I’ve been dual-booting Linux and Windows for a while, with Windows as the fall-back option in case I wanted to use Office for something. Now that they tried to trick me into paying a subscription for their AI slop machine, I’m finally, fully out. It was a pain to actually track down and back-up the stuff that was held for ransom in OneDrive, but now it is done.
I can finally say that I’m making the move to Linux now, as I’m dual booting Fedora. I plan to try to do my regular browsing and activity on Fedora, while keeping my school work and what little gaming I do (laptop user) on Windows. Hell, once I get confident enough in my Linux skills, I’ll probably move the school stuff over to Fedora too.
I’m doing it mostly cause I’ve read the privacy horror stories, but also because I just hated Windows 11. Like there’s nothing about it that is worth staying for… The excessive resource use, random settings being changed that you have to dig to find, the shitty Co-Pilot ads, and the fact I won’t be able to use office once I graduate… Yeah no.
Good thing is I’m a cyber student, so guess I’m just getting a head start for a easier grade in my future Linux class lol.
Bro I use windows for mostly gaming and it forced me to update to 24h2 which broke most games.
which distro though
Fedora KDE spin
I have to wonder if anyone at Microsoft is paying attention. It’s like New Coke in the 80s. They quickly realized they fucked up and rebranded the original as Classic Coke. I’m wondering if there will be a Windows Classic coming out soon with no AI, no subscription, no forced cloud dependency bullshit. lol probably not but whatever.
Keeping with the soft drink analogy, I think Pepsi tried something similar in the 90s with Crystal Pepsi, which also failed miserably.
If “lime must go up” always, then they need to come up with a better way than product enshitification.
New Coke was different in 2 important ways.
-
It was actually a way to hide the flavor change in the switch to Corn Syrup instead of Sugar, and never intended to be permanent.
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Pepsi existed
There’s no real commercial competition for Microsoft. Linux is great, but there’s nobody for a business to call when shit fucks up. And Apple’s walled garden and high prices make it terrible for enterprise.
- People stopped consuming New Coke
As long as people do nothing other than complain and continue to use the product they have no reason to change.
There’s enterprise support for several Linux distributions like
https://www.suse.com/services/premium/ (and SEL is a thing) or
https://ubuntu.com/support
Whether those distros meet the demands is a different animal.The bill I paid for Suse support contact at an old company I worked for begs to differ. The problem is home or smb are a rounding error for MS. They already got your money from hp or Dell etc. When you bought your computer. Making you the product with the ad and the ai bullshit to swallow your data to train their models is all icing on the cake.
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As long as companies are eating that they will be ok. BUT, like most tech companies, at some point they will pull a broadcom and then the alternatives will thrive.
For the moment they don’t care about what the customer wants because their most important market is enterprise, not the customer. I’m not sure what would change that except hitting a critical mass of C-suite people who get fed up with it.
What distro are you using, and how difficult was it for you to get started with it?
I’m currently making a list of distros and looking at each’s pros and cons, including:
- what did work out of the box?
- what required more work to fix / workaround?
The way to go about this is to just download Linux Mint and begin using it. No additional overthinking is necessary. You’ll be able to get Steam working pretty easy, if that’s your thing. Internet bowsers and a word processor are already installed and working out of the box.
my unsolicited 2c is to checkout mint
Agreed, using Mint after dropping Windows. Haven’t turned back. Have a piece of work software that requires windows to some degree, so I’ve installed Bottles to assist with that and it’s been pretty good for me so far.
Mint easy to use and requires the least maintaining I kinda wanted kde tho at that time.
isn’t there a mint version with plasma?
It’s only with mate,xfce and Cinnamon but ngl I just installed another distro that supported kde or let’s you pick no desktop.
I started trying out Linux a few years ago, on a few different computers. Well first, a really long time ago, but I was a Mac user for a long time, and then switched to Windows in 2018, so my modern Linux experience started in 2021 or so.
