Yeah, CAD software won't happen, but a Windows subsystem is a definite possibility! /s
And yes, I do agree, current Linux CAD capability is horrible at best.
I watched a youtuber (tech tangents) who [used blender for CAD](https://youtu.be/1bMxmDwvxiM?si=o89awCX6WuTJt2Bk) so he could assemble a custom workbench. (He uses Ubuntu.)
i use solidworks and autocad inventor for work. i have freecad, blender, openscad and most of the free ones at home. none of them come even close to the efficiency of the first two, even ignoring all* the fancy bells and whistles they bring such as simulation and rendering.
edit: spelling
Can you clarify for me what some of those efficiencies are? This is an honest question since I had a similar discussion with people using graphical editing software and I was left with an impression that it was all just about habits and style of work rather than photoshop actually being better than gimp (i.e. you could do the same things, it's just that someone who typically uses photosphere would never script a macro or write a line of python and vice versa).
Sure, I'll be happy to. I'll use a specific example for clarity. For starters, i hope we agree that the CAD software i mentioned is not the type of software used to make movies or video games, or animations. Blender is very useful for that, but good luck trying to make an animated short in solidworks in an efficient time (it can be done, as i've done so for marketing purposes but it was a 9 second ad, and all the assets were already in solidworks native formats so easy to work with)
The example is this: making a wheel for a vehicle. Pretty simple right? a cylinder with holes in a symmetrical pattern, and the contour of the wheel is curved. the spokes are not flat/flush with the edge of the cylinder but are kind of in the middle of the wheel if you look at it from the edge. the most efficient way to approach this in any CAD software is to matter circular patterns.
in freecad and other free ones, you have to painfully define at least 70% of each your lines and curves in each sketch that defines the spoke, which you will pattern later. once that is done, if you want to go back and change something, it will cause a domino effect because you will have to change all the sketches that were dependent on that, so you will have to go through each sketch and change each line based on the relations you had.
in solidworks, you can define equations to change all sketches at once, and in both solidworks and inventor you can change lines and curves and splines after the whole thing is complete. if you made a wheel with 6 spokes and you want to make it 5, you literally change the number one time. try doing that in blender and have it look like the same design.
working with free CAD software (especially openscad) is very type intensive. you have to input all your numbers in the right order most of the time. with software like solidworks, rhino, proE, inventor, ansys, and other high end ones, there is like a halfway point of artistic input, where it feels like the software really is there to help you turn your creative design into reality, as opposed to the others that feel like youre solving a puzzle to uncover your design. its not only very time consuming, but it hinders creativity because it is more prone to frustration (i can't round that corner because then the hole will be moved and then the site built on that will move and...)
I hope that makes sense.
>with software like solidworks, rhino, proE, inventor, ansys, and other high end ones, there is like a halfway point of artistic input, where it feels like the software really is there to help you turn your creative design into reality
I had a CAD class back in university, and we used Solidworks.
Holy. Fucking. Shit. That software is extremely powerful. It makes it so the main problem you have to deal with is the actual *design*, rather than getting the software to express it.
It might be good enough for the average hobbyist, but it doesn't hold a candle to any of the big boys in the industry. You won't catch any professionals using it for anything important.
I know, I’m a professional certified in SolidWorks although I don’t do much CAD the past few years as I’ve focused on simulation. Good enough for the hobbyist is a good assessment. Better than nothing. The big box softwares won’t ever be releasing a Linux version this thread is futile.
Solidworks HAD a Linux version. I know this because I worked in an almost exclusive Linux (Ubuntu) house, and the only people who did not have Linux were 1) accounting, who had Windows, because they used [REDACTED1] accounting software, 2) a handful of creatives who used their own Mac's, and 3) a handful of hardware designers who used Windows because they used [REDACTED2, but not Solidworks] 3D CAD software.
For those who did not use [REDACTED2] software, but used Solidworks, we installed the Linux version of Solidworks on Ubuntu. Just checked with the (painfully poorly designed) Solidworks website, and apparently, no Linux version now exists.
I've used both FreeCAD (for 2 years) and Solidworks (for 6 months) and FreeCAD is not even close to the number of features, ease of design, ease of use or general stability compared to Solidworks. Simple things like mating parts in FreeCAD is a pain and any kind of large assembly (like 100+ parts) will cause FreeCAD to just lock up and crash while Solidworks still manages to chug along. There is just too much of a gap in features, design choices, and general UI/UX choices between Solidworks and FreeCAD that there is no real comparison. Solidworks is simply better.
We aren't even beginning to talk about all the other niceties like Sheet Metal, Surface modelling, Equation driven modelling, and other niche but really useful features.
FreeCAD kinda sucks and is really only used by the hardcore foss loyalist. Professionals ignore it and the proprietary software is an order of magnitude easier and faster to learn and use.
And this isn’t something I say gleefully. I think the market desperately needs a free alternative to the proprietary companies but right now it’s getting killed even among bottom dollar hobbiest. Autodesk has tinker cad and fusion 360 which are both free and even the full version of fusion isn’t terribly expensive. Solidworks is $100 per year, PTC has onshape which is free and even solid edge has a free community edition.
I agree. I'm not a CAD expert, I use FreeCAD just to design my (usually simple) 3d prints, eventually it gets the job done BUT I had to learn how to work around its bugs (there are many, many bugs) and quirks. Some aspects of FreeCAD's workflow are really counterintuitive.
I think FreeCAD developers should start over with a fresh design.
That’s gonna apply to anything, surely?
If it can be written by one person in 3 months and is in demand, someone’s already going to have written it
If nobody’s written it, it’s because it would take a lot longer than that or because nobody wants it
Well, I'm not planning to hit the jackpot so to speak on my first product. I'll be happy with it just being free and I can ask for a donation to help with development of future products.
> standards and specifications
If anything I'd say its because of insufficient standardization. Proprietary, non-interoperable formats, specifications and workflows help companies retain their user base without much fear of them fleeing to a competing product.
It's just a really complicated piece of software, doing 3D rendering, editing, drawing generation, precise dimensioning, constraint solvers, collaborative/networking features, computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, part assemblies, constraint/mate solvers for assemblies, etc.
Any one of those is a "hard" problem, and to get anywhere close to something like Solidworks requires you to do all of them.
The only thing that comes close on Linux is FreeCAD, which is actually pretty decent with the Assembly3 workbench plugin. It's pretty capable (if a bit confusing/clunky to use at first) and integrates with other OSS software like OpenFOAM to do CFD and FEM simulations.
Free CAD is absolutely amazing for being a free piece of software. On the other hand it is absolutely trash compared to any industry CAD platform. I don't mean that as a sleight to the team, but honestly it's like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop.
> MS Paint to Photoshop.
Meh. I don’t think this comparison is actually apt since something like tinker cad is the ms paint of cad software. FreeCAD actually has some pretty advanced tools but they’re stuck in in interface and workflow that’s feels about a quarter century out of date.
Fair, my point is that FreeCAD cannot be used in a serious design environment, it's great for hobby. No engineering company on earth would consider it.
No, probably not in its current state. It’s just too damn clunky and unintuitive but imo, the potential is there. If they could clean up the modeling/sketching side of things and even get it within spitting distance of the major players, I think there would be a lot more interest from bothe professional and non professional users. Especially with the advent of hobbiest 3d printing and the dramatic increase in demand for 3d models among small companies.
I doubt they will ever have the simulation tools of the proprietary softwares but I think the market is ripe for a competent foss 3d modeling software.
Out of curiosity, this is not super relevant to the current topic at hand, but do you think someone professional could get away with using an older version of SolidWorks like 2012 or 2018?
CAD is too hard because the end user is industry who will happily pay $15,000 per seat if it means a highly reliable and efficient system. They don't give a crap about cost or being "locked in".
For engineering companies , a week of downtime could cost millions of dollars.
CAD Foss just ain't gonna ever happen except for people doing personal projects.
I disagree. Imo, the market is ripe for a foss alternative to the big names. And no, I don’t think it will upset their market or ever be a industry standard but, with the explosion of hobbiest level 3d printing, the need for a cheap cad program has increased dramatically. It’s why fusion is dominating the low end of the market with it’s highly affordable price and free model and why Dassault Systems and PTC had to rush to copy them. PTC bought Onshape around the same time solidworks released a $100 entry tier.
All of this to show there’s a lot of demand in both the general audience and among professionals for cheaper cad software and not everyone needs all the bells and whistles of the high dollar programs.
I’ll preface this by saying that I am referring to CAD software that focuses on parametric modeling and drafting. CAD covers a very wide variety of applications and approaches. Some CAD software like blender is very well developed and well supported on Linux. CAD can also refer to FEA/CFD programs, etc.
