A big one for me is Microsoft office (desktop), Libreoffice and other FOSS alternatives just simply don’t come close, and feature wise are 20 years behind. Especially since I basically mastered MS office 2007+'s drawing features, which the FOSS alternatives don’t replicate very well.
And of course Microsoft loves to push Office 365. I don’t pay for that and just use desktop office, but Microsoft prefers you don’t know that you can do this.
And I’m going to get shit on by Lemmy big time for this but while Linux is great and has made vast improvements in recent years, I still use Windows, not only because of MS office, but because a lot of games tend to only support Windows. I know that wine and proton exist but they’re not perfect and don’t feel quite the same as running native.
I wish an operating system existed with a hybridized Linux and clone NT kernel (using code from FOSS Wine and ReactOS of course) so that the numerous back catalog of NT software can run similar to as intended while also interacting with Linux programs better and using a shared environment. Since it would probably become vulnerable to viruses for windows as well, maybe? (my programming knowledge is extremely rusty) an antivirus similar to Windows defender is bundled with the operating system. Hopefully if someone makes such an operating system it can be a Windows killer and would switch immediately
A big one for me is Microsoft office (desktop), Libreoffice and other FOSS alternatives just simply don’t come close,
What, exactly, is missing? MS Office pretty much peaked, feature-wise, in like 2003 (or, arguably, 2007), and LibreOffice is ahead of that. I also find the workflow to be closer to “classic” Office and, to a slightly lesser extent, WordPerfect, which I appreciate.
You can even give LibreOffice the ribbon menu if you want (it’s in preferences somewhere). The default button icons may be rough (though recent versions have improve), but you can even customize those.
MS Office pretty much peaked, feature-wise, in like 2003 (or, arguably, 2007
For me it’s Office 2000. The flat UI is so efficient and yeah, there isn’t any features missing that I’ve encountered. Takes no resources to run and works the same if you’re on Windows 95 or 10. My family members still get me to install it if they get a new computer. It is also free to download from the Intetnet Archive.
I use LibreOffice for the most part because I’m on Linux.
I think Windows 2000 was the last Windows version I actually liked. It went downhill from there until 8 when I finally jumped ship for good. If I recall, Office 2003 was pretty close to Office 2000, just not as “flat”. I’m just more familiar with 2003 since I had it on my own PC and only used Office 2000 in the labs at school (so I could be mistaken).
I did a little reading, and yeah, the core applications remained mostly unchanged from 2000 to XP to 2003. I’m more familiar with 2000 as that’s what I had growing up and that’s probably why I like the flat UI the best.
Personally, I hate the ribbon. I’ve learned where everything is on my corporate Windows computer, but the placement of everything and whether it’s an icon or not still seems arbitrary. I’m glad LibreOffice offers the option, though…
File compatibility with official office.
Corp world and gov still needs to send word docs around.
We are 95% there. But formatting gets munted between them
I do that already and have for years…?
.docand.docxwork just fine.Edit: The only issue I’ve had is one place requiring a specific font of all things. Was able to just install a free version of that, and was all set.
Yeah. I always get complaints that formatting is off
In MS Office 2007, Gradient support on shapes was massively improved (more than 2 points on custom gradients), Blurry shadows and glows were indroduced, 3D bevels and rotation support was added, better effects on photos were introduced and you can remove backgrounds. In office 2019, you can also import and export Drawing objects to SVG
I gotta say its shocking that powerpoint is your go to for image editing like that. Like, its kind of impressive but wow that seems like a super difficult way to do it.
So is your complaint that a text editor can’t do image manipulation very well? Have you considered using an image manipulation software instead?
Gradient support on shapes was massively improved (more than 2 points on custom gradients), 3D bevels and rotation support was added
Can’t say that’s a feature I’ve ever really needed in an office suite, so am unable to confirm or deny LibreOffice can’t do it.
better effects on photos were introduced and you can remove backgrounds
That’s kind of outside the scope of a word processor / office suite. I just use GIMP and import it into the document.
In office 2019, you can also import and export Drawing objects to SVG
LibreOffice Draw (part of the suite) can create, edit, import, and export SVGs. LibreOffice writer can import and use them.
It sounds like you’re just complaining that other office suites don’t have a bunch of out-of-scope, unnecessary features bolted on. Definitely not worthy of condemning them over that.
The features aren’t “unnecessary” if you’re so used to them
Not as in “FOSS alternative”, as it is already open, but simply a Linux version: Tortoise SVN, the file manager integrated UI for SVN. That is actually one of the two things missing in the Linux portfolio. The other being a native port of Notepad++, although this at least runs fine under wine.
these guys are doing Notepad++ in Qt: https://notepadqq.com/s/
Microsoft Access. I have one database that I need that’s written in Access, and although I suppose I could convert it to some other system it would be a chore and I’m not that driven to make the change.
