Alternative Applications
As a quarter century Windows user who has switched to Ubuntu Linux in March
of 2019, my main task was to create an experience under Linux similar to the
one I was accustomed under Windows. Ubuntu Linux is a mature operating system
and most application needs are either fulfilled out of the box
(just by installing the
Ubuntu Desktop operating system) or
can easily be installed by using the Software Center tool or using command line
($ sudo apt install package_name
).
As a general rule, you should first try the software provided in
Ubuntu repositories and if that does
not fit your needs, you should search for third party or proprietary software.
It turned out that more than 90 percent of my needs were fulfilled from Ubuntu
repository.
In the following table, I give a list of the tools and applications that I had been using under Windows and the corresponding software I decided to use under Ubuntu. Please note that some simple tools can easily be created by writing some short Bash scripts. This will completely eliminate the need to install a GUI tool, provided that you are comfortable with command line.
Below, in the middle column, I tried to give a feedback on how good or bad was my Ubuntu experience with the solution I decided to follow in Ubuntu with respect to my previous experience under Windows. The meanings of the signs are as follows:
++
: Much better+
: Slightly good=
: Almost the same-
: Slightly bad--
: Much worse
Note that these grades were not given for a complete comparison of the
tools, but they are only an indication of how well these tools serve
my special needs. For example, tool A may be far better than tool B;
however, if the subset of the features that I have used in both tools are
almost identically adequate to fulfill my needs, then they will get an
=
mark.
Windows | Exp. | Ubuntu |
---|---|---|
General | ||
Device Management | ||
|
- / = |
|
Disk Management and Information | ||
|
+ / - |
|
System Monitoring | ||
|
= |
|
Task Scheduling | ||
Windows Task Scheduler | + |
cron , anacron, systemd
|
Command Prompt | ||
cmd.exe |
++ | gnome-terminal |
System Menu and Shortcuts | ||
Open-Shell Menu | - |
Applications Menu
and/or
Dash to Panel
(GNOME Shell Extensions)
(See also .desktop file specification) |
Office Tools | ||
Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) (not free!) | = | LibreOffice
(Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.) libreoffice (installed by default) |
Antivirus | ||
|
= / - |
|
Virtualization | ||
VMware Workstation Player | + | VirtualBox: virtualbox (Ubuntu) |
Virtual Printer (to save ink and paper) | ||
FinePrint (not free!) | + | Boomaga: boomaga (Ubuntu) |
PDF Viewer | ||
SumatraPDF | = |
|
PIM Tool | ||
Personal Notes File | = | Personal Notes File |
Other Built-in Simple Tools | ||
calc.exe , notepad.exe ,
charmap.exe , Control Panel,
fontview.exe , snippingtool.exe ,
Windows Picture Viewer... |
- / + | gnome-calculator , gedit ,
gucharmap (gnome-characters ),
gnome-control-center ,
gnome-font-viewer , gnome-screenshot -i ,
eog (Image Viewer)... |
File Management | ||
General | ||
Windows File Explorer | - / + |
|
Searching Files | ||
|
+ |
|
Disk / Directory Utilization | ||
WinDirStat | = |
|
Bulk File Rename | ||
|
= |
|
Filesystem / Whole Disk Encryption | ||
VeraCrypt | = |
|
File Compression and Archive | ||
7-Zip | - / = |
|
Backup Tool | ||
|
- | Bash scripts using 7z or zip |
File and Folder Synchronization | ||
|
- | rsync (command line) |
File Comparison | ||
Windiff | - | diff -r (command line) |
PGP | ||
|
= |
|
Network / Internet | ||
Firewall | ||
Windows Firewall with Advanced Security | + / - | Uncomplicated Firewall: ufw (command line) |
Mail and Calendar | ||
Thunderbird | = | Thunderbird |
Contact Management | ||
Google Contacts (web based) | = | Google Contacts (web based) |
Web Browsing | ||
= |
|
|
Web Server and SSH Client / Server | ||
Apache and OpenSSH (Cygwin) | ++ | Apache and OpenSSH (installed by default or can be easily installed from Ubuntu repositories) |
(S)FTP File Transfer | ||
FileZilla | + | No need for FileZilla; there is build-in support for (S)FTP connection using gvfs. |
Messaging | ||
= |
|
|
Cloud Storage | ||
= / - |
|
|
Peer-to-Peer File Sharing | ||
= / - |
|
|
Other Network-Related Tools | ||
|
= / + |
|
Graphics / Audio / Video | ||
Image Viewing | ||
Windows Photo viewer | = | Image Viewer:
eog (Ubuntu) |
Image Editing | ||
PhotoFiltre | = / + |
|
Image Stitching | ||
Microsoft Image Composite Editor (retired) | ? | Hugin (Ubuntu). I haven’t tested yet. |
Video Player | ||
|
= |
|
Video Conversion | ||
|
= ? |
|
Audio Encoding | ||
|
= | K3b: k3b (Ubuntu) |
USB Image Scanner | ||
Canon CanoScan LiDE 90 Software | - |
CanoScan LiDE 90 is supported under Linux. However,
the scanner software provided by default in Ubuntu (simple-scan
or xsane ) does not perform well. So, I installed Windows XP
in a VirtualBox virtual machine.
After installing the Windows driver and software which I downloaded from
Canon’s web site, I was able to use my scanner as usual.
Note: By using VirtualBox’s Shared Folders
feature you can save the scanned images directly into a directory on your
Ubuntu host. |
CD / DVD Burning Software | ||
= | ||
Software Development | ||
GUI Programming | ||
Free Pascal and Lazarus | = | Free Pascal and Lazarus (download from its web site) |
Compiled Languages | ||
GNU C, make, gdb, etc. (Cygwin) | + | GNU C, make, gdb, etc. (pre-installed) |
Advanced Text Editing | ||
Notepad++ | = |
Geany,
FeatherPad,
Kate,
Notepadqq, or
notepad-plus-plus (Wine) (from Ubuntu snap store)
|
Command-Line Scripting | ||
|
++ | Bash scripts |
Other Scripting Tools | ||
Perl, PHP, Python, etc. (Cygwin) | + | Perl, PHP, Python, etc. (pre-installed) |
More Alternatives
If you need to explore more alternatives, a good starting point will be the AlternativeTo web site.