Linux alternatives to windows software

Linux Alternatives to Popular Windows Apps [Part 1]

The desktop computing landscape is rapidly changing all around us. Microsoft is now pushing Windows 8, the biggest change Microsoft has made to the desktop since Windows 95. This means that whether a Windows user chooses to switch to Mac OS X, Linux, or stick with Windows, he/she is in for a new learning experience. A transition to Linux may just be more familiar than making the jump to Window 8, and there are many open source alternatives to popular Windows applications. This large list of open source alternatives could make your transition to Linux easier than you thought possible.

Web Browsers

This is arguably the most important category. Many of today’s computer users do nearly all of their computing inside of a browser. Thankfully for Linux, two of the world’s most popular web browsers run just fine on the platform: Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Major distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE all ship with Firefox by default. If you do not want Chrome, you can also install Chromium, which is the open source version of Chrome. Another popular option is the Opera web browser .

Linux is also rich with lesser-known open source alternatives that still work very well. If you use GNOME, consider checking out the Epiphany web browser (also known simply as “Web”) which is the GNOME Project’s default browser. Midori is another lightweight and peppy choice. KDE users can choose between Konqueror and rekonq, just to name a few.

Email Clients

If you have grown accustomed to the convenience afforded by Microsoft Outlook, there are quite a few options available to you in Linux. Mozilla Thunderbird is a popular alternative that is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac, making it the best cross-platform solution. The GNOME Project supplies Evolution, which comes with calendar and to-do list functionality out of the box. KDE users have access to Kontact, a full-featured suite like Evolution and Outlook, or KMail if you only want to send emails.

Office Suites

Many companies and institutions have standardized the use of Microsoft Office. However, there are many open source alternatives that allow students and professionals to remain competitive without having to use Microsoft’s product. LibreOffice is a fork of the popular OpenOffice suite and is now the office suite shipped by default with many of the most popular Linux distributions.

LibreOffice offers a large selection of applications that compete with most of the major applications within Microsoft Office:

• LibreOffice Writer in place of Microsoft Word
• LibreOffice Calc in place of Microsoft Excel
• LibreOffice Impress in place of Microsoft PowerPoint

The Calligra Suite is another complete office suite solution. This project is not as mature as the LibreOffice project, but it is in a state of very active development and presents a different approach to making an office suite than Microsoft Word and LibreOffice. Most of the applications in the Calligra Suite use the same base code, so the applications within the suite play along together very well. AbiWord is a lightweight word processor and Gnumeric is a lightweight spreadsheet application that together are occasionally referred to as part of a GNOME office suite. They present nice options for users with older, slower machines.

Desktop Publishing

This is admittedly a weak spot for Linux. If you want an alternative to Microsoft Publisher or Adobe InDesign, Scribus is largely your only option. In the future, the Calligra Suite may present comparable functionality, but it isn’t there yet.

Finance Managers

If you are used to using Microsoft Quicken to manage your finances, you may like to continue using a desktop application after transitioning to Linux. Keep in mind that Linux applications will lack some of Quicken’s convenience, since major banks work with Microsoft to allow for easy integration. However, Linux options present a plethora of functionality. GNOME users may be drawn to Gnucash or HomeBank, whereas KDE desktop users may feel right at home using KMyMoney or Skrooge.

This concludes the first part of the Linux alternative to popular Windows apps. In the next part, we will cover Linux alternative to your Windows media app, including photo editors, sound editors, video players and more. Stay tuned.

Bertel is a tech blogger and independent novelist who puts perhaps a tad too much trust in Google. He’s loved Android since the moment he got his eager hands on his first device — if not sooner — and has understood the Chromebook Pixel from day one.You can follow his work at bertelking.com.

Our latest tutorials delivered straight to your inbox

Источник

Linux software equivalent to Windows software

When migrating to Linux from Windows, a common question is «Where can I get an application for Linux that is similar to XYZ program on Windows?» Fear not! Listed below are programs that could be considered roughly equivalent to certain popular Windows applications. Note that the Linux programs might not have all the features which can be found in Windows proprietary software, but unless you are an expert in some Windows program this should not be a major obstacle.

Here is how to install software in Linux: Installing software

To install software in Linux you need root privileges i.e the root password.

