What non-FOSS software are you using that you wish you could replace?

For me its honestly a ton of my work software (digital forensics), shit is too niche to be replaced by good FOSS options. Cellebrite, Magnet Axiom, etc. Autopsy is great and free and has a linux version but it simply cannot get the same level of data without a pretty nutty level of custom code.

And the biggest side effect of this is FUCKING WINDOWS. God I would replace this nightmare OS in a heartbeat if the aforementioned work software would make linux compatible versions. We have legitimately wasted 10k hours dealing with windows bullshit that would not be a problem in linux. Though im sure linux would take a different 10k for its own problems.

What about you guys? Doesn’t have to be work related, thats just the thorn in my side right now.

graphito,
@graphito@beehaw.org avatar

Bloody banking apps. I’m sick of them not exposing any API to make third party apps.

jetsetdorito,

If you just want to set up viewing transactions you can setup Actual Budget

mojo,

Discord. God I hate that program, but everyone I know uses it.

Penguincoder,

Same as Reddit; it’s network affect. There are different applications out there for various purposes that work better/nicer than Discord. But not enough people are using them so everyone goes where everyone else is at.

gutter564,

Geddit is not bad front end. No reddit account needed

mamotromico,

Honestly I can’t replace discord with something that doesn’t have the streaming feature. I use that waaaay too much

ono,

I decided to be the change I want to see, so I got my gaming group a Mumbe server for audio chat. I self-host, but commercial ones are dirt cheap. Sound quality is better than Discord. We use Matrix for text, pictures, etc.

YuzuDrink,
@YuzuDrink@beehaw.org avatar

Discord on Linux is one of the biggest reasons I stopped trying to switch to Linux. Not the only, and I know web apps are a thing. But I hate setting literally a web app when there’s a “native” app, but their native app was doubling all my back/forward button inputs, and high was a massive disruption.

It was far from the only reason, more like the final straw in a growing list of frustrating shit that ALMOST worked right.

mojo,

That’s weird, I’ve never had that issue

Sina,

Windows Discord is also a web app.

Hexarei,
@Hexarei@programming.dev avatar

Just gotta say, I didn’t expect to see emojis in a username, and I am both appalled and impressed

RosemarySolomon,

Intuit software, specifically TurboTax. This also may become obsolete to replace if the IRS will give out free software as rumored for next year, but I’m surprised nothing as intuitive ^pun ^heh or user-friendly has popped up. Maybe I need to do more research, not sure.

MJBrune,

Windows. Linux as a desktop just isn’t stable enough for me. Too many bugs with GUI settings. I don’t want to look up multiple ways to do things just to be eventually kicked into the command line and hopefully run the right commands to get some basic settings working. I’d love for Linux to be more stable and to have a cohesive GUI.

On the more cosmetic side running KDE apps in Gnome or running Gnome apps in KDE is just a further huge mess that can essentially ruin how your system looks which could potentially soft-lock you on screens that you can’t read. The DE on Linux just should do the Windows and Mac thing of requiring hooks to allow them to set important color and theme settings.

Windows is terrible but it’s still leagues above Linux in some real basic ways. Linux is going to need to step it up if it ever wants a serious “year of the Linux desktop” to happen before the death of the desktop computer altogether.

averyminya,

Basically the longstanding issue of having “total control”. There needs to be a middle ground between having total control and being forced to use it (while for the most part having no limitations but are either not very straightforward or are far too straightforward) and being given the illusion of control (while for the most part not having limitations until you do, then you can’t get around them).

The Steam Deck has been the most accessible Linux desktop and it still has been frustrating at times.

Icarus, (edited )

If you haven’t checked out Pop!_OS I’d recommend giving it a try. While I’m using a system76 laptop so they guarantee hardware compatibility, it’s been one of the smoothest and most functional DE/guis I’ve used. Ive never had to resort to a command line* and aaalllmost everything you’d expect to find exists in the gui.

