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.
Discord. God I hate that program, but everyone I know uses it.
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.
Honestly I can’t replace discord with something that doesn’t have the streaming feature. I use that waaaay too much
Geddit is not bad front end. No reddit account needed
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.
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.
That’s weird, I’ve never had that issue
Windows Discord is also a web app.
Just gotta say, I didn’t expect to see emojis in a username, and I am both appalled and impressed
Bloody banking apps. I’m sick of them not exposing any API to make third party apps.
If you just want to set up viewing transactions you can setup Actual Budget
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My laptops BIOS
The whole Adobe creative suite. The options out there absolutely are not replacements, either in functionality or usability. Most of them are UX nightmares and feel actively hostile to the user
I even tried replacing Lightroom, which if you read the recommendations, people love the various FOSS options out there, but they were all garbage at onboarding or finding functionality or just even setting up a simple library with events and albums to group together and edit.
Mechanical CAD. Something like SolidWorks or Fusion 360.
FreeCAD just isn’t there yet. They’re still struggling with the topological naming problem. However, Blender was like this in the field of 3D animations. Now it’s the standard. That gives me hope for FreeCAD. Anyway, MCAD is very important. I’m learning modern C++ and the FreeCAD code base in order to contribute.
I also wish there was a better CAD kernel than OpenCASCADE.
I have been experimenting with using Inkscape and OpenSCAD for 3d modeling, and it seems to work for what I do, but I know quite a few people prefer a more graphical interface than OpenSCAD.
OpenSCAD is a good take on CAD. My primary workflow is also based on plaintext (text configs, code, org-mode, latex, etc) and keyboard (no mouse). It’s easy to manage and back it up with version control tools like git. However, there are a few fields that I feel are inherently visual and need a very interactive tool. CAD is one of them. Others are 3D animation and art.
My central and autonomic nervous systems. Mine are shite and have been since I was wee. Even a clean reinstall of the original operating system would likely help a ton, but if the open source community could go through the files and find the all the bugs, who knows what I could make of my life. At the very least I’d be able to work again.
OH FUCK
Brain is running proprietary shitware
Theres no hope for us, but for our kids…
Lets flash something worthy into their heads moment they are getting birth
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 . . .
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?
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
I hant heard of this before … It has Ubuntu and opensuse as supported plattform, and a one-time buy option?! This sounds amazing!
Yeah, it’s the first alternative I like. It’s not foss but we really really suck at foss anyway
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
Yeah, I was hoping freecad would get a bigger push after Autodesk screwed people over with fusion. Still it’s going, slow but going
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
Joplin.
Rnote is pretty good for handwritten notes, the canvas can be paged too.
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
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.
AnyType is an open-source alternative to Notion which recently launched:
notion is also not FOSS though. and i had bad experiences with the mobile app when cell service is bad.
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.
Notesnook is free, e2ee, nice ui, and has cloud sync. Recommmend
Not really the same thing at all if there’s no handwriting support.
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…
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.
findmydevice on fdroid
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.
Access Teams? Do you need anything more than opening the Teams web app in a browser?
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.
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?
Look at owntrack. Send position data to your own server
The Affinity suite. Truth is, I don’t want to replace them because I really like how they work; I just wish there was a native Linux version, because it’s almost impossible to get it to run in Wine. Have to use a VM for the time being.
Stream Deck is another one I miss, and the FOSS alternatives just don’t cut it in terms of functionality.
Less software and more driverware. My headphones (arctis nova pro wireless) have some really nice customizations available with the sonar software. Nvidia drivers are more customizable but the issue is mostly support for vrr through gsync, dlss, hdr, and Nvidia broadcast. I know AMD is supposedly bounds and leaps ahead of Nvidia but that’s what I have for current hardware because of how useful and ubiquitous the software is.
If by Arctis nova pro you mean SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 then this repo might interest you: github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl it’s basically software that allows you to change afew settings for headset inside a terminal.
It’s not everything but it’s enough that I might get by with it! Thanks stranger
No problem :)
@John_Coomsumer Besides the mentioned Nvidia drivers, I use Steam. Steam isn’t bad by any means, but I wish it was at least an Open Source GUI that uses it’s proprietary backend service. This way we could have such a variety in Steam GUIs. Actually impressive that almost everything is Free and Libre software on my system!
Whatsapp
And no, I can’t simply stop using or ask friends to move to an alternative. I’m from Brazil and that thing is so popular and mainstream, that even stores or public services use it.
Just this week, I had to report an animal abuse case to the authorities, and the official communication channel I had to use was through whatsapp.
It’s sad to see how dependent of a single proprietary service for something so important we allowed ourselves to become…
You can use a FOSS app at your end to chat with WhatsApp users, if this isn’t something you’re already aware of. Element.io plus a bridge. Beeper.com is a turnkey platform that sorts it all out for you.
It doesn’t help replace WhatsApp as a platform, but perhaps it would suit you?
I have been looking at this possibility, but running a bridge means that I will need to self host a service, which adds one more point of failure, while not really removing whatsapp from my life, so I’m not convinced it’s a good alternative.
That’s what beeper.com does. It’s also open source, but they handle running it for you.
But absolutely I agree that it doesn’t remove WhatsApp from your life, and that’s a pain point for me also when I’m working with services in Asia, who like Brasil predominantly work from WhatsApp.
If you don’t like Beeper, you could try these guys who host a managed solution (means you don’t have to deal with any issues), and let’s you offer the service to others:
Likewise from Brazil and likewise would rather see whatsapp gone from my devices. Sadly, I still need it for work and other official matters. Still, I’m slowly but surely abandoning whatsapp, by either convincing people I talk to to migrate to other, less anti-consumer services, migrating myself to sister groups or alternatives in other services, and/or abandoning a group or chat altogether. And all the while being vocal about it by raising my concerns about whatsapp (just saying “I don’t like it and you should move too” can be pretty counter-intuitive with our countrymen). Hopefully, this way, I can drop it altogether once it becomes clearly irrelevant.
But this reminds me I haven’t deleted/left any chats for a few days, so I’ll take the opportunity to do just that.
But what do you do when services and institutions in general require you to use whatsapp? That’s what is mostly keeping me from deleting that app.
