Free and Open Source Software @beehaw.org

1y ago

What non-FOSS software are you using that you wish you could replace?

For me its honestly a ton of my work software (digital forensics), shit is too niche to be replaced by good FOSS options. Cellebrite, Magnet Axiom, etc. Autopsy is great and free and has a linux version but it simply cannot get the same level of data without a pretty nutty level of custom code.

And the biggest side effect of this is FUCKING WINDOWS. God I would replace this nightmare OS in a heartbeat if the aforementioned work software would make linux compatible versions. We have legitimately wasted 10k hours dealing with windows bullshit that would not be a problem in linux. Though im sure linux would take a different 10k for its own problems.

What about you guys? Doesn't have to be work related, thats just the thorn in my side right now.

112 comments

Whatsapp
And no, I can't simply stop using or ask friends to move to an alternative. I'm from Brazil and that thing is so popular and mainstream, that even stores or public services use it.
Just this week, I had to report an animal abuse case to the authorities, and the official communication channel I had to use was through whatsapp.
It's sad to see how dependent of a single proprietary service for something so important we allowed ourselves to become...
- You can use a FOSS app at your end to chat with WhatsApp users, if this isn't something you're already aware of. Element.io plus a bridge. Beeper.com is a turnkey platform that sorts it all out for you.
  It doesn't help replace WhatsApp as a platform, but perhaps it would suit you?
  
  I have been looking at this possibility, but running a bridge means that I will need to self host a service, which adds one more point of failure, while not really removing whatsapp from my life, so I'm not convinced it's a good alternative.
- Likewise from Brazil and likewise would rather see whatsapp gone from my devices. Sadly, I still need it for work and other official matters. Still, I'm slowly but surely abandoning whatsapp, by either convincing people I talk to to migrate to other, less anti-consumer services, migrating myself to sister groups or alternatives in other services, and/or abandoning a group or chat altogether. And all the while being vocal about it by raising my concerns about whatsapp (just saying "I don't like it and you should move too" can be pretty counter-intuitive with our countrymen). Hopefully, this way, I can drop it altogether once it becomes clearly irrelevant.
  But this reminds me I haven't deleted/left any chats for a few days, so I'll take the opportunity to do just that.
  
  But what do you do when services and institutions in general require you to use whatsapp? That's what is mostly keeping me from deleting that app.

Mechanical CAD. Something like SolidWorks or Fusion 360.
FreeCAD just isn't there yet. They're still struggling with the topological naming problem. However, Blender was like this in the field of 3D animations. Now it's the standard. That gives me hope for FreeCAD. Anyway, MCAD is very important. I'm learning modern C++ and the FreeCAD code base in order to contribute.
I also wish there was a better CAD kernel than OpenCASCADE.
- I have been experimenting with using Inkscape and OpenSCAD for 3d modeling, and it seems to work for what I do, but I know quite a few people prefer a more graphical interface than OpenSCAD.
  
  OpenSCAD is a good take on CAD. My primary workflow is also based on plaintext (text configs, code, org-mode, latex, etc) and keyboard (no mouse). It's easy to manage and back it up with version control tools like git. However, there are a few fields that I feel are inherently visual and need a very interactive tool. CAD is one of them. Others are 3D animation and art.

Microsoft Office. If you need to do any kind of professional documentation for external organizations, it's basically impossible to use anything else.
- The lack of good support for MS Office formats in FOSS tools is Microsoft's fault. Office itself often creates files that are slightly incompatible with their own published OOXML standard. FOSS tools are left chasing these inconsistencies. I wish the world had settled on ODF instead of OOXML for documents.
- Definitely agree with this one, though I will say you can replace one proprietary bit of software (Microsoft Office) with another (Google Drive/Docs) and get a large portion of the way in some industries. Really depends on what you need to do.
  But alas, still no widely accepted FOSS alternatives.

