Linux Alternatives to Windows Software

So you are looking to find software equivalents of Windows applications for Linux?
The following software is listed by the Windows software name first, then the Linux alternative with links.

AIM/MSN/Yahoo: Of course, the main IM programs for Linux are currently Pidgin and Kopete. You will get Pidgin with most distributions nowadays, as it is the current standard for Linux users. Kopete is more common with KDE-based distros. These two programs can usually be found in your distros repositories, but if not, Pidgin can be found at http://pidgin.im/pidgin/home/ and Kopete can be found at http://kopete.kde.org/.

Office: OpenOffice.org is the current standard open source office suite. It is developed by Sun Microsystems and is a fairly feature complete office suite with a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation application, and database software. You also have the opportunity to get an equation editor and drawing software similar to MS Paint. You can find it at www.openoffice.org. Alternatively, another popular Linux word processor is Abiword, and is more geared to slower computers as it is pretty lightweight. Gnumeric Spreadsheet is another spreadsheet program for Linux from the Gnome project, and can be found at http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/. For native KDE interfaces, you can also get Koffice by the KDE project at www.koffice.org. The Gnome Project also has the Gnome office suite.

Image Creation: If you're looking for software similar to Microsoft Paint, the most common option will likely by OpenOffice.org Draw. As stated earlier, it is available via the OpenOffice suite. Other options include GNU Paint, or gpaint (found at http://www.gnu.org/software/gpaint/), and KolourPaint for the KDE interface ( http://kolourpaint.sourceforge.net). GIMP can also be used for Image Creation.

Image Editing: The current standard for Image editing is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Many people claim that it rivals the productivity of Photoshop in terms of features, though that is debatable. However, it is common knowledge that GIMP is quite a powerful application and is one of the best Linux solutions for Image editing. It is available standard for pretty much every current Linux distribution, however it can be found at www.gimp.org if you need it or need the most current version.

3D Modeling/Animation: One piece of 3D animation software that I have found is called Blender. It is available at www.blender.org. It is possible to create a number of 3D models and then animate them, and features video game creation settings.

Computer Aided Design: There are a few 2D CAD applications for Linux out there, including Qcad. It's not free, but Qcad is open source. Reviews aren't great, so if you're thinking of using Linux for CAD work, it's best to just stick with Windows. Qcad can be found at http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html.

Web Design: While the Adobe Design suite is still the king and industry standard for Web Design work, there are some free alternatives. Amaya ( http://www.w3.org/Amaya/) is a good option for producing W3C validated XHTML pages, and Bluefish ( http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/) is a good text-based program.

Tablet Programs: If you need to use tablet pen functionality, either passive or wacom, then Xournal or Gournal. If you need handwriting recognition and further features, then Jarnal may be the solution for you.

There are literally thousands, if not millions of other pieces of software available for Linux. Many can be found in your distribution's repositories, but another good place to look is www.linux.org. It's not the most up to date, but it does have a lot of links. Google is also your friend. This list will be updated as it becomes appropriate or per request.

 

Really great guide, Paul!

It's great to see that there isn't much Linux can't do that Windows can

 

thanks alot once i get fedora or ubuntu working ill be sure to check these out

well actually i got them working all but the wireless and the special keys (and a few other minor things)

 

Good post, you may want to add a couple times to it however. Here are a couple categories off the top of my head that newbies might want to know about:

Media Players (video and/or audio)
Video Editing
CD/DVD ripping
CD/DVD burning

If you want me to write up quick blurbs for those, I could, though, I'm not so sure if my personal preferences are the best for newbies (I prefer CLI over GUI for a large number of programs...)

 

There are so many alternatives for Media players. Like Amarok, VLC, Mplayer & a lot more.

Also TVtime Television Viewer works with my external USB TV Tuner, since I can't install the drivers and software from included CD.

ManDVD is the best DVD maker I have seen on Linux yet. DVD Shrink is also available.

