Looking for linux alternatives of Windows programs

Posted by KaIakaua@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 54 comments

Been looking to change into linux for a while, is faster and stuff and the only reason I still use WIndows is league which uhh, yea.
Also some specific windows programs that fixes my life, so if im gonna change to linux fully I would like to know if there are alternatives or versions of them that work on linux.

-APO equalizer + PEACE: most important, audio balancing is vital for my hardware.
-Foobar2000: most important, my go to music player.
-Paint.net: my default image editor, simple.
-Videopad: actually quite bad video editor but is the lowest specs required one I believe, and it does just what I need which is only cut footage, paste footage, add text. everything else is a bonus.

Cant think of any other at the moment but those are the big ones. Also idk about flair so im guessing Discussion is the correct one.

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Bhaelfur@reddit

I've seen a lot of people mention easyeffects, but you may need to install some plugins. I installed lsp-plugins to add equalizers, compressors, limiters, gates, etc.

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nonymousbosch@reddit

Foobar2000:-> audacious

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zeb_linux@reddit

Check https://alternativeto.net/ it is fantastic.

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jerrydberry@reddit

As well as Google.com

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jerrydberry@reddit

Did all online search engines ban you?

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BigHeadTonyT@reddit

An alternative for EasyEffects is JamesDSP. https://github.com/Audio4Linux/JDSP4Linux

IIRC, it was made for Android phones first. I've used it in the past on Linux. I still have it installed, just not using it. I like the surround sound effect.

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TWB0109@reddit

APO equalizer + PEACE: most important, audio balancing is vital for my hardware.

No idea, maybe easyeffects.

Foobar2000: most important, my go to music player.

deadbeef seems to be the closest.

Paint.net

Krita/Gimp/Sly/DarkTable/Rawtherapee kolourpaint is probably the most similar

Videopad.

Kdenlive, Pitivi.

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Specialist-Cream4857@reddit

Dark Table and Raw The Rapee are very different programs. Pinta is the only real answer.

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TWB0109@reddit

The reason i'm mentioning them is because he's saying photo editing and those all can be used for photo editing. Not necessarily simple, but I don't know if for example Krita that is more focused on drawing/painting has enough features to be a photo editor, I don't really use the others much.

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mudslinger-ning@reddit

My favs in the music players that I alternate between:

Audacious- simple music player that can also use the classic Winamp skins.

Strawberry - another cool player but with more extensive library and playlist controls.

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DonutsMcKenzie@reddit

Foobar2000 -- Check out Fooyin, it's designed to be basically Foobar2000, it has plugins and a scripting language, a very similar and flexible UI, support for chiptune tracker formats, etc. It's the closest thing to Foobar that I think we have, and I'm sure you'll like it. https://fooyin.org/
Paint.net -- It depends what you're into doing. For digital painting and animation, I like Krita best. For photo editing, I quite like Darktable. For general image editing, you can't go wrong with GIMP, even if it does have a bit of a learning curve. Aseprite is great for pixel art. These days there are plenty of other good options for various kinds of art and image editing, so I would recommend exploring the space.
Videopad -- I'm not video editor, but I've found Kdenlive works pretty well for my needs. I also like LosslessCut as a simple video trimmer and splitter without any need for re-encoding.
APO equalizer + PEACE -- I'm not familiar with these, but it's always worth recommending people check out PulseEffects for a wide variety of audio effects including eq, compression, and basically everything else a person might want.

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Cr4ckTh3Skye@reddit

never ised PEACE, but i did ise equalizer apo, and it has an arguably better alternatuve on linux. others wew already answered, so i don't want to give a repeat answer.

https://github.com/wwmm/easyeffects

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Catenane@reddit

EasyEffects is great, and I'm excited for their soon-to-be-released switch to Qt. I've started using a local build from git head in the meantime, and it's shaping up quite nicely.

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Damglador@reddit

I feel like some people are gonna be very not happy about switch to Qt

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jornie_maikeru@reddit

What is so special about Qt? Why to be exited or disappointed? Not trolling, general noob curiosity, 4 month since I moved to Linux

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AnsibleAnswers@reddit

The preference for GTK or QT is essentially what divides Gnome users from KDE users. It’s harder for Gnome users to theme QT applications and KDE users to theme GTK applications.

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Damglador@reddit

Technically, it's harder to theme just libadwaita apps. KDE has a good theme for regular gtk.

But I'm not sure how themable KDE apps are with the move to Kirigami

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AnsibleAnswers@reddit

It’s easy to theme QT apps, hard to get them to look decent and operate the way you want them to.

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jornie_maikeru@reddit

Ah, got it, good that I'm on kde rn xd

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Damglador@reddit

They have drastically different designs.

Gtk majorly uses client side decorations (so app makes it's own titlebar), this stands out on anything that isn't GNOME. libAdwaita (theme on which most new gtk apps are based on) are practically hard codded into apps, so you're completely unable to theme them, which makes them stand out even more.

On the other hand, Qt has... debatable aesthetics. I don't think it's ugly, but I do think libAdwaita is prettier by default. I do still prefer Qt apps, but I think EasyEffects' current UI layout is not suited for Qt. While I don't really care, I'm sure there will be people who will think this is a downgrade when it releases.

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jornie_maikeru@reddit

So you can't really change the design on Gnome?

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Damglador@reddit

Basically yes. There were some works on making libadwaita support theming, but I don't know how successful they are.

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TWB0109@reddit

I sure am not gonna be happy about it, thankfully i don't use easyeffects too much.

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Ketterer-The-Quester@reddit

The guy asked why..... Why would you be unhappy about the switch to qt? I'm confused.