Discord. God I hate that program, but everyone I know uses it.
- I decided to be the change I want to see, so I got my gaming group a Mumbe server for audio chat. I self-host, but commercial ones are dirt cheap. Sound quality is better than Discord. We use Matrix for text, pictures, etc.
- Same as Reddit; it's network affect. There are different applications out there for various purposes that work better/nicer than Discord. But not enough people are using them so everyone goes where everyone else is at.
  
  Honestly I can’t replace discord with something that doesn’t have the streaming feature. I use that waaaay too much
- Discord on Linux is one of the biggest reasons I stopped trying to switch to Linux. Not the only, and I know web apps are a thing. But I hate setting literally a web app when there’s a “native” app, but their native app was doubling all my back/forward button inputs, and high was a massive disruption.
  It was far from the only reason, more like the final straw in a growing list of frustrating shit that ALMOST worked right.
  
  That's weird, I've never had that issue
  
  Windows Discord is also a web app.
  
  Just gotta say, I didn't expect to see emojis in a username, and I am both appalled and impressed

Honestly, I haven't found anything that can replace Google Maps for route planning with public transportation. I really wish for crowdsourced timetables hosted on OSM...
- You can use Gmaps WV to use GMaps without an Google account at least

My central and autonomic nervous systems. Mine are shite and have been since I was wee. Even a clean reinstall of the original operating system would likely help a ton, but if the open source community could go through the files and find the all the bugs, who knows what I could make of my life. At the very least I'd be able to work again.
- OH FUCK
  Brain is running proprietary shitware
  Theres no hope for us, but for our kids...
  Lets flash something worthy into their heads moment they are getting birth

The financial system. If i could i would use monero all the time since its FOSS money. Banking software, visa, slavercard, discover, etc APIs all proprietary.
- That ship has sailed unfortunately since everyone was conditioned to hate all cryptocurrency during the dogecoin and nft crazes. Though whenever anyone mentions crypto to me I am not afraid to mention monero as a serious option that I use even if no one knows about it or thinks its a shitcoin.
  
  People don't hate crypto because of NFTs, they hate crypto because it's all smoke and mirrors. Crypto isn't money, it's a speculation market with an excellent ad campaign. You can't buy things with crypto.
  Want to spend money without the government tracking your every purchase? Just use cash.
  
  Eh, i dont think the ship has sailed. The people who stay in crypto during "crypto winters" are generally the real ones who actually want to see a world where governmyth monopoly money fails.

My laptops BIOS

The whole Adobe creative suite. The options out there absolutely are not replacements, either in functionality or usability. Most of them are UX nightmares and feel actively hostile to the user
- I even tried replacing Lightroom, which if you read the recommendations, people love the various FOSS options out there, but they were all garbage at onboarding or finding functionality or just even setting up a simple library with events and albums to group together and edit.

Bloody banking apps. I'm sick of them not exposing any API to make third party apps.
- If you just want to set up viewing transactions you can setup Actual Budget

Notion

OneNote on my foldable laptop. I use it to take notes in uni simply because it's the best option out of all the ones I've tried. I like OneNote's stabilization and infinite canvas. What annoys me tho is that you cannot set the canvas to paged, so if you're planning on exporting to pdf you have no idea where the page boundaries are.
With the last Windows 11 update they fucked it up tho and now the app is garbage anyways
- Notesnook is free, e2ee, nice ui, and has cloud sync. Recommmend
  
  Not really the same thing at all if there's no handwriting support.
- Not FOSS, but I'm a big One Note user for work and wanted to find something for my personal life and most likely will use it for my next professional role in at least some capacity...Notion is by far the most customizable and complete solution that's also user friendly because of existing user templates. I've been SERIOUSLY impressed and I've been trying everything I can find.
  Best part is that the phone and computer apps are both very capable. One Note on phone is the worst companion app.
  
  notion is also not FOSS though. and i had bad experiences with the mobile app when cell service is bad.
  