Frostwire is an Alternate for Limewire. It's basically that same thing.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I actually did mean to add a section for audio and video editing to that. I'll go ahead and say right now that Audacity is one of the most common open source audio creation/editing programs out there, and Kino seems to be the most common video editor. I will add these and other options either later today or tomorrow when I have a little more time to organize them.

As per media players, I can certainly add a section, but pretty much every distribution comes with some sort of media player whether it be mplayer, Konquerer, Kaffiene, AmaroK, JuK, or whatever. And all the major desktop environments have built-in CD burning and ripping utilities.

These are good suggestions. People should feel free to mention more specialized software suggestions throughout this thread; that's what it's here for. In the interest of keeping the original post from becoming intimidatingly long, I won't add a lot of things like this, but this thread should be a good resource for people to have.

 

Yea, their are so many alternatives, I found myself struggling to keep it short.

I say it's good to just name the best/elite alternatives that we all know works as good or better than the Windows app it's replacing.

Some are even available for Windows too. Like VLC and Pidgin.

 

Audacity is definitely good stuff, in hindsight, it's a little strange I thought of video editors but not audio...
As for video editing, personally I prefer Cinelerra to Kino, but, then again, I never really gave Kino too much of a chance.

Just because it has a default options, doesn't mean they're preferable. If we didn't look at other software because the OS/DE already had a default then, well, in Windows at least, we'd be using Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and MS Paint! Of course, there are cases where default software is solid too.

 

There is also good Video Converters for Device like Smartphones and Ipods.

I use iriverter. Doesn't have a billion options, but it has the options you mostly need and does it's job.

 

VLC media player is the best media player

 

is this pigeon thing just a new version of gaim? it seems the exact same as gaim...

and, songbird is a very nice media player, once it is completely finished it will be really good

 

I don't like it for its sloppy interface. Plus, last I checked, it doesn't handle SSA/ASS subtitles nicely. I personally much prefer mplayer as a video player.

Audio player, I like Quod Libet, though recently I've been using mpd/mpc/ncmpc more since I can control the music my desktop is playing while laying in bed across the room from my laptop (through an ssh session).

I also set mpd to stream to Icecast so I can listen to music on my computer from any computer that has internet access and a media player that can handle the stream (VLC does nicely here). Oh yeah, and an ssh client so I can ssh into my desktop and start/control the stream.

Yes, Pidgin (note: spelled differently than pigeon), is the new version of Gaim. They had to change names due to legal pressure from AOL.

 

If anyone ever plays around with composing on their computer LMMS is amazing.

 

Thanks for the heads up. LMMS looks really good and is what I've been looking for!

 

Here's a site I found useful that lists a lot of windows alternatives (doesn't give explainations or anything, but I found it really useful):
http://linuxappfinder.com/windows

 

www.osalt.com is also good, too.

 

It's called Pidgin, not pigeon. Note the linguistic reference of "pidgin" And yes, it is the latest version of what used to be called gaim, because AOL got it's panties in a bunch and finally asked them to change the name. That's why the library they use as the base is no longer called "libgaim", it's called "libpurple"

 

I have an Apple iTouch and the Apple 6th Gen Classic 160GB iPod, is there anything in Linux that I can use to put music/videos on them?

Alex

 

i used Grsync, it worked really well to sync music to my mp3 player, and songbird has some ipod plugins you can get (ive never tried them though)

 

I understand that Apple changed the hash file on the new firmware and gtkpod does not work. Any ideas.

Alex

 

Office: KOffice is also an alternative on Linux.

3D animation: Side Effects Houdini, Autodesk Maya, Softimage XSI and Maxon Cinema 4D are all running well on Linux. These are commercial packages and if you use them already, you know that they run on Linux. But for all the 3DS Max or LightWave users, these are your alternatives besides Blender.

Wine can be used to run some Windows apps (like MS Office) quite well. It won't work right now for 3D applications (OpenGL windowing is broken).