On my home PC I started with Mint, but because I was doing some programming, ran into problems because the compilers and CMake there were too old to compile a few things I needed to work on (CUDA was the problem for CMake, C++20 was the problem for the compilers). Switched to Tumbleweed, was happy with that for a while.
Meanwhile, on my laptop, I switched from Manjaro to Fedora KDE spin after some stability problems, and was so pleasantly surprised by how it was both solid and up-to-date, that I ended up moving everything to that.
Edit: biggest problem I had was when I tried to install Mint on an office PC that I built for myself. Mint didn’t support the on-board ethernet so I had no way of getting it online, and after getting lost in forum posts, gave up.
I used to recommend Mint a lot, but it’s falling too far behind hardware wise and in the front end. Lack of default Wayland support and so many unsupported hardware is not where you want to be sending new users today.
+1 for Fedora based distros at this point. I tend to push Nobara because it has a lot of hardware tweaks built in to give a better out of the box experience, but I can’t really say vanilla Fedora has had issues as long as I was on an AMD platform.
Mint is cool. But, that mint in other menu. LMDE bookworm based. Rock solid and no slugish
Personally, I’ve found the most supported software from Linux mint
Just cancelled my 365 the other day too. Been on Linux for half a year now and forgot I had it until the news of the copilot price increase came out and reminded me. I was happy I could cancel and be refunded the remainder of the term and get some money back in my pocket!
I feel like Windows tries with every change to push it’s users to Linux.
They got me, installed Mint a couple of weeks ago
I purged the Windows partition yesterday, fellt like pouring bleach on a stain…
I killed my windows partition a week ago as well.
Let’s goooo
Secret good guy MS - get everyone onto Linux and tank their stock price 😂
I get how people need to use micro-shit for work but I don’t get how a any freedom enjoyer is willing to use spyware on their own hardware
Just make the adjustment, deny the parasite engagement and profit.
Paying micro-shit anything is funding your oppressor. This is a class war, act like it folks
Linux as your main OS with a Windows VM for work is a pretty decent arrangement. Windows works without activation so you don’t have to pay MS anything.
Fair. It it still pings NSA servers, sorry “microsoft”
I feel like Windows tries with every change to push it’s users to Linux.
Even their core applications move to being web based.
We’re already past that point, we’re now at “cram copilot into everything, even if it makes no sense.”
Welcome! Been like a year and a half for me, and I can’t even imagine ever going back to Windows. Just using it for work is already too much.
I can feel the bloat when I use it now. Like you need to get from point a to b in a hallway. It’s just you…and windows inflatable boat they fully inflated in the hallway between a and b. And you have to squeeze through to go to point b.
Cancelled mine too. Don’t particularly care about the AI. But I don’t need it and trying to justify increasing the price for it didn’t really work on me.
I’ve also gone all-in on Linux now. While I have a Mac, my gaming PC was left on Windows. Now it’s running Linux Mint and while gaming on Linux has a bit further to go, it’s night and day compared to 10 years ago. This time I feel like I can actually stick with it.
You should try OnlyOffice. It is very similar to MS Office and fully compatible with Microsoft formats. It has fully replaced MS Office for me for all office work. Also it can be easely integrated with your private NextCloud. You can install it from Flathub.
Edit: it also lets you edit and convert pdfs like Adobe Acrobat Pro
Update in my previous message: so now I’m trying to install onlyoffice in a docker container on a server and I can’t even get http to work, less even https. A simple connect to port 80 just gives me connection refused, even though netstat shows docker proxy listening there, port 443 gives me connection opened that right away closes, doing nothing. Logs show nothing
This is the sort of WTF that I really don’t understand. Onlyoffice is really nice, why is the installation such a headache and fight after fight?
I’ve installed countless different services and programs in a myriad of different ways, and 99% of the time it’s a few commands and done. 0.9% of the time I have tondo some significant extra work to get it completely done (nextcloud is here, not that it’s hard but there are so many built in functionalities that you need to perform a number of extra steps) and then there is the 0.1% which is just a right nightmare for no good reason.
