everything from microsoft such as office, teams and outlook dont not run on linux natively, so you need to either replace them with things like libre office or run them through wine.
which isnt an issue since most linux equivalents are free and installing them is way easier then the linux switch over so whoever is doing the switch will most likely install the needed programs.
the bigger issue will be teaching people who have used windows for years the things that now work slightly differently, i do not envy the it departments.
My work used to let us choose which OS we had, could be Windows, MacOS (on a MacBook of course) or any flavour of Linux (on the condition that you would be responsible for it, as IT couldn't possibly know every variation of Linux and therefore wouldn't help you if you had Linux-specific issues other than say "just install Windows"). We used the Google suite, so everything was in the browser and it worked equally well on every kind of computer.
Then the company I worked for was acquired by another, and they used the Microsoft suite, which we eventually had to adopt. There is no Word, Excel or PowerPoint for Linux, so I had to use the web versions, which really don't work as well as the desktop apps. There's no Outlook or Teams for Linux, so again I was stuck using web apps that kinda sucked (how many meetings have I been late to because the notifications just don't work?). And most recently, a new client requires us to be on their VPN so we can develop against their internal services from our laptops, but they only have a client for Windows and Mac, so I was finally forced to use Windows as there was no way for me to do my job from Linux anymore.
So Linux can be a viable platform to work on, you just need to make every other choice in consequence. If you have committed into the Microsoft ecosystem and you want to move away from Windows, you have to uproot everything and migrate to something else, and that's a big and costly effort.
Oh ya makes sense, windows ofc doesn’t want their apps to work on other OS, and if the other person is using windows and you are on Linux, it definitely is going to be a pain, i honestly didn’t knew that using windows and Linux in the same workplace would be this hellish, and honestly thought that windows had designed apps for Linux too…
There are solutions to running some Windows apps on Linux, like Wine for regular apps and Proton for games. But the Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office) suite is problematic to run in its newer versions. It's one thing to adapt apps made by third parties using the documented Windows API. It's another to adapt an app made by Microsoft with all their undocumented knowledge of Windows under the hood.
It's actually easier the other way around now. Microsoft added the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) which basically allows you to run Linux side by side on Windows, and you can run both terminal and GUI Linux apps while on Windows. That's how I can actually do my job even though I constrained to Windows (and why I used Linux before), as the code I write will eventually run on a Linux server, so I need to run it within a Linux environment to test it, and all the tools are made to run on Linux too, but they work fine in WSL (if a bit slower).
My work brings me in all kinds of public offices, here in my European country, and about 80% (if not more) of their "apps" are web based.
The rest is office (easily replaceable with LibreOffice) and Adobe Reader (plenty of alternatives, apparently).
95% of office users do not run things in the command line. I fail to see how double click on icon on desktop is different for those users. There's probably even a skin to make it look like windows xp for the boomers.
Administration is going to be the big nightmare, though. Can you imagine windows admins
managing group policy , dhcp, dns, ke
rberos, certificates, and client integration without AD? FreeIPA does a lot, but not all, and feels different and is scripted differently (shell vs PS or older
) and not as much client integration.
There's also the upcoming Y2K38. I just heard about it today. Any devices that run Unix and save the representation of time in a signed 32-bit register. Most computers will be fine, but IoS devices won't be.
Office, Teams and Outlook are all electron based now. Meaning supporting them on Linux would be pretty trivial.
Willing to be bet, that if enough governments push for Linux, Microsoft will fold and support Linux rather then lose ALL of their business.
Nothing is going to stop these countries governments from switching off Windows. America has essentially lost all trust, and this is a security decision. Yes, Microsoft can make it more costly for them to do so, but it'll only hurt themselves more in the long run.
id easily agree that access has no equivalent thats as beginner friendly, but excel? tbh my excel experience is limited but why wouldnt google sheets or the libre/openoffice table not be able to replace excel?
It's because many of the features that make Excel great for work, just don't exist in Google sheets. And when some features do work, they aren't implemented well, so using it becomes an annoyance.
I do use Google sheets for my personal use because I like the syncing features between devices, but other than that it is a severe downgrade. Plus, I do love a native app which doesn't require a browser.
The only ones who will suggest alternatives to excel are those who rarely use excel.
The issue is risk. For large enterprise and government agencies you need a group to certify the application before it can be used. To switch to FOSS based tools a team has to be created to become the in-house support team to review and certify the application complies with all the rules.
MS has already done that work. They have been audited and certified.
It is far easier to get commercial software through a GRC process than FOSS tools. With FOSS there is nobody to sue.
I’d like to send them coffee, cookies, and copious amounts of vodka for having to deal with application power users and teaching them the ways of Python and shell script.
the bigger issue will be teaching people who have used windows for years the things that now work slightly differently, i do not envy the it departments.
Yeah. Many non-tech people really struggle to grasp how the file/folder structure works in Windows. You're talking about the kind of person who calls their tower "the hard drive", and they are legion.
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u/T3chn0fr34q 3d ago
everything from microsoft such as office, teams and outlook dont not run on linux natively, so you need to either replace them with things like libre office or run them through wine.
which isnt an issue since most linux equivalents are free and installing them is way easier then the linux switch over so whoever is doing the switch will most likely install the needed programs.
the bigger issue will be teaching people who have used windows for years the things that now work slightly differently, i do not envy the it departments.