  AnyType is an open-source alternative to Notion which recently launched:
  https://anytype.io/

Less software and more driverware. My headphones (arctis nova pro wireless) have some really nice customizations available with the sonar software. Nvidia drivers are more customizable but the issue is mostly support for vrr through gsync, dlss, hdr, and Nvidia broadcast. I know AMD is supposedly bounds and leaps ahead of Nvidia but that's what I have for current hardware because of how useful and ubiquitous the software is.
- If by Arctis nova pro you mean SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 then this repo might interest you: github.com/Sapd/HeadsetControl it's basically software that allows you to change afew settings for headset inside a terminal.
  
  It's not everything but it's enough that I might get by with it! Thanks stranger

For me it's Adobe After Effects. Yeah, I can do most of what it does in a combination of blender, natron, gmic, etc.. but I really like the workflow of AFX. Not having that tool was one of the hardest parts of cancelling my Adobe subscription. Nowadays I would even settle for a non-foss alternative. As long as it's running on Linux. But so far, that has not happened (I use other non Foss tools that work great, like resolve/fusion and Houdini.. but I still miss AFX)
Edit: yeah, I missed a detail in the question: I do not currently use AFX but used it a lot in the past and am now trying to replicate workflows I based on it with other tools.. still miss it a lot and would give a lot to have a solid alternative...

Photography software in general.
Photo Mechanic, On1 plugins, and Capture One - there isn't a single piece of FOSS photography software that is remotely useful for my use cases.
High volume tethered shooting with automatic application of edits and adjustments in separate layers is basically impossible.
Fast culling of hundreds or thousands of images along with applying metadata with templates is also not really possible.
Darktable and Digikam are okay Lightroom replacements, but they don't come close to touching what is available in the proprietary world. Rawtherapee doesn't do tethering at all, and isn't very good at what it does do compared to On1 Photo Raw or Capture One.
- I am planning on writing a graphical interface for gphoto2 (a Linux camera remote library) which will allow for tethered shooting and some other neat things (like using a computer as an intervalometer). I might also write a web interface for it, so it will allow for using a table or phone to remote control a camera and allow the user to check on timelapses, but it will take a while to get it all to work.

Autocad. This is the main (only?) reason I continue to use Windows. Professional 2d cad for architectural drafting has been lacking in Linux for a long time. There are a few commercial alternatives, Bricscad being the big one, but due to (cheap) grandfathered licensing cost for Autocad, I"ve been unable to push for a purchase. Qcad (professional) was another option I looked at but, despite being a good program at an amazing cost, had enough differences in work flow that I couldn't find a good way to integrate it into a shared workflow.
Every once in a while I switch to Linux and either run a W10 vm or RDP just to work around the issue but, inevitably, get frustrated with performance. Freecad and Blender both seem to be working on the problem -but- from a BIM perspective, not detailed drafting . . .
- So much this! And with the connectivity between Rhino/Archivad, Revit and TwinMotion I fear a solution is far away. Which surprises me because all of our professional software works fine natively on Mac, which is also Unix based. Isn't there an easy way to emulate from that direction?
- Tried a bit of bricscad, have to say it's wonderful just not using autodesk evil ooze. Maybe you can try emailing them so they can give you a discount?
  Anyway, here with inventor, a horrible choice I'm stuck with
  
  I hant heard of this before ... It has Ubuntu and opensuse as supported plattform, and a one-time buy option?! This sounds amazing!

Paradox of Windows 10 MS will soon end support and my cpu is "too old" for update to win11 so Ill be forced by Microsoft to use linux
Also Google Play Services, because my phone didnt allow me to flash MicroG
- On that matter, if you haven't dug on the topic yet and if I may suggest, look for Linux systems ("distros") with either the Xfce or Wayland desktop environments, since they're some of the lightest around (Xfce being the most stable of the two, but Wayland seems pretty promising already).

Pretty much anything on my phone. Though I have recently found f-droid, and through that I found Phonograph. I wish open street maps could replace google maps, but I really don't know what it's trying to do.
- OSM has much better coverage in Europe as more volunteers contibute. I heard it's not that great in the US.
- You should also check out Droid-ify if you like F-Droid. Has more sources, notably those apps on Github which aren't on F-Droid. Since it can grab apps from Github directly, it gets updates much faster than F-Droid.
- Depends on your country, but where I live Open Streetmap is better than Google's map. I hear OsmAnd is a great app, but I don't use a smartphone so I haven't tested it. I just know that their very compact offline maps are impressive.
  