Contents

Office and Productivity

LuckyBackup, Déjà Dup, Grsync, Duplicati more

Partition Image, g4u, Mondo Rescue, dd, gDiskDump (a dd frontend), Clonezilla, Trinity Rescue Kit

GParted, Clonezilla (a live cd), KDE Partition Manager, GNOME Disks

mount, Disk Image Mounter in Gnome/KDE, Furius ISO mount, AcetoneISO

Desktop Publishing

Scribus, Laidout, VivaDesigner, QuickSilver, Xara Xtreme, Karbon

Evince, Zathura, Okular, Bookworm, Qpdfview, Foxit reader, PDF Studio Viewer, Xpdf, MuPDF, Atril, Ghostview, more

CUPS-PDF, Libre Office, OpenOffice.org, PDF Studio, Kprinter — can convert to pdf. more

PDF Studio Pro, Master PDF Editor, Pdfedit, Pdfjam, Pdftk, Scribus, Inkscape, Karbon, Okular, Libreoffice Draw. Thanks to this more

xSane, VueScan, Simple Scan, Skanlite, Gscan2pdf, GIMP with Quitelnsane

Networking

Firefox, Konqueror, Epiphany (Gnome Web), Falkon, Microsoft Edge, Slimjet, Midori, Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Otter Browser, Brave, Vivaldi, Falkon, Pale Moon, Dillo, Dooble more

Источник

Open Source Alternatives To Windows Software In 2023

Windows operating system is popular not because of easy to use, it’s because of plenty of useful applications available only for windows operating system.

In this post, We are going to list out some of the important open-source alternatives to Windows software for Linux based operating system.

Open Source Alternatives To Windows Software In 2023

1. Office Suite

One of the most popular software for the Windows operating system is the Microsoft Office package. One of the reasons behind Windows popular in the desktop segment is the Microsoft Office package. Sadly, Microsoft office is not available for Linux based platform.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of alternatives to the Microsoft Office package for Linux.

• LibreOffice: LibreOffice is the most used and popular alternative to the Microsoft Office package. It is also available as a default office suite in most of the Linux operating system.
• Gnome Office: Gnome Office is another Office suite available for Linux distros. It is basically developed for Gnome based Linux operating system.
• Apache OpenOffice: Apache OpenOffice is an open-source and cross-platform office suite for Linux. It is developed by the Apache foundation.
• Calligra: Calligra Office suite is developed by KDE.

2. Image Processing

There are plenty of image processing applications available for the Windows operating system. Some of the popular Windows-based image processing/editing applications are Adobe suite, Core suite and etc. There are plenty of good alternatives available to Windows-based image processing and editing applications.

• GIMP: Gimp is one of the leading image editing applications for Linux. It can be considered as a good alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
• Krita: Krita is an open-source painting software for Linux based operating system. It is an alternative to Clip Studio Paint, Corel Painter and etc.
• Inkscape: Inkscape is a popular alternative to Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. It is used for vector image processing.
• DarkTable: DarkTable is an open source photography workflow application. It also supports raw image processing. It is an alternative to Adobe Lightroom.

3. Computer Aided Design ( CAD)

• BRL-CAD: BRL-CAD is the oldest cross-platform and open-source CAD tool. It includes interactive 3D solid geometry editing feature, high-performance ray-tracing support for rendering and geometric analysis, path-tracing, and photon mapping support for realistic image synthesis, network-distributed framebuffer support, image, and signal-processing tools, an embedded scripting interface, and many more.
• LibreCAD: LibreCAD is another popular open-source and cross-platform CAD tool for Linux. It is an alternative to Autodesk AutoCad software.
• FreeCAD: FreeCAD is an alternative to SolydWorks software. It is a popular open-source parametric 3D modeling software. It is one of the most used computer-aided design software in Linux.

4. Audio Editing

• AUDACITY: Audacity is a popular audio editing application for Linux based operating system. It is a popular alternative to the Adobe Audition. It is free, open-source, and cross-platform editing.
• MIXXX: Mixxx is a free and open-source Dj mixing software. It is a cross-platform tool. Efficient tool to create and mix music in Linux.
• Ardour: An open-source and cross-platform tool to record, edit, and mix audio in Linux.

5. Video Editing

• KDENLive: KDENLive is a free and open-source video editing software and is based on the MLT Framework, KDE and Qt. It is considered as an alternative to Adobe Premier, MAGIX, and Sony Vegas.
• Shotcut: Shotcut is another popular video editing software for Linux. It also supports 4K videos.
• Natron: It is a cross-platform open-source application for video editing and composition. It is a composting software VFX and motion graphics. It is considered as an alternative to Adobe After Effects.

6. Desktop Publishing/Page Layout

• Scribus: Scribus is an open-source and cross-platform page layout software. It is an alternative to Adobe Indesign and QuarkXPress.

7. 3D Animation And Modeling

• Blender: Blender is a popular alternative to AUTODESK 3DS MAX and AUTODESK MAYA. Blender is the free and open-source 3D creation suite.

Источник