Voice Of The Masses: What Are You Waiting For?
This fortnight we want to know if there’s anything that you can’t do with free software that you’d like to. Is there an app that runs on Windows that you just have to use, or a feature of Microsoft Office that you can’t leave behind. Alternatively, have you banished proprietary and gone fully free software? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll read them out on our upcoming podcast.
Related Posts
About The Author
Ben Everard
Ben Everard is the co-author of Learning Python with the Raspberry Pi and hacks hardware projects held together with a big dollop of Linux and Free Software glue. He's @ben_everard on Twitter.
35 Comments
I’m still looking for an alternative to AutoCAD or something that allows me to edit it’s file format.
there’s not really anything I *can’t* do, and no program is good enough to make me go through the horror of installing windows, but there are a few things I’d really like to see:
* FL Studio for Linux. LMMS just doesn’t have the same power and flexibility (yet), and it can’t load/convert all my existing .flp projects. Luckily FL Studio runs fine under wine, even though it takes some tweaking.
* An easy-to-use and powerful video editor like the old VegasVideo. Cinelerra is great but not user-friendly for someone like me who uses it infrequently – I find myself re-learning the quirks of the UI every time I use it.
* Games, games, games. There are probably hundreds of games I’d buy if they did a Linux port. In particular I’d love a good “arcadey” (as opposed to “sim”) racing game along the lines of Need For Speed.
I like free software and I’ll always look for free software first, but I’m a pragmatist and if the free software doesn’t suit my needs I’ll look at proprietary stuff – I’d be quite happy to pay for native Linux versions of any of the above.
In terms of Free Software I’m waiting for, wayland sounds like it could be a good thing, it’d be nice to see that happen.
A good floss equivalent for sage accounts and payroll. A long shot because it has to stay up to date with each countries legislation.
I use Linux at home and if we could get rid of sage I’d move our office to Linux too. We use a lot of floss software on windows at the moment.
I used Linux in my personal and professional life and I don’t feel like I’m missing any software that is only available as proprietary however some things are made more difficult. WebEx doesn’t run on Linux correctly and I need to use a Windows VM for all my WebEx meetings (several a week). Just about all my VPN connections to clients do not have Linux equivalents (I do usually keep VM’s open for each client connection just to sandbox things). The one last one that is probably the biggest thorn is Acrobat, when working with Windows users that markup and comment on PDF’s in Acrobat, most PDF readers on Linux aren’t able to display every way to markup a PDF file.
I’m sure I’ll think of more but for now that’s everything.
If I could play Train Simulator 2016 on Mint I would probably ditch windows for good. Yes you can probably use wine but I am clueless when it comes to stuff like that.
According to winehq entry for this app it can be done although it takes a bit of effort.
All appears well explained in relevant forum threads. I don’t have this app so can’t try it out and my pc is totally underpowered anyway
Good Luck!
AutoCAD, video capture and a Canon printer are the main reasons for keeping Windows in my office. One day, I will be free…I hope.
We still have one Windows PC for iTunes to watch Doctor Who and Digital Theatre to watch plays. I suppose we could get cable to watch BBC America. We’re old fashioned and still have antenna attached to the chimney, we don’t watch much TV other than some sports or news and the signal is digital anyway. We’d still need something for Digital Theatre. There are things like WINE, but they can be iffy and the one Windows PC solution works relatively hassle free.
I would say AutoCAD too, but just realised that perhaps I actually want to keep it’s closed-sourceness in the naughty corner (a VM) at home.
My son has a list of games as long as your arm. Plants Vs Aliens (or something) comes to mind..
GAAAAAAAAMES !!!
Two for one: my other half would like to design cross stitch patterns, and there is nothing: the best I can find is some excellent picture conversion software – which doesn’t even know what a backstitch is.
I would like a Twitter client. There are some; all, IMO, equally bad. The best I ever found was Hotot, and it’s not supported and has stopped working.
KDE has a cross stitch program, called KXStitch: https://userbase.kde.org/KXStitch
I don’t know how good it is, but it does know what a back stitch is.
I had wondered what had hapenned to that and it looks perfect and why the hell is there no debian build thank you.
::deep breath:: arguing with gcc in 3,2,1…
I don’t need to use CAD software, but I realize that and other business software needed for a highly specialized, but relatively small professional markets is an area of need.
The only Windows program that I use regularly–that is, annually–is United States federal and state income tax preparation software.
The tax rules change annually in subtle ways and necessitate annual updates on a rigid schedule by persons with highly specialized legal and accounting knowledge and expertise. I don’t expect to see it coming to Linux.
If Windows ever successfully forces me to Win10, I’ll blow it away and do my taxes the old fashioned way, with a pen, paper, and LO Calc.
I habe found ways to do pretty much everything in linux and love it, but i still can’t update my harmony remote or hubby’s garmin without windows. The real problem though is my sewing pattern creator (patternmaster by wildginger), there is just nothing like it on Linux and Wine is no help.
A PDF editor that allows me to edit and insert text and delete pages easily. Foxit Reader under Windows works well but their Linux version is stuck at a prehistoric version. I can use Foxit Reader under Wine but it has a few quirks. Or can someone suggest one?
