Unix/Linux Features and Application on Windows

Seeing as there is a Common Windows Applications for Linux thread, I thought I'd run up a reverse - a sort of "Common Linux Applications for Windows" thread.

I switched from Windows XP to Ubunutu Linux on my primary computer, and ran it for about a year (and truly loved it) before I picked up a new computer that came with Windows 7. For various reasons, not least because I do a fair amount of gaming on the computer in question, I decided to stick with the Windows install.

That said, I found that - even more than I missed a few Windows programs upon switching to Linux, I missed MANY Linux programs/features when switching back to Windows. Hence why I'm starting this thread - for people who, like me, wanted certain features from Linux on their Windows computers.

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The thing I missed the most was having multiple desktops/workspaces that I could flip between with a keyboard shortcut - it totally changed my workflow, and I can not go back to working without it. Fortunately, I ran across VirtuaWin, which does an excellent job of bringing this to Windows. Even if you're not a Linux user, you should try it.

I also missed having icons for external drives and storage appearing on the desktop when plugged in (present on Macs as well as in Linux, I know) - though this isn't something for everyone, I realize (I have no desktop icons whatsoever other than these, so I find it very handy). Thankfully, the simply named Desktop Media takes care of that very nicely.

Last (for this post, anyway - I may toss some for out there later), I really missed Synapse (similar: GNOME Do, Quicksilver for Mac). Launching programs via the Windows Start Menu Search Box is quick - but not quite as flexible as I'd like. For that, I use Launchy - which, I realize, is probably better known than Synapse, but still it was something Linux got me into - one of the best keyboard-powered program launchers out there.

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Now that I've gotten through some stuff I have found Windows equivalents for - here's on I can't find: Tilda/Guake. Linux got me into terminal use for quite a few things - as it tends to do for people, given it's hella powerful terminal. So I wanted to have my terminal easy to access - which is exactly what Tilda (and Guake, though I used the former) does: turns the tilda key (~) into a shortcut for a Quake-style dropdown terminal, ready to go.

Now, I've seen SOME people try to get this functionality on Windows, but so far all the solutions I've found are either too involved (I'd like to get this with a single program, if I can), or too buggy. If anyone has any suggestions on this, I'd love your forever (or a few minutes...or maybe I'd just be really thankful, but you get the idea).

Ok - I'll shut up now.

Linux will all ways prevail over everything

Good post but this is why i have VMware and have 3-4 OS at a click of a button then i throw it on another monitor and full screen it then switch from monitor to monitor from win to xp/ubuntu/backtrack/dedticated web server ubuntu and Mac OSX(which is missing the VMtools so only half useable).

Could be a solution just to have Ubuntu as VMware and then you can switch back and forth as much as you want at a click of a button.

The community has made it so you can use Linux on everything and anything

I don't know about Linux prevailing over everything, if that was the case they would have a bigger market share. I'm not knocking Linux because I honestly haven't really messed with it enough to give a fair opinion.

Now as far as your terminal question Hob, did you look at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/%22Drop ... or-Window/

http://jake.ginnivan.net/quake-style-powershell-console

http://poshconsole.codeplex.com/

The first two I had seen, Grinch - they're more or less identical to the one I linked to as "too involved" - I just don't want to have to install both Console2 and Autohotkey when I'd probably already be installing Cygwin (or the like) as well, which would set me up to be running three programs just to get my console right. I like my console, but not quite that much (though I can see why some people do).

That said, the third one - Posh Console - I had totally missed up until now. It looks more or less like exactly what I want.

Yes it is a bit more difficult then windows being different architecture but the open source allows anything to be extended, easy compiling your software, low resource usage and it can emulate windows applications as well.

I mostly find it perfect for a development environment.