Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on May 21, 2025

• ASCII Draw lets you sketch anything using characters - LinuxLinks

  ASCII Draw is an app to draw diagrams or anything using only ASCII

  This is free and open source software.

• Raspberry Pi 5 Desktop Mini PC: Power Consumption - LinuxLinks

  This is a new series looking at using the Raspberry Pi 5 as a Desktop Mini PC.

  The Raspberry Pi 5 B features a 64-bit Broadcom BCM2712 quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor running at 2.4GHz. I’m using the 4GB RAM model, but the Pi 5 is also available with 2GB, 8GB, or 16GB of RAM. My Pi 5 is housed in a resplendent Sunfounder Pironman 5 NVMe Mini PC Case (my review) from SunFounder.

  For this article, I’ll focus on the power consumption of the Pi. I’ll see how the Pi 5 compares to a few other mini PCs which cost considerably more (even taking into account the cost of the case, NVMe, and power supply).

  The chart below shows the power consumption of the Pi 5 compared to the DreamQuest N95, DreamQuest N100, and the Intel NUC (i7-1360P).

• Vahatraker is a live MIDI sequencer - LinuxLinks

  Vahatraker was envisaged as a re-creation of seq24 in tracker form for author’s “studio needs” and offers similar functionality (and limitations). It relies 100% on JACK audio connection kit for input/output/synch and uses jack_capture for rendering. The GUI has similar dependencies as gnome-calculator and tracker paradigm was chosen to allow for rhythmic gymnastics otherwise hard to convey.

  This is free and open source software.

• JamesDSP is an audio effect processor for Pipewire - LinuxLinks

  JamesDSP is an advanced audio effects processor initially developed for Android devices.

  This app provides various sound effects for PipeWire systems. It offers features such as automatic bass boost, dynamic range compression, reverberation, equalizers, surround effects, stereo wideness control, parametric equalization, scripting engine, and more. Users can also create their own audio effects using the EEL2 scripting language supported by the app. The app includes a minimal scripting IDE with syntax highlighting, code completion, and some debugging features.

  This is free and open source software.

• shadPS4 is a cross-platform PlayStation 4 emulator - LinuxLinks

  shadPS4 is an early PlayStation 4 emulator for Windows, Linux and macOS written in C++.

  shadPS4 can load some PlayStation 4 firmware files, these must be dumped from your legally owned PlayStation 4 console.

  This is free and open source software.