My week with Linux: I'm dumping Windows for Ubuntu to see how it goes

[ex_bubblehead]

....have an office with linux and Libre office, that office will quit functioning pretty quick.

Been using LibreOffice since the days it was known as "Star Office" and never had any issues with it, other than it doesn't run VBA scripts, which is a plus as that blocks various malware. If you have issues it's due to something you're doing wrong. But, that's getting off topic here.

 

[USAFRet]

Been using LibreOffice since the days it was known as "Star Office" and never had any issues with it, other than it doesn't run VBA scripts, which is a plus as that blocks various malware. If you have issues it's due to something you're doing wrong. But, that's getting off topic here.

One of the other edge cases is number of columns in Calc vs Excel.

Transporting a multi year budget (one col per day) from Excel to Calc...it dropped off everything after XXX columns (I can't remember what the allowable is).

But again, a real out there edge case.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

One of the other edge cases is number of columns in Calc vs Excel.

Transporting a multi year budget (one col per day) from Excel to Calc...it dropped off everything after XXX columns (I can't remember what the allowable is).

But again, a real out there edge case.

@USAFRet Currently 16,384 columns. Same as Excel 32-bit (it was changed from1,024 with Version 7.3).

 

[blppt]

What we should have is Microsoft creating a secure open source Linux, that the user can use as easy as WinX, links, shares, drives, networking, live updating without reboots etc etc everything that normally make people abandon Linux but with a WinX subsystem to support legacy apps, as Microsoft should be able to do this better than anybody else?, to give users/business time to migrate to native Linux versions and remember, they already have Linux running on various stuff, so have the experience.

Maybe, but I think you'd end up with MS basically using a Linux kernel with a bunch of proprietary stuff injected anyway, like the closed-source Nvidia driver, so one wonders, at that point, whether its even worth it.

 

[Lamarr the Strelok]

Eek. Look. I'm not sea lioning. I truly don't know. Wouldn't one of the jobs OP has to do is interact with various office apps? Doesn't a typical office worker use various office products? As I said I don't have to deal with these problems so I didn't look deeply into it. I couldn't be happier that Libre works as good as ms stuff as long as you know what you're doing.
Not to be a drama king, but I think his road will be rough.I really hope he gets it going great, but it might be a tall task.Bookmarked for linux adventures!

 

[toooooot]

A few months ago, I was troubleshooting weird system instability. In the process I installed Linux mint and used it for a week. It ran flawlessly. I even found apps that were kicking Window's free apps in the butt. But then I decided to add a second display... I spend many hours trying to make mint identify it. And as if that was not enough, my primary display refused to run in its natural 4k resolution due to my manipulations.
After many attempts, I reinstalled mint, which was justifiable to me since it was a fresh install, and I have not spent more than 3 hours setting it up. So, with fresh install and having 2 of my monitors preconnected, it worked excellent. I did not have to move a finger to make than OS to see and connect my monitors properly.
Then few days later I sold my old GPU and installed a new one. And the nightmare repeated again...
No matter how painful Windows can get, Linux is going to be worse. You might never have any issues but then one time you will need something to work urgently and that is when it will screw you.
I do not recommend it. I am a bit curious if AMD drivers are a bit better. Unfortunately, I did not have a Radeon card to check it out. That problem I had was like a giant concrete wall. I went step by step, trying everything mint community recommended, and it made zero difference.

 

[JamesJones44]

Most Linux distos by default should only ask for the user password if it's accessing/changing/installing to protected files/folders. I'm a little surprised installing VLC requires a password. I don't install via desktop very often, does the app center still use apt/snap/dpkg?

 

[w_barath]

Two things.

An excellent screehshot tool is FlameShot. It has good integration to all the major desktops, optionally saves to a user-specified folder and/or the clipboard, allows some light inline editing before saving/cutting and also optionally shares it to a cloud hosting service so you can paste a link to view it into social media, forums etc.

If you see a tarball offered by an app, it's never intended for average users, but it will save your butt when your distro chose not to package it. To install an app tarball, you extract it to a folder you create in /opt, ie /opt/filezilla, and then you generally

sudo ln -s  /opt/filezilla/bin/*  /usr/local/bin/

then create your own launcher for it manually.

