Windows converts will find that many of their favourite applications are already available on Linux; Skype, Firefox, Google Chrome, VLC, etc but there are many Windows staples that don’t have Linux ports. The applications listed below make perfect drop-in replacements.
Windows Movie Maker ~ OpenShot
Whilst Ubuntu ships with a video editor, PiTiVi, it lacks fancy-pants effects & transitions – something that windows converts will have found staple in Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker.
Switch to OpenShot if you love creating short good looking videos as it comes with well over 60 different effects and transitions, has an easy title creator, a sane export wizard to save your movies when done & best of all it is very, very easy to use.
I don’t call it the ‘iMovie of Linux’ for no reason!
Windows Snipping Tool ~ Shutter
Windows Vista introduced an easy-to-use screen capture Snipping tool‘that made taking screengrabs of whatever you want easy as pie. Shutter provides all of the great features that Snipping does and then some!
Instead of pasting your screengrab into Paint to add effects you can edit it directly in Shutter – tons of cool effects can be applied and you can also add arrows, text, freehand drawing, shapes, callouts, icons & even inserting other screengrabs or images!
Microsoft Paint ~ GNOME Paint
Whilst Ubuntu used to ship with popular image editing programme ‘The GIMP’ default installs of late lacks any basic image editing app at all (not counting photo enhancement via F-Spot). For a simple Microsoft Pain clone look no further than GNOME Paint. It has every tool, features and design quirk that the actual MS Paint has – but it’s native Linux! Hooray!
Download links are below. Download, save and double-click to install.
CCleaner ~ Ubuntu Tweak
CCleaner is one of the must have apps for Windows – a capable, through and user-friendly system cleaner. Sadly it doesn’t have a Linux port – but what is similar?
In a recent poll on ‘the best System Cleaner for Ubuntu’ the titular app came out on top with an impressive 52% of votes. It’s easy to see why as it provides an extensive range of cleaning and package management options, allowing you to easily flush out the following:
- Downloaded packages no longer needed (installed packages)
- Sweep up the update cache (E.G. .debs of all the updates recently installed)
- Old configuration files for applications since removed
- PPA Purge (Remove all packages installed from specific PPAs)
- Old kernels
It works flawlessly too- click, clean, done!
Bleachbit is perhaps the most comparable alternative to CCleaner but the amount of options provided is perhaps too extensive for casual users to feel comfortable with.
Windows Live Writer ~ Blogilo
I’ll get the caveat out of the way first: Blogilo is neither as easy to use as Windows Live Writer or as capable. That said it’s easily the best desktop-bound blog editing solution. It supports Blogger, MetaWebLog, MoveableType & WordPress with the latter receiving the most attention feature wise.
You can edit in HTML or WYSIWYG, you can add pictures, links, preview your posts in your blogs’ style, schedule posts, fetch recent blog entries, it boasts a spell checker, tag support and much more.
It’s worth a try if you’ve looking for an actively developed blog editor.
