"Where can I get an application for Linux that is similar to XYZ program on Windows?"

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Tue, 03/09/2010 - 02:03.

To understand the value of Linux - besides it being the best operating system in the world, for free - consider the cost of proprietary software for Windows and Apple, for the many tasks people do with a computer - the things you may want to do - and that with Open Source you may do all of these things for free. For reference, look over the following list of open source programs comparable to Windows programs and realize Windows programs are not free... open source programs are free - list from linuxquestions.org:

When migrating to Linux from Windows, a common question is "Where can I get an application for Linux that is similar to XYZ program on Windows?" Fear not! Listed below are programs that could be considered roughly equivalent to certain popular Windows applications. Note that the Linux programs might not have all the features which can be found in Windows proprietary software, but unless you are an expert in some Windows program this should not be a major obstacle.

 

Office and Productivity

Windows apps   ↓ Linux apps   ↓ Description   ↓
Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org OpenOffice, KOffice, Siag Office Office package
Word OOWriter, AbiWord, KWord, LaTeX Word Processing
Notepad, Wordpad, TheGun, EditPlus, SciTE

KWrite, Kate, BlueFish, Gedit, Joe

Text Editors
Access, dBase, Foxpro, Paradox Kexi, OOBase Database
Excel, Lotus123, QuattroPro OOCalc, Gnumeric, KSpread Spreadsheet
Visio Kivio, Dia Diagramming
PowerPoint OOImpress, KPresenter Presentation
Microsoft Project Manager RationalPlan, MrProject, Imendio Planner, Kplato Project management
Outlook, Thunderbird + Lightning, Sunbird Evolution, Kontact, BALSA, Thunderbird + Lightning, Sunbird Personal information managers
Alcohol 120%, Discjuggler, Easy CD Creator, Nero Burning ROM

K3b, XCDRoast, more

CD burning
Quicken, Microsoft Money, TurboTax GnuCash, KMyMoney, jGnash, MoneyDance, Grisbi, PLCash, CrossOver Office with Quicken, lazy8ledger Accounting
ActiveSync

SynCE

Synchronization with Windows Mobile devices
WinEdt, TeXnicCenter Kile, Texmaker, LyX LaTeX IDEs
Veritas Backup Exec, Cobian Backup

UniSon, Veritas Netbackup, more

Backup
Google Desktop

Beagle, Recoll, Google Desktop

Desktop Search
Norton Ghost

Partition Image, g4u, Mondo, dd

Disk imaging
Norton Partition Magic

QTparted, GParted

Disk partitioning
Disk Size Explorer File Light, Konqueror Disk usage analyzers
Filemon, Regmon syscalltrack system call tracking (file monitor & others)
WinMerge, SyncToy

Meld, Unison, Synkron, rSync

File synchronization
Windows Update, Add/Remove programs

apt-get, Aptitude, portage, rpm, urpmi, yast, yum, Synaptic

Every Linux distribution has an infrastructure to manage installed software which is quite different from Windows. For instance, all updates are handled by a single program. See package management.
WinRunner xautomation automating interactive applications
7-Zip, Winzip, Winrar

Karchiver, File Roller, ark, hjsplit; command line tools

Archivers
chkdsk fsck check your file system (and the hard disk beneath it) for errors
Daemon Tools

mount, GMount-ISO

ISO mounting
Disclib gWhere Disk cataloging programs

Desktop Publishing

Windows apps   ↓ Linux apps   ↓ Description   ↓
Dreamweaver, NVU, KompoZer

OOWeb, NVU, more

Web Design
Quark, Quark Express, Microsoft Publisher

Scribus

DTP software
Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader

Adobe Acrobat Reader, Xpdf, Kpdf, Ghostview, Evince; more

PDF readers
Adobe Acrobat Distiller, PDFCreator

CUPS-PDF, OpenOffice.org, kprinter -- can convert to pdf. more

PDF authoring
Adobe Acrobat PDF editor

pdftk, pdfedit, pdfjam, more

PDF editing tools
SilverFast

xSane, VueScan

scanning
FinePrint

page-crunch, mpage, Kprinter, psnup/PSutils, pdfnup/PDFjam

Document printing/reformatting tools

Networking

Windows apps   ↓ Linux apps   ↓ Description   ↓
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera, Lynx, etc.

Firefox, Galeon, Konqueror, Netscape, Opera, more

Internet browsers for the World Wide Web.
Outlook Express, Outlook, Thunderbird, Pegasus, Lotus Notes

Kontact, Evolution, Thunderbird, Claws Mail Sylpheed

Email clients.
ICQ, MSN Messenger, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Trillian, Pidgin

PidgIn, Kopete, aMSN, Gabber, Emesene (MSN), Centericq

Instant messaging software.
Microsoft Netmeeting

Gnomemeeting

Microsoft HyperTerminal

minicom

FileZilla FTP Client, WS FTP, Bullet Proof FTP, CuteFTP

FileZilla FTP Client, KFTP (KFTPGrabber), Kasablanca, FireFTP, Konqueror, KBear, CrossFTP, Nautilus

FTP clients. Note that dedicated FTP clients are rarely needed on Linux, since the default file manager can usually browse FTP shares. Several GNOME programs can directly open and edit files on FTP, SFTP and WebDAV shares.
mIRC

Konversation, Quassel, KVIrc, XChat, BitchX

IRC Clients
UltraVNC, TightVNC, RealVNC, Remote Desktop

TightVNC, RealVNC, rdesktop, FreeNX, x11vnc, Synergy, XDMCP, SSH with X11 forwarding (-X or -Y option)

Desktop Sharing
MailWasher

KShowmail

Forte Free Agent, Thunderbird, Pan

Thunderbird, Pan, Sylpheed, See More Clients Here

News Reader (Usenet newsgroups)
eMule

aMule

ED2K P2P network clients
Azureus, utorrent

Azureus, Qtorrent, Ktorrent, bittornado, Deluge, Transmission

BitTorrent P2P network clients
Skype, Voipbuster

Skype, Linphone, OPenwenGo, Ekiga

VOIP software
Bitvise Tunnelier

gSTM

gSTM is a front-end for managing SSH-tunneled port redirects.

