I have been recommended to use the Microsoft project as a project manager in my course. But being a opensource fan and linux user what will be the best opensource alternative to this.
I have seen this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/109579/open-source-alternative-to-microsoft-project, which suggests to use openproj. Openproj's last version was released 2 years back so I was thinking otherwise.
Also following the wiki project management softwares comparison, I found out there are lot of opensource alternatives. Some software in the list with maximum features I found out are:
Could anyone recommend what is the best (or most popular) alternative.
Finally looking at the various project management softwares, I found out that deciding for one completely depends on your needs. The one thing that works everywhere is Pen and Paper as suggested in this answer.
Your list is missing my two favorites:
and I don't mean this in jest! They are simple tools - but they have certain advantages to them. They have limitations in what you can track with them, and hence you only track what is important. Take it as the minimalistic approach to project management if you will.
In general, I don't tend to think you can manage software development by GANTT or PERT and resources. Most software construction is creative and implements things which have not been tried before. Hence, the problems you are to solve have a high risk of failure where you have to retry the attempt. I find that GANTT and friends are best if you have a large number of well-known low-risk tasks to accomplish.
You may not believe this to be true, but then I implore you to at least take my standpoint into consideration when you track the project in detail. Especially if and when you suddenly have to update the GANTT chart due to slips.