Another one from me. I’ve got a few Brother printers/scanners. For drivers Brother offer good Linux support. But one of my multifunction machines can only be firmware upgraded via a Windows app. I didn’t want to risk bricking it by going through a VM so has to do a MS install just for that!!!
Well, if we’re doing *hardware*, can we just add ALL printers to the list?
For work, I’d love to see SolidWorks and Solidworks Simulation come to Linux. As a cyclist I’d love to see support for my Bryton GPS computer.
This is an easy one for me to answer, to be able to update my TomTom and Garmin Satnavs. Both run (I believe) on Linux internally but both require either Windows or a Mac to update their systems. I sometimes wonder if the bar on Linux was part of the agreement for them to use FAT?
I have managed to switch to Linux and free software completely for my personal use. However, I still need VMs with proprietary operating systems because of other people. If I want to compile and release software so that the majority of people using computers will have the ability to run it, then it will have to support at least Linux, Windows and OS X.
So what I seem to be missing is better cross-compiling support. I know that cross-compiling can be done, but so far I have found only language/compiler specific solutions. I see a need for more universal cross-compiling solutions, so that I don’t need a personal copy of the target platform on my computers.
I know that this is what communities are for. Windows people can compile for Windows people etc. but many projects start off as one man projects as well.
Garmin Express for updating my running watch, and Tune Bite to remove DRM. Any Thing els I use Linux for.
I am in that blissful state where everything I need works on Linux, and I never seem to have trouble any more. Well, except when someone asks me to use Windows 😛
In addition to my earlier comment I would like to be able to format my new micro SD card with exFAT and then be able to write and read to and from it on Linux.
The only way to write to it is to mount it into my Android mobile phone and connect it to one of my Linux Boxes through a USB cable. Come on Microsoft, if you give a standard to the world, let everybody use it.
You can use Exfat with Fuse. Doesn’t that work?
https://github.com/relan/exfat
Thank you. This (exfat-fuse) will be an added addition to my distribution (Linux Mint) of choice in future.
Active Domain and Exchange. These are the big two “Killer Apps” of the Windows market. Until linux has something that is just as easy to setup and manage, unfortunately the vast majority of workplaces will not switch. Once people use linux at work, they will switch at home as well.
The one application that I still keep a Windows partition around for is for some occasional streaming video recording. Replay Media Catcher and Replay Video Catcher have been quite useful and versatile. One of them hooks into the network stack to record an unencrypted stream directly as it comes into the computer. The other lets you do the recording at a higher level, by defining a rectangular window on your screen to record. They both record audio along with the video. It would be great if an experienced Linux developer would take on a project like this. I’d definitely contribute. But with all the variations in streaming formats and recording formats, I think it will be quite a challenge.
I miss OmniFocus from using OS X. Best todo-software ever and nothing comparable with that feature set out there – not on Windows, not on Linux.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with an app called ‘My Life Organized’ for windows. It has pretty much all the same features as omnifocus. The interface isn’t quite as intuitive, but it’s not too bad.
My main hassle is with music notation & editing software.
I currently run Win10 in a VirtualBox VM on an LTS release of Kubuntu. That’s so that I can run some printed music OCR software that actually works. I use Photoscore which is only available for Win or Mac. It’s wonderful and there’s no FOSS or Linux program that comes anywhere near it. (Audiveris – nah !)
Also, till recently there has been no decent music notation software for Linux. Nothing to compare with Sibelius or Noteworthy Composer, for example. That has recently improved with MuseScore which is fully cross platform (LinWinMac). There’s also Rosegarden which is a good Linux notation & midi file editor that I’ve used for several years.
Given that we have gimp, scribus, inkscape & LibreOffice, I find these days that there’s very little I can’t do with FOSS on Linux. For domestic autocad type jobs, Sweet Home 3D is pretty good I’ve found.
Overall, my biggest personal gripe is the lack of good music OCR software.
So, my
The one reason I have to boot into Windows is Microsoft Office. Unfortunately for work I have to work with customers and collaborate on maintaining Microsoft Office documents. There are times when LibreOffice just won’t format documents correctly. I can’t risk it and so I am forced to use Windows.
I think Linux has everything except Ms office. Btw I miss daum pot player.
Like Mike I guess, the thing I’m waiting for most of all is Linux working normally on a laptop. I’m typing this on a 2008 Macbook. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to install Linux (lots of distress) – 10 – 20 maybe. Every time it looks lovely and works beautifully until something kicks the processor and the GPU into overdrive and it all gets very hot and noisy very quickly. Doesn’t seem too happy with projectors and such either. Eventually I revert to OS X to avoid a total meltdown (of both me and the machine! :-)). I’d love to be using Linux right now, but I guess I’ll have to settle for proprietary and just run Linux on my work desktop. 🙁
Skype 🙁
Everyone uses Skype professionally. There’s no getting rid of it.
There are many alternatives but it’s very hard to get anyone to switch, more so when the alternatives are unpolished, or worse.
I wish for an alternative with minimal features, dependencies and UI that just works cross-platform – more and interesting features can come later.