I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too
(notebookcheck.net)749 points by smurda 16 hours ago
749 points by smurda 16 hours ago
No libre office suite will ever be on par with Microsoft proprietary options. It's a constant race of keeping up with features, using mostly unpaid volunteer developers.
I've used Linux for 25+ years and my reaction is always to do my best with the options I have, but in those cases when it's not enough I just say "I'm sorry but I can't edit this document" or "sorry but some of the formatting was lost when I saved this in libreoffice".
The thing is that I'm a senior Linux specialist so people accept my excuses because they generally need my work.
> It's a constant race of keeping up with features, using mostly unpaid volunteer developers.
What new features are Microsoft bringing out that are that critical for LibreOffice et al to catch up with?
I can’t think of much which I use that wasn’t already available in Office 95 which was released 30 years ago.
Aside from OOXML (which isn’t nearly as open as the name suggests) and the ribbon bar (which i personally hate), there hasn’t really been any big innovations.
The only features I can think of are:
- better security model for marcos. But that was only needed because MS Office was insecure to begin with so not really relevant here either
- Unicode support
- more rows in excel (though generally once you start reaching that point, the memory footprint of Excel becomes too great to make working on that spreadsheet practical)
The real issue with LibreOffice isn’t new features. It’s the subtle rending and parsing quirks when working on OOXML documents. But that’s likely Microsoft’s fault and thus OOXML working as intended.
Winapps is pretty good to run the Microsoft office suite. https://github.com/winapps-org/winapps
A office specific winapps fork : https://github.com/eylenburg/linoffice/
Maybe in a VM.
Or try running via Wine.
You could also try LibreOffice or OnlyOffice and see if the documents are readable / writable.
Failing all that the web versions might work just fine.
Unless you need precise formatting because you will send someone nontrivial slides to present, libreoffice should be fine.
Excel really depends - if you're using it as a glorified document with a table, then libreoffice will do fine. If you need compatibility and more advanced features, or your whole company runs on excel like a financial corp - there's no alternative. VM in that case.
> Failing all that the web versions might work just fine.
I use ~~Office 365~~ the Microsoft 365 Copilot App online all the time on Debian at work.
Winboat should be able to run them: https://www.winboat.app/
As far as compatibility goes, OnlyOffice is fairly good at it, more geared towards MS-compatibility than LibreOffice, which is more of its own thing (and pretty good at that).
Can you use the online versions? They are starting to become usable now.
That is what we are supposed to do at work.
Or a VM for just that purpose. Quickgui was discussed here recently for example to make this easier https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickgui
This never lasts long, in my experience. It’s a nice idea, but it’s a huge pain. At some point, I always end up sticking with the OS that has what I need, which is never Linux. Linux is what I install when feeling idealistic, but it doesn’t allow me to do anything I can’t do on a mainstream OS that is mission critical to my life.
let me know when you can run visual studio, the best IDE in the world, on Linux, and I wont flinch
I installed CachyOS on a spare ssd with the idea that if it became a headache I would go back to windows. All my games work, even weird open source ones. All my sounds, monitor, kvm switch, volume rockers, Bluetooth game controllers, headsets, everything works with zero issue. Cuda works, I can run ML models, and it all works much better and faster than Windows. There's been no reason so far to switch back. Next, I'll wipe my NVME drive and be done with windows for good.
I agree modern Windows sucks for the average consumer, with all the dark patterns and icky stuff, but if you are on this forum and technically inclined enough to install Linux, you can just disable all the bad parts of Windows and get a rock solid OS with perfect compatibility. Unpopular opinion, I know, but that's how I view it.
I don’t really agree with the “Windows 11 is unstable” narrative, especially compared to the ways that system updates on macOS and Linux have not always been 100% stable.
The functionality of the iPhone connection to Linux is not unique to the platform, that works on Windows as well. iPhones present themselves as cameras when connected via USB and as the author found out, some apps present their internal storage for manipulation.
I’m surprised the author didn’t get KDE Connect to work. It’s a clutch app, and it’s even better for Android users. It’s one of the things that has had me consider switching to Android over iPhone (but there are still a couple of things I just can’t quite get over leaving behind like FaceTime for my non-technical family, the unmatched-by-competitors utility of AirTags, Siri Shortcuts, and my general feeling that without installing GrapheneOS, that Android is a less private and secure OS).
I can't fully switch because of audio plugins but I'm using Linux, Windows, and macOS anyway because I'm creating cross-platform apps. I think it's best to use all common operating systems and stay proficient with them.
I switched my laptop (Surface Laptop Go) from Win11 to Tumbleweed, and its great. Mainly because Windows kept getting slower, and arguably Win11 isn't great for an 8GB system. OpenSuse is a great distro.
But my gaming PC and primary workstation remains Win11, and always will be (windows, that is). Notably Suse under WSL2 works great there as well, and my Kubes workflow is just as easy with PowerShell commands as it is with bash.
