Services we could provide startups
There's a lot of open source software available for helping a place like Free Geek run. Here are the choices we made:
Off the shelf software choices
Base Distribution
Our choice of linux distribution is Debian for internal use. For distribution, we've gone with Ubuntu.
Wiki
A wiki is used to develop documents collaboratively. We've chosen [MediaWiki:MediaWiki|] as our official wiki.
Issue Tracker
An issue tracker helps you keep track of items that need to be followed up on, like a big community todo list. We use RT for this. It helps us run tech support, keep track of grants, and even assists us in planning some of our meetings agendas.
Email List software
This allows us to set up discussion lists for various purposes. In general, each committee or working group has at least one email list. We use Mailman.
We give people email accounts and let them use Squirrelmail to access them. An IMAP allows us to offer this server. We use Courier Our SMTP server is Postfix.
Web server
To serve up our web pages, we use Apache HTTP server.
Database server
To manage most of our database needs we use PostgreSQL. Some other applications (like Mediawiki) use MySQL, so that's installed as well.
Custom software
General Database
FGdb -- The database we use for maintaining gizmo inventory, contact information, volunteer work, and sales and donation receipts. Written in ruby on rails against a PostgreSQL database backend.
Hardware Testing
???
End User Distro
FreekBox -- The distro of choice for giving away (or selling) is Ubuntu / Hardy Heron.)