Linux, to replace Windows :p
Calibre is very powerful for book management, you should stick with it.
My last experience with Win10 vs now:
(FOSS in bold)
- Edge -> LibreWolf, Brave
- Windows Mail & Calendar -> Thunderbird, Tutanota
- Windows Explorer -> Thunar, PCManFM
- Todoist/iCal -> fruux + Thunderbird
- NCH VideoPad -> Kdenlive
- iTunes, Spotify -> CDs, Audacious, DeaDBeeF, Bandcamp
- VLC -> mpv, Parole
- OneNote -> ~~Obsidian~~ Joplin + Backblaze B2
- Firefox Lockwise -> Bitwarden
- WPS Office -> LibreOffice, ONLYOFFICE
- VSCode -> Micro
- Visual Studio -> Micro + GCC + Glade
- Finale -> MuseScore
- NT -> Linux (obviously)
- Windows 10 -> Debian, Arch Linux
And now, the online services:
- Ecosia -> LibreX
- YouTube -> CloudTube
- Twitter -> Mastodon
- Reddit -> Libreddit, Lemmy
- Dropbox, Google Drive -> MEGA, Filen, USB sticks
- Blogger -> Neocities, Flounder (gemini protocol)
Sorry for the long post. Here are some potatoes:
People should stay far away from Brave.
Brandon Eich's controversial past and opinions:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26868536
Anti-vaxxer and far-right conspiracies:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/business/brave-brendan-eich-covid-19.html
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1337496169690230784
https://www.reddit.com/r/BATProject/comments/khmbvl/do_you_feel_that_brendan_should_step_back_from/
https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1538253982845399040
Privacy related:
https://www.lifewire.com/brave-browser-falls-short-of-its-promises-of-privacy-5206799
Brave automatically redirected searches to affiliated versions which they profited from:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-affiliate-links-crypto-privacy-ceo-apology
Brave collected donations on content creators behalf without consent:
Brave leaked Tor/Onion service requests through DNS:
https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/lndfms/more_in_comments_brave_browser_leaks_your_tor/
Brave sent unsolicited marketing mail to users, though they claimed it was anonymous:
https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/1531740563900448769
Brave temporarily whitelisted certain Facebook and Twitter trackers without telling users:
Well fuck. What would you recommend for a mid-2010s ThinkPad, on which Firefox is slightly too heavy, which runs Arch. Bear in mind that I'd prefer to avoid Blink (despite having been using Brave).
I would still suggest Firefox but would recommend a) to go for maximal RAM configuration b) remove unnecessary addons c) install UBlock Origin and an addon that automatically disables unused tabs
On my 2013 Chromebook with 2GB RAM, EndeavourOS and KDE I still get an acceptable browsing experience.
Can you post the link for Micro? I use VSCode daily and if there's an OSS version comparable/better, definitely interested.
I never could make KDEnlive work well for me, I use ShotCut instead. Basically everything else, I'm the same. Can't get away from VLC though.
VSCode is OSS. The builds Microsoft distributes are proprietary because of some telemetry and stuff like that but glorious volunteers maintain something called VSCodium, which is essentially the same VSCode but without the Microsoft surprises
Good overall recommendations, but it's worth noting that Obsidian is not FOSS.
Ah, shit.
It took me a few seconds to figure out what the heck just popped up on the side of my screen, haha! Thank you for the potatoes.
Out of curiosity do you find that neocities is easy to set up for a beginner? I'd like to get into blogging that I don't have to worry about getting comments on. Something where I can just ramble on a bit about how things went that day, what I learned, and then post and never touch it unless I want to reread that day's entry.
Thunderbird is brilliant and I highly recommend it. As someone who maintains an IMAP server used by a dozen or so people, I can attest that the Thunderbird users never seem to call me up and complain that things are breaking. Outlook, on the other hand...
Similarly, Firefox is a great web browser. I'm not a fan of how they handle money, but just the same I'm not about to go back to a chromium browser.
Kdenlive takes a bit of getting used to, but it's very powerful, and once you've wrapped your head around it, it becomes quite intuitive. It runs well even on 10 year old hardware. You'll want to learn ffmpeg while you're at it, though. That's a godsend.
I don't understand the hate for libre Office. Many complain that it's good, but not at the level of Microsoft Office. I disagree - I've used it exclusively for over three years, and always completed reports, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. to at least the same if not better calibre than my peers.
About half the times I've used LibreOffice it's given me problems, from crashing to taking an unreasonable time to start to not starting at all. This is across multiple PCs and installs so I guess I'm just cursed?
That said I don't find myself reaching for an offline office suite very often anyway, I find it easier to create documents in LaTeX and for the times I need to collaborate on a uni presentation or something web options like Google Slides are better suited anyway.
