Update 3/6/2010: Wow! This post is over 2 years old and still gets a lot of traffic. For those curious, I’ve gone the Evernote / wine route, but can’t make the update to version 3.5.
I’m a huge fan of Microsoft’s OneNote. I’m rapidly becoming a convert to EverNote as well.
Suppose I’m on my Linux machine though… what’s there for Linux that is similar or comparable? I love how both apps handle tagging and the immense flexibility in entering/finding/tracking data. Surely there’s something similar for the *nix crowd as well?
I know I could look at web options like Google Notebook or Zoho Notebook, but they’re not quite as flexible yet (right?). For instance, I like to be able to tag things — and then easily pull a list of those things… That’s just one example where OneNote and EverNote kick butt!
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Like everything in Linux it seams, the issue is finding the good ones, not if they are available. I use tomboy notes, but there are 5 or 6 others that are available. If you are using Ubuntu, open the add/remove programs console under the applications menu, and do a search for notes. sift through the first 10 or so, and try them out. I don’t think I use notes like you do, so I bet tomboy notes won’t be what you are looking for, but give it a try.
I’m looking for the same thing at the moment. BasKet Note Pads seems to be the closest match, but I don’t have any experience with it.
Thanks Seth & Nathan — I’ll be sure to check those two out.
Funny, I was just experimenting with Ubuntu, and since EN is my all time favourite program, I looked to see what I could find in the Linux world.
I was disappointed with the lack of comparable software. The best two I found were Tomboy and Basket Note Pads. I like the look of Tomboy, and the fact that it’s very much like a wiki (which EN is not, though). But there was no image support. That’s a kiss of death.
Basket Note Pads, does offer some image support, but it is so not like EN in ease of use. I did like it’s ability to have tags and see those notes with tags attached (like OneNote in this regard).
However, to be honest, neither one of them came close to what EN can do. Sigh. You could try running EN under Wine though. I’ve heard that it’s possible. But I don’t know if you get all of the functionality (e.g., web clipper). Good luck!
It has been over a year since this thread originated.
I run Xubuntu on a 2nd generation laptop and am also an evernote user.
Wine did ths trick for me.
sudo apt-get install wine
wine /home/Evernote-installer.exe
Your evernote now runs on linux
http://www.twitpic.com/b0b0q
Hope it helps …
Hmmm… I might need a beefier linux machine if I go down the WINE route. This thing is just a p3 750 with 384 MB. Might be the best bet though.
For Basket, looks like I’ll need to install a handful of KDE dependencies. Tomboy takes me down the mono path. Yikes! It looks cool though…
What version of linux are you using? if you are using a good package manager(synaptic), dependencies are easy.
Have you tried out tiddlywiki? It’s like evernote, except that the whole application is built into a webpage which you save as an html file.
That’s a great idea, David. I have’t looked at tiddlywiki in quite some time. I’ll add that one to the list.
Thanks!
You might want to check out the Luminotes personal wiki at http://luminotes.com/
I develop it and use it with Firefox on a Linux box, so it’s definitely Linux compatible. No tagging yet, but that’s in the works for an upcoming release.
Thanks Dan – I’ll add Luminotes to the list of apps to try.
Hmm, the wiki variants aren’t what I’m after. At a minimum, I need to be able to do checkboxes and free form notes. (similar to what I can do with One/Ever|Note
Hey, I just stumbled upon this entry doing a search for reports on Evernote on Linux. I have just received an invite for the Evernote Webversion, which I really, really like (image support and text recognition is extraordinary).
I’ve used Basket Notes before, and I like it, but a webversion of Evernote and a desktop app synchronizing my notes would really be a whole lot better (considering that I’ve got a work and personal computer).
Log story short, I guess you’ll need crossover or wine to use Evernote, most of the other note apps aren’t quite as good.
And it’s me again.
I have just successfully installed the EverNote Beta App for Windows via WINE. So far it works well, drag and drop does of course not work and it seems to crash whenever I click a certain button. But apart from that it works fine and synchs too with the Web version. Good stuff.
Hey Richard – thanks for the follow-up
That was a quick WINE run you made there.
I too have been messing around with the EverNote beta and hope to get some thoughts up on that one soon. So far I’m very much on the fence about some aspects…
FYI: Zim is better than Tomboy.
Hey T. — is this the right Zim URL?
So far I’m kinda digging the Evernote beta… but always interested in looking at options
Tiddlywiki — the “GTD” versions add extensive tagging, plus checkboxes. MonkeyGTD v3 is probably the most advanced wrt tagging, task lists,
http://monkeygtd.tiddlyspot.com/demo3.html
You can host/synchronize your tiddlywiki at the below webpage, or check out the various versions by clicking on the description:
http://www.tiddlyspot.com
Synchronizing can be done with extensions to the tiddlywiki core, using plugins, macros, and scripts found here (also add picture tools, calenders, etc)
http://tiddlyvault.tiddlyspot.com/
Once you spend a little time with tiddlywiki, it’s easy to figure out how to re-configure the page to look however you’d like it (colors, fonts, menu’s on left/top/right, etc).