P.S. I also consider the password-prompt-spamming to be a serious security drawback, because it is forcing you to perform your password entry orders of magnitude more often than should be necessary, increasing risk of interception. I could understand asking for it between screensaver intervals, or even when launching the software centre, but not for every individual app install, not for mounting remembered encrypted removable media, etc. And meanwhile, all your gnome-keychain passwords are available plaintext over the DBUS broker once you log in, to any app that requests them, and some of them could be far more critical than one might even otherwise have considered one's desktop login password to be. So.. Linux desktop security focus and habits are really not where they should be.

 

[razor512]

While ubunttu and many other distros have come a long way, there are still many limitations that can play a large role in determining if someone will have a good or bad experience.

One issue with linux distros in general that has not change much is that they were well suited for both novice and extremely skilled users with more in the way of frustration for those in between. My reason for this is that there are things which can quickly put a user through an unforgiving CLI tar.gz gauntlet, with often guides that are hit or miss.

For example, if you have a peripheral or other device that does not work automatically with your distro, and the software center does not have any applications that solve the issue, then you are stuck looking around and hoping that someone did a .deb package that can automate handling dependencies and making this work. But if nothing is found, then you are stuck searching various forums to see if anyone found a solution. The issue is once you reach that point, often if you find something, it will numerous threads with people asking for help and no replies, and then finally one where someone goes the distance and points the user to a package that can meet the user's needs, and then proceed to list off a 20+ step process to install the random tar.gz package, and surprisingly enough, it ends up working for the OP of the thread, but the user who stumbled across the thread would likely not have the same luck, the instructions were written for Ubuntu 20.04 and the new user looking for help has Ubuntu 24.04 and while copying and pasting the commands seemed to be working, things started to fail 17 steps in and now the user has random files spewed all over the place without muck knowledge on how to clean up the mess.
While long winded, that represents a fairly common scenario with Linux distros in general. There will often be an incredibly easy to use waled garden experience, but the moment you need to step outside of that walled garden, then it is often CLI hell.

Beyond that, there are often many additional features that many system components will have that ubuntu linux does not properly support. For example, suppose you have a Creative Soundblaster AE5 Plus, a Logitech gaming keyboard, Logitech gaming mouse, and a Blue microphone yeti, and you want to use the macro keys on the keyboard, as well as the macro keys on your mouse, in addition to the noise cancellation and other audio processing functions on the mic, as well some of the DSP functions of the sound card (e.g., some of the additional room correction and calibration features). You would find that there is nothing in the ubuntu walled gardento meet your needs.

Or even worse, suppose you want to run a linux distro on your laptop, and you want the DSP features for the laptop speakers. Most laptops improve the perceived sound quality and bass extension of their speakers using a wide range of DSP tricks, including reproducing harmonics from certain sounds that fall below the frequency response range of the speakers, which causes you to perceive more bass than is really there. Often the basic sound support in ubuntu will result in none of those special DSP features being used, thus resulting in the speakers sounding more tinny than they should.

 

[herrwizo]

It is possible to install GRUB with Linux and a NTFS driver for accessing NTFS files. Except Windows 11 wants us to use BitLocker (right?) and probably it is not be possible to access a NTFS filesystem using BitLocker from Linux.

It is perfectly possible. I am using Mint, it shows BitLocker partition as "locked", and when you click on it it asks for a passphrase (which is, in fact, a BitLocker recovery key). After entering it it immediately opens it and you have full access.

 

[herrwizo]

As for the frequent password requirement, yes, I do realize it is annoying. However, this frequently occurs only when installing and configuring stuff, and you should not see that at all during normal usage once you setup everything. That being said, there is a way to increase timeout between such prompts, default is 15 minutes if I remember correctly. You can increase that if you like. In shell, enter:

sudo visudo

Search for line that reads "Defaults env_reset" and modify the line to read (adjust timeout in minutes as you wish:

Defaults        env_reset,timestamp_timeout=60

Now, once password is entered initially, you should not be asked for it until that period expires.

There is also a way to disable sudo password requirement permanently, but I would not advise that.

 

[das_stig]

While ubunttu and many other distros have come a long way, there are still many limitations that can play a large role in determining if someone will have a good or bad experience.