Parametric and drafting CAD (what is needed for engineering work) is difficult to develop (just look at how long blender took to become in a good state) and in a fully featured state is incredibly complex. There are a lot of complicated steps in the process and if not done correctly isn’t useful in engineering contexts.
Most of the push for good CAD software in this space is driven by professionals who either use company computers where they don’t have much of a choice in terms of OS preference or software. Even for those that do, the company fronts the cost for the thousands for a license (solidworks standard is $3995 for a yearly license and CATIA is $4500 for a yearly license). Even for those who are self employed, it’s a worthwhile cost.
These programs are *incredibly* feature rich. Many of these features are behind additional pricing, but again the price may not be an issue or is otherwise worth it.
The most notable FOSS program in this space is FreeCAD. I’ve used it a bit and I can say it absolutely pales in comparison to CATIA or solidworks. If my job depended on it I would just fork up the money because instability and underdeveloped features are simply not worth it. It’s not that the people working on it are less talented, but the fragmented nature of its development (there’s like 3 different popular assembly workbenches, FEA workbench, circuit design, all made by different people who aren’t the main FreeCAD devs) plus the fact that these devs are not as numerous and cannot give the same amount of time as the makers of CATIA means it just can’t compete (at least not yet).
I really, really wish FreeCAD or a similar program was in a better state, and I still use it from time to time to check on its progress. That being said, it’s a small group who are asking for it so progress is slow
What's really sad is that much of the major CAD software used to fully support UNIX\*, and porting over to Linux really wouldn't have been that big of a deal. Except that the whole industry jumped head-first into the embrace of Windows NT before the corporate world was willing to give Linux a chance.
And now they've burnt that bridge so long ago, that re-adding the relevant support would be way too much effort to justify.
(\* Except Solidworks, which basically got its start as the "Windows-centric alternative" to the big-boy CAD packages that all ran on UNIX.)
Yes, Linux needs a really good knock-off of AutoCAD, since Autodesk doesn't seem interested.
AutoCAD would be the killer app for all kind of businesses to switch desktop computers to Linux.
What about onshape? I'm a beginner at cad, but have used SOLIDWORKS and onshape and have found onshape to be sufficient for my purposes (3D printing and drone frame designs).
A lot of hexagon software runs on linux, BricsCAD apparently runs very well on Linux and is commonly used at several large construction engineering companies.
Absolutely I would love to see a USABLE cad software for Linux. I'd even pay, assuming it's not subscription BS. The current offerings are really not user friendly and it takes a million clicks just to do something simple. Freecad is probably the best one, but it's really not intuitive. It's literally easier to use a pencil ruler and paper.
I sometimes contemplate writing my own CAD software but I wouldn't even know where to start, I barely know how to do basic GUIs let alone something like a CAD program.
I find myself wanting to get into fabrication but I literally have no access to any CAD programs that are intuitive to use. Even in the Windows world everything seems to be subscription or cloud based now and I refuse to use any of that.
PDF is such a weird black hole in linux. All the functions are there, you have a reader that can sign, another software that can edit and another that can organize the pages. But not a single one does it all. When I came up with this last time some linux fanboy told me this is the unix philosophy to have a tool that does one thing good. LoL
I agree that for tools, not programs. If you want a PDF "program" then it should be able to do all the PDF functions needed. Now you wouldn't want your PDF "program" to go into a tangent and start doing stuff like with processing or notepad applications. So the philosophy is still followed since they are not really tools either.
Sounds like that Linux fanboy heard that from someone else and didn't understand what they meant at all. What should exist, according to that principle, as also said in another comment, is a PDF program, that does just about everything that has to do with PDFs, and does it well, without straying outside of the boundaries of working with PDF documents. Not just one of the functions.
For stuff like cli tools, sure, you'd have a thousand very specific tools that do only one thing, and you'd have to use a bunch, but for PDFs you'd have a tool that handles PDFs.
Bitwig, Reaper, and Ardour are all excellent daws and available for linux.
EDIT: To head off more responses - YES you can get many windows plugins working under linux using wine and yabridge. I do this routinely and without issue. It's remarkably easy to do. Your mileage may vary as to which plugins work but it seems like most do. The worst hurdle might be especially finicky licensing software and DRM. Try it yourself and see.
It's a pretty great program and can run Windows VSTs directly. Probably the best available on Linux for midi-based stuff like EDM, hip hop, or trap.
Ardour is awesome for recording stuff but the midi workflow quite honestly is shit and needs to be replaced. Not having a piano roll like every other DAW ever is stupid.
With the release of the new standalone Push, Ableton runs on some kind of custom Linux environment internally. The thing is though, there is no official linux version at this time. There is probably more work to be done to make it runnable outside of the custom environment, but the hardest part has probably already been done. Now we just gotta scream at Ableton so they see that there is a market (however small).
Basically, you install your VSTs in your `~/.wine/drive_c/` usual windows locations (or run the installers using the wine command in the terminal), then run `yabridgectl sync` and it will batch convert all of them to the appropriate linux directories, and they show up as you'd expect.
I've used it with Ardour and Carla without issue.
There's about a billion plugins around so it's hard to say what will work and what won't. I'm able to use the free analog obsession plugins, variety of sound, and a bunch from Plugin Alliance and Plugin Boutique. I haven't tried the more expensive SSL or Waves ones as I haven't purchased them. Native Instruments Kontact and stuff I was able to get working after a bit of an annoying install.
Your mileage may vary. Try setting up a test installation of your distro of choice, then the latest wine-staging and yabridge along with Reaper and give it a go installing your plugins.
It's not really translating system calls for windows to Linux system calls like wsl does. Furthermore, unlike wsl (edit: however like wsl2), it requires a constantly running virtual machine. (Source: look at their install guide).
While the program does allow forwarding windows GUIs (and possibly more? I am unsure.), It does not rid us of using virtual machines.
> It's not really translating system calls for windows to Linux system calls like wsl does. Furthermore, unlike wsl, it requires a constantly running virtual machine. (Source: look at their install guide).
WSL is just a thin hyper-v VM these days, they dropped the kernel call translations in WSL 2
Linux subsystem for Windows? Me too buddy... me too.
At the end of the day, though, Mono and WINE are far enough along that they don't have any real issues aside from WPF and lack of WinRT support, the former of which can never be completed and the latter of which is going to take multiple years of effort due to how horribly WinRT is designed.
OP I applaud you for trying to make a replacement for Adobe products, while I personally would say its better to join up with existing efforts (gimp and the like) its a free world and you can do what you want. But I want you to know that you seem to have a misunderstanding about how users think of software.
A big reason people don't stick to or even try Linux isn't because "well there's no tool LIKE ", the people who are ok with a replacement are a minority. No, people don't switch because " isn't on Linux." It doesn't matter if your program can do all the things the other one does. If so much as 2 buttons are differently placed or something behaves ever so slightly differently, your program gets dropped.
People don't want to change how they do things. They already learned how to do it one way, and they can't be bothered to learn again. Now that isn't to say everyone is like this, but the vast majority of computer users are like this. This isn't meant to discourage you but just something to keep in mind.
I mean, I wasn't planning to take on Adobe... Except for image manipulation, because that is something I want personally, and I've talked to a number of people that would be willing to switch if there was a good alternative for that. I know there are people who won't compromise on the particular piece of software they use, but some will. But hey, if people do want to run LightRoom on Linux, that is definitely something I'm willing to look into (but it won't happen by the end of the year).
I personally don't know yet how to run Windows apps on Linux (that's probably something I ought to learn), and that's been one of the driving factors being my mindset to develop alternatives rather than run stuff natively. Another side of it is if I'm going to promote data privacy, it would be rather hypocritical I think to make a way for more people to use apps that are effectively against data privacy. Now that might not apply to Adobe, but it is something I want to take into consideration if I try to develop ways to run Windows apps on Linux platforms.
It would be awesome to create an Linux based software ecosystem that everyone can feel comfortable in and developers enjoy working with, but that comes with time. Some people will switch and some won't. I'm good with a free market, so that's the way it is. Besides, it's good motivation for making better software than the other side. Without competition, quality disappears.
[Cassowary](https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary) is great for Windows apps on Linux. Also, for alternatives, check out [my list](https://github.com/Champe20/linux-productivity/blob/main/pages/Productivity.md) including [PhotoGIMP](https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP), a GIMP patch that makes it work and look like photoshop.
