can be modified by users with freely available code on the internet. To enable sharing open access or open source software, the developer must provide a license along with the code or software. Read more about licenses on the platform of the creative commons organization .

The software presented in this section is not only made for Linux and can be mostly installed on many others OSs, too. Enjoy reading and running through the tutorials on geospatial software, git, numerical modelling software, and other helpful programs.