This place has some cheat sheets for tiddlywiki that are very helpful.
http://www.nothickmanuals.info/doku.php/cheatsheets
I’m a big fan of Tomboy myself, but it’s not the same thing as Evernote. I found this discussion while searching for something similar, because I like the syncing capabilities of Evernote.
Wow! tiddlywiki is great!
and i’m trying out the monkey thing too.. completely portable! i love it.
Having failed to run my beloved Evernote using Wine (all versions including portable 2 installed and ran but ultimately crashed) I ´m giving Basket Note Pads a spin – while its a K and i´m a Gnome I had it in my repository (Hardy) and it runs well, imported my Tomboy stuff, likes images, got a todo, seems easy to grok, looks good, got tags, allows unformated stuff aĺa One note, or neat stuff ala Evernote – so this is looking VERY promising.
This isn’t quite the same as having Evernote or similar software running on Linux, but it at least makes your Evernote notebooks available offline: Evernote IMAP!
All of your tags & notebooks are displayed in a folder structure, and all of the formatting from web clippings etc is preserved. I think this setup works best if you also have a copy of the Evernote software on a Windows PC or a Mac to enable you to use some of the more advanced features they offer. I have a Linux laptop and a Windows desktop, so this works pretty well for me. I can access all of my notes on my laptop even when I’m offline, and can use the more sophisticated features of the software when I’m at my Windows PC.
I would still love to see a full Linux version of the software, though.
Info on how to set up IMAP access to Evernote is here: http://www.evernote.com/about/support/imap.php
Here is a linux version of EVERNOTE in development:
http://www.nevernote.org
@missdipsy – good point about IMAP. It’s something I’d forgetting about. For a read-only list of your stuff it’s pretty effective.
And actually, now that the web client has been improved, I can just about live without a “native” linux EN client. There are checkboxes from the web now!
[...] The web interface is strong enough now that I also think I have the answer to my post from earlier this year, Linux Alternative for Evernote / OneNote? [...]
Luminotes was mentioned above, so I just wanted to say that as of today, Luminotes Desktop has been released. Now you can download the Luminotes personal wiki software and run it on your own computer instead of (or in addition to) using Luminotes online.
Check out Luminotes Desktop at http://luminotes.com/
When I switched to Linux, the most missed feature of OneNote was the ability to draw next to my text (to copy illustrations and such). So my favorite Linux alternative is Xournal. There is a Gnome alternative (Gournal), but I thought the layout of the Xfce version was a little more intuitive and better looking. They dont have the order of a wiki or TomBoy, Its a little more like a whitepaper like OneNote.
Give it a try!
-Steve
Hello,
It looks like Evernote just opened up its API, so there’s hope for a Linux version:
http://blog.evernote.com/2008/10/01/evernote-launches-api/
I love Evernote on the Mac, but I’m a heavy Linux user, I’m really missing the presence of a Applet/Widget for *nix
-AT
[...] earlier this year I was looking for a Linux alternative for Evernote / OneNote. This could be a [...]
I am using the Evernote windowsclient with wine and Ubuntu. Install was easy and all the features seem to work correctly. Although i am looking forward for an Adobe Air Client or something.
Adobe Air can be installed on linux already.
Hi Michael — it can now, but this post was written over 2 years ago
Hey Christoph — I ran the windows client via WINE as well. Generally worked OK but the icons were horribly messed up and I had some odd “tray” interaction going on. But yeah, it is an option and it works
I touched on it in this post.
Hi,
I’m new to Linux and I was also looking for a Linux-compatible OneNote alternative. Can anyone suggest which, if any, of the above-mentioned programs allows you to organize notes into journals, sections, pages, and subpages like the OneNote program?
Thanks
KJots is pretty good…
Use http://www.xmind.net
Yah know, you can use evernote online too. And, if you use firefox alread, you can use the evernote webclipper addon (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8381).
Hi “e”. Yep, Evernote online is an option now. Probably wasn’t over a year ago when I wrote this post. The web clipper definitely didn’t exist then!
If you keep searching here for Evernote you’ll also see reference to running it with Wine as well.
Hi I used to be a OneNote fan and had a lot of data stored in it. But when I switched to Linux, I found that OneNote would not run in Wine and searched for a replacement. I found the application TreeDBNotes will run well in WINE in Linux. And compared to OneNotes 300 megs (its huge), TreeDBnotes is only 7 megs or so. The program has a lot of great features and will run in Window (of course) and from a USB key. A key feature for me is the program’s ability to retain formatting from documents pasted from OpenOffice or MS Word. Great program as long as it runs in WINE!
