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 them, but they’re not a tech person and will probably reject Linux if it breaks all the time and they have to get me to come fix it.


Extra irrelevant info: trying to decide on having them 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.

  • thedarkfly@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Catasaur@lemmy.catasaur.xyzOP
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      1 year ago

      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

      • fartsparkles@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • n00b001@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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

      • socphoenix@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        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

      • skilltheamps@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    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.

      • boatswain@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    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

    • auth@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Thats not really true though… I installed linux on computer-illeterate people so that they would avoid viruses and they were happy with it…

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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

        • Decker108@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            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

            • Decker108@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              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.

      • Zatujit@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        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

    • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        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

        • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • flashgnash@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            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?

    • 0ddysseus@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Preinstalled on consumer hardware like Chromebooks in every school or for some unfathomable reason some of the nursing homes I work with?

  • araly@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Intralexical@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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 winetricks corefont, vcrun6, speechsdk, and sapi for the initial install.

  • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • alteropen@noc.social
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          1 year ago

          @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

          • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Oh yeah, I learned about snap the hard way with docker as well.

            I’d highly recommend using a different distro for that.

            • alteropen@noc.social
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              1 year ago

              @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.

              • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                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?

    • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Well non tech literate people probably wont notice the start up time and they shouldn’t be using the terminal

      • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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.

    • Zatujit@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      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

      • nottheengineer@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • Zatujit@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    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?

    • Catasaur@lemmy.catasaur.xyzOP
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      1 year ago

      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

  • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Nyla Smokeyface@beehaw.org
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      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.

    • Catasaur@lemmy.catasaur.xyzOP
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • TheForvalaka@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • maudefi@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    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

  • arthurpizza@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    It’s been a few years but Scrivener used to be almost perfect under wine. According to the AppDB it still looks like a good chance of being a pleasant experience.

  • simonced@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    A lot of input in the comments, I’ll just add mine in the mix.
    I guess wanting to change the OS for someone can be good if:

    • the current Windows version is EOL and/or has security issues/concerns,
    • the hardware is too old to upgrade,
    • the current user is fed up with crashes, popups, slowliness etc…

    Now, I would go for Mint anyday instead of Ubuntu, because the default matte desktop feels more confortable when coming from windows.

    As for Scrivener, I don’t even know what it is, but Wine is quite good recently, so if you’re tech/linux savy, you could try to make it work.