Not a replacement per se, but I am just amazed by how much better some common FOSS apps feel in Linux compared to Windows. Apps like VLC, Calibre, FreeCAD, Libreoffice, hell even Firefox are so much smoother in a UNIX system, almost like THIS is their real home!
I think most of them I'd be using on windows as well. Like blender, gimp, krita, librewolf, libreoffice, thunderbird, virtualbox, etc.. etc.. etc.. Although it was 15 years ago I had switched to mostly open source applications in the years prior to eventually switching to linux entirely.
Krita is pretty amazing. I got both of my daughters started with it when they expressed interest in doing art. Both of them have used it almost exclusively for years (both in HS now) and produce some great work. They try other tools recommended by friends but keep going back to Krita because it has all the tools they need.
Same. This helped me with the Linux transition a lot since I didn't have to change my workflow completely because of other apps
I've personally been using AlternativeTo for many years to find alternative software, especially when I first began using Linux.
Been using Gimp for over a decade over Paint/Photoshop.
Kdenlive is pretty nice.
LibreOffice (and not OpenOffice) is a must.
I have tried really hard to make the switch to GIMP, but Photoshop is too engraved within me.
I will probably keep using Photopea instead.
Gimp is a quality program... but I agree that it is hard to relearn when you've gotten use to photoshop for almost 3 decades.
Although Krita is a high quality illustration program. I try harder to motivate my self to learn that.
Calibre is great for book management. I use Thunderbird for my email/calendar since I'm on Linux and have never even though of changing. Works like a charm and it does everything I need it to.
Other software I use and recommend are:
- Web browser: Firefox
- Image and drawing: GIMP and Inkscapr
- Plain text editing and programming: Neovim
- PDF reader: Okular
- Media player: VLC
- Terminal: Alacritty (main terminal) and Yakuake (to have a terminal that I can easily access and then hide)
Check out Calibre-Web. Improves the traditional Calibre experience a lot.
Whenever I use Windows I can't get over how utterly terrible the basic file explorer is. I swear that it was better back in the XP days. On linux I use Dolphin and have found it to be excellent. Tabs, Split screens, everything is so usable.
I've used Thunderbird since it was released almost 20 years ago. It has some annoying bugs around setting up accounts (get your password right or it clears the whole form), but you do it once and it works wonderfully.
I've been using thunderbird for so long now I can't remember not using it. I'm very comfortable with how it is, but look forward to the upcoming changes.
(EDIT: Re: Kdenlive) I do a small amount of video editing, usually quick stuff to censor/cut a screen capture for posting to github or something, and every time I'm amazed at how well it works and easy it is to use. I'm sure it has it's limits if you have a complex task, but I'm not sure even an intermediate user would run into any of them.
My favorite is FreeCAD though. I know the windows equivalents are probably "better" but I like the project's persistence and the constant improvements they are making. Now that I've put the time into learning it I like it a lot.
As a side note, in my opinion ffmpeg is a massively impressive piece of software and what kdenlive and many others use in the background for a lot of tasks.
EDIT: Hit post too early.
Your post doesn't mention any video editing software, it sounds like a cool program so I'd love the name! I've been looking for a basic, open source video editor for a while.
This is a list of all the open source software I have come across and use frequently to semi frequently. There will likely be some overlap with stuff everyone has already posted.
Photography and Image manipulation
- Darktable → RAW photo processing
- GIMP→ Photoshop alternative
- Krita → Digital painting (have only used it a bit, but I hear it's good)
- Inkscape → Vector Graphics
- Automatic1111 → Diffusion model AI toolkit (mostly Stable Diffusion but also has extensions for other diffusion based models like OpenAI's Shap-E)
3D modeling and Printing
- Blender → 3D Modeling, sculpting, 2D animation, compositing all rolled together (simply one of the best examples of FOSS)
- Meshroom → Photogrammetry
- PrusaSlicer → 3D printing slicer based on Slic3r
Video editing and Processing
- Kdenlive → Genuinely good video editor
- FFMPEG → Command line media toolkit (very complex but also works on android through Termux)
- Instant NeRF → Neural Radiance Fields, think photoscan to a 3D representation (not meant to make 3D meshes unfortunately)
Misc
- Calibre → E-book management
- Serge → Self hosted Local LLM's made a bit easier to deal with
- Firefox → Web browser
FOSS I'm excited for
- DragGAN → Manipulate images by intuitively dragging, more on this here and here (official code being released this month but there are already projects based on the paper with working examples)
- CoDi → "Composable Diffusion" Any2Any conversion Txt2Vid, Vid2Audio, Audio+Txt2Img, whatever
- Neuralangelo → Promises to be NeRF's for 3D models (don't know if it will be FOSS but I'm hopeful)
- Inkscape as well for all of the Adobe stuff
- Pandoc and Pympress for all my presentations
- Claws Email
- Khard + Khal + todoman + vdirsyncer for the rest of the PIM stuff
- Zathura is my PDF reader
- Syncthing replaced GDrive more or less
- qutebrowser
I switched to Linux in 2006.
