Can I install that on that?

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SOFTWARE By Susan Bradley I’m going to see how well the applications and tools I regularly use work on vastly different platforms. Can we install a co
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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fisher75, a, lmacri, SueW, schmootoo, DLivesInTexas, abbodi86

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It means that if 2023 is the year of Linux on the desktop (haven’t I heard that in previous years?)…

Every successive year is the year of Linux on the desktop – until it is!

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/linux-could-be-3-of-global-desktops-what-happened-to-windows/

I wouldn’t worry about “Linux” which holds about 80% of global OS share.

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Everyone knows 2015 was the year of Linux on the desktop!

What? They don’t know that?

Hm. Well, 2015 was the year of Linux on the desktop for me. It would be nice to have enough market share for the software publishers to support the platform, but it’s not necessary, in my case, as Linux itself and the combination of tools (WINE/Proton, VMs) makes it quite usable.

As for PCs with Linux preinstalled… there are a few still around among the major brands, but they are not necessarily easy to find. My Dell XPS 13 laptop (9310) I bought a couple of years ago came with Ubuntu preinstalled instead of Windows. I had to go to the business customer section of the Dell site and special order it, under the moniker of “Developer’s edition,” which is quite funny to me as I am neither a business user nor a developer (just a home user!), but it was there.

I understand that Lenovo supposedly has such an animal too.

Otherwise, there are the niche brands like System76 and Tuxedo Computers (though they are located in Germany and have no US distributor, so that one could be difficult for us in North America).

Other than the XPS 13, all of my Linux-using PCs began life as Windows PCs, with the Microsoft tax… or maybe not.

Windows PCs typically come with bloatware, and that bloatware somewhat subsidizes the cost of the unit, perhaps enough to offset the MS tax. I recall reading about one such PC (a Dell, I think) that “finally” was offered with Linux after many people had been asking for it, only for them to be surprised that it was a bit more expensive than the Windows version, not less. When they asked why, they got the answer about the bloatware.

Not sure if that is true or internet legend, but it seems plausible.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Never use your current, primary PC as a test bed — experiment and test elsewhere.

With drive imaging, that is not an issue.  Testing elsewhere doesn’t necessarily mean that one will get the same results on the primary PC.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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If you need a functioning computer to google/bing up the answers, I always have a fully functioning computer that won’t need rolling back.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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I didn’t see any mention of LibreOffice. This software is available for Linux and can edit Microsoft Office files, including the newer 2009+ formats (.xlsx, .docx, etc.).

Guess what? It’s also available for MacOS.

I moved from Linux Mint to the Apple platform about two months ago. It was pretty seamless, actually. Because MacOS is very Unix-like under the covers, I was able to transfer files from my Linux box directly to the Mac across my own network using the scp command-line tool.  The Linux-Apple transition was much smoother than the Windows-Linux transition I went through several years ago.

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windbg

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As a beancounter in real life I’ve tried LibreOffice but when it comes to spreadsheets – it’s just like Google sheets to me.  It’s fine for basic stuff, not so fine for more complicated spreadsheets.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Cybertooth

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This is not Linux related, just giving another side of the story defending an old beast. To each his own. I use my Win7 offline as a workhorse for specific projects. Note, “offline” is a key word here. It handles an old and reliable Photoshop program (more options and tools and user friendly), whereas any other newer machine wouldn’t. More current programs for today’s systems flood a user with constant updates and nagging upgrades, not to mention subscriptions that are overpriced and lack what their predecessor can perform in the way of functionality and reliability. That said, what’s good for one, may not work for another. My online machine (MacMini M1) is only two years into operation, and is limited of specific programs with subscription status. It takes a load of research and patience when choosing which programs and apps to download. During the early years of the Win7, choices for putting the 2011 Toshiba to work specifically to be up and running smoothly, were bountiful and not as nerve wracking in the event of incompatibility with one program or another. I still have all the peripherals for hardware connected to the Win7. And this particular PC did not come with an abundance of bloatware, it was pretty much put together with good, usable programs.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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PKCano

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The author says “we found a pleasing replacement in Corel PaintShop Pro.” Please tell us what the replacement is.

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That was the pleasing replacement for a photo editing software.  We can’t remember what the original software was used.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about Linux replacements. Corel Paintshop Pro does not run on Linux.

