Ask Slashdot: What Windows-Only Apps Would You Most Like To See On Linux?

An anonymous reader writes: With all the recent brouhaha about Windows 10 privacy violations and forced updates, I'm one of those that wants to thank Microsoft very gently, while taking it by the hand, and slamming the door behind it for good. Fortunately for me, I don't use any special software that is tied to Windows, except games, of course. One program I would really miss though is Total Commander file manager, which is basically my interface to the whole OS. So, I know there are Linux alternatives, but which one is the best? Also, I currently use PaleMoon fork of Firefox as my main browser, but there doesn't seem to be a Linux variant. What other software would you want to transplant to Linux, if any?

Comments

Photoshop

[jfdavis668]

I think Linux memory management would go well with Photoshop. Might struggle with video card support.

Re:Photoshop

[Jim Hall]

Gimp eventually did become decent feature-wise, but of course it can't replace Photoshop for people who want Photoshop. [..] For me, I never learned photoshop, I tried to, several times, but just couldn't do basic stuff. Gimp was very easy for me to learn, I use it only for very simple stuff [..]

I think that's the important point, and something that I found a few years ago when examining the usability of several free/open source software packages. Does GIMP have good or bad usability? There were some strong statements on either side: About half said it had good usability, and about half said it had bad usability. However, I decided to skip GIMP in my usability study, as it is intended for people who do need/want to do graphics work, and my usability test targeted the general user. But I didn't discuss the split opinions in the usability of GIMP.

In following up, it seemed that two types of users thought GIMP had poor usability:

1. Those who used Photoshop a lot, such as professional graphics editors or photographers
2. Those who never used Photoshop, and only tried GIMP because they needed a graphics program

Users who thought GIMP had good usability used Photoshop occasionally, such as hobbyist photographers or casual web designers. Digging further, I believe this is because:

• Those who only occasionally use Photoshop understand the concepts and terminology used in Photoshop and so are easily able to transfer their knowledge from Photoshop to GIMP.
• But those who never used Photoshop were completely lost in the terminology and concepts. GIMP relies on layers for image construction (so does Photoshop). "Layers" are a difficult concept for someone who has never worked with them before. A simple paint program like MS Paint usually suffices for these users.
• And those who use Photoshop all the time were confused that functionality and features differed slightly from Photoshop v GIMP, or was accessed differently, or used different terminology; these users were stymied by what they perceived as a dramatic change from Photoshop to GIMP.

So GIMP is an interesting case. It's an example of mimicking another program perhaps too well, but (necessarily) not perfectly. GIMP has good usability if you have used Photoshop occasionally, but not if you are an expert in Photoshop, and not if you are a complete Photoshop novice.

Games

[Gaygirlie]

Almost all the actual apps that I use are more-or-less open-source already. Or, well, Netflix I would also like as a native app; as far as I know the web-browser client still doesn't support 1080p resolutions or surround-sound.

Games

[Snotnose]

Steam is getting there from what I've heard, but as a hard core gamer I need games.

Embedded toolchains would be nice too (esp ARM), but that's my boss' Windows box, not mine :)