Application Crossover Chart
From Grokdoc
This chart was moved to LQWiki:Application Crossover Chart, since it is a solution rather than identification of a problem. However, it had to be moved back because of a copyright licensing problem: the Grokdoc license is for non-commercial use only, but the LQWiki license allows commercial use.
This page should discuss problems users had in trying to find Linux applications to replace Windows applications, or trying to bypass the lack of such applications by running a Windows emulator under Linux.
This chart will provide one with the Linux equivalent(s) of one's favorite Windows Programs. Usually one will have a choice of several. For more information on KDE or GNOME see the KDE or Gnome page.
If one's application is not listed, there is another option that one can try. There is an application called WINE that will attempt to run one's Windows program in Linux. WINE is always in development, and there is no telling how well one's application will work until it is tried. One can try searching the WINE compatility database. WINE is very successful at running MS Office, and other common Windows programs. See also Crossover Office, and WineX for commercial alternatives to WINE. (Scorp1us's Personal note: My own win32 programs that I write have had good success with running in WINE.)
If WINE won't run your application, you should consider LQWiki:Win4Lin. It costs $89, and you have to have a Win98 or WinME license to use it, but it handles more applications than WINE.
The "Other" column in the chart below should have entries indicating when an application runs under WINE, Crossover Office, or Win4Lin (for a Windows application that has no equivalent under KDE, Gnome or X? What about Y-Windows, the CLI, GUI-less apps, e.g. subversion server, etc?).
TODO: Add apps to the correct categories below and please keep them alphabetised!
TODO: Here are some similar web pages to this one, it'd be nice to extract all the information from these pages and make this the definitive "win32 alternatives" page:
- http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/
- http://www.linux.net/compat.php
- http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml
- http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/linux/equivalents.html
- http://www.usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=37
- The Linux Signpost
TODO: Fine-grain the table. For instance, KWord is only a subset of Word's functionality, certain keybindings are not available, etc. Comparison should be feature-wise. Maybe also include versions (vs. resource need, etc.).
Contents |
Application Crossover Chart
Accounting, Online-Banking, Tax calculation
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quickbooks | GnuCash | |||
| Quicken | Eqonomize | GnuCash | Kalculate | LQWiki:Win4Lin |
| MS Money | kmymoney2 | GnuCash | Moneydance | |
| Lexware (German Accounting) | Kalculate | SQL-Ledger LedgerSMB | ||
| Wiso Steuer (German Tax) |
Databases
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access (As Client) | Rekall Kexi |
MySQLCC, pgaccess | OpenOffice.org Base | |
| SQL Server, Access (As "Server") | PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, Firebird | |||
| Crystal Reports | JasperReports, DataVision, Agata | |||
| Oracle | Fyracle(Oracle-mode Firebird) |
Development
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visual Studio | KDevelop, Gambas | Anjuta (C/C++) | Eclipse, Mono, NetBeans | |
| .NET Development Framework | Mono (QT#) | Mono(GTK#) | DotGNU | |
| SourceSafe Client | Cervisia, Kdesvn | |||
| SourceSafe Server | CVS, Subversion, Bitkeeper, arch, Git | |||
| VBScript | ||||
| command.com / cmd.exe | gnome-terminal | xterm |
Editors
Like many applications that span operating and windowing systems, editors come in 2 flavors - terminal (or character) based, and graphical. There are advantages to both (character-based ones are much faster thru a network), but the graphical ones are certainly more popular. Some, such as vim and emacs, can run in both graphical and character-based modes. Of note are emacs and variants (a widely available, very capable, and highly debugged editor described by some as more of a lifestyle choice than an editor) and jedit, a very capable cross-platform editor, available with a number of useful plugins.
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notepad, Textpad, UltraEdit | Kate, Kwrite | gedit, SciTE* | nedit, mined, xee | aee, ee, emacs*, |
*Cross platform
Educational
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family Tree Maker | Gramps | |||
| Blackboard | Moodle | |||
| RedShift | KStars | Celestia | Stellarium |
Games
There are countless Free games available for Linux. The chart below only lists ports or clones of originally closed-source games.
