Linux gains more critical Windows apps: 3D Movie Maker and Space Cadet Pinball Thanks in part to a Register reader and skilled programmer-archeologist, we bring you news of yet more vital enterprise Windows tools that have been brought to Linux. All right, we know, nobody was holding back their Linux deployment until Microsoft 3D Movie Maker was made available, but it's here now. It's not the only familiar …
Affinity Studio
DaVinci Resolve (yes, I know that, technically, there is one, but it's not exactly a breeze to install on ALL the major distros)
TextPad (it's the editor I've been using for donkey's years - version 8 will run under Wine, though 9 croaks big time)
Everything by voidtools (there are clones but none I've found so far are a patch on the Windows-only original).
I have to admit that I have never used a single one of these -- but I have barely run Windows even for work in over a decade.
For text editors, file searching, and so on, there are multiple tools.
E.g. for search, I found this:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/31063/is-there-a-file-search-engine-like-everything-in-linux
For the others, I don't know what to tell you. I've never even seen them. I bet other things do some of what they do, and as for WINE, well perhaps you need to test on a current version, or failing that, Codeweavers Crossover...?
I loved the VoidTools "Everything" tool on Windows, but given that the real-time NTFS updates depend on some registry/metadata on Windows that doesn't exist in Linux, a port is unlikely. The nearest approximation I've found is FSearch. While not a direct clone, I've found it perfectly usable.
What I miss, oddly enough, is MS Paint. Yes, I've tried Krita, and Pinta, and MyPaint, and all the others listed at AlternativeTo.net, but sadly, none of them match the lightweight ability to load a screenshot, mark it up and save it all in 30 seconds. Gradia is good, but most of the alternatives keep adding features, defeating the purpose of using it as an ultra lightweight touchup tool.
For full disclosure, I totally love everything about Krita, it's my go-to for digital painting. It's powerful, has a great UI and is actually a pleasure to use. But lightweight, it isn't. It's overkill for the stuff you are talking about. And there definitely is a niche for just a basic simple image editor, like MS Paint.
I suppose I could try out Tuxpaint, even if it was designed for kids, just to fill that use case.
I used TextPad at the various times in the past I've been obliged to use Windows (thankfully no more), and yes, it's a very nice all-purpose text and code editor. As a long-time Linux user I can thoroughly recommend Geany as virtually a drop-in replacement, with comparable functionality and a decent set of plugins. It runs on Windows too, so you can test-drive it. FWIW, it uses the same editing component (Scintilla) as Notepad++.
Affinity[1] is the biggest reason why I broke down and got this Mac.[2]. I'd definitely be more likely to go Linux full-time if those and a few others ended up on Linux. I'm content enough as a Mac user, but I'd like having the option to switch comfortably, and those would be a big part of it.
[1] And previously, the Adobe stuff
[2] Another is simply because it is somewhat more hassle-free for day to day stuff.
What I'd much prefer to see is for GNU to not be tainted by more degenerate proprietary software.
There already exists free replacements for pretty much every proprietary program - if you feel like the replacements aren't functionally good enough - development time would clearly be much better allocated to functional improvements - as the end result of sustained development is a functionally better program.
Seems more akin to religious fundamentalism. And in a lot of ways, that harms both Linux and OSS in general. Zealots aren't going to notice the flaws or deficiencies. Nothing is wrong with the software the way it is, it's the people who need something else who are wrong. I almost ran away from Linux after dealing with one who was screaming at me on a local support mailing list for trying to get Photoshop working. How I shouldn't ever use anything proprietary and should suffer no high bit depth nor non-destructive editing (and go without several tools I needed, and totally change my workflow) out of "purity". You can't reason with such people, and they won't make any OSS projects better in the long run, because they are always right and potential users are always wrong.
You can't argue with zealots of any stripe, and it's a waste of time and energy. While I'm content enough with that proprietary fruit UNIX and the Affinity suite and a paid text-editor for now, I want the option to leave. I want to be able to do everything I want the way I want using LInux. I do want to see OSS stuff improve and succeed, but that's only going to happen once it can lure people away on its own technical virtues and not ideological ones.
I consider religions one of the worse kinds of evil, but their concepts form the made up stories are quite exciting.
Real zealots for freedom always notice the flaw of proprietary software and purge it.
"OSS" and "Linux" are false prophets - the former is about serving proprietary software companies, the latter is a proprietary kernel - I desire the elimination of both.
It kind of isn't a bad thing if people who are going to always be running proprietary software are gatekept from the free GNU OS, as that means the proprietary software is gatekept out.
Krita and GIMP do support non-destructive editing and adjustable bit depth, but those are convenience features that you can do without.
People who care about freedom (or practically care about not being punished over and over again and needing to pay each time), do without, or implement the missing functionality themselves (although cases of such are becoming less and less common - mostly the inverse is true now - there are many things that you can do on GNU, that you can't on windows).
It's not surprising you are content with foot-cuffing yourself with conceptually the forbidden fruit with a bite out of it (it was a fig in the story, but it's now portrayed as an apple and well the Apple I did cost $666.66 too (wrong number too, it was originally 616)) and using some garbage proprietary text editor (there are dozens and dozens of free text editors exist and many of those are functionally superior too).
I am driven to make GNU even more free, to ensure you don't come and taint it.
