Cross Platform apps for dual boot users

If you are like me you may have to use windows for work (or perhaps just for gaming). I've found that one issue with dual booting is that you occasionally need to run an app that is unfortunately located on the other OS.

After getting frustrated with this scenario I started looking for applications which are available on multiple platforms (esp., Windows & Linux).

The first place to look is a website called "Alternative to".... here they provide a list of apps which have the same if not similar functionality as the one you select. Furthermore they also show which platforms they will run.

My Choices

The first app I install on any OS is dropbox. Dropbox is an online app which provies you with online storage. The free accounts give you 2GB of space but you can get more by prostituting yourself for them (I'm up to 5gb now).

Besides storage there's another reason that I use dropbox. The output from all of the cross-platforms apps goes into my dropbox. This way I have the same data no matter which platform (even on my Android mobile).

Nevernote is a Linux (and Windows) alternative to the Evernote client. For Linux users the main advantage is that you do not have to run the official client through WINE (an application which allows you to run some windows programs under Linux). Though this is cross platform, since the data can be synced online I would recommend that in Windows to use the official windows client. I'm currently investigating a way to sync the nevernote configuration files (including the offline content) with dropbox.

If you use mind mapping  programs you probably already know about XMind.  I have set the program to always open the last diagram which is placed in my dropbox. Any new files are also added to dropbox so that no matter what machine I am on, I have access to the files.

Keepass is a password safe which is available on many platforms. For Linux (and MAC I believe) you can use keepassX. On Android, you can use KeepassDroid.
Again, dropbox comes into play as I sync the keepass database with it. That way, I never have to worry about my passwords.


This is just a *small* sampling of the cross-platform applications available. In my opinion, especially as the desktop OS becomes less relevant, cross-platform applications will be a necessity. People will be need to be able to access the same data with the same apps across all types of devices. We have been promised that the 'cloud' is the solution but I have to disagree with this - it still has a lot of issues (esp., privacy and licensing issues).

I'll continue adding cross-platform app reviews in future posts.