My partner doesn’t do much on the computer except web browsing and writing. The Scrivener writing program had a Linux version at some point that was abandoned.
I wanted to see if anyone personally has used Scrivener with Wine and if it is fussy or not. How has your experience been?
I could set it up for him, but he’s not a tech guy and will probably reject Linux if it breaks all the time and he has tk get me to come fix it.
Extra irrelevant info: trying to decide on having him try Mint or Ubuntu. Fedora is my daily driver and I typically use a headless Debian install for servers, but I heard Mint and Ubuntu are pretty perfect and low fuss for Windows users.
I haven’t tried Scrinever. What follows is about trying to convert people to Linux, you can safely ignore the comment if you’re not interested.
If the will doesn’t come from him, he will certainly look for things he doesn’t like and that will confort him in staying on Windows.
I’d say keep him informed and let him make his decisions with the information he has.
That’s a good and sadly realistic point.
I read a forum post back in the day about a guy that forced his wife and kids to use FreeBSD and they hated it. It was pretty funny but I also don’t want to be that guy
Exactly. No one wants their autonomy removed regardless of whether it’s arguably in their interest or not. It sucks the joy out of it.
I mean, it’s just consent
If someone has the knowledge and examples that OP does, I’m sure they may come to the same conclusion
But jumping to the end without taking the other party on the journey results in forcing someone to do something that they might not want, or be ready for
My wife is basically tech illiterate and has 0 desire to ever use something that doesn’t just work out of the box. We’ve moved some of her software to foss (darktable over Lightroom due to their stupid subscription only model) but she’s really only comfortable on a MacBook and even then only after I’ve set the whole thing up and maintain software/os updates.
macOS also sucks for smb file shares so I have a FreeBSD jail that just does xrdp and ssh X-11 forwarding (better color matching for photos this way) and she runs a script disguised as a desktop shortcut to run her apps. The script launches an ssh session and pops up a simple program I wrote that just lists available apps like darkroom. Gives her native file speeds and 0 need to understand anything related to the OS. My rambling point here is unless you set it up so the SO doesn’t need to learn it’s likely to fail and in return you’ll be responsible for all of the maintenance. Unless you’re ok with that it’s probably not a good idea
In my experience, not pushing it makes them want to try it themselves at some point. I guess you need to take care of their computer frequently enough, and are probably annoyed by Windows shitting its pants every time again. Don’t make any drama out of it, just point out how ridiculous it is that Microsoft cannot manage to build something that allows running two simple programs without breaking or nagging the user so often. They know that you use something else with which you’re happy with, and at some point they will become curious and ask wheter they can have it too. At that point do not promise much, say that it works a lot better but is also a lot different and sometimes a bit quirky. Do not rush it now, let them simmer in their curiousity. At a fitting occasion tell them very briefly about foss and how it is not a closed thing pushed by a corporation onto individuals to funnel data. When they ask if they can try it, tell them they can but it takes a bit of getting used to. Buy a new SSD, and safely store the previous storage in a anti static bag, exclaiming that everything is on there and cannot get lost due to linux. Set everything up with a dead easy DE, give clear tour of how stuff works. With this tactic, they want to get it to work by themselves, and are prepared to learn that some things work differently. It becomes an adventure that is totally revertable if it doesn’t work out. In contrast to when you want to force the change and they use everything as a reason to be unhappy about it.
I’ll likely get downvoted for this.
It doesn’t seem like there’s any advantage for them in switching to Linux.
It’ll just make their experience harder for no real gains for them.
I wonder how much functionality of Scrivener you could get in Obsidian. I found an article about someone setting their Obsidian vault up to run a workflow similar to Scrivener.
Obsidian is my Scrivener replacement. It’s not the same, but it’s a great tool that actually gives me more of what I wanted from Scrivener.
Not sure there’s really much point in trying to push people to use Linux if they aren’t interested in computers.
Imagine if someone came up to you raving about switching to a new car brand that has a 5% higher top speed and 10% more fuel efficiency for your money but the handbrake is in on the roof, you change gears with buttons instead of a gear stick and you fill the tires with water instead of air
Most people don’t care about what software runs on their computer and just want the default because it works the same way everyone else’s does
Only way Linux gets into the mainstream is if consumer hardware with it preinstalled gets popular, the steam deck is a good start
Thats not really true though… I installed linux on computer-illeterate people so that they would avoid viruses and they were happy with it…
I always worry with those kinds of installations that I’m going to become permanent tech support because Linux problems are far less universal
Also if they need to run Photoshop or full fat Office they’re kinda screwed
Libreoffice is essentially full fat Office at this point. If you need any , more than what it offers, you’re more likely than not a computer savvy person already. Photoshop is hard to fully replace though. I ran it in wine for a long time, still haven’t found a good alternative.
Photoshop runs in wine? Gave up on trying to run it on Linux long ago not that I have a license for it anymore anyway
There’s stuff like photopea but the web based ones kinda suck and are full of ads
Probably old versions from when you could still buy it instead of rent
Yes, I found a guide for getting Photoshop CS6 running in wine (PlayOnLinux wrapper). A recent update to something broke it for me, but it might still work for others.
Ok if they are browsing and reading emails BUT you are the administrator. But apparently s/he has a Windows only program s/he relies on… Using Wine will only increase the probability of the program crashing
It’s their partner. Maybe OP just wants to get rid of microsoft in their home network and the household, which is not an absurd thing I think.
Bingo!
They wanted to give it a try so win-win for both of us if they end up liking it.
I’m probably going to be unpopular for saying this but I think at some point you just have to settle. What practical difference does it actually make to your life if someone else has windows on your network
It has, I think.
A little different, but I hope you’ll see my point.
My family members use netflix on our smart TV. The netflix that says in it’s privacy policy that they’ll scan your network to know what devices you have.
I have never agreed to that outrageously unacceptable privacy policy, still, my devices are scanned by that garbage service, and by that they have insight on what devices I have, when am I around (at home), the network services that those devices run (any android app can run a network service in the background), and probably the OS along with it’s version that your device runs. These information can be quite telling about your personality, your life situation and other private matters.And it sucks that companies are allowed to do things like that with their software but I would imagine you wouldn’t be very popular if you try to tell them they can’t use Netflix anymore
Could always put your machines on a different subnet to the smart TV?
I think someone trying to get their partner to give free software a chance isn’t necessarily bad. They’re passionate about Linux stuff and maybe their partner shares some of OP’s concerns about the endless enshittification of Windows. Making the switch unguided is hard, but with tech support right by your side it becomes a lot easier.
Linux is as great for the most basic computer users (as a Facebook scrolling device) as it is for experts. Installation and configuration is quicker and easier and updates are quicker. When you just need a browser, a file manager, and maybe a basic spreadsheet, you’re good to go right after installing Ubuntu.
It’s only terrible for the intermediate users thst need to run specialised software, like in this case. The usability vs computer literacy graph is U-shaped. Part of this is because of lack of polish, another part is the lack of proper documentation (and the community telling you to open a terminal every time you ask a question).
The answer to “I want to run this program” shouldn’t be “akshually you should run this free, open source program someone made for a college assignment that looks like Word 97 had a stroke” or “just open a terminal and run sudo apt kajiggle ziggle zaggle --delete-all-my-files | grep -oKbRUH | awk ‘{print $100}’ 2>&123;# trust me bro”.
Hardware support is another issue, but if a device has been out for a while most hardware will just work if you pick a recent enough distro. The latest non LTS of Ubuntu or Mint usually works Fine™, or at least as well as Windows does in many cases.
As for OP: try running Zorin from a flash drive. It comes with integrated WINE support and is supposed to make Linux easier to use for Windows users. Performance isn’t great within a VM but VMs work too if you want to try it without a bootable drive. I don’t know how much easier it is to get used to Zorin because I’ve been on Linux for a while, but my first impressions were quite good.
Preinstalled on consumer hardware like Chromebooks in every school or for some unfathomable reason some of the nursing homes I work with?
It looks like it runs in wine. https://www.reddit.com/r/scrivener/comments/102pvtk/scrivener_on_linux_abandoned/
Mint is easiest for old windows users.
i think the most important part is that if they switch to linux, you are now their IT support, and they will rely on you. be patient and understanding with them, even if stuff is not necessarily broken.
Usually rated “Gold” or “Platinum” on AppDB:
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=12274
Platinum: “Applications which install and run flawlessly on an out-of-the-box Wine installation”
Gold: “Applications that work flawlessly with some special configuration”Click on a version. Apparently it works perfectly, but you need to
winetrickscorefont,vcrun6,speechsdk, andsapifor the initial install.On the distros: Go with mint. ubuntu has snaps which are the perfect way to scare new users away. They make everything super slow to launch and cause errors that make no sense if you don’t know how snaps work.
