Command-line rar for linux was available for a long time. And WinRAR works with wine.

I've a new Acer Aspire 150aw running Linpus Light. I've love an application that does what Nocturne does for my Mac Book -- it inverts black and white pixels on screen, keeping colours essentially the same. This extends my battery life noticeably! As I am on the road a lot, any straightforward way to extend battery life is a real plus.

If such a program already exists, I'd love to hear about it.

Well, here what people would be willing to pay is like the egg and the chicken issue, realistically profitability is a good concept for any company, but they have to acknowledge the fact that beta testers and developers are the ones that switch first to new products, so the bottom line is, in my humble opinion, that companies like Adobe should increase their availability of developers products (like they are doing with cold fusion for instance), in order to get the application developers to orient their customers towards the Linux platform.

I see a potential huge demand for Adobe products, where they would be economical enough price wise, and compatible enough with Wine for the hard core windows and dual-boot users, probably on the low end of their products first. Maybe availability of Indesign and Photoshop elements first, may take there, in a second phase, where this products could be widely popular, and possibly bundled with hardware as well (I don't see why a medium level camera, plotter or printer should not have Linux software), the demand for more evolved products should increase as well.

cheers,
daniel

I'm fairly new myself. However, I have been an Alcohol 120% user and have found that k3b is a good substitute.

If you have read all the way through this, you probably know that almost all of the posts are the same, and are comprised of 2-3 very common components:

1) People asking for programs that duplicate functionality already in linux: magiciso, winzip, etc. In most cases, these things are integrated into the os, and you shouold find an actve linux users group community if you want more information on them, IMO.

2) Software "For Windows" things like, Windows Optimizer, tweakui, support for "windows themes" etc. These tools exist because windows is not easily customizable. I recommend you become more familiar with linux, and find the installed ways of doing these things... Softimes this is simply a matter of choosing a distribution, or rolling your own.

3) Commercial, on-of-a-kind software like the adobe suite. This is the purpose of the thread: Great examples of request I hae seen are: Autodesk AutoCAD, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office, Quark, Quickbooks. These are all replaceable with linux duplicates, but the fact is, getting just one of these ported would be like having a foreign embassy in our capitol: I just proves that (in this case) linux is the real-deal.

I'm not saying this to complain, so much as to sumarize, and because I see a lot of post to this forum by people who are new to linux, and don't understand that it's not like windows; they don't understand that it's more than just something different, it's a completely different idea, as different culturally, and from the standpoint of engineering as the UK is different From China. What I'd love to see this forum become, now that it's this ginormous list, is a place where people, using commercial software for business, post a list of the softwares that they use, and probably can't migrate from, to post, so they can switch without having to change the entirety of their operation.

just my $.02us

just quickbasic

I would have to agree with mrGenixus, especially on #3. Many Windows system administration tools like Winrar or Alcohol 120 don't exist on Linux but there are many FOSS projects available to replace them easily. I am more concerned with #3 because as a musician I rely on proprietary software built for Windows and Mac (PowerPC, not Intel) for recording and the like. I could use wine and go through the hassle of hacking Reason or Absynth to get it to run on Linux, but that's another brick wall I run into: it's been hacked and tweaked to death because it's running on an unsupported OS. I sacrifice stability and I can't have that. Another issue is audio and MIDI on Linux itself. I know there are media-oriented distros out there like Ubuntu Studio or 64 Studio, but how well documented and supported is MIDI or VST? There are too many sound servers for Linux as we speak.

The reasons I've moved to Linux is beyond "I'm tired of using a self-destructive OS which needs to be reinstalled every two years" it ultimately comes down to I disagree with Microsoft's ethics. While the whole ethical issue of FOSS versus proprietary software is important to me, given the opportunity to buy commercial software for Linux, would I? Yes, because many "pro-sumer" or professional grade tools are unfortunately built for either Mac or Windows. In my case those tools are software synthesizers and sequencers.

I would have to agree with mrGenixus, especially on #3. Many Windows system administration tools like Winrar or Alcohol 120 don't exist on Linux but there are many FOSS projects available to replace them easily. I am more concerned with #3 because as a musician I rely on proprietary software built for Windows and Mac (PowerPC, not Intel) for recording and the like. I could use wine and go through the hassle of hacking Reason or Absynth to get it to run on Linux, but that's another brick wall I run into: it's been hacked and tweaked to death because it's running on an unsupported OS. I sacrifice stability and I can't have that. Another issue is audio and MIDI on Linux itself. I know there are media-oriented distros out there like Ubuntu Studio or 64 Studio, but how well documented and supported is MIDI or VST? There are too many sound servers for Linux as we speak.

The reasons I've moved to Linux is beyond "I'm tired of using a self-destructive OS which needs to be reinstalled every two years" it ultimately comes down to I disagree with Microsoft's ethics. While the whole ethical issue of FOSS versus proprietary software is important to me, but given the opportunity to buy commercial software for Linux, would I? Yes, because many "pro-sumer" or professional grade tools are available only on Mac or Windows. In my case those tools are software synthesizers and sequencers. Sometimes there isn't a FOSS project which can easily or readily replace a particular proprietary app.

I think that if certain major vendors of professional applications (ie - Adobe, Native Instruments, Steinberg) begin porting their products to Linux that competitors would follow. If someone disagrees or has a different opinion, please share it. I'd love to hear it!

While I'm here, I'll add my two cents as well: If vendors will be porting their software to Linux, I would prefer to see them ported to 64-bit Linux, as 32-bit really seems unnecessary, unless you are running early Pentium 4 class hardware, or older.

I don't know how many Linux users run 64 bit distros versus 32 bit on their workstations, but I have run 64 bit and the only thing that turned me away from it was the lack of "necessary" software, like Adobe Flash. I know they just released a 64-bit Linux version of Flash 10 which is exciting, I think it's a little late for it. But better late than never I suppose.

An application i would definitely like to see ported to linux, is one called Scrrenstream (http://www.nchsoftware.com/screen/index.html), which captures your screen, and transmits it as a series of.jpeg (i think) to other computers, which using only a browser can view your screen.

I tried making it work with wine, but so far nothing (and as the latter is off-topic,i'm going to open a new thread to see if anyone can help with that).

For me, it's the only windows functionality i don't have in linux. So far i haven't found anything for linux that does the same. (there is a program called istanbul i think, that captures your screen, but it is much different to this windows one)

You gotta be kinding me, why would you want quickbasic?

I suppose you would rather be forced to use only one, which might suck worse then any of the choices above?

...so I don't know if someone already requested that cool blue screen with all the letters and numbers on it. I miss it.

BILLY G

I think I duplicate it with Open Office and I still remember how to reboot.

there's a screensaver.....

The two pieces of software I miss most from Windows are Legacy Family Tree - hands down the best genealogy program I have ever used and Irfanview which will view and manipulate just about every type of graphic file I ever care to see.

Yes, since I have been on Ubuntu, I use Gramps for genealogy, but it bears about as much resemblance to legacy as Tomboy Notes bears to OpenOffice word processor. It just seriously lacks the functionality of Legacy.

The Gimp stands up a bit better relative to Irfanview, but isn't really meant to be the type program Irfanview is, and so far i haven't found a satisfactory replacement.