So I was setting up this new laptop, and after security updates I went on cleaning the trash through Powershell, and after removing all unwanted packages I was going to let a note on the desktop and there was no Notepad in the context menu… oops, I messed up I thought, I must have removed stuff I shouldn’t, so just to be safe I did a factory reset and this time read very carefully every package before removing, and again no Notepad! And I notice there was no Paint nor Calculator either… so turn out new Win11 is shipped with Outlook, Maps, Solitaire Collection, People (whatever the hell that is), and even some IE, Zune and Skype legacy packages, but not with Notepad?! You actually have to download it from Microsoft Store… and now they all come with Copilot lol
Anyway, this sounds like a great opportunity to look for some FOSS alternatives!
What do you guys use and recommend?
Kate and/or Notepad ++ for your text editing needs and maybe Krita for a Paint alternative.
Kate is your friend for text editing. Probably other KDE apps too if they are also available on Windows.
The best alternative to Paint for me is Online
https://viliusle.github.io/miniPaint/
I don’t know why it is called Mini, it’s a very powerfull and complete editor. I use it as PWA, also selfhostable
Instead of Notepad
https://www.giuspen.net/cherrytree/
Calculator, curious, and complete this one
https://preccalc.sourceforge.net/
- arbitrary precision (up to 100,000,000 significant digits !!!)
- complex numbers
- fractions
- lists, vectors, matrices
- history (shortcuts ctrl+up, ctrl+down)
- calculator can write all results to a log file
- commands if, goto, print, return
- unlimited number of variables
- frequently used formulas can be saved as macros
- calculator can be translated to other languages
Notepad: Notepad++ or Visual Studio Code. Or if you like terminal windows: https://github.com/microsoft/edit
Paint: https://www.pinta-project.com/ seems to have Windows builds.
Calculator: https://qalculate.github.io/ is the best I know of.
Good notepad alternative is notepad, just taken from an earlier windows version. Best version of it is the early one from Windows 11 though, the one that just added autosaving and tabs. It’s the perfect balance of simplicity and usability for a temp note taking app imo.
That is, if you just need a program with a text field and nothing else. If you want something more useful in general though, then the obvious answer is Notepad++.
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I’m an unorganized POS and my least favorite thing about win11 notepad is how it auto-opens all your unsaved notes after a reboot. I didn’t save em for a reason!
I know you are asking for FOSS alternatives, but for those who are looking to just restore the old programs:
It even has a Textpad
There is also an satire version, Windows 93, but Windows 96 is a functional online version from the descarted M$ Nashville project before they released Windows 98. Anyway good for pranking your friends, putting it fullscreen.
Reasons I keep old installer-ISOs, tbh
Notepad++ or Notepad3, Paint.NET (not OSS), SpeedCrunch
Haven’t used anything but Notepad++ in years.
I saw that Notepad and Paint have integrated AI now. I didn’t check if the same applies to Calculator, but I’m terribly afraid they might collect my Calculator history… far more shameful than any late‑night browsing history.
Yeah, putting AI in Notepad is so stupid. The entire point of notepad is how lightweight it is.
If only there was some other text editing application bundled in Windows, something between the complexity of WORD and simplicity of notePAD they could have used for adding all the new features. Shame that nothing like that exists. Oh well.
cudatext as a notepad replacement. It’s closer to a full featured text editor, but is very quick to startup with no extensions installed.
I have no idea about replacing paint, but irfanview for simple viewing, cropping, resizing, swapping formats, etc.
For calculator stuff I sometimes just open the Python REPL. If you know the language (even a little bit) it does all the things and more. Every time I try to use the Windows calculator it annoys me trying to find the right button and them accidently putting another operator instead of equal or vice versa.
Follow up: this is the calculator I use on Linux. I didn’t realize it had Windows builds available.
On the Windows 11 install I was forced to use, I installed vim and helix through scoop. And python/julia works for calculator.