Wow, that's presumptuous as anything, and exactly what I'm talking about with regard to zealotry and fanatics. How DARE you tell me which features I need for my art. "You don't need that fancy Leica, this cheap Soviet knockoff is all you need!". Gimp only recently got the high bit-depth and non-destructive editing. It still lacks tools that save me hours of work on individual pieces, and has a UI that I'd have to fight to get anything done. As much as I love Krita[1] it is not as strong for photo editing as Affinity or Photoshop. I use computers to get stuff done, and perhaps play a few games and want a minimum of fuss when doing so. And calling BBEdit garbage shows you are exactly the fanatic I'm talking about. I use vim, emacs, and kate on both Mac and Linux, but always return to BBEdit as the primary one. Compared to Affinity, for my use, Gimp is wearing a rubber suit and using its personal toothbrush to clean Affinity's toilet.
Like 99+% of users out there, I haven't signed up for an ideology. It's a machine that does things, and a pleasant user experience with a minimum of frustration. I want to do them comfortably and not fight the OS or various applications to get them done. While I *do* sometimes resent being "stuck" with a Mac as a primary machine, it is currently what best suits my needs. I need certain proprietary software to work flawlessly pretty much every time. That is not always possible on Linux, and having to use WINE. There is a lot of OSS software I use every day, but my definition of "freedom" as a user is to be able to use the tools which suit me best reliably.
[1] I've been using it daily recently for digital painting/drawing and find it wonderful to work with, especially using the iPad as a drawing tablet)
I do not care about whether a program is gratis or costs money - there is no problem with free software that costs money to get a copy from the commercial developer.
Proprietary programs taint the OS by removing the freedom - this applies whether the program is gratis or costs money.
I do not like or support Linux, as it is proprietary software - although I do support GNU Linux-libre and GNU Hurd.
If caring that the users freedom is respected is extreme, yeah, I am an extremist.
"10 programs that businesses need" is not a honest argument, as it ignores the free software that businesses use just fine and also ignores the portable proprietary software that businesses use and instead pretends that a subset of businesses, that are handcuffed to specific proprietary programs, that are only available on windows and/or macos, are the only businesses that exist.
Eventually, such proprietary programs are going to no longer be available, or the supporting business is going to fold and then such businesses will need to find another program.
There does in fact exist a free implementation of any program you could reasonably need on a computer and every day more functionality is added, but if a businesses only selects non-portable, proprietary programs each time it selects software, then the expected result will occur.
Textpad?
I switched to Notepad++ on XP very long ago, maybe 15+ years ago. Far better. I even ran it on WINE on Linux Mint for a while from 2016 till I discovered KATE (Mint with Mate Desktop).
I was using many programs on XP & Win7 that were also on Linux before final switch in 2017 (not an exhaustive list)::
Filezilla
Thunderbird
Open Office then Libre Office
Apache, MySQL, PHP etc
Firefox
PuTTY
wget
VLC
The GIMP
Java
Calibre
Ghostscript (PDF and Postscript viewing / export)
Eagle (I've moved to KiCAD, but do have Win Eagle on WINE & Linux Eagle)
Inkscape (I earlier used DesignWorks on Win3.x & XP in preference to Corel Draw).
What's needed is native ports to Linux of leading Windows software for small & larger business of:
Sage & other Accounts.
Payroll
Stock control
Maybe Visio, which MS bought in and has done little to.
Some Enterprise level programs.
Maybe in all less than 10 programs!
Not 2nd rate MS applications for movie editing or presentations.
There are only a few niche things in MS Office that some businesses need. Access is junk compared even to MS SQL. Powerpoint is inferior to many packaged that used to be on Win 3.x! No-one needs it. VBA in MS Office is madness.
Adobe PDF tools are not needed.
It could earn some well needed kudos for open sourcing of stuff that there isn't a commercial market for but still interest in. I, for one, would love to see the code for Foxpro Unix. I'm confident there's loads of other stuff gathering dust that would give Microsoft at least some love for the 'enthusiast' community...
I suspect they don't Open Source it because that simply would be too embarrassing. It would reveal too much crummy code, patched over with a boatload of ugly kludges. Take this, for example (from the blog post by Chen liked to in the article):
"The solution is to initialize the memory manager twice."
No. The REAL solution would have been to release a proper OS with at least half-decent memory management. But because Win95 was essentially DOS + Windows 3.1 + said boatload of ugly kludges, that would have required writing better OS code from scratch, which MICROS~1 was both incapable of and unwilling to do.
It would also reveal why MS applications that ran on Windows could never be made to run under OS/2 Warp's Windows application support (hint: they were specifically engineered not to work on OS/2) and what deliberate but unnecessary back-end dependencies and protocol manglings were included to lock users irrevocably into the MS ecosystem.
Trust me, they don't want that particular cesspool opened.
"The solution is to initialize the memory manager twice."
No. The REAL solution would have been to release a proper OS with at least half-decent memory management.
You mean like Windows NT? The first version even ran the graphical subsystem in user space.
When looking at Windows you have to look at the situation as a whole. Microsoft did what made commercial sense. The hack on top of DOS would run on most peoples computers at the time, NT wouldn't, the requirements whilst tiny by todays standards were huge for the day. They weren't just choosing not to do it right, they were pushing the limits of what they could run ontop of DOS.
For example, NT 3.1 required a recommended 16MB of memory to run. in 1993 that was not within the reach of most computer users, and when software for windows and DOS 'worked', then justifying the extra outlay on some hardware that would still just allow you to run the software you already could run wasn't easy.
Putting it in context... 4MB in 1993 was 135 quid. Would you really spend an extra 405 quid just to get proper memory protection? You don't have the internet, a crash means a reboot and learning to save often isn't that hard.
