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[HopperJF]

Hi there
My friend has been using XP for some time until he decided to try Linux last Christmas. He found a distro eventually, that he thought was easy to use.
The distro being Mandrake.
He enjoyed it, having it as a dual boot with Windows XP.
But he eventually got rid of it, because he prefers the Windows programs he uses.
He tells me last night that he will try Linux again IF I can find equivalent or better Linux equivalents of the following programs:

- MusicMatch Jukebox (he likes the playlists so it shows bands down the side, not just a long list of songs)

- MSN Messenger. He has tried aMSN which is ok, but is wondering if there is anything better out there.

- Good P2P client, like Kazaa Lite.

If anyone can point me in the direction of any, I will be grateful.

[Karlos]

Do any of these windows applications he prefers work with Wine? Until he finds a linux native application he prefers, maybe he can run the windows ones via it.

I had mandrake a while ago and thought it was quite nice but I never really got time to get too deep into it.

[HopperJF]

I think he tried WINE, but I'll bring it up. Thanks.

[Floid]

- MusicMatch Jukebox (he likes the playlists so it shows bands down the side, not just a long list of songs)

Egads. One of the first free GUI MP3 players (which I believe was available for both *NIX and Windows) used this interface, and it was so hated that the product changed hands and names a couple times... I have no idea what it was, and it may in fact have become the foundation for MusicMatch. [Okay, looked it up before finishing this post -- it was FreeAMP, and I have no idea of the history, but at least one reincarnation is Zinf. Probably feels a lot snappier now than it did on a 486; I'd expect it's a little more 'mature' than the Lindowsware below.]

iTunes has brought the nondeterministic, never-know-where-your-files-actually-are interface back to the fore, though, and Lindows... er, sorry, Linspire... just announced Lsongs, which may or may not be an adaptation of some other open-source project.

There's probably a xmms plugin that does it, too.

(This is actually a "UNIX mindset" sort of thing; your friend can probably get similar convenience by using a ripper that automatically generates playlists, and then keeping his directories sorted, rather than relying on a unified interface and secret metadata files to make sense of one big mess of a "Library." But if he prefers that, well, see below.)

- MSN Messenger. He has tried aMSN which is ok, but is wondering if there is anything better out there.

Whuh-oh. I mean, I know, many people do use it, but if you can't bear to give it up (and in fact, it effects your ability to feel comfortable on a system), maybe it's time to sign up to Licensing 2.0. I'm not even being crass; if he really derives benefits from Microsoft services, obviously he's going to get the best, uh, service, from them on a Microsoft OS.

Still, this list of FreeBSD ports is a start if you're looking for alternatives. (I think I've heard of people being happy with Kopete.)

- Good P2P client, like Kazaa Lite.

One thing the open-source scene doesn't lack for, though Kazaa's FastTrack network is something of a proprietary Win32 thing. (They even muscled out Morpheus, remember?)

eMule seems to be popular and supports a bunch of eDonkey-based networks and derivatives (never used it myself); Gnutella has, believe it or not, matured into something you can actually sort of use, and there are many clients available (gtk-gnutella, for one), but you have to remember to upgrade your client fairly often, given the amoebic nature of the beast; BitTorrent was born over here (though you might have to use it from the command line)... and of course, there's at least one Soulseek client, and who-knows-what-else available.

(Yes, there *is* more Free or BSDware available than just piracy apps, I'm just answering the question...)

[Blomberg]

Not sure about MusicMatch, I'm not that fancy in the playlist department, I just use XMMS (Winamp clone ... ish)

For MSN compatibility there's Kopete and Gaim (both support other protocols as well, yahoo, ICQ, etc.) Bear in mind, though, that they're not quite as fancy as the M$ client with regards to the emoticons and stuff, but the basic functionality is in place.

P2P ... hmm, I don't know of any Kazaa clones, I'm more partial to the donkey network. For that there's xmule, which is an emule clone, and some people use mldonkey, not sure what that is, though, as i've never used it myself.

--edit--
Ah, Floid beat me to it.

Oh well, that's what I get for doing all sorts of other stuff while replying, I guess.