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TWB0109@reddit

He didn't ask why, check the comment I replied to, lol.

Anyway, just because i heavily dislike the look of QT apps, and theming them outside of KDE is a pain in the ass, having to pull a lot of kde dependencies and kvantum.

There's also no easy way to tell the apps I want the dark/light variant of a theme like there is in gnome, so I have to do some janky sed edits on qt5ct.conf and qt6ct.conf.

I'm not even a gnome user, but I just prefer gtk apps, looking at dolphin makes me want to throw up, even inside of KDE.

It's all subjective and a matter of preference though.

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KaIakaua@reddit (OP)

for some reason easyeffects just NEVER works for me, I install it I open it and nothing happens

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Ruashiba@reddit

Nothing happens as in, the program opens but nothing in the sound is changed? Or nothing happens because it doesn’t open at all? If it’s not doing anything, you have to add the equalizer under the effects, if I recall correctly. It may not be the most natural order of things, usually the EQ is front stage, but it works quite fantastic.

Or it could be like what the other commenters have said, you may be using an older OS that hasn’t moved on to pipewire.

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KaIakaua@reddit (OP)

I cant tell if it opens in the background or something, but it just looks like nothing opens at all.
using linuxmint if that helps any, HOWEVER, I will check again to see if i'm mistaking it with the other one with similar name

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Ruashiba@reddit

I believe mint runs a a couple of versions in parallel, so you could be on the older branch that may still be using pulseaudio. In general, pipewire is a lot more stable, even if is a newcomer, relatively speaking. But I haven’t touched mint in years, so I couldn’t tell you.

You could also try to launch the program via terminal instead of trying to open from the start menu(or whatever else you want to call it). Not because launching the program from the terminal magically makes it work, but you most likely will get in the terminal the reason why it’s not opening. Or even if you don’t understand what you’re looking at, it’s something that someone can work with when you’re having trouble trying again in the future.

I love easy effects, it’s one of those things I miss whenever I’m on windows, honestly. So, good luck!

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Ok-Winner-6589@reddit

There are 3 software to manage system audio, the newest (and most compatible) is pipewire. Maybe your distro doesn't come with It (for some reason).

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prolletto64@reddit

switch to pipewire mate, please

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Swizzel-Stixx@reddit

Does your OS use pulseaudio? If so you need the older abandonware pulseffects

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SaxoGrammaticus1970@reddit

Foobar2000: the closest equivalent in Linux is 0xDEADBEEF. I personally use Audacious, because it has a Qt frontend and I'm a Plasma desktop user, has gapless playing, and understands almost everything audio I throw at it.

Videopad: I recommend Kdenlive, a very good video editor.

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Large-Assignment9320@reddit

As for paint.net, you can use Pinta, it was a GTK clone of Paint .net .

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joetacos@reddit

Here's a professional video animator talking about his favorite programs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm51xZHZI6g

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Swizzel-Stixx@reddit

Easyeffects

Uhh, I can’t comment because I only use VLC

Gimp is kinda like photoshop, and darktable is kinda like lightroom. Draw on image with gimp, and you can mod it for filters and such, where darktable is a professional photo editor.

Openshot is simpler, shotcut is more advanced and imo better

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Damglador@reddit

I use Krita for drawing and Photopea (Photocrea on desktop) for image editing.

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andylancelot@reddit

Regarding word processing I’ve just continued to use the online free OneDrive and Word - suits my purposes for writing projects - works better and quicker with Linux 😁

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thom911@reddit

Paint.net is great and it’s one of the few windows programs I miss. I use Gimp and … it’s not the same but I get by.

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ChocolateDonut36@reddit

easy effects for audio balancing/equalization.
Elisa might fit as a foobar 2000 replacement.
Krita, gimp and aseprite (for pixelart) can replace paint.net
shotcut, kdenlive and openshot are great video editors imo.

if you need to find more alternatives, there is this website that searches for alternatives to most popular programs

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AIRA_XD@reddit

i hate the linux community.

Easyeffects - allows you to manipulate your audio stack, equalizer included. Audacious - very versatile music player, though it is closer to winamp (with the classic layout enabled, that is) Krita - a drawing app, but can still be used to manipulate images. if you don't like gimp, this is the 2nd best choice. There is also Pinta, which iirc is a fork of a very old paint.net version, but i found its functionality to not be adequate to paint.net. Kdenlive - a powerful video editor, 2nd best choice if you don't have Davinci Resolve.

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FattyDrake@reddit

EasyEffects can be used for audio adjustments/equalizing.

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Crackalacking_Z@reddit

Equalizer PulseEffects (for PulseAudio) or Easy Effects (for PipeWire)
Music Player fooyin
Image Editor gimp
Video Editor Avidemux is pretty light and allows lossless edits in between i-frames, else there's a bunch more here

(no trying to push flatpaks, just flathub is nice with screenshots, links, etc ... if possible use your distro's repos)

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LateStageNerd@reddit

Here are some near equivalents:

APO/PEACE: EasyEffects - limiter, compressor, equalizer
Foobar2000: DeaDBeeF - Lightweight, highly customizable player
Paint.net: Pinta - Simple UI image editor w layer support
Videopad: Shotcut / OpenShotSimple - cut, paste, and text editing.

All but EasyEffects are cross-platform and can be tried on Windows.

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technikamateur@reddit

As a video editor, I can recommend shotcut

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sublime_369@reddit

Pinta is very similar to Paint.NET

I would recommend Strawberry for a music manager/player. Be forewarned it's not a Foobar clone and it's not flashy. It is solid with a good feature set.

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