It's The Applications, Stupid!

As most Americans know quite well, "It's the economy, stupid" was a phrase widely used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign. It promoted the idea that Bill Clinton was a better choice to improve the economy and in spite of significant foreign policy victories, such as the end of the Cold War and the successful conclusion of the Gulf War, the senior Bush had not adequately addressed the economy under recession. In order to keep the campaign focused on this message, campaign strategist James Carville, hung a sign in Bill Clinton's Little Rock campaign headquarters that said: "The economy, stupid".

Let us look at what is the top priority for Linux and open source users on a home PC. As I said in an earlier blog, it's the applications that entertain and inform users and let them learn and get their work done. To keep the focus on this user need, desktop Linux and open source developers and marketers need to keep a sign in their office that says, "It's the applications, stupid"!

A web browser, email, office and personal finance applications, in addition to music/video playing, photo editing and perhaps a PC-based soft-phone will cover the needs of most users. Of course, everyone needs a few utilities such as an antivirus software, a tool to do zipping and unzipping of files, a CD/DVD burner and software to read PDF files and view Flash animation.

Let us briefly look at what are the options available when you migrate to Linux.

Web Browser such as Internet Explorer

Firefox is a popular and mature web browser at version 3. It is developed by Mozilla Corporation and ships bundled with most Linux software distributions. An alternative, the open source version of Google's Chrome browser, called Chromium, is in beta for Linux and should be released soon.

Email and Calendar application such as Microsoft Outlook

Personal Information Manager (PIM) software typically consists of email, calendar, address book, and task management functions. Evolution PIM, developed by Novell, covers all these functions. PCWorld did a brief review of Evolution in April 2008. An alternative for email alone is available in Mozilla Thunderbird email client by the Firefox browser vendor. CNET did a review of Thunderbird in June 2009. Even though they reviewed the Windows version of this software, this may give you a good overview of this application. The calendar extension, Mozilla Lightning, is currently in version 0.9 and the 1.0 should be coming out soon.

Office suite such as Microsoft Office

OpenOffice from Sun Microsystems is a mature product in version 3. It has a full suite of office applications including a document, spreadsheet, presentation, database, graphics and a math formula editor. IBM's Lotus Symphony is a similar office suite that has only the document, spreadsheet and presentation applications. Information Week did a comparison of open source office suites in April 2009. This may help you choose one.

Personal Finance application such as Intuit Quicken

GnuCash has the ability to manage your money and accounts for a variety of financial needs ranging from personal checking account, to mutual funds, retirement accounts and home loan. It also has features for small business accounting. With support for popular banking formats, it may be able to communicate with your bank. It is able to import data from Microsoft Money and Intuit Quicken which will be helpful when you migrate. CNET did a review of GnuCash in June 2009. Even though they reviewed the Windows version of this software, this may give you a good overview of this application.

Tax Preparation application such as Intuit TurboTax (for US users)

This appears to be the weakest spot for Linux home PC. There is not really a Linux alternative, for US residents, to the popular Intuit TurboTax or H&R Block TaxCut. The only option seems to be to run Internet Explorer 6 using CodeWeavers Crossover Linux. Then you may be able to use the web version of TurboTax or TaxCut to prepare and file your income tax returns.

Entertainment and Communication applications

Amarok is a Linux music player such as Windows Media Player. Amarok will also synchronize your music to your iPod. MPlayer is a video player such as Windows Media Player. F-Spot, developed by Novell, is a photo editor such as Microsoft Photo Editor or Office Picture Manager. Ekiga is a voice and video Conferencing application, also known as a SoftPhone, such as Microsoft NetMeeting or MSN Messenger. Ekiga ships bundled with Ubuntu Linux. Even though Skype for Linux is not open source, you can download it free.

Utilities

Brasero and K3b are CD/DVD Writers such as Nero or Roxio. 7-Zip is a Zip/Unzip application such as WinZip or PKZip. Even though Adobe Acrobat Reader is not open source, it is available for Linux and it is free. Similarly, Adobe Flash is available for Linux and free as well. For antivirus software, you can consider Clam AntiVirus along with its graphical front-end, ClamTk, in place of Norton Antivirus.

Sometimes it is TINA (There Is No Alternative)!

Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where there is not a viable alternative for a Windows application. Some people have found the following as 'must have' Windows applications:

• Photoshop
• Dreamweaver
• AutoCAD
• Quicken
• Quickbooks
• iTunes
• Many games
  

If you find yourself in this situation, as we mentioned earlier, you need a connecting software that allows a Windows application to run on Linux. You can try the open source Wine. If that does not work, you may need to buy CodeWeavers Crossover Linux.

Browser-based applications

If you don't want to mess with installing too many applications, you have more and more applications that now run in a web browser. These are also known as on-demand applications. For email, you can use Google Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Microsoft Hotmail. All of them provide calendar, address book and other PIM features as well. Google Docs, ThinkFree and Zoho provide document, spreadsheet, presentation applications in a browser. You can read a review of these office applications by Computerworld in July 2008. Similarly online versions of Intuit Quicken and TurboTax are available as well. However, you do need to install applications for entertainment, communication and utilities on your home PC.

Try out the open source applications on Windows first

In order to make your migration to Linux smoother, pick those applications that you more often use, download the open source versions for Windows and try them out first. At a minimum, you should try out the open source web browser and an office application as well as other applications that you use a lot.

Tags: open source, linux, linux applications, firefox, openoffice