| Windows | Linux |
|---|---|
| Civilization 2 | FreeCiv |
| Dance Dance Revolution | StepMania |
| Descent, Descent 2 | D2X Project |
| Doom, Doom 2 | Doom Legacy, PrBoom |
| Duke Nukem 3D | Duke3D |
| Flight Simulator | FlightGear, X-Plane |
| Quake | QuakeForge, Tenebrae |
| Quake II | Quake2Forge |
| Quake III | Quake III |
| Sim City | Lin City |
| Solitaire | PySol |
| Unreal Tournament | Unreal Tournament |
Graphics
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3D Studio Max, Bryce | KPovModeler | Blender**, POV-Ray, Panda3D | ||
| CorelDRAW, Illustrator | Karbon | Sodipodi**, Xara | OpenOffice.org Draw** | Inkscape ** |
| Photoshop, Paintshop Pro | Krita | The GIMP ** | ||
| QuarkXPress, PageMaker, Publisher, InDesign | Scribus * | |||
| JASC WebDraw | Inkscape ** | |||
| PrintMaster, Print Shop, Print Workshop | OpenOffice.org Draw** |
* Scribus is technically a Qt only application and does not require KDE
** Cross platform (Can be used in Windows or Linux)
Scanning, OCR
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abbyy FineReader | Kooka | XSane | LQWiki:Win4Lin* | |
| Omnipage | Tesseract OCR, Gocr |
* OCR only. I have been unable to use SANE with FineReader
Internet
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AOL Instant Messenger | Kopete | Pidgin | Finch | Centericq |
| BitTorrent | QTorrent, KMLDonkey, KTorrent | Gnome BitTorrent Downloader | Azureus, BitTorrent, MLDonkey GUI | BitTorrent, MLDonkey |
| Direct Connect | Valknut | |||
| Emule | KMLDonkey | MLDonkey GUI, aMule | MLDonkey | |
| Flashget, Go!zilla, Reget, Getright | KGet, KWebGet | Gwget | Downloader for X, Aria | wget |
| Internet Explorer, Firefox |
Konqueror | Epiphany, Galeon | Mozilla,
Mozilla Firefox, Seamonkey, Opera, Dillo |
Lynx, Links, w3m (text only) |
| KaZaa | Apollon | FrostWire* | giFT + MLDonkey (leeching only) | |
| MSN Messenger | Kopete | Pidgin | aMSN, Finch | Centericq |
| mIRC | Konversation, KVirc, Kopete | GAIM | ChatZilla (for Mozilla), XChat | BitchX, irssi |
| Net meeting | Wengo | Gnome meeting | Mbone (rat, vic, wbd, nte, sdr) | |
| Outlook Express | KMail | Evolution | Mozilla Thunderbird, Balsa, Mozilla (Mail) | Pine, mutt |
| WS FTP, CuteFTP, SmartFTP, Filezilla | Konqueror | gftp | ftp, nc-ftp, (should scp be mentioned?) |
* FrostWire is a 'cross platform' application.
Internationalization (I18N)
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Translation Memory: Translators Workbench, DéJà Vu, etc. | KTranslator | Gtranslator, poEdit * | Open Language Tools | |
| Terminology Management: Multiterm, etc. |
* poEdit is technically a GTK only application and does not require Gnome
Multimedia
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adobe Premiere, Adobe Production Studio, Ulead Video Studio | ManDVD*** | kino | Cinelerra, LiVES | Jahshaka |
| Cubase | Rosegarden |
Audacity | Muse, Ardour | |
| iTunes | Juk, Madman | rhythmbox | ||
| Creative Media Player | gnomad2 / kzenexplorer | |||
| Windows Media Center, Sage TV, Beyond TV | MythTV, Freevo | |||
| Windows Media Player, Real Player, DVD Player | KPlayer, Kaffeine, KMPlayer | Totem, Helix Player | MPlayer, Xine, VLC, Ogle, Real Player 10(Gold)** | |
| Winamp | KPlayer, Amarok, Noatun | XMMS, Zinf, Beep Media Player, BMPx Media Player | ogg123, mpg123, mpg321 | |
| Picasa | F-Spot | feh |
** The Real website will automatically direct Linux users to the Linux version of the Real Player. The Linux version lacks some of the functionality of the Windows version of Real player, such as DVD playback, but is much better behaved than the Windows version.
*** ManDVD is for DVD creation only.(no video editing available)
Office
There are 3 basic free office packages available for Linux systems: KOffice for KDE, GNOME Office for GNOME, and OpenOffice for any Linux. That they are FLOSS makes them easy to evaluate. OpenOffice is the FLOSS version of StarOffice, which is sold and supported by Sun. There are other commercial Office applications for Linux TextMaker/PlanMaker. OpenOffice seems to get more attention than the rest these days for its reasonable compatibility with MS Word and its feature set. However, it is relatively slow to start up and its imperfect ability to share document changes with MS Word may be problematic for some.
