About the FrameCharge Press

What software do you use?

For day-to-day operations I currently use Linux Mint running the following key applications:

• Page layout: Scribus
• Text editing: OpenOffice
• Image editing: GIMP, Krita, Inkscape
• Web page creation: gedit
• Email: Mozilla Thunderbird
• FTP: Filezilla

For checking the PDF files produced by Scribus, I also use the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, if only because Adobe invented the format and their software is standard throughout the printing industry.

Why use Open Source software?

After 15 years living in a Windows monoculture, I got really fed up with the companies that produce commercial PC Operating Systems. Simply put, I think Information Technology should be about giving people more freedoms and opportunities, not imposing more limits on them. Digital Rights Management was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thus, I decided I needed to learn to use Linux.

So you started a publishing company? Isn't that a bit extreme?

The best way to learn something is to actually try to apply it to the real world. I know about the practicalities and technicalities of publishing (it's my day job, albeit in a Windows environment) - the only unknown was the new software. It seemed like a good way to test Linux's capabilities at the same time as teaching myself a new OS.

There was of course also the small matter of being given a manuscript for a book and being asked if I could publish it. I'd never published a book all by myself - a challenge like that should always be embraced, on principle.

What made you choose Linux Mint?

It just works, if you know what I mean. For a while I ran Fedora Linux, but in the end I realised that life is too short to spend ages mucking about at the command line. I use a PCs running both the Gnome version of Mint and the Debian Edition.