I had to test/fix something at work and I set up a Windows VM because it was a bug specific to Windows users. Once I was done, I thought, “Maybe I should keep this VM for something.” but I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t a game (which probably wouldn’t work well in a VM anyway) or some super specific enterprise software I don’t really use.
I also am more familiar with the Apple ecosystem than the Microsoft one so maybe I’m just oblivious to what’s out there. Does anyone out there dual boot or use a VM for a non-game, non-niche industry Windows exclusive program?
Adobe Lightroom Classic. I have darktable installed on Linux, but I haven’t mastered it yet. Lightroom is the software for photo editing, unfortuntately.
WSL2 is pretty good. j/k
I used it a lot while developing a Linux program for a raspberry pi with a colleague and was blown away how fun and easy it was to use… Untill I started daily driving Linux and realised how much stuipd window wsl setup and work I could have skipped by just using Linux directly… Lol I was missing out. Now I just daily drive Linux and never looking back to wsl
Mah man! The only people recommending WSL for Linux development are the ones that have bought into the Microsoft ecosystem, don’t know any better and crucially also dont care to know any better
I like WSL for what it is. My desktop is still Windows. I’m looking to switch but still have a lot to figure out before I can do that and not a lot of time to dig into it (part of why I’m reading this thread is for ideas).
!boinc@sopuli.xyz if I am donating GPU power to science research. There is a BOINC client for Linux but packaging is a hot mess (though getting better) and compatibility with graphics drivers is hit-or-miss. So any crunching rigs I have w/ GPUs all run Windows.
That seems inefficient
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Besides video games, I need no Windows software at all. So far I have successfully played every single game I wanted to play, hundreds of them, ranging from small independent titles to AAA features without resorting to Windows. While I am aware that online play can be a problem on GNU/Linux, I don’t do online gaming. Sometimes, especially in the past, I may have to come up with some serious tinkering to enjoy a flawless experience, but ultimately I have never failed to run a Windows game on GNU/Linux as if it was a native title.
notepad++ with textfx edit, textfx tools, and hex editor. I’ve tried a lot of other things and it is still my favorite.
I don’t actually use it for coding, but I often have to futz with files received from customers/QA or test data that I create.I have mac for work and have been mostly hating BBedit. I keep meaning to try Cate and I guess the folks that made Atom just released something new.
Edit: just remembered: I did try Cate but had really weird UI issues using any dark themes (menus, etc. all became unreadable) and gave up.
I run Scrivener, which is a writing software that’s only for Mac & Windows (well, there is a Linux version but it’s ancient), but I just run that through Wine rather than a VM. That’s about the only thing I haven’t found a good equivalent for on Linux though.
Yeah. I use quite a few windows exclusive programs. I know it is a long list but can’t be helped. Good support and stability beats ideology and these apps provide me that. Here is the list:
I hope this list is helpful to others as well ☺️
excel for vba support
Yeah, that makes sense. I’m not an irrational hater of Microsoft — maybe a little — but Excel is very good. The people who need Excel, often genuinely need Excel, specifically.
And Numbers on the macOS ecosystem is shockingly bad. Like, I’d rather barebones Gnumeric from 10 years ago for my purposes.
I ain’t no hardcore Excel user so can’t speak for others, but I’ve been able to completely switch to Excel Online and use Office Scripts and Power Automate for tasks for which I used VBA previously. In fact, Power Automate has been great for doing stuff like updating workbooks through scheduled or event-driven flows, without even having to open Excel. I can see VBA going away soon with these technologies.
With the state of O365 these days, there’s zero need for me to have a native MSO install, and this no need for a Windows VM either (for day-to-day/personal stuff). The only reason I still keep Windows VMs though is for occasionally testing random things for work.
Why don’t you use calc?
These are work files and shared between teams, so I’d rather maintain 100% MSO compatibility. :) Also, most of the time these files are on Sharepoint or OneDrive, so it makes it convenient to edit with M365 - don’t need to save files locally and re-upload/sync them.
Oh that makes sense if it is for work. I though you were just using it for personal use.
I’ve been a Linux user for a long time. I started to use a lot of open source free software alternatives because of this, and most of them had Windows binaries.
But I always had a dual boot system only for gaming purposes.
So… I can’t think of any software other than games that’s educated la Windows only.
MusicBee, Stardock Fences, obligatory Adobe mention, all VR everything (unless something has changed recently, I haven’t looked in while).
I use LTspice and some ham radio software. Everything runs on wine, so I don’t bother with a VM.
I used to dual boot for some games back before wine worked well.
non-game, non-niche
Nope, that’s actually strictly my reason for having a dedicated Windows rig. Games, and niche homebrew apps.
Same. I went through all the trouble of converting my server machine to debian and then found it’s crazy convoluted to host an Arma server from Linux.
I made a VM to host it.
Anymore, Wine can run anything I care to run.