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access | Kexi*, KNoda, Rekall | OpenOffice.org 2.0 Base | pgaccess | |
| Excel | KSpread |
Gnumeric | OpenOffice.org Calc*, | |
| FrontPage | Quanta | Mozilla (Composer)**, Nvu**, Amaya**, BlueFish | ||
| Outlook | Kontact | Evolution | Mozilla Thunderbird | |
| Mactopia | NeoOffice | |||
| Matlab (1) | Octave (1) FreeMat (1) Scilab (1) | |||
| PowerPoint | KPresenter |
OpenOffice.org Impress | ||
| Project | MrProject | GanttProject** (Java) | ||
| Visio | Kivio | Dia | xfig | pic (part of groff package), FreeMind** (Java) |
| Microsoft Word$, WordPerfect$ | KWord |
AbiWord | OpenOffice.org Writer, TextMaker$,WordPerfect, LyX | TeX, LaTeX, groff, lout |
* Cross platform (Can be used in Windows or Linux); however, the WordPerfect WWW site seems to be under reconstruction, many pages are currently (2005-02-28 15:52 GMT+1) blank or give errors, including those found with a "WordPerfect Linux" search.
- (1) All software (Matlab, Octave, FreeMat, Scilab) works in Windows and Linux (So the categoried Windows and others should be really Proprietary and Open Source). Matlab is proprietary software, while Octave, FreeMat and Scilab are open source alternatives. In my experience, Octave is the most compatible replacement for Matlab, FreeMat is also almost compatible. Scilab uses a different language, and M-functions need to be converted in to the Scilab language, this makes it hardly compatible. An open issue is the computational performance (speed), an comparison from 2006 shows that Octave is by a factor of 4 to 5 slower than Octave [1]. So, it is not an alternative for high performance computing.
- In Word I have this Ctrl-8 / Ctrl-9 for increasing/decreasing the size of the selected text by one point. I also very much use Alt+Shift+UParrow/DOWNarrow for assigning different header styles. How can I do these with simple keystrokes (not the mouse/menu) on Linux?
- When I delete a paragraph mark to join two paragraphs in OOo, my paragraph styles are always mixed up. How can I prevent that? Answer: Deleting with the "Delete" key will retain the style of the first of the two paragraphs, deleting with the "Backspace" key will retain the style of the second one.
- Excel has 65536 lines, but OOo Calc only 32000 or so. Shouldn't OOo rather outdo M$? How can I work with bigger spreadsheets I get from my clients? Answer: Use Gnumeric or wait for OOo 2.0 ( should come in 3rd Quarter, early Previews available now )
- I have many Access databases (addresses, facturation, terminology databases). I am still unable to mygrate these to Linux. Do you have any hints to do that in an efficient manner? Answer: You can use Access to connect to a PostgreSQL database over ODBC and copy your rows over that way. Unfortunately, Access does not have any export capability. Follow-up: Can I also copy the structure, forms, relations between tables and my reports? Just the list isn't the main problem. Answer 2: Try Firebird, there is a great tool here: Wizard Which provides a painless way of converting all your Access and SQL Server DBs. There are many other tools that can help as well...
- In my opinion, Quanta is not a replacement for Frontpage. I was able to use Frontpage without knowing anything about it, but I still didn't figure out how Quanta works, and I did give it more than one try. It also installed itself as a viewer for html email-attachments in Mozilla, but I didn't ask it to do so, and I don't know how to switch that back to Mozillas internal viewer.Answer: Quanta and BlueFish are much more advanced Dev tools than Front Page. Nvu, Netscape/Mozilla Composer, and Amaya are much more like Front Page.
** Cross Platform: Works on both Windows and Linux
PDAs
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palm Hotsync | kpilot | gnome-pilot | J-Pilot | pilot-link, Plucker |
| Psion | Kpsion |
Security
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zonealarm | Guarddog | Firestarter | killerwall fwbuilder Shorewall |
Server
| Windows | Linux |
|---|---|
| Exchange | Citadel,Courier, Sendmail, Postfix, qmail, exim, OpenExchange, OpenGroupware, Zimbra, Scalix, DeskNow, Kolab |
| File sharing (windows networking) | SAMBA, NFS |
| IIS | Apache HTTPD |
| SQL Server | MySQL, PostgresSQL, Firebird , Oracle |
Utilities
| Windows | KDE | GNOME | X Windows | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FontLab | FontForge | |||
| Nero Burning ROM | K3B,Arson | gcombust,Gnomebaker | XCDRoast | cdrecord, cdrdao, NeroLINUX |
| Windows Explorer | Konqueror, Dolphin | Nautilus | Thunar | Gentoo, Midnight Commander |
| Winzip | Ark | File Roller | zip, gzip, bzip2, tar, unrar |