OS's have purposes, and arguably there is no single platform that is better than the others in every way - Windows is better for games and is more stable across different hardware and configurations. Linux is much lighter, more intentional, and for me better for infosec and some coding activities.
I love desktop linux. I've used it on and off since 2000. Even with Valve's excellent work on gaming, there's still whole software categories that require Windows. Pro audio software is very Windows reliant and I don't see it changing. If you're a software developer, there are many benefits to using and deeply learning linux. But even as a linux super-geek, I don't expect to ditch Windows entirely any time soon.
Do iphones show the file system as a USB storage or MTP device when plugged into a computer? If so, that has worked for many years.
You can also access the file system over the local network from Dolphin using KDE connect. I know that with Android the phone just appears as a drive and I think its the same with Apple devices.
Eh, I wanted to do this, but the manufacturer of my laptop doesn't allow me to disable RST in the BIOS, so I can only work from a flash drive, and it's slow. :(
Am I the only one who thinks (mobile safari with an ad blocker) it’s a jackass move to show a fake popup that leads to “must be an adblocker” and prevents page viewing? Or maybe just bad JS junk causing it?
Update: OMG I turned ad blocker off and what a disaster of a site.
First you don't have to dump anything to use Linux. The whole thing should not be as antogonistic.
I switched to Linux, Arch btw, Omarchy, sometime last year when it was announced. I installed it on my old Thinkpad and it worked wonderfully, for most part. I realized that I am more productive there in real sense and experience is more delightful.
When I would go back to Mac, I would realize I need several clicks to accomplish something I had on shortcut available. Having websites/apps on shortcuts as an app is huge help. Also working on command line is really much more focused.
Sometimes in September I plugged Thinkpad to desktop setup and in December I set my powerful computer to Omarchy as well.
It isn't seamless experience, there are issues switching from speakers to headphones and dictation can be hard to setup. Overall whole machine seems more powerful and interesting to work on.
This is first time in many years that I can both play and work on same machine which is definitely welcome and surprising.
One more thing to note, nowadays Arch is more stable then Ubunty and works better. However, any distro you pick, you should be happy with, especially if you want to do work, you should just pick and stick with distro.
Linus runs this specifically because it supports kernel development decently well. If you aren’t developing the kernel, his reasons for running Fedora have little to no impact on you.
Oh look, a “I switched to linux” article that will convince nobody because it’s full of issues they ran into that users don’t want to and should not have to learn how to solve. Or maybe I’m wrong and everything is smooth now? _reads article_ Nope, it’s exactly as I expected.
Ugghhh.
Can we stop with the implicit agism that always pops up in Linux threads? I know it's meant to be positive for Linux but it's still agism that diminishes people whose only crime is that they're of advanced age.
C'mon Steinberg, Make cubase for Linux so i can jump ship.
As somebody who's doing the same thing for the first time in almost 2 decades: kubuntu wins for me.
Mint was too buggy. It just felt so single-threaded. It had upsides - easiest Nvidia support for example. Cinnamon is nicely customizable and has some great ideas but it's just too rough around the edges.
Raw Debian was just too hard to get Nvidia drivers playing nice.
But for "I'm comfy editing config files but I need some hand-holding for this" KDE with Ubuntu is the best balance of performance and clean design and support.
My biggest disappointment is how little batteries-included gui I'm seeing for core Linux functionality. Where is the systemd service manager? Why are all the file managers so bad at editing permissions?
> Where is the systemd service manager?
Kde used to have a systems settings module for Systemd. There are defitely GUIs for managing user services (its called Background services for me)
> Why are all the file managers so bad at editing permissions?
What does right click and then choose properties in Dolphin not do satisfactorily for you?
Another of those? Can people install their OS without having to tell the whole planet about it?
I don't see articles about people installing Windows or Mac everyday like the people installing Linux.
Is it such an achievement to do? That make you proud enough to tell the world?
It's worse than vegetarian people at that point.
And what's the point? The whole thread is filled with "yeah yeah, I installed Linux too!" just like some kind of cult.
Look at you...
Misery loves company. You won't see anybody telling people to switch to Windows, Mac or iPhone because those people are too busy enjoying their OS.
Not really, Linux evangelists are a thing because Linux is primarily held back by lack of adoption. A lot of common issues can be attributed to either:
1. The hardware manufacturer has never tested Linux support for drivers. 2. Some application that you need doesn't target Linux due to lack of users
This isn't everything, sure. But I think it's a majority of the headaches. Thus, Linux-users really want other people to also use Linux, so that companies actually give a shit about supporting it.
There's also the whole ideology involved. A lot of companies are increasingly pushing that you are not allowed to control the computer/phone/device you buy and Linux is at the forefront of combating this.
How to run PowerPoint and Excel? I'm stuck with these for work?