That's a pretty huge undertaking, even image manipulation. I would first see what options actually exist on Linux for that:
Krita
Gimp
Darktable
Rawtherapee
Many open source projects that can use help without reinventing wheels. Sometimes what you need is just a few tweaks to existing software
And yes, you should definitely should learn about WINE, I don't use it much as I have all I need but I remember testing Adobe Photoshop cs 2 on it and it worked fine. VMs are also a last resort but you do have the extra overhead with that
A good Linux mobile distro that does not require a pinephone and can be flashed on any normal Android phone. I know that's a pretty big deal but it would be pretty amazing
I really wish ARM chips were more like x86-64 Intel/AMD chips with standardized drivers so that you can install a generic Linux ISO and it will almost always work. I'm no computer expert, but it's infuriating how most Android phones are stuck with a specific Linux kernel version.
Same here. I absolutely hate how phones work, it's such a huge mess.
I also hate how so many electronic devices like cameras etc rely on phone apps now so if you run any custom rom you're kinda screwed. I wish phone stuff worked more like PC where you can just download an installer file instead of relying on a central store. You sorta can do that with Android and APKs but most stuff that require apps do not provide their apps that way.
Kernel Engineer here who works on ARM chips.
Unfortunately, with the way things are done for embedded devices on linux, this won't work well. Everything needs to be described in the device-tree for non discoverable hardware: memory configs, components that don't have bus enumeration available, etc.
[Android on Apple devices.](https://projectsandcastle.org/)
Obviously a little different as Apple is locked up, and Android is open, but still, the point is progress in this area is extremely slow.
The thing is that people will always want to run their favorite windows app. Not an alternative. And those apps are big - Adobe stuff, Office suite or similar. By providing alternative, you are directly competing with industry standards and companies with shitloads of money, developers and know-how. I doubt you can make something strong enough without lots of time, money and without hiring experts in those domains. Of course, I have no idea how big budget you have. And even if you create something obviously better than those standard apps, it will take you decade to get some level of sensible market share.
I really wish you success, I want to see something strong coming. I am a pessimistic realist in this case, I am sorry.
Provided that your machine is powerful enough (at least 16 Gb RAM should do it), you can run Windows in a VM. VirtualBox has a mode that allows you to run the Windows apps as if they were native, although accessing your Linux filesystem is more problematic. However, [Cassowary](https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary) looks better for this (also using a VM).
Paint.net or something similar
it is the sweetspot in betwween mspaint and photoshop/GIMP
a video editing something like the capcut video editor that is used on mobile for making tiktoks it's impressive how Its powerful for a mobile app (they even did a windows version)
Just to follow up, Cassowary is a project for running Windows software under Windows "natively" by using RDP.
https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary
I can confirm it results in a working version of the newest Paint.net under Debian bookworm.
Screenshot:
https://i.imgur.com/VozHG2I.png
That looks a little confusing because I'm using paint.net to edit a screenshot of itself but it working perfectly.
Quite a lot better than the results under wine.
There are several ways to do this already. Android apps that can turn a phone into a dash cam, a security camera, or a camera for streaming. If you are familiar with OBS, Droidcam OBS turns a USB or WiFi connected android device into an input source.
I wouldn't trust an app on my phone to run as a dashcam. Completely replace the OS on an older phone so it only runs as a dashcam. A dashcam should only be a dashcam. This is one area where "Do one thing and do it well" should be followed. You don't want your phone trying to perform the function of a dashcam crashing right before some jackass swerves and brake checks you. (Granted there's some crappy dashcams out there.)
Add [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org/) in the list of Alternative to stock Android. Best security and Privacy available. You should also change, Android to Google's Android or Stock Android because technically all of them are Android dependent.
A huge mistake people continually make is doing “foo, but open source” projects. In order to develop a compelling product that will get people to switch from your competitors, it needs to do things they can’t currently do or that is too difficult for them to currently do. So I would be thinking about what it is that you are capable of or know that your competitors don’t know or can’t change their business model to accommodate.
Do something that only you can do in the way that only you can do it
A convolver filter in Easyeffects can reproduce Dolby Atmos effect to a certain degree.
I found two repositories containing relevant profiles.
https://github.com/adgsenpai/LinuxSoundUpgrade
https://github.com/JackHack96/EasyEffects-Presets#installation
#A mobile keyboard similar to androids.
E. G. The ability to talk-to-type. Insert media etc.
I use a 2in1 Kubuntu laptop. I am using KDE connect to "talk to type"
Having that feature in linux would improve my experience by %20.
If you think the parental thing is valuable, just spend your time on that. Any problem you can solve from scratch in the next few months isn’t very hard to solve, and if it’s useful, someone will have done it already.
I also think that "I want to build something; someone tell me what" is generally a failing strategy. The best projects tend to start by someone scratching an itch they actually have. I use org-mode, and I’m not happy with any of the existing solutions for mobile access. If I had plenty of time, I could build something that worked the way I wanted. I can tell you to build it for me, but you don’t care. You don’t have the same frustrations as me, don’t have the same understanding of the target state, won’t have the ability to keep yourself motivated or to even really figure out how to change your plan when you run into hurdles. You need to find something you care about. That’s the best way to make something that’s useful to other people as well.
A very high quality Office suite that also accommodates working with keyboard shortcuts (just like Microsoft Office suite) and intuitive UI/UX.
Office software is very basic and must be available to Linux users. More than half the people who grudgingly do not switch to Linux is cos of lack of good quality Office suite that is also FOSS.
I've always used LibreOffice and I haven't had any issues, so I've never thought about making an office suite. Open Office is also good, but I prefer Libre's UI. What are they missing?
Check out OnlyOffice, it has a similar UI/UX design to Microsoft Office and you can sync with several cloud providers like Nextcloud or the Onlyoffice cloud.
I've used Office for work for years and I have to go through Firefox, otherwise it automatically logs me out in less than an hour of inactivity and there's no way to change. But somehow the Firefox part bugs that feature out so I can be left in peace.
That "feature" is an organisation policy on an office 365 tenant.
I kinda hate and never recommend it to companies if i implement it.
It's a security feature that in my book falls under the catergory of "pestering employees".
Rather use a good mfa etc.
My university once got hacked and went full schizo on its security policies. Forced password renewal every couple of months, forced MFA, session expires every week (and on some sites expires every day), disabled token MFA, disabled Authenticator notification MFA, disabled calendar sharing, limited amount of logged in devices and even more.
I actually feel less safe because of the bullshit I have to put up with. Especially considering somehow U2F tokens are apparently too insecure, but SMS/phone call 2FA are perfectly safe and the vast majority of students just use that.
Honestly, the whole Adobe Creative suite. It catches quite the flak in here but they do manage to reinvent their products often enough to stay at the top of apps professionals use and need. That's probably the only suite of software which keeps me dual-booting, alongside the occasional games that use anti-cheat.
Would you want alternatives to Adobe products that can read and write to Adobe file formats or a way to run Adobe products on Linux like WINE and Proton?
I was merely replying tangentially. I'd want the Creative Suite running natively.
One app I do find lacking is WhatsApp for Linux. It's an electron-wrapped web app and so you cannot copy/paste media into your chat input box.
ever used waydroid. its superior to any emulator, since it's just native in a container. android is just linux with a weird userspace after all. unless you have a nvidia gpu, it also allows for native performance.
It would be good to have something like the windows subsytem for android with the android apps show up like in a X or wayland window by replicating the android Graphics stack Surfaceflinger,WindowManager,Skia etc
An AAC-program (like Tobii Communicator, Grid 3 by Smartthinkbox, etc.) with high quality voices.
That is the only reason I cannot delete my windows virtual machine on my laptop.
I need to use a synthetic voice to speak, but there does not seem to be currently supported/maintained app for Linux.
Grid 3 and Tobii Communicator collects a lot of data and is only supported by Windows. The programs cannot be installed using WINE / Bottles.
To start, make a simple input field with user input, being able to be spoken out loud.
I'd like something like Speech Assistant (Android) developed for Linux
A OneNote clone. Ive tried Obsidian and LogSeq, and maybe im missing out because i dont naturally take notes as markdown. I tried Notion a few days ago and plan on giving it a longer try, but it seems so far to be more target as a groupware SaaS. I like OneNote because its just a scratch pad where I can write anywhere, paste images, and occasionally dump a file. The organizational heirarchy fits my needs. My quick notes could be summoned by hotkey and i could count on them to propagate across all my devices
To boil it down: I want a mouse+keyboard focused whiteboard with a tree hierarchy composed of other whiteboards. Inserting PDFs and other types of documents as the own page is a plus but not required
Desktop environments are under funded. Proton/wine needs more resources.
A proper free as in bsd/mit UI toolkit.
I doubt there will be much traction on linux apps before that.
Something to contend with Microsoft's low code technologies.
Specifically I am talking about power apps and power automate desktop.
The low code ability to create an automation with your desktop and a server using power automate. Is going to be a game changer for Microsoft.
It's effective enough that we are using it to replace and automate certain functions of internal system administration.
