Bible Desktop [1] is an excellent cross-platform open-source Bible study application. Bible Desktop is a Java application, so it will run on nearly any operating system, including Windows, Linux and Mac. Bible Desktop uses the JSword [2] project to read modules in Sword format so there is a huge range of Bibles, Commentaries, Dictionaries, Daily Devotionals and some General Books available for download. It is currently at version 1.6. Some of Bible Desktop's most notable features are:
- Advanced search
- Side-by-Side comparison
- Tabbed mode
- Sword Project module downloader
Bible Desktop is a great alternative to many of the expensive commercial Bible study programs [3]. It has most of the same great features as well.
To download, install, and run on Linux, run the following commands:
wget http://www.crosswire.org/ftpmirror/pub/jsword/release/bibledesktop-latest-bin.tar.gz
tar -zxvf bibledesktop-latest-bin.tar.gz
chmod +x ./jsword-1.6/BibleDesktop.sh
./jsword-1.6/BibleDesktop.sh
Windows:
Download the installer here [4].
*** You need Java installed to run Bible Desktop. To install Java, run the following:
openSUSE: sudo zypper install java-1_6_0-openjdk
Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre
Windows: If you do not have java installed, the installer will download it automatically