I’ve moved almost everything else onto Linux.
@VirusMaster3073 music DAWs. I think the only real option is Ardour, but I tried it and was struggling to just figure out how to create a couple instrument tracks. Could be skill issue, but honestly I’m pretty good at figuring out UIs so if I was struggling a lot with the basics, it’s probably not just me. So I’m still on garageband for now which doesn’t get in my way when I’m trying to make music
Reaper is awesome. It is dirt cheap. Also runs on linux. But then you have the VST issue
@RouxBru oh VSTs don’t work on Linux?
I don’t use Linux, so very limited knowledge. But there are workarounds. Apparently Yabridge works on most, but not all VSTs
Totally agree. The DAW space is depressingly neglected as FOSS and I can’t imagine why. 15 years ago I was certain there would one day be a FOSS DAW that had the same love put into it as Blender.
Hmm I think the issue is that Ardour is more focused on recording than electronic music production … There’s more intuitive DAWs out there but I suppose in terms of what it can do it doesn’t have to stand back … compared to ProTools I’d say it’s still quite intuitive (not a high bar for sure).
Give reaper a shot. I honestly don’t know if it’s FOSS but it runs in donations and is pretty good imo
I’m with you on the “FOSS office alternatives are shit”, but unfortunately MS office is also shit. Google is the closest I have found to a good office suite but even that is becoming a bit chaotic and awkward. LyX is a promising word processor but also pretty awkward to use in its own way. I’ve got nothing, there.
As far as gaming, this sound less kind than intended but you deserve any shit you get for saying Linux gaming is bad these days. Apart from a few AAA games with anti-cheat where the devs just don’t want to, basically every game just works without any extra effort. Even obscure indie games. I can’t think of the last game I wanted to play that didn’t run on Linux, and often it is better under proton than Windows or native.
I made the jump recently, and although there are clear issues, I don’t see any reason to use windows as my primary gaming OS anymore. Some games still require some fiddling with proton versions, extra command line arguments, environment variables, etc. That is bad for the average user that just wants to click play and play. Also, I noticed that at least on my setup (alienware laptop with nvidia gpu), some games have clear performance issues compared to windows, mainly some UE games. But it’s not so bad to make me want to boot windows again.
And just some extra two cents: I’m still keeping a windows partition for those games that simply cannot run on linux, and it’s possible to keep your main library on the linux partition (I’m using btreefs) and use that same library on windows. You just have to install a driver on windows, and it works beautifully. Haven’t had any issues so far.
I heard https://www.onlyoffice.com/ is good, but have no personal experience.
I have tested power point & word of only office. Its nicer to use than what libre office offers, has more effects than word but the thing thats missing is moving objects around.
I think its a solid replacement for word, not entirely feature complete but in exchange some nice features.
It has pricing whick can be an instant no but i think the pricing is fair for what is offered (especcially when compared to word)
but i think some program like calc/excel is missing so you have to get another program!
but i think what other libre programs offer there is nice so no real problemIsnt it unmaintaned?
no
At least not as far as i know
https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2025/02/onlyoffice-docs-8-3-released
But closed source i think
Hmm, LibreOffice may not be the prettiest, but it works. For my own documents and presentations I use Typst nowadays. That’s a blazing fast modern typesetting alternative to LaTeX. That being said, I can’t stand WYSIWIG stuff but that might not be everybody’s cup of tea.
I mostly run into stubborn manufacturers like Roland that only release their musical instrument companion apps for Mac/Win and leave Linux Digital Audio Workstations hanging.
I wish there was a good FOSS (or just works on Linux) alternative to adobe lightroom so I could stop fixing broken windows shit on my wife’s computer.
She’s a photographer and does a lot of heavy editing stuff. I know there’s some alternatives but she says nothing comes close for what she needs to do, and from the few examples she showed me I agree.
I don’t know what the fuck Microsoft is doing but almost everytime there’s an update something breaks on her laptop. The only thing she does is use lightroom, occasionally Photoshop and Firefox.
I recently had to use her laptop to make a windows installer USB for someone and Rufus was cool. When installing windows though it just didn’t see any of the drives in the laptop? Apparently I had to load storage drivers specific to that laptop, which weren’t available anywhere online I could find. I managed to get it working by loading a bunch of unrelated drivers for a different HP model laptop, none of them related to storage. I think it was the Bluetooth driver that got it working, after it installed nothing was working, no mouse, speakers, USB ports. I had to install all of those same drivers again for some reason. Before that just to make sure the drive wasn’t bad I installed Debian on there and what do you know, it just did it, because of course it did, and everything worked.