One issue with linux distros in general that has not change much is that they were well suited for both novice and extremely skilled users with more in the way of frustration for those in between. My reason for this is that there are things which can quickly put a user through an unforgiving CLI tar.gz gauntlet, with often guides that are hit or miss.

For example, if you have a peripheral or other device that does not work automatically with your distro, and the software center does not have any applications that solve the issue, then you are stuck looking around and hoping that someone did a .deb package that can automate handling dependencies and making this work. But if nothing is found, then you are stuck searching various forums to see if anyone found a solution. The issue is once you reach that point, often if you find something, it will numerous threads with people asking for help and no replies, and then finally one where someone goes the distance and points the user to a package that can meet the user's needs, and then proceed to list off a 20+ step process to install the random tar.gz package, and surprisingly enough, it e ends p working for the OP of the thread, but the user who stumbled across the thread would likely not have the same luck, the instructions were writted for Ubuntu 20.04 and the new user looking for help has Ubuntu 24.04 and while copying and pasting the commands seemed to be working, things started to fail 17 steps in and now th euser has random files spewed all over the place without muck knowledge on how to clean up the mess.
While long winded, that represents a fairly common scenario with Linux distros in general. There will often be an increadibly easy to use waled garden experience, but the moment you need to step outside of that walled garden, then it is often CLI hell.

Beyond that, there are often many additional features that many system components will have that ubuntu linux does not properly support. For example, suppose you have a Creative Soundblaster AE5 Plus, a Logitech gaming keyboard, Logitech gaming mouse, and a Blue microphone yeti, and you want to use the macro keys on the keyboard, as well as the macro keys on your mouse, in addition to the noise cancellation and other audio processing functions on the mic, as well some of the DSP functions of the sound card (e.g., some of the additional room correction and calibration features). You would find that there is nothing in the ubuntu walled gardento meet your needs.

Or even worse, suppoe you want to run a linux distro on your laptop, and you want the DSP features for the laptop speakers. Most laptops improve the perceieved sound quality and bass extension of their speakers using a wide range of DSP tricks, including reproducing harmonics from certain dounds that fall below the frequency response range of the speakers, which causes you to percieve more bass than is really there. Often the basuc sound support in ubuntu will result in none of those special DSP features being used, thus resulting in the speakers sounding more tinny than they should.

in your example did windows have this by default no, took time for drivers to appear but no guarantee they worked on next release, with Linux, once you have them, they generally work across releases. IT's all about changing the attitude of users and developers to truly support and change Linux in to what we want it to be, secure, easy to use, Windows compatible until native apps available, fast, light weight, and the core os fully open source, drivers can be propriety without breaking all this. It may be a pipedream, but I think if enough heads come together it is doable now, especially if like the UK/EU of users are forced to switch away from Microsoft in government.

 

[bit_user]

P.S. I also consider the password-prompt-spamming to be a serious security drawback, because it is forcing you to perform your password entry orders of magnitude more often than should be necessary, increasing risk of interception.

If you know you're going to do a bunch of privileged operations, you can just run a root shell by typing sudo su (unless this privilege has been restricted).

meanwhile, all your gnome-keychain passwords are available plaintext over the DBUS broker once you log in, to any app that requests them,

If that's true, I'd file a bug on it. I don't mean the unencrypted part, which sounds bad, until you remember that DBus enforces access controls and most people aren't using encrypted memory, either. Rather, it does seem like a flaw for apps to access passwords not relevant to them.

 

[nrdwka]

Try LibreOffice, packages in Debian, Ubuntu and other distros.

unfortunately, for work libre office is not enough: there is plenty of compatibility issues with heavy word, excel and power point documents. Xlsm does not work (VBA stuff)

 

[bit_user]

Or even worse, suppoe you want to run a linux distro on your laptop, and you want the DSP features for the laptop speakers.

I think this touches on an important point, and it's one I wish I could tell the article's author: Laptops tend to be much worse-supported than desktops or servers. Hence, if you know you're going to run Linux on a laptop, you'd be well-advised to take that into account, when shopping for one.