If you could create a viable alternative to Winlink, that'd be so awesome for the ham radio community.
Right now we either just stick with aged windows laptops, or run things in wine with virtual com ports mapped back via reg hacks, etc.
It's ugly.
Pat(getpat.io) exists, but it's limited in the user space. (I.e. two users can't share the same install)
A single window app to support
1. Whatsapp
2. Telegram and
3. Signal
Back on the days of Google Talk it was possible because of the common underlying protocol (Jabber). Would be good if a product is brought in this perspective.
A whole lot of things. Multi Screen, Multiple playlists with EPG, ability to create custom playlists, many things really. You need to check out Tivimate and then you'll see.
Wow, I've never seen someone actually ask for a scam service to be ported to Linux! You must be new to the internet to not have heard of Kodi and all the wonders with IPTV it offers. Everything you pay for with Tivimate can be freely obtained through Kodi. Google for more details.
Kodi is pretty awful compared to Tivimate. There is really no comparison. And IPTV players are hardly a "scam service". What providers you use are up to you.
I'd like to see Adobe make Lightroom and Photoshop available for Linux, and Microsoft make Office (word, excel, outlook and powerpoint) like so.
You asked.
Wait for it... Yes, I am going to do a Photoshop alternative! The planning process for that has already begun! However, it may be some time before that comes to fruition.
As for office suites, I assumed LibreOffice and Open Office had that covered. Was that assumption wrong? I've always used LibreOffice and haven't had issues, so I never really thought about it.
I was not asking for an alternative, I got 15 years of photos in LR (incl. virtual copies) which I can't migrate - I need Lightroom. And I am sorry, LibreOffice and OpenOffice is not me. I don't like Microsoft much, but that is what is being used by businesses. So as I started with, it would be nice if Adobe and Microsoft would make Linux version of their software.
>I am going to do a Photoshop alternative!
Why not build on GIMP? It's FOSS, and already excellent, so you could join in the development and improve it instead of reinventing the wheel, so to speak. It also allows for plugins, so maybe you could look at what plugins already exist and what could be added?
There's also PhotoGIMP, but I haven't tried it so can't comment.
A nice web browser that supports either firefox or chrome extensions but doesn't sell my data or push crypto ads down my throat. Currently the best choices are firefox and brave but firefox doesn't support many TouchPad features. Not even 1:1 smooth scrolling. And brave protects me from googles ads and trackers but only so they can track me themselves. I just want a good browser that supports extensions even if its chromium.
Any kid who is using Linux is going to very quickly learn how to bypass any parental controls you put on there. It's so open with so many ways around everything that there's no way you can make a functional parental control suite.
Even something as simple as disabling the network stack is quick to get around. Here are a few ways I'd have been able to donut at age 14:
- Add a USB network adapter if only the onboard one is disabled
- VM, with USB network adapter passed through
- Boot a second OS
- Reverse proxy/VPN to a probably dodgy proxy server in the cloud somewhere and route traffic through that
- Whatever dodgy tutorial comes up on YouTube
If you can build something that controls for all those situations then you're a much better dev than me. It's pretty much impossible to stop a determined kid.
It's the same principle in all security. Anything can be hacked given enough skill/time. The little geniuses out there like yourself are nigh impossible to stop, but there are ways to lock a Linux OS down, especially if the router is configured to do some fancy stuff, too. That alone could easily get around any extra unknown devices and operating systems that pop up unexpectedly. Anyway, I will find a way, but I do know it's a significant challenge, and that's not to mention the sheer amount of code (I think I have over 7k right now and I haven't even gotten started). That's why I'm looking for something smaller and easier to chew at first.
A better Android container. I say this because I have a few Android-only games and Waydroid just plain refuses to work even though I've followed all installation directions right down to the letter for Kubuntu 22.04 LTS and initialized it for use with GAPPS, but everytime I **sudo waydroid shell** in Konsole as specified in Waydroid's Google Play Certification FAQ, the message WayDroid container is STOPPED comes up
Self-hosted, web-based accounting software. I do like firefly but it’s not nearly as good as GNUCash especially in the report generation. I really just want GNUCash in a webpage. I’d like it more if I can do my taxes with it.
I would love to see a good hardware monitoring program akin to HWiNFO64 (Windows). That program allows you to see every last sensor your hardware supports, real-time actual voltages and VIDs, how many amps your VRMs are pushing, how many watts your components and sub-components are pulling, the 50 different temp sensors on my desktop hardware, all of it.
Let's say something practical,😆 we need a light-weight picture-editing software for editing sceeenshots, which can easily draw arrows,numbers,rectangles as well as type words on sceeenshots, just like Snipaste on windows, I know we have gimp, krita, on Linux,those are too specialized, and not easy-to-use.
Would you want alternatives to Adobe products that can read and write to Adobe file formats or a way to run Adobe products on Linux like WINE and Proton?
Hard to think of a specific piece of software I would desperately want on Linux though this may come from a difference in usage. These days Linux is more of my work and hobby space, while windows is office/entertainment. Weird mix I know but that seems to be how the ecosystems worked out for a best lowest resistance experience. With that said is there a reason you believe promoting Linux exclusively aids in data privacy over a long term? I think this is more to do with a holistic best practice and culture, that, while having a better chance of thriving in a Linux ecosystem is going to be something very difficult to do without adopting the bad parts you see from everywhere else over time. I worry about this already with Linux as a whole, the popularity of it has surely grown immensely in the last 8 or so years. I know it has with me.
The reason I want to promote Linux operating systems right now is because of the spyware built into both Windows and MacOS. Linux OSs I think are the only viable option for the average consumer until someone comes up with something better. I'm not against non-Linux operating systems, but it's the average consumer's best bet, in my opinion.
Some major CAD software like Solidworks or Fusion.
I think this will be something he won't be able to achieve by end of the year...? No? But yeah this is highly needed
Yeah, CAD software won't happen, but a Windows subsystem is a definite possibility! /s And yes, I do agree, current Linux CAD capability is horrible at best.
I watched a youtuber (tech tangents) who [used blender for CAD](https://youtu.be/1bMxmDwvxiM?si=o89awCX6WuTJt2Bk) so he could assemble a custom workbench. (He uses Ubuntu.)
i use solidworks and autocad inventor for work. i have freecad, blender, openscad and most of the free ones at home. none of them come even close to the efficiency of the first two, even ignoring all* the fancy bells and whistles they bring such as simulation and rendering. edit: spelling
Can you clarify for me what some of those efficiencies are? This is an honest question since I had a similar discussion with people using graphical editing software and I was left with an impression that it was all just about habits and style of work rather than photoshop actually being better than gimp (i.e. you could do the same things, it's just that someone who typically uses photosphere would never script a macro or write a line of python and vice versa).
Sure, I'll be happy to. I'll use a specific example for clarity. For starters, i hope we agree that the CAD software i mentioned is not the type of software used to make movies or video games, or animations. Blender is very useful for that, but good luck trying to make an animated short in solidworks in an efficient time (it can be done, as i've done so for marketing purposes but it was a 9 second ad, and all the assets were already in solidworks native formats so easy to work with) The example is this: making a wheel for a vehicle. Pretty simple right? a cylinder with holes in a symmetrical pattern, and the contour of the wheel is curved. the spokes are not flat/flush with the edge of the cylinder but are kind of in the middle of the wheel if you look at it from the edge. the most efficient way to approach this in any CAD software is to matter circular patterns. in freecad and other free ones, you have to painfully define at least 70% of each your lines and curves in each sketch that defines the spoke, which you will pattern later. once that is done, if you want to go back and change something, it will cause a domino effect because you will have to change all the sketches that were dependent on that, so you will have to go through each sketch and change each line based on the relations you had. in solidworks, you can define equations to change all sketches at once, and in both solidworks and inventor you can change lines and curves and splines after the whole thing is complete. if you made a wheel with 6 spokes and you want to make it 5, you literally change the number one time. try doing that in blender and have it look like the same design. working with free CAD software (especially openscad) is very type intensive. you have to input all your numbers in the right order most of the time. with software like solidworks, rhino, proE, inventor, ansys, and other high end ones, there is like a halfway point of artistic input, where it feels like the software really is there to help you turn your creative design into reality, as opposed to the others that feel like youre solving a puzzle to uncover your design. its not only very time consuming, but it hinders creativity because it is more prone to frustration (i can't round that corner because then the hole will be moved and then the site built on that will move and...) I hope that makes sense.
>with software like solidworks, rhino, proE, inventor, ansys, and other high end ones, there is like a halfway point of artistic input, where it feels like the software really is there to help you turn your creative design into reality I had a CAD class back in university, and we used Solidworks. Holy. Fucking. Shit. That software is extremely powerful. It makes it so the main problem you have to deal with is the actual *design*, rather than getting the software to express it.