I got way off topic, but again what the fuck is microsoft doing?
Xodo pdf annotator
It seems all pdf annotators are allergic to letting me have
- The ability to change the text I’ve highlighted without deleting the entire highlight
- Several different highlighter colours and opacities
They seem like really silly requirements, but they make a huge difference to how long it takes me to get through my readings for class.
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Sound quality will be exactly the same among any of the services that offer lossless files (ie all of the ones that aren’t Spotify). That’s literally the point of lossless.
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If they sound different they’re not lossless. (Or they’re different masters)
3D CAD software. There are a few options out there (FreeCAD, LibreCAD, etc) and Blender is a thing that exists for more artistic 3D modeling. But they simply don’t hold a candle to the features and capabilities of the paid packages, which typically have costs in the 4-to-5-digit range. And I’m not talking the crazy high-end simulation options - those I understand, they’re hard - but basic modeling features.
Hell, I’d even settle for a CAD package that had some solid basic features and had a reasonable purchase cost. Unfortunately the few providers have the industry by the throat, and so your options are “free but terrible” and “you need a mortgage to use this”.
I grew up learning organic modeling in blender and ever since I got a 3D printer, it’s just been so easy to make things with it as opposed to learning CAD. I’m getting better thanks to OnShape and FreeCAD 1.0 but I keep finding myself going back to blender because “it just works” once you understand how to setup scaling and snapping for manipulating vertices. Basically just setup your world measurements to metric and scale it to 0.001 and then every unit will be 1mm (helps me work within the 250^3mm space of my print bed, mentally) and export as stl.
There’s even a 3D printer toolbox add on that lets you analyze and fix problems like manifold edges and additional mesh tools like manifold extrude that speed up the process for good quality parts. CAD’s biggest advantage is the non linear history editing which is super powerful but you can definitely do non-destructive editing in blender using modifiers that only get applied at export time so you even have a functional equivalent if you’re organized and plan ahead a little.
I guess what I’m saying is, blender is amazing software and absolutely capable as a workhorse for 3D printing. You’re right that the multi-digit costing proprietary software is leagues better for designing digital parts and assemblies but blender is extremely flexible and not just for the more artistic side of things, you can make extremely technical parts with blender.
Yeah, I struggle with Organic modeling. I think it’s because I was trained in parametric for engineering, but I just mind-blank when approaching “how do I make this complex shape?” in Blender. CAD’s approach feels very straightforward and intuitive; I know where each feature is defined and can tweak it fairly easily. Blender… doesn’t. And I know it’s definitely not me, because I’ve seen people do very powerful things with it.
Like, I’ve run through a lot of the tutorials, and every time they get to “Okay, time for you to make this simple shape on your own!”, I immediately slip back into CAD modeling mindset, which isn’t really compatible with Blender.
You beat me to it. The moment someone makes a FOSS cad program where the ui doesn’t suck a donkeys ball they will be the goat
FreeCAD is getting better but it would really benefit for a big improvement in stability and UX
I have been using OpenSCAD to make models for 3D-printing. I know this is a specific use case, and I have no experience with the “real” CAD software, but OpenSCAD makes sense to me as a programmer.
It’s really aimed at programmers, but for someone who is used to the better known proprietary versions (so with sketching and “shaping” with a mouse,), it’s barely useable.
Second this, I’ve tried TinkerCAD before and the whole Idea of CSG started to make sense, and then I found that OpenSCAD does something very similar, just with code … I find it very satisfying … I guess if you’re making highly asymmetrical, organic shapes, you might have some puzzles to solve … but I’m mostly making loudspeakers, so basically boxed with holes, and it’s not a huge problem.
The only one I really miss is an NFC payments app, but a local LLM for Android that’s FOSS would be cool too - PocketPal is free, but not open source or on F-Droid.
Also LibreOffice for desktop is great, but on mobile there aren’t any easy to use ones in the same way Google Docs is, I’ve tried LibreOffice for Android and Collabora
Pretty sure I’ve seen folk run a terminal emulator and ollama on android
I meant a more graphical way, but yes, that would work
For local llm i think maid should do the trick, just load a generic assistant card. never really tried it though, my phone is way too weak to hold that up
I’m sorry but… 20 years behind? What new features has, say, Word even offered in the past 20 years beside that damn ribbon?
Ticktick and obsidian. Ticktick is an awesome to do, habit, and calendar app with nothing like it. Obsidian is the best note taking app.
Project scheduling programs. Primavera, Microsoft Project, Asta Powerproject. All of them are uniquely awful in their own way, and yet I still have to pay for them in order to work in my field.
