Common Applications

Linux does not have the same applications as Windows, but there are usually alternatives that can be used.

Below is an attempt to list Windows applications and their Linux equivalents.

7-zip -> Thunar / File Roller

Thunar is the equivalent to Windows Explorer and handles zipped files by default using an application called File Roller.

It can be started by clicking "Applications" in the top left, and then "File Manager"

Creating a zipped folder

To create a zipped file you can right click on a file or directory and click "Create Archive", this will present you with a wizard

For compatibility with Windows systems you should use .zip as the archive type.

Zip archives can also be encrypted by setting the password field. This still allows them to be used on Windows.

Extracting a zipped folder

Right clicking an archive in Thunar should give you two options near the bottom of the list. "Extract here" and "Extract to".

Either will extract zipped files, the latter will present you with an option to select where they will be extracted.

Adobe Reader -> Atril

Attempting to open any PDF should open Atril by default, if not it can be found in the "Applications" menu in the top left under "Office" then "Atril Document Viewer".

This allows simple PDFs such as articles to be read but does not provide the more advanced (editing, signing) features of Adobe.

Annotating PDFs

"Applications", "Office" then "Xournal++" can be used to annotate PDFs with either text, drawings or highlights.

For editing this can be saved as a .xournal file or exported to PDF to send to other users, both options are in the File menu.

Splitting/Merging/Modifying PDFs

"Applications", "Office" then "PDF Arranger" can be used to edit PDFs.

Microsoft Office -> Libreoffice

Office Suites are too vast to fully explain in a single page. However Libreoffice is largely a drop in replacement for Microsoft Office.

It offers a range of applications that cover the same bases:

In general they also allow opening the equivalent MS Office file but the conversion may not be perfect, this can be improved by saving them in "Open Document Format".

Libreoffice have good documentation for all these features in their Introducing LibreOffice book which can be read online.

Notepad / Notepad++ -> Mousepad

For simple text editing an application called Mousepad is available in the "Applications" menu on the top left under "Accessories".

Programming

For programming something more heavy weight should be used such as "Geany" which can be found in the "Application" menu on the top left under the "Development" menu.

Geany is a fully featured IDE and is well documented in the Geany Manual

Installing VSCode is also an option, however this is not done by default.

Remote Desktop -> Remmina

To remote into any system Remmina can be found in the "Applications" menu on the top left under "Internet".

There is a another Help page specifically for Remmina.

WinSCP -> Thunar

Thunar is the default file manager for XFCE and is capable of accessing remote file shares including over SSH.

This is documented in the Accessing file shares help page.