I have setup various dockers with little issue, onlyoffice just never works. WHY?
I would go for collabora if it wasn’t s shitshow itself when used in an office setting with dozens of users. Colabora is nice for a single user system, that’s it. I need perfect multi user document editing and onlyoffice offers this.
How do I set this crap up?
I used OnlyOffice via native .deb package. And yes it broke my apt every time and on every update. I managed by manually editing install scripts to make it work. I never used docker before but want give it a try (maybe podman instead). You can also write your problem and questions to !selfhosted@lemmy.world community, maybe they can help you
Is this better than LibreOffice?
PSA: OnlyOffice does/may have close ties to Russia:
I use LibreOffice for this very reason
I’ll be sure not to pay them a dime, then, but the ope source version should be good enough to work with
Why not both? It’s simple to install both and decide for yourself. I use both for different tasks.
People usually refer to LibreOffice, so it is interesting that this alternative I never heard of before is allegedly better (it looks better that is for sure)
LibreOffice is good alternative if you are not heavily dependant on unique MS Office features, especially Excel.
OnlyOffice is better if you’re looking for MS Office document compability.
LibreOffice has more features and is overall better. OnlyOffice is more compatible with MS Office. So if you need to use docx etc. for work, you use OnlyOffice as a workaround.
But LibreOffice has supported docx for years now, right?
It messes up object arrangement. This is technically Microsoft’s fault, but that doesn’t help when you want to communicate clearly with a MS Office user.
It has some weird formatting issues iirc.
Isnt libreoffice for the .odt format? I read that .odt and docx arent compatible and I really dont want to convert my whole documents collection nor deal with broken/rearranged content when editing documents. I went with Onlyoffice but am only 80% satisfied with it
LibreOffice supports .odt and .doc and .docx and a ton of other formats though.
LibreOffice (and its predecessor OpenOffice) have been a solid FOSS and *nix alternative for like over two decades. So I’m a bit confused about what these other alternatives provide that LibreOffice lacks.
I think yes, especially for making presentations
I love libre office for quite a bit of the same features.
Someone comment on this reply so I can down this and try it on my way back from Sam’s Club.
Bulk buying ftw
Let me preface this rant with that I think only office is the best online web based solution, I loved what it could do 8 years ago and I assume it’s a lot better now.
I’m trying to setup nextcloud with only office, again. Nextcloud setup is a btrrze, only office always is and always has been a crime against humanity to setup correctly.
I’ve used only office successfully only once, some 8 years ago or so, in my own company. I’ve made some 10 attempts after that, over the various years, and I always failed. I have some 25 years of professional it experience and only office always eluded me.
Issues are either that I just can’t get it installed and running at all, or that it’s impossible to connect to next cloud.
Installing it with Deb files (or the installation script that does Deb files) is a very bad idea, that never works, the install crashes and usually leaves your server in a broken state, even after removing everything.
So now I am again trying to set it up using docker, so far with little result.
So having said all that: can you give some pointers on what you did to get it working?
The Nextcloud AIO docker container has Collabra installed by default, and the AIO is a joy to use compared to any other way I’ve installed Nextcloud.
Yeah, but collabora isn’t a great option by itself. Only office install is a freak show at best, but once it’s running it’s awesome
I tried using it on several occasions, but it is extremely slow for me, with occasional visual glitches… I use Wayland, if it makes any difference. How’s the OnlyOffice performance for you? Maybe I’m doing something wrong?
On Windows it is really sometimes slow for some reason, but on all my Linux devices it works well. Even on cheap laptop
I use Linux, and I have a 10 gen i7 with 32gb of ram. So it must be something with my setup …
One of the organizations I work with uses Word docs with locked fields. How does only office do with that style of chestnut?
