Sell Me on Linux

Sage the Lawyer@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 153 points –

I posted this as a comment in another post but when I got done I realized it would probably just be better as its own post. I'm sure I could find the answers I need myself but frankly I trust the userbase here more than most online articles.

As my username hints at, I'm a lawyer. I'm considering starting my own firm as a solo practitioner. I need a computer and/or laptop for it, and as a new business my budget would be pretty tight. I've mostly only ever used windows, but I'm getting fed up with the bullshit, so I'm considering going with Linux.

I assume Linux is capable of doing everything I need, which is primarily handling word documents, viewing PDFs, watching evidence videos, and online research. But my concern is that some of the more commonly used video types might have trouble on Linux, or that some of the word document templates I use in Windows might have compatibility issues.

I'm also nervous about using an OS I'm not familiar with for business purposes right away.

So I guess I'm asking a few questions. What is a reliable yet affordable option to get started? Are my concerns based in reality or is Linux going to be able to handle everything windows does without issues? What else might I need to know to use Linux comfortably from the get go? Is it going to take a lot of time and effort to get Linux running how I need it to?

For reference, I do consider myself to be somewhat tech-savvy. I don't code or anything, but I've built my last two home computers myself and I'm not scared of general software management, I just don't make it myself.

So, yeah, sell me on Linux, please.

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Yes, libreoffice doesn’t really work for live collaboration. But office online is a good solution for that collaboration, and it works in any browser (including Firefox on Linux). Therefore, the author’s conclusion (you need windows to collaborate on word docs) is still wrong.

I personally also believe that WYSIWYG editors are highly overrated: markdown is significantly better for note-taking and similar small documents, and reports would often be better off with LaTeX or something similar. But I understand why the “4 commands is too much hassle to install VirtualBox” crowd might prefer word.

Yes, libreoffice doesn’t really work for live collaboration. But office online is a good solution for that collaboration (...) Therefore, the author’s conclusion (you need windows to collaborate on word docs) is still wrong.

The author isn't wrong neither he's right as the actual answer is: it depends. We don't even have to go as far as "live collaboration" if you've to do serious work in MS Office apps just emailing a document to a co-worker that uses LibreOffice can end up badly. LibreOffice works, yes, until you find your custom TOC broken, macros not working, embedded content from other documents not there... images scattered around or even paragraphs ending on a different page just because the MS version of some font is slightly different from what comes with LibreOffice but different enough to totally trash your document. Even Office online has issues with some of the things I described, let alone LibreOffice and this is precisely why people in big companies buy MS Office.

Let me show you even on a very simple document I just made how wrong you are. I created the following document in MS Word and then proceeded to open it in LibreOffice just look at the comments:

It's all simple formatting a couple of headings, text and a bullet list and yet it fails.

Now even better is that if I change the document in some way in LibreOffice and try to save it I get this message:

So... LibreOffice can't even ensure that the most basic formatting and features are displayed and saved properly. So much for "it works fine".

I personally also believe that WYSIWYG editors are highly overrated: markdown is significantly better for note-taking and similar small documents, and reports would often be better off with LaTeX or something similar.

Let me guess you're someone who works in IT and never had a typical "office job" that includes spending 90% of your time writing reports and pushing spreadsheets around. This is why you don't get it, you're not the typical user of MS Office and you don't share the same use cases the OP, the article author and myself share.

Yes, some minor formatting changes occur when opening a docx file in libreoffice. Hardly sounds like a deal breaker to me. And yes, you do get a pop-up when saving to docx in libreoffice (with the toggle to disable the pop-ups right there in the message). Microsoft office does the exact same thing when saving to an odt file though:

Once again, if you have to collaborate with office-users (and you cannot deal with the horror of having a different amount of space between the items), just use office online. How many times do I have to repeat myself?

Let me guess you’re someone who works in IT and never had a typical “office job” that includes spending 90% of your time writing reports and pushing spreadsheets around.

  1. No, I do not work in IT, nor do I aspire to work in IT. I'm just a regular PC-user, who just so happens to have other opinions than you do. HOW DARE I?!?
  2. Wouldn't IT-workers of all people know what the more optimized editors are?

This is why you don’t get it, you’re not the typical user of MS Office and you don’t share the same use cases the OP, the article author and myself share.

  1. The article you shared was talking about gaming, the adobe creative suite, virtual machines, electrical engineers, labs, architects and sysadmins/developers. Please don't try to claim that the article author and OP ever had "the same use cases".
  2. I guess you are finally correct though, I'm indeed not the typical user of MS Office (thank god). The typical user pays $70 a year just to edit word docs, while calling the family tech support each time they try to add a horizontal page in word. If your use case is being trapped into a proprietary office solution, where you have to provide a reason before microsoft allows you to shut down your onedrive, where all your documents are saved in a mythical "cloud", then I am glad that our use-cases differ.
  3. I hope you see the irony of you using markdown in a comment describing why I am "out of touch" for using markdown.

If you want to use windows, that's fine. But please don't share such blatantly ignorant articles, and don't try to defend them when multiple people point out why it is wrong about so many things.

I probably won't reply to your next reaction (should there be any) unless you come up with some actual arguments, instead of "the line spacing is broken, you're out of touch, not me".

How many times do I have to repeat myself?

And how many times do I have to tell you that Office Online doesn't have all the features of Office Desktop? It isn't even close.

When LibreOffice can't even make sure text ends up on the same place (as on the screenshot) it isn't good for collaboration with MS Office users.

Why is it so hard for you look at the screenshot and admit that it isn't as good as you've been saying?

using markdown in a comment describing why I am “out of touch” for using markdown.

No, you're not “out of touch” for using markdown, you're “out of touch” for implying that markdown can be a solution for the typical MS Office user as you did.