2023 year of Linux desktop!!1
Idc if we are not on reddit anymore, this joke doesn’t get old
Like the year of the linux desktop
https://youtu.be/N4FlL1FCbvA Time for your annual viewing of year of linux desktop promo video!!
I technically started with Steam Deck and finally took the plunge of partitioning my daily driver to install Linux Mint back a few weeks ago.
No regrets…
I’m a developer (web app predominantly ) and find I can use it for about 80% - 85% of my daily workflow. Things I miss and can’t substitute are mainly around image editing / vector editing where GIMP and InkScape are just not there for the way I work.
Loving my time with it and would highly recommend anyone on the fence take the dive and give Mint a go. It’s incredibly familiar the moment you boot it :)
I’ve been on Linux for a while and at this point must people use their computers as glorified thin clients for Chrome.
This has made Linux way more viable as a day to day OS. Valve is working very hard to make games viable and is seeing some success.
The major blind spots remain industry specific software outside of software dev. Things like Adobe suite and Microsoft office for example. They often have a Linux equivalent but it rarely fits well into industry standard work flows.
Microsoft office
I’m rather impressed with the MS Office compatibility and comparability of FreeOffice - https://www.freeoffice.com/ The free version trails the paid by one release… seems like a fair compromise. It’s not pure FOSS, so purists might not like it, but it really gets the job done, especially with rountripping documents. There are always corner cases where things go boink, but hell… things even go off the deep end between versions of MSO.
Many of today’s applications are now just web apps. The proportion of actual native applications that users run has been shrinking for a while, and so the differenced in native application support become less important.
That’s exactly what he said, and then he also said except for industry-specific software like video editing, graphic design, etc, where big companies don’t offer a Linux version and the alternatives aren’t quite up to par. It’s true there’s Offcie 365 online but it’s still subpar compared to the real deal, like if you’re a PowerPoint or Excel power user or really need Access or another specialized program.
I’m all for Linux, these big companies have just eaten a lot of the market and refuse to play nice.
This hits the nail on the head… I can get by with GIMP or InkScape or Photopea but they don’t quite cut it when I have job going out worth a few grand I want all the tools, checks peace of mind of the locally installed app. I also find GIMP convoluted to achieve basic tasks. Even things like resizing images to canvas etc. Feels clunky by comparison to say Affinity Photo.
Either way, I can never get 100% away from the big boys as ultimately I have to test natively in Windows and Mac OS so it’s not the end of the World having to boot into Windows or Mac OS occassionally to undertake the tasks required :)
Things like Adobe suite and Microsoft office for example. They often have a Linux equivalent but it rarely fits well into industry standard work flows.
I’ve been contemplating forking NextCloud to create a faster, less buggy alternative focusing mostly on the core functionality of office software and storage rather than an ever increasing amount of new modules, but not only would I need a team of developers, I’d also need to monetize it straight out of the gate, because I can’t pay a bunch of developers out of my own pocket. With NextCloud being AGPL, the fork would also be AGPL, of course. And I hate PHP, so this would involve a full backend rewrite to Rust or Go, which also renders the whole thing a pipe dream.
Welcome to Linux! I’ve been using it since 1996 and doing design using FOSS tools for years. (At first, I needed to a separate computer for Adobe products for years, but switched full time to Linux a long time ago.)
A couple of quick suggestions of other apps to try:
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Krita, for image editing & painting https://krita.org/
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Penpot, for UI layouts (including website design), prototyping, and flow; a great replacement for Figma and Miro. https://penpot.app/
There’s a big list of FOSS design & photography software @ https://pixls.us/software/
And a huge list of alternatives @ https://codeberg.org/RayJW/awesome-foss#user-content-creativity (linked to creativity, but there’s tons more on that page)
Have you tried photopea.com?
Have you tried https://www.photopea.com/ ?
Hi there, yea I have tried it and kudos to the developer it’s an awesome piece of kit.
Unfortunately, for me at least it’s just not the same as running native Affinity Suite (which is my go to). We occassionally produce print work for clients as well as developing UX templates and I can’t seem to replicate my workflow in Photopea or any of the other available apps. I wish Affinity would produce a Linux version but when asked, they said the uptake just wasn’t there to make it worth their while :(
I’m really pleased I have managed to move the bulk of my work over to Mint and ultimately, I will always be left having to test applications natively in Windows and Mac OS so it’s not the end of the World I suppose as I can’t ever fully get away from them.
Not OP but, I use libre office on the Linux machines at work.
Although I heard about OnlyOffice on Lemmy a few days ago… It looks interesting. I want to try it out!
I switched to onlyoffice a few months ago from libre, and I like it a lot better.
I saw this about libre if that helps https://youtu.be/4qWgrGc4g20
I’m currently using Libre Office and It honestly covers the full gamut for me. I haven’t once felt “man, where’s that option”.
It’s really solid and come a long way since I first used it !
And we’re all on Lemmy!
Wow, that’s amazing! I assume this doesn’t really count Steam Deck because usually these stats are from website hits and whatnot.
I remember when we were floundering around 0.50-0.75% or so and 1% seemed unlikely. And now we’re where macOS was some time ago. That’s pretty awesome!
If this is from website hits, then people like me are going to be unintentionally skewing things in Windows’s favor, as my browser always fingerprints as running on Windows.
Yup, and I’m guessing part of what’s causing the shift is people no longer needing to do that. Netflix has worked on Linux for years, and very few sites actually care about OS anymore, though many do care about browser (e.g. I often get stupid warnings on Firefox despite sites working fine).
