HLUG Resources
Disclaimer: Newcomers to Linux should realize that most if not all applications and programs that are free in linux are volunteer supported. While most of these are reasonably well supported via forums, help pages and even support email all usage is the responsibly of the user. That means that most of this will work fine depending on one's particular Linux configuration some may experience some hiccups. These hiccups can be researched via the web and/or even posting an email question to our users' list which is hartfordlug@gmail.com
The following are links to some informative web articles that many Linux users will find helpful:
Often times newer Linux users are wondering what Linux program can be substitured for certain Windows programs. To help with this question the list below is a sampling of Linux programs that can be substituted for certain Windows programs or can be very helpful to a Linux user. You are encouraged to try out some of these listed below. Of course there are numerous others but there is not sufficient room to include all of them. They can be found by searching for "Linux Alternative To" in your browser.- Mozilla Firefox - Open-source browser with Gecko engine, supporting HTML add-ons and providing privacy features like Enhanced Tracking Protection and third-party cookie blocking.
- GIMP - Advanced image manipulation tool offering comprehensive tools for photo retouching, composition, and batch processing in a free package.
- LibreOffice - Free and open-source office suite with advanced word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, vector graphics, math formula editor, and robust database management. Fully compatible with major office formats across all operating systems, it offers extensive capabilities for personal or professional tasks.
- Thunderbird - Cross-platform email client providing POP/IMAP support, robust filtering, multiple accounts, and chat. Extendable via add-ons with RSS/Atom, etc.
- Brave - Fast, secure browser with built-in ad block, privacy controls, and global tracking protections. Optimizes data, speed, and battery life.
- Krita - A free, open-source painting program for professional artists offering customizable UI, 9 brush engines, layer support, and color management.
- VirtualBox - Open source virtualization tool supporting x86/AMD64, runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris. Offers portable, lightweight, ad-free use.
- Audacity - Free open-source multi-track audio editor and recorder with 32-bit float processing. Supports many formats and plugins for Windows, macOS, Linux.
- Spotify - Stream millions of tracks online with genre, playlist, artist, and album browsing. Get offline listening and ad-free experience with Premium.
- Ventoy - Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO files. With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk again and again, you just need to copy the iso file to the USB drive and boot it.
- Okular - Multi-platform, fast and packed with features, Okular allows you to read PDF documents, comics and EPub books, browse images, visualize Markdown documents, and much more.
- Wine - A free, open-source compatibility layer allowing Windows applications to run on Linux and other systems, offering configuration and community support.
- Wireshark - Foremost network protocol analyzer with multi-platform support, deep protocol inspection, VoIP analysis, and extensive file format compatibility.
- PeaZip - PeaZip is free file archiver utility, based on Open Source technologies of 7-Zip, p7zip, FreeArc, PAQ, and PEA projects, for Linux, macOS and Windows.
- balenaEtcher - Ideal for creating bootable USBs and SD cards, ensuring safe, cross-platform use. Open-source, lightweight, and portable with a user-friendly interface.
- Z-Library - Unlimited access to a vast collection of over 4.9 million books and 77 million articles, offering diverse knowledge resources for everyone.
- FreeFileSync - Open-source software for syncing and backing up files across Windows, macOS, and Linux by transferring only essential data.
- Double Commander - Cross-platform file manager with dual-panel design based on Total Commander. Features include advanced searching, tabbed browsing, and plugin support.
- Clonezilla - Discover a free, open-source solution for disk imaging and cloning. Clonezilla ensures efficient large-scale deployment by simultaneously cloning over 40 computers. Supports unicasting and multicasting for versatile backup, based on Partclone and more for enhanced speed. Ideal for tech pros.
- Meld - Open-source tool for dynamic file and folder comparisions, syntax highlighting, offline functionality, and version control integration.
- Geany - Geany is a powerful, stable and lightweight programmer's text editor that provides tons of useful features without bogging down your workflow.
- Duplicati - Securely store encrypted, incremental, compressed backups on local, cloud, and remote servers. Runs on multiple OSes and offers command line interface.
- Scribus - Open-source DTP tool with flexible layouts, typesetting, CMYK support, and interactive PDFs, ideal for creating newspapers and brochures.
- XAMPP - Completely free web server tool with Apache, MariaDB, PHP, and Perl. Ideal for developing and testing websites locally on Windows, Linux, macOS.
- dupeGuru - dupeGuru is a free and open source tool to find duplicate files on your computer. It can scan either filenames or contents. The filename scan features a fuzzy matching algorithm that can find duplicate filenames even when they are not exactly the same.
- GNU nano - GNU nano is a small and friendly text editor. Besides basic text editing, nano offers many extra features like an interactive search and replace, go to line and column number, auto-indentation, feature toggles, internationalization support, and filename tab completion.
- GnuCash - Flexible accounting software for personal and small business use, GnuCash is freely available under the GNU GPL, supporting multiple OS and financial tasks.