Calibre is excellent for ebook management. If you are just using it to sync with your ereader you might be able to do without. I have a Kobo and use Calibre but will likely stop doing that because there are now tools that are a lot lighter to convert epub to kepub and add covers, etc.
I keep a list of software I like to use, I need to update it.
What distro did you choose?
I ended up switching to Pop OS! It's cute and I like it and its probably the one I'm most familiar with as I tried it out a few times.
I was thinking of switching from Calibre because of the outdated design, but In another comment @hayden just informed me about Calibre-web which looks...a lot better than the actual Calibre software, so I guess I'll just stick with that!
I'll install Zathura right now and see what the experience is like.
Hey I've got a kobo too! Do you use KOreader?
I've been meaning to get syncthing installed somehow, so I can sync new books without having to think about it, but I havent ever tried to get that working.
CMUS as a music player. Clean interface, lightning fast and plays anything. I use it daily.
I've been a big fan of helix as a terminal text/code editor - while VS Code is open source, a lot of their language servers (for example, pylance) are closed source. Helix lets me integrate open source language servers out of the box without any setup needed (besides installing the language servers), and it has a UI that helps you explore new features and learn keyboard shortcuts. It doesn't have plugins yet, but I find that the built in features have implemented most things I'd want a plugin for; and it has different keybindings than vim/neovim, but I've found the new model for editing more intuitive and worth the relearning process.
Check out KDE Connect / gsConnect for integration your phone to your computer. It can sync notifications, messages, share clipboard, media playback controls, use either device as mouse/keyboard for the other. Its really good on Android. For iOS the app is much newer and with limited features due to iOS limitations
If you're on KDE, something as 'basic' as the file manager Dolphin feels decades ahead of the Windows File Explorer
Zim Desktop wiki is really good for creating a personal wiki. Think building a personal knowledge base or notebook with interlinked articles
@Witch
A helpful browser extension tool is Privacy Redirect. It allows automatic link redirects from:
Reddit -> Libreddit
Youtube -> Invidious
Google -> Startpage (or other)
Maps -> OpenStreetMap
... and a few others.
It is very customizable for what instances or sites you need which is why I think it's great.
I've started using Xournal++ in PopOS on my Surface (you need a custom kernel for linux to work) instead of OneNote, so much more stable, crazy amount of options, would be perfect if it picked up pen input a little better, but it's good enough to replace OneNote for me.
For 3D/2D -> Blender Office stuff: LibreOffice For programming -> Neovim, Insomnia (for testing out REST api's and whatnot) Virtual Machines -> KVM/Qemu (Virtmanager, Boxes, etc) This one was a huge improvement for me I use VLC for most of my multimedia needs
For game development (related somewhat to 3D/2D) -> Bevy and Godot
Plus a tonne of others I'm leaving out. It's really a nice feeling.
I use Dendron with VS Code rather than Obsidian. What are some benefits of Logseq in comparison to Dendron?
Edit: phrasing
Interesting, I didn't know about Dendron!
I'm actually switching from Logseq to Zim Wiki (might take a peek Dendron, though!) because I found out something about logseq I Don't quite like: each journal entry seems to be part of an infinite scroll. So you'd have day 1 of using it, then at the top would be day 2, and then it'd become day 3...
I did however like the fact that it has flashcard capabilities and whiteboard capabilities without having to install plugins. I think Logseq might be best used for a daily journal that you can scroll through from present day to past day. It also apparently has good citation features but I didn't get to explore it very well.
Not sure about Logseq, but I use vscodium rather than straight vscode. I don't want to give Microsoft any more than I have to, though I know that's not a concern for many.
Firefox as a web browser.
I keep trying email clients, but end up going back to Thunderbird. It still looks clunky, but it works well, and the new UI is in beta, so it should look better soon!
I've never heard of Logseq. But I use an obsidian alternative called trilium. I'll give logseq a shot.
I will say, despite how old and outdated calibre looks, it's an absolute beast and contains every feature you would need. I use it to tag all my pdfs with the correct book information (which calibre with find for you) and use it to export my books into a specific folder hierarchy for easy browsing using KOReader on my Kobo e-reader (which runs on linux!)
Surprisingly, I installed Calibre on Linux and for some reason it just looks...better on Linux? Not sure if its because it opened up in default dark mode or what, but it doesn't look as ugly when I'm using it on Pop_OS. Feels at home, really.
I will say its definitely a beast. I've used it a few times but I never really went in depth with it's features. I'm definitely liking the bulk tag editing, the shop search (I've been looking for a way to search DRM-free books and it has it!), and the default tags. The last one is mainly because I think getting a tag called "mentally ill women" for The Yellow Wallpaper is a little funny.
I guess...
Telegram -> Telegram FOSS
:|
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