Server

Windows apps   ↓ Linux apps   ↓ Description   ↓
IIS, Apache

Apache, iPlanet, thttpd, lighttpd, YAWS ZOPE

Web Servers
Folder sharing, printer sharing

Samba

Share files and printers between Windows and Linux systems. Installed by default on most distributions.
IIS, FileZilla FTP Client & Server vsftpd, pure-ftpd FTP servers, for hosting files.
NetLimiter

Trickle, Level 7 Filter, ClarkConnect, Bandwidth Arbitrator, MasterShaper

Bandwidth shaping and management.
Exchange

Citadel, zimbra, Open-Xchange

Groupware (sharing of appointments, contacts, e-mail, documents, etc. between members of a group)
Sharepoint

KnowledgeTree

Manage and secure documents, collaborate around document creation and editing, full document contents indexing
Norton/McAfee Antivirus, ClamWin, AVG, AntiVir

ClamAV, AVG Antivirus, Avast Home for Linux

Antivirus software.
ZoneAlarm , Sygate SPF

Guarddog, Firestarter, GUFW, iptables

Firewall software

Multimedia

Windows apps   ↓ Linux apps   ↓ Description   ↓
Adobe Photoshop,Corel Photo-Paint, GIMP, GIMPShop

GIMP, GIMPShop, Krita, Pixel (non-free high quality), LightZone (non-free high quality)

Raster graphics editors
Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator

Inkscape

Vector graphics editors
Irfanview, ACDSee

XnView, GQView, Mirage, GThumb

Image viewers
3D Studio MAX, Blender, Maya

Blender, Maya, Softimage, K-3D

3D modeling software
Windows Media Player, PowerDVD

MPlayer, Xine, Totem, Kaffeine, VLC

Video Players
SIA Smaart Live BRP-PACU Sound analysis
Winamp, Sonique, iTunes, aTunes

amaroK, aTunes, XMMS, BMP, Audacious, noatun, RhythmBox, xine will play aac and wma, Banshee

Music Players
Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere Elements,Multiquence

Cinelerra, KDenlive, LiVES, Kino, AviDemux

Video Editors
Audacity, Cubase, CoolEdit, GoldWave

Ardour, Rosegarden, Audacity, GNUsound, Beast

Digital audio workstation software
Audio Catalyst, dbpoweramp, CDex

Grip, Audacity

Audio Editors
Cakewalk

kmid, kmidi

NoteWorthy Composer, MuseScore, LilyPond

MuseScore,LilyPond

Musical score typesetting
GuitarPro, TuxGuitar

TuxGuitar

Guitar tablature editors
Microsoft Paint, Kid Pix, Tux Paint

Tux Paint, KolourPaint

Basic raster painting programs
Videora

thinliquidfilm

TMPGEnc DVD Author, Roxio DVDit

Bombono DVD

DVD authoring software

Education

Windows apps   ↓ Linux apps   ↓ Description   ↓
  KTouch Touch typing tutors
Maple, Mathematica Maple, Mathematica, Maxima Computer algebra systems
Matlab

Matlab, Octave, SciLab

High level numeric computation environments
SPSS, Stata, EViews

R-project, Stata, PSPP, S-Plus

Statistical analysis
Verilog

iverilog

Verilog Simulator
Google Earth, NASA World Wind, Celestia, Stellarium

Google Earth, Celestia, Stellarium, Marble, Geody

Geography and astronomy

Please add new applications to this list. A good resource is the BeetleSpace Windows/Linux Software Table of Equivalents, which is GNU FDL licensed.

See also

 

"his work lives on today in our program"

One doesn't naturally think of computer programs - software - as the product of individuals, other than of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, who probably never don't write much of their company's code. That is computing in the corporate world of Microsoft and Apple, that seek to control the entire free world with uninspiring corporate software.

Software in the open source world is clearly the product of individuals, and they are acknowledged for their contributions to the code of open source projects.

Perhaps the most touching example of the lasting personalization of open source software in the development community may be found with the latest release notes for Audacity - open source audio editing software - which has a dedication to one of the programmers who had worked on the program, and passed away last year:

January 18, 2010: Audacity 1.3.11 released

The Audacity Team is pleased to announce the release of Audacity 1.3.11 (Beta) for Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix. This release fixes a number of bugs reported to us in 1.3.10. Thank you to everyone who sent us feedback.

 

We dedicate this release to David R.Sky who passed away in October 2009. David did some great work on Audacity plug-ins and his work lives on today in our program. He provided assistance to all who needed help. We shall miss him.

Disrupt IT

yeah

You folks don't need my 2 cents but Linux and open source software is part of the digital divide solution.

www.linuxalt.com/  this site is just like the one above.

www.webi.org/  if you need a preview and more.

www.theopendisc.com/  2 DVDs of open source software, one with a education focus. These run in MS Windows if you can't make the jump to Linux.

I my self love computer graphics. I use GIMP for photo and painting, Inkscape for scalable vector drawing and am now learning Blender 3D for modeling in 3D space. I also have My Paint which sims real paint. I have a whole studio of fine tools for free. And to learn there are tutorial videos all over the net and a great site called linuxgraphicsusers.com/forum/ it is great great great!!!