I looked at it in Wine last November: http://www.solo-technology.com/blog/2008/11/10/ubuntu-dust-theme-and-a-couple-quick-notes/
Do you know if the same issues remain?
If you are looking for a more “native” approach, I tried basket and xmind. I particularly liked xmind because it’s cross-platform, and you could use in linux, windows or macs. But i really liked basket, i don’t know… it feels easier to new users, it gives you a bit more freedom (puting tasks and objects) then xmind.
But then you should try for yourself and see what fits most of you need.
Cheers!
Org-mode for Emacs (org-mode.org) is a fantastic plain-text outliner and organizer, which has a fantastic community around it, and is developing several extensions to add ‘clip/bookmark/link’ type functionality. It’s very flexible (= some of the advanced customizability is complex), and, well, it’s Emacs so it won’t be to everyone’s taste. For me it does what OneNote once did (keep my research notes) and what it never did (store them in a portable form which I can use in other apps; allow me to do my academic writing –including footnotes– right in my outliner). It meant learning Emacs, which took time time, but I’m glad I did it.
Sorry… just replyed for followup notification.
Thanks for this thread. I had a look on every solutions. eGroupWare looks better for me as a complete integrated solution : http://www.egroupware.org/index.php?page_name=wiki&lang=en&wikipage=Manual
It provides full collaborative features local or hosted, and multi-plateform (requires LAMP or WAMP, unless hosted).
Here is the user’s manual TOC :
What is EGroupWare / Installing eGroupWare / Admin / Backup / Login / Home / General menu / Address Book / Calendar / Resources / FelaMiMail as standard email programm / InfoLog / Tracker / ProjectManager / Timesheet / Synchronization / Wiki / SiteManager / Knowledgebase / Bookmarks / News / Filemanager / Polls / Workaround *DAV mit/with PHP/CGI
Have a look at keepnote, released february 2010, python based, open source standards and multi platform, i’m just evaluating it and it seems to be a good competitor to evernote
http://rasm.ods.org/keepnote/
Keepnote looks pretty slick. No tagging though?
I’ve finally found a credible alternative! It’s called PiggyDB. This is an amazing piece of software, very similar to Evernote, intuitive and very well written.
Unfortunately, it’s quite difficult to install and get running. But once it’s running, it’s amazing.
Note to PiggyDB developers: make it simple to install and run, and you have a killer app!
I’m new to Linux but, I am determined to stay with it because of the costs and frustrations of the alternatives such as Microsoft and Apple and I must admit, I am surprised and delighted with Ubuntu 10.04 Lts.
However, I have years of research files in OneNote which I cannot read in Linux and must have. Could anybody suggest a solution? Is there anyway I can convert them or another Linux App that can read them?
Thanks in advance.
Assuming that you still have OneNote installed on a windows machine somewhere I can think of 3 ideas off the cuff.
1) Install an XP virtual machine on your Ubuntu box just to run OneNote
2) Install Evernote on your windows machine and use the built-in OneNote importer to move all your stuff over. Now you can use Evernote via the Web, WINE or “Nevernote” (see comment below)
3) I’m not sure how full featured it is for OneNote, but you could try copying/moving your stuff to office live online (officelive.com)
I’ve been using Keepnote for about 6 months now. Its progressed quite a bit and the developer has been working hard to improve it.
There’s another cross-platform note-taker appear on the scene recently called CherryTree. Its also very good and it looks like its a neck-to-neck race as to which of these 2 is better than the other.
These 2 applications appear to be among the best applications for Linux right now, but they are really missing some crucial features. Many of the major note-apps have a web-clipper tool that allows the user to cut and paste portions (or entire pages) from the internet and then be able to annotate these clippings.
I think once this feature is added, these applications will see wide popularity.
There’s something called Nevernote as well which appears to be an open source implementation of Evernote.
I installed Office 2007 suite with Crossover under Ubuntu, even when it said OneNote was not supported it actually works! It was a lifesaver for me, hope it works for you as well.
BTW, Crossover released some free versions and/or allows free downloads every once in a while, so you can wait for their free release or look for it around the web in a .deb file
There is a LINUX version of Evernote – it’s called Nevernote and you can find it here:
http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/
There’s just a few requirements to get it running… follow the instructions and visit their forum!
You can choose between 32 bit or 64.
I got it working fine and it runs well…!
actually, mow there is a new release (v.90). This is a .deb package with quick installation…!
Thanks for the updates, Dale. NeverNote is looking pretty good. I’ll definitely give it a shot on my next *nix machine.