There are certain brands and model lines of laptops where the manufacturer actively supports Linux, and it shows. I'm not going to list names, but do your research, people! And don't assume that all the features of a random laptop are going to work perfectly (if at all), when you put Linux on there. So, even if you're contemplating installing Linux on an old laptop, do some research before deciding to do it, and then you can at least go in with eyes open.

 

[bit_user]

Chrome installed. However, why can't it be in the App Center where it would be available with only one click?

Chrome is proprietary software. Chromium is virtually the same thing (Chrome is based on Chromium, but with proprietary add-ins) and it is available via your distro. Try using Chromium and probably you won't miss Chrome.

 

[MadocOwain]

Regarding Notepad++ font size, that's changeable from within NP++, under Settings > Style Configurator .
As for taskbar grouping, in Mint at least you can right-click on the icon group and click 'Applet Preferences' then 'Configure', the logic being the applet that's grouping your apps can be configured, which isn't immediately obvious as you might think "I don't want to configure Chrome from here". Your mileage may vary.

Some other useful Linux-equivalent software I found:
RDP terminal program - Remmina
KeyPass - KeyPassXC
7Zip - Ubuntu/Debian p7zip-full and p7zip-rar
Ubiquiti - UniFi Network Application 8.2.93 + MongoDB + OpenJDK-17-jre-headless
Brother printer - BRScan-skey, brscan, cupswrapper, printer drivers
WinAMP - installed "QMMP" instead
WinDirStat - QDirStat
HWinfo64 - Hardinfo2 installed
CPU-z - CPU-X installed
GPU-z - GreenWithEnvy installed
Task Manager - Mission Center
PDF reader - OKULAR

For your desktop, you might check out Pipewire for handing your sound preferences, if you are using any fancy external speaker setup it's going to be useful as the default drivers (at least in Mint!) don't handle my 5.1 Logitech too well.

Finally, let's talk fonts. Windows has some specific fonts it uses and you can have some readability issues with documents created in Word when trying to read them in LibreOffice. Specifically, Cambria and Calibri fonts. You can replace them with close-enough fonts called Carlito and Caladea. Take a look around for the instructions to install those and the sources to find them.

I switched to Mint Cinnamon last May and have been using it for my daily driver. The only thing it does not do well for me is gaming - my use case is different from others so don't despair, but in my case anything that requires any kind of anti-cheat in place is not able to run, and updates for the NVidia GPU drivers are forced by other application updates and break Civ6 from launching in my Heroic Games launcher. I'm sure it's fixable for a short time if I want to spend hours digging and tinkering, but I'd rather spend that time gaming. I dual-boot Windows 10 and play there and swap back to Linux to do everything else.

 

[mikeebb]

I’ll wait till it hits the repository..

In that case you will probably wait forever. With Ubuntu-based distros, at least, you only get an updated repository when you do a major version update of the distro. And even then you'll likely be out of date by a few point versions. If you want apps to be fully up to date, you usually have to get your hands a little dirty with adding repos other than the distro's, and/or using flatpack or snaps. Based on my experience with Mint. It's a little easier than it used to be since a couple of major apps I use set up their own repos and provided clear instructions for using them (use the CLI one time and be done with it), or have a supported flatpack. Still difficult for other things like getting Window apps with no Linux alternative working (I haven't found the works-every-time for that).

 

[mikeebb]

Two things.

An excellent screehshot tool is FlameShot. It has good integration to all the major desktops, optionally saves to a user-specified folder and/or the clipboard, allows some light inline editing before saving/cutting and also optionally shares it to a cloud hosting service so you can paste a link to view it into social media, forums etc.

If you see a tarball offered by an app, it's never intended for average users, but it will save your butt when your distro chose not to package it. To install an app tarball, you extract it to a folder you create in /opt, ie /opt/filezilla, and then you generally

sudo ln -s  /opt/filezilla/bin/*  /usr/local/bin/

then create your own launcher for it manually.

P.S. I also consider the password-prompt-spamming to be a serious security drawback, because it is forcing you to perform your password entry orders of magnitude more often than should be necessary, increasing risk of interception. I could understand asking for it between screensaver intervals, or even when launching the software centre, but not for every individual app install, not for mounting remembered encrypted removable media, etc. And meanwhile, all your gnome-keychain passwords are available plaintext over the DBUS broker once you log in, to any app that requests them, and some of them could be far more critical than one might even otherwise have considered one's desktop login password to be. So.. Linux desktop security focus and habits are really not where they should be.

