MisterHouse

MisterHouse is an open source (GPL-licensed) home automation program that runs on a number of operating systems (even that other one, Mac OS X). It was originally written by Bruce Winter in Perl, but it has been enhanced by the community. Bruce still maintains the code, and it gets updated on a regular basis. It's the Swiss Army knife of home automation programs (and it's twice as sharp). Most people start out by using it to control their X10 modules, but it can do a lot more: monitor the weather, get the daily news, monitor the security of your home, pick up your e-mail, monitor your wireless access point, control your stereo -- I think you begin to get the point. After you've overcome the initial shock of what it can do and start focusing on what you want it to do, you'll be surprised at what it supports and the support it gets. Visit the Web site for the latest updates:

Asterisk

Asterisk is an open source telephony and IP PBX application. It was originally written by Mark Spencer of Digium, Inc. Mark now maintains and contributes to the code along with the Asterisk community. It can be used for small to large businesses or for home use. It's flexible enough to act as an answering machine with extra capabilities, such as torturing telemarketers with forwarding calls to voice menus or mail boxes. Or you can use Asterisk to handle a lot of users. Get the latest updates here:

NdisWrapper

NdisWrapper is an open source network driver wrapper package that allows you to use Windows drivers in the Linux kernel for wireless network cards. Many wireless network cards don't have support for Linux. This is especially likely to occur with laptops, which allow little choice concerning what hardware you can add. To get around this limitation, a few members of the Linux community figured out a way to use the Windows NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) to interface the Windows driver to the Linux kernel. When you can't find a native Linux driver, at least you have this to fall back to. You can find the latest and greatest updates at its Web site:

Heyu

Heyu is a text-based program to control X10 modules by issuing commands via the CM11A X10 serial controller. It can schedule and issue X10 commands based on time or events. It also keeps track of the state of X10 commands that have been issued. It's licensed free of charge for non-commercial distribution, personal, and internal business use. Originally it was written by Daniel B. Suthers, and it is now maintained by Charles W. Sullivan. The most recent updates can be found on the Heyu Web site:

MythTV

MythTV is a GPL-licensed PVR (personal video recorder, like a TiVo) software suite that runs under Linux. In addition to its playback and record capabilities, it allows you to schedule recordings in advance. MythTV also support plug-ins, which allow it to be extended by other programs. It was originally written by Issac Richards, and he now maintains and contributes tothe software. Visit the Web site for the latest updates:

Quagga

Quagga is a GPL licensed routing suite that includes daemons for rip (IPv4), ripng (IPv6), ospfd (IPv4), ospf6d (IPv6), and bgpd (BGPv4+, support for multicast and IPv6). Quagga is a fork of the GNU Zebra routing suite. The current maintainers are Paul Jakma, Vincent Jardin, Andrew Schorr, Hasso Tepper, Greg Troxel, and David Young. Get the latest updates here:

OpenWrt

OpenWrt is a GPL-licensed Linux distribution for wireless routers. Currently the most popular routers are the Linksys WRT family of routers, but there is also support for wireless routers from Netgear, Buffalo, and Motorola. OpenWrt is meant to be light on resource but flexible enough to suit the needs of most users. It accomplishes this by creating external packages that can be loaded to suit the user's needs. Linksys released its Linux source (in accord with the provisions in GPL). Then the OpenWrt community used that source as the base for its Linux distribution. Visit the Web site for updates:

PuTTY

PuTTY is an open source (MIT license) implementation of ssh for Win32 computers. PuTTY includes many standard ssh utilities to securely access machines (such as your Linux server) across the Internet. It was originally written by Simon Tatham and is now also maintained by Owen Dunn, Ben Harris, and Jacob Nevins. Its Web site has the latest updates:

BlueLava

BlueLava is a GPL-licensed CGI script that interfaces to the command line utility BottleRocket (an interface to the X10 CM17A transmitter). It was created by Bruce A. Locke and is maintained by Ian Wilkinson. BlueLava allows you to control X10 modules from a Web browser. Visit the Web site for updates:

WPA-Supplicant

WPA-Supplicant is an open source (GPL-licensed) program which is the middle man between your wireless card and your WAP (wireless access point). It provides support for WPA (WiFi Protected Access) and WPA2, which provide better protection from hacking than WEP does. Visit the Web site:

BottleRocket

BottleRocket is an open source (GPL-licensed) command line interface for UNIX systems to use the X10 Firecracker (CM17A) to transmit X10 signals to X10 wireless devices. Its authors are Ashley Clark, David Anderson, Jason White, Warner Losh, and Tymm Twillman. I currently maintain it. Visit the Web site for the most recent updates:

LIRC

LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) is an open source (GPL-licensed) suite for recording and playing back recorded IR signal from remotes such as those used for TVs or entertainment systems. This enables your Linux box to send and receive almost any IR signal. The current maintainer is Christoph Bartelmis. The developers are Manuel Estrada Sainz, Heinrich Langos, Karsten Scheibler, Jim Paris, and Milan Pikula. Visit the Web site:

Twonky Media

Twonky is a commercial media server program that allows you to share your music, pictures, and video with standard UPNP-enabled client devices. (UPNP stands for Universal Plug and Pray, er, Play.) Visit the Web site for the latest software:

One-wire weather

Oww (One-wire weather) is software to receive and interpret live sensor data from the One-wire weather station (now being sold by AAG Electronica). It supports a barometer, a solar radiation sensor, a humidity sensor, an anemometer, a wind vane, a rain gauge, and temperature sensors. It is written and maintained by Simon J. Melhuish. Find updates at the Web site:

ForecastFox

ForecastFox is an extension that provides quick weather reporting on one of the bars of your Firefox browser. It provides support for international weather reports (not just North America). A simple click of an icon opens a new tab, which displays a more detailed report. This extension uses AccuWeather.com for its weather information. The project owner is Jon Stritar, and its active developers are Richard Klein and Alexander Slovesnik. Visit the Web site: