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What non-FOSS software are you using that you wish you could replace? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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For me its honestly a ton of my work software (digital forensics), shit is too niche to be replaced by good FOSS options. Cellebrite, Magnet Axiom, etc. Autopsy is great and free and has a linux version but it simply cannot get the same level of data without a pretty nutty level of custom code.

And the biggest side effect of this is FUCKING WINDOWS. God I would replace this nightmare OS in a heartbeat if the aforementioned work software would make linux compatible versions. We have legitimately wasted 10k hours dealing with windows bullshit that would not be a problem in linux. Though im sure linux would take a different 10k for its own problems.

What about you guys? Doesn't have to be work related, thats just the thorn in my side right now.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

FreeCAD feels like it's where Blender was before version 2.8. The core functionality is there but the UI feels almost user hostile.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

If freecad could get the same level of support as blender it would be a huge push towards "the year of the Linux desktop"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

FreeCAD is "almost" there, but the inconsistent face renaming when editing previous steps, is still a huge PITA.

I don't even mind the UI that much, it takes some getting used to, but unless it crashes, once you realize how the "workbenches" work, it's not much of a problem, and it makes sense when they're each a separate module, like having 30 programs in one, that share some base elements, but otherwise are separate programs running through a single UI.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don’t even mind the UI that much,

Agree to disagree.

From what I remember something as common as offsetting lines in a sketch required switching away from the sketch workbench into the draft workbench and exiting the sketch editor altogether.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Normally, for an offset line, I'd use some helper lines and just set an offset along the helper between intersecting points, all straight from the sketch editor. Maybe you mean some other kind of offsetting, but I barely use the draft workbench, I've found it only offers a few tools that are hard to come up with inside the sketch editor itself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean offsetting complex shapes in one go.

Just randomly throwing together an example:

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ironically, an in-Sketcher offset tool has been developed over a year ago, along with like 10 other Sketcher tools... but it's been blocked from merging because they found there is a mistake in the general UI styling, and they switched to fixing that instead.

Oh well, guess FreeCAD's UI is a problem after all. 🤦