*caveat. Except for some really esoteric problems, which are usually a result of my own tinerking

MJBrune,

Pop os has constantly been recommended to me. I’m certainly putting it on the list to try this year. I’ll probably load up a ventoy USB with a ton of oses and report back eventually.

d3Xt3r,

I’m curious what “basic settings” require you to touch the command line. My elderly mum and dad - who aren’t very tech savvy btw - have been running Linux for nearly a decade now (Xubuntu previously, now Zorin) and haven’t had any major issues in all this time. Admittedly their requirements are pretty basic, but they do all your tasks a typical basic PC user would - surf the web, check emails, work on documents, print and scan stuff, backup files from their phones/USB drives, video chat etc. In fact, the entire reason why I got them onto Linux in the first place was because Windows wasn’t really stable for them - I got tired of having to troubleshoot or reinstall Windows for them all the time. They’d complain about how an update broke something, or how the system was becoming slower etc. But no such issues with Linux. Occasionally I might get a call asking “how do I do this”, but after a few years, these support calls have all but vanished. Linux “just works” for them, it’s rock solid, the GUI is intuitive (at least for Xububtu/Zorin) and they never had to touch the command line.

MJBrune,

The best example that comes to mind is mouse acceleration. Fedora has a setting in the GUI for it but it didn’t work. So I literally had to set it in my bashrc to get it to work.

Another issue I saw was os theme being multiple settings depending on gtk or qt apps.

Another issue is video card driver. I’ve had Ubuntu auto update and brick my install, dropping me down to grub because grub was set to use my Nvidia proprietary drivers but the kernel module wasn’t installed despite me setting it in the GUI to use the Nvidia drivers.

Multiple issues with peripherals and having to install a random GitHub Python script for watcom drivers or Xbox controllers.

Oh, also vpn settings on the os level didn’t work on debian recently. I had to configure it via command line.

monotrox,

In my experience most problems with linux are at the intermediate level, i.e. things like setting up university/work vpn, installing games (with wine), getting used to different applications for office stuff. This is all stuff that many people have to do that can be hard to achieve if you only have guides for windows/mac

thedarkfly,

Honestly, I haven’t found anything that can replace Google Maps for route planning with public transportation. I really wish for crowdsourced timetables hosted on OSM…

gutter564,

You can use Gmaps WV to use GMaps without an Google account at least

d3Xt3r,

Have you checked out Transportr btw?

thedarkfly,

Oh yeah, I did try it a year or so ago. I’m giving it another try but it still doesn’t work. I’ll try to get involved, thanks for the suggestion.

AI_toothbrush,

Facebook messenger bc of my waterpolo teammates, discord, google maps bc im horrible at using maps and other apps are just too hard for me lol. Spotify bc i have all my liked songs and albums on it and im too lazy to migrate. On the desktop side everything i use is foss basically.

Kk,
@Kk@kbin.social avatar

What FOSS Map apps have you tried?:)

AI_toothbrush,

Osmand and orgabic maps. Google maps just feels like home to me.

OneRedFox,
@OneRedFox@beehaw.org avatar

Nvidia drivers. Back in 2019, I was looking to replace my Nvidia card with an AMD one, but decided I could put that off for a few months. Then COVID happened along with the cryptocurrency boom and prices skyrocketed to unreasonable levels. Nvidia drivers are honestly the last holdout on my machine barring perhaps some firmware somewhere.

syl,

Sublime text. It is just so fucking good! Much more performant than even nvim.

nestEggParrot,

Exacty hows it more performant than nvim? Sure has some GUI functionalities but nvim supports many mouse actions even.

I’ve mostly used ST as my primary choice for quick edits or other raedom files thats not part of my project files. I use NVim while working on the CLI and dont need to do large rapid edits. If I need I can learn some advanced commands of nvim to make better use of it or set up some good key binds.

In terms of plugins, they both have all basic ones for daily dev needs. Nvim honestly have a bunch of useful integrations thats very easy to do if using something like astrovim.

Haven’t seen any performance drops in either with bunch of extensions. On that note vscode has even more extensive plugins available for most setup needs without too much of a performance hit. I’ve only seen it perform bad on a 6th gen i3 with 8gb ram when run along with eclipse, dozen chrome tabs and postman. Thats the reason I chose ST initially.

DarkHeartDom,

Umm, no. Nvim setup properly will smoke sublime. Check out one of the pre-built ide like versions like Astro or Lunar. Stock to stock, nvim will be faster. Configured to configured, nvim will be faster.

syl,

No. I have tested it extensively and sublime is just smoother. Try just doing a snippet and you will notice the difference in smoothness. Sublime is butter smooth.

lnsfw3,

OSX. I miss Ubuntu/Gnome’s configurable key bindings so much.

nestEggParrot, (edited )

Karabiner elements if you haven’t tried. Had so much fun, customising is with just a json file. Most common layouts and some cool ones are already available on their site for download.

Honestly had a much better experience with mac than on linux or win simply bcos of that piece of software. Its mac only sadly.

Looking now it seems to have changed a bunch with more features than when I used it back in 2021. Might not even need to work directly on json files.

gutter564,

Paraphrasing our Lord and saviour Mental Outlaw, convincing normies to use Signal is the hard part. And so I have to use ZuckApp

psykon, (edited )
@psykon@kbin.social avatar

For me it's Adobe After Effects. Yeah, I can do most of what it does in a combination of blender, natron, gmic, etc.. but I really like the workflow of AFX. Not having that tool was one of the hardest parts of cancelling my Adobe subscription. Nowadays I would even settle for a non-foss alternative. As long as it's running on Linux. But so far, that has not happened (I use other non Foss tools that work great, like resolve/fusion and Houdini.. but I still miss AFX)

Edit: yeah, I missed a detail in the question: I do not currently use AFX but used it a lot in the past and am now trying to replicate workflows I based on it with other tools.. still miss it a lot and would give a lot to have a solid alternative...

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

I want to jump to linux, but the prospect of starting from scratch on a new OS (or even a reinstall of windows) is just not feasible right now.

RxBrad,
@RxBrad@lemmings.world avatar

If I was the only person using my PC, I’d probably make the jump.

Unfortunately, my wife would end me if I tried that.

Default_Defect,
@Default_Defect@midwest.social avatar

I’m in the process of getting my hands on a cheap laptop to at least use Linux so the eventual transition is easier, though.

svahnen,

Old Thinkpads make great Linux laptops with almost all models having all drivers working out of the box. Any model sufficiently new will work much better than any new laptop in the same price category. They also have great ports, replaceble batteries, screen, keyboards, ram, ssd and so on. I have a X250 and my wife have an T440s.

Buy anything newer then this (40 is my recommended minimum) if u want to use them as daily driver:

X440 (the smaller 13 inch laptops start with X)

T440 (14 inch, top of the class performance vs sleekness)

L440 (14 inch, don’t know what’s special here)

W540 (15 inch, workstation)

Some models can end with an S or P, example T440S. S models are thinner, P models are more powerful.

Just search your local marketplaces for “ThinkPad” then look for a picture of the screen and you will see the model number in the bottom left corner. ThinkPads have a red nob on the keyboard, so if the picture don’t have a nob, you can flick past it quicker 😉

You can even get one with the wrong keyboard layout and just replace it, they have so many replacement parts on ebay you can build one from scratch if you wanted. I replaced my keyboard to get backlighting and my screen to get 1920*1080 on a x250 I got for about 125 Dollar.

PS: don’t get a E variant, they are the budget variants with way worse build quality.

Edit: formatting

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S,
@PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Tl;Dr: it’s not as hard as you think.

I just jumped over to Linux in June. I booted into the Debian Live USB with KDE Plasma as the desktop environment. In general, make sure you have an Ethernet connection available for the first install. I basically tried it out in the live environment for a few days and I fell in love with it, in particular KDE Plasma. I picked Debian because I prefer not to update my PC very often (or at all on my music production computer), plus I had a nice time with the Raspberry Pi, which uses a derivative of Debian. If I really need the absolute newest version of any specific software, I have no problem installing it from a .deb and I can usually compile from source if the project is decently documented, but if you absolutely do not want to do that, you might want to pick a different distro. Whatever distro you pick, you’ll be able to install KDE Plasma later. KDE had all the features I actually liked from Windows 10, but just better and more customizable. You can really make KDE work for almost any workflow.

I ended up installing it onto my music PC in a dual-boot configuration with my existing Windows 7 install. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to migrate my music production projects off Windows 7 because I was sloppy over the course of a decade with project directory structures and multiple drives, so I probably can’t move these projects to any OS until I put in a few weeks of work to actually organize all those files. Oh well; everything else can work with Linux.

I’ve gotten pretty far so far by just installing Wine and Proton and using my existing Windows programs through those compatibility layers.

I also dropped Debian onto my school/work laptop in a dual-boot configuration with Windows 10. Except for the background, which I decided to make different, KDE is almost indistinguishable from Windows 10 until I start to use it, which reminds me how much nicer KDE is to use.

Most distros have live USBs with easy installers that make the whole process really painless. I basically installed Debian in the background while watching TV (Invidious), all inside the live install.

I also put Debian with LXQT on the remains of my old highschool PC, basically just a motherboard with integrated graphics, RAM, CPU, and case; no hard drive, no external graphics. I just put Debian onto a microSD card [1] and told the BIOS to look there for bootable drives. No commitment. As much as I love KDE, it does require non-trivial resources to exist. Since that hardware is over a decade old now, I really can’t afford to give any of it to a desktop environment.

So if you really can’t commit to Linux, you can slap it onto a large microSD and tell your BIOS/UEFI to boot it. It’s a little slower than putting on a drive, but sufficient to give Linux an extended test-drive.

You could also try installing it in a virtual machine. Linux plays very nicely with Virtualbox. I picked LXQT for my old PC by installing a virtual machine with Debian and installing a bunch of desktop environments onto the system. Then, I cut back the number of cores, processor speed, and RAM available to see how they acted.

My point is, I really think it’s a good idea to try Linux now. It really will not take very long to get a great, usablr system, and you can make it yours by making little changes as you go along.

[1] Meaning, I used a live install USB to install to a separate microSD card. A live install loads the entire OS and any programs you install into RAM. In general, the content of the live USB isn’t changed, and it’s difficult to do so. What I did was to treat the microSD card as a hard drive and install a normal system.

Sina,

LXQT

Not much lighter than kde outside of ram usage. (consider lxde, or just a wm)

PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S,
@PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

See that’s what I thought, and that’s what I got from simulating both systems in the virtual machine, but on my particular hardware LXQT ran a tad bit faster. I tried a few straight-up WM’s but I didn’t like them. On my main PC, which is about five years old, LXQT ran about as fast as KDE and LXDE was predictably wicked fast.

I’m reinstalling Linux onto a legitimate hard drive (it was on a microSD). I’ll install both again and see what happens. Although really, I just need enough to run TeamViewer so I can control my other machines from there.

MazonnaCara89,
@MazonnaCara89@lemmy.ml avatar

If you don’t want to start from scratch just use it but don’t install it on the pc!

You can get familiar with the os by trying it on a virtual machine or in a live usb, and the windows partition will always remain untouched!

bartlbee,

Autocad. This is the main (only?) reason I continue to use Windows. Professional 2d cad for architectural drafting has been lacking in Linux for a long time. There are a few commercial alternatives, Bricscad being the big one, but due to (cheap) grandfathered licensing cost for Autocad, I"ve been unable to push for a purchase. Qcad (professional) was another option I looked at but, despite being a good program at an amazing cost, had enough differences in work flow that I couldn’t find a good way to integrate it into a shared workflow.

Every once in a while I switch to Linux and either run a W10 vm or RDP just to work around the issue but, inevitably, get frustrated with performance. Freecad and Blender both seem to be working on the problem -but- from a BIM perspective, not detailed drafting . . .

sic_1,

So much this! And with the connectivity between Rhino/Archivad, Revit and TwinMotion I fear a solution is far away. Which surprises me because all of our professional software works fine natively on Mac, which is also Unix based. Isn’t there an easy way to emulate from that direction?

MayonnaiseArch,
@MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org avatar

Tried a bit of bricscad, have to say it’s wonderful just not using autodesk evil ooze. Maybe you can try emailing them so they can give you a discount?

Anyway, here with inventor, a horrible choice I’m stuck with

polymachine,

I hant heard of this before … It has Ubuntu and opensuse as supported plattform, and a one-time buy option?! This sounds amazing!