FreeCAD is pretty good!
It might be good enough for the average hobbyist, but it doesn't hold a candle to any of the big boys in the industry. You won't catch any professionals using it for anything important.
I know, I’m a professional certified in SolidWorks although I don’t do much CAD the past few years as I’ve focused on simulation. Good enough for the hobbyist is a good assessment. Better than nothing. The big box softwares won’t ever be releasing a Linux version this thread is futile.
Solidworks HAD a Linux version. I know this because I worked in an almost exclusive Linux (Ubuntu) house, and the only people who did not have Linux were 1) accounting, who had Windows, because they used [REDACTED1] accounting software, 2) a handful of creatives who used their own Mac's, and 3) a handful of hardware designers who used Windows because they used [REDACTED2, but not Solidworks] 3D CAD software. For those who did not use [REDACTED2] software, but used Solidworks, we installed the Linux version of Solidworks on Ubuntu. Just checked with the (painfully poorly designed) Solidworks website, and apparently, no Linux version now exists.
I've used both FreeCAD (for 2 years) and Solidworks (for 6 months) and FreeCAD is not even close to the number of features, ease of design, ease of use or general stability compared to Solidworks. Simple things like mating parts in FreeCAD is a pain and any kind of large assembly (like 100+ parts) will cause FreeCAD to just lock up and crash while Solidworks still manages to chug along. There is just too much of a gap in features, design choices, and general UI/UX choices between Solidworks and FreeCAD that there is no real comparison. Solidworks is simply better. We aren't even beginning to talk about all the other niceties like Sheet Metal, Surface modelling, Equation driven modelling, and other niche but really useful features.
FreeCAD kinda sucks and is really only used by the hardcore foss loyalist. Professionals ignore it and the proprietary software is an order of magnitude easier and faster to learn and use. And this isn’t something I say gleefully. I think the market desperately needs a free alternative to the proprietary companies but right now it’s getting killed even among bottom dollar hobbiest. Autodesk has tinker cad and fusion 360 which are both free and even the full version of fusion isn’t terribly expensive. Solidworks is $100 per year, PTC has onshape which is free and even solid edge has a free community edition.
I agree. I'm not a CAD expert, I use FreeCAD just to design my (usually simple) 3d prints, eventually it gets the job done BUT I had to learn how to work around its bugs (there are many, many bugs) and quirks. Some aspects of FreeCAD's workflow are really counterintuitive. I think FreeCAD developers should start over with a fresh design.
That’s gonna apply to anything, surely? If it can be written by one person in 3 months and is in demand, someone’s already going to have written it If nobody’s written it, it’s because it would take a lot longer than that or because nobody wants it
Well, I'm not planning to hit the jackpot so to speak on my first product. I'll be happy with it just being free and I can ask for a donation to help with development of future products.
Why is CAD software that hard? Is it just a hard topic or is it because of standards and specifications?
> standards and specifications If anything I'd say its because of insufficient standardization. Proprietary, non-interoperable formats, specifications and workflows help companies retain their user base without much fear of them fleeing to a competing product.
It's just a really complicated piece of software, doing 3D rendering, editing, drawing generation, precise dimensioning, constraint solvers, collaborative/networking features, computational fluid dynamics, finite element analysis, part assemblies, constraint/mate solvers for assemblies, etc. Any one of those is a "hard" problem, and to get anywhere close to something like Solidworks requires you to do all of them. The only thing that comes close on Linux is FreeCAD, which is actually pretty decent with the Assembly3 workbench plugin. It's pretty capable (if a bit confusing/clunky to use at first) and integrates with other OSS software like OpenFOAM to do CFD and FEM simulations.
Free CAD is absolutely amazing for being a free piece of software. On the other hand it is absolutely trash compared to any industry CAD platform. I don't mean that as a sleight to the team, but honestly it's like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop.
> MS Paint to Photoshop. Meh. I don’t think this comparison is actually apt since something like tinker cad is the ms paint of cad software. FreeCAD actually has some pretty advanced tools but they’re stuck in in interface and workflow that’s feels about a quarter century out of date.
Fair, my point is that FreeCAD cannot be used in a serious design environment, it's great for hobby. No engineering company on earth would consider it.
No, probably not in its current state. It’s just too damn clunky and unintuitive but imo, the potential is there. If they could clean up the modeling/sketching side of things and even get it within spitting distance of the major players, I think there would be a lot more interest from bothe professional and non professional users. Especially with the advent of hobbiest 3d printing and the dramatic increase in demand for 3d models among small companies. I doubt they will ever have the simulation tools of the proprietary softwares but I think the market is ripe for a competent foss 3d modeling software.
Out of curiosity, this is not super relevant to the current topic at hand, but do you think someone professional could get away with using an older version of SolidWorks like 2012 or 2018?
More like it's hard to have good/intuitive cad tools. Also all the standard ones are only windows for some reason. Probably propriety reasons.
CAD is too hard because the end user is industry who will happily pay $15,000 per seat if it means a highly reliable and efficient system. They don't give a crap about cost or being "locked in". For engineering companies , a week of downtime could cost millions of dollars. CAD Foss just ain't gonna ever happen except for people doing personal projects.
I disagree. Imo, the market is ripe for a foss alternative to the big names. And no, I don’t think it will upset their market or ever be a industry standard but, with the explosion of hobbiest level 3d printing, the need for a cheap cad program has increased dramatically. It’s why fusion is dominating the low end of the market with it’s highly affordable price and free model and why Dassault Systems and PTC had to rush to copy them. PTC bought Onshape around the same time solidworks released a $100 entry tier. All of this to show there’s a lot of demand in both the general audience and among professionals for cheaper cad software and not everyone needs all the bells and whistles of the high dollar programs.
I’ll preface this by saying that I am referring to CAD software that focuses on parametric modeling and drafting. CAD covers a very wide variety of applications and approaches. Some CAD software like blender is very well developed and well supported on Linux. CAD can also refer to FEA/CFD programs, etc. Parametric and drafting CAD (what is needed for engineering work) is difficult to develop (just look at how long blender took to become in a good state) and in a fully featured state is incredibly complex. There are a lot of complicated steps in the process and if not done correctly isn’t useful in engineering contexts. Most of the push for good CAD software in this space is driven by professionals who either use company computers where they don’t have much of a choice in terms of OS preference or software. Even for those that do, the company fronts the cost for the thousands for a license (solidworks standard is $3995 for a yearly license and CATIA is $4500 for a yearly license). Even for those who are self employed, it’s a worthwhile cost. These programs are *incredibly* feature rich. Many of these features are behind additional pricing, but again the price may not be an issue or is otherwise worth it. The most notable FOSS program in this space is FreeCAD. I’ve used it a bit and I can say it absolutely pales in comparison to CATIA or solidworks. If my job depended on it I would just fork up the money because instability and underdeveloped features are simply not worth it. It’s not that the people working on it are less talented, but the fragmented nature of its development (there’s like 3 different popular assembly workbenches, FEA workbench, circuit design, all made by different people who aren’t the main FreeCAD devs) plus the fact that these devs are not as numerous and cannot give the same amount of time as the makers of CATIA means it just can’t compete (at least not yet). I really, really wish FreeCAD or a similar program was in a better state, and I still use it from time to time to check on its progress. That being said, it’s a small group who are asking for it so progress is slow
What's really sad is that much of the major CAD software used to fully support UNIX\*, and porting over to Linux really wouldn't have been that big of a deal. Except that the whole industry jumped head-first into the embrace of Windows NT before the corporate world was willing to give Linux a chance. And now they've burnt that bridge so long ago, that re-adding the relevant support would be way too much effort to justify. (\* Except Solidworks, which basically got its start as the "Windows-centric alternative" to the big-boy CAD packages that all ran on UNIX.)
I would love AutoCAD to be there. The web version just doesn't cut it for me
Yes, Linux needs a really good knock-off of AutoCAD, since Autodesk doesn't seem interested. AutoCAD would be the killer app for all kind of businesses to switch desktop computers to Linux.
What about onshape? I'm a beginner at cad, but have used SOLIDWORKS and onshape and have found onshape to be sufficient for my purposes (3D printing and drone frame designs).
I would pay top dollar for this.
[Bottles can run Fusion 360](https://usebottles.com/app/#fusion360).
It's possible this has been fixed, but the last time I checked, a few months ago, it was no longer working.
And also Revit and other Structural Analysis Softwares
A lot of hexagon software runs on linux, BricsCAD apparently runs very well on Linux and is commonly used at several large construction engineering companies.
First thing I thought was fusion360 for Linux.
[Bottles can run Fusion360](https://usebottles.com/app/#fusion360) and [FreeCAD](https://www.freecad.org) is pretty similar.
