The biggest hurdle for most people changing operating systems is the applications that are available. If you love Microsoft Word and want to try Linuk, you’re out of luck.

Oh sure Word has a web application now, but there is something to be said about first part desktop software.

When I moved to Linux from MacOS, there were a few applications I needed. While I found many replacements, here are a few I’m still searching for.

Soulver

Soulver is a great calculator application, that does way more than a calculator. Need to convert currencies, simply type in the values and the currency codes and you’re going to get the converted amount.

Need to convert Miles into Kilometers…or almost any other measurement…Soulver will do it.

Want to work with variables quickly to add up different things, Soulver has you covered.

Sure there is a regular old calculator in Elementary OS, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the power that Soulver has.

The best thing I’ve found is NaSC. It does much of what Soulver does, but I can’t yet figure out how to covert USD to CAD. It does look like there is a way since the demo shows you how to change British Pounds to USD, but they use their respective currency symbols and the US and Canada share the same symbol.

I’ll still use NaSC, but I’ve got more digging to do.

Scrivener

Scrivener is an awesome piece of writing software. Yes I know there is a Linux ‘beta’ around that should still work with Elementary OS, but it’s not supported so banking on it working in the future is a fools errand.

There is also Bibisco and yWriter (via Wine) and Plume Creator and a myriad of other options. The problem is that none of them are even half as nice as Scrivener. Bibisco is hyper focused on fiction. yWriter and … Wine … ewww.

Plume Creator is the strongest candidate as a replacement for Scrivener, but it gives you some package file with a .plume extension. This would be fine if there was something on my iPad that could edit .plume files, but there isn’t.

It took Scrivener years to get an iPad application, but it’s amazing. Even without the official iPad application you could get Scrivener to sync with text files so you had a hacky way of editing on your iDevice.

I’ve settled on Zim Wiki for now though I’m not currently writing a full book. I’m simply working on some long complex blog posts that need sections and research. Zim seems to be my best option, though if Scrivener was around on Linux I would be using it still.

Alfred

I miss Alfred. Yes Elementary OS has it’s own application launcher, but so did OSX and I never used it. Alfred is so much more than an application launcher.

It does basic math.

It manages text snippets like Autokey does.

It manages your clipboard like CopyQ does.

Then it is scriptable which means it can be so much more.

There is a partial replacement in Albert which does the basic math and application searching, but still doesn’t manage your clipboard or snippets. In theory there is a plugin that allows you to search CopyQ for your recent clipboard history, but I’ve never been able to get it working.

Ultimately to get the same features I had in Alfred I’ve had to install Albert, AutoKey and CopyQ and it’s still not quite as nice to use as Alfred alone was.

Lightroom

The last Adobe application I really used and liked was Lightroom. Making the switch to Linux meant that I could no longer have Lightroom as an option. On the Linux end there is Darktable. It’s perfectly workable but I do miss a few Lightroom features. Specifically I miss how easy it was to create a photo album out of my images directly in Lightroom.

If you have a recommendation for a service that makes it easy to build a photo album, let me know.

Apple Music

Yes I know about and use Spotify. The thing is that outside of my single Linux machine, we’re an Apple house. When my kid listens to music using Siri, she gets Apple Music. My wife uses Apple Music.

I’m not paying for 2 services so I wish Apple Music was on other platforms. For now the free tier of Spotify works, though I’d love to be supporting artists.

Tweetbot

I really only use Twitter once or twice a day from my desktop but the Twitter Web interface sucks. I wish there was a great Twitter client for Linux.

Sure there are a few out there, but none are very stable. If they are stable, they’re so ugly that the web interface is a better option.

Screenflow

I did so much in Screenflow before. I recorded podcasts in it. I edited personal videos. I used it to render out audio from video.

On Linux there are a bunch of video editing software options, but the best I’ve found has been kdenlive. It’s got some UI issues since Elementary is not based on KDE, but it renders fast without needing to spin my fan up. Something that Screenflow couldn’t accomplish.

That’s it. My coding environment was Vim and Vagrant. My writing was all Markdown (except for some Scrivener stuff). Then my work is on the web with web apps. If you have some great linux software I should check out. Let me know.

The only two apps I’m missing still 2 months in to ElementaryOS full time are Alfred and Scrivener. I’m happy with all the other alternatives.