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https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/corel-paint-shop-pro-ultimate-photo-x2

Let me test it out on Linux.  As with Wine/Codeweavers you can often use Windows programs on your Linux machine.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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It’s both true and false that you can run Quicken on a Mac. Indeed, Intuit/Quicken produced a macOS financial product several years ago. It uses the same name and logo as the traditional PC Quicken which some of us have been using for, believe it or not, over 30 years now. BUT, it’s not the same program. In spite of improvements in Quicken for Mac, it still has aggravating deficiencies in its GUI and list of features that force me to use the PC version. It runs without errors on Parallls on the Mac, but I grew quite weary with the slow-as-molasses boot times, Quicken load times, and back-up times, as well as shelling out $50 for annual upgrades to Parallels.
Adobe has shown that it’s possible to run the same version of their software on multiple OS’s. By refusing to simply port the same version between PC and Mac, Quicken has now forced me to keep a dedicated Win11 microPC (Asus PN51 that I can hold in the palm of my hand) across the room expressly for Quicken. I access it via the very reliable MS Remote Desktop on my iMac. Boot, program-load times, and backup times are nearly instantaneous, and Quicken runs like a scared deer. Backups of the data file are done automatically to a local folder, the NAS, and to an encrypted cloud site.

So, can you run a program named Quicken on a Mac? Well, yes, sort of.
Is it satisfactory for longtime Quicken users? Not on your life.

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windbg

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Even Quickbooks on the mac is not QUITE the same software.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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milleron

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In today’s Askwoody news, Susan says she uses a “password-manager program” with Yubikey. Please tell us what you use and what you may have tried.

Background: I have used Roboform for a decade or longer. Roboform does not support Yubikey or any other dongle. I need a replacement.

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1password and also Lastpass.  Now you may have to get a paid/business version to support this.

https://www.yubico.com/works-with-yubikey/catalog/1password/

Basically start here:  https://www.yubico.com/works-with-yubikey/catalog/?sort=popular and see what they work with

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Susan Bradley wrote:

1password and also Lastpass.

1Password has added Passkeys support so is there a need for Yubikey ?

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A couple other places you can get computers with Linux pre-installed:

https://linuxmint.com/store.php

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/

The first site, of course, sells computers with Mint. The second seems to also focus on Mint, although I haven’t looked through all their offerings.

I’ve never purchased a computer with Linux pre-installed; I’ve always installed Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) on computers that initially had some version of Windows.

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The ThinkPenguin Penguin T4 GNU/Linux Laptop requires an external plug-in dongle for Bluetooth. I want Bluetooth built in. Why is that so hard?

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DrBonzo wrote:

I’ve never purchased a computer with Linux pre-installed; I’ve always installed Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) on computers that initially had some version of Windows.

You could get ~50 from Microsoft for erasing Windows OS.

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Yay for MS Expression Web 4! One of the better products to come out of MS, and it was free, IIRC. It was extremely helpful 20 years ago when we were changing over from faxed forms to emailed forms (PO’s, SO’s, invoices). Created WYSIWYG content that yielded compact HTML code which was readable in most email programs. Not to mention easy to use.

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I spend 99% of my time on Linux MX Xfce. Now release 23. Practically zero problems. Fantastic, almost instantaneous help on the MX forum. I find it much better than Mint or Ubuntu-type distros.  Try wine(standard install is 8.12)(I use it for games), though sometimes Lutris (which uses wine) provides a bit of a better interface. I use Oracle Virtualbox for Streetsmart Edge (Schwab), and a high tech level astrology program (Solar fire 9). Easy. And fast. (Hint, I power on/off virtualbox OS (win10) each time as starting or stopping an open OS is very slow.)

I also dual boot to win10 but only use it for terabyte backups of my SSD, and keeping win relatively current(1 month back).

Edit/Note – I haven’t used Lastpass since the fiasco. FF does it for me.

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johnf, windbg

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IMHO if you need to use Wine in order to use Windows applications you are better off just staying with Windows. Or if you have the hardware resources a better option would be to run Windows as a virtual machine in something like VirtualBox. However for gaming that would not work well due to the limited graphics resources in a virtual environment.

Otherwise it’s better and more secure to use applications that are designed for and run natively on the host operating system (ex. Linux, MacOS, etc.) so they can directly utilize the system hardware as well as the inherent security model of the operating system.

As an example when I switched from Windows 8.1 to Linux Mint I was able to install and use Linux versions of Firefox ESR, Ungoogled Chromium, Thunderbird, Proton Mail Bridge, KeePass, and Citrix Workspace app (ICA Client). All work as well if not better than they did on Windows. There was only one Windows application, QTranslate that I still have yet to find an equivalent in feature set/functionality for Linux, although Crow Translate is getting better with each release. So I still use Windows 8.1 in a virtual machine (via Virtualbox) in order to use QTranslate.

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