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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I have a Windows 11 VM which I keep around. I was forced to use it for iTunes because I needed to sync my old photos onto the phone (fortunately a one time process).
I also played around with RemoteApp because I wanted to use Visual Studio or Office on Linux through the Windows VM, but I have not managed to get it working.
Why couldn't you just copy your photos? If you need special software to access them or they are stored in the cloud they are not your photos.
They’re not in the cloud, they are on my NAS. I found that you can’t directly copy photos onto an iPhone to show up on the gallery, because there is some sort of database and file naming system. That’s why I had to go through iTunes because it would do it in just this way so that I can see all the photos in the native gallery app.
Any new photos get uploaded to my NAS automatically.
Not currently running a VM or anything, but I might need to set one up for iTunes and Garmin stuff.
I have a Windows computer in the basement to run one program: The virtual cycling platform Zwift.
But someone made a docker image for it, so even that is tenuous. I fired it up on the Linux system I'm typing this on, and it worked fine.
I'm not very familiar with Docker and the like, though. What if the person that created it decides he's no longer interested in maintaining it?
Don't worry. The chances of zwift having major updates and breaking anything is small.
I'm mostly joking, but they've been around for a decade and not a ton of progress to show for it
I've been a Linux user for a long time. I started to use a lot of open source free software alternatives because of this, and most of them had Windows binaries.
But I always had a dual boot system only for gaming purposes.
So... I can't think of any software other than games that's educated la Windows only.
Exact Audio Copy and Qobuz.
Acrobat Reader. There are a handful of fillable forms that only really work properly in the official Adobe reader.
There are alternatives
After trying 6 or 7 different alternatives for some very important government forms, I gave up and set up a VM. I do use other PDF readers whenever I can, but if someone is using features specific to Adobe Reader (outside the PDF standard), it's effectively a closed spec and there aren't alternatives for those documents.
For the life of me, I tried every single pdf reader on Linux, none gets close to Adobe reader, in terms of compatibility, tools and nice UI. Every time I found the perfect one on Linux, days later I realised my collaborators couldn't see my highlights (or something of the sorts).
There are none, thankfully. Neither work or home. Last things I've had to emulate were probably done diagnostic or update sw for cars and some ide bundled compiler horror for some old and obscure microcontroller.
MusicBee and Apple Music.
Apple is Apple so they impose dumb restrictions on the web client like any other streaming platform (and Cider is just a fancy frontend for this), so I have a Windows VM so I get the full experience.
And for MusicBee? Well, the Linux music player situation is... bad, to say the least. There is basically nothing like MusicBee in the Linux ecosystem right now. And every time I went to Reddit to see what people are going to, it's people who are not 100% satisfied with the alternative or Linux users gaslighting them into thinking MusicBee sucks and Their Choice is the Better One. I've tried other players and none of them scratch the itch for MusicBee for me. Quod Libet comes close with its queries, and Tauon looks gorgeous, but I had performance issues with QL for what I wanted it for, and I had issues with Tauon's playlist filtering. And as for WINE? Performance is slow, CJK characters don't show up, and tab dragging results in errors due to WINE not having implemented the functions for it to work. I'm happy to keep a Windows VM for MusicBee.
Bluebeam
I've never been able to get musicbee working on Linux.
Printer drivers for high DPI printing.
I'd still have to have a Windows VM even on Windows for this though, as they only work up to Windows 7.
PKHex, but it runs OK in wine. Little buggy but servicable.
dsa.msc to manage domains.
I wanted to do some stress testing on a gaming laptop a while ago and many people recommended OCCT. The laptop was still running Windows at the time, so I tried it and it seems like a good tool. It tests the CPU, RAM, GPU and power supply. I wasn't able to find an equivalent in Linux.
Microsoft Word for my resume. I'm not sure what I can do to change that, I don't want to risk a(n accidentally) badly formatted resume losing me an opportunity...
A lot of fraudsters get caught because they use the Cambria font instead of Times New Roman to make a fake word document without realizing Microsoft switched the default font in the early 2000s.
SketchUp. Can't get it to work on Wine.
Altium
not for me. Teams can be a web app, packet tracer has a linux version.