Okay, all you who post on every post “you should just switch to Linux”. Here’s your chance. I’m someone who really does want to run Linux on the desktop. I run Linux servers at home, was a Unix sysadmin for years running Linux on the desktop in the '90s. But now I’m in sales and run Windows at work (actually very happily with some help from StartAllBack and Rufus).
I want to replace my Macs at home. Since they removed upgradable RAM and disk, I am no longer willing to pay the high tax for the few little things they do better. But there is some functionality I just cannot seem to find replacements for. This is where you folks who say “I should just switch to Linux” come in. Tell me how please:
Requirement 1) I have heavily invested in my local music library on iTunes. 1200 albums. I have little to no interest in streaming services. I want to organize my music with * ratings from 1-5 and from that have smart playlists that autopopulate and sort themselves by * ratings and genre. I have more than 40 of these types of playlists and it’s completely unworkable to populate them manually.
Requirement 2) I must be able to sync my music library in full to my phone. I use an iOS phone now, but I could even be convinced to switch to Android if there was a good solution. I am not willing to go in and select 100 different playlists manually to sync. It must completely replicate what’s on my desktop on my phone, 100% locally, including all the afformentioned smart playlists. I travel a lot for work and want my music always available even when there’s no network.
Requirement 3) My job really doesn’t require much more than Office and a browser, but it requires very heavy use of those things. Firefox is fine for the browser, so no trouble there, but I need full fledged Outlook, OneNote and most of the features of Excel at a minimum. Word I can take a bit of a hit on as long as I can save something that others can open. Ideally I would want to run the Windows version of these tools. I will not be able to live with only the browser versions, that I’m 100% sure of.
Requirement 4) I’d really like some sort of decent photo management tool. I can probably manage just by keeping them organized in folders and having google photos suck that in, but I don’t much trust Google, so would like to have a second tool that can also do a good job at replacing MacOS’ Photos app. AI image recognition and search a-la Google Photos would be the cherry on top.
Requirement 5) I need to be able to scan in batches from my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner into Evernote. I use this on mobile, other OS’, etc. and have a lot of organization built into it now that I really don’t want to try to migrate from.
That’s it. 5 high level requirements that must be met. Is it possible?
The smart playlists are actually the part I’ve spent the most time on, at least 3-4 hours over the years. I have found a few things that can do it, but none that can sync them.
Photos are probably the easiest option, I think I could manage with some of the options mentioned here. Immich and Photoprism both look very nice.
I am a very heavy user of Outlook, I use pretty much every feature to the max extent possible as my job is primarily about organization and throughput. Web tools require too many signins, tend to get lost in a pile of tabs, and are almost always stripped down versions of the thick client alternative. I have used OWA over the years occasionally when something wasn’t working locally, and every time I need to, I hate it, it feels like trying to work with both my arms tied behind my back. Things like dragging and dropping emails into other emails, dragging schedule items, dealing with attachments and tasks, etc. are just really painful, and I just spend too much time in outlook to deal with something suboptimal. Wine would probably be the best option for me, even with an older version if needed as long as it worked well and connected to exchange still. I don’t see anyone doing that though.
If it helps, the web versions of O365 have been closing in fairly rapidly on their desktop counterparts to the point that I often find myself working in the web version without realizing it (usually when I open an attachment in Outlook or a Teams shared link). The preview of the new desktop version of Outlook is 99% the same as the web version now.
I don’t know if its possible or not but you might be able to “install” them to your desktop as progressive web apps.