Looking for a free software program to help me learn to touch-type, and shortly after my search started I found GNU Typist.  And GNU Typist (gtypist) is a gem.

The instructions are simple and the purpose of the program is equally simple: to “condition” the user into adopting and maintaining good typing habits.  After starting the basic lessons (“Quick QWERTY course”), it soon became clear that my touch-typing capability was far poorer than I had hoped and my typing speed these days is generally just luck-driven.

Thankfully, a considerate fellow called Simon Baldwin decided to write gtypist, and here we are.  The online documentation is equally useful; not only do you get help regarding how to acquire, install and invoke gtypist on your machine, but also a list of alternative free software typing programs which are a good fit in various situations (general, education, games-playing, etc).  Like most GNU software, a man page is also provided.

It is so easy to take this effort for granted, and yet how useful is this resource! Such is the way with free software: quite often, somebody already had that itch and had to scratch it.