best free programs?
sorry if this has been asked:
looking for some good free production and/or djing programs for a beginner, that will run nicely on a netbook. my sons getting interested in beatmaking , and likes messing with ableton on my rig, but id like to find something that he could jam out on his netbook, that would be intuitive for a beginner. 
any suggestions?
He can get Audacity for edits, but no clue about a free DAW.
ucan dl the vdj home and the serato one deck program
for a DAW try energyXT… not free but full version only around $50USD
there’s some hardware comes bundled with the full version… some of the behringer midi keyboards come to mind, so it may be worth checking it out if you’re after some hardware also.
speaking of hardware bundling, some brands also come with an LE type copy of ableton
best free programs?
Mixxx is a great program for djing that is open source. Not as full featured as traktor but I sampled their timecode support and it was spot on as long as your computer can handle sub 5 ms latency. Otherwise scratching sounds terribly distorted. If you are just mixing the timecode support is useable - better than vdj at any rate. If you are on a budget, Mixxx is great. Give it a go, you can’t lose.
Check out Reaper for the daw.
for the DAW theres as mentioned before reaper and lmms, never tried reaper but lmms is ok for being free.
And for djing either mixxx or virtualdj home edition
best free programs?
Mixxx is a great program for djing that is open source. Not as full featured as traktor but I sampled their timecode support and it was spot on as long as your computer can handle sub 5 ms latency. Otherwise scratching sounds terribly distorted. If you are just mixing the timecode support is useable - better than vdj at any rate. If you are on a budget, Mixxx is great. Give it a go, you can’t lose.
Serato Intro.
I think I remember mixxx sucking, but it might have gotten better since I last tried it.
Renoise is another cheap/free option for beat-making. Trackers are weird, but if you actually go through the tutorials, it becomes really intuitive.
I recommend using a lite version of software that ships with cheap controllers. you may even have LE licences lying around unused.
Or, and this will be an unpopular statement. There’s piracy. Controversial, but I wouldn’t own all the legitimate software I do today if I hadn’t gotten into it with my pirated copies of VDJ and Reason. I think you’ll find a LOT of legitimate software owners out there who started the same way.
It may be illegal, but my PERSONAL morals have no problem trying out software by piracy if I then buy it if I like it.
.02c
It’s ok - but you are coming from Traktor (same as me) so judging it in that light it looks awful by comparison. But I played with it for a bit and didn’t mind it at all. The key-lock algo sucks though. You can’t scratch with it on. It sounds like the old SLDZ-1200’s when you do, but honestly, for a completely open source program that has to hack together open-source code (can’t use any non-gpl licensed code at all) it is pretty good. My brother is friends with their timecode programmer.
Mixxx even has some features that Traktor and VDJ don’t - i.e. dynamic EQ’s, better cross fader curve options, and it supports absolute timecode tracking as well as relative w/ multiple types of timecode (where as VDJ only supports relative mode). It could use sample decks and I never tried the FX but I assume they are sub-par. But for simple a-b learn to mix and beatmatch type stuff I’m sure it’s just fine. It wouldn’t be my first choice if money was no object, but for a free program I can’t complain.
Imagine line deckadance is a lot like traktor and the only restriction on the free demo is that like every 5 min or something there’s 5 seconds of silence. That’s what got me started and there’s a bunch of tutorials on the web. Try it!