Which program is the one that surprised you most that it is available on Linux?
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.
KDEConnect, probably the best (only?) to do what it does in such a magnificent way
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).
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.
If find the missed call notifications to be very helpful. I never remember to check my phone, but I'm on the computer all the time. I also like the ability to remote control the music player from my phone since the computer is hooked up to an amplifier with speakers in multiple rooms.
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.
Bitwig and Reaper. Two of the best music DAWs on the market and they each have a Linux native version.
EDIT: I forgot to include Renoise, the music tracker DAW.
Yeah, Reaper is surprising! It's in the Arch repos and Flathub.
I would have been happy if I had to build it from source or download a random deb from their website. But, damn. It's on Linux and easily installable!
As a guitarist ToneLib and Carla are also up there for me.
I have been experimenting with Reaper a bit, but I am a sort of DAW noob, so it's kind of hard to get in to. I've done a tiny bit using Lmms though, but I am missing synthesizer stuff in Reaper. I've tried installing plugins by putting them into the proper folders and let Reaper attempt to resolve it, but it doesn't really work as expected.
Any tips? Especially for Linux of course. Many of the tutorials are Windows oriented.
Reaper is like the Arch Linux of DAWs. It's power is in its flexibility and customization. That said, I found it to be uninspiring in its complexity out of the box. That said, the Reaper community is amazing. If you want to mod and customize it into your ideal DAW,y recommendation is to hit the community forums, Discord, etc.
Personally, I bounced from Reaper almost instantly in favor of Bitwig and Renoise on Linux.
I would start from the docs. There is pretty good reaper manual available from its homepage, covers everything from basic "how does one creates the prohect?" to relatively advanced topics.
Most of the plugins I encountered have no native Linux version, but yabridge deals with most of them quite good. I personaly use it paired with Play on Linux to logically separate different groups of plugins and everything works like a charm.
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
Microsoft Edge was a recent surprise. It's surprising both that Microsoft would create it and that any Linux users would run it. Since its Chromium based, there should be no need for developers to test Edge separately.
You can also get Teams on Linux
That's a little less surprising to me. Organizations are likely to pick competing communication software if Teams is not available to everyone. Web browsers are generally interoperable after Microsoft lost the war to popularize one that wasn't.
Really? All I've seen is a Flatpak that's really just a wrapped web view. Is there now a native version of Teams for Linux?
LocalSend.
No more USBs ever (outside of install media). So so simple, fast, and works on all devices and FOSS.
It is really the best UX of any file sharing app I have experienced (outside of airdrop I guess, but obvious problems there)
Okular is also a favorite of mine.
I really like LocalSend as well, but it’s very inconsistent with me. I think it has to do with one device being on a VPN, but I’m not totally sure. Basically I have some “one way” connections where one device can see and send to the one connected to a VPN but not the other way around. Is there some way I can specify LocalSend connections to ignore the VPN? I’m on NixOS and installed LocalSend in my user package declarations in my Nix config.
I had the same thing on Bazzite just with the local network, not a VPN.
I believe it has to do with the firewall. You have to open the port both incoming and outgoing for 53317.
But you literally have to be on the same network, so for example if both devices are on the same local network (hence local in the name) and your phone is on a VPN but your computer is not on a VPN, then it won't work.
It should work if you VPN into your local network remotely so that both devices are on the same LAN, however, then that won't work anyway because you have to have physical access to the device to accept the transfer (you could probably use a remote desktop to do that, but then it is getting complicated)
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
Surprised? IE/Edge. Like, why?
My work mandates Edge as a browser on the company PC. With Edge on Linux I can have a "work" browser on my private PC with bookmark sync etc.
Kdenlive. I used Adobe Premiere professionally and Kdenlive completely replaced it for me.
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.
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.
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:
...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...
I agree simple-scan is awesome.
I just like when I do an update and my computer uses less data...and its a bit faster. Thats happened a couple of times. Feels good.
Zoom. No dark mode though.
I use zoom several times a week, and have had to revert to windows several times because development lags behind win/mac, and for some reason my org has a fixation on trying new features, useful or not.
Wine/Proton, made my switch to Linux way easier
MagicQ
What surprised me the most, also in part due to me not really being knowledgeable about software solutions in their respective industries, was the Unreal Engine (the editor that is) and Houdini being available on Linux. Tbf, at least in the vfx department it is apparently more common as most of the high profile software in that industry does have a native Linux version available.
What I appreciated the most though was software like Reaper and Renoise providing a (very good even) Linux-native version when I looked for a new DAW to learn, seeing most software in the audio industry not being very Linux-friendly.
Used to be Skype but MS just killed that so....
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.
Vuescan.
Mixx is a cool free dj software, didn't expect davinci resolve to have an official version, stremio also I didn't think would have an app for whatever reason. I like inkscape for vector art, didn't realize it was a thing til I swapped to linux. I use software and apps more in general because it's stuff I've installed and its not hidden by bloat, even if there is more windows stuff out there, its way easier to discover actual useful software using linux through linux appstores compared to windows.
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.
My answer is also not on topic, but I've always liked orange creamsickles
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??
Yup! Here's a helpful link in case you feel like spreading the joy.
https://www.maketecheasier.com/install-use-microsoft-defender-linux/
If it enables the use of Linux at work I would install it, too. And use Edge for corporate ressources as well.
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?