MayonnaiseArch,
@MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah, it’s the first alternative I like. It’s not foss but we really really suck at foss anyway

polymachine,

Im always rooting for FOSS alternatives (like inkscape just got a shape builer tool in 1.3, and now i can finally abandon Illustrator for good!)

I wish freeCAD was usable professinally, but for now it’s too convoluted and prone to crashing; and so ill take anything for a testrun that just supports linux natively.

Mechanical CAD is very niche and simultaneously complex to execute… Its just not ideal for hobby development

MayonnaiseArch,
@MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah, I was hoping freecad would get a bigger push after Autodesk screwed people over with fusion. Still it’s going, slow but going

itchy_lizard,

What’s wrong with the Arch workbench in FreeCAD?

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

On my phone: a FOSS “find-my-phone” function

On my computer: a FOSS way to access Teams for work. Just give me a Weechat plugin please.

mormegil,
@mormegil@programming.dev avatar

Access Teams? Do you need anything more than opening the Teams web app in a browser?

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

That is what I do…but I work for 4 companies that all use Teams and it would be nice to have all the profiles in one place.

PeachMan,
@PeachMan@lemmy.one avatar

Ah yes, maybe you’re in IT like me. 😆

Firefox Containers help, I have a separate container for each client. Actually I’ve been using Arc Browser more recently, it’s a great browser but not FOSS.

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

I’ve done that before. I work in higher education, actually. None of my employers actually need Teams. I don’t know why we use it. All important info is sent via email.

mormegil,
@mormegil@programming.dev avatar

Oh, and you can do that even in the official application? I thought it was impossible to be logged into multiple Teams accounts at the same time! (That was one of the reasons I was using Teas in a browser, being able to open another instance in a private window.) Or did they finally fix that, at least?

jhulten,

Look at owntrack. Send position data to your own server

bbbhltz,
@bbbhltz@beehaw.org avatar

That’s an interesting idea

Noughmad,

KDE Connect can find your phone, as long as it’s on the same network (basically, only at home). It’s not perfect but it’s something.

notenoughbutter,

findmydevice on fdroid

Lauchmelder,

OneNote on my foldable laptop. I use it to take notes in uni simply because it’s the best option out of all the ones I’ve tried. I like OneNote’s stabilization and infinite canvas. What annoys me tho is that you cannot set the canvas to paged, so if you’re planning on exporting to pdf you have no idea where the page boundaries are.

With the last Windows 11 update they fucked it up tho and now the app is garbage anyways

Saintzillla,

Not FOSS, but I’m a big One Note user for work and wanted to find something for my personal life and most likely will use it for my next professional role in at least some capacity…Notion is by far the most customizable and complete solution that’s also user friendly because of existing user templates. I’ve been SERIOUSLY impressed and I’ve been trying everything I can find.

Best part is that the phone and computer apps are both very capable. One Note on phone is the worst companion app.

Masterkraft0r,

notion is also not FOSS though. and i had bad experiences with the mobile app when cell service is bad.

asap,
@asap@feddit.de avatar

AnyType is an open-source alternative to Notion which recently launched:

anytype.io

perishthethought,

I use OneNote at work and Joplin, saved to a cloud drive, at home. It’s not as good, but close enough for my needs. I can access my personal notes on all my pcs and my phone.

d4r1us_drk,
@d4r1us_drk@beehaw.org avatar

Rnote is pretty good for handwritten notes, the canvas can be paged too.

Lauchmelder,

I’ll give that a shot! OneNote is literally unusable since the last Windows update because the on-screen keyboard keeps popping up everytime I touch the screen. then it goes away immediately and leaves a bugged white rectangle on the canvas

Lemongrab,
@Lemongrab@lemmy.one avatar

Notesnook is free, e2ee, nice ui, and has cloud sync. Recommmend

dkt,

Not really the same thing at all if there’s no handwriting support.

DarkHeartDom,

Joplin.

t_uxio,

Take a look at https://github.com/zadam/trilium

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • [email protected]
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • Ask_kbincafe
  • oklahoma
  • feritale
  • SuperSentai
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines
    •