  I prefer Organic Maps as an OSM Android App, I've found it to be a bit easier to use and more reliable than OsmAnd!

I use Blue Iris for capturing IP cameras. I've tried ZoneMinder, iSpy, and Motion (via MotionEyeOS) but just can't find something that works as dependably well. It could definitely be user error (and not getting the alternatives dialed in). But I always go back to Blue Iris. 😔
- I've been liking Shinobi

I am currently using the proprietary Nvidia driver, simply because nouveau isn’t performant enough. I can’t wait for NVK though, maybe that driver will finally be viable for us Nvidia-users.

iOS
- I freed myself from these chains years ago now, It was definitely worth it. understandable if you are locked in for work though.
  
  There are jobs that require iphones? Now that sounds like a nightmare (unless you're developing apps for ios or something).

Nationwide banking.

Google Play Services

Paraphrasing our Lord and saviour Mental Outlaw, convincing normies to use Signal is the hard part. And so I have to use ZuckApp

Windows, banking app, Discord, and my router firmware.
- Can help with all of them. But check out opnsense.
- Since gaming on linux has made ridiculous improvements im running it fulltime on my desktop machine. But I ran it on my laptops as sole OS for about 15 years now.
  For router firmware i bought an archer c7 v5 last year (50€) and am running OpenWRT now. It's sitting behind my ISPs router, but for that i don't care.
  Banking App would be really difficult since this is a huge security operation with liabilities. And discord would be nice to replace since it just fucks you and steals your data without giving it a second thought but there is no conpetitor i know of.

On my phone: a FOSS "find-my-phone" function
On my computer: a FOSS way to access Teams for work. Just give me a Weechat plugin please.
- Look at owntrack. Send position data to your own server
- findmydevice on fdroid
- KDE Connect can find your phone, as long as it's on the same network (basically, only at home). It's not perfect but it's something.

The Affinity suite. Truth is, I don't want to replace them because I really like how they work; I just wish there was a native Linux version, because it's almost impossible to get it to run in Wine. Have to use a VM for the time being.
Stream Deck is another one I miss, and the FOSS alternatives just don't cut it in terms of functionality.

Windows+Visual Studio. I run them in a VM, and for a while managed to keep it at 50GB, but combine it with a moderately large hit repo and you can just give that up. And yes, I know vscode is a thing, but there always ends up being some legacy/COM/platform specific library that makes it non-compatible.

Intuit software, specifically TurboTax. This also may become obsolete to replace if the IRS will give out free software as rumored for next year, but I'm surprised nothing as intuitive ^pun ^heh or user-friendly has popped up. Maybe I need to do more research, not sure.

@JohnCoomsumer Besides the mentioned Nvidia drivers, I use Steam. Steam isn't bad by any means, but I wish it was at least an Open Source GUI that uses it's proprietary backend service. This way we could have such a variety in Steam GUIs. Actually impressive that almost everything is Free and Libre software on my system!

For home and work, none, locally. The problem now is Google and MS Teams, LinkedIn, Github, etc. That's the new battle ground. They would make us thin clients to their mainframe and that we must rent access.

Hmm interesting, I would have thought digital forensics would be a space that lots of FOSS would exist in.
For me, it's Discord and Steam. There are some good alternatives for Steam in the sense of being a game launcher, but not with all the modding and friend join features, which I use quite a lot.
Discord is worse for me though, because Valve is a least a FOSS friendly company, but Discord isn't the same. all my friends and family are on Discord and have no interest in leaving. There aren't any FOSS alternatives that have all the core features that Discord has and work well.
And contrary to a lot of FOSS enthusiasts, I actually really like Discord, it works well most of the time for me.

Any program that communicates with USB connected hardware via a non-standard, Windows only USB driver as provided by the hardware vendor. In other words, you can't just plug a device into any OS and start programing it via a standard USB driver.

