For me, it was perhaps simple-scan, a very simple and efficient GUI to scan documents. I used it with my Brother printer / scanner and it works like a charm. Especially since I do not scan stuff often, so a program with more complex UI would have the effect that I forget how to use it until the next time.
Kdenlive. I used Adobe Premiere professionally and Kdenlive completely replaced it for me.
For me it was blender. I absolutely loved using blender as a teen for making silly games and animations (I wasn’t good at that). Now as an adult I re-discovered it and I use it for making DnD minifigs
about 10 years ago, i noticed steam was available for linux. for the longest time i had pretty much written off gaming on linux (apart from like tuxcart, nethack, emulators…). i hadn’t considered actually being able to play “real” games.
that was before proton, so there really wasn’t a ton of stuff i could play, but i found some good stuff like hotline miami, papers please, super win the game.
obviously now we have proton and linux can be argued as a superior gaming platform in many cases.
Back then CS:GO used to run better on Linux! That was why I switched (apart from a borked windows system I put Linux on just for shits and giggles): to get more frames, lol. Now I couldn’t live without Linux, even though I don’t even play CS:GO anymore.
Surprised no one has mentioned OBS. I don’t use it for streaming, but afaik it’s one of the more popular options for that. So it’s really cool that not only is it available for linux, but it’s open source and works great. I’m sure every linux user has had audio, general hardware, or GPU acceleration issues at some point, but OBS is seamless in my experience. Pretty cool to see a piece of software live at the crossroads of all that and get it right.
Removed by mod
I believe it was the Linux counterpart of XSplit, the “other” streaming software that was very popular in the early days of streaming. Before that we had to use some very elaborate setups.
Microsoft Defender.
I convinced my work to let me use linux on their laptop. They sent me instructions for setup. One of them was to install Microsoft Defender, had a link to the Ubuntu package and everything. Blew my mind.
What the fuq??
If it enables the use of Linux at work I would install it, too. And use Edge for corporate ressources as well.
Yup! Here’s a helpful link in case you feel like spreading the joy.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-use-microsoft-defender-linux/
But, why?
I don’t know, but my guess is it might still be able to detect some cross-platform malware signs and detect malware intended for Windows on Linux machines (e.g. I can download a PDF or .docx that is harmless on my machine, but if I reupload and a Windows user downloads it, I’ve spread malware regardless). IIRC ClamAV is sometimes used to scan attachments on an email server, often looking for Windows exploits being sent through the server.
That kinda makes sense
Reminds me of a ransomware problem that a place I worked at had. After weeks of computers getting reinfected over and over. It was figured out it was one “techy guy” with Linux on his work laptop. He kept sharing infected files.
So since he kept infecting the windows PCs on the network. It got Linux and macs banned at work.
Everyone had to have windows PCs moving forward.
Lot of Linux and Mac folk don’t realize how big of a vulnerability they can be even if they themselves aren’t affected.
We’ve got to install Microsoft Defender, Edge, and PowerShell on Ububtu so that the device will be flagged as compliant in Intune.
TIL. Nothing will ever surprise me in life anymore. 😂
Only works on Ubuntu though last I heard (and not even downstream distros), which is somewhat unfortunate
How did you manage to convince them?
This right here, if I can do the same to my work desktop I would be in my glory.
Wasn’t too difficult as they already offered Linux as a supported option. But I had to justify it. I was already using a linux VM for all my actual work. So I complained about all the buggy behavior I had experienced. Didn’t have to exagerate too much. I was properly modivated after IT sent out an email announcing the forced migration to Win11.
Neverball.
So gaming on Linux is obviously amazing now, but back in 2006 or so when I started using it, it was less than great. I probably tried every single game in the Ubuntu repos and Neverball entertained the hell out of me.
I spent hours rolling this shiny ball around. I loved Marble Madness on NES as a kid, so it was a natural fit.
A close second was Freeciv, as I had also grown up with a copy of Civilization.
Honorable mentions to Nesticle and Snes9x.
