Hi everyone! So I’ve recently switched to Linux and I’m having a lot of fun downloading software and replacing my old stuff with it. I’m wondering what you all use?
My switched softwares:
Obsidian -> Logseq - Obsidian is great and all but I think Logseq is also competent in its own way even without plugins. I am currently exploring templates to create my own daily journal/habit tracker like I did in Obsidian.
Word/Notepad -> LibreOffice - Seems to have a lot of options. Currently using the writer software for quick notes.
Canva -> Inkscape - I am aware that Canva is a website/android app, but I decided to switch from it to Inkscape by utilizing open source illustrations such as Undraw for graphics needs. I still need to look up tutorials on how to use it properly, though!
Clip Studio Paint -> Krita - I actually made this switch a month or two ago, but I’m really enjoying Krita a lot more than I ever did Clip Studio Paint. Less things to get distracted by, giving you more chances to learn how to utilize the essentials.
Things I’d like to explore in more detail:
- Thunderbird as a calendar/email/task software
- Whether or not I should stick with Calibre for book management
- Kdenlive as a video creating program. I haven’t created videos before, but it seems fun.
How about you? What do you enjoy?
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.
Edit: I can’t believe I never mentioned Xournalpp! It’s basically a clone of the old Windows Journal (precursor to OneNote) and I use it daily for drawing on PDFs, note-taking, etc… Very handy for tablet computing.
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.
I hate to say it, but maybe you are cursed.
I’m running an x230 with Fedora as a daily driver and have never had any such troubles. I’ve written 20+ page reports with formulas and charts and such without fear, and it’s super snappy. Much nicer to use than the bloated Office web app, for example, which I’m occasionally forced to use via the equally bloated Teams app for uni work.
The only time I’ve had trouble with it was with a core duo machine and 512MB of ram running a hundreds-of-megabytes large file consisting of 50+ pages of primarily images. It crashed every time it attempted to auto save, but I think that’s almost fair enough, too!
What do you use for LaTeX documents? I’ve been meaning to give it a try.
Yeah I definitely have no complaints about LibreOffice when it does decide to work, it’s far better than the web version of MS Office.
For LaTeX I use Visual Studio Code with a LaTeX Workshop plugin which works very well, it can auto compile documents on saving (with an automatically updating PDF view) and it lints the syntax properly. It does require installing a LaTeX distribution though. I’ve heard Overleaf is pretty decent as a starting point as well but I’ve never really used it.
