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Wild, you are like from the alternate universe where Linux is dominant and nerds play around in windows. Are things better where you are from? :P
Of course! In this universe everybody uses linux phones and they are actually usable (and repairable)!
Well Android is Linux based.. so maybe this is a similar universe.
Being around the Steam Deck forums when it initially launched felt otherworldly. A super popular device launched with Linux as a first class citizen, and Windows users were desperate for drivers that improved unstable usability. It was surreal.
although I'm not a TWM user I like to just press super and type the first letters of the program I'm looking for to open it.
It will never stop to amaze me how many people don't know it's a feature in every major DE and every Windows starting from Vista.
Even on Windows 10/11, just tap windows key and start typing without clicking anywhere.
My list of FOSS I use everywhere (these work in Win and Linux):
Open Tablet Driver - if you've got the drawing tablet it probably supports it. You can customize everything and has even built-in plugin manager.
Krita - GIMP alternative with non-destructive editing capabilities.
yt-dlp - download videos from almost any video sharing service, even TikTok, Instagram etc.
neovim - for quick file edits
vscode/vscodium with vim plugin - my IDE for everything
ffmpeg - forget handbrake - you can do even basic video editing here. Join two videos together? Done. Add audio to video? Done. Crop part of the video without reencoding it? Done. Loop a video to 10 hours without reencoding it? Done in matters of seconds.
kdenlive - an actual video editor that is 100% FOSS, doesn't suck and works on Windows and Linux.
imagemagick - ffmpeg for images
GIMP (Image editor)
putty (Secure shell/terminal emulator)
WinSCP (Secure FTP client)
QBittorrent (guess.)
7zip (All in one compressed archive manager)
Firefox
Notepad++ (text editor with syntax highlights)
Handbrake (Video transcoder)
VLC (all in one video player)
These are my top must have installed. There are others but they're situational
Let's not forget the various console emulators that are open source as well. All the good ones are.
That's a good list!
I use the same, except I use LibreWolf (privacy focused fork of FF) and VS Code instead of Firefox and Notepad++
Vs code
I would actually recommend VSCodium; it's the same product but without the Microsoft telemetry.
I use Kitty instead of Putty recently, though I don't know if the difference is worth it.
Some of these are cross platform but:
7zip
Autohotkey
Bitwarden
Calibre
Draw.io
Handbrake
Speedcrunch
WinHTTrack
WinSCP
I prefer nanazip to 7zip because it's just forked 7zip that's been updated for modern windows. They're working on a dark mode too.
PowerToys: productivity utilities like window pinning, window management, accented character typing assistant, color picker, text extractor, etc.
You forgot the best thing. Window management, aka Fanzy Zones. You can set areas to your monitor and snap windows to those instead of just left / right side of monitor. Completely customizable.
I have to say it, Rufus.
Ventoy is the easier answer these days IMO. Just drop ISOs on your Ventoy'd usb key and choose them from a menu at boot time.
To install linux
BalenaEtcher or Rufus for writing ISOs to usb.
Universal Debloater and PC Manager for the most up-to-date version of the Redmond OS (Windows 11)
https://github.com/builtbybel/BloatyNosy
an open-source (FOSS) todo manager based on the todo.txt syntax
https://github.com/ransome1/sleek
a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for various versions of Microsoft Windows
https://github.com/windirstat/windirstat
Better font rendering for Windows
In my experience, windirstat is inferior to other similar software. It’s mostly fine but it can be very, very slow to get you results. Though honestly I don’t know if the alternatives like space sniffer or Wiztree are open source.
FileLight from KDE also works on Windows
Xoblite: Blackbox/Fluxbox-style WM/shell for Windows.
Open Shell: Brings back the classic start menu and other classic Explorer.exe features
Notepad2e: A lightweight and portable alternative to Notepad++
AutoHotkey: Probably the best GUI automation tool out there, this is the tool that I miss the most in the Linux world.
For package management I've been really liking scoop.sh
Not everything in there is FOSS but scoop itself is! And you can install neovim, vscodium, bitwarden, Firefox, etc very easily.
How does it compare to chocolatey? Thanks.
it doesn't trigger UAC because the installation directory is different
Playnite for launching games
It will open up anything. Battlenet games, steam games, emulated games.. you name it. Supports themes too!
Mostly same list as for GNU/Linux:
FreeFileSync a FOSS backup and folder synchronizer, a must have.
FreeFileSync is a folder comparison and synchronization software that creates and manages backup copies of all your important files. Instead of copying every file every time, FreeFileSync determines the differences between a source and a target folder and transfers only the minimum amount of data needed. FreeFileSync is Open Source software, available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
PowerToys
VLC player, 7zip, translucent bar, greenshot, irfanview,
Check out https://github.com/auctors/free-lunch (list of free Windows software)
See also https://www.nirsoft.net/ (freeware, not open source)
On most of my fresh installs, i usually install Tinywall, 7zip, and then a different browser like Firefox and chromium based browsers (like mull/brave)
Disclaimer, haven't used Windows in years, but back in the day when I did, I swore by cygwin to give me a sane environment to interact in. That and Firefox + GIMP + Libreoffice usually gave me a pretty happy day to day interaction.
Nowadays I would swap out cygwin for WSL; the latter gives you a full Linux environment.
Can anyone recommend me something that falls somewhere between Paint and GIMP?
<3
I advocate for ImageGlass, a very good image viewer and editor. Mpc or vlc for videos.