Experiences, thoughts and rants about using Linux as a newbie after Windows

[vtsteam]

Same here, I have Office 97, and had used it for a very long time in Wine, but gradually moved over to LibreOffice.

I never had a paid version of PhotoShop -- I used to use some cheaper alternatives back in my Win98SE days (the last version I used). I have used PhotoFiltre also a free older photo editor in Wine. 

These days I mostly use MTPaint for photo resizing/cropping and some color correction, and Gimp for anything more complicated. I don't like Gimp's interface, and have never learned much in it other than the few tools I use (color correction, perspective and other transforms, print size changes) I wish it was more intuitive for me, but I don't find it so.

Too bad LibreOffice Calc doesn't do MSExcel's macros, and has a less useful (according to my wife, an editor) track-changes methodology for collaborative work. For me, these aren't problems for my own work in a spreadsheet.

The one must-have Windows (Wine) app I absolutely depend on is the old free 3D CAD Google SketchUp versions 7 and 8. Not the newer Trimble versions ($$).

I have free plugins for the old ones that allow .dxf, and .stl saves and also a CAM plugin that outputs G-code. I've tried to learn other 3D CADs and I find them really difficult/clumsy (for me). Maybe it's just the way my mind works.

[sorveltaja]

I've tried to learn other 3D CADs and I find them really difficult/clumsy (for me). Maybe it's just the way my mind works.

Do you mean apps like Freecad? If so, yes, it's free, but it has rather steep learning curve - and the fact that it keeps crashing often doesn't exactly help the learning process. That's why I've used it only for converting meshes to another format. 

In the same vein, another issue with possible solution. I've used Notepad++ on Windows in the past, and now on Linux, I use Notepadqq, which is basically a clone of Notepad++.   

But after installing Notepadqq, It seems to be very prone to crash with default settings. It has done that with all the Linux distros I've tested so far.

I may have read about it on the net, but one option to fix that is to go to Settings--> Preferences--> General--> Backup open document every..seconds or minutes or whatever, and uncheck that option.

In other words, disable autosaving feature. After doing that - I've not experienced such crashes.