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Building a FOSS Writing Platform

 I've taken a few steps toward resuming writing. I've written off and on over the years and now feels like a good time to get a few pieces started, maybe even finished. I have a long habit of starting more than I finish.

As a Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) enthusiast, I plan to build my workflow exclusively around such software. The Linux operating system will be the platform; I have a strong preference for Linux Mint. Mint is a stable, conservative sort of operating system, an Ubuntu derivative that surpasses its foundation. This would provide an enterprise-grade platform for my writing and small publishing firm (more on this later).

As mentioned, I want my writing and publishing to be done on a FOSS platform. I've used Ubuntu Linux for some time and find it works well, but their parent company, Canonical, appears to be drifting toward centralization, while the Snap application packaging is proprietary software, which is the opposite of FOSS. Canonical isn't a public utility and they are free to do as they wish with their product, just as I am free to use whatever OS fits my pragmatic goals. 

For note taking and rough drafting, a simple text editor is my go-to app. Mint ships with the Xed editor, a lightweight yet configurable text editor. To relieve eye strain during long sessions, I configure the theme to Dark and the style to Cobalt, giving the editor a dark frame and deep blue writing pane. It easily handles more than prose writing; it is a fine lightweight editor for coding as well.

For a general office suite, LibreOffice is the predominant office software in the FOSS community. It is comprehensive, with spreadsheet, presentation, and other capabilities built in. Although Microsoft's Times New Roman font is the standard for publication submissions, there are a number of alternatives built in. If you are writing and only want to use one program for your work, LibreOffice is an excellent choice, especially if you plan to submit your writing to other publishers. 

I like writing drafts in Markdown, a language that allows some formatting and design without the need or weight of an office suite. While Markdown can be written in any text editor, there are a number of Markdown-specific editors that offer live preview of your work. My favorite of the bunch is Apostrophe, an excellent editor from the Gnome Project that includes many features while remaining lightweight. Coupled with Pandoc for text conversion, an entire book can be written in Markdown and converted to an .epub ebook file. 

For greater control over the look of an ebook, the Sigil ebook editor is your best friend. Using HTML formatting, the same language used to create websites, Sigil can easily format your text file. There's even an "Add Cover" function that makes adding a cover image to a text file quick and easy. 

For ebook management, I recommend the Calibre ebook management suite. It allows editing your books, adding metadata, converting to other formats such as PDF, and much more. A comprehensive management system that is cross-platform, with versions for Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Lastly, there is the program I use for screenwriting:  the LyX document processor. LyX is more than a word processor; it is used for producing everything from screenplays to novels to academic papers with an amazing capability for formatting. I use the Hollywood template for my screenplay. Tho less well known than MS Word or LibreOffice Writer, LyX is amazingly capable when formatting pieces for publication. 

And that's it in a nutshell. I can write everything from blog pages to screenplays to novels, all using Free/Open Source Software without vendor lock-in or licensing concerns.  I look forward to using this suite when working on a manuscript. 

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