Probably ComicTagger https://github.com/comictagger/comictagger
I had been holding onto ComicRack for years and really loved it for scraping and generating tags before adding to Komga. I was a happy camper when i found ComicTagger.
Bash. It has enabled me to automatize a lot of sh*t I wouldn’t do just because it would take me a lot of time/efford to do. There’s a LOT you can do with a few simple scripts, a few examples:
- Remove files I don’t need (images, rip/conversion logs, empty folders…).
- Compress and optimize folders of photos recursively.
- Apply watermarks to photos recursively.
- Convert filetypes (flac2mp3, pdf2cbr, webm2mp3,web2jpg…).
- Configure input devices (keyboards, mouse, graphic tablets).
- Autorename files (spaces to _, . to _, _ to spaces…).
- Remove audio from videos recursively.
- Remove audio/subtitle tracks from videos.
- Download images/videos/audio from websites.
- Update appimages automatically.
- Update/cleanup system/repos.
- Use different theming for different applications.
- Mount iso/bin… images.
- Extract zip|rar|tar.gz|… files automatically.
- Modify pdfs.
- Get the weather for my location.
- Get stats from my PCs to be shown in panel applet.
- Alias program names to ones of my choosing.
- Open CUPS config in firefox.
- Refresh font caches and other management tools I don’t care to remember.
- Fix permissions.
- Make a backup.
- Restore a backup.
- Copy files safely (rsync).
- Change volume level.
- Install all the packages and configs I need to make the OS/apps behave/look the way I like.
…you name it…
…in most cases just by typing one word in the terminal. It was kind of a mindblow coming from the crappy window$ crappysystem eons ago.
Which program is the one that surprised you most that it is available on Linux?
Bash.
I find that the least surprising, but ok…
Wine/Proton, made my switch to Linux way easier
I cannot recall any specific programs besides a game called Feudal Tactics, but I swear I’ve seen software while looking through EasyFlatpak that surprised me.
KDEConnect, probably the best (only?) to do what it does in such a magnificent way
The entire KDE Community is incredible. From KDEConnect to Kdenlive, Krita, and Plasma I am a very happy nerd.
Kicad is up there with the paid options for electronic schematic drafting / PCB design. I don’t use a lot of KDE stuff since I also don’t use KDE, but Kicad is absolutely essential for me.
Despite the K in its name, KiCad is nothing to do with the KDE project. It’s an independent program started (iirc) at a French university. I agree it’s awesome, though.
Well now… TIL!
It’s so good that it absolutely killed my will to maintain a project I had that does something like this once I discovered it. They even support Windows too.
Been there, doing that, cf https://git.benetou.fr/utopiah/offline-octopus
It’s wonderful.
I do miss being able to send stuff from my PC to my iPhone though, but that’s Apple’s fault.
Out of curiosity, what is it you use it for? I pretty much only use it for SMS, for which it is kinda janky and unstable. Doesn’t always get contact names, doesn’t load everything from conversations, misses messages that I sent or that were sent to me, crashes if I scroll too fast, etc. I have Connect installed just to use SMS (cause I hate typing on my phone keyboard), but I’m honestly not even sure what the base software does.
Sharing files and clipboard is a nice feature. Media control might be pretty neat in some scenarios (party jukebox, htpc).
What completely blows my mind every time is when KDE Connect time pauses my music on my PC when I get a call on my mobile.
Well I basically never use SMS, so I have no idea if they work for me or not.
At the moment I’m using it to connect my two laptops and phone, mostly for notifications, file and clipboard sharing and remote trackpad.
Used to be Skype but MS just killed that so…
Probably my answer will not concern what I will tell about the program, but about what I liked about Linux, that there is freedom of action and everything is under my control
My answer is also not on topic, but I’ve always liked orange creamsickles
^^
Wicked. What distro works best for them?
Vuescan.
Tux racer was neat.
There was also a weird space game that started with a Q. I never progressed and it gave me existential crisis as it felt like nothing was out there. I’d get lost in space every time.
Yeah that looks like it
