Linux
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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excel for vba support
Yeah, that makes sense. I’m not an irrational hater of Microsoft — maybe a little — but Excel is very good. The people who need Excel, often genuinely need Excel, specifically.
And Numbers on the macOS ecosystem is shockingly bad. Like, I’d rather barebones Gnumeric from 10 years ago for my purposes.
I ain't no hardcore Excel user so can't speak for others, but I've been able to completely switch to Excel Online and use Office Scripts and Power Automate for tasks for which I used VBA previously. In fact, Power Automate has been great for doing stuff like updating workbooks through scheduled or event-driven flows, without even having to open Excel. I can see VBA going away soon with these technologies.
With the state of O365 these days, there's zero need for me to have a native MSO install, and this no need for a Windows VM either (for day-to-day/personal stuff). The only reason I still keep Windows VMs though is for occasionally testing random things for work.
WSL2 is pretty good. j/k
I used it a lot while developing a Linux program for a raspberry pi with a colleague and was blown away how fun and easy it was to use.... Untill I started daily driving Linux and realised how much stuipd window wsl setup and work I could have skipped by just using Linux directly.... Lol I was missing out. Now I just daily drive Linux and never looking back to wsl
!boinc@sopuli.xyz if I am donating GPU power to science research. There is a BOINC client for Linux but packaging is a hot mess (though getting better) and compatibility with graphics drivers is hit-or-miss. So any crunching rigs I have w/ GPUs all run Windows.
I have a Windows VM that runs Visual Studio and a small number of developer tools so I can test my code on Windows. And another windows VM that runs Daz3D, Clip Studio Paint and the Epic Launcher (to download stuff from the Unreal Engine Marketplace).
Sometimes I misuse either VM by creating a snapshot and installing Garmin Connect so I can update the music library on my watch :)
Anyone using ReactOS for this?
Adobe Lightroom Classic. I have darktable installed on Linux, but I haven't mastered it yet. Lightroom is the software for photo editing, unfortuntately.
There are some programs I still use that are designed for Windows, but use cases are "niche" or at very least specialized:
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Guitar Pro 8 - Guitar Tab software
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Line 6 HX Edit - Helix Settings Editor
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Line 6 Powercab Edit - Amp Settings Editoe
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Line 6 Updater - Firmware Updater for Line 6 Products
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Steelseries GG - Configuration Software for Steelseries Peripherals
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Numerous VSTs and other Audio Plugins
These are just what I remember I use off the top of my head.
I do use Guitar Pro 8 with Wine, but the others won't work through Wine. I did try to use the others with a Windows KVM through QEMU but I ultimately gave up and left one windows workstation because of my issues with my Nvidia RTX 3090.
I run Scrivener, which is a writing software that's only for Mac & Windows (well, there is a Linux version but it's ancient), but I just run that through Wine rather than a VM. That's about the only thing I haven't found a good equivalent for on Linux though.
Nope.
non-game, non-niche
Nope, that's actually strictly my reason for having a dedicated Windows rig. Games, and niche homebrew apps.
Yeah. I use quite a few windows exclusive programs. I know it is a long list but can't be helped. Good support and stability beats ideology and these apps provide me that. Here is the list:
I hope this list is helpful to others as well ☺️
MusicBee, Stardock Fences, obligatory Adobe mention, all VR everything (unless something has changed recently, I haven't looked in while).
Gamepass
I haven't been able to get Vectric Aspire to work yet, even under wine. It's used to layout tool paths for CNC operations, so it may be a little on the niche side, but it's pretty popular there.
QFIL aka Qualcomm Flash Image Loader but only because the rooting of my XR headset (Lynx) https://lynx.miraheze.org/wiki/Rooting_Process relies on it.
I've done it successfully so now I understand a bit better how it works. I could try to use instead https://github.com/bkerler/edl which looks even more complete and reproducible.
I have a Windows computer in the basement to run one program: The virtual cycling platform Zwift.
But someone made a docker image for it, so even that is tenuous. I fired it up on the Linux system I'm typing this on, and it worked fine.
I'm not very familiar with Docker and the like, though. What if the person that created it decides he's no longer interested in maintaining it?
I use an old copy of Photoshop CS5 via VMWare and Windows 10 installed in it. Unfortunately the Gimp doesn't have adjustment layers and the Selective Color feature. I can't live without these two features, I need them on each and every scan of my paintings to fix colors.
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