Worship Software

I am working on coming up with an option for our church to run for their services.  We are currently using MediaShout on a Windows Laptop, but I want to try to migrate to Linux.

I thought about using Wine, but that idea doesn’t bode well with their Garbage Rating.  Another option is to run a Virtualized Machine.  VMWare has a converter that we could possibly use to move everything from the laptop to a virtual.  This post shows how to use that with Virtual Box too.  The only thing I am not sure of is about using multiple screens with it.

I found forum post with a list of other software.  AlternativeTo echos these suggestions:

I looked into OpenSong some.  One problem is that they don’t have a x64 version.  This post might have one.   Their page says it is written in RealBasic.

Lyricue was actually in the Ubuntu Repository, and I was able to install it easily.  I was able to install it, but I haven’t played with it at all.  From launchpad, it looks like it is written in C.  When I started it, it ask for a MySQL login, so it must use MySQL database.

The OpenLP looks pretty good, too.  They have a PPA archive that I could install.  I see it is written in Python and QT4.

Then, I found another option that isn’t as well publicised: ChangingSong.  It looks like it is written in Python.

Here is another called “Church Presentations“.  It is written in Java, which sounds cool to me.  They don’t have any released files though.

Here is the rest of my search on SourceForge:

3 thoughts on “Worship Software

  1. Whatever you go with, just make sure the interface is easy easy easy. Unless, of course, you want to run it yourself every week forever. I realize Windows is perhaps not optimal, but it is fairly universally used, and most people are comfortable in that interface.

  2. That is a very good point. I am installing the Gnome/XWindows interface which isn’t too different from Windows. Then, I am planning to put together a binder that includes the instructions with everything that I have done to the computer.

    Another thing that helps is that I am in the choir, so they will have to learn whatever it is.

    If all else fails, we’ll just have to install Windows 7 on the computer. The only problem with it is that we’ll have to spend extra 100’s of dollars when we are already very close to the edge of the budget. And, I am afraid we won’t have as much open source software available to achieve our other goals.

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