Firmware in all the consumer devices I want to hack, but don’t want to reverse engineer.

Shazam

I really wish that you could install a clean AOSP on any Android phone, just like you can install FOSS OS'es on most laptops.
Last Android phone I bought had a few strange "vendor apps" (one with Chinese characters only in its name), and if I disabled Google Play Services the SMS app would go crazy and show error messages (as notifications) all the time. To add, "adb uninstall" was blocked by the vendor and there was no unofficial ROM.
I prefer small phones, so the market of phones is really really small for me :( Otherwise, I would have bought a Fairphone.

I want to jump to linux, but the prospect of starting from scratch on a new OS (or even a reinstall of windows) is just not feasible right now.
- Dual boot? I used to do this before moving my daily driver over. Haven't looked back since.

Discord and Windows. I have had so many bad experiences whenever I have tried Linux that I am extremely reluctant to give it another go despite all the improvements it has made.
- Pop OS has been a windows killer for me.
  Revolt Chat has a bootstrapping problem like most new social software.
- I love Linux, but it is definitely not for everyone. I'm a software engineer, so debugging weird software issues is just a normal part of my life. Sometimes really weird stuff happens. Recently I had an software update repository that my package manager was pointing to go down, so all software updates were failing. I had to figure out where that repo was being added and remove it. As far as I can tell, it was a default one that was installed with Ubuntu, so not even one that I added. I don't think I can blame myself on this one (usually I can). If the average Windows user had that happen, they would just abandon Linux.
  You basically have to have a personality where you don't mind fidgeting with things constantly to get things to work. If that isn't you, then Linux just isn't for you.

photoshop.
- Krita maybe? Not 100% the same though

DuoLingo
- Same. "Ik leer Nederlands" :)
  But this one is tough since first you would have to crowd source a ton of user contributed lessons. Not sure how that could work...
  
  Ik lees de krant en een olifant eet een boterham.

Sublime text. It is just so fucking good! Much more performant than even nvim.
- Umm, no. Nvim setup properly will smoke sublime. Check out one of the pre-built ide like versions like Astro or Lunar. Stock to stock, nvim will be faster. Configured to configured, nvim will be faster.

Adobe After Effects. Despite being an unstable spaghetti code nightmare, there is no other viable option for professional motion graphics designers.
- Agree. But just letting you know about natron in case you haven't seen it.

Windows. Linux as a desktop just isn't stable enough for me. Too many bugs with GUI settings. I don't want to look up multiple ways to do things just to be eventually kicked into the command line and hopefully run the right commands to get some basic settings working. I'd love for Linux to be more stable and to have a cohesive GUI.
On the more cosmetic side running KDE apps in Gnome or running Gnome apps in KDE is just a further huge mess that can essentially ruin how your system looks which could potentially soft-lock you on screens that you can't read. The DE on Linux just should do the Windows and Mac thing of requiring hooks to allow them to set important color and theme settings.
Windows is terrible but it's still leagues above Linux in some real basic ways. Linux is going to need to step it up if it ever wants a serious "year of the Linux desktop" to happen before the death of the desktop computer altogether.
- I'm curious what "basic settings" require you to touch the command line. My elderly mum and dad - who aren't very tech savvy btw - have been running Linux for nearly a decade now (Xubuntu previously, now Zorin) and haven't had any major issues in all this time. Admittedly their requirements are pretty basic, but they do all your tasks a typical basic PC user would - surf the web, check emails, work on documents, print and scan stuff, backup files from their phones/USB drives, video chat etc. In fact, the entire reason why I got them onto Linux in the first place was because Windows wasn't really stable for them - I got tired of having to troubleshoot or reinstall Windows for them all the time. They'd complain about how an update broke something, or how the system was becoming slower etc. But no such issues with Linux. Occasionally I might get a call asking "how do I do this", but after a few years, these support calls have all but vanished. Linux "just works" for them, it's rock solid, the GUI is intuitive (at least for Xububtu/Zorin) and they never had to touch the command line.

112 comments