I’ve had to fill out a handful of documents with fields that I needed to fill in. They worked fully as expected in LibreOffice and OnlyOffice
Did you mean forms mode?
I’m not sure, I’m using documents produced by a larger org. The message I get if i try to edit the locked parts is:
The author has locked parts of this document. You can make changes only to the unlocked parts.
Btw i tried using Google docs on these Word files and the formatting broke in all kinds of terrible ways.
I know the idea here is to maintain consistent branding among the franchises. Anything sent back to the parent org needs to be in docx format, with no changes to the locked elements. If that can be done with a FOSS program, great! Local use has more leeway, but broken formatting is a nonstarter
Is there any samples to try and check if it works?
At least they don’t make you pay for cancelling like Adobe does
What stopped me initially from paying Adobe was the fact that they force you to use their Cloud app which served no purpose to me. A crack doesn’t come with Cloud or at least a disabled one… Now that I know you have to pay to cancel, I’m pretty happy that Adobe stuff is easy to crack.
Cracked software still enables their dominance over the market.
What? How much is it? Surely that can’t be illegal?
You have to pay if you want to stop a year’s commitment early. Iirc you have to pay half of what you promised you would pay them over the year. So if you changed your mind it’s cheaper to cancel than to continue paying for the months you have left.
If you sign a contract agreeing to their terms (and receive a discount in exchange) you have to follow them. The same goes for any other contract where you have a year’s commitment like for an ISP. It’s all pretty standard.
Is it annoying? Yeah obviously but they make it pretty damn clear when ordering that it’s a year’s commitment and that you receive a discount. Any reasonable individual should be able to figure out why you get a discount.
Ooh it’s an early termination fee. OP made it sound like there was a fee on top of the subscription cost. Which I guess still fits the definition.
Still scummy.
Adobe signed me up for a “trial” over the phone, which they then ended up trying to charge me to get out of.
I ended up just blocking their payment and never heard anything else about it. Fuck Adobe, they are in contention for shittiest company in my eyes.
Sounds like having to pay a fee when you break a contract… So probably legal.
Obviously you have to pay to cancel a year’s commitment.
They give you a discount for your commitment to pay for a year and they make that pretty clear on their website when ordering. I can post screenshots of that but I really hope that won’t be needed, just check for yourself.
If you don’t want a year’s commitment you can just pay the higher price for a months commitment.
Pretty sure you have to pay half of what you promised to pay them had you kept paying for the whole year. I highly doubt that they legally have to even do that. I doubt that an ISP or utility company would let you cancel at all if you had a years commitment.
P.S it’s ridiculous that I have to say this but yeah I know that Adobe suck. Fuck em and all that. I’m just saying that this particular thing isn’t unusual or should be in any way unexpected when you sign up for a year’s commitment.
What I’ve done is just bought a second hand key for Office 2014, and it works like a charm. Got it for like $10, and no money went to M$, and it has been working for several years without a problem.
For my personal desktop, at least. For my laptop rocking Linux I’ve been using LibreOffice without a problem.
MAS will also work for many office versions.
The same thing happened with me. This was probably going to be my last year anyway, but i noped out real quick after the increase. Only reason I still had it was because I had some stuff in OneDrive that I was slowly backing up elsewhere. That just gave me the motivation to take care of it finally.
Yes, even though I did not have a subscription, watching them do stuff like this every 2 weeks for the last year or more is what finally pushed me off to Linux as well. I got my parents moved over as well though, and they did have a subscription previously.
What was painful about getting the stuff out of OneDrive?
When I did this it was straight forward.
- Sync to local
- Move all to new directory (his triggers a mass deletion on OneDrive)
- Sync to seafile (in my case)
mainly it was because I was trying it from my linux desktop, and if you try to download a large collection of files from the onedrive web interface it’s 50/50 if it fails half-way through
Ah yes. I’ve had the same issue. The web download is hit and miss. Totally understand, and a warranted description of that experience.