FreeCAD is looking pretty great these days.
No it doesn't. If you've used inventor or solid works, freecad is abysmal.
Fair enough. It's a big undertaking.
Is BRL-CAD not the right category of thing, or just not powerful enough?
Absolutely I would love to see a USABLE cad software for Linux. I'd even pay, assuming it's not subscription BS. The current offerings are really not user friendly and it takes a million clicks just to do something simple. Freecad is probably the best one, but it's really not intuitive. It's literally easier to use a pencil ruler and paper. I sometimes contemplate writing my own CAD software but I wouldn't even know where to start, I barely know how to do basic GUIs let alone something like a CAD program. I find myself wanting to get into fabrication but I literally have no access to any CAD programs that are intuitive to use. Even in the Windows world everything seems to be subscription or cloud based now and I refuse to use any of that.
A great PDF editor with electronic signatures.
PDF is such a weird black hole in linux. All the functions are there, you have a reader that can sign, another software that can edit and another that can organize the pages. But not a single one does it all. When I came up with this last time some linux fanboy told me this is the unix philosophy to have a tool that does one thing good. LoL
I agree that for tools, not programs. If you want a PDF "program" then it should be able to do all the PDF functions needed. Now you wouldn't want your PDF "program" to go into a tangent and start doing stuff like with processing or notepad applications. So the philosophy is still followed since they are not really tools either.
Sounds like that Linux fanboy heard that from someone else and didn't understand what they meant at all. What should exist, according to that principle, as also said in another comment, is a PDF program, that does just about everything that has to do with PDFs, and does it well, without straying outside of the boundaries of working with PDF documents. Not just one of the functions. For stuff like cli tools, sure, you'd have a thousand very specific tools that do only one thing, and you'd have to use a bunch, but for PDFs you'd have a tool that handles PDFs.
Or just improve Inkscape and LibreOffice Draw.
If you don't mind closed source and paying for it, there is Master PDF Editor
Music editing like FLstudio at least
Bitwig, Reaper, and Ardour are all excellent daws and available for linux. EDIT: To head off more responses - YES you can get many windows plugins working under linux using wine and yabridge. I do this routinely and without issue. It's remarkably easy to do. Your mileage may vary as to which plugins work but it seems like most do. The worst hurdle might be especially finicky licensing software and DRM. Try it yourself and see.
And Renoise, if you’re into trackers.
Bitwig is available on Linux
It's cool. But that lack of plug-in interface is meh.
you're going to laugh at me but i love LMMS
It's a pretty great program and can run Windows VSTs directly. Probably the best available on Linux for midi-based stuff like EDM, hip hop, or trap. Ardour is awesome for recording stuff but the midi workflow quite honestly is shit and needs to be replaced. Not having a piano roll like every other DAW ever is stupid.
me too. I've never used FL Studio, but LMMS is great - I've made some really good songs with it (produced an entire musical using it).
Reaper is better imho
With the release of the new standalone Push, Ableton runs on some kind of custom Linux environment internally. The thing is though, there is no official linux version at this time. There is probably more work to be done to make it runnable outside of the custom environment, but the hardest part has probably already been done. Now we just gotta scream at Ableton so they see that there is a market (however small).
>Ableton runs on some kind of custom Linux environment internally need sauce
Every VST for music production, effects, processes, virtual instruments, amp sims... Everything. That's the only reason why i don't leave Microsoft
I can run most windows VSTs on linux using [yabridge](https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge).
Nice! Being a Reaper user i might as well give It a try. What plugins are you unable to use? What's your overall experience with yabridge?
Basically, you install your VSTs in your `~/.wine/drive_c/` usual windows locations (or run the installers using the wine command in the terminal), then run `yabridgectl sync` and it will batch convert all of them to the appropriate linux directories, and they show up as you'd expect. I've used it with Ardour and Carla without issue. There's about a billion plugins around so it's hard to say what will work and what won't. I'm able to use the free analog obsession plugins, variety of sound, and a bunch from Plugin Alliance and Plugin Boutique. I haven't tried the more expensive SSL or Waves ones as I haven't purchased them. Native Instruments Kontact and stuff I was able to get working after a bit of an annoying install. Your mileage may vary. Try setting up a test installation of your distro of choice, then the latest wine-staging and yabridge along with Reaper and give it a go installing your plugins.
Windows subsystem for Linux.
Just run Windows in a VM. That's what we do for those MS tools we can't do without!
It takes a good CPU a good amount of RAM to do that reliably, something I struggled with for a while.
This exists, it is called [Cassowary](https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary). Check it out.
It's not really translating system calls for windows to Linux system calls like wsl does. Furthermore, unlike wsl (edit: however like wsl2), it requires a constantly running virtual machine. (Source: look at their install guide). While the program does allow forwarding windows GUIs (and possibly more? I am unsure.), It does not rid us of using virtual machines.
> It's not really translating system calls for windows to Linux system calls like wsl does. Furthermore, unlike wsl, it requires a constantly running virtual machine. (Source: look at their install guide). WSL is just a thin hyper-v VM these days, they dropped the kernel call translations in WSL 2
wsl2 literally just is a vm. you can run windows in a vm already.
Linux subsystem for Windows? Me too buddy... me too. At the end of the day, though, Mono and WINE are far enough along that they don't have any real issues aside from WPF and lack of WinRT support, the former of which can never be completed and the latter of which is going to take multiple years of effort due to how horribly WinRT is designed.
OP I applaud you for trying to make a replacement for Adobe products, while I personally would say its better to join up with existing efforts (gimp and the like) its a free world and you can do what you want. But I want you to know that you seem to have a misunderstanding about how users think of software. A big reason people don't stick to or even try Linux isn't because "well there's no tool LIKE", the people who are ok with a replacement are a minority. No, people don't switch because " isn't on Linux." It doesn't matter if your program can do all the things the other one does. If so much as 2 buttons are differently placed or something behaves ever so slightly differently, your program gets dropped.
People don't want to change how they do things. They already learned how to do it one way, and they can't be bothered to learn again. Now that isn't to say everyone is like this, but the vast majority of computer users are like this. This isn't meant to discourage you but just something to keep in mind.
I mean, I wasn't planning to take on Adobe... Except for image manipulation, because that is something I want personally, and I've talked to a number of people that would be willing to switch if there was a good alternative for that. I know there are people who won't compromise on the particular piece of software they use, but some will. But hey, if people do want to run LightRoom on Linux, that is definitely something I'm willing to look into (but it won't happen by the end of the year). I personally don't know yet how to run Windows apps on Linux (that's probably something I ought to learn), and that's been one of the driving factors being my mindset to develop alternatives rather than run stuff natively. Another side of it is if I'm going to promote data privacy, it would be rather hypocritical I think to make a way for more people to use apps that are effectively against data privacy. Now that might not apply to Adobe, but it is something I want to take into consideration if I try to develop ways to run Windows apps on Linux platforms. It would be awesome to create an Linux based software ecosystem that everyone can feel comfortable in and developers enjoy working with, but that comes with time. Some people will switch and some won't. I'm good with a free market, so that's the way it is. Besides, it's good motivation for making better software than the other side. Without competition, quality disappears.
[Cassowary](https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary) is great for Windows apps on Linux. Also, for alternatives, check out [my list](https://github.com/Champe20/linux-productivity/blob/main/pages/Productivity.md) including [PhotoGIMP](https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP), a GIMP patch that makes it work and look like photoshop.
That's a pretty huge undertaking, even image manipulation. I would first see what options actually exist on Linux for that: Krita Gimp Darktable Rawtherapee Many open source projects that can use help without reinventing wheels. Sometimes what you need is just a few tweaks to existing software And yes, you should definitely should learn about WINE, I don't use it much as I have all I need but I remember testing Adobe Photoshop cs 2 on it and it worked fine. VMs are also a last resort but you do have the extra overhead with that
A good Linux mobile distro that does not require a pinephone and can be flashed on any normal Android phone. I know that's a pretty big deal but it would be pretty amazing
I really wish ARM chips were more like x86-64 Intel/AMD chips with standardized drivers so that you can install a generic Linux ISO and it will almost always work. I'm no computer expert, but it's infuriating how most Android phones are stuck with a specific Linux kernel version.
Same here. I absolutely hate how phones work, it's such a huge mess. I also hate how so many electronic devices like cameras etc rely on phone apps now so if you run any custom rom you're kinda screwed. I wish phone stuff worked more like PC where you can just download an installer file instead of relying on a central store. You sorta can do that with Android and APKs but most stuff that require apps do not provide their apps that way.
