It seems like the FOSS community is continuing to grow, and FOSS apps keep getting better (Immich reallh blew my mind recently), which is a big win 😎 but there are still many apps I use that I would kill for an open source alternative. I am curious what you guys think? Are there any apps you’d love alternatives for?
Scrivener!
The frustrating thing is that, at least for me, there are no perfect word processors geared for novels and other scenarios where you manage large text masses.
Scrivener is one of those cases where you have a pretty excellent software that doesn’t have a lot of problems OSS alternatives have. I have smooth time with it. But at the same time, the software always could be better.
Probably the best OSS novel writing software I’ve used is Org-Mode for Emacs. But, you know, it’s based on Emacs, so it squeaks around the edges and gives the impression that it’s a miracle it runs as brilliantly as it does.
- Parallel Desktop
- Arc Browser
- X
- Discord
- Copilot
- Vivaldi Browser
- Unread RSS Reader
For X/Twittwr there are many options but Mastodon(mastodon.social instance specifically) it’s my favorite, it also works as an alternative to Facebook.
I just feel a lot better with Mastodon rather than X/Twitter
For macOS, I recommend UTM.
For RSS I recommend twine—not sure if it’s available on Mac os though. That’s always going to be a struggle with foss stuff, support for Mac is lacking because the people making them tend not to use macs
Sorry for lack of clarification. I meant bing AI or they call it copilot now
Vivaldi is open source I guess.
Partially, not entirely.
Of the three layers, only the UI layer is closed-source. This means that roughly 92% of the browser’s code is open-source coming from Chromium, 3% is open-source coming from us and only 5% is our UI closed-source code.
Do you recommend using it, though? (It used to be one of my favourite browsers) especially when we have other browsers such as librewolf, Floorp, etc.
Parallel Desktop
There are several FOSS alternatives. All of them are more popular that Parallels.
are you talking wine, virtual box, quemu and such? Im pretty sure he is looking for usage like parallels so dual booting a mac and then running it from the mac side. I mean im not sure but thinking from a parallels user perspective that is my guess at the ask.
I have used them all. None of them comes closer to Parallel desktop. (Qemu a little bit)
Apple Remote Desktop. Batch control of computers through SSH and VNC would be amazing.
Apple remote desktop? Apple doesn’t support RDP. They do have a VNC client built in however
like Remmina?
Does remmina let you send an ssh command to multiple computers at once? I use ARD for that almost exclusively.
maybe, allthough I need to test ARD to see how they do it.
Remmina allows you to run a command on connect, or set up individual commands to execute
Yeah I tested it out. The feature in ARD that I am referring to is that you can do any of the main functions (observe the screen, copy a file, install a file, run a terminal command, shut down, etc) to any number of computers at the same time. You just shift click command click to select multiple computers and then press the button associated with that function. That you can’t do is control multiple computers at the same time, since that wouldn’t really be practical, but you can observe all of their screens and then double click on one of them to start controlling it.
Really the most useful thing here is the ability to send an arbitrary terminal command to multiple computers at the same time, which you can’t do in Remmina.
Xx
A decent language learning type app, like dulingo
An alternative to iTunes so that I don’t need a Windows VM to backup my company iPhone. But I know it’s never gonna happen because Apple is the devil.
Good news, Apple has the solution for you. You don’t need iTunes anymore.
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9np83lwlpz9k?hl=en-US&gl=US
Yeah but I’d still need an Apple program and a Windows VM, so it wouldn’t change a thing 😅
Just so you know, libimobiledevice can backup iPhones with their idevicebackup utility. It’s CLI only, so maybe not as easy to get into as iTunes but it has worked pretty well for years on my end.
Yeah thanks I’ve read about it but the terminal part is probably above my really modest Linux knowledge for now.
That’s fair enough! I can tell you it’s not that difficult but having a nice iDevice suite desktop application would certainly be a big improvement!
honestly terminal isn’t that complicated, if you’re surviving using a VM at the moment, you could probably manage to comprehend a terminal for long enough to figure out how that software works (and as a benefit, also figure out how basically every other CLI application works)
Thanks for the advice, but, for now, I can’t picture myself managing a professional phone backup without a GUI.
Had it been just a tinkering phone maybe, but not my professional one😇
honestly it’s no different than using a GUI, unless your place of work mandates a specific piece of software or something. It’s not like you can’t fuck shit up, but you can also do that with GUI apps too. I’ve fucked up more shit using a GUI than using CLI. That could change some day, but that’s what backups are for.
Google Keep
My wife and I use it all the time for things like grocery lists, packing lists, etc. It’s nice to be an able to collaborate in real time on a checklist, and I haven’t found an app that can replicate that convenience.
Beeper
I don’t see anyone talking about it here but I’d dream of an open source alternative to AndroidTV/Apple Tv. Firstly because ATV is ultra-dependent on Google, and secondly because the interface is unclear and not really pretty.
Today I’ve switched to Apple TV, which is much better in terms of UX, but the OS is too closed and sideloading isn’t possible…
So I hope to see some sort of CalyxOS / LineageOS for Tv arrive one day!
Krita & OpenToonz handle just about everything I need as an animator/artist, but I’m worried about OpenToonz continued development. I worry that there aren’t enough people working on it.
My phone firmware
grindr
Two categories, broadly: any professional software, with deep features and professional quality.
I know theres audacity, but that’s really not an acceptable saw.
I know theres a few cad apps, but no professional I’ve ever met finds the good enough.
I know gimp, and I use it, but no artist I know does; they all pirate Photoshop. Literally every one.
I like having audacity to record audio. I like having gimp to fuck with shit. I like having various cad apps to bang out organizational tools to print. These things do generally fit my use case. But I still have to help people pirate everything else and god the DRM is do fucking annoying.
Abd here’s the more esoteric ask:
Not so much programs as features; Why aren’t we really going all in on shit we can do that they can’t? Features capitalists would never add, never support? Instead I find open source software always playing catch-up, and theres no reason it has to.
Swiping library and keyboard.
Yousician or similar entertaining musician motivator. One that has scoring or analysis, specifically. Not just a video/backing track player.
Some kind of buy/sell/auction/freecycle system service/app/front-end that isn’t evil and it’s simple enough for normos to use so it gets critical mass and makes it easy to buy/sell/give/recycle stuff locally.
FlorisBoard (at least the beta) is getting there (swiped on FlorisBoard), though it’s not quite there yet
HeliBoard. Swype library must be downloaded and currently only working ones are closed source but the keyboard itself is open source and amazing.
I’ve just switched this week from SwiftKey, which was the best keyboard I have ever used. Made the switch just to abandon a piece of proprietary software, but oh boy… HeliBoard has way exceeded my expectations!
SOLIDWORKS. FreeCAD is hostile.
Hostile? The FreeCAD community is great
Onsdel is a fork of FreeCAD with UI improvements. Much better in my opinion. They actively contribute back to FreeCAD as well.
