OpenOSX.com offering educational discounts

For an unlimited time OpenOSX.com, a new business dedicated to serve the budding Mac OS X community, is offering members of educational institutions a US$5 discount per CD or CD-subscription ordered. Eligibility requirements are posted at the discount Web site.

All OpenOSX.com products install and fully configure all necessary libraries, programs and files to have the user up and running the “world’s most powerful and stable Unix-based software without typing a single Unix command,” said OpenOSX.com owner Jeshua Lacock.

“Our products are for Macintosh users who can benefit from the power of Unix applications without having to learn Unix,” said Lacock. “Instead our users may spend their precious time learning what counts: using the world-class software.”

The OpenOSX product lineup includes:

Database 1.0 CD, which installs and fully configures MySQL 3.23.39, unixODBC 2.0.7, BerkeleyDB and InnoDB built and optimized for Mac OS X. For MySQL administration, the CD will optionally install and configure Apache Web Server 1.3.20, PHP 4.0.6 and phpMyAdmin 2.2.0rc1. The CD also includes de-installation programs and documentation in both HTML and PDF formats and source.

Gimp 1.2.1 CD, which installs and fully configures the “Gnu Image Manipulation Program.” GIMP 1.2.1 is an open source Adobe Photoshop alternative.

Grass 5.0 pre1 GIS CD, which contains an open source Geographical Information System (GIS).

OpenBase 1.0 CD, which installs and fully configures MySQL 3.23.39, unixODBC 2.0.7, BerkeleyDB and InnoDB for Mac OS X. For MySQL administration, the CD will optionally install and configure Apache Web Server, PHP 4.0.6 and phpMyAdmin 2.2.0rc1.

OpenWeb 1.0 CD, which installs and completely configures Apache Web Server with PHP 4.0.6 for serving dynamically generated Web pages and SSL for secure Internet transactions. It also installs phpShop 0.9.3, a shopping cart solution configured with MySQL.

XFree86 4.1.99 CD, which installs XFree86 4.1.99.1 bundled with the Orobus window manager configured with the “Aqua” theme with X-Window applications of your choice.

The Gimp, Grass and Xfree86 products will install and configure the newest available version of Xfree86 4.1.99.1 (a graphical user interface based on X-Windows). All OpenOSX products ship with installation support for one machine. However, since software, especially open source software, is constantly updated, the folks at OpenOSX.com have created an optional subscription service for current and future products.