And worst of all, if you type “sudo apt install firefox”, hit enter and press Y, you won’t get what you asked for. You’ll get the snap version of firefox and the only way to know that is if you read and understand the output of apt.
@nottheengineer is this also the case with Ubuntu server? If so is there a way to turn that shit off,
They are definitely pushing it there too, but not as hard. There isn’t a way to disable this shitty behaviour, you need to manually set apt up to not pull snaps for every package individually.
@nottheengineer well thanks for letting me know anyway, this probably explains a lot of the docker issues I have been encountering which are “snap only” problems, despite me installing through apt
Oh yeah, I learned about snap the hard way with docker as well.
I’d highly recommend using a different distro for that.
@nottheengineer what do you suggest? problem is I’m limited since my home server is a raspberry pi so I’m limited to distros that support arm
I should probably give Debian a try, but I never had a good experience with Debian desktop.
I’d say debian is a good pick. I have debian LTS on my ventoy for whenever I need to partition a drive and it’s been great.
I never had any issues with it, what drove you away from debian on the desktop?
Well non tech literate people probably wont notice the start up time and they shouldn’t be using the terminal
Normal users do care about whether their browser takes 1 or 5 seconds to start up. That’s the difference between a new device and one from 3 years ago.
And for those that aren’t comfortable with the terminal, snaps are an even bigger issue. All their apps will be slow and glitchy and they won’t have any idea why.
I doubt it. Shooing the cat away take more time then that. Looking a the headlines on the tv takes longer. I can’t picture any member of my family actually noticing.
As for snaps . shrug sure if any app is glitchy all they know is check for updates, hopefully they do.
You do realize non tech people have absolutely no idea about package formats and such?? If you don’t understand something you should probably not worry about it
That’s exactly my point. They shouldn’t have to worry about it and if you pick a distro without snaps, they don’t have to.
Why do you want other people to switch to Linux? I don’t understand making fuss with relationships for an OS. Especially if they have Windows programs. Plus now everytime there is a problem, s/he will always call you. What does s/he think?
They don’t want to at all but I’ve chained them to the desk and propped their eyes open clockwork orange style. They have no choice but to watch me remove Windows
I don’t think you’ll find many people here who have used this particular software. I hadn’t even heard of it until I read this post. Why not just try to get it to run on your machine? If you’re scared of messing up something, just put it in a VM.
Edit: oh and try Bottles. That’s a pretty easy way to get Windows stuff to run on Linux.
It’s a pretty popular writing software, though you mainly hear about it in writing circles so that might be why you never heard of it.
Why not just try to get it to run on your machine?
I wanted to gauge the level of effort involved first. I easily can sink hours into tinkering something and getting it to eventually work but sometimes it isn’t worth it.
I use the Windows version of Scrivener 3 on Linux. It works almost perfectly. Sometimes it’ll freeze after opening a file, but force-quit and restart the app, and it’s fine.
Scrivener works fine. I wouldn’t use Ubuntu, but that’s my personal opinion
Honestly, I’ve found that for non tech-savvy people making any sort of major change results in confusion and frustration. Unless there’s a reason that you’re wanting them to switch at this particular point in time, and unless the impetus for the change is coming from them…just leave it, don’t mess with a setup they’re comfortable with.
It works decently. I use it.
Linux makes a fantastic writing / research machine but helping folks make the transition to Linux can be difficult.
Everyone comes at it from a different angle and with a different intensity. Sometimes just letting them explore available options can be what they need. I’ve found that allowing the transition to be an open, running conversation, can be really helpful and much less stressful. There’s a lot to learn, even with Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc…
If you haven’t found them already, here’s a few personal favorite writing apps/systems (in no particular order) I’ve enjoyed using over the years.
Fadein https://www.fadeinpro.com/
Focus writer https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/
Wordgrinder http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html
Emacs org-mode https://jacmoes.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/creative-writing-with-emacs/#Manuskript_and_the_cork_board
Nice i look at these
Fadein works great on Linux! I second this!
Love that I can easily switch from phone to laptop when working with Fadein.
If he drops Windows for Linux, he might as well opt for a free writing software. I read that Manuskript has pretty much all the features of Scrivener and is somewhat similar so the learning curve should not be too steep.
Maybe best to set it up in a separate partition or PC for a trial.
See also : https://alternativeto.net/software/scrivener/?license=opensource
Awesome, thanks for this! Looks promising, I’ll check it out.