It sort of works like running Windows as a limited user; whenever you want to change something, or run something that has to access certain APIs like HWInfo, you have to enter the admin password. If you run permanently as admin, of course, as MS by default sets you up in Win10-11 (with MS Account logged in ftw), all you have to do is hit "Yes" to do those things. For a modicum of security and a slightly higher barrier against self-harm, I prefer having to enter the password, and have set up the desktop to run that way in Windows. So Mint doesn't feel much different.

 

[mikeebb]

unfortunately, for work libre office is not enough: there is plenty of compatibility issues with heavy word, excel and power point documents. Xlsm does not work (VBA stuff)

Depends on what you do for work. I have LibreOffice (originally StarOffice, and for a while OpenOffice) at home, and never ran across a work document that couldn't be opened and edited (or at least read; LO will do font substitutions if needed) in LO/OO/(usually but sometimes not with SO). Excel likewise, though I didn't work in a place where Truly Humongous Spreadsheets were common; the increase in spreadsheet size in LO 7 really helped, though. Powerpoint was a little touchier, but again most slide decks were readable and presentable in LO Impress since my offices weren't into things that were huge and/or complex.

 

[nrdwka]

Depends on what you do for work. I have LibreOffice (originally StarOffice, and for a while OpenOffice) at home, and never ran across a work document that couldn't be opened and edited (or at least read; LO will do font substitutions if needed) in LO/OO/(usually but sometimes not with SO). Excel likewise, though I didn't work in a place where Truly Humongous Spreadsheets were common; the increase in spreadsheet size in LO 7 really helped, though. Powerpoint was a little touchier, but again most slide decks were readable and presentable in LO Impress since my offices weren't into things that were huge and/or complex.

Main issues with word/pp compatibility it is page layouts. Working shared environment create multiple issues (google docs have same issue).

As about excel, LO where is some excel functions what are not supported, beside VBA.

 

[AloofBrit]

WinDirStat - QDirStat

On Windows I prefer WizTree (although iirc it doesn't actually scan the drive, rather presents metadata)

On Ubuntu baobab (aka Disk Usage Analyzer) is probably already installed

 

[stuff and nonesense]

2. - You can mount your drives on mount points of your choice. For example you can create directory /mnt/disk1 and then add a line to /etc/fstab that points to it.

It is possible to assign labels to partitions on your drives and then refer to those partitions by those labels. This way you will be able to mount regardless of how you move the drive around the system and even if you take it out and connect via usb. Example /etc/fstab line for a partition formatted with ext4:

LABEL=disk2 /mnt/disk1 ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 2

The number "2" at the end tells the system in which order to mount the disk. Usually root filesystem "/" has the number "1", so this line will tell the system to mount the partition after root partition has been mounted.

When editing /etc/fstab be careful not to disrupt existing lines or you may have problems booting. To be safe make a backup of /etc/fstab first. I like to use "vi" for editing, because by default it is read-only and you need to enter special command to change anything. The default "vi" installed on Ubuntu is quite minimal, so install package "vim" which provides a full-featured editor.

I use Kate, simple and easy to use. To correct the drive mount/s I edited the line in Fstab for the shared drive to be what is should have remained and created a new mount point for the “new” drive.

I’m not saying that it is difficult, the addition of a drive shouldn’t have displaced the mount points..

 

[rambo919]

This one is easy if you play games stick to windows.

If your hardware is supported and do more than just play games Linux is a viable option.

Actually no. If you are running Nvidia hardware or play online games that have problematic anti-cheat.... stick to Windows. For everything else especially if you have an AMD GPU Linux likely runs it perfectly fine... sometimes even better especially the older games.

 

[Makaveli]

Actually no. If you are running Nvidia hardware or play online games that have problematic anti-cheat.... stick to Windows. For everything else especially if you have an AMD GPU Linux likely runs it perfectly fine... sometimes even better especially the older games.

So the linux Anti cheat issue only affects NV and not AMD?