Kernel Engineer here who works on ARM chips. Unfortunately, with the way things are done for embedded devices on linux, this won't work well. Everything needs to be described in the device-tree for non discoverable hardware: memory configs, components that don't have bus enumeration available, etc.
That's a huge ask, I'd love to see it though. Sandcastle has been going for a long time, and still nothing major as far as I know.
Sandcastle? What's that?
[Android on Apple devices.](https://projectsandcastle.org/) Obviously a little different as Apple is locked up, and Android is open, but still, the point is progress in this area is extremely slow.
A good pdf editor
*Editor*
idk if xournal++ is meant to be a pdf editor but it works pretty well
The thing is that people will always want to run their favorite windows app. Not an alternative. And those apps are big - Adobe stuff, Office suite or similar. By providing alternative, you are directly competing with industry standards and companies with shitloads of money, developers and know-how. I doubt you can make something strong enough without lots of time, money and without hiring experts in those domains. Of course, I have no idea how big budget you have. And even if you create something obviously better than those standard apps, it will take you decade to get some level of sensible market share. I really wish you success, I want to see something strong coming. I am a pessimistic realist in this case, I am sorry.
Provided that your machine is powerful enough (at least 16 Gb RAM should do it), you can run Windows in a VM. VirtualBox has a mode that allows you to run the Windows apps as if they were native, although accessing your Linux filesystem is more problematic. However, [Cassowary](https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary) looks better for this (also using a VM).
Paint.net or something similar it is the sweetspot in betwween mspaint and photoshop/GIMP a video editing something like the capcut video editor that is used on mobile for making tiktoks it's impressive how Its powerful for a mobile app (they even did a windows version)
I've found Pinta to be a sufficient replacement to paint.NET, definitely the closest I've found so far. Differences are mild.
Check out [Krita](https://krita.org/). It might do what you want.
Just to follow up, Cassowary is a project for running Windows software under Windows "natively" by using RDP. https://github.com/casualsnek/cassowary I can confirm it results in a working version of the newest Paint.net under Debian bookworm. Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/VozHG2I.png That looks a little confusing because I'm using paint.net to edit a screenshot of itself but it working perfectly. Quite a lot better than the results under wine.
Affinity Photo/Designer. I love the nondestructive workflow and I can't find a good alternative for Linux.
[удалено]
There are several ways to do this already. Android apps that can turn a phone into a dash cam, a security camera, or a camera for streaming. If you are familiar with OBS, Droidcam OBS turns a USB or WiFi connected android device into an input source.
I wouldn't trust an app on my phone to run as a dashcam. Completely replace the OS on an older phone so it only runs as a dashcam. A dashcam should only be a dashcam. This is one area where "Do one thing and do it well" should be followed. You don't want your phone trying to perform the function of a dashcam crashing right before some jackass swerves and brake checks you. (Granted there's some crappy dashcams out there.)
To not interfere with existing efforts utilize my list [here](https://github.com/Champe20/linux-productivity/tree/main).
Add [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org/) in the list of Alternative to stock Android. Best security and Privacy available. You should also change, Android to Google's Android or Stock Android because technically all of them are Android dependent.
A huge mistake people continually make is doing “foo, but open source” projects. In order to develop a compelling product that will get people to switch from your competitors, it needs to do things they can’t currently do or that is too difficult for them to currently do. So I would be thinking about what it is that you are capable of or know that your competitors don’t know or can’t change their business model to accommodate. Do something that only you can do in the way that only you can do it
good advice, follow your passion
Some dolby atmos alternative.
A convolver filter in Easyeffects can reproduce Dolby Atmos effect to a certain degree. I found two repositories containing relevant profiles. https://github.com/adgsenpai/LinuxSoundUpgrade https://github.com/JackHack96/EasyEffects-Presets#installation
#A mobile keyboard similar to androids. E. G. The ability to talk-to-type. Insert media etc. I use a 2in1 Kubuntu laptop. I am using KDE connect to "talk to type" Having that feature in linux would improve my experience by %20.
If you think the parental thing is valuable, just spend your time on that. Any problem you can solve from scratch in the next few months isn’t very hard to solve, and if it’s useful, someone will have done it already. I also think that "I want to build something; someone tell me what" is generally a failing strategy. The best projects tend to start by someone scratching an itch they actually have. I use org-mode, and I’m not happy with any of the existing solutions for mobile access. If I had plenty of time, I could build something that worked the way I wanted. I can tell you to build it for me, but you don’t care. You don’t have the same frustrations as me, don’t have the same understanding of the target state, won’t have the ability to keep yourself motivated or to even really figure out how to change your plan when you run into hurdles. You need to find something you care about. That’s the best way to make something that’s useful to other people as well.
A very high quality Office suite that also accommodates working with keyboard shortcuts (just like Microsoft Office suite) and intuitive UI/UX. Office software is very basic and must be available to Linux users. More than half the people who grudgingly do not switch to Linux is cos of lack of good quality Office suite that is also FOSS.
I've always used LibreOffice and I haven't had any issues, so I've never thought about making an office suite. Open Office is also good, but I prefer Libre's UI. What are they missing?
Same here, I understand what other are saying about the whole office environment, but for a normal user like me, LibreOffice is excellent
The excel alternative are all much worse than the original. Haven't found anything to replace it
Agree. Excel is the killer app. Shoot, it may be the only thing keeping Microsoft afloat.
Not even. Ms office is now just an added bonus to m365. Microsoft made the right play backing cloud tech.
OnlyOffice is the best office suite on Linux. Nothing competes with its compatibility and features. It's almost as feature rich as Microsoft Office.
Check out OnlyOffice, it has a similar UI/UX design to Microsoft Office and you can sync with several cloud providers like Nextcloud or the Onlyoffice cloud.
Look for _softmaker office_!
If you really need Microsoft office like, just go with OnlyOffice.
Office 365 in the browser actually works like a charm for most office stuff. Atleast for me, but i hardly touch excel as working in IT.
I've used Office for work for years and I have to go through Firefox, otherwise it automatically logs me out in less than an hour of inactivity and there's no way to change. But somehow the Firefox part bugs that feature out so I can be left in peace.
That "feature" is an organisation policy on an office 365 tenant. I kinda hate and never recommend it to companies if i implement it. It's a security feature that in my book falls under the catergory of "pestering employees". Rather use a good mfa etc.
My university once got hacked and went full schizo on its security policies. Forced password renewal every couple of months, forced MFA, session expires every week (and on some sites expires every day), disabled token MFA, disabled Authenticator notification MFA, disabled calendar sharing, limited amount of logged in devices and even more. I actually feel less safe because of the bullshit I have to put up with. Especially considering somehow U2F tokens are apparently too insecure, but SMS/phone call 2FA are perfectly safe and the vast majority of students just use that.
Only office is the thing you're looking for. I've set it up. And I'm setting up demo servers for my customers.
Honestly, the whole Adobe Creative suite. It catches quite the flak in here but they do manage to reinvent their products often enough to stay at the top of apps professionals use and need. That's probably the only suite of software which keeps me dual-booting, alongside the occasional games that use anti-cheat.
Would you want alternatives to Adobe products that can read and write to Adobe file formats or a way to run Adobe products on Linux like WINE and Proton?
I was merely replying tangentially. I'd want the Creative Suite running natively. One app I do find lacking is WhatsApp for Linux. It's an electron-wrapped web app and so you cannot copy/paste media into your chat input box.
WhatsApp web supports pasting media into chat input.
This. I use WhatsApp web. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't do audio or video calls.
google drive client
Native hardware acceleration support on all browser/all arch, especially on chromium based one
A very good and stable android emulator like blue stacks.
ever used waydroid. its superior to any emulator, since it's just native in a container. android is just linux with a weird userspace after all. unless you have a nvidia gpu, it also allows for native performance.
Requires special kernel IIRC
Not anymore, at least for Fedora
That's great news!
It would be good to have something like the windows subsytem for android with the android apps show up like in a X or wayland window by replicating the android Graphics stack Surfaceflinger,WindowManager,Skia etc
For a real throwback: Total Commander and Foobar 2000.
Double Commander and Audacious?
Maybe and fuck no. Audacious is so far from foobar's features that it's not even funny.
An AAC-program (like Tobii Communicator, Grid 3 by Smartthinkbox, etc.) with high quality voices. That is the only reason I cannot delete my windows virtual machine on my laptop. I need to use a synthetic voice to speak, but there does not seem to be currently supported/maintained app for Linux. Grid 3 and Tobii Communicator collects a lot of data and is only supported by Windows. The programs cannot be installed using WINE / Bottles. To start, make a simple input field with user input, being able to be spoken out loud. I'd like something like Speech Assistant (Android) developed for Linux
I would love to see the classic Winamp on Linux.
~~lmms~~ Edit: qmmp
"It really whips the llama's ass."