 

Thanks for posting this 1138. I think I have KOffice in the original list. But more suggestions is always good.

 

According to me People should feel free to mention more specialized software suggestions throughout this thread. In the interest of keeping the original post from becoming intimidatingly long, I won't add a lot of things like this, but this thread should be a good resource for people to have.

 

This thread is absolutely meant to be able to grow. If you have a suggestion, just mention it. This is why I haven't added to the original post; I don't want it to get too long; I just listed the most common software.

 

Games:

I posted this in the Linux Team thread, but figured it was worth reposting here:

Alien Arena, Torcs, FreeCiv, Frozen-Bubble, Lbreakout2, Nexuiz, Neverball/Neverputt, Open Arena, Sauerbraten and Tremulous are all available from the Ubuntu software repositories. And those are just the games I personally have installed, I'm pretty sure there are more available. I also know that Quake 3, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 all have native versions that run under Linux quite well, and there's always wine, which runs StarCraft and American McGee's Alice perfectly for me.

 

Do you have links to where I can purchase Doom III and Unreal 2004 for Linux?

 

AFAIK, you just have to buy the retail Windows version and download the Linux installer from a common game file holding site. That's what you do with Quake 4 anyway (which also runs quite well in Linux, but is a PITA to install).

 

Thanks Paul!

 

I would like to add to this list for music creation:

Ardour is a DAW that rivals Protools and Logic - very powerful if you put in the time to learn it. there are also many DJ programs (although most are a bit rubbish) and plenty of other music creation

 

I would like to recommend this site...although its from the ubuntu wiki, these softwares will probably work with all linux distros

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Alternatives

 

I'll confirm that for Doom III, and I'm almost sure that Epic had the Linux installer on Disc4 of Unreal Tournament 2003. Not sure about 2004, though.

And just doing some googling, I found out that Unreal Tournament III will have a Linux client. w00t!

 

I'm happy that Paint.NET is ported [or at least sort of ported] over to linux. I love that app so

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/May-15-1.html

 

Thanks for posting this Amol, I like this app too!

 

can i make a recommondation of amsn? its come a long way since it started and is now better

 

aMSN is nice...a lot of new features in the past months

 

I'll let you!

 

Is there a media player for Ubuntu that docks like WMP or iTunes allowing one to control it from the dock? It's one of the features of a Microsoft product that I really like, but haven't found in Linux. Thanks for any help.

 

Could you post a screenshot? I'm not sure about the specific feature you're talking about

 

I don't have a screen shot, but WMP or iTunes can dock in the taskbar in Windows with basic controls like play/pause or forward/reverse. You can control the music without having the window on top which I personally like.

 

Here is the screenshot:



This really is a nice feature in Windows Media Player and iTunes. They dock into your taskbar and you still have options to play/pause/stop/etc...I like Windows Media Player better because it will also display transparently.

 

No keyboard shortcut keys?

 

Keyboard shortcut keys for what? Minimizing the media player? I dont have any keys on my SZ which are for playing/pausing a song.

By the way, how do you minimize all windows in Linux? Similar to Win+D in Windows.

 

There is probably an easier way but you canually bind the command through Xmodmap

 

ZaZ: you use Gnome? (Ubuntu)

Here's something simple: http://www.kuliniewicz.org/music-applet/

 

Thanks for the link. I will check it out.

 

Alternatively, I believe Banshee will allow you to right click the icon in the system tray and you have basic controls from there. I can't remember if Rhythmbox allows you to do that or not.

 

So then is there a shortcut key for it? Much appreciated if there is.

 

Thanks a lot. That's exactly what I wanted.

 

Are there any C++ compilers with GUI? Anjuta the only one?

 

Try Ctrl-Alt-D

If that doesn't work, google "[desktop environment, e.g. gnome] custom shortcuts" or "minimize windows in linux hotkey"