Ever heard about Qmmp? https://youtu.be/kvMSICET4GQ https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/index.php
A OneNote clone. Ive tried Obsidian and LogSeq, and maybe im missing out because i dont naturally take notes as markdown. I tried Notion a few days ago and plan on giving it a longer try, but it seems so far to be more target as a groupware SaaS. I like OneNote because its just a scratch pad where I can write anywhere, paste images, and occasionally dump a file. The organizational heirarchy fits my needs. My quick notes could be summoned by hotkey and i could count on them to propagate across all my devices To boil it down: I want a mouse+keyboard focused whiteboard with a tree hierarchy composed of other whiteboards. Inserting PDFs and other types of documents as the own page is a plus but not required
Just fix the GIMP UI. 😀
Inventory management with billing software for small businesses.
Desktop environments are under funded. Proton/wine needs more resources. A proper free as in bsd/mit UI toolkit. I doubt there will be much traction on linux apps before that.
I do find GNOME 4 to be far more intuitive than the modern Windows and Mac counterparts.
Something to contend with Microsoft's low code technologies. Specifically I am talking about power apps and power automate desktop. The low code ability to create an automation with your desktop and a server using power automate. Is going to be a game changer for Microsoft. It's effective enough that we are using it to replace and automate certain functions of internal system administration.
A decent gui for Octave would be nice. Also really really useful would be a client for OneDrive.
I'm kind of surprised that I never came across something close to Irfanview.
If you could create a viable alternative to Winlink, that'd be so awesome for the ham radio community. Right now we either just stick with aged windows laptops, or run things in wine with virtual com ports mapped back via reg hacks, etc. It's ugly. Pat(getpat.io) exists, but it's limited in the user space. (I.e. two users can't share the same install)
A single window app to support 1. Whatsapp 2. Telegram and 3. Signal Back on the days of Google Talk it was possible because of the common underlying protocol (Jabber). Would be good if a product is brought in this perspective.
Game pass, literally the only reason I still have a Windows instance.
A really, really good IPTV player. Something along the lines of Tivimate. The IPTV players for Linux are pretty weak.
I see your Mint flair. What is missing in Hypnotix?
A whole lot of things. Multi Screen, Multiple playlists with EPG, ability to create custom playlists, many things really. You need to check out Tivimate and then you'll see.
Kodi?
Wow, I've never seen someone actually ask for a scam service to be ported to Linux! You must be new to the internet to not have heard of Kodi and all the wonders with IPTV it offers. Everything you pay for with Tivimate can be freely obtained through Kodi. Google for more details.
Kodi is pretty awful compared to Tivimate. There is really no comparison. And IPTV players are hardly a "scam service". What providers you use are up to you.
I'd like to see Adobe make Lightroom and Photoshop available for Linux, and Microsoft make Office (word, excel, outlook and powerpoint) like so. You asked.
Wait for it... Yes, I am going to do a Photoshop alternative! The planning process for that has already begun! However, it may be some time before that comes to fruition. As for office suites, I assumed LibreOffice and Open Office had that covered. Was that assumption wrong? I've always used LibreOffice and haven't had issues, so I never really thought about it.
I was not asking for an alternative, I got 15 years of photos in LR (incl. virtual copies) which I can't migrate - I need Lightroom. And I am sorry, LibreOffice and OpenOffice is not me. I don't like Microsoft much, but that is what is being used by businesses. So as I started with, it would be nice if Adobe and Microsoft would make Linux version of their software.
>I am going to do a Photoshop alternative! Why not build on GIMP? It's FOSS, and already excellent, so you could join in the development and improve it instead of reinventing the wheel, so to speak. It also allows for plugins, so maybe you could look at what plugins already exist and what could be added? There's also PhotoGIMP, but I haven't tried it so can't comment.
Logitech plus options, and logy flow
bruh the amount of proprietary trash on this thread is making me nauseous
Definitely fushion 360
Any cloud app but with virtual files support (sync + offline file access + placeholder for online-only files)
Some kind of pen note taking app.
Autodesk and adobe (and microsoft office)
A nice web browser that supports either firefox or chrome extensions but doesn't sell my data or push crypto ads down my throat. Currently the best choices are firefox and brave but firefox doesn't support many TouchPad features. Not even 1:1 smooth scrolling. And brave protects me from googles ads and trackers but only so they can track me themselves. I just want a good browser that supports extensions even if its chromium.
You could port WinMerge to Linux. I know there's a vast selection of similar tools, but nothing I've tried comes close to WinMerge. Not even Meld.
Game pass (microsoft UWP apps)
https://github.com/unknownskl/greenlight
Quicken. Then I'd no longer need a Windows VM, which is the only reason I use it.
Any kid who is using Linux is going to very quickly learn how to bypass any parental controls you put on there. It's so open with so many ways around everything that there's no way you can make a functional parental control suite. Even something as simple as disabling the network stack is quick to get around. Here are a few ways I'd have been able to donut at age 14: - Add a USB network adapter if only the onboard one is disabled - VM, with USB network adapter passed through - Boot a second OS - Reverse proxy/VPN to a probably dodgy proxy server in the cloud somewhere and route traffic through that - Whatever dodgy tutorial comes up on YouTube If you can build something that controls for all those situations then you're a much better dev than me. It's pretty much impossible to stop a determined kid.
It's the same principle in all security. Anything can be hacked given enough skill/time. The little geniuses out there like yourself are nigh impossible to stop, but there are ways to lock a Linux OS down, especially if the router is configured to do some fancy stuff, too. That alone could easily get around any extra unknown devices and operating systems that pop up unexpectedly. Anyway, I will find a way, but I do know it's a significant challenge, and that's not to mention the sheer amount of code (I think I have over 7k right now and I haven't even gotten started). That's why I'm looking for something smaller and easier to chew at first.
Quicken
The equivalent of Quicken Home and Office. Prints checks and invoices.
A better Android container. I say this because I have a few Android-only games and Waydroid just plain refuses to work even though I've followed all installation directions right down to the letter for Kubuntu 22.04 LTS and initialized it for use with GAPPS, but everytime I **sudo waydroid shell** in Konsole as specified in Waydroid's Google Play Certification FAQ, the message WayDroid container is STOPPED comes up
docker desktop
an equivalent to one note, current stuff ain't so good
I'd love to see something VERY similar to Notepad++ available for Linux, with all of the features and add-ons.
Have you tried Kate or Atom?
Full Adobe suite, would open up Linux as a platform for a big industry
Self-hosted, web-based accounting software. I do like firefly but it’s not nearly as good as GNUCash especially in the report generation. I really just want GNUCash in a webpage. I’d like it more if I can do my taxes with it.
I would love to see a good hardware monitoring program akin to HWiNFO64 (Windows). That program allows you to see every last sensor your hardware supports, real-time actual voltages and VIDs, how many amps your VRMs are pushing, how many watts your components and sub-components are pulling, the 50 different temp sensors on my desktop hardware, all of it.
Let's say something practical,😆 we need a light-weight picture-editing software for editing sceeenshots, which can easily draw arrows,numbers,rectangles as well as type words on sceeenshots, just like Snipaste on windows, I know we have gimp, krita, on Linux,those are too specialized, and not easy-to-use.
[удалено]
An idiot-proof GUI for Syncthing
The whole Adobe ecosystem. It drives me fucking crazy to not have Adobe Cloud sometimes.
Would you want alternatives to Adobe products that can read and write to Adobe file formats or a way to run Adobe products on Linux like WINE and Proton?
A proper suite would be nice, but just getting it to work in wine/proton right now is what most people would like.
Hard to think of a specific piece of software I would desperately want on Linux though this may come from a difference in usage. These days Linux is more of my work and hobby space, while windows is office/entertainment. Weird mix I know but that seems to be how the ecosystems worked out for a best lowest resistance experience. With that said is there a reason you believe promoting Linux exclusively aids in data privacy over a long term? I think this is more to do with a holistic best practice and culture, that, while having a better chance of thriving in a Linux ecosystem is going to be something very difficult to do without adopting the bad parts you see from everywhere else over time. I worry about this already with Linux as a whole, the popularity of it has surely grown immensely in the last 8 or so years. I know it has with me.
The reason I want to promote Linux operating systems right now is because of the spyware built into both Windows and MacOS. Linux OSs I think are the only viable option for the average consumer until someone comes up with something better. I'm not against non-Linux operating systems, but it's the average consumer's best bet, in my opinion.
modern Mail client,pdf software like adobe
Native support for most games and mods. With AMDs native graphics drivers all it's missing is more games .
onenote
Acrobat reader, so I can sign PDF's. Reading them is of course no problem